I heard the news yesterday morning.
I was in clinic seeing patients. It was a bit of a slow morning; there was time between patients. So I spent it, as is my wont when clinic is a bit slow, signing charts (OK, signing off on charts in the electronic medical record; I haven’t actually physically signed a chart in a while) and idly checking Facebook and Twitter when finished with that. Then I saw it: Authorities Respond to a Medical Call at Paisley Park, with a comment that Prince was dead. I read the article; it said that someone had been found dead at Prince’s estate in Minneapolis and that it was thought to be Prince. At the time it hadn’t been confirmed yet, though. News rapidly spread around the clinic. I was amazed at how much people were immediately affected.
I saw another patient and then checked again. This time it had been confirmed: Prince was dead at age 57. The news reports also described how Prince had been ill on April 15, with a medical emergency having forced his private jet to make an emergency landing in Illinois, where he was briefly hospitalized. He did, however, recover enough to show up at a dance party the next day, so that people would have “living proof” he was alive. His representative told the press that Prince was battling the flu. Uh-oh, I thought. The conspiracy theories are coming.
Boy, did they ever!
Whenever a celebrity dies unexpectedly at a young age, I’ve learned to expect speculation to run rampant. I suppose it was always so, but what’s different today is the Internet, which allows the rumors, speculation, and conspiracy theories to reach the world as soon as they are conceived. Then there are the quacks and conspiracy theorists, such as Mike Adams, who is known for taking advantage of the deaths of celebrities to push his anti-pharma agenda, as he did earlier this year when David Bowie and Alan Rickman died. He’s not alone unfortunately; he’s just the worst.
In the case of Prince, I knew the mostly unknown circumstances of his death and the reports that he might have been suffering from the flu would give the cranks and quacks a field day, and it didn’t take long for the crazy to start flowing like Niagra Falls. Of course, we don’t know what killed Prince yet. It could well be days before we know. Could it have been the flu? Of course, although there did appear to be a bit of jumping the gun declaring that Prince might have died of the flu. The flu can kill perfectly healthy young and middle-aged people, contrary to the misconceptions so many people have these days that the flu is not a dangerous disease. However, after speculations about the flu as the cause of Prince's death, reports are now coming out that it might have been a drug overdose and that’s what Prince’s hospitalization last weekend was for. The bottom line is that I have no idea whether Prince had a drug problem or not. Although a fan, I wasn’t what one would call an “ardent fan” and didn’t really pay attention to news about Prince. However, I do know that many are the publicists of performers with drug problems who missed concerts (as Prince apparently had missed two recently) who would explain the absences by telling the press that the star was suffering from the flu. Again, though, we don’t know.
That’s why, in cases like this, the prudent thing to do is to take a wait-and-see attitude, until the coroner reports a cause of death. Of course, the celebrity gossip sites (like the TMZ.com articles I linked to) can’t wait, and neither can the quacks. First off the mark was the ever-nutty Infowars, which asked, Did the chemtrail flu kill Prince and Merle Haggard? Was Prince killed by the chemtrails he and Haggard spoke out against?
I must admit that I laughed out loud when I watched the video above; so I thank Alex Jones for lightening my depressed mood. I also hadn’t realized that Prince believed in woo like chemtrails. Oddly enough, I had never heard of “chemtrail flu” before. Curious, I did some Googling and learned that chemtrail flu is what you would guess that it is: A disease that resembles the flu caused by chemtrails, a “mystery flu” that doesn’t behave like regular flu. Of course, chemtrails don’t exist other than in the minds of conspiracy theorists like Art Bell.
I knew, for instance, that, after years of living a rock star’s life of excess, Prince had become a teetotaling vegan and Jehovah’s Witness, a supporter of PETA who was named the Sexiest Vegetarian Alive in 2006, which, of course makes it difficult for alternative medicine believers to be able to blame his death on big pharma, the way quacks like to do whenever a celebrity dies. by all reports (at least the ones I’ve been able to see), Prince had become the picture of health.
Given that, it must have been the flu vaccine. So sayeth TruthKings, the website run by antivaccine loon Sherri Tenpenny, proclaiming Vaccine Injury Suspected In Prince’s Death. Citing the emergency landing of Prince’s plane, Gary Barnes, the writer of this dreck, speculates:
The medical emergency which caused the plane to land remains unclear, but suspicion is now high that Prince was potentially given a flu shot injection or heavy doses of Tamiflu. Prince suffers from epilepsy, and the flu shot can be deadly for those suffering from that illness.
Of course, the story cited also reports that Prince says he no longer suffers seizures. Of course, vaccines are safe in children and adults with epilepsy, for whom routine vaccines on the vaccination schedule are still recommended.
Not that this stops Barnes from pulling this out of his posterior:
The key will be the discovery of Prince being given a flu shot, which isn’t clear as of yet. However the situation seems to reflect such potential.
Thank you, Gary Barnes. I laughed out loud again reading that. The situation seems to reflect such potential (of Prince having been given a flu shot)? Based on what information? Basically Barnes pulled that out of his nether regions. So outrageously dumb is it that one of the commenters at this new wretched hive of antivaccine scum and quackery asked, “Why would they give him a flu shot if he already had the flu?”
Exactly.
Even more hilariously, another commenter tries to explain: “Why do they give you a tetanus shot when you step on a nail?” Well, actually, you don’t if the person has had three or more doses of tetanus vaccine. In the case of an unclear vaccination history or not having had the vaccine, you givetetanus toxoid and a tetanus booster, the latter of which will boost the immune response in time to help prevent tetanus. This is not like the flu. Once you have the flu, it’s too late for the vaccine. In other words, Barnes is wrong, but I thank him for playing.
Still, I saved the best (if you can call it that) for last. I will admit that our old fried Mike Adams threw a bit of a curve ball. Apparently stymied by Prince’s being a vegan and having no known major health issues requiring treatment with pharmaceuticals, he cleverly retreats to using Prince’s death as an excuse to rant against vaccines as only he can in a post entitled No evidence Prince died from a flu shot... rumors are pure speculation that distract from the real vaccine holocaust harming children everywhere.
Yes, Adams starts out trying to be the sane one:
As one of the most outspoken critics of vaccines, I'd like to politely chime in on this rumor and say that to my knowledge, there is no evidence whatsoever linking Prince's death to a flu shot. These stories appear to be pure speculation. (And I say that as someone who likes both of those websites!)
For the record, it is absolutely true that flu vaccines do indeed kill some people. They severely damage some children, in fact, and many flu shots still contain mercury. I've actually tested flu shots in my laboratory (CWClabs.com) and found them to contain over 25,000 times the EPA limit of mercury in drinking water.
There is no question that injecting someone with toxic mercury is going to cause some sort of neurological damage. Sometimes it's subclinical damage that doesn't appear obvious, but other times it can be catastrophic... or even fatal. However, none of this means Prince was injected with a flu shot.
So much antivaccine crazy, leading up to stating the bleedingly obvious: that no one knows if Prince was vaccinated against the flu or not, much less whether it happened recently. It’s unlikely that it did, even if Prince did receive the vaccine, given that flu season is almost over. It’s far more likely that Prince died of the flu (or, even possibly a drug overdose) than it is that he died from the flu vaccine. Hell, given that he was a 57 year old man, it’s more likely that he died of a sudden unexpected heart attack or a cardiac arrhythmia than it is that he died because of the flu vaccine. It doesn’t take an intellectual giant to come to this conclusion, as evidenced by Adams coming to it.
The hilarity continues, though. Adams, knowing of Prince’s apparent belief in chemtrails and other woo, seems to think he’s found a kindred spirit. He goes on at length about how Prince “comes off as extremely well informed about certain agendas” and how he just knows that Prince was not “the kind of person who liked to be injected with vaccines in the first place.” Along the way, Adams spouts ridiculous claim about how he tested flu shots for mercury and found them to “contain over 25,000 times the EPA limit of mercury in drinking water.” I discussed how silly this all was in the long version. The short version is that vaccines and drinking water are two different things and that it’s utterly inappropriate to apply standards designed for drinking large quantities of water to 0.5 mL vials of flu vaccine.
Of course, the crazy in the post above was nothing compared to another post that Adams did about Prince entitled Prince is dead, the Queen is 90, and men can now pee all over the women's restroom toilet seats at Target (satire). It is truly the most amazing “WTF?” moment I’ve ever seen from Adams. You have to read it yourself to see how Adams uses Prince’s death as the introduction to a truly bizarre post about transgender bathroom laws.
The bottom line, of course, is that we don’t know what killed Prince. It could have been the flu, but, sadly, in light of the news being reported at TMZ.com about his having been treated recently for a drug overdose I find the likelihood that he died of a drug overdose to be the more plausible explanation, particularly given his rep’s reports that he had been battling the flu for “several weeks.” However, I do keep in mind that these stories are from TMZ.com and therefore should be taken with a huge grain of salt, even though TMZ.com did report it first and correctly that Prince had been found dead.
And let’s not forget that it could well have been the flu, as the flu does kill and Prince was seen at a local Walgreens looking “more frail and nervous than usual” the evening before his death. Whatever the cause of Prince’s death, the antivaccine loons who try to take reports that Prince might have died from the flu as a cue to try to blame his death on the flu vaccine are a despicable lot, same as it ever was.
R.I.P. Prince Rogers Nelson. I fear the attempts to co-opt your death are far from over.
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I know one thing, for nearly certain, around four sigma in certainty, Prince is dead.
Damned shame, too early, too few new releases of late, oh well. People die and I'm rather used to that. It happens when you're retired military, after near three decades of service, two wars and assorted operations.
Now, I and my wife also had an H1N1 influenza infection. It royally sucked. As in, removing all doubt about how the damned thing could kill someone. At six months, we were capable of carrying out daily life activities - barely. At a year, we were starting to become capable of normal operations.
Influenza isn't a joke, it's nastier than hell. I should know, both of my grandparents lost a spouse to it during the Spanish Influenza pandemic.
Indeed, in our half century and change lives, our immune systems are so damned strong, they're attacking our own bodies! Those are some serious, mean, nasty immune systems there! Mine is attacking various joints, intermittently, my thyroid incessantly and my wife's entire body, randomly.
In short, we're still not sure which autoimmune disease I have, my wife has Lupus. Currently, my thyroid is under the most major attack.
I'm fine with the latter, as I've already beat down the Incredible Hulk - three times. ;)
As for Prince, it's essentially day zero, no facts, loads of bovine defecation being displayed as a meal.
No, it's still the same thing that has to be composted to become fertilizer.
But, I see an astonishing amount of disrespect for a human being's life and loss of his life present in a certain crowd, using it for their cause, before his body even grew cold.
That is equally as disgusting as if one was one's own mother.
Similar excuses were routinely made for aging first-secretaries-for-life in the various People Republics, East of the Iron Curtain.
I'm just going to avoid speculating as of now, and instead compliment Prince on his excellent choice of eyewear in the photo in the article. It is as if he took one look at the classic "hippie sunglasses" and asked himself "How can I make these even awesomer?".
Something something autopsy something.
Cranks never cease to amaze me with both the depth and breadth of the awfulness they are capable of. It's not enough for Adams to write some screed about the evils of vaccines, he also had to go on some bizarre rant about transgender people and their urination habits? Boggles the mind.
^ And...
Dick Gregory's not going to last forever. Oo-ee-oo.
Bear in mind the northern hemisphere flu season may be almost over, but the southern hemisphere one is just starting.
Prince recently performed south of the equator, so the loons may propose he was vaccinated for the southern flu...
It's an unlikely scenario as he performed here a couple of months ago. I only got my quadrivalent shot, on the first day possible, about ten days ago.
If we're (rationally) speculating about ways in which a 57-year old man could die suddenly, let's not forget pulmonary embolism. PE probably kills more folks than commonly thought.
“How can I make these even awesomer?”.
One's third eye needs sun protection as well.
We have 2 in icu w/ h1n1. Both healthy, one in 30s, shes on vent. No vacc hx prior.
Rip Purple Rain.
"Prince recently performed south of the equator"
A-ha! A virulent chemtrails-induced strain of Zika virus!
I smell Monsanto all over this.
And if Prince was a healthy drug-avoiding vegan, what was he doing in Walgreens? Riddle me _that_.
