Vaccines: Good For You!

Autism to H1N1, I can't say enough how important vaccines are. And it's truly scary how few people are getting vaccinated now.

According to a study released today by the Trust For America's Health, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 50,000 people die from vaccine-preventable illnesses a year. This year, only a third of adults were vaccinated flu.

But again this might not be exactly newsworthy, since it happens a lot. In fact, this year had twice the number of people getting vaccines than usual, with H1N1 and FluMist spurring people to action.

So I'd love to see number of vaccine taken charted against flu cases. Unfortunately I don't have access to VaccineTrack by SDI, which seems to be the only thing that records vaccine data. Until I get my hands on the info, let's keep getting vaccinated anyway.

Vaccines & Autism

I've always been skeptical of vaccine paranoia. Not only was all that fuss about H1N1 turned out to be just fuss, it looks like vaccines' link to autism might finally see its day of reckoning.

Andrew Wakefield is the one we can thank for all the hubbub about the vaccine-autism thing, when he came out with a paper in 1998 that said autism was a rare side effect of vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). So he recommended that the vaccines be given space out, a year apart.

Even when the paper came out, it was pretty controversial. But leave it to parents to shun vaccines altogether, despite countless studies proving the contrary (Danish study, Court of Federal Claims), with even people trying to rationalize such irrational paranoia. Thankfully though, parents might just stop needlessly endangering their kids to scare diseases like MMR (death, infection of spinal cord, swelling of testicles or ovaries, just to name a few).

In a statement by the editors of The Lancet last week, they found in an investigation panel that "several elements of the paper are incorrect," therefore fully retracting the paper from public record. Looking forward to seeing what anti-vaccine camp responds with.

Homeopathy, Beware

Yesterday 400+ Brits took a "massive overdose" of homeopathic remedies to protest Boots' (their equivalent of our Duane Reade, but with better, actually fresh, food) endorsement and sale of homeopathic remedies.

Homeopathy has always struck me as a strange science, if science at all. The vitalist philosophy, born all the way back in 1796 to a German doctor, doesn't just concern all things herbal - it's based on a few (interesting) principles, some of which include the following:

1. Water has memory

2. Therefore diluting something with water makes it stronger, making some remedies so diluted that there aren't even any molecules from the original solution

These two are pretty much agreed upon actual homeopathic ideas. But certain homeopaths also adhere to others, like what ails you can cure you (ie caffeine - diluted, remember - to cure insomnia) and stuff involving pinning the patient with a piece paper with the remedy written on it, which borders on superstition.

Anyhow homeopathy is much bigger in Europe (compared to Americans, where most just think it's "something herbal..?"), where insurance covers it and even Sweden did some 5 year study and found it wasn't cost-effective enough to concern itself with the idea. It seems to be the biggest in India actually, where it's recognized as a national system of medicine.

Yesterday's stunt, called the 1023 campaign, was actually preceded by a letter of complaint the Merseyside Skeptics Society sent to Boots protesting homeopathy a week ago. So I guess there are other people besides me who aren't exactly convinced of homeopathy's efficacy.

They don't really say why they're targeting Boots and not homeopathic manufacturers and physicians themselves. Maybe Boots sells so many of the homeopathic remedies, that Boots is where MSS can dent?

It's hard to tell as the company was taken private in ₤11.1bn takeover in 2007 by now-Executive Vice Chairman Stefano Pessina, so sales figures on homeopathic or even health products aren't available. But he did say in May 2009 that the health and beauty division had sales of ₤6.2bn, so looks like there's a lot at stake, anyway.

Well I guess since this is not taking place in the US, few Americans care. I don't know if I believed much in homeopathy in the first place, but who knows about these things? Just as long as another philosophy doesn't get in the way of you getting medical attention or care when you need it (vaccines, surgeries, which MSS says severe homeopathics do cut out), I don't see why it's so bad. They just better not touch acupuncture, because I tell you that stuff really works.

FDA Crackdown on Fake Botox

As scary as fake Botox is, the FDA has been doing something about it! ..Only recently, though.

It started in November 2004, when four people became paralyzed with severe botulism poisoning in Florida. The difference here though, as opposed to unfortunate Faith He's case, is that this was a doctor who was passing it off as authentic Botox.

Since then, the FDA started cracking down, and the whole thing turned into 210 investigations against health professionals, 31 arrests and 29 convictions of individuals who "purposely injected an unapproved, cheaper substitute toxin for FDA-approved Botox Cosmetic into nearly 1,000 unknowing patients."

