Yes, all the experts agree that in some years the vaccine is a better or worse match to the virus and in those years the effectiveness is better or worse, respectively.

However, the match of the virus doesn't matter when they do a randomized, controlled trial of a vaccine against a placebo or usual treatment, and in those studies 25% to 40% fewer subjects in the vaccine group get influenza than in the placebo/usual treatment group. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccin...

As I said, about 80,000 people a year die of influenza. The actual deaths reduced can only be inferred, but even if it's only 10%, that's a lot of lives.

I am sitting here finally recovering from a month of the flu, which started out with me too sick to get out of bed, with a violent, hacking cough that made it difficult to breathe, and with a brain that was too confused to think clearly. Now I'm finally able to think clearly enough to post on Slashdot again (admittedly a low bar).

At age 76, my immune system is weak (immune senescence), so the flu hits me pretty hard (just as it hits infants, people with cancer, and people taking drugs for auto-immune diseases).

So I regularly get the flu vaccine, but (1) The clinic where I got it was out of the high-strength flu vaccine, so I got the regular version (2) About half of my neighbors didn't get vaccinated, out of laziness and anti-vax stupidity, so I didn't get the benefit of herd immunity (thanks, assholes).

As a retired science writer, I actually wrote a news story last year for my senior center's newsletter.

So here's the facts on flu immunization, as of 2018 (sorry, I still feel too lousy to give a proper linked bibliography, but it's mostly from The Lancet, NEJM, Medical Letter, CDC, and Cochrane).

Main points for Slashdot:
-- 80,000 deaths a year
-- medical statistics are hard
-- can't tell exactly how many deaths the flu vaccine prevents or would prevent
-- vaccine reduces flu overall by ~40%
-- I should have gotten the high-dose version for people >64, but they didn't have it.

Last year, 80,000 Americans died from the flu, and 900,000 were hospitalized. Otherwise, coughing and weakness usually last 2-3 days, but can persist for weeks. The elderly are at greater risk, because their immune system is weaker. The vaccine reduces those risks by about 40% (from 6% to 2.4%).

There are 3 flu vaccines designed for the elderly, with a more powerful vaccine to compensate for the weaker immune system, and 2 of them passed their clinical tests. (1) Fluzone High-Dose, which has 4 times the standard dose of antigen, was 24% more effective in preventing flu in patients 65 or over, according to The Medical Letter, a non-profit newsletter for physicians that takes no industry money. (2) The Flublock Quadrivalent, which has 3 times the standard dose, was 17% more effective. It also protects against Influenza B, but that mostly affects children. (3) Fluad contains an adjuvant, which boosts the effect of the antigen, but in its clinical tests it was no better than standard vaccines.

These 3 high-strength vaccines cost about $40 a dose, compared to $15 a dose for standard vaccines, but on Medicare they're all free. None of the individual-dose vaccines contain mercury (thimerosal).

Experts say you're better off getting any flu vaccine now than waiting for the best one. About 70% of adults 65 and over get vaccinated, but only 30 to 40% of younger adults. You still have a 2.4% chance of getting the flu even after vaccination, so your risk is as low as possible only if everybody gets vaccinated.

I read that Washington Post story on Mercola with great interest.

How can we stop people like that from undoing the main benefits of the last 250 years of medical science?

Tort law is notoriously undependable. It would be interesting to find a case in which people had depended specifically on Mercola's anti-vax advice, where he created a doctor-patient relationship, and where they or their relatives clearly suffered serious harm or death as a result of following his advice. I'd like to know what a malpractice lawyer would think of this. I can't find any doctor who lost a case like this. Ironically, it's the vaccine manufacturers who get sued.

The first responsibility should lie with Mercola's local medical society. He's had some actions but he seems to have out-litigated them and they haven't been effective. https://www.casewatch.net/boar... Complaining to the local medical society seems to be about as effective as complaining to the police review board about police brutality.

It seems to be a losing battle. Stanislaw Burzynski kept treating people with antineoplastons. Once a doctor get a huge number of followers and gets them to support him politically, there's nothing you can do to stop them.

The UK seems to have a better system. They revoked Andrew Wakefield's license.

