Paris

For a whole week I have tried to write this post, but I have not been able to do so. It is not that there is a lack of words… if anything, there is an excess of them. But talk is cheap, so I’ll be brief.

Pairs became an unexpected victim of a war that we see so far away. My heart goes out to the families of the victims, to the injured still fighting for their lives, the ones that will be forever changed by this tragedy, the children that will grow up without their mother or father, the parents that won’t get to see their children get married, the friends that won’t get to celebrate more birthdays, the husband, wives that won’t get more goodnight kisses.

There is a lot more to this, but I will honor the direct victims of this tragedy and for at least this post not use their lives to try to prove a point or make a political arguments.

May they all rest in peace. 

Ted Cruz's "A Time for Truth"

I feel like I need to write a million disclaimers before I write this post, because the mere fact that I am writing it is blowing my mind…. so here are the disclaimers:

1) I see Vendetta’s point about reading autobiographies and how the authors are putting their best foot forward and giving a heavily biased recount of their story… so, everything I will be discussing in this post will have to get fact checked later on and then maybe I ll write another post about how wrong I was on this one.

2) I am not becoming a republican, much less a tea party member… I absolutely disagree with everything they stand for and at the end of the day, it Is a matter of moral values, which apparently are very divergent (they are about the bottom line ($$) I think people come first)

So, here it is…. deep breath…based on what I have read so far (half way done) I have gained a little bit of respect for Ted Cruz (pause, deep breath, look around….the world did not end my me writing that statement..phew!)

Okay….so, lets start by the beginning. The book starts with his view of what happened last year while they were discussing (once again) the debt ceiling and defaulting on government debt. So, what happened (according to Ted) is that in order to raise the ceiling 60 votes were needed in the senate. The democrats had 55 senators and republicans 45, so basically in order for the debt ceiling to be increased, 5 republicans needed to agree…. The problem here is that neither of the republicans wanted to default on the debt, but they also did not want to vote for the debt ceiling increase, so they found themselves in a sticky position…basically, if they all voted no, then there would be turmoil as we would be once gain downgraded by S&P, and then they would be to blame and blah blah blah, but also, they all had made campaign promises to cut spending, and increasing their debt ceiling would not make them very popular amongst their supporters…so, they found a creative way out… Basically, voting rules can be changed as long as votes are unanimous so they decided to suggest that only 50 votes were needed for the debt ceiling to be raised…And given that democrats had 55 senators, then that would guarantee that the debt ceiling would be raised without any republicans having to vote in favor of that… that way they would avoid an economic catastrophe without pissisng off their voters.  So, according to Ted, he disagreed with this… he pledged to do everything he could to stop government spending and decreasing the number of votes needed would not do so…so, for starters, I think it is a respectable position.  Personally, I think that the best thing to do would have been to vote for the ceiling to be increased, and explain to voters the consequences of not doing so and how basically his hands were tied..Ultimately, doing so would have shown bipartisanship and would have potentially made him a few friends across the aisle, but overall, I think his approach is a bit more respectable than the tricky maneuver of just decreasing the voting number. Once again, I need to go back and read about this from somebody else’s perspective, but based on what he wrote, this are my thoughts (if anyone reading this has suggested reading material regarding this issue, I’d be eternally grateful).

He talks about the debt and how it went from 10 to 16 or 18 trillion during the Obama admin, but he seems to ignore, or fails to remember that a lot of that spending comes from a war that he did not wage and bailing out an economy he did not break.

There are a few other anecdotes in which I seem to at least see where he is coming from. He mentions that when he worked as a clerk for Rehnquist, he learned that a lot of the republican Supreme Court justices appointed at least one democrat as their clerk, while democrats never appointed republicans as their clerks. Regarding this, he says that it shows that republicans are more open minded, which I sort of agree with, however, I do want to fact check this and also know how did they treat their liberal clerks and did they take them seriously or did they just accept them as a political move to see more fair and unbiased?

He talks about Gerrymandering in Texas and how at some point districts were distributed in a way that the majority of representative were democrats while the majority of the votes were republicans, which I agree is a little bit weird, but once again, I’d like to fact check this.

He talks about the 2000 election when Bush won his first term and there was the issue of the recount of the votes in Florida and how every county in Florida was counting differently (some were counting the hanging chads, some were not), and I agree that it should have been uniform, however, in general, when there were so many deficiencies in the voting system, should they have made a re-vote (instead of recount) in general?

