Speak up!
And it is about time! Trust Beloved Duce! Would you rather have the anarchists and terrorists back?
Believe!
Obey!
Fight!
Thanks for pointing out how we are such a scared silly society now. That has been rumbling around in my mind for the last several months and it is nice to see someone else articulate it.
... from their point of view, Matt. This is like a modern application of "live and let live."
BTW, this is a great blog, with so many thoughtful and humorous discussions about so many things. We all need to keep a cheerful outlook!!
If it were your dictatorship, or even a good Habsburg, I wouldn't have so much objection.
But living in Texas (not too far from Miss Julie here) I just have to shake my head and start planning to decamp for Italy.
If I'm going to live in a socialist state, I might as well have plenty of Frascati and beautiful churches at my disposal.
Flambeaux ... let's pick a good spot in Tuscany and go sue them so we can return to "our native lands" ... actually my husband's native lands (if you go waaaaaaaay back). Turnabout's fair play, right? :-D
I'm aiming for Lazio, myself. In the Castelli Romani where Castel Gandolfo is. But if you're okay with being 3 hours south of Florence, and 20 minutes south of Rome, book into the agritourismo that Stitchwitch and I hope to build if I can make some decent money in freelance writing.
Ciao!
Would Il Duce and family join us?
Tess, thanks!
Honey, you've never lived in the South for any period of time have you? :-D States' rights, darlin', states' rights. However, let's not go down that road because I definitely believe the the right side won that war ... AND what I meant to say was Revolutionary War.
I am amazed that we believe the enemy is us and not those who wish us death.
Please clarify what you mean by "us" and "those who wish us death." And how does that fit into what I was saying about vaccinations for a low incident disease ... with extremely low or nonexistent incidence in young girls?
Sekken ... yes.
http://happycatholic.blogspot.co...nd-we-
dont.html
I don't give anyone too much credit for actually pulling off conspiracies, unless it is in a movie. And I never feel that movies have much to do with real life. :-D
You yourself mentioned trends of behavior did you not? It is the same thing. Think of how the Japanese society is. Think of how trends in our society catch on and spread like wildfire. Same thing in many ways. You yourself mentioned trends of behavior did you not?
Jesus didn't call us sheep for no reason. We see a bellwether, much of the time, and follow along.
I am observing a trend in behavior. The result is to try to protect people. Now, I do not happen to think that it is necessary to protect us from so much of our behavior as seems to be happening.
But I do not see a "them" or a "conspiracy. That does not mean that the end result is not the trampling of rights. Take a look again at those trends you mentioned. Whatever the intent, whatever the reason, the result trampled the rights of large groups of people.
Interesting though. You're the first person to ever mention that I sound like a conspiracy nut. If you must apply a label to me ... which clearly you must ... I'd say I'm more like a crochety old mountain man. Or maybe a pioneer. You know. All independent-like. Though I'd say I bathe much more than either of those. :-D
Well, there's nothing like a good laugh to clear the system I always say. And I have laughed plenty over that conspiracy nut idea.
Certainly "the hysteria of the left" is the most laughable thing that you possibly could attribute to me. Howls of laughter greeted this when I read it aloud to my family.
Although I am using independent thought and observation ... in this particular instance.
It is simply, as I referrd to, this incident with the HPV vaccine ... Gov. Perry with the shady motives thanks to his Merck connnections and the FDA's policy of fast tracking (for which I gave specific examples).
I don't know where you are getting all these generalizations ... perhaps you are attributing to me the problems that you see all around you in Mass. However, attributing them to my supposed dislike of President Bush (who I like very much and support in most things) is extreme extrapolation on your part.
At first in reading your comments I felt as if I were writing to Jimmy MacNichol's character in 24 (put 'em ALL in camps!). Then you seemed to change positions so I couldn't tell what POV you had at all. Then reading your most recent comment I assumed the fact that you are from Mass. was responsible and that you were upset because I was NOT on the "left's side" ... however, I see that is not the case.
Perhaps we BOTH would do better to ask more questions and do less assuming of motives eh? It does nothing but lead to false accusations (whether spoken or insinuated) on both sides and that becomes no one. Certainly it does not contribute to a productive conversation.
One thing has become obvious to me ... clearly I am more of an independent that I realized. Usually I figure I am fairly conservative but discussing this with my husband he pointed out that we usually tend to trust the government ... for instance with those cameras that are now being put in for catching red light runners (bring 'em on, I say). However, we do assess what the government is doing on a "risk management basis" as he put it. It is just plain silly to blindly trust without thinking things through for yourself as well. I mean, that's why God gave us brains, right?
May I ask how you came across my blog? The fact that you mention my sense of humor (quite well known by regular readers) or that you readily attribute "leftist hysteria" to my post makes it clear that you are not a regular reader.
Cheers!
Just remember, I'm in Texas ... and NOT in Austin (which is like a mini-Mass. in many ways). :-D
Cheers!
Secondly, did you see my correction that I meant to say Revolutionary War?
If the cost per life year gained is under $50,000, that is generally considered a decent investment by US medical policy makers. If "cost per life year" gained is over $100,000, that is generally considered a wasteful medical policy because that money could surely be put to much better use elsewhere. Yes, this is cruel and heartless to some degree, but wide scale medical cost allocations do need to be made and, more relevantly, are continually made using these cost plus risk vs. benefit analyses. Think HMOs. Now consider why pap smears, blood tests and urine tests aren't recommended every month for everyone. Testing monthly could definitely save more than a few lives, and there is no measurable associated medical risk. But the cost would be astronomical versus the benefit over the entire US population when comparing these monthly tests to other therapies, procedures and medicines.
