the off-topic thread

Um.. what?

OK, a list of bands you like.. I'd do one too but there's a maximum message length

 

Interesting! No I can't, he's a twat!

 

When Im really tired I hallucinate

 

Fact-Broccoli florets have faces
http://bread-and-honey.blogspot.com/2008/10/wtf-broccoli.html

 

Yep, from everything I've read and the opinion of the overwhelming majority of the medical and scientific community the MMR vaccine is by far the smaller of two risks, the much greater risk being that of potentially exposing your child to complications from the diseases themselves if left unvaccinated, these are serious illnesses which can cause mental retardation and death.

The belief that MMR is dangerous is entirely a media creation, a misunderstanding of an oft-repeated, single, flawed, discredited and since-retracted study. There are risks inherent in anything and everything we do, the risks from infection in getting vaccinated outweigh the risks of the supposed link with autism, but the risk of complications from measles mumps and rubella vastly outweigh both of these. There's a risk in walking down a flight of stairs in that you may trip and fall but this is far smaller than the risk of jumping out of the window.

Disregarding the advice of medical experts, the NHS and peer reviewed research as partial and unreliable is foolish in the extreme. People need to learn how to evaluate sources of information.

http://www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

 

Well, I wouldn't object so much if the vaccines only contained what they were meant to contain - the denatured or killed pathogen, and a buffer. Why is aluminium or lead considered a necessary ingredient? I highly doubt a heavy metal is a suitable buffer for serum injections...

 

Well a quick search uncovers:

 

Think again Mr!

 

Firstly, I formed my own decision about the matter after doing research myself, and Im sure many people have, and secondly I barely remember much media coverage of the concerns people had, apart from making them look a bit silly..what sticks in my mind more is the response to those concerns, which was a massive "nooooo science has proven otherwise its just a load of hippies and paranoid people being shit parents"

You cannot say with certainty that the idea its dangerous is "entirely a creation". I think its wisest not to just believe whatever is portrayed in the media or to buy into one particular study they claim gave certain results, but to form your own view based on all the information you can muster, and of course what is in your own heart, mind and instincts, which are very underrated. Peoples opinions will differ, some will get the vaccines, some wont, some will get some, but thats their choice and I dont feel going around saying one thing is absolute fact when all we ever get is whats already been filtered is a good idea. Weve been told so many things are safe (even with studies to "back it up"!) that turned out not to be

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7685067.stm

(unrelated btw)

 

So I get told off for not going to school when half my lessons get cancelled anyway Oh well, more time to do my geography essay for tomorrow then.

 

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co...article.html?cacheBust=7SGj1j5KJSff#community

More shocking news

 

in approximate chronological order:

The Memphis Jug Band, Spike Jones And His City Slickers, Bob Wills And His Texas Playboys, Sun Ra & His Arkestra, The Bonzo Dog Band, The Beatles, The Stooges, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Velvet Underground, Traffic, Sly & The Family Stone, Santana, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Third Ear Band, Black Sabbath, Can, Edgar Broughton Band, Kevin Ayers, Amon Duul II, Faust, The Residents, Funkadelic, Tonto's Expanding Headband, The Shaggs, The Ramones, Motorhead, Throbbing Gristle, The Cramps, The Fall, X-Ray Spex, PiL, Hybrid Kids, Borbetomagus, Julian Cope, Negativland, Massive Attack, The Prodigy, The KLF, Boredoms, Tori Amos, Jeff Buckley, Portishead, Beta Band, Deftones, Mars Volta, Coheed & Cambria, Vibracathedral Orchestra, Pamelia Kurstin

Pink Floyd come first and foremost (I have over 100 live CDs).

 

I'm having a bloody good argument about the working class not being quite as cosy as the lower middle class OP makes out. And he just told my mum to 'do more work'

 

Instincts are a very, very dangerous thing to rely on in cases such as this because our instincts evolved to cope with large, tangible, obvious dangers not miniscule, abstract, invisible ones. We have no intuitive understanding of small numbers or statistical significance on a population basis because our brains evolved in a situation where those concepts had no meaning or bearing on our survival. People's instincts hear "danger" and so they take action to counter that danger, not realising that in doing so they are exposing themselves to a far greater (but still intangible) risk. We cannot instictively compute these ideas and calculate the risks so we have to rely on calculation and statistics, something few of us understand. I encourage everyone to gather as much information as possible but do so from credible sources: expert medical opinion. Expert opinion is not divided on this issue: the controversy is just hot air. The authors of the report retracted it.

Nothing is 100% safe, but whatever small danger there is in vaccinating is vastly outweighed by the risk of exposure to these serious illnesses by not vaccinating: this controversy has not saved people from risk but has been the cause of preventable deaths from serious innoculable illnesses. The risk of not vaccinating is orders of magnitude higher than the risk of vaccinating. It's like refusing to phone an ambulance when you have a serious wound because you are afraid of the microwaves from your phone and in doing so exposing yourself to infection and possible death.

Risk management is not something we can easily understand, I would trust the opinion of people who have trained for years in order to become experts rather than the opinions of those who haven't and are just relying on their untrained instincts...

Rant over:tongue:

 

I never said we should rely solely on instincts
All I meant was I dont feel its advisable to hand over all our power to whatever the news, some scientist weve never met or some drug companies are saying, and studies alone shouldnt be all you base your decision on. Enough people have been harmed by supposedly safe medicial practice which also had studies to prove this true

If you lose your own sense of reasoning and just base every decision on what others tell you THAT would create a dangerous situation. Im not saying my belief is definitely right and yours wrong...Im saying Id advise every parent to gather up all the information they could, the scentific studies included, the ingredients of the thing, where its made, who makes it, all that stuff, and weigh it up with their own judgement. Thats all

Most people dont do that, they hear "its safe" and thats enough for them. Off they go with the flow. Doesnt matter where the fucking river leads. You need to eat fish. Eat yoghurt because it has immunococolaphidpholus goodness, scientifically proven. The contraceptive pill my mum took in the 70s that means she now cant walk outside even in winter without sunglasses...declared totally safe, then they admitted a mistake 10 years too late for her. Do me a favour, Im not going to believe everything a lab study can supposedly prove without first running it through my own internal systems. To me, thats common sense

 

What you're not considering is the number of people who have been made better or whose lives have been saved by that same supposedly safe medical practice. These outweigh those who have been harmed by an extraordinarily large factor.

This is the problem of not understanding statistics, this is the way we instinctively think: we hear about rare exceptional cases that affect tiny numbers of people and we think this means the risks for and against are in some way equal. This is how our minds have evolved to cope with dangers: weighing large, obvious, tangible risks. Really this issue is comparable to being equally scared of being trampled by an ant and an elephant.

The elephants have all been penned in to stop them trampling us, so we start to divert a lot of attention to the danger of being trampled by ants, which may only affect a very tiny number of people, however sad those cases may be. This does not mean the danger from ants is anything like the danger from elephants. It is absurd to think so.

In rare cases, some people are harmed by having vaccinations (due to infections, adverse reactions etc, not autism). Vastly more people would be harmed by not having those vaccinations. It's a question of weighing up risks, not letting single cases or rare mistakes cloud your understanding of the wider issue of risk management.

But oh well, I don't think you're really listening. Hopefully I made you stop and think for a second

 

I just entered a recipe for vegan chunky vegetable pasta bake and vegan garlic bread into a viva competition, hope the food technology department is proud of me!

 

My point was there is a risk and people are hurt, and that risk needs to be considered. Whether or not it outweighs the benefits are for each person to decide, which is the whole point

You disappoint me here Jon, you really do That was needlessly offensive, I have been listening, and I would have thought youd have realised by now Im the kind of person that listens to every viewpoint and takes things in. Obviously not. The fact that I refuse to drop my point isnt proof I didnt listen, and its very clear that I DO think, for more than a second

Im kind of bored to be honest. Have it your way, youre totally right, I didnt listen

 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/23/sickie_woo/