Looks like flu season is waning pretty well but by no means over:
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/
Let's not forget that Prince was of the wee-folk. He weighted 120 lbs dripping wet. If only he'd had a cheeseburger. He was a protein deficient wisp of a man too weak to fight to the flu.
My stepmother was Prince's junior high school music teacher in Minneapolis. He was kind of weird little guy even then, but totally into his music, to the exclusion of any sort of teen hijinks. He was never known around The Cities for any kind of drugs. He was an obsessive workaholic, writing at least one song a day. He not only played all the instruments and did all the production on all his records, but also on the records of other artists in his stable. The vocals on the two albums by The Time are by Morris Day, but everything else is Prince, which PO'ed the guys in the band 'cause they could all really play. You just can't work like he did if you're getting high and living the full rock-star lifestyle. Besides, Prince didn't need drugs, his head was trippy enough all by it's lonesome. Dude was eccentric as hell.
Considering his plane made an emergency landing in Moline so he could be taken to the hospital, I'd say a flu shot has to be the least likely cause of death, and the nutters are just doing the same-old trick of seeing everything though their particular obsessions. If you're a Tenpenny Hammer, everything bad looks like a Vaccine to be Nailed. But the only thing being driven at this point is yet another nail in the coffin of anti-vax as a significant cultural phenomenon. Farther and farther to the fringe it goes. As far as Prince's passing goes, the AVs are at the back of the line of the ghouls.
__________
If the flu can kill, Prince is the kind of guy who could ignore it until it reached crisis. They say he got some kind of injection in Moline, presumed (tenuously) by the tabloids to be a 'save shot' for opiate overdose. I don't know if the flu could cause a crisis that could be addressed by any kind of injection.
In addition to TMZ's 'sources' saying Prince was treated for an opiate OD, another gossip organ has 'sources' saying he had AIDS. He did have two degenerating hips in need of replacement for which he had refused surgery, apparently because JW's can't receive blood transplants. So there's speculation he was on heavy pain meds in order to keep performing. I found this comment on those 'theories' [edited]:
I don't know if Prince did have a private physician. There's no mention of one in the news reports. As private, eccentric, and driven as Prince was, he's the kind of artist who could have been hit by any kind of serious health problem and just ignored it, try to wish it away, not tell anyone about it. On the day he was later spotted at his neighborhood Walgreens, he reportedly visited a hospital, was seen by a doctor and released, returning home to Paisley Park. Of course, you can buy all kinds of stuff at Walgreens. Maybe he was out of eye shadow.
Anyway, rest in peace, Prince Rogers Nelson. Here's a little of the Minneapolis sound, with Prince playing all the instruments, including the neo-Hendrix guitar:
https://youtu.be/8_eEzp0Kiew?t=4m
Actually, after I wrote this, I thought of this possibility. All TMZ can report is that Prince was seen frequently at the Walgreens near his compound and that he didn't look so good when he was seen there the night before he died. This suggests to me that he had to refill lots of short term prescriptions. (Either that, or he needed to make a run for junk food. Potato chips, for example, and lots of other junk foods whose production doesn't involve animal products are perfectly acceptable vegan food.) So when I woke up this morning, I thought: Did Prince have a prescription opiate dependence? It is, unfortunately, a possibility, and it sounds more credible to me now that I know about his degenerative hip disease. I didn't know about that when I wrote this post.
I heard something similar from Toure, who wrote a biography of Prince and knew him well: the Purple One had avoided pain meds for as long as he could but needed them for his hip problem. The writer mentioned that Prince performed sitting at the piano recently because of this.
I was always captivated by his incredible musicality and fashionable weirdness.
I was also impressed that he sponsored a project that helped minority youth to learn how to code.
Did Prince have a prescription opiate dependence? It is, unfortunately, a possibility, and it sounds more credible to me now that I know about his degenerative hip disease. I didn’t know about that when I wrote this post.
My understanding too is that he was a Jehovah's Witness, and rumors were he was putting off hip surgery until he had no choice due to the transfusion restriction.
An emergency landing for the "flu" was so odd, especially since it was so close to it's destination.
Whether is was a vaccination or a drug THAT KILLED PRINCE, one thing is for sure -- his death was pharmaceutically related and there is no amount of damage control to cover that up, including this post.
After all, who'd want to be third eye blind?
It isn't that close. Moline, IL is still nearly 350 miles from Minneapolis.
Seriously, what is a person with severely degenerated joints supposed to do, Nancy?
NOT take pain meds?
Did you ever meet people like that?
Right, alternative medicine suggests cayenne, ginger and turmeric for pain. I'm sure that that will help them immensely.
One other thing is sure, Nancy. You are an idiot.
These conspiritards must have had this story locked and loaded well before Prince's death was announced.
"blah blah blah INSERT SUDDEN DEATH CELEBRITY NAME HERE blah blah blah..."
Oh have you conducted the autopsy that you could be so certain Nancy? Just another hysterical ghoul.
That's about 45 minutes flying time, give or take. Maybe an hour if there was heavy traffic in the MSP area. So not a diversion you would do unless it was for something sufficiently serious and acute for those 45-60 minutes to make a difference. The flu itself wouldn't do that, but there are some complications of flu that might.
I've seen speculation elsewhere that Prince was trying to work in his studio and was unable to catch his breath. It's consistent with his personality--working in the studio was something that gave him pleasure--and consistent with what we know of his condition. It's at least as plausible as the drug overdose theory, and certainly more plausible than the flu vaccine or chemtrail flu theories the conspiracy-minded are pushing.
I briefly considered the AIDS theory and rejected it. It may have looked sudden in the case of Freddie Mercury, whose died hours after the fact that he had AIDS was announced, but it was a long-term thing: Queen had stopped touring several years earlier, and for some of the last studio recordings Mercury had to resort to extensive self-medication (he reportedly drank an entire bottle of some distilled liquor before recording the vocal of "The Show Must Go On"). It's still possible Prince had AIDS, but that's not what killed him.
However the situation seems to reflect such potential.
This is one of the most perfectly-worded weasel sentences I have ever read, and I am going to save it. I can't think of a single situation where this could not be used.
I mean, it's White House press secretary-worthy.
So, Nancy, under the right circumstances, all pharmaceuticals can kill you, and therefore, pharmaceuticals are bad.....
I feel the same way about water. After Natalie Wood drowned, I swore off water entirely. Been living on hopes and dreams ever since.
Really, Nancy, really? Speaking as the wife of a man with severe degenerative joint disease, you likely wouldn't last 5 minutes in his shoes without screaming for those pharmaceuticals you so smugly, snidely, and stupidly decry.
By the by, your idiotic comment does beg a question: Since you are so certain this musical genius' death was "pharmaceutically related," do you think that if a person never takes a pharmaceutical they will live forever? I would actually like to see an answer to this question.
My apologies to fellow readers for what is likely a failed blockquote. I've never done it before and do not anticipate success on this first attempt.
He also looked terrible in the video for "These Are The Days Of Our Lives." All the soft lighting and black and white filming in the world couldn't hide that. He looked gaunt as hell. https://youtu.be/oB4K0scMysc
Wow... I knew Mike Adams was a total anti-vaccine scienc denialis and woo'ny... but also being an ugly transphobic bigot?
Hey Mikey... I know you read this blog... and thus likely to see this comment... so this one is for you too:
https://sillyolme.wordpress.com/2016/04/16/denial-is-not-a-river/
sadmar: Love the quote, made my afternoon. I will likely borrow or make a variation of it at some point:
If you’re a Tenpenny Hammer, everything bad looks like a Vaccine to be Nailed.
Funny how she never even considers the possibility that it was neither a vaccine nor a drug that killed Prince - to hear these people talk you'd think humans were immortal before the advent of pharmaceuticals.
Yesterday when I heard of Prince's death and a possible connection with flu, I knew the loons would be out.
Look in Diseases of Man and find how many different diseases start with flu like symptoms.
Prince is riding away in his little red corvette wearing a raspberry beret.
Somebody over at Forbes yesterday had an article speculating on how influenza could have killed him. I found that rather annoying as well given that no one knows the true cause of death. I'm sure the anti-vaccine people will accuse us of opportunistically speculating as well.
Yeah, me too, which is why I mentioned it. The blogger is, however, a friend. Perhaps I should have e-mailed him and explained that I thought he was jumping the gun and that his post was way too click-baity. He's usually a lot better than that.
I saw some of the HIV speculation on the web this morning, and I wasn't surprised. I'm sure lots of people would take satisfaction in the idea that Prince, with his flamboyant sexual persona, died of AIDS. It'd give them a great opportunity to tut-tut about what awful choices he made.
I can't help but be reminded of the accidental overdose that killed Heath Ledger. All the creative genius in the world cannot guarantee good judgement when self medicating.
http://www.m.webmd.com/men/news/20080206/accidental-overdose-killed-hea…
Prince had a history of idiopathic epilepsy, which would have put him at risk of sudden death through an as-yet poorly understood mechanism. Other potential causes of sudden death in a 57 year old man include MI, ruptured aortic aneurysm, CVA from a cerebral aneurysm, AV malformation or atherosclerosis, pulmonary embolism, pneumonia and sepsis.
I have seen all of these as causes of sudden unexpected death in middle-aged people.
They OD speculation makes me uncomfortable. I don't really like all the speculation in general but I feel it's very disrespectful to suggest the man was an addict especially absent any public acknowledgement of such a problem. Similar problem with the AIDS theory.
Sorry to stray away from the subject of this blog, but I had to react on something written.
@ Kay Brown
Read your blog and some stuff on it and I'm not sure I an fully agree with the idea that a transgender always wants a traditional life with a husband and perhaps adopted children. I've known several who were lesbian and didn't fit in your autogynephilia category.
Alas there is no posibilty to react on your blog or contact you (which I can understand), so I react in this way.
Dear God, DrRJM, you've hit on it. The conspiracy theorists must have killed Prince so they could speculate on the cause of his death. They probably had prepared scripts for what they'd say about it!
Orac wrote: "Whatever the cause of Prince’s death, the antivaccine loons [...] are a despicable lot"
Rayne at Insufferable Intolerance blog posted a phenomenally accurate description of the typical antivaxxer on his Facebook page. He ought to know; he almost died twice because of them!
https://www.facebook.com/InsufferableIntolerance/posts/627437110750744:0
Whether is was a vaccination or a drug THAT KILLED PRINCE, one thing is for sure — his death was pharmaceutically related and there is no amount of damage control to cover that up, including this post.
Whatever killed Prince, one thing is for sure -- no amount of 'vaccine injury' can explain the paranoid divagations boiling up your brain!
Francois #42 that would be HER Facebook page.
Studies show that gender dysphoria is caused by glyphosate or excessive vaccines, which explains why it is increasing. And it's your own fault for poisoning yourself. But colloidal silver can help, and it's on sale.
(Yes, this is sarcasm. )
@ Sadmar
"If you’re a Tenpenny Hammer, everything bad looks like a Vaccine to be Nailed."
:D
Brilliant! Possibly the best thing you eve posted here Sadmar!
@ORAC
Did Prince have a prescription opiate dependence? It is, unfortunately, a possibility, and it sounds more credible to me now that I know about his degenerative hip disease.
The speculation is hot and heavy about this.Especially considering what we know bout Percocet.
Colloidal silver may help with gender dysphoria, but it can cause species dysphoria, in that you may turn into a smurf.
http://www.medicaldaily.com/paul-karanson-papa-smurf-turned-blue-colloi…
I'm just going to wait for the autopsy results.
Hey, Dave, you should call those of us in the C.A.M. realm a few more names, simply because we disagree with your Education-by-Pharmaceutical Brochure "logic."
Whether you care to admit it or not, you're part of a bigger cult than any of us "quacks" could ever dream up; you've been indoctrinated into the AMA cult, which is a legal monopoly specializing in "doctors" that routinely die in their late 50s or early 60s---that is, if they don't off themselves before then. These same "doctors," in their quest to achieve god-like status, thus try to advise OTHERS on the health benefits of injecting attenuated viruses, heavy metals and formaldehyde, and cytotoxic agents into their bodies.
Sure, sport. Whatever you say, because, hey, you once passed a physiology course.
But I'm sure, down deep, you're the one MD in America that refuses to accept all those generous commissions from Big Pharma, right? And I'm sure you'd rather picket night and down outside a convention center than accept an invitation to one of those AMA-sponsored CE weekends, right?