We have laws that can be used to prosecute parents for child abuse. Parents have been convicted of murder after their children died as a result of their sincere but stupid medical beliefs. I'm tempted to say that we should prosecute parents who don't vaccinate their children, but the public health people tell me that a heavy-handed approach won't work. https://www.washingtonpost.com...

The criminologists say that laws are most effective when people are reliably caught, but given mild punishment. In our country, we tend to catch people unreliably but compensate with severe punishment. I'd like to see anti-vax parents punished with $10 fines until they comply. If you gave the case to an American prosecutor, he'd demand jail time -- even if it clearly did more harm than good.

So I think the most effective policy decisions would be to require parents to vaccinate their children, as a legal responsibility, and if they don't, bring in social workers with the force of law behind them -- but don't use a legal sledgehammer. If you're dealing with a stubborn, stupid, politically organized group, you may not be able to do anything.

Mit der Dummheit kÃmpfen GÃtter selbst vergebens.

Some personal information is public record, some is not. Lots of people have aggregated that information. When I did a Google search for my own name and address, I saw how much is available.

New York City has posted its voter registration rolls online, as this NYT story explains. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...

I downloaded the 3 files for the Democratic, Republican and Independent voters in Manhattan, with their names and addresses. I could look up every voter in my building.

There are other web sites based on phone books, drivers licenses, and other public information, but the voter lists are most current.

I remember reading a few books on how to find public information. With the years, some of that information has become confidential, but OTOH the rest is easier to find online.

I agree.

I realized that Trump might win when I saw this video:

A woman complain to Hillary that she and her husband were paying $1,000 a month for health insurance, and even with Obamacare, they just couldn't afford it.

Hillary said that she might get a better deal if she "shopped around." She realized how it sounded but it was too late.

Health care, education, housing -- all the necessities of life -- have become unaffordable, and when people complain, the Democrats say, "Vote for me and I'll give you an incremental change."

They're giving you a 10-foot ladder to get out of a 20-foot hole.

Sometimes Trump says we would import and export Huawei stuff if they would only give us a better trade deal.

Other times Trump says we can't import and export Huawei stuff because they are a security threat. It may just look like a router, but it's actually HAL scraping our manufacturing secrets.

Which is it?

Is Huawei equipment really a realistic security threat? Any more than domestic equipment (if there is any left?)

Or is this just a fantasy spun by Bolton, Pompeo, and the "security experts" who got us into Iraq?

OK, I'll try to help you.

Adults who made these decisions should pay the painful consequences of their stupid decisions. That will teach people not to do it any more, and it will eliminate the stupid people from the economy.

You're only looking at one stupid guy, the student. I'm looking at the other stupid guy, the banker who issued the loan.

During the S&L crisis, one banker said, "Anybody can loan money. What makes you a banker is that you can get your money back again."

In other words, a banker is supposed to evaluate the creditworthiness of a loan, and decide whether the loan makes sense and whether the lender is likely to repay it. That's the skill of a banker. (Once, banks were part of the community. Bankers knew who worked hard, who drank, who was a good businessman and who had unrealistic dreams.)

A student should make a realistic financial plan before he takes a student loan. If it doesn't work, he shouldn't take the loan, because he knows it's going to lead to disaster.

But the banker should also make a realistic assessment of the loan, and if the student doesn't have a realistic likelihood of paying the loan back, he should deny the loan.

In law, when you have a contract, with a consumer who is the buyer, and a skilled professional who is the seller, the seller is held more responsible for the decision than the consumer. That's the way it should be, because the seller is at a great advantage over the buyer. "Buyer beware" went out with the consumer movement. The banker is the guy with more knowlege. The bank is also a big institution, which is in a better place to assume risk than the individual student.

I think that when some ordinary consumer bought a house with a $1 million loan, and then found out that his house was worth only $0.5 million after the S&L crash, he should have been able to settle with the bank for $0.5 million, and forgive the rest of the loan. They're the bank. They're in the business of taking risks.

What about all the poor banks that get stuck with bad loans? Well, they were obviously incompetent bankers and the economy would be more efficient without them. That's the free market. If all your loans are going bad, maybe you're in the wrong business. Maybe instead of banking, you should learn coding or something.

