Category: Health

Never Mind The Joke

Bad News, Health

So this asshole got some joke award for his charlatanry:

The man who published a widely-dismissed paper claiming the MMR vaccine could make children autistic has been ridiculed with an award for bad science. Andrew Wakefield, a former gastroenterologist who is now believed to be in a relationship with the model Elle Macpherson, has been awarded the ‘Rusty Razor’ award for pseudoscience by magazine The Skeptic.
Wakefield’s so-called research fueled the ‘anti-vaxx’ movement, by suggesting jabs could make children autistic, but his studies were fabricated.
Experts have called the paper, published in medical journal The Lancet in 1998, but retracted in 2010, ‘the most damaging medical hoax of the past 100 years’.

Never mind the Rusty Razor Award, someone should have used a rusty razor to cut this fucker’s head off.  Countless children have died and others fallen dangerously ill because of his “pseudo-scientific” study, and at least he should be in prison for life instead of dating a dim-bulb ex-supermodel.

I am not a vengeful man by nature, but if one day some bereaved parent were to shoot Wakefield in the face and I were in the jury at the parent’s trial, my vote would be an unshakable “Not Guilty”.

Imagine Being Patient #4,154,560

Bad News, Gummint, Health

The next time some dreamy pinko starts whining about how wonderful Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is, feel free to show him or her this article (when you are done kicking their ass, of course):

The NHS waiting list in England is the longest it has been in 11 years, official figures have revealed today.
A staggering 4,154,559 people – around six per cent of the entire UK population – were waiting to start hospital treatment at the end of August.  This number is the highest it has been since August 2007, and more than 3,000 people have been waiting more than a year for routine treatment.
A&E [ER] departments are also getting busier and cancer treatment waiting times have been missed for the 32nd month in a row, NHS data showed.  Experts today warned ‘alarm bells’ are ringing and the health service is heading straight for another winter crisis as it buckles under ‘relentless pressure’.  An ageing population and shortages of doctors and nurses have been blamed for increasing strain on the NHS and it taking longer to treat patients.

But hey… as long as it’s free, right?

And speaking of free, of course it turns out that “free” also means “rationing” (emphasis mine):

Shortages of Fluad, a new super-vaccine offering better protection for over-65s, means pensioners across the country are being turned away by GPs.  Deliveries of the vaccine to surgeries and pharmacies are being staggered due to supply problems and 40 per cent of the 7.8 million doses will not be available until next month.
The Government’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation recommended Fluad last December, but it took NHS England until February 5 to tell GPs and pharmacies they needed to buy it.  Clinics that failed to order by the April 12 deadline have had no stock delivered, forcing them to beg for supplies from others.

So if you’re (say) 63 years old, British and catch a potentially-deadly strain of flu, that’s just too bad.  Life’s lottery — or, to be more precise, the NHS lottery — just gave it to you between the cheeks.

Wear boots when kicking.

 

Another Truism

Advice, Gummint, Health

“That which government cannot force you to do because of Constitutional- or legal prohibition, it will force your employer to do on their behalf.”

Such as with the execrable “voluntary” wellness programs (whatever the fuck that means).  Thank goodness I don’t work for Global MegaCorp Inc. anymore, or else I’d burn out the pic below (which I’d be constantly sending in response to their latest poxy diktat ):

Truism

Advice, Gummint, Health

“You may make a bad mistake;  the company you work for can make an even worse mistake;  but to really screw things up, you need government.”

Kim’s Corollary:

“…and the higher the level of government, the exponentially-greater the mistake will be.”

Hence the recent pronouncement which basically states that absolutely everything the fucking federal government has ever told you about health and nutrition, is wrong.  Not just wrong, but catastrophically wrong.

As I’ve said countless times before:  I longer believe anything the government — any level of government — tells me, whatever the topic.

And if we want to wander into the Tinfoil Hat Forest ever so slightly, we may note that in the above case, the beneficiaries of said bad governmental advice have been the pharmaceutical companies who, incidentally, hire lobbyists and donate barrow-loads of money to politicians.

Protip:  if you ever look at the “Department” subheadings under my post title, and see the words “Advice” and “Gummint” appearing simultaneously, you’ll have fair warning as to where the post content will be going.

Not Wanting

Health, Men & Women

If ever anyone were to ask you the question, “Why is Kim steadfastly refusing to dive into the dating pool again?”, this would be one of the good reasons why:

Sexually-transmitted diseases continue to hit all-time highs in the U.S. with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reporting a 10 percent spike for chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis in 2017. The federal health agency said in a report released Tuesday that the numbers, which include nearly 2.3 million new cases of the aforementioned diseases, reflect a “steep, sustained increase” in STDs since 2013.

And as to why I would never date a young woman (other than psycho-social reasons), there’s this little nugget in the study:

While primary and secondary syphilis diagnoses went up by 76 percent, chlamydia remained the most commonly reported to the CDC with nearly half of the new cases occurring in females ages 15-to-24.

Given the increasing fascination with “dating apps” such as Tinder (even, regrettably, amongst men and women of my age group), it will be a cold day in Hell before I dip my wick into that little vat of social battery acid.