Bibliosphere

     This marks the third year of me walking in the CureSearch walk to end childhood cancer.  It's also the second year of the Rhabdo Warriors team at the walk.        I'm super excited to be walking again, and I hope to make an even bigger impact by raising more money and creating a bigger team.  You can donate to me here , or to the entire team here . You can also visit my walk page:   http://www.curesearchwalk.org/saltlakecity/rhabdowarriors .        So, if you're going to be in Salt Lake on September 27th, 2014, come join the rhabdo warriors as we walk to end childhood cancer.   http://www.curesearchwalk.org/saltlakecity/rhabdowarriors

      School ended a couple of weeks ago and I finished the semester with strong grades. I'm back in Wisconsin for the summer, and will be returning to camp as Snickerdoodle.         I've been on a busy adventure on the East Coast this past weekend.  To the right you can see all the places I've been: Penn, Ben Franklin's Grave, Chemical Heritage museum, Mutter Museum, Washington monument, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Veterans Memorial, WWII memorial, the White House, the Liberty bell, Independence hall, Arlington National Cemetary, Philly Art Museum, Smithsonian - Natural History Museum, Capitol, and John's Hopkins Hospital.  It was a fun filled weekend.       It's finally starting to green up here in Wisconsin (everything was still leafless and grey when I got here).  We have a robin's nest in our yard, with three baby robins in it.  They hatched last Saturday, so they are 10 days old.  They've gotten their feathers finally, and are starting to get sup

     Here is a short list of some reliable sources for information on vaccines, many of which were used in my latest series of posts on vaccination ( I , II , III , and IV ). http://www.historyofvaccines.org/  - a site by the College of Physicians and Surgeons on vaccinations, their history and how they work. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/  - CDC's website on vaccinations, the related illnesses and immunization schedules.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed  - The NIH website that allows access to research peer-reviewed articles on a variety of topics, including vaccination.   http://www.asm.org/index.php/colloquium-program/browse-all-reports/91319-adultvaccinesfaq - information on adult vaccinations http://www.vaccines.gov/ - Vaccine information about vaccine science, vaccine preventable illnesses and travel vaccines.   Enjoy!

Myth: Children get too many vaccines – it’s dangerous to get so many. Since vaccines work by stimulating the immune system, they aren’t the same as a by weight dosed medication, such as benydryl, which works by influencing biochemical pathways.  It takes the same amount of exposure for any individual to develop immunity, and more or less exposure doesn’t mean a different outcome.  For example, if I sneezed on a baby and a teenager each once, they both could get sick.  It doesn’t take one sneeze to make the baby sick and five sneezes to make the teen sick.  One sneeze does it for both.  Chemical additives, as previously discussed, are dose specific, and are added in much smaller quantities than is required for any kind of side effect.  Myth: The diseases we vaccinate against aren’t a threat anymore The only vaccine preventable disease that isn’t a threat is smallpox, which was eradicated in 1979.  As a result, we don’t vaccinate against it anymore.  However, the diseases we do va

Part III on vaccines Myth: Vaccines cause Autism This is just loads of wrong.  The study that considered this was rejected by peer-reviewed journals and the writer was stripped of his medical license.  The study itself used techniques that were quite harmful to the children involved (unnecessary enemas, colonoscopies and other painful tests were performed).  Additionally, recent studies (2014) have concluded that the changes in brain structure and function that result in autism begin in utero (long before childhood vaccinations).  Vaccines do NOT cause autism.  Myth: The decline of vaccine prevented illnesses wasn't due to vaccines While some graphs seem to show that diseases were in decline, and therefore the decline wasn’t due to vaccines but other measures (from nutrition to sanitation and quarantine).   While these public health measures may have had some effect on the decline of these diseases, they weren’t enough to wipe out or even slow down these diseases.   Addi

Part two in my series on vaccinations Myth: I’m not a danger to people if I don’t vaccinate myself You are a danger to others if you chose not to vaccinate yourself (or your children).  See that infant? She’s too young to receive the whooping cough vaccine, but she has a 1 in 200 chance of dying from it, as well as a 50/50 chance of needing hospitalization.  Infection could last up to 100 days, and will require supportive treatment, such as oxygen, IV nutrition and fluids, and possibly mechanical ventilation.  See that bald man?  He has cancer, and his body can’t fight infections due to the chemotherapy.  The flu could easily kill him.  See that little boy wearing a mask? He is immune-compromised from a genetic condition.  He can’t be vaccinated because his body doesn’t form antibodies in response to vaccines, so they are not effective for him.  See that girl over there?  She’s allergic to the eggs in which vaccines are grown and can’t receive them.  All of these people are s

   Today I'm going to start a series on vaccinations and immunizations.  I'm appalled by the amount of misinformation out there, and I want to address some of the common myths from a science/bio-engineering side.  If you have any additional myths you would like addressed, please comment on this post and I will address them. I will also provide reliable sources for the facts I discuss. I feel the need to write a post about vaccination, due to the insane amount of mis information out there on the internet.  Vaccination/immunization shouldn’t even be a debate, in my opinion.  It’s a no-duh kind of situation, yet an inordinate amount of people, nearly all unqualified to do so, feel the need to vehemently disagree with vaccination.  I shall now offer an argument of my own, as well as some refutations of commonly cited issues. I did go through a questioning phase, where I wondered about the science behind vaccines, which prompted me to do my own research.  As a high schooler, I w

     Ask the majority of people about genocide, and they will tell you about the holocaust.  You might ask them if they know of any other genocides, and a few might tell you about the movie Hotel Rwanda.      What the majority of Americans don't know is that there have been many more genocides.  There have been hundreds of crimes against humanity, some of which are still going on now.  243 Nigerian girls were kidnapped from school two weeks ago, yet I see very little on the news.  Today, 30+ people were killed in a Syrian marketplace, and on Tuesday 14 children were killed and 80 injured when a school was bombed.  These things should be making the news, but instead I see profiles on sports stars and celebrity gossip.      Crimes against humanity still happen.  They didn't stop with the Holocaust.  Be aware that not everything is as America-centric as we may think.