There is the issue with suits to remove the pledge of allegiance and religious figures from public offices and schools… which, I agree with…But also find to be a waste of time and resources. He does what other republicans do and is to invoke the spirituality of the founding fathers and the Christian values on which this country is based… The problem that I find with this is that times have changed. When you invoke the founding father you have to put them in the context of what they would do today. Back then, they lived in a relatively homogeneous population in terms of race and religion, but there is so much more diversity these days. I’d personally like to think they would be more than tolerant towards other religions (or lack of), but there really is no way of knowing… so, let’s go back to the fact that separating religion from government is a good idea and try to implement that to modern times. I am not saying all religious figures should be removed (that would probably cost a lot of money). I am not very religious, but I think they have become part of this countries traditions (more than religion itself, just like Christmas), but from now on we need to be more inclusive (or rather, exclusive) for instance, no public funds should be used for the depiction of religious figures, and privately funded depictions can be displayed in public places, as long as it is not limited to certain denominations, so if people are willing to privately pay for a nativity scene to be displayed at a pubic park, that same park should also be available for display of a Menorah if someone privately wants to fund for it to be displayed.

Finally (for now), there is the issue of the Vienna convention and how it infringes in state sovereignty. Basically, he describes the case of one Mexican national that kills and rapes two girls and gets the death penalty. Years later, the UN says that when the guy was arrested he was not told that he could contact the consulate of Mexico, which is against the Vienna convention, which the US ratified, and therefore his conviction was not legal (I see it as the equivalent of forgetting to read Miranda rights). He says that the treaty should not be used in state cases and it interferes with the states sovereignty. I disagree. The treaty was signed by the US, so the entire country entered into an agreement; therefore it needs to be upheld. You can’t pick and choose to respect a treaty so it either becomes legal or not…and if it is not legal, then other countries don’t have to give American prisoners the right to contact a consulate when they get arrested abroad.

So, that is it for now. I know…. it may be a little shallow and show how little I actually know about politics…I need to read a bit more, but, overall the take home to this is that, while I don’t agree with Ted Cruz, he at least comes off (in his book) as someone who stands by his beliefs (regardless of how wrong those beliefs are). Basically, at least with him, what you see is what you get unlike other politicians who will flip flop or use trickery to their convenience (obviously, I don’t think he doesn’t do it, but at least that is the way he comes off in the book). I promise I’ll do some fact checking and come back and discuss all of these based on what I learn.

Update: Good God, I swear..it is like they use the first half of the book to tell their warm and fuzzy story, and just when you are thinking "oh, this guy is not that bad" the claws come out... still haven't finished, so I ll write a new post about it later...but just needed to let me reader (yes, I think I only have 1) that I have come back to my senses!

Ben Carson's "America the Beautiful"

Oh boy! Where do I being. I started reading this book a couple of weeks ago and I just got to the halfway mark... I typically read during my daily commute, which totals about 2-2.5 hrs a day. I just looked in my kindle and it looks like I have read about 40 books this year which is about 3/4 done...which means I read in average about a book a week (that sounds about right)...so, it looks like this book is taking about 4 times longer than the typical book....why is that? you may ask...well, because I get so mad that I have to put it away....

But, lets start with the positive.... Ben Carson is the definition of a self-made man and I have to admit he is admirable. He was raised by his mom, who had a 3rd grade education, and managed to become a neurosurgeon at Hopkins... you also have to add the fact that he grew up in a period where racism was still pretty rampant, making his feat even more astounding. There also have been several notions that I seem to be in agreement with. For instance, on the topic of immigration he wrote:

Even today we exploit our fellow human beings for work. Is it moral for us, for example, to take advantage of cheap labor from illegal immigrants while denying them citizenship? I’m sure you can tell from the way I phrased the question that I believe we have taken the moral low road on this issue. Some segments of our economy would virtually collapse without these undocumented workers — we all know that — yet we continue to harass and deport many individuals who are simply seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Is there a way to apply logic to this issue and arrive at an intelligent solution?

I need to read more on his policy on immigration though, because I was pretty shocked when I read this as it was my understating he was pretty  anti-immigration.... maybe I ll discuss that further once I dig in a little deeper.

On the topic of health-care he wrote the following, which I fully agree with...

For example, providing basic health care for every citizen can be done quite easily without increasing our national debt one penny. If we address our inefficient and wasteful billing and collections procedures, move to a national electronic medical record, provide people with incentives to use clinics instead of emergency rooms for primary care, and engage in meaningful tort reform to limit costly lawsuits, we would have plenty of money to provide basic health care to all citizens of this country. 

I think that is where the good ends. In general terms, I find him to be narcissistic, megalomaniac and very condescending. He comes of as being the ultimate expert on the bible and constitution, and he, better than anyone else, understands what Jesus, the apostles and the funding fathers meant. He rarely supports his claims by facts and figures but instead ties to back up his claims by mongering....for instance, talking about the socialism he says:

Because we live in a free and open society, those who advocate socialism are free to do so, but for the well-read individual, it is easy to discern the agenda of the socialists and how they are implementing that agenda in an attempt to bring fundamental change to America.  The agenda? Total government control. For jobs, income, you name it . Anytime you give to government the responsibility and authority to provide government-made jobs, old-age financial security, “free” health care, and “free” education and indoctrination of children, it will control the lives of the people who live under its jurisdiction, and individual liberty and freedom of choice are sacrificed.

