U.S. Federal Court Denies Vaccine/Autism Claim

In a blow to those who still believe that childhood vaccines cause autism, the United States Court of Federal Claims has ruled against claims from three families that childhood vaccines that contained mercury-based preservative thimerosal contributed to autism that affects their children.

The thing is, even the researchers who did the flawed research have recanted, saying that they had made a mistake in their judgment that the vaccines contributed to the development of autism. And yet, the idea still persists.

Learning your child has autism is devastating. We don't want our children to have disabilities, to not be "perfect." Autism is a long road and the more severely your child is affected, the hard a road it is to navigate. And, it is normal, natural, to want someone or something to blame - but we need to find the right thing to blame.

The argument is that people have seeming normal children until they have their first vaccine injections. Within days, some say, their child becomes different as autistic symptoms begin to develop. But what doesn't come across is that autism has been around for generations. It was just often misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all, in children with mild cases. And, the argument that we have more autism now could be explained with we have better understanding and diagnosis of the condition, and are therefore recognizing and diagnosing it more often. As well, the symptoms of autism often show up just at the same age/time that the vaccines fall so it isn't unnatural to want to blame the vaccines.

This post isn't going to change anyone's mind. Many who read it will nod their head in agreement, some will be outraged at my thoughts, and others won't really care either way or don't know what to think. All I do know is that we don't want to see our children struggle or suffer and most of us will do anything we can to keep that from happening. Too bad we can't always prevent the bad things from happening. As a mother, I do know that.

According to b5, I'm an "aggregator"

Harrumph. Years of blogging for b5media and now I'm an aggregator?

Blisstree is a re-launch of an existing b5 property that was essentially an aggregator.

The definition of "aggregator" is someone who gathers things. Excuse me, my CV does NOT say I'm an aggregator. I'm a writer - and a good one. I enjoyed working for b5media and I'm proud of the work I did. I'm trying to be a good sport about the whole thing. After all, business is business and part of business is making changes, which may include laying off staff that they feel they no longer need. But they don't need to belittle the work that was done by the many bloggers who worked for them. They don't need to insult us, do they?

Healthcare Workers Helping Haitians Help Themselves

The horrendous events of Haiti's earthquake earlier this year are fading from the news. We do see images from time to time and hear reminders about the devastation that occurred as a result of the tremors. The Haitian disaster was compared to the Chilean earthquake that happened just a couple of weeks ago - and the comparisons were not favorable.

For those of us who work in health care, we're reminded of our role in helping others. And many of us think about our own mortality, particularly when we think about the deaths of several Haitian doctors, nurses, and other people who work in the field.

As with most natural disasters around the world, the international community responded in a wonderful way. Countries and private companies and citizens provided money, supplies and their own workers. Sadly though, this isn't enough to help rebuild a country that needed rebuilding before the earthquake.

One of the problems that seems to hit Haiti the hardest, but also affects other so-called developing countries, is that many of the international groups, be they non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or governments, tend to rush in and try to take over. They want to do things their way and feel that if they could just teach the Haitians how to do the work and function the way the helpers think they should, all will be well.

But a country isn't that different from a business. A well-run business usually pulls information and resources from its employees and its supporters. Outside people who try to tell the business owner how to run their company are generally not well received. Their suggestions may be worth incorporating into the business structure, but outsiders don't usually come in, set up camp, and then tell the president of the company how to run it. Countries are no different.

In order for the Haitian people to get on their feet and stay there, they need to run their own country. They may need us to provide them with the skills and the know-how, but they also need to take responsibility and learn how to use those skills and know-how to be their own bosses. Just a we need to let our families grow up and learn on their own, developing countries must as well.

There's an excellent article in the March issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Recovering from Disaster — Partners in Health and the Haitian Earthquake, written by Tracy Kidder. Although the whole article makes excellent point, the last two paragraphs are particularly important, to me. If you have a minute, I suggest you take the time to read the piece. Even better, perhaps you can come back here and comment, letting us know what you think and how you feel.

Good Health Equal Good Sex, Researchers Say

According to an article published today on bmj.com, if you're in good health, you are twice as likely to be interested in sex, compared with people who are in poor health.

To determine how good health affects sexual activity and if they could predict how long a healthy sex life could be expected, researchers surveyed 3,032 people (1,561 women) between the ages of 25 and 74 and another group of 3,005 people (1,550 women) between 57 and 85 years of age.

The researchers asked the participants about their relationship status, the quality of their sex lives, the frequency of sexual activity, and their general health status (rated between poor and excellent). What they found was that men at the age of 30 years could look forward to about 35 years of sexual activity and women at the age of 30, almost 31 years. Interestingly, if the men and women were married or in an intimate relationship, the gender difference between the two went down.

The results reveal that men are more likely to be sexually active, report a good sex life and be interested in sex than women. This difference was most stark among the 75 to 85 year old group, where almost four out of ten (40%) males compared to less than two out of ten (17%) women were sexually active.

When looking at the health aspect, men lost more years of sexual activity due to ill health than men.

Some may ask what the importance of such a study is. Being sexual is a part of human nature and it can help people feel better about themselves both physically and emotionally. The thing is, do we feel healthier and happier if we have more sex or do we have more sex because we are healthy and happier?

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