I'm glad I earned a REAL research doctorate, like a Ph.D., rather than some Symptom Care Certificate from the AMA.
And while I don't agree for a minute that Prince died from a flu shot---his long-term vegetarian lifestyle and faulty genetic blueprint most likely did him in---to hear someone like you rant and rave and call everyone not in your AMA cult a "quack" and a "crank"...
It's nauseating.
Hey, Dave, how ever old you are now, count the years until 58, because that's the magic expiration number for your average male physicians. Good luck, buddy.
I dare you to post that last comment.
What are you hearing this speculation? I don't know.. Possibly because the US Government has given out $3.5 billion in settlements for vaccine injuries and deaths by vaccinations since 1986 AND Prince has a history of seizures that could indicate he would be very susceptible to an adverse reaction by a flu shot? I mean really man. Come on.
And FYI, doctors give flu shots to people with the flu all the time. They're brainwashed, overzealous morons that thing that people can't possibly exist modern medicine.
Seriously.. get a life man and develop some critical thinking skills while you're at it.
What a coincidence! So did I! Or didn't you know that I have a PhD in addition to my MD? :-)
BTW, what is your PhD in?
Be careful what you ask for...
BTW, what is your PhD in?
Nelson only says his research doctorate is "like a Ph.D". That leaves a lot of options.
@Nelson
Do you happen to have a citation for 58 being the average age of death among male physicians? I mean, you wouldn't just pull a number out of your nether regions, would you? If only there were some studies looking at mortality in physicians.
Colloidal silver is also good against colloidal lycanthropes.
@Nelson - besides not liking being called a quack, did you have something specific you disagreed with Orac on?
So many people comment here, inadvertently demonstrating their poor research skills and unwillingness to do any due diligence before writing. A few days ago it was Toni B failing the "Who is Orac?" test, and now Nelson stumbles in displaying their ignorance and failing to do the most basic fact checking.
Clearly Nelson has not been reading this blog for very long if they think people disagreeing with Orac end up banned, or their comments withheld. People really have to work for that.
He owned a house in this neck of the woods and though my better half did not know him, he knows people who did, and he was reputed to be soft-spoken, not fond of curse words, quite religious, and not a partier by any stretch.
Probably the most underrated American guitarist of his generation and in my top 3 of live musical performers. However he died, it was too soon, and I am sad that he seemingly passed all alone.
No backing track and in the pouring rain. Eat it, everyone else. http://deadspin.com/lets-watch-princes-super-bowl-halftime-show-the-bes…
He did have two degenerating hips in need of replacement for which he had refused surgery, apparently because JW’s can’t receive blood transplants. So there’s speculation he was on heavy pain meds in order to keep performing.
There are ways around this for elective surgery - you do an "autotransfusion". You take units of the patient's blood, process them and store them, then thaw them out for the surgery. And there are now scavengers to collect and return blood during surgery.
But he might not have been to the point of accepting the need yet. or was misinformed about the ways to avoid the typical transfusions.
Not all JWs accept autotransfusion as religiously acceptable. In fact, many of them don't. There is a school of thought in JW that once the blood is out of the body, that's it.
From a university that readers are likely to have heard of, or from a diploma mill?
Also a relevant question. I have a Ph.D. myself, but I don't claim to be an expert in biomedical subjects because said degree is in physics. I know it's even possible to get a Ph.D. in fields that have nothing to do with science--most professors in liberal arts departments would fit that description. Assuming arguendo that you got your Ph.D. equivalent at a real university, that only means that at the time you finished your thesis you were the world's leading expert in some particular subject of some particular sub-sub-sub-field. It doesn't mean you know anything about anything else--indeed, many a Ph.D. holder has become notorious for holding kooky views in subjects outside of the field in which they earned the Ph.D. (Linus Pauling and Brian Josephson being just two examples that immediately come to mind).
The Dunning-Kruger is strong in this one.
Well, except for me, of course.
But I'll go emeritus before too long, and then, watch out world!
If earning an MD isn't innoculation against quackery, neither is earning a PhD is any field from any school. Nelson's academic achievements are irrelevant to his bonkers anti-doctor screed, which is filled with assertions that, had they any validity, could be supported by research in history/law/sociology/economics...
I really shouldn't dignify that comment by reply, but the notion that no MD's refuse to accept 'generous commissions' from pharmaceutical companies is so pathetic as argument I guess I'll feed the troll this once. The burden of proof for the claim is massive, but the real problems are that it's so misleading. The larger premise is that all MDs belong to some Borgian think-alike cult. Thus, the implication is that most MDs are on the take from the generous largess of Pharma. But the literal claim is limited: 'those MDs offered generous commissions accept them.' Now this could be true, and absolutely trivial, since only a handful of MD could be offered "generous commissions", these offers could only be extended to MDs the pharmas knew would accept them, and of course, the commissions could be for valuable work that saves lives.
Sorry Eric, I don't see any D-K here, as there's no claim to knowledge, just infantile ranting.
@ Eric, @ sadmar - perhaps Nelson has too much investment in movie scientists.
https://upmic.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/real-vs-movie-scientist1.png
I suspect that this PhD like degree came from a school like the U. of Berkeley.. If you notice I didn't say UC-B. U of Berkeley was in some corn field in Iowa (I believe it is no longer selling degrees). I won't go in to how I know of this supposed school but didn't directly involve me..
Nelson's rant reads like a textbook example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Nelson said: "But I’m sure, down deep, you’re the one MD in America that refuses to accept all those generous commissions from Big Pharma, right?"
Yet again a troll valiantly sallies forth, armed with a plastic spork, neglecting to dig deep enough to find out that ALL payments from pharmaceutical companies to doctors are on a public database.
Arguing with these guys is like stepping on a centipede with legs on only one side, which spends its life walking in circles. Who do we call to get trolls with a triple-digit IQ?
I dropped out of grad school twice. Yet, with my measly BSAA I know how to produce verifiable scientific documentation after making a claim, and what is even more important: admit I made a mistake.
Hmmm ... Merl Haggard believes in chemtrails and dies. Prince believes in chemtrails and dies.
I severely doubt chemtrails exists in any form than high-bypass turbo-fan engines causing moisture to condense and leave visible trails. Chemtrails is pretty obviously hokum.
That said it seems clear to me that belief in chemtrails is deadly.
Well, technically, chemtrails do exist. They're the contrails and exhaust of the U-2 spy plane and formerly, the SR-71 spy plane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP-7
Nothing at all like what the conspiracy theorists think, but technically correct, as the exhaust plume would have otherwise been highly visible on radar and thermally.
Art, I don't know if you're being sarcastic, but I'd like to point out that Haggard was 79. I can't figure out why the government/illuminati/ reptilians would bother. (Seriously, just wait for a stiff breeze to knock him down.)
However, I'd point out that stress is known to be unhealthy for people, especially old people, and worrying about non-existent things does add to one's stress level.
Palindrom: PE probably kills more folks than commonly thought.
Considering that he was traveling a lot, and had a couple of medical emergencies in the last few days of his life, this makes a lot of sense. I wonder what the autopsy says.
DB@11
Erm... New Zealand isn't exactly zika prone. (I presume he performed in other areas south of the equator, but haven't checked up)
@Orac: Going off on a total and complete tangent, I'm curious as to what you mean by 'signing off on charts'? I mean, wouldn't this be done at the time you made each entry? I'm a GP in the UK and can't think of anything I'd do in a between-patients moment that would quite correspond to this. I know it's not relevant to your post, but am just curious as to how things work in other medical systems!
According to the first page of a Google search, there are 970,000 doctors in the US. How much does each of them need to overcome any moral qualms about mass murder? Would you need the same amount each for the 10,000,000 or so world wide? In the US the pharmaceutical market is around 350 billion but only 30% is profit. So a pot of 105 billion to spread around. So, I guess each doctor in the US gets approx 100K per year pharma shill money? Hmmm, but that leaves no money for research and advertising....we know that big pharma spends more on advertising than research. Let's say only half the profit is used. So 50K a year to all doctors in the US. A fair bit less than the average doctors salary isn't it? Wait a minute, it's not just doctors. What about hospital administrators? They need some loot. The people at the Pharmaceutical companies that process the bribes probably need a bung or two. The tax inspectors would need to be paid off wouldn't they? Pretty sure this sort of thing would show up in regular audits. So, what, 20K? Per year? To take part in mass murder? Get more than that as a hitman wouldn't you? Maybe that's what is really happening. Doctors don't get bribes. Hitmen do. Every doctor gets a letter saying that 20K has been put aside to pay a hitman to get rid of them if they don't stick to the party line. Maybe Orac could post his letter?
Snark!
@Numberwang #74
And let's not forget that "the pharmaceutical market" is subdivided in several companies, in competition with each other, but who mysteriously find a common ground to share funds to pay / corrupt all these people.
(In fact, competition and pressure is one of the major reasons why companies commit fraud in the first place !)
I'm not going to totally disagree with you because the autopsy comes back, but I see you're against anti-vaxxers well I just happen to be one that u so find humor in! I'm not a Dr MA RN LPN or CNA I'm jus a southern country girl that's done her research . I'll use the tetanus as an example a child gets a Dtap Vitamin K an Hep B ? Why I don't think they'll be having sex exchanging body fluids as in sex an the funniest one of all is the tetanus why does such a small child need one ESPECIALLY if they can't walk ?!?! U can step on rusty nails all day long as long if it has livestock manure or fecal matter that penetrates the skin. So Tetanus is not needed unless u work or visit a farm an some how it penetrates a small child's skin. Few weeks ago I was tearing down a horse stall had boots on but soles was wore out went clean thru my skin between my metatarsal I had to use my other foot to step on board an yank my foot off nail that had been laying in horse crap for years an years I haven't had a tetanus shot since I was a kid I'm 44 soaked it in Epsom salts an that's it. People like u give false information to your patients my kids Pediatric Drs dropped them when I said u won't stick my kids again with no damn vaccine my son is 5 his last shots was around 12 months NEVER is he sick I feed them organic Non gmos Etc if anybody takes the time to read this ask ur child's Dr the ones who care so much to give you the insert of each vaccine an then ask them to sign a waiver that they know nothing will go wrong or be damaged if it's their first or third . They won't it use to upset me but I find it quite funny it don't take a PHD or Rocket science to read the poison they jab in our children. Stop listening and research yourself let's put a dent in. Big Pharmas wallet!! Agree or dissagree I'm not changing my mind no more that vaxxers are!!!
Hey, NumberWang, what about us nurses?
We spend a load of time doling out drugs and monitoring folk for effects, both good and less good. Don't we qualify for some of that Big Pharma Shill moolah?
And then there's the pharmacists...
Expensive business paying us all off so that the millions of us involved never, ever, ever spill any beans about The Conspiracy.
Or do I not count 'cos I'm in the UK?
Hey, Nelson: if we are trading claims about qualifications and experience, well I have a degree in environmental sciences (before I came into nursing) and spend much of my spare time bird watching.
All that has taught me that if something looks like a duck, swims like a duck, spends its time with other ducks, then it will most likely make that sound that ducks make, you know the one...
I suspect NumberWang is a Poe. But just in case: You do realize that one of the problems with running a conspiracy is the risk that someone will spill the beans, right? And that the more people involved in the conspiracy, the more likely someone will spill the beans, right? That's the fatal flaw in almost every conspiracy theory out there.
Orac has been known to direct his Respectful Insolence at what he calls quackademic medicine: infiltrations of woo into mainstream medical schools. If the pharmaceutical companies were really as all-powerful as NumberWang's conspiracy theory implies, any impulses that a medical school to include alt-med programs would be terminated with extreme prejudice. Which is demonstrably not true.
Although, to paraphrase the great Robert Park, it should be.
@Crystal (77)
There is a little thing called neonatal tetanus, sometimes known as the 7 day death.
The WHO estimates it killed about 787,000 babies a year not long ago. That is about 6 out of a 1000 child births.
A big reason we don'T have a similar rate in the US is because we give a lot of DTP shots, including to pregnant mothers to help protect their infants.
Vitamin K protects babies against uncontrolled bleeding to death before their systems get going properly.
http://www.who.int/immunization/diseases/MNTE_initiative/en/
So how about turning one of your run on sentences into a simple syllogism with supporting evidence?