I mean.... right?  He is basically saying that those who believe in socialism are ignorant uneducated people.. I think that is sort of a low blow.

Okay, besides that.... I think what bothers me the most is his attitude that because he was able to get out of poverty everyone should be able to do the same, and if they don't it is because they are lazy. He calls poor people lazy several times...and he doesn't say some poor people are lazy....he says "poor people are lazy". Based on this he is obviously against welfare programs, and I think social security and medicare as he says people should plan ahead...but overall it is confusing, because he seems to have a lot of contradicting thoughts...for instance, in the passage above he seems to be against free education and apparently considers it indocrination of the children, but then he discusses how Benjamin Franklin thought education was fundamental for the welfare of the nation.... but then he goes on a rant about religion and moral values, and how some would say that we have become a more tolerant nation because for instance we don't really judge single mothers, but in reality, by not judging them we are sort of promoting that life-style which often lads to poverty and therefore we end up having to pay for people who made bad choices... so, I may answer the questions later on in the book, but if he is so opposed to single mothers, how does he feel about contraception? and providing programs to promote contraception and decrease teenage pregnancy rates?

He also talks about a woman who was going to get an abortion because her unborn child had hydrocephalia, but finally he convinced her not to, and the baby was born, and they placed a shunt that drained the water,  and the baby survived,....but with some developmental delays...so, the question is, should the government then help these people who have kids who have special needs? I mean, you are telling people they have to give birth to a kid with a disease, that they may be able to survive, but will require special attention for the rest of their lives. The parents of some these children obviously have the option of having the baby but giving him/her up for adoption, but I wonder what the adoption success rates are for kids with disabilities. The other option is to keep the kids, but then, what happens when these kids need at home care and one of the parents has to quit their job to provide it? what about the hospital bills for whatever medical expenses associated with these diseases? Because apparently, giving government assistance just enables laziness...so I am not sure what the options are for those cases.

The strange part is that to me, he comes off a little racist... to the point where I think he sort of justifies slavery because of the economic benefit it brought to the country... maybe not as far as justify it...but sort of.... he does call it atrocious, but then.... well, here is the quote

It is not difficult to see why it took the United States so long to join other civilized nations of ridding ourselves of this atrocity. Slave labor was essential to the financial well-being of our fledgling nation, and without it, our struggle for recognition and economic power would probably have had a different outcome.

He goes on after that to say that he doesn't agree with reparations... however, like much of his arguments, this is an oversimplification. I too am against giving people money just because their ancestors were enslaved, but, I do believe that maybe we need to even out the field for those who came from nothing...maybe by providing better education? and some incentives to stay in school? so, this is sort of a tangent, but, If you see nothing wrong with people inheriting large sums of money and therefore being able to keep a very comfortable lifestyle with minimum amount of work because their parents or grand-parents or great-grand-parents work really hard to provide for their kids and future generations, should't you on the same account provide some help to those who did not inherit anything because their grandparent and great-grand-parents were slaves?... he talks about an instance when he went to an native-american community and saw that the kids had money so made no effort to get an education...and that money came from reparations given to native-Americans in the form of lands, which then allowed them to build casinos that made them rich...but, on one side, they did work hard to create the casinos.... so by his own principles, they deserve the amount of money they have earned because it was earned through their hard work, but also, there are non-native american kids that also drive BMWs and party instead of taking advantage of education opportunities, because they were lucky enough to be born to a wealthy family...and I don't see him criticizing them. Here are his own words

Many years ago, I was asked to speak at an all-tribe graduation for a large group of Native Americans who owned a massive gambling casino complex. Elders of the tribe told me that they were hoping that I could inspire many of the unmotivated young people to attend college, which the tribe would happily pay for. Since the tribe had so much money, many of the teenagers were happy to drive around in their BMWs and party instead of taking advantage of educational opportunities that would ensure a positive future for the tribe. The reparations the tribe had received were certainly justified given the tremendous losses suffered by Native Americans at the hands of American settlers, but I’m not entirely certain that the end result benefited the tribe as it could have.

