Vaccines, conspiracies and loonies... Oh My!

Photograph from Polio Canada/Ontario March of Dimes.

They're flying out of their bat caves, onto the web, hosting seminars, scaring parents and pounding on tables with shoes! Don't get the shot! Don't vaccinate your child! Don't fall for the hysteria and allow yourself to be poisoned!

Well folks, 50 years ago our kids were dying or crippled by polio. It was a common occurrence that swept North America. My husband's Uncle contracted polio and was on crutches for life, he was one of the lucky ones. Here's one paragraph from a very interesting article.

Before smallpox was eradicated with a vaccine, it killed an estimated 500 million people. And just 60 years ago, polio paralyzed 16,000 Americans every year, while rubella caused birth defects and mental retardation in as many as 20,000 newborns. Measles infected 4 million children, killing 3,000 annually, and a bacterium called Haemophilus influenzae type b caused Hib meningitis in more than 15,000 children, leaving many with permanent brain damage. Infant mortality and abbreviated life spans — now regarded as a third world problem — were a first world reality.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience/3/

So to the Mary Toccos of the world, (I call her the Ann Coulter of the medical field, and I use the word, "medical" loosely,) go talk to the people who's family members have died of H1N1 including the two very young, previously very healthy people here in Ontario in the past three days.

http://news.ca.msn.com/top-stories/cbc-article.aspx?cp-documentid=22415064

Link to one of the stories mentioned above.

H1N1 Update and the vaccine.

*credit WHO* http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/en/index.html
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I haven't update the H1N1 situation in my blog for quite some time. I have, however, still been following it. It's rather overwhelming right now with the amount of news, changes in priorities for vaccination and the silly rumours. The important thing is it's just a flu shot, like any flu shot, prepared the same way just targeting one specific flu. The seasonal shots are always a guessing game. Some years they are the right strain, other years... not so much.

I also found out today that I am a priority! Not necessarily a list on which I want to be a priority but heck, I'll take it as I'm important!

A busy weekend!

http://www.cbc.ca/vinylcafe/


Well,seldom do I have the whirlwind social life I've had this weekend! Friday I was invited by Patty to join her at the Rotary Club of Windsor's annual, Wines of the World event. The food and wines were glorious! The company wonderful and the whole evening just a great time. We came back to my house afterwards and Michelle was there, home from school for the weekend. We stayed up until 1:30am! For me, at my age... that's a late night!

Saturday night Michelle and I went to see Stuart McLean of CBC Radio at the Chrysler theatre. His show, "The Vinyl Cafe," is one of our favourites. It turned out to be a live taping for future use on CBC so it was especially interesting. Mich got the tickets for me some time ago as an early birthday present.

Sunday, Rodney took us shopping in the States! OMG I have discovered a new and wonderful thing called a Payday candy bar! Caramel and peanut butter centre covered with salted peanuts! The sweet/salty combination is amazing! I'm NOT giving any out for Halloween, they are all mine. So that's the Butterfinger and Payday candy I'm hording ... I may have to go back over the border to get some stuff to actually give the kids!

AdSense or nonsence?

Google AdSense is supposed to crawl your content with a bot and then post ads that somehow apply to the content. Well... "rate hot girls?" I cannot find anything in my last post that would have triggered such an ad. I, therefore, am going with my picture as the impetus for this ad! Ha! :) There will be no rating of this girl, remember, I have the comments set for moderation by the blogger, the blogger being me!

Wow, I've been slacking in the blogging deparment!

To be perfectly fair, I have been busy! So here's the synopsis of the past month. I have been to London to visit Michelle at her new apartment. She's settling into Grad School and teaching Biology labs. She hasn't poisoned herself yet with her own cooking, which is a good thing! Michelle has also been home, for Thanksgiving. We hosted a dinner for 23 on Saturday and a breakfast for the same folks on Sunday morning! (Luckily Debbie & Robin did most of the breakfast work!) A great time was had by all. Ann, Joe & Tyler came all the way from Toronto for this.

I've had a very lucky couple of weeks. I won tickets to The Wiggles. I'm giving them to a couple of cutie pie kiddies and they will love it I'm sure.

Bob was called back to work after 10 months of being laid off! That was a nice surprise and beats the heck out of seeing your old job posted in the newspaper with the line "previous employees need not apply!"

Thanks to Patty, prior to the public event, I got to sit and chat with Judy Collins for 1/2 and hour or so. (Yes THAT Judy Collins of "Both Sides Now" and "Send In The Clowns" fame. She is a lovely and gracious lady and very, very tiny! She's happy Obama won the Nobel, she despairs over the state of US health care, or lack thereof and she speaks very highly of Canada and Canadians. She is also a friend of Leonard Cohen, whom I love and that is likely as close as I'll ever get to Leonard! Then I got to listen to her interesting and inspirational talk. What a special night that was for me! (I can't believe I forgot to ask to have a picture taken with her.)

Bob and I went to another antique shop where I bought some stamps for $5.00 and found that the minimum just a few of them are worth is over $78.00. (Not too shabby eh?) I bought quite a few but haven't checked them out yet.

I've had neighbourhood meetings, City Hall meetings and well... meetings!

So, that's why I haven't blogged. I don't like to leave it dormant for this long though and will make a concerted effort to be more prolific.