They actually tracked down (one of) the sources of this lethal stuff to a California lab, which also sold to an Arizona distributor, from which doctors would buy at a lower price (they marketed it as a cheaper alternative) and sell to patients at the usual $470 per vial, adding to the paranoia of the modern consumer. One giveaway though: the vials were clearly marked as "For Research Purposes Only, Not For Human Use."

Using distribution records, the FDA found that at least 200 healthcare professionals ("from Manhattan to Las Vegas," says one special agent) bought the stuff, and "many" (not most) have been prosecuted.

So what to do when we next desire to expunge those dastardly wrinkles from our stressed-out foreheads!? The FDA doesn't help much. It 's the same "use a trusted professional, ask about the source" routine, but nothing's keeping those doctors from refilling authentic vials with the cheaper, paralyzing stuff.

I guess you only find out when the price of beauty goes terribly high and you find yourself mute and helpless with lockjaw, or need a stomach tube to eat, or respirator to breath. Maybe those wrinkles aren't so bad after all.

Barefoot Study

I always thought there was something to be learned from barefoot running, and now there's a new study supporting the practice.

It appeared in the Nature scientific journal today, but was actually accepted a month after my post. Conducted by eight researchers from different medical and engineering schools (Harvard to Kenya to Glasgow to Ann Harbor), the study is the first to use 3-D infrared tracking to study foot strike patterns. They looked at three groups:

1. People who had always run barefoot

2. People who had always run with shoes

3. People who had switched from shoes to being shoeless

And the study actually proved our shoes really have changed our strides (in a way that years of evolution didn't prepare us for)...which can obviously lead to a lot of problems. SciAm's actually got a few of their quite astonishing pictures.

And it confirms another study published last week in the Journal of Injury, Function and Rehabilitation which found running in athletic shoes increased pressure on knees by 38 percent, and on hips 54 percent.

Anyway I got those Vibram shoes over winter, and other than this healthy-feet reason, I really don't know why I got them as I haven't exercised since..some time last summer. So I've really just been living through Ted. Maybe I'll get around to staving off obesity, and once I do, I'll let you know.

(Lack of) Reproduction In NYC

Just a thought out of left field:

I always wondered, with so many smart, attractive, ambitious types here, why NYC has so many single women.

That men might prefer less powerful women, might be a clue.

Botox, The New WMD

When it comes to beauty, some people don't mind taking risks when they'd be cautious otherwise. It just might be all the unnatural, photoshopped perfection getting to us.

Late last year, my mom's "facialist"—Faith He from China who opened her own relatively successful salon in Seattle about nine years ago—was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for injecting women with fake cosmetic procedures products. As in fake botox, restylane, etc. And she wasn't licensed to do so with the real stuff either.

Apparently an acquaintance of my mom's was getting (re?)married and wanted everything done. And when a laser-peel wasn't doing the trick, she wanted more. And of course, the facialist obliged. (Might be a Chinese reflex—go to Asia and you'll find people will tell you they can do anything you ask for. Whether they can is a risk you are taking, as I found when the broken watch I took in for repairs was even more broken, or when my resulting perm more closely resembled the sheep outside than the model in the picture I brought).

Anyhow, it turns out the products the facialist was using (may or may not be to her knowledge) was unregulated, fake stuff from China, as this woman found out when it coagulated above her cheekbone and a dermatologist sucked some out for inspection.

Ah China, always churning out the most interesting things. But it gets even more interesting, when the WaPo came out saying how the black market for Botox may be more dangerous than suburban housewives getting lumpy cheekbones.

According to WaPo, the essential ingredient in Botox—botulinum toxin Type A—is the most toxic substance known to man. It just might be the new weapon of mass destruction of choice. A grain-sized amount could kill a 150-lb adult, apparently. But a terrorist would have to get hundreds of vials of Botox ($470 a pop) to kill one person. The only reason why we're still pondering anthrax and uranium is that botulinum's quite allergic to heat, degrading the moment the temperature goes up.

This black market, however, poses a new threat. Especially when you consider this:

James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, two scientists found that a biologist with a master's degree and $2,000 worth of equipment could easily make a gram of pure toxin, an amount equal to the weight of a small paper clip but enough, in theory, to kill thousands of people.

Thankfully so far it seems the only people the stuff goes to are youth-seeking types, but obviously unregulated or no, the products can be made with the real stuff. Then we've got more than lumpy cheeks to worry about.