@ Dr Sarah: in the US, most doctors dictate after a procedure into a recording via telephone which is transcribed and placed on the chart either while the person is still inpatient or afterwards. If it's after the patient is discharged, the doctor still needs to go sign that report after reviewing it for accuracy. Sitting in the Medical Records area or in an office, "signing off" charts, is a regular activity.
It's also used when reviewing labwork/pathology/other tests done upon request by other specialty results, since those usually are received after the patient has left the office. The MD is required to review them and sign off on them.
@Eric Lund: look at NumberWang's post again...you missed the "snark" at the end. He's posted before. Just a very wry sense of humor.
I certainly hope Crystal doesn't get tetanus from her foot injury that she soaked in Epsom salts. That's not an illness or death I would wish on anyone. Though, given she typed her screed with little punctuation, one could worry that it's already starting to affect her brain.
Crystal--
That's like saying "I ride a motorcycle without a helmet and I'm fine." This puncture wound, this time, didn't give you tetanus, but nobody has ever claimed that all puncture wounds kill. You're an adult, which means you get to risk your life rather than get a tetanus booster. That doesn't make it a good idea.
However, since you are avoiding the pertussis booster, stay away from infants and small children. Your life is your own to risk: a small child's is not.
Nelson of the "CAM realm" tells us that the average male physician dies at age 58. Actually, typical life expectancy is 73 years, higher than some other professionals and better than males in general:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11020591
Gotta love the crank belief to which Nelson and so many alties subscribe, which states that the A.M.A. rules the medical profession. In reality, A.M.A. membership has been declining for years, only about 15% of practicing physicians are A.M.A. members, and the organization has no real power to regulate the profession.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153537/
Whatever degree Nelson has that is "like a PhD", it obviously did not mandate elementary reading and statistical skills.
Do Jews vaccinate their kids?
Are vaccines kosher?
To rebut the "just a Southern girl" comment, on the contrary, we have a vibrant and strong medical community here involving highly educated medical, research, and health care professionals. There are certainly high levels of chronic disease concerns in the South. If diabetes was as painful as shingles, we'd have a much much lower rate of DM problems. Further,
our ability to combat infectious disease through vaccination is substantial, most states in the South have 98+ compliance rates. And it ain't because we're a bunch of stupid rural hicks following the herd of sheep. It seems we understand evidence-based better than a majority of the supposed "smart" communities open to infectious disease with dreadful 75-85 vaccination rates. So smart, yet dumb as a sack a mud.
Yes
Is Mephistopheles a rabbi?
NO
Do vaccines contain porcine matter?
YES
I like it when the stupid shows its face, if only because I believe there's a segment of rational fence-sitters who might read and think, "I don't want to sit with that."
Whenever I see mockery over giving children the Hepatitis jab, I know I'm dealing with a typically ignorant antivaxxer.
@Crystal McClinton #77:
Hepatitis B is not only spread through sexual contact. It can be spread through bodily fluids like blood. Biting and scratching can transmit it, and children frequently do both. In addition, Hep B virus can survive outside the body for a week. If you refuse the jab, you are putting your children at risk of a disease that can cause liver failure later in life, necessitating an expensive and unpleasant transplant to survive. That is, if there is a donor liver available.
According to http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipi…, only Influenza (FluMist) Quadrivalent and Zoster (Shingles – Zostavax) contain "hydrolyzed porcine gelatin".
M O'B -- Well, there's also the consideration that the vast majority of Jews I've known have been at least somewhat secular and pay no attention to kosher.
Kashrut only applies to food, you moron.
First Rabbi Mephistopheles and now Rabbi Narad :)
As Wendy O. Williams would say --
"A pig is a pig and that's that"
How about aborted human fetal tissue?
I guess Rabbi Mephistopheles and Rabbi Narad would say that's kosher too ...
http://shalomhealthlchaim.blogspot.com/2011/03/kosher-vaccines.html
Vaccines do not contain aborted foetal tissue, Captain Ignorant.
Rabbi bob seems to believe a great many silly things written on the Interwebs.
Oy gevult!
Rabbi Julian -- please read this piece for the ingredients of vaccine which include aborted human fetal tissue as well as pig...
http://shalomhealthlchaim.blogspot.com/2011/03/kosher-vaccines.html
One reason that pig-derived material in vaccines or medicines will not make them of limits to observant Jews is the principle of pikuach nefesh: the preservation of life _mandatorily_ takes precedent over all but a few commandments. (The commandments that cannot be broken are those relating to idolatry and, more or less, blasphemy.) Not a rabbi, of course, but this is Judaism 101. People have strange ideas about Jewish and Muslim attitudes toward pigs and pork; it's as if they think it's like vampires and garlic.
One has to love all of the lecturing going on. We have a "country girl" who redefines the origin of tetanus (it's not only in animal excrement, it's also a soil bacteria), people telling Jews about what Judaism requires and "like a Ph D" (whateverinhell that is).
Seriously, it's like dinner with a free show!
What we're actually seeing is a combination of Kruger-Dunning and an indictment of the failure of both our mental health care system and our educational system.
Please read this
http://shalomhealthlchaim.blogspot.com/2011/03/kosher-vaccines.html
"Orthodox Jewish parents, like responsible parents across the United States, overwhelmingly vaccinate their children against measles, mumps, rubella, polio and the other childhood diseases for which inoculations are now almost miraculously commonplace. As in many communities, a small minority of parents chooses not to do so. The ongoing measles outbreak demonstrates how this could bear very serious consequences, not only for their own children but others’ too, especially those medically unable to be vaccinated. The Orthodox Union (OU) and the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA) strongly urge all parents to vaccinate their healthy children on the timetable recommended by their pediatrician."
https://www.ou.org/news/statement-vaccinations-ou-rabbinical-council-am…
O/T -- But when are the doings of snake-oil salesmen like Mecola ever O/T at RI?
http://wonkette.com/600910/snake-oil-bulletin-no-quacks-for-old-men
DB -- Yeah, but what does this so-called "Orthodox Union (OU) and the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA)" know about Judaism? They're obviously just pharma shills.
/sarc
I gotta say also, that bob's 'not kosher' argument is especially hilarious given how many tremendous advances in medicine have come from Jewish (religious or simply ethnic) researchers. Salk himself came from Jewish roots, according to Wiki.
I'm not patting myself on the back here, seeing as how I'm a total goy.
Are vaccines food? What part of the word "kosher" are you not understanding?
It's possible to argue that vaccination is a mitzvah aseh on multiple halachic grounds.
I went to grad school with a guy from the 'hood' who insisted you could buy a contract hit in Detroit for $500. That was 1979-ish, so even adjusting for inflation, if the Big Pharmaspiracy wanted to put people in hospitals, or morgues, they wouldn't be paying off MDs. They're too pricey. I'll leave it to Murmur to weigh in on how much it takes to buy a hit from a nurse.
I'm very concerned about the bob epidemic. So many many people on the Internet have symptoms of bob, and the number grows by the day. By 2032, 80% of the boys born will end up on the bob spectrum. Something must be causing this alarming trend. It must be the vaccines.
They’re obviously just pharma shills.
Are Alt-Med shills paid in Dunning-Krugerrands?
For anyone having trouble decoding the reference to Wendy O. Williams above. WOW was the vocalist for the shock-punk band the Plasmatics. She committed suicide in 1998.
Plasma—>suicide.
Perhaps backmasking on Plasmatics records is hiding screams of "INJECT PORCINE MATTER!", 'INJECT HUMAN FETAL TISSUE!"
And what about Queen records? We all know what happened to Freddy MERCURY. Wanna bet 'Bohemian Rhapsody' played backwards at the right speed says "SHOOT ME UP WITH THIMERISAL!"
The signs are right in front of you sheeple. Connect the dots!
It might help to double check your spelling.
MarkN #113: two hoom re uu spiiking?
From your reference, bob:
So I guess football is right out.
Also, there are several references to Dr Andrew Moulden and his arguments against vaccines. Moulden was a smart but tragic fellow who was seriously mentally ill and eventually committed suicide.
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Andrew_Moulden
http://vaccineconspiracytheorist.blogspot.ca/2011/01/quack-of-day-dr-an…
I guess bob and his superduper blogger never heard of filter sterilisation. And geez, you'd think someone would notice a pig in a vial.
Please read this
Narad, Julian and Mephistopheles being insufficiently rabbinical for bob, he refers us instead to the unquestionable authority of "Kim, wife to one and mother to five".
@ #53 Nellson
"I dare you to post that last comment."
And I triple dog dare you to get better informed.
Who, BTW, is neither a Jew nor, apparently, interested in the details:
"Kosher to us means that it follows YHWH's guidelines of what is okay to put in our bodies and what is not. We do not follow the Jewish guidelines for keeping kosher which involves the blessing of a Rabbi and all sorts of other stuff."
Crystal: I’m jus a southern country girl that’s done her research."
And quit school after sixth grade, apparently. I doubt you even have a high school diploma. News flash, hun, real research isn't "I looked up some bullshit online." I hope you don't have kids, ever, or that they go to a better home.
Not terribly relevant, but just read this about the contributions of 'the king' to vaccine promotion
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/24/elvis-presley-polio-vacc…
"Kosher to us means that it follows YHWH’s guidelines of what is okay to put in our bodies and what is not"
That is some impressive goysplaining right there. Someone woke up one morning and thought "This whole business of defining a group identity through the observance of arbitrary purity laws, the Jews are not doing it properly, fortunately we're here to show them how Judaism works." How can you do that?!
Herr doctor, it seems to be a relatively recent trend. Just a week ago or so, John Kasich was doing that with a Rabbi and group of Talmudic scholars during their religious studies and telling them all about Joseph or something. He muddled it horribly, in a way that any other group of men would've beaten him to a pulp over.
Embarrassing, really.
"the Jewish guidelines for keeping kosher which involves the blessing of a Rabbi and all sorts of other stuff.”
I'm guessing that by "other stuff" she means "Christian blood in the Matzoh".
@MI Dawn: Ah, thanks! That not only makes sense, it also answers another question I thought of - namely, how it works using electronic records in a hospital. In the UK, we use electronic records in general practice, but in hospital everything's written.
And, yes, we have to sign off on results all the time as well, plus incoming letters. But of course consultation notes are normally made and saved at the time of each patient - easier to do when they're coming to you instead of you doing ward rounds!
Here is some reading material for Chrystal and her punctured foot: Philosophic Objection to Vaccination as a Risk for Tetanus Among Children Younger Than 15 Years.
Oh, Crystal.... So many misconceptions, so little time. I'll try to hit a few that haven't already been hit:
* C. tetani actually has no particular affinity to rust. Nails do not have to be rusty to introduce the organism.
* C. tetani also has no affinity to livestock stool. You find stuff like E. coli in there; livestock stool is hardly clean, but is more associated with food poisoning than with tetanus.
* C. tetani furthermore has no particular affinity to agriculture. It can be encountered just about anywhere on Earth. You do not have to be walking barefoot outdoors to encounter it. It rarely produces its toxin, tetanospasmin, but when it does, the stuff is so incredibly toxic that undetectably tiny exposures are all it takes. (Tetanospasmin is the second deadliest toxin known, after botulin.) It is thus virtually impossible to eliminate the risk of exposure. The only effective prevention is vaccination.
* Epsom salts became fashionable for a time as having some special healing properties, but for this you can thank the same people who decided to market magnesium sulfate as Epsom Salts -- the people of Epsom, in Surrey. Magnesium sulfate is beneficial for certain things (it's used intravenously in treatment of pre-eclampsia, for instance), but the soaks are just about useless. It's no better than using table salt -- and table salt is cheaper.
Regarding Prince -- as soon as I heard the flu mentioned, I too knew the crazies were gonna come out. So far, here in the Twin Cities, the mourning has been a much bigger deal and nobody much is speculating about the cause. First Avenue held an all-night dance party, no cover charge. The 35W bridge, the Hennepin Avenue Bridge, the Como Conservatory and more were lit up purple. Target Field did a showing of "Purple Rain". The fence outside of Paisley Park is festooned with flowers and purple balloons, left by fans. Speculation about cause of death has been very subdued, overwhelmed just by sadness at his abrupt passing.
I know someone who knows someone who was one of the last people who saw him alive. But out of respect I am not going to ask any questions. None of my business, whatsoever.