Similarly, I've read the original arguments for eliminating bankruptcy for student loans, and I think they're bullshit. The bank should be able to size up a student and decide whether he's good for the loan. If he's taking out $100,000 in loans to study acting, you should point to the average income of employed actors and tell him it's unrealistic. Maybe he should study coding or something.

If your loan customer is 10 years out of college, still making $10,000 a year, with his interest rising faster than his income on a $100,000 loan, it's time to face facts and realize the loan will never be paid off. We don't have indentured servants in America. It's time for bankruptcy. There's a reason why we've had bankruptcy since the 16th century.

I know that a lot of people were brought up to believe that their word was their bond, and they should always do the right thing. I remember a brother and sister who inherited their father's business (wholesale clothing, or something like that), and they went bankrupt. They spent years paying back every cent they owed to their creditors. After that, they had a reputation in the industry that was worth more than money. They could could close a deal with a handshake.

Those were great times. I love people like that. Times have changed. It's good to be like that when everybody else is like that. If everybody is a crook, you're really at a disadvantage if you're the only one who is keeping honest.

And these days, everybody is a crook. https://www.washingtonpost.com... When somebody owes Donald Trump money, he wants to get paid. But when he owes somebody else money, he's an epic deadbeat.

The last reason for declaring student bankruptcy is -- who decided that college should be so expensive? When I went to college, in the 1960s, the state universities charged token amounts (say, $400 a year), and City College of New York (and Brooklyn College) were free. Why should you have to pay when my generation (and your bankers' generation) went free? Why should you have to pay when European students pay nothing or very small fees (or get living expenses in addition)?

If you've got a lot of money, that's fine. But if it's a hardship, then it's time for the Jubilee.

Don't beg for it. It's not a charity. It's your right.

Just vote for the candidate who says "bankruptcy for student loans." I know I do.

The Donnell Library in New York had a young adults collection that was the best collection of books for any teenager, or any adult trying to learn a new subject. I grew up in that library, from 1955 when it opened until Mayor Bloomberg destroyed it in 2008, in a botched attempt to sell the land to a developer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

What I appreciated the most was two sets of bookshelves in the 500s (math and science) and 600s (technology). I could stand in front of the bookcases and see every good science or math book I ever read, or wanted to read, displayed in a systematic order right in front of me. There were books I couldn't find in bookstores. My local bookstores (in Manhattan!) didn't have a copy of Arrowsmith* or Microbe Hunters. They didn't have The World of Mathematics. They didn't have Physics for Entertainment. But on the Donnell bookshelves, there they were.

The Donnell Library's Young Adult collection was built over 50 years by specialist librarians (with library training in addition to degrees in math, science, etc.) They started by ordering books from standard bibliographies for librarians (which are rapidly outdated), and then adjusted their collection with feedback from the students who came in, from math and science teachers who knew the best books, from reviews, and from experts in the field, using all kinds of tricks that librarians know (like citation analysis). Want to build a rocket? Look under Dewey Decimal 621.

The point is, they had a collection of about 1,000 or 2,000 (I'd guess) books, all of which were well-selected by the library users who read it. You could reach out and put your hand on a book that dozens or hundreds of other readers liked.

That's a display of well-selected, easily-accessible information. I challenge any computer interface designer to match it.

After the Donnell was destroyed, I tried to find another branch like that. The librarians directed me to the New York Public Library children's room. The room was run by a librarian who had no science training herself.

I looked at one of the shelves. It had 50 books on sharks. I know children's books https://www.swiny.org/2006/12/... , and I hate to put down a writer and illustrator who put their heart into a book. But some books on sharks are better than others. Under the influence of TV, publishers are cranking out books to meet the shark fad, without much difference between them. It's possible to write a book on sharks that will engage young readers and put them in a direction that will (sometimes) send them on a path for the rest of their lives. Some young adult/adult science books are great. Most of them are merely good enough. Librarians know the difference.