By the way, this whole reparation issue brings me to a very sensitive topic: Israel. He says that he disagrees with reparations that have to be paid of by people who had nothing to do with the original problem, int he case of slavery, people who are alive these days and never even owned a slave (although, you could argue that a lot of families became rich thanks to slavery and the wealth created back then has allowed them to continue accumulating wealth)....but, what does that mean for Israel? Do the Israeli people then deserve the land of Israel even though it had not belonged to them in over 2000 years? moreover, can that land be given to them at the expense of the Palestinian settlers who had nothing to do with WWII and had occupied the land for centuries? We will see...hopefully he touches on the topic later no that book...or maybe tonight in the republican debate.

So, anyways... this is already pretty lengthy, and I still have half of the book left to read! so Ill be brief with the rest of my grievances. One is the amount of bragging he does regarding his charitable work, which, if I remember correctly, it is a very unchristian thing to do (so when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. "But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you") 

Back to fear mongering, he makes it seem like we live in the country where money is taken away from the rich to give to the poor. Yes, I get it, people hate taxes, but it is not like all the tax money is given to people on welfare...how about defense? about 25% of the national budget is set for defense, while only 10% for welfare programs like food stamps...

Anyways, as I said...pretty lengthy already, so I ll stop for now, but, I am sure I ll get back to this again soon.... stayed tuned!

My new personal project

I have a new project!
I have decided to read books written by presidential hopefuls...which means I will be submerging myself in mainly republican ideology for the next few month...
So... to get in the mood, and because I could not get Hillary's book yet from the library, I decided to start off with "Back to Work" from Bill Clinton. I can't say that this is my preferred genre, so I admit I had some difficulty reading it, but, I finished it and overall I liked it. I admit that my critique of the book will be pretty superficial as I did not do any fact checking, but overall he documented his sources, so I am going to trust it. I liked that he was relatively bi-partisan praising republican programs when he saw fit, and condemning democrats as well. I liked that there was a lot of emphasis on clan energy and how it could create jobs as well as benefit the environment. I already finished the book a couple of weeks ago and did not take many notes, so it is hard for me to actually give a deep thoughtful analysis... I think one of the things that I remember most about the book was the case of a company in Arkansas that while going through a crisis decided to cut everyone's hours instead of laying off people, and if I remember correctly, the CEO even cut his salary in half...anyways, as I mentioned, I just read is as a teaser and I am just discussing a bit of it now...but stay tuned for more critiques on presidential hopefuls.
I ll finish this post on the only quote that I copied from Bill's book...

...Our constitution was designed by people who were idealistic but not ideological. There’s a big difference. You can have a philosophy that tends to be liberal or conservative but still be open to evidence, experience, and argument. That enables people with honest differences to find practical, principled compromise. On theother hand, fervent insistence on an ideology makes evidence, experience, and argument irrelevant: If you possess the absolute truth, those who disagree are by definition wrong, and evidence of success or failure is irrelevant. There is nothing to learn from the experience of other countries. Respectful arguments are a waste of time. Compromise is weakness. And if your policies fail, you don’t abandon them; instead, you double down, asserting that they would have worked if only they had been carried to their logical extreme.

Powerful stuff...right? haha

More on vaccines

Okay….so, apparently I have a little bit of an audience…. I think more people have seen my vaccines post than all my other posts combined….so, I will keep on the subject

I found another blog post… it was a little lengthy and It took some restrain for me not to just lose and start chastising the author…but I am determined to keep my cool and try to have a respectful debate (even if it is just with myself)

So, here is the post

http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/dr-kurt-why-i-will-never-choose-to-vaccinate-my-own-son-and-any-future-kids-my-wife-and-i-have/

And this is my response.

While I got to a point where I ended up just skimming through the rest of the post, I got the message and I agree. Medicine has advanced to a point where most or all of these diseases would be treatable with significant long-term damage in most of the population….keyword being most… there are of course those fee extreme cases where things go wrong and the effects are detrimental (some times perfectly healthy die from flu and common colds…the CDC says that in 2010 about 56,000 people in the US died from the flu and pneumonia). There are also cases where the patients don’t have the ability to fight the disease and exposure to any pathogen ends up being fatal. Maybe it is not your kid, in which case, why is this problem…right? But, what if it was your kid? What if your son had leukemia or undergone a transplant and therefore was on immunosuppressive therapy for survival…. wouldn't you be happy to know you neighbors and your kids classmates are vaccinated and therefore your kid is less susceptible to infection? Don’t take me wrong, I am not wishing any harm on your child, but just because your kid is healthy right now, doesn't mean t could not happen in the future.

Going back to the point about diseases being treatable these days, you are most likely right…but also, treatment of these diseases would probably involve administration of medicaments that probably have as many “toxic” substances as the vaccines themselves…and big pharma would probably make as much money from treating the diseases as it does from preventing them (if not more) and if you take into account doctors visits, hospitalizations, medicines, time off…it would be a lot more costly for the nation to treat these diseases than your prevent them. Also, let