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#177 Oct 26 2009 at 7:31 AM Rating: Good
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Mine involves me eating meat.


One day you'll suck it up and admit we're just brothers from another mother.
Possibly, but I'm the favoured child.
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#178 Oct 26 2009 at 7:33 AM Rating: Excellent
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paulsol wrote:
You should try swimming against the stream around here when threads pertaining to diet or the climate or religion or Middle Eastern politics come up. Then you'd see some serious rating going on.....

Really? 'Cause I'm one of the few who takes an even nominally pro-Christian stance in religious debates and never noticed myself getting rated down for it. Maybe folks just love me more.

Edit: Come to think of it, I'm in the outnumbered camp when it comes to Israel as well. I'm such a pariah.

Edited, Oct 26th 2009 8:47am by Jophiel
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#179 Oct 26 2009 at 7:37 AM Rating: Good
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Jophiel wrote:
paulsol wrote:
You should try swimming against the stream around here when threads pertaining to diet or the climate or religion or Middle Eastern politics come up. Then you'd see some serious rating going on.....

Really? 'Cause I'm one of the few who takes an even nominally pro-Christian stance in religious debates and never noticed myself getting rated down for it. Maybe folks just love me more.
You hold the rate-down immunity idol.
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#180 Oct 26 2009 at 9:19 AM Rating: Default
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Aside from (presumably) kids, you seem to be implying, Soulshaver, that we should let nature take its course and cull the weak? Do I have that right?


No, and actually this is a misunderstanding that has been going on since my first post. To question the effectiveness of the vaccine doesn't mean that I'm opposed to us using it. I have actually stated in many posts that I'm not oppossed to using it.

My point, and the point of the Atlantic article, was "Do we know enough about the science behind the vaccine to justify the costs (including potential long-term, unpredictable problems) in rushing it to the market?"

My answer is no, but I think thats someone each person should make an informed decision about. If people are trying to shout over, bash, diminish, or marginalize the opposing viewpoint without reasoned discussion (another words if the conversation devolves into an insult-fest,) it doesn't do the debate any good. That was my other point.

#181 Oct 26 2009 at 9:31 AM Rating: Excellent
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Well, given the time constraints between analyzing the likely virus spread, developing the vaccine for each, and getting the vaccine to the market place, "not rushing" is effectively the same decision as "not using". Maybe that's where some of the confusion has seeped in.

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#182 Oct 26 2009 at 9:33 AM Rating: Excellent
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We haven't seen Retro Internet Lady in a while...

soulshaver wrote:
If people are trying to shout over, bash, diminish, or marginalize the opposing viewpoint without reasoned discussion (another words if the conversation devolves into an insult-fest,) it doesn't do the debate any good. That was my other point.


Screenshot
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Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#183 Oct 26 2009 at 9:34 AM Rating: Default
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But why perpetuate this attitude?
#184 Oct 26 2009 at 9:52 AM Rating: Default
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Well, given the time constraints between analyzing the likely virus spread, developing the vaccine for each, and getting the vaccine to the market place, "not rushing" is effectively the same decision as "not using". Maybe that's where some of the confusion has seeped in.


Good point - to clarify, I didn't mean to say that I know enough or am skeptical enough to make a statement that we should prevent the vaccine from reaching the market entirely (for everyone,) just that as a personal decision we haven't done enough of the science for me to feel comfortable taking it myself. Sorry if that was confusing to anyone.

To address that issue, I don't mind them producing the vaccine for people who want to take it, but public funds should be very limited here and I would want to say that people should pay for it themselves (as long as it isn't too expensive, etc...) Making it mandatory would be a violation of civil liberties.
#185 Oct 26 2009 at 10:07 AM Rating: Excellent
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The Atlantic article was interesting in that it danced completely around its own central point without ever making it: Is the flu enough of a threat to justify millions of dollars and man hours developing a hit-or-miss vaccine for every year?


This is easy enough to set up the quantification table if not the actual summation. Sum R&D and production costs and compare its effect on the viral agent propagation distributions. You can do this by modeling typical average disease spread patterns and you'll eventually get the number of man hours wasted incapacitates as well as potential deaths averted. I'm sure the CDC has a model like this built. If the value of this is greater than the resource costs for R&D, production and distribution (as well as waste) and the potential opportunity costs for not using the manpower to tackle a different disease is not greater, then this project is worth it.