*I once went to a lecture at the New York Academy of Medicine, where a psychiatrist gave a lecture on evidence-based medicine, and randomized controlled trials, as applied to psychotherapy. He said that when he was in high school, he read one book that inspired him to have a career in science. He talked to his professional friends, and they had also read the same book, and it inspired them to a career in science too. I was astounded, because I had also read that book, and it inspired me to a career in science. That book was Sinclair Lewis' Arrowsmith. (The point he was making was that a critical part of the plot was the decision on whether to continue the randomized, controlled trial, or whether to give the treatment to everybody.) The Donnell Library had a copy of Arrowsmith. The NYPL children's/YA room, for all their shark books, didn't have Arrowsmith.

The point is that a library collection has to be compiled by the guiding intelligence of a librarian who knows the subject, knows the patrons, and knows what she's doing. A library collection compiled by the computer-generated library buying guides today is like a garbage dumpster full of books. Shark books. Polar bears. Tornadoes. Volcanos. (These subjects are popular because of TV tie-ins.)

Douglas Hofstadter once wrote a column in his Scientific American column about a thought experiment called "The Universal Restaurant." The Universal Restaurant serves every dish ever created, and all its food is excellent. You ask the waiter what they serve, and he says, "Everything. We have every dish ever created." You ask the waiter what he recommends, and he says, "Everything. Everything is excellent." You ask him, "What should I get?" and he says, "Anything."

That's what the internet is like. That's what Amazon is like. It treats all information equally. In a library, you can walk in and say, "I'm interested in fractals. What would you recommend?" And the librarian can find you an interesting book on mathematics that covers fractals. On Amazon, your kid can find 100 books on sharks. Their algorithms can tell you what the best-sellers are, but they can't tell you what's good. There are great 19th-century science books, like Faraday's Chemical History of a Candle, that never make the best-seller list. And much as Amazon may try, they can't replace the experience of flipping through a book in a library or bookstore.

I like Amazon. I buy books and stuff from them all the time. But I also like libraries. Panos Mourdoukoutas is just trolling to see how far he can push the right-wing ideology that government is unnecessary and the free market is a panacea.

That's like saying, "You love your aunt? OK, we'll kill your mother, you don't need her any more." Which is what Bloomberg did to the Donnell.
_____
PS: When I refer to the NYPL, I should have said, the Schwarzman Building, named after Stephen Schwarzman, a big ($100 million) contributor to the library, and a right-wing hedge fund multibillionaire, who stuck it out with Trump even after Trump said that the Nazis and Klansmen in Charlottesville were good people. Schwarzman is also an investor in SeaWorld, where he tortures killer whales.

The best evaluations of schools are done by the National Assessment of Educational Progress https://nces.ed.gov/nationsrep... which is accepted by educators of all political views.

As far as I know, they're the only ones who have scientifically valid evaluations comparing a wide range of public and private schools. They compared public schools with charter schools, and the results were that charter schools had a wider range of test scores. The best charter schools were equal to the best public schools, but overall, charter schools were slightly worse. The one confident conclusion was that charter schools were not dramatically better. Some people do call them a panacea, and that's not supported by the evidence.

I think there were some other randomized controlled trials of public vs. private schools, but overall the results were about the same.

There are also very expensive private schools ($20,000/year or more) that are probably better than many public schools, but much of that is due to the students they select.

Diane Ravitch was secretary of education in the Bush and Clinton administration. She believed in privatized schools, high-stakes testing, and taking power away from the unions. She wrote many op-eds for the Wall Street Journal saying so. Then she looked at the data. She had a PhD, so she could understand experimental methods.

She found that privatization, testing, and unions didn't make any difference. The one factor that was most strongly associated with school performance was the student's family income. Schools with wealthy children have better test results. Schools with poor children have worse test results. The effect of teachers is insignificant compared to income.

As Carl Sagan said, it's not often that a scientist looks at the data and decides that he's wrong -- but it does happen.

New York City has many excellent public schools. The proof is that there are many informed parents trying to get their children into those schools. In Beacon High School, one of the parents was a very wealthy filmmaker, and he gave the school a donation of what he would have paid in a good private school. Bronx High School of Science, and Stuyversant, have a worldwide reputation for excellence, with long waiting lists. There are other neighborhood schools that are well-known for excellence, and are as good as any public school. In New York City, you can certainly find public schools as good as any private school -- in the judgment of parents.