So, Bob, how do you know whether Mephistopheles is a rabbi? He's certainly doing his best to teach people here.
I have no idea of whether Mephistopheles is ordained, or even whether he's Jewish, but a rabbi is not a priest*: the word means teacher, and a person doesn't have to be trained as a rabbi to lead services, perform weddings, etc. I have a friend who regularly leads services at her synagogue, including for the high holidays. The rest of the week, what she teaches is biology.
*Secular authorities may insist that only certain people may perform legally binding weddings. So you get things like a judge or justice of the peace doing what the state requires, while a relative or friend handles the ritual side.
“Christian blood in the Matzoh”
Some fans feel he jumped the shark with this album, but I believe it's one of the Captain's finest.
My Daughter Danielle was a nurse a RN, beautiful, young healthy
she got a flu shot and two weeks later she was dead, she was working in Florida.
her immune number was 0, she had nothing to fight with.
she had been to the ER twice and released her,
i don't know why she died, someone called me and told me, she worked on a Friday and went out to lunch, Monday she was dead.
This was December 1 2014---i have no closure.
Calli Arcale: "I know someone who knows someone who was one of the last people who saw him alive. But out of respect I am not going to ask any questions. None of my business, whatsoever."
Just as well. You know that it is both "hear-say" and an anecdote. Personally I am withholding judgement until there is more data available. Especially since reading about his recent health issues, and him not getting hip surgery (something my dad said he resisted at first, but was so glad he did!). If the hip issue is true, he must have been in serious pain, hence the pain meds.
We should pull baby boomer privilege and let no one under the age of fifty who has never ever broken a bone nor had any kind of age related disorder comment from now on.
But that is not going to happen. The reality is that an investigation will be done, and in a few months be released to the public. and then no one will care because they will be focused on someone else for no real reason other than the passing of time.
Well, the labs alone will take a fair amount of time to get back. CSI is excellent fiction, but cultures and some parts of a toxicology screen take a fair amount of time to be performed.
Hell, there's been a great deal of supposition of pain medication, where nothing has been absolutely reported as fact (HIPPAA and all). The only fact that is currently, absolutely known is that he's dead. Everything else is supposition, suggestion and innuendo.
@Linda L Remaley: That's so sad. I'm sorry the autopsy which should have been done didn't find any results that have brought you closure. But, remember, google is forever and you've posted on many sites that your daughter died of the FLU - NOT from the vaccine (which would not and could not have given her the flu).
Please note that on this site we question all such postings and use google to view changes in story.
@ sadmar #114
Reminds me of a dialogue I read in a webcomic:
Faithful sidekick - "Sir! Watch your grammar!"
Dark Lord in barbarian disguise - "What's wrong with my grammar?"
Faithful sidekick - "Nothing! That's the point!"
@ Science Mom #117
Aah, now that you mention it, I reckon that's the bit sticking out. I knew I had troubles putting the cap back on the vial.
Also, I am reminded of Dibbler's sausages. "Real pig products".
@Linda L Remaley #132, I'm sorry for your loss. However, you seem to be implying that the flu shot was what caused your daughter's death. What is your evidence for that?
@Julian Frost: She doesn't have any. If you google, you'll find her 45 year old daughter died from Influenza A and had medical problems. It wasn't caused by the flu shot (and, if Linda's comments are correct and one trusts contemporary media articles), the fact that her daughter got the flu shot 2 weeks before her death, was seen in the ER a few days after that with the flu, given Tamiflu, seen again in the ER, but died, means that she had some bad complications from the flu.
Delphine: I'm missing the Beefheart reference...
As squid eating Matzoh in a polyethelene bag is fast and bobous?
sadmar -- can't say I know much Beefheart, but the line
is a personal favorite.
More anti-vax fol de rol:
AoA, @ KIm Stagliano, @ Jeffery Jaxxen** inform us that
Sharyl Attkisson ( !!!!) interviewed Del Bigtree at the Manhattan Film Festival.
Oh boy, they're coalescing into _A Gathering_ of Loons.
Where's Celia?
** new one - cropped up when VAXXED appeared.
Oh noes, the Whistleblower has been "handled."
Heard on National Public Radio, in a program that was a tribute to Prince: his contract with people who worked with him specified that they were forbidden to make eye contact.
That plus his workaholic obsessive perfectionism and other brilliant eccentricities, indicate that he was on the spectrum, probably Asperger's.
The reason I mention this, is that it could do some good for folks who are on the spectrum, if it was acknowledged that one of the most talented people in modern music was himself on the spectrum.
---
I am getting downright sick of all the anti-narcotics stuff directed at people who are on pain meds. Who cares if someone is "dependent" on narcotics so they aren't in screaming pain? Heart patients are "dependent" on heart meds, etc. etc.
It's straight-up puritanism, the moral righteousness of suffering and/or suffering as God's punishment, etc. IMHO puritanism is a disease in serious need of a cure.
Not giving people all the narcotics they might need to be free of chronic pain, is a form of torture. Torture is evil.
If Prince had a narcotics dependency, that's better than being in constant agony.
---
As for the anti-vaxers and woo-meisters seeking to earn clicks by spreading garbage every time someone famous dies of unknown causes, they are so far beneath contempt that they make payday lenders look like angels. Grrr.
Pardon my incoherent rant mode here, I'm sleep deprived today.
@Dr Sarah. Depends on the NHS hospital. My main hospital has already fully transitioned to all electronic records and my two other hospitals are about half way through the process.
Really? OK, shows you how far out of date I am. :) So how does it work? Sorry, I should check - are you writing from the point of view of being a medical worker or a patient?
Dr. Sarah, he did day two of his hospitals were in transition. Perhaps yours will follow suit soon.
Typo alert: "he did say two of his hospitals were in transition."
Missing word alert: “he did say day two of his hospitals were in transition.”
Confused by the rhyme. Oh, just go with the flow.
Um, not really, but I thought it was amusing.
Opiates are great for acute pain but they kinda suck for chronic pain due to tolerance and withdrawal.
Oh and not breathing enough. Another downside to opiates.
titmouse: "Another downside to opiates."
Don't forget the constipation associated with opiates. My mother-in-law did not enjoy the "flushing out" she had to endure when she became seriously medically backed up after back surgery.
Oh, if it weren't for privacy concerns, I could tell you a story about someone who decided to deal with opiate withdrawal by means of the noted tranquilizer LSD.
@Dr. Sarah. As a patient. The main hospital, which is not local but one of the national centres of excellence for my particular treatment need, fully transitioned to electronic record keeping and taking in the last 6 months or so. Each individual room has a terminal and all your readings taken by the nurse or anything that needs adding to your file is done there and then at the terminal. They also carry tablets with a built in barcode scanner that reads your wrist band and can call up your record any time you are not in your room or in another department so they know they are dealing with the correct patient.
The other two, one of which fed me to my now main hospital but still looks after my local needs, and the other for a different condition are well along in the process and have both electronic and paper records with the paper records being phased out each time I visit. I imagine when I next visit in a couple of months they will have likely finished the process.
In fact, in my area, about the only thing you can't do electronically/online now, is for my surgery to electronically send a repeat prescription for a controlled drug to my chemist but non controlled drugs are no problem. Though if I call in or ring and tell the chemist that I need a repeat prescription they will let the surgery know and the non controlled drugs part will be forwarded electronically and controlled drugs part they will pick up in person and text me when it is ready.
No, opiates aren't great for chronic pain, because of side effects, as you've mentioned.
The problem is, what do you use instead? I assume that as a decent person, your answer isn't "just tell people to grit their teeth, even though they're in too much pain to think clearly." Acetominophen overdoses can also be fatal. NSAIDs in quantity can be bad for the stomach and kidneys.
The other thing is that the focus on withdrawal as a problem with opiates for chronic pain assumes that the patient's goal should be to avoid medication, rather than to alleviate pain and improve general quality of life.
@Narad; "Oh, if it weren’t for privacy concerns, I could tell you a story about someone who decided to deal with opiate withdrawal by means of the noted tranquilizer LSD."
That sounds like either the beginning of a fascinating case study or one hell of a bar story.
Omitted here are the chronic pain patients who experience tolerance, but not physiological addiction and hence, only pain when their opiates are withheld. ECG patterns turn into modern art, BP does interesting things as well, that's about it and when the pain is treated, BP and ECG patterns return to normal.
Here's a concept: If you want a chronic pain patient off of opiates, treat the cause of the pain.
@Wzrd1, I fall into the group you mention, though fortunately, my tolerance builds up very very slowly. E.G. it took twenty years before I needed to step up to a stronger opiate about 4 years ago and am now on two different ones. One, a patch, to deal with a base level of chronic pain and one a top up tablet as the pain level increases above the base level. Thankfully, my GPs are of the opinion that living a relatively normal life either free of chronic pain or at a low enough level not to affect the individual too much is more important than worrying about addiction too much for someone in my position, Not that they dismiss it, simply treating it as something to be considered along with everything else that is important to the individual.
As for addiction, physical or mental, on a couple of occasions I have forgotten to take my pain meds with me when away for a few days and the worst 'withdrawal' symptom I have suffered is a slight loosening of the bowels for a day or two and which quickly settles by the second or third day, but nothing else. Admittedly, I know I am extremely fortunate in both in my atypical reaction to opiates and in my doctors.
@John Phillips, you're a step beyond my wife's condition. She's up to 7.5 mg hydrocodone for her chronic pain, with plenty of times of breakthrough pain.
To the point where she's started talking to me about talking to doctor about a fentanyl patch, to which I agree.
She's *finally* gotten her MRI, the damned insurance company being a royal PIA in approving it and now, all medical professionals are falling all over themselves to see to it that she receives appropriate treatment. As she's been ignored for years, yeah, for professionals now, ignoring her further is a major liability issue. Something about being very near paralysis and all, which I've been warning one and all of, based upon easily verified observations, signs and symptoms.
But, in this country, wimmen don't count - until they're in such a condition that a lawyer would be able to gift wrap an entire medical system for the malpracticed upon woman patient.
@Wzrd1, the patches made a real difference when I started using them four years ago, especially at night, though they don't work for everybody, and with tablets as top up when needed I also have much less pain throughout the day than I used to. Though I had to increase the patch size about two years ago and will shortly be increasing the size yet again. But that is due to the accelerating deterioration of my condition leading to an increase in base level chronic pain rather than a build up of tolerance to either of my opiates.
Yeah, she's had ignored and untreated cauda equina syndrome, with the disc now pressing onto the spinal canal to the point of severe dysfunction.
Now that we've bulled the MRI through, it's suddenly of importance, where previously she was treated as if she had "female hysteria", despite her symptoms remaining unchanging.
Meanwhile, they're busily ignoring the hell out of her aortic flutter, as to what the root cause of that is.
We'll suffice it to say, I'm getting seriously irritated with our medical profession ignoring my wife's health issues. Maybe I should reconnect with my inner Sicilian and start making these fine folks an offer that they canna refuse...
Treatment of pain should always be between the patient and their doctor. As with abortion, between the woman and her doctor. Last I checked, the vast majority of elected officials were not MDs in current practice. Politicians need to butt out and let the doctors do their jobs.
I've been fortunate in that a) I haven't had many major pain events and b) I'm ferociously sensitive to drugs that affect the brain, so c) my encounters with narcotics have been brief and successful with no trouble other than minor constipation.
And it's also clear that we need to devote much more money to research on pain, its causes, and more effective treatments. The idea that people should suffer without relief is anathema to any civilized society. All the more so when their suffering is an indirect but effective objective of shortsighted policy.
Treatment for pain has to be evidence based, lest we reintroduce full scale quackery into what has become largely evidence based medicine.
It was only a century ago that quackery was in full swing, with radium water and thorium water being considered excellent restorative beverages and snake oil a very real "treatment". We curbed that largely via the pure food and drug act, reinforcing that with various acts that founded the FDA and USDA, ensuring the safety and security of our food and medical supply.
Today, we still have quackery peddlers, under "complimentary medicine" and other umbrellas and "supplements", plus real medicine, plus our war on drugs.
Therein, in that last, lies the root of our current predicament, we've turned our war on drugs into a war on both illicit drugs and on chronic pain patients. I honestly wonder if it'll eventually turn into chronic pain patients returning fire, via suicide attacks against our governmental interference with effective pain management!