TLDR version:
Viability: 
(MH*VoMH)+(D*VoD) =?= (Dev(MH*VoMH)+Pr(MH*VoMH)+Dis(MH*VoMH)+W) 
Opportunity cost: 
OC -> (V1 f )- (V1 i ) =?=(V2 f )- (V2 i ) 
Both ‘?’ must be > for it to be justified.



Actually calculating this value/efficiency is a bit trickier, but like I said, I'm sure the CDC has built the modeling systems and have evaluated it; unless they are asleep at the wheel.
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#186 Oct 26 2009 at 10:10 AM Rating: Excellent
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TLW wrote:
Actually calculating this value/efficiency is a bit trickier, but like I said, I'm sure the CDC has built the modeling systems and have evaluated it; unless they are asleep at the wheel.


I would have thought so, as well. The Atlantic article never mentioned such a thing, though; they only cited a study that compared years of known poor vaccine efficacy with years of known good vaccine efficacy and found no difference.

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#187 Oct 26 2009 at 10:24 AM Rating: Good
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Iirc the average VoD for the US is $6.9 million.

This looks like what we're looking for. I'm seeing a few inaccuracies, but still, it's something.
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#188 Oct 26 2009 at 10:26 AM Rating: Excellent
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Right, that, but for the regular yearly flu shots.

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#189 Oct 26 2009 at 10:33 AM Rating: Good
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After a cursory glance it looks like things that were missed were economic investiture deflationary trending(Although not ideal, I can accept that it's somewhat out of the scope, since this guy is a doctor not economist), subgroup transmission ratios (eg. for targeted vaccinations), potential mistakes in disease death rate, potential side affect valuations etc.
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#190 Oct 26 2009 at 10:39 AM Rating: Good
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Right, that, but for the regular yearly flu shots.


It's using generic flu propagation values, which would likely hold to be true as it is of similar composition, but building in H1N1 susceptibility factors such as lack of immunity and ease of transmission. It's also using correlations drawn from earlier data on H1N1 propagation to refine the model, (although I don't like some of the rounding on the death rates etc.).

Since we can't let the virus run it's course and then make judgements after the fact, I think the assumptions are fair enough to make.
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#191 Oct 26 2009 at 10:46 AM Rating: Default
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potential mistakes in disease death rate


One of the criticisms of this piece is that it overestimates the infection fatality rate.

http://www.annals.org/cgi/eletters/0000605-200912150-00157v1#116637

I haven't read through it entirely (don't have the time right now,) but I am also concerned with how they estimated the number of cases of actual infections, since I'm assuming they didn't test everyone and just based it on self-reported symptoms which could have been related to the regular flu or or health issues.



Edited, Oct 26th 2009 11:47am by soulshaver
#192 Oct 26 2009 at 10:59 AM Rating: Excellent
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Right, and that was one of the criticisms in the study cited in the Atlantic article as well. But flu does contribute to a lot of deaths every year that get signed off as pneumonia.

I don't know if that would be calculable. It might take an autopsy on every death, which isn't feasible.

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#193 Oct 26 2009 at 11:48 AM Rating: Good
There's also the fact that while a doctor can perform an in-office test to determine if you have "the flu" these tests are rudimentary and cannot distinguish between flu strains.

There is no way to know if the surge in flu-like symptoms in the past few weeks is seasonal flu, or H1N1, for several weeks. Approximately one out of five flu cases is being sent off for further examination at national laboratories, where they can do more sophisticated tests to determine the strain. That takes time.

The CDC publishes this data in their Flu Report. All of the nearly 5,000 cases tested in the last week have been H1N1.

I'm over my "nose flu" from the live attenuated H1N1 virus, and I went and got a standard seasonal shot today, which contains inactivated virus. (I was warned to wait a bit longe if I wanted to get another live attenuated version, because they last thing they want is for those viruses to intermix somehow.)

Edited, Oct 26th 2009 1:49pm by catwho
#194 Oct 26 2009 at 3:13 PM Rating: Default
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The CDC publishes this data in their Flu Report. All of the nearly 5,000 cases tested in the last week have been H1N1.


Nope, it says only 4,855 out of 12,943 cases have been H1N1, or 37.5% of suspected cases.
#195 Oct 26 2009 at 4:09 PM Rating: Excellent
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Read it again.

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#196 Oct 26 2009 at 6:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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soulshaver wrote:
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I'll log on to call you retarded for the vaccine opinion, and retarded again for your response here. "Oh no, he's regulating and interfering with me!"