Now on to GARDASIL. By the time you pay doctors a small fee to inventory and deliver GARDASIL in three doses, you are talking about paying about $500 for this vaccine. And because even in the best case scenario GARDASIL can confer protection against only 70% of cervical cancer cases, GARDASIL cannot ever obsolete the HPV screening test that today is a major component of most US women's annually recommended pap smears. These tests screen for 36 nasty strains of HPV, while GARDASIL confers protection against just four strains of HPV.
Now let's consider GARDASIL's best case scenario at the moment -- about $500 per vaccine, 100% lifetime protection against all four HPV strains (we currently have no evidence for any protection over five years), and no risk of any medical complications for any subset of the population (Merck's GARADSIL studies were too small and short to make this determination for adults, these studies used potentially dangerous alum injections as their "placebo control" and GARDASIL was hardly even tested on little kids). Now, using these best case scenario assumptions for GARDASIL, let's compare the projected situation of a woman who gets a yearly HPV screening test starting at age 18 to a woman who gets a yearly HPV screening test starting at age 18 plus the three GARDASIL injections at age 11 to 12. Even if you include all of the potential medical cost savings from the projected reduction in genital wart and HPV dysplasia removal procedures and expensive cervical cancer procedures, medicines and therapies plus all of the indirect medical costs associated with all these ailments and net all of these savings against GARDASIL's costs, the best case numbers for these analyses come out to well over $200,000 per life year gained -- no matter how far the hopeful pro-GARDASIL assumptions that underpin these projections are tweaked in GARDASIL's favor.
Several studies have been done, and they have been published in several prestigious medical journals:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.290.6.781
http://tinyurl.com/2ovy95
http://tinyurl.com/2tbuma
None of these studies even so much as consider a strategy of GARDASIL plus a regimen of annual HPV screenings starting at age 18 to be worth mentioning (except to note how ridiculously expensive this would be compared to other currently recommended life extending procedures, medicines and therapies) because the cost per life year gained is simply far too high. What these studies instead show is that a regimen of GARDASIL plus delayed (to age 21, 22, 23, 25 or 27) biennial or triennial HPV screening tests may -- depending on what hopeful assumptions about GARDASIL's long term efficacy and risks are used -- hopefully result in a modest cost per life year savings compared to annual HPV screening tests starting at age 18.
If you don't believe me about this, just ask any responsible OB-GYN or medical model expert. Now, why do I think all of this is problematic?
1) Nobody is coming clean (except to the small segment of the US population that understands medical modeling) that the push for widespread mandatory HPV vaccination is based on assuming that we can use the partial protection against cervical cancer that these vaccines hopefully confer for hopefully a long, long time period to back off from recommending annual HPV screening tests starting at age 18 -- in order to save money, not lives.
2) Even in the best case scenario, the net effect is to give billions in tax dollars to Merck so HMOs and PPOs can save billions on HPV screening tests in the future.
3) These studies don't consider any potential costs associated with any potential GARDASIL risks. Even the slightest direct or indirect medical costs associated with any potential GARDASIL risks increase the cost per life year gained TREMENDOUSLY and can even easily change the entire analysis to cost per life year lost. Remember that unlike most medicines and therapies, vaccines are administered to a huge number of otherwise healthy people -- and, at least in this case, 99.99% of whom would never contract cervical cancer even without its protection.
4) These studies don't take in account the fact that better and more regular HPV screening tests have reduced the US cervical cancer rate by about 25% a decade over the last three decades and that there is no reason to believe that this trend would not continue in the future, especially if we used a small portion of the money we are planning on spending on GARDASIL to promote free annual HPV screening tests for all low income uninsured US women.
5) The studies assume that any constant cervical cancer death rate (rather than the downward trending cervical cancer death rate we have today) that results in a reduced cost per life year gained equates to sound medical public policy.
As I said before, if any of you don't believe me about this, please simply ask your OB-GYN how the $500 cost of GARDASIL can be justified on a cost per life year gained basis if we don't delay the onset of HPV screening tests and back off from annual HPV screening tests to biennial or triennial HPV screening tests.
The recommendations are already in: http://tinyurl.com/33p9q6
The USPSTF strongly recommends ... beginning screening within 3 years of onset of sexual activity or age 21 (whichever comes first) and screening at least every 3 years ...
Absolutely, I couldn't agree more, and vaccines are controversial -- with most of the dialogue (and vaccine regs) being controlled by big pharma.
But it is interesting that the Church has come out encouraging dialogue about HPV... Why HPV?? Why not OPV, or MMR?...
Let's discuss the very cost effective use of mercury preservative in multi-dose vaccine viles... Many, many parents of children diagnosed with one of the many autism spectrum disorders believe this is the single greatest atrocity of our time...
As for HPV, tho, it is unfortunate that the Church's underlying logic is so flawed.
Fwiw, HPV is spread both by sexual and "skin to skin" ie "casual" contact. Sexual contact is not a pre-requisite for transmission, but cervical cancer is lethal.
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HPV vaccine: A time for 'public debate,' say Catholic leaders
http://www.the-tidings.com/2007/.../030207/
hpv.htm
However, CMA member Paul Cieslak, MD, asserted that "making school attendance conditional on HPV vaccination does not make sense, because girls who are not vaccinated pose no threat, as they would with communicable diseases such as mumps, measles and polio, to other children attending school.
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