What we need is for sanity to return to our medical treatment of chronic pain patients, with politicians letting our medical establishment continue doing what it is effective at, without hampering or attacks by drug enforcement agencies, while the same establishment also patrolling its membership for those diverting our drug supply.
I can't take it anymore. I tried holding back, but I just can't help myself from pointing out how the above image of Prince reminds me of Garnet..!
The "National Enquirer", a rag I refuse to justify with the tag "newspaper", is claiming that Prince had AIDS.
And I thought antivaxxers were ghouls. >:(
@Julian Frost:
From the always credible "Anonymous Source" no less!
This blog is a psyop, and I can prove it's very unscientific if given the opportunity. According to the blogmaster 'doctor' - vaccines are good medicine, and chemtrails are just "woo". I challenge him to a public debate about those two issues, but I know this comment will just be deleted. I think most of the comments are fake comments made by the blogmaster themselves, except for the inane uneducated ones, which are the only type of person who would believe the snake oil drivel peddled here. I have plenty of proof geoengineering is real, and that the substance being used is primarily coal fly ash, as proven by Dr. Herndon. I have statistical proof that every epidemic was caused by the same vaccines supposedly used to stop them, including the so-called "Spanish flu". Allopathic fascism causes more suffering and death than all the wars put together, therefore this blogmaster 'doctor 's working for the evil entity, knowingly or unknowingly. What say you 'doctor' blogmaster: care to debate me here on your blog? I feel sorry for you because of your ignorance and greed in pushing the matrix version of reality, which is an inversion Truth. I sincerely hope you awaken to your pitiable plight, before it's too late. My sister went to Harvard Medical School, and ran an entire OB/GYN wing in a major hospital - she is well respected by her peers. BUT she doesn't know anything about REAL medicine! Nothing!! I've watched how she raised her family, which led to health problems for them all, including the dog (he has a vaccine caused disease). REAL medicine is holistic medicine, NOT the allopathic fascism you practice. Hippocrates was the father of HOLISTIC medicine, and all the allopathic fascists who take the "Hippocratic Oath" are hypocrites and liars, deceived by their own greed. Here in Oregon Naturopaths can prescribe allopathic drugs and vaccines too, but they rarely if ever do, because vaccines and drugs don't work at best, and at worst are toxics that can wreck havoc on their patients immune systems and lives. The only allopathic drugs that work are derived from plants or fungus, and its always better to use the whole plant or fungus instead. For example: turkey tail mushroom mycelium is used to make anti-cancer drugs, but I use the whole mycelium and fruit (the mushroom is the fruit). Marinol is synthetic THC, but it doesn't work nearly as well as whole medicinal cannabis: did you know cannabis has been PROVEN to kill cancer? I'll furnish the proof if you care to debate me, or you can do a simple search to learn the truth about medicinal cannabis curing cancer. White willow bark tea works better than taking aspirin, which was derived from it, plus its more gentle. Tincture of opium, an easy to grow plant, works much better than extracted opioids like morphine and codeine. "Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food", as Hippocrates said. That is REAL medicine - drugs and vaccines = poison.
Namaste!
See:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/08/18/medical-marijuana-and-the-…
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/03/25/medical-marijuana-and-the-…
My sister went to Harvard Medical School, and ran an entire OB/GYN wing in a major hospital – she is well respected by her peers. BUT she doesn’t know anything about REAL medicine! Nothing!!
I am not sure that a comment thread is the ideal place for Pharmerdavid to work through his family issues.
Pharmerdavid needs to go elsewhere to find his missing paragraph breaks, and any coherent train of thought.
Paragraph Breaks, mate. They make your comment more readable.
Paragraph breaks wouldn't make it comprehensible though.
Dud goes the gamut, from vaccines actually causing disease to chemtrails and some blather about his sister being a physician and knowing nothing about medicine. Mix in some driven that raw opium is superior to morphine for something, I'm honestly wondering if this was a poe or not.
because we all know that the best way to settle questions of fact is public debate.
Score: Pharmerdavid (PhD!) 0, Orac 1.
I am not Orac, but I am still Spartacus and Bonnie Offit.
OK, that stings a little.
Can you prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt with geometric logic?
What does she think about your knowledge of REAL medicine*? Who should we believe - someone who has been trained at a major university, run a department, and earned the respect of her peers? Or her brother with no particular qualifications that he cares to share?
* Would that be like medicine for real estate?
On the subject of chemtrails :
http://contrailscience.com
https://www.metabunk.org
Begin by looking if one of your questions is not answered here.
Something real and accurate about chemtrails.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JP-7
All because the government didn't want a giant lit up pointer up the exhaust of their spy planes.
Every epidemic? I would like to see your statistical proof that vaccines were the cause of the epidemic that killed so many people in Periclean Athens, for starters. I could use a good laugh.
Why do cranks always need to debate when they are given a free platform to barf out their cherished conspiracies?
I take it that this is the same "pharmerdavid" who hangs out at Zen Gardner:
Hi, Mr. Currie.
So "psyop" is a term of art here, roughly synonymous with "source of information"?
Well, in the real world, psyops is short for psychological operations, which bear no resemblance to what the OP was referring to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_Operations_(United_States)
Typically, the paranoid conspiracy theorists out there refer to psyops that are more akin to magic than any kind of real world operation that is even possible.
Somehow, I'm reminded of how mental illness can be a real tragedy.
Indeed. If it hadn't been for years of mental illness, sometimes severe (often severe), I might not be looking at leaving grad school, moving back in with my mom, and getting some sort of a crappy job in the area to get by.
Kind of feeling like a failure and like this is the end of my life at the moment.
We're all pullin' for ya, JP.
I was referring, of course, to another poster a bit farther upthread, who seems to have caught a serious case of some kind of disordered ideation.
All the best -- please do take care of yourself, and let yourself be cared for. You obviously have a great deal to offer the world. A failure is a setback -- it isn't who you are.
All the best — please do take care of yourself, and let yourself be cared for. You obviously have a great deal to offer the world.
What Palindrom said.
What annoys me about loons like Pharmerdavid upstream (who does not appear to be crazy but rather to have chosen a delusive belief system) is that they give the rest of us a bad name.
JP, please hang in there.
Perhaps there will something special that can use your skills. Plus Apple Health is actually working, at least my son and his autism needs.
When someone can tie your real name to a nick-name chosen for an online 'handle', that is telling about who they really work for - how would a mere 'doctor' find that information? Do you have copies of my emails too 'orac'? "Contrailscience" should be called "chemtrailscience" (or CONtrailscience) since most of the pictures there are not condensation trails - see "geoengineeringwatch.org" for proof about geoengineering-warfare (part oreduction plan). Do a search on "cannabis cures cancer" to find PROOF it does exactly that. Dennis Miller's website will be at the top - he is a biochemist who cured his own prostate cancer using medicinal cannabis. There are many other websites that have all the proof needed to prove cannabis cures cancer, along with being a useful medicine for many other diseases. My dog recently had a mammary-gland lymphoma, which I cured by rubbing medicinal cannabis extract into it. When I stopped using the cannabis extract too early, the tumor began growing back, so I resumed rubbing in the medicinal cannabis extract again, which yet again shrunk the tumor. I'll continue using it this time, because it DOES cure mammary gland lymphomas ("breast" cancer in humans) and other cancers. My dog wags here tail when she realizes its medication time again, because the effect is pleasing to her, gives her an appetite, eases her pains from old age, and allows her to sleep peacefully through the night (just like it does for me). Canines have more CB1 and CB2 receptors than humans though, and they are hyper-sensitive to too much THC, so use CBD dominant strains for doggies, which moderates the psychoactive effect of THC. The UK doc below who asked a logical question, but got no answer...? Maybe our 'doctor' is actually a "spook" and has outed himself?
(snip)
Dr Sarah
http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/geekyhumanist
April 23, 2016
@Orac: Going off on a total and complete tangent, I’m curious as to what you mean by ‘signing off on charts’? I mean, wouldn’t this be done at the time you made each entry? I’m a GP in the UK and can’t think of anything I’d do in a between-patients moment that would quite correspond to this. I know it’s not relevant to your post, but am just curious as to how things work in other medical systems!
(end)
Dr, Sarah: Your question is valid and a simple point, but you got no answer, which is an answer in itself. Please don't take offense of my distaste for MOST (not all) doctors. My life was saved by a REAL doctor the day after my birth, when an esophageal operation was needed to open my solid esophagus - the most common birth defect. At the time (1955) my chance of survival was <10%, but I was one of the first babies to survive that operation. Dr. Gands, who performed the operation on me, later got a plaque on the wall of Cedars of Lebanon hospital for pioneering this pediatric operation often needed to save babies with the most common birth defect. So I have a good reason for having the highest respect for REAL doctors, but I have the highest CONTEMPT for FAKES like 'orac' (= "oracle" - NOT!). I have contempt for most MD/PhD people, because they are mostly brainwashed and indoctrinated fools who peddle death and nonsense, but think it MUST be true because a professor told them it was. Universities and colleges are finishing schools for matrix indoctrination, and 'educated' people are the most difficult to awaken (by "awaken" I mean seeing reality the way it really is, rather than the fake matrix world pulled over our minds since birth). There is ample (for anyone with common sense) evidence that vaccines and chemtrails are part of the globnalist banksters (House of Rothschild and associates) depopulation plan, that rather than wasting time posting links here, I suggest interested people do a simple search on "chemtrails coal fly ash" and "vaccine dangers", but be prepared to spend days-weeks-months reading...! Yes I know my writing isn't perfect, and I don't waste time worrying about grammar, spelling and paragraph breaks, but comments are for communicating, and when people criticize you for that stuff or use ad hominem attacks it's because they can't debate the facts. Every epidemic in modern times (didn't mean to go back to ancient Greece) since vaccines were 'invented' have been caused by the very vaccines which supposedly eradicated those epidemics: smallpox and polio for example, but also many other diseases of post-industrial-revolution times. Cancer was very rare until the industrial revolution caused massive amounts of toxins to pollute our biosphere, but cancer is totally preventable and curable. Don't tell that to the 200 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR cancer industry though, because they are still searching for a cure, wasting well-meaning people's money - never donate to frauds like them. CHEERS!!
Oh, I don't know, we'll see. I kind of doubt it. At some point I'll need to find a job, any job; for now it might mean getting on where my mom works, which would be monotonous and physical work, but at least it would be a paycheck, and I could save up for a move to Portland or something. And I would have a ride to work.
I don't feel like I could hold down any type of a job right now, but maybe by August (when I would be started, presuming I got hired) I could at least do that job.
In my darker moments I have thoughts that I'll have to go on disability or something, but SSI isn't much money, and I'd probably have to be living with my mom long term, so let's hope it doesn't come to that.
I hope things will work out one way or another. One thing's for sure, I just can't cope in academia any more.
Hello, JP!
Listen, is there a way that you can make a non-irrevocable decision about the doctorate? Take a leave, time off?
I think that your university and profs/ committee know that you are in a difficult period... don't just sign off. Wait. I'm not sure how far along you are with your dissertation and your area has differing requirements dependent upon institution and location. So I don't know.
Your condition is also as we know, cyclic: you may be at a particularly low point. Don't judge the rest of your life based upon how you feel now altho' I realise that your have been having difficulty since ( about) the holidays.
Also getting a degree is not the be-all and end-all of existence: there are many other avenues that can use your skills. You are expert with languages that most English speakers don't know- you can also teach. Interestingly, one of my cousins, TF, worked for a large international bank and had to go to Russia to help set up their operation- he got to meet (( shudder)) Putin because of it- companies like banks and retailers need translators and people who can write in diverse languages. You have a rather hot one ( a few, actually).I also know someone who translates Chinese/English business material who is not a legal .
Now if I were a Jungian, I might say that low points in life can be the start of transformation - like a seed in the soil in darkest winter or a state of suspension like that of a chrysalis, a bud not a flower. A turning inward to the riches within rather than seeking them out in the World. But oh sh!t! I'm not a Jungian at all and I know that people get run down and weakened through suffering and worry that last more than a few days.
So take time, talk to people- including those with whom you've studied/ have written and counsellors/ friends. Take your time. Understand that your choices aren't only Top of the Heap doctorate/ Bottom of the Barrel barista.
I hope you feel better soon.