I just wonder why posts on this forum that address some issue consistently get rated down, while posts calling that person a ****** get rated up. Even if you totally disagree with that person, do you really have to try to censor the conversation and leave yourself with a bunch of posts by people that believe the same thing and are just hating on another viewpoint? It doesn't do the debate any good.

On a personal level, I wonder why you get enjoyment going out of your way to interfere and verbally abuse people who are trying to have a reasonable discussion about appropriate topics on the internet, and I actually feel kind of sorry for you for going through those sets of emotions. I would suggest some serious self-reflection on that subject.

The Asylum is not just a place for "reasonable discussions". It is also a place for play. Play in all it's written senses, for adults with robust personal boundaries.
ZAM has two general topic forums. One is the Out Of Topic Forum (OOT), which has fairly strict rules of behaviour. The admins expect posters to generally "play nice" there. It is PG 13+. You are currently in The Asylum, which is explicitly labelled up the top "The Asylum: No holds barred forum for deep OOT discourse. Not for the faint of heart."

As per the Forum Rules

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In the Asylum, if posters want to go for each other's jugulars, mothers and holy cows in a fight to the death and karma oblivion, it's perfectly allowable. Personal meltdowns and childish behaviour online will be savoured and further provoked by some here, and if you are prone to have suicidal thoughts over what someone says on the internet, you are expected to confine yourself to the OOT.

There's a culture of humour here that'll get you rated up, to compensate for any stupid argument rate-downs. If you want to play here instead of only in the OOT, and you are concerned about your karma, learn2Asylum.

#197 Oct 26 2009 at 6:40 PM Rating: Good
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Read it again.

I thought about posting this, and realized it was futile.
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#198 Oct 26 2009 at 6:46 PM Rating: Good
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Sir Xsarus wrote:
Samira wrote:
Read it again.

I thought about posting this, and realized it was futile.
Futility is another game. Samira is a master player.
#199 Oct 26 2009 at 7:25 PM Rating: Default
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WHO and NREVSS collaborating laboratories located in all 50 states and Washington D.C. report to CDC the number of respiratory specimens tested for influenza and the number positive by influenza type and subtype. The results of tests performed during the current week are summarized in the table below.

Week 41
No. of specimens tested 12,943
No. of positive specimens (%) 4,855 (37.5%)
Positive specimens by type/subtype
Influenza A 4,844 (99.8%)
A (2009 H1N1) 3,378 (69.7%)
A (subtyping not performed) 1,436 (29.6%)
A (unable to subtype) 30 (0.6%)
A (H3) 0 (0.0%)
A (H1) 0 (0.0%)
Influenza B 11 (0.2%)
#200 Oct 26 2009 at 7:45 PM Rating: Good
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soulshaver wrote:
Quote:
WHO and NREVSS collaborating laboratories located in all 50 states and Washington D.C. report to CDC the number of respiratory specimens tested for influenza and the number positive by influenza type and subtype. The results of tests performed during the current week are summarized in the table below.

Week 41
No. of specimens tested 12,943
No. of positive specimens (%) 4,855 (37.5%)
Positive specimens by type/subtype
Influenza A 4,844 (99.8%)
A (2009 H1N1) 3,378 (69.7%)
A (subtyping not performed) 1,436 (29.6%)
A (unable to subtype) 30 (0.6%)
A (H3) 0 (0.0%)
A (H1) 0 (0.0%)
Influenza B 11 (0.2%)


Quote:
During week 41 (October 11-17, 2009), influenza activity increased in the U.S.

4,855 (37.5%) specimens tested by U.S. World Health Organization (WHO) and National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System (NREVSS) collaborating laboratories and reported to CDC/Influenza Division were positive for influenza.

All subtyped influenza A viruses being reported to CDC were 2009 influenza A (H1N1) viruses.


emphasis mine.

Edited, Oct 26th 2009 8:46pm by Bardalicious
#201 Oct 26 2009 at 7:58 PM Rating: Good
There is nothing technically wrong with what he is saying, assuming all those who were tested were suspected cases. 37.5% of those who were tested had flu, the vast majority of that 37.5% had H1N1.

There's not anything wrong with what catwho said, either, though.

Here, I know you're pretty stupid, soulshaver, so I'll explain:

Quote:
The CDC publishes this data in their Flu Report. All of the nearly 5,000 cases tested in the last week have been H1N1.


There is no "suspected" in there, you see? You read it as "of the nearly 5000 cases of flu tested". This should be clear to pretty much everyone. I suggest you make like an illithid and steal someone's brain. Yours is obviously defective.

Edited, Oct 27th 2009 2:05am by Kavekk
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