Unfortunately there are some bad public schools. These are always in low-income neighborhoods. It's impossible to have top-quality schools attended by students who have all the problems of poverty. If you fix the poverty, the schools will get good results. The Catholic schools in those neighborhoods had extreme selection bias (since most parents could afford to pay, and they would quickly expel students with any difficulties). The first step in solving that problem is to eliminate poverty and inequality, at least to the level of European developed economies, or back to the level of equality that we had after WWII.

I took a course with Fred Hechinger, the education editor of the New York Times. He covered school districts in New York, in the region, and nationwide. He said that there are many small school districts in the region, run by school boards. In some districts, the school boards are committed to good education and do a good job. In some districts, it's all about whose brother-in-law can get a contract supplying bread to the school cafeteria. So the way to get a good public school is to live in a wealthy district where the parents are committed to education and active in their school board. Your choice is to move. If you're in a region where all the public schools suck, then you don't have a working democracy in that region.

Of course, if you send your kids to a private school, you also have to be active in the school management. My cousin teaches in a private school. The private schools are either mediocre or very expensive. You can't afford a good private school with an education voucher.

I don't mind having private schools to supplement public schools -- if people are willing to pay for it themselves. I do mind people taking money from the public schools to send their kids to private schools.

In other words, public schools are run by democracy. In order to get good schools, you have to participate. You don't get something for nothing. Yes -- collective action.

When I grew up, the largest non-public school was the Catholic schools. In fairness, there were some Jesuit schools that actually taught their students how to think, and how to look at both sides of the argument, although most of the time they didn't agree with me. But most of the Catholic schools were just propagandizing their students, against abortion, for example. They were a force for sexual repression (until they lost their credibiliy in the child abuse scandals). A friend of mine was teaching English in a Catholic school, and he left because if they found out he was gay they would have fired him. (And this was post-Stonewall.) If a female teacher got pregnant they would have fired her. And the Catholic schools supported government policies, like the Vietnam war, more strongly than the public school teachers did.

There were liberal Catholics, and a few liberal Catholic schools (which tended to be expensive). But most of the Catholic elementary and high schools were full of conservative indoctrination.

But they were better than the private segregation academies in the South.

(If you look outside the US, you see countries like Pakistan where there are no public schools, just religious schools, which are Wahhabi schools financed b y Saudi Arabia, which teach their students to memorize the Koran and fight jihad.)

That's the problem with abolishing public schools. Who's going to take their place? It's going to be mostly religious schools, often extremist, and a very few very expensive high-quality private schools.

Cops get paid a lot of money, considering their education level, retirement and lifetime health benefits.

Being a cop has an inherent risk. They're the police, not a wartime army. They have to take risks to protect innocent civilians. Maybe the suspect has a gun, and maybe he doesn't. Maybe the suspect is not following orders because he doesn't understand, or he's deaf, or doesn't speak English. They can't just blow away anybody who looks suspicious.

If cops don't want to take the risk of the job, there are lots of people lining up to take their place.

Kansas City cops get a median of $52,000/year, and some of them get a lot more. https://www1.salary.com/MO/Kan... http://www.kansascity.com/news...

The best way to change white peoples' definition of a right to bear arms is for black people to bear arms:

Here's How The Nation Responded When A Black Militia Group Occupied A Government Building
https://www.huffingtonpost.com...

Mulford's legislation, which became known as the "Panthers Bill," passed with the support of the National Rifle Association, which apparently believed that the whole "good guy with a gun" thing didn't apply to black people. California Gov. Ronald Reagan (R), who would later campaign for president as a steadfast defender of the Second Amendment, signed the bill into law.

One of the most common triggers is poverty. Eliminate poverty and you've eliminated a lot of family violence.
 

They're constantly talking about it, but I've never heard of an EEOC lawsuit against an organization for not hiring enough men in a traditionally female job, like childcare, teaching or nursing.

Should I get anti-virus software that's pwned by Russia, or anti-virus software that's pwned by the US?

Being an idiot is not a pre-requisite for misunderstanding statistics and the scientific method, but it does help.