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Comment Re:The part people don't consider (Score 1) 258

I know a little girl who has cancer.

...increase the danger that she'll catch something ...

Well done. You've managed to use the trick employed by the anti-vaccination crowd and other sensationalists in their fear mongering.

Please keep your "why won't anyone think of the little girl with cancer" FUD to yourself. Your comment proves nothing about the efficacy of the yearly flu jab.

Comment Re:Don't forget: (Score 1) 258

Moreover, there is a perfectly good reason why there is not nor will there be double-blind placebo controlled trials for vaccines. It's simply unethical. Anti-vaccine nuts love to point to the lack of placebo controlled trials for vaccines in an attempt to explain away the lack of any good evidence for their own favorite CAM modalities.

I don't think that conducting a double-blind placebo controlled trial for flu vaccine would be unethical in the least. Placebo controlled studies are unethical only if the participants' health would be seriously jeopardized when receiving the placebo treatment (i.e. death or serious/irreversible health problems). I wouldn't count having a three day flu as a very serious problem.

Moreover, to state that flu vaccines work because, in general, vaccines are a good thing blatantly violates how medical science should work. If there is no well designed study to show that flu vaccines are effective then we cannot state that as such.

As Ben Goldacre would put it, getting the flu vaccination is a medical intervention and as such will always carry a risk of some magnitude. Without conducting a careful risk-benefit study, you cannot give a clear recommendation.

Comment Re:What about clotting? (Score 1) 465

Theoretically, and I'm just going on a hypothetical limb here, you could apply pressure on the papercut, thus preventing the blood flow. Furthermore, if you were to get tired from applying said pressure, you might use some implement to perform the same task, some sort of an aid..hmmm I think I might be onto something here!

Comment Re:Depends on the country and/or food. (Score 1) 330

Haha. I learned only this summer that the haggis is "marketed" to the US tourists as this small round animal. You could buy little haggis soft toys at the souvenir shops!

Sitation required? http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/nov/27/travelnews.travel

Another ridicule on the american tourist was the Edinburgh castle's tourist guide's anecdote about an american asking whether the coastline behind the bay (the Forth?) that you can see from the castle might be France?

Privacy

Submission + - Pirate Bay admins face jailtime

kauttapiste writes: "A Swedish court has convicted four men linked to the popular Pirate Bay file-sharing site of breaking Sweden's copyright law. The Stockholm district court sentenced Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Carl Lundstrom to one year each in prison. They were also ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to a series of entertainment companies, including Warner Bros, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures."

The defendants are expected to appeal all the way to the highest court if necessary.

Comment Re:Experiments like these... (Score 1) 323

Apparently, the Soviets had the US navy communications code for the most part of the Cold War. If shit had hit the fan, the US navy would have been as successful as defending Pearl Harbor. It's just the same if they practiced in simulators and not fck up yet another ecosystem. Or you could sleep your nights just as well with a soviet-repelling rock under your pillow ;-)

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