JP; I didn't see what you just wrote but I still say the same.
I should add you that maybe you can't cope NOW.
JP: "Oh, I don’t know, we’ll see. I kind of doubt it."
There have been many immigrants from Eastern Europe over the last few decades.
My Russian is rusty and my Polish is rustier; I doubt I could use them in any professional capacity at this point.
I've thought of taking a medical leave, but I think it might be better to just cut the cord. I was flailing for a long time even before I got so ill, although the depression (and an absentee advisor) certainly contributed to it.
In fact, I almost got kicked out this semester, and barely managed to make it through. Better to leave than to get kicked out, I think, and I could potentially leave with at least a Master's degree, so I have something to show for all the years in school. (It might look odd on a resume otherwise.)
I do have editing skills, and I have some references in terms of potentially finding decent employment one day; I worked on my advisor's manuscript this past summer, for example.
So we'll see. Hopefully one of these days I'll find at least a decent job. Right now my prospects don't look so good, though. Especially if I'm living out here in the middle of nowhere with my mom for the time being. It's really great to be surrounded by family - basically my whole family is out here - but there's not a lot on offer in terms of employment, so while I'm here, I'd have to take whatever I can get, I suppose.
^The manic episode actually started in the fall and lasted until the spring. It was long and severe.
The depression has been a constant in my life, and grad school hasn't been doing much for my mental health. The department has been terribly supportive, as much as they could be, but I imagine their patience is going to run out soon. My mom and I have plans to go back to Michigan in early June and move me out, settle things with the department, etc. I wouldn't feel right taking all the summer funding if I can't fulfill the obligations it entails; right now I'm just hoping they won't ask for the first half of the stipend back. My friends assure me that this is just worrying, and they wouldn't be that petty. I might really need to money to get through the summer, the transition, etc. Hoping the landlord can just terminate the lase; my mom is going to talk to him and explain the situation while we're heading out there.
Feeling like I might need to really ratchet down my expectations for myself and my life and the moment.
My sister-in-law encouraged me to try to look at any positive parts of the situation; living with my mom, I could save money, at least, and if I can get some sort of a job, like I said, I could save up for a move at some point.
My mom should be able to get me on where she works. It's decent money, especially since I wouldn't have a lot of expenses, and she could show me the ropes. Again, it's sort of depressing to think about it all, so I'm trying to focus on the short term and what I can do about my situation, and leaving grad school sooner rather than later seems to be the right decision.
My mom assures me that it will all work out one way or another, and I'll have some sort of a decent life eventually. But she's my mom.
Apple Health is pretty good, from what I can see. We would need to get me on it pretty soon, if I leave grad school, since I wouldn't have any health insurance. I would have help and support out here to take care of my needs, at least.
Sigh. It's all kind of a mess.
@HDB: pharmerdavid is probably closer to 'crazy' than "chosen a delusive belief system". His comments in the Zen Gardener threads reveal he did a fair amount of Acid in the 70s.
Narad Googled 'pharmerdavid' and discovered he'd revealed his real name on Zen Gardener. PD reads that, and thinks Orac is some kind of super-spy who is into his emails. I guess that follows from his belief Orac writes al the comments here.
If you check pharmerdavid's web comments with Narad's 2nd link, you'll find links to the sources for PD's 'scientific proofs': a hodgepodge of crackpot websites.
The NASA take Narad quoted is one of PD's less entertaining remarks. Some highlights follow. The best is the last, about the death of Prince. I'd guess PD's interest in this topic led him here.
last indent above was supposed to end the blockquote. missed the /.
"I guess that follows from his belief Orac writes al the comments here."
So delusional he gets it completely backward. It is in fact all the commenters who write the articles. Orac is merely an invention of the commentariat. I am lizard, hear me hiss.
@ sadmar:
He has so much wrong:
- first of all, sacrifices only take place on equinoxes
- Elizabeth is much older than 90
- no one worships Baal any more
It was on the first page of G—le results at the time, bonehead (it's now on the second). Did it not occur to you to look at the link?
his belief Orac writes all the comments here
Note how cleverly Orac varies his style to mask his identity... from terse wording when writing as "Narad", elliptical to the point of cryptic, all the way to the style of the main posts, which have never been accused of being excessively succinct.
Apparently, PD doesn't realize that there is such a thing as Google and web caching.
I am especially amused about the mind reading machine bit. They haven't had one of those in decades, after they tried it out on me and it burned out reading infinite blankness of the thoughts of a long married man. ;)
But no, it's all part of the vast conspiracy of whateverinhell is rattling about in PD's head.
Oh, for the record, I'm not Orac in disguise. I'm really ironman.
Or was that leadbottom... I always lose track which metal and whatnot.
– Elizabeth is much older than 90
How old is David Attenborough really?
I humbly ask anyone who would offer encouraging words to JP to read this page from 'Hyperbole And A Half': http://tinyurl.com/d4aqw73 A lot of the meaning is in the drawings, but I'll pull one sample quote as a preview.
Jamie: No matter how many super-dead-beyond-resurrection fish are in your barrel, and no matter how long they stink up the kitchen, I still like you a lot, and I don't think I'm alone in that. I hope you find some corn under the fridge, but till then the uncontrollable crying thing might be better than the 'nothing'. YMMV.
<3 always,
s.
My true identity not only writes 'Orac''s clear but verbose OPs, and 'Narad''s terse and cryptilliptical comments, but 'sadmar's verbose and theatrically hyperbolic remarks. And 'herr doktor bimler's' witty one-liners. Obviously, only a psyop could explain this faked diversity, but no one spy for the evil entity could create it. The Big Lie is that a real medical doctor invented a fictional blinking box of light as a web persona. The Truth is that a real blinking box of lights wired to the center of the Web at DARPA created a fictional medical doctor as cover for this fake 'science blog'. Unfortunately, some waggish programmer seems to have put some backdoor code into my algorithm that pharmerdave has tripped (unknowingly? or tipped from the astral plane?) making me spill the beans.
The sadmar branch of the algorithm – in reply to the Narad branch's use of "bonehead" – would suggest giving the guy a break because his dog is dying. He writes about her a lot in his comments, obviously loves her very much – maybe she's all he has he can really rely on? – and I'm sure that hard. But since 'we' are just algorithms, I doubt the Narad branch will ease up.
@pharmerdavid
Sorry about Jessie's lymphoma. It's nice the hemp is easing her pain, helping her appetite and get some sleep. You can skip the $100 orgonite pendants, though. They're fake. We have all the real Orgone generators hidden way inside the mountain in Colorado, along with Wilhelm Reich's brain in a vat, as it's mental vibrations are absolutely necessary in making the things work.
@sadmar, so *that's* what makes the internet backbone work! ;)
Sadmar,
I understand what you wrote. Back in 2009, I met a bipolar woman for which, when she was utterly depressive, I used to worry but no more. She needed time alone with herself. When she was better, I spent over 3 weeks a month at her place, discussing, or not even; just stroking her hairs while she was laying on my thighs; or the hair of her teenage daughter, same position, while listening & enjoying the whole series of harry potter.
Matter of fact, we all communicated much more so when we kept silent. In my case, I was their servant, no more, no less but I do understand the emptiness.
Al
To expand on the point of being servant, it served me with a sense of purpose and all that time I spent with them, I was 100% their servant and that was a time where all the diagnostic label were thrown out the windows. They asked and I provided.
Today, the mother is having a change of diagnostic but for the many years I spent with them, it served all of our purpose. Her, to reduce the need of medication (by 2/3rd, don't know how much I served that purpose). Her daughter, she's working on a bachelor degree of law after cegep (college equivalent before university) and me, to build my assertiveness and be a good cook ;)
Al
JP,
I'm a bit far but if you need your hair stroked, I'd be happy to be your servant too ;)
AL
@ Julian Frost - I saw one rag claiming AIDS right next to another claiming MURDER!!! Sigh.
@ JP as a fellow humanities PhD dropout, I feel your pain. I officially took a year off but never really entertained going back, I was so utterly burned out. As a fellow traveler in the depression journey, I know saying "it will get better!" Doesn't Really Help, but I will point out my two biggest regrets from that time (over 20 years ago):
1. I never did the paperwork to get the MA. It felt so overwhelming at the time, so I totally get why you might not want to pursue it, but down the road you'll be glad if you can scrape together the spoons to do it.
2. For several years, I completely avoided anything to do with music, because I felt so All Done With That Crap. Which meant I was denying myself the very stuff that feeds my soul. So I suggest not doing that.
I spent some time crashing with a friend, working as the assistant baker at a small cafe until I scraped up the wherewithal to get to Seattle, where I spent a good year or so temping then stumbled into a job at the phone company. It also wasn't really what I wanted to do with my life, but it kept a roof over my head and food on the table. My boss cried when I told her I was leaving; apparently you can make a difference in really unexpected ways. Good luck.
The sadmar branch of the algorithm would suggest giving the guy a break because his dog is dying.
The sadmar branch has ended up with this branch's share of humanity.
This is FUN here - I may hang awhile! The regular daily commenters here did what I predicted: rather than challenge my points about vaccines and geoengineering, they used ad hominem attacks and juvenile attempts at passive-aggessive snarkiness. That's okay though - I'm used to that by now, and nobody can hurt me emotionally online anymore, because I've gotten into it with Zionistas in the past, and nobody fights dirtier than Zionists (don't get me wrong - my mother is Jewish, but Israel is NOT). So I made the mistake of posting my real name at Zengardner.com and forgot about that - I don't do searches (I do not "google" - I "startpage.com") on myself, so how was I to know? Everything I said was true from my perspective, including my George HW Bush (Director of CIA at the time) story - it's all true. I'm glad you mentioned Zengardner.com here, because that is a wonderful website that I love reading, and now maybe some people here might be awakened by learning from Zen's site? Probably not, but you never know who might stumble on this (sic) "science" blog. Getting back to the original issues I raised here, or just one for starters since there were several sub-issues involved: Let's begin with how cannabis CURES cancer - okay? That has been proven SCIENTIFICALLY, but don't believe me:
http://tinyurl.com/m4rntpw
There you go - I even made a tinyURL to be nice (and did a paragraph break too - see how nice I can be?). ! Please tell me where that information is wrong...? Then we can discuss how the most people died from the horrible polio and smallpox epidemics where the most people were vaccinated against those dreadful diseases. I don't know if that is "hard proof" to you, but it sure makes me a believer. Then there is the mercury, squalline (sp?), and other nasty crap put into the immune system destroying serums called "vaccines". I'll check back later to see what you delightful people have to say about that link. My dog Jessie is 13, but she is still doing well thanks to medicinal cannabis and a healthy diet. Hippocrates said (to paraphrase): "Let medicine be thy food, and food be thy medicine"... He was a wise man that Hippocrates - eh? I have an old medical book from the early 20th century (American) which is a big, thick book, and its full of information about various foods and how they the ways they help medically. Back then the most prescribed medicine was tincture of cannabis indica though, so maybe docs just didn't know anything about REAL medicine back then? Just kidding - of course they knew about real medicine back then, but then allopathic fascism was invented, and the rest is history (and untold millions of people needlessly suffering and/or dead)...
As for the People's Cooperative of Portlandia location - this is where it begins, but we WILL take over the planet eventually.
"People's Evolving Amazing Cooperative of Earth" = PEACE
I'll leave you fine folks with an interview a local writer Jim Redden (one of the best we have in Portlandia) did with David Horowitz MD many years ago. Horowitz even got his degree at Harvard Medical School (!), and in "public health" even, so they CAN produce real healers at that elite institution! Horowitz wrote a book called "Death From the Air"" about 15 years ago, which was a few years after the chemtrails escalated in 1997. The military ADMITS it has been spraying various aerosols since WW-II, so saying it isn't true is illogical.. Dr. Horowitz coined the term "Nazi Chemtrail Flu", so this fits right in with the title of this blog post - it correlates chemtrails with flu!! A local writer friend,, Jim Redden, interviewed the good doctor years ago when he came to Portlandia to give a lecture/seminar on his theories of health (both individual and planetary). I won't even tinyURL this link, since I had wanted to mention the "www.whale.to" website here too. The 'whale' was one of the first websites that enlightened me about allopathic fascism - which is not "medicine" - it's population reduction designed as medicine.. I know many people here are doctors, or wannabe docs, and that's fine - I have the highest respect for REAL doctors. Hopefully some of you will actually read this and think about it, rather than dismiss it as "woo". If this website isn't a psyop, and you all really believe vaccines prevent disease, and chemtrails are just contrails, then maybe this will get you thinking otherwise...? If not, at least I trie (why do I bother? 'cause I luv you!). I won't waste anymore time here (please hold the applause), but in case you aren't all spookies and are really well-meaning, you should/might appreciate this. The fact that Orac(le) uses the 'CONtrailscience' and 'metaBUNK' websites to 'prove' his opinions makes me think he is a spooky, but maybe not? Perhaps you are all much younger than me, and actually believe your college programming? I leave this for you to ponder, and hopefully like Dr. Horowitz did, you too will realize the allopathic (sic) 'medicine' is not what you thought it was for...? Cheers to you for allowing me to even post comments here Orac(le)!!!
http://www.whale.to/b/redden.html
Whale.to?! Whale.to?!?!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Scopie's Law: In any debate about medicine or science, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately, and gets you laughed out of the forum.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
@Alain:
Thanks for the offer. My mom is doing a pretty good job of stroking my hair right now, so there's that, at least.
I can't even read any more. Maybe one of these days I'll be able to at least read for fun again.
@pharmerdavid
I was being snarky about the orgonite pendants. I wasn't being snarky about your dog. She sounds like a dear, sweet creature. I honestly wish you well personally, and hope Jessie's lymphoma goes into remission.
NO NO NO, sadmar!
WE are not purely inventions of our peerless leader, Orac/ DG/ the Doctor, but instead....
WE are LEGION!
Mikey has figured it all out ( yesterday, NN) and has finally written the Truth-
Supporters of SBM, vaccines and fact checking are indeed spawn of the Devil.
Yes, good, honest people like him GRADUALLY- through a series of 5 stages- uncover the revelation that demons are behind the current war for control of the People.
WE bad.
He even mentions the Bohemian Grove. ( where, incidentally, yours truly has visited)
Finally, followers of Mike and his fellow travellers have the goods on us!
Quake in your Gucci boots, minions!
HOWEVER to get to his Good News, readers must first tolerate an ocluding advert banner for his store that takes a while to clear if you don't click.
NO NO NO, sadmar!
WE are not purely inventions of our peerless leader, Orac/ DG/ the Doctor, but instead....
WE are LEGION!
Mikey has figured it all out ( yesterday, NN) and has finally written the Truth-
Supporters of SBM, vaccines and fact checking are indeed spawn of the Devil.
Yes, good, honest people like him GRADUALLY- through a series of 5 stages- uncover the revelation that demons are behind the current war for control of the People.
WE bad.
He even mentions the Bohemian Grove. ( where, incidentally, yours truly has visited)
Finally, followers of Mike and his fellow travellers have the goods on us!
Quake in your Gucci boots, minions!
HOWEVER to get to his Good News, readers must first tolerate an ocluding advert banner for his store that takes a while to clear if you don't click.
Ooops! Spelt my name wrong so you'll have to wait for the BIG NEWS!
But seriously, using that Orac/ Oracle meme!
Bolen has that too.
It only shows how absolutely great they are at researching material / people because that isn't what it means.
It's only their own free association.
@ JP:
Take it easy. For a while, try to focus on essentials like eating, walking around, seeing people you like.
Pull yourself out of the internal monologue/ maelstrom.
Look out wards, not in.
Greetings, fellow minions. I see that you have another victim on the hook. It's highly amusing to see how they keep returning with THE TRUTH (TM) about how to cure cancer, etc, where if they did ANY research into this blog, they would see that most of their sites have already been dissected by Our Fearless Leader.
Needless to say, I have grave doubts that Pharmadavid, PhD, is either a pharmacist OR a PhD (or does Pharma imply he's figured out deep Big Pharma conspiracies?) I'm also really amused that, like so many of our toys, he's US-Centric. Man, if the FDA, CDC, and other US areas really had worldwide power, we'd be in much better shape...
I'll be in an out (recovering from surgery). So keep having fun.
P.S. When he figures out what an ad hominem attack really is, please let me know. So far, he seems to think that if you prove his sites are crap, that's an ad-hom.
"If this website isn’t a psyop"
Bzzzzzt! Wrong-o.
Must be the chemtrails fogging your brain. We rely on this effect to perplex our enemies.
"(why do I bother? ’cause I luv you!)"
M-O-U-S-E.
@ MI Dawn:
I hope you're doing well.
re THE TRUTH (tm)
I read NN/ AoA/ TMR, listen to prn.fm and observe that the investigation of Drs DG/ Offit rests upon the intrepid research and fact finding mission of Jake with a dash of Bolen and vaccine information from Olmsted.
That'll get you far.
PharmerDavid PhD said: I’ll leave you fine folks with an interview a local writer Jim Redden (one of the best we have in Portlandia) did with David Horowitz MD many years ago. Horowitz even got his degree at Harvard Medical School (!), and in “public health” even, so they CAN produce real healers at that elite institution!"
Not so fast buckaroo!! His name is Len Horowitz and he's a dentist. No reason on earth to be skeptical about him, once you've read his lucid prose: Description: Based on the latest science, this monumental book considers both uses and abuses of DNA--"The Sacred Spiral." Stunning evidence compiled herein proves DNA is nature's bioaccoustic and electromagnetic (that is, "spiritual") energy receiver, signal transformer, and quantum sound and light transmitter. "
MI Dawn: I think 'pharmerdavid' is a pharm-farmer. That is, he grows medicinal crops. That is, hemp. (Maybe his source of income? Income maybe dropping do to the legal medical pot shops?) As for a PhD, being born in '55, he could have gone through a lot of changes since getting a 'real' degree.
@ pharmerdavid
Frankly, go comfort your dog, instead of spewing your insanity here. Every hour you spent on your keyboard is an hour you didn't spend with people you care.
A female dog from my grandparents ended with breast cancer, and we let it go untreated (culturally, in my country, we don't treat sick pets to the same extend as sick humans - or didn't, until recently). More than a decade later, I still remember her pain, at the end.
@ Denice
Shouldn't it be "I am LEGION"?
Or maybe "I am large, I contain multitudes"
@ JP, MI Dawn, etc
I was re-reading a few old threads and noticed comments from people we have not seen around for a while. I am missing them.
Please take care of yourselves.
I wasn't going to return here, but then something clicked in my 'delusional' brain...or maybe it was the potent medicine I grow that did it? No matter, what clicked was this: knowing that "contrail science" and "metabunk" are both Mick West psyops, and remembering they had both been mentioned somewhere here, my delusional brain (left serial processor side only though) clicked...! Are you here too Mickster West? The CIA obviously has a team working here, making comments etc. Why do I even waste my time here then? To warn other unsuspecting fools (like me) who might be tempted into wasting their time debating anything rational here. Yes I like the Whale and Educateyourself websites, which I've been reading since their creation back in the beginning of WWW-HTTP, but I do NOT do not believe everything there (really!). Much of it is enlightening and True according to my wisdom-dar (although it may need recalibrating). In any case, I bid you all a fond farewell yet again! And please remember - I'm only a poor "pharmer" (guess what I grow along with other herbs and veggies..?). so the globalist banksters, or rather the Evil Entity (EE) that controls them who controls (pays) you, has nothing to worry about from me. I just want a peaceful planet to live on, and peaceful people to work cooperatively with to make life better for future generations, and to be self-sufficient for the most part myself, although you always need goods and services you just can't produce yourself (like a good massage or a beautiful organite pendant!), which is where the cooperation comes in handy. Did you know organite can be measured scientifically to create negative ions, which are known scientifically to be healthy for life? I knew you did..! And with that, I will bid you yet another fond farewell yet again, at least until I stumble on another of your psyop websites, probably with the word "science" embedded within its name..? I leave you with this profoundly Loving thought: I am you and you are me and we are all together!!!
~NAMASTE~
@ Denice-bot:
Orac is a bot. We are all bots. The blinking box is not in Detriot. It's wired into the core of the Internet at a secret DARPA facility. (Demon Agents Recruited to Poison America). The box was programmed by Satan himself.
If pharmerdavid didn't ghost-write that post, he should sue Mikey for plagiarizing his material.
Chiropractor Donald Harte chimes in. http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/medical-thinking-killed-prince-accordin…
That's either a POE, or someone suffering from significant mental illness.
@231
The Donald Harte who campaigned against the whooping cough vaccine? Yeah....another one who should spend 24 hours in an iron lung, with a bad case of shingles. I'd spare him the whooping cough, but then, I'm a survivor of that disease. My mother, who thought her infant was going to die, probably wouldn't be as generous.
I understand from YouTube (excellent source for all things science - although not as good as Whale.to), that spraying chemtrails with Windex will make them go away.
Psyonic DARPAte orgonism.
I always figured the strain, Sour Diesel, was a COINTELPRO trojan smoke.
At the People’s Cooperative of Portlandia, our bongs have a secret ingredient -- 50% more PEACE than ever before. That's only 25% less PEACE than a small-yeild, red mercury, tactical nuclear Kenneth Cole Reaction briefcase.
I get some of PharmerDavid PhD's sentiment: It's not hard to believe in vast medical conspiracies over cannabis when millions have been imprisoned over a substance which is innocuous. It just happens that, in the case of cannabis, the 'conspiracy' has been true.
PD, my criteria for repeal of prohibition centered around the arrival of a CO2 tax, a tax on life. It's sobering to think back that I uttered my conclusion in 1993.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Rebagliati
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/02/marijuana-athlete-runnin…
^^uh oh, that doesn't fit the narrative and stereotype of Cheetos-munching couch potatoes.
Oh, wow...
Sorry guys, I was the one who mentioned Metabunk and ContrailScience. Didn't know that it would set PharmerDavid off even more.
Frankly, it has been a few years since I discovered these sites and have heard them called "psyops", "shill", etc. without anyone even trying to provide evidence of this
(except of the "they disagree that chemtrails exist when I know that they do, so they have to be psyops" kind)...
You know, the loons keep talking about depopulation/population control, but the world population just continues to grow. How could the folks supposedly behind the pharma conspiracy be so GREAT at keeping things secret and fail so UTTERLY at their supposed goal?
@ JP Aw, man, that sucks. I'm so sorry. Do what you need to do for YOU. Imaginary internet friend hugs. I still think you're awesome.
I always use Windex to disperse chemtrails, Hasn't failed me yet.
"And please remember – I’m only a poor “pharmer” (guess what I grow along with other herbs and veggies..?)"
Cialis?
But Emma, we'd have a world population of over 20 billion today if not for their continuous culling efforts.
Denise, were that the case, we should all be thanking our pharma overlords daily for, you know, having enough food for everyone (even if we sometimes fail at getting it to the people who need it most).
I can’t even read any more. Maybe one of these days I’ll be able to at least read for fun again.
You will. I don't know how much time it will take but you will.
Alain
“And please remember – I’m only a poor “pharmer”
He's just a Pharmer, from a poor family!
Spare him his life from this Oracstrosity!
He’s just a Pharmer, from a poor family!
I now wish I had the energy to rework "The Ballad of Jed Clampett."
T'was painkiller overdose, ruled accidental as opposed to suicide.
https://www.anokacounty.us/DocumentCenter/View/10066
On fentanyl, that's heavy duty pain relief.
On the higher dosage end, easily OD'd upon accidentally.
Opioid overdoses are a result of vaccination, as thoroughly documented by AoA's "Benedetta."
@Narad, in a way, that is quite true.
It'd be real hard to grow up to OD on a narcotic if one died of a vaccine preventable disease as a child.
That said, opiate addiction is a major problem and one that actually makes it hard for my wife to receive effective pain management, as physicians then tend to not want to prescribe opiates.
Despite her MRI results (we're awaiting a neurosurgeon to develop a plan, now that the latest imagery shows three cervical discs bulging into the spinal cord, plus L5-S1 heavily compressing her cauda equina).
Fortunately, our current primary is giving her adequate pain management. That wasn't always so in the past, with one professional writing a treatment plain with opoids, but failing to prescribe them.
Once her issues are addressed, I'll address some worrisome neurological symptoms suggesting that my L4-L5 bulge has worsened recently.
Or maybe, we'll call our home GCU to order a full body transplant.
Is an Oracle a baby Orac?