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medpundit |
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Friday, January 02, 2004The truth is, that since the approval of the vaccine in 1970, and it's use in high risk groups, the incidence of inhalational anthrax in this country dropped to zero. It wasn't until the bioterrorist attacks of 2001 that cases of inhalational anthrax emerged again. All the more reason why military personnel stationed in high risk areas should be vaccinated. (Michael Fumento has more on the subject here.) And then, of course, there was the case of the mad cow. It didn't seem to bother too many people outside the media, at least not in this country. I got zero calls at the office about it. (People were more concerned about the flu, and rightfully so.) And according to this story sales of meat at fast food restaurants and stores is staying stable. The risk seems to be small, since there are already regulations in place to avoid the kind of mad cow epidemic (which was really relegated to cows only) that occurred in Britain. Even so, the slaughter industry is also getting a new set of regulations, to minimize the risk even further. It's amazing that so much fuss can be caused by a simple protein that manages to get itself folded differently. The diseases caused by these prions are very rare, even the variant Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease that comes from mad cows. Over 200,000 English cows were infected with the bovine version of it, yet there have been only 124 human cases linked to that outbreak. Therefore, the presence of one mad cow does not a crisis make. And in lesser news, Howard Dean announced he was going down South to witness for the Lord. He didn't say whether it would be the bike path Jesus or the angry Jesus he would witness for, but one thing for sure, it won't be this Jesus. UPDATE: True to form, it's the angry Jesus: Don't you think Jerry Falwell reminds you a lot more of the Pharisees than he does of the teachings of Jesus?' he added. 'And don't you think this campaign ought to be about evicting the money-changers from the temple? Actually, neither politicians nor government should be ejecting anyone from temples. posted by Sydney on 1/02/2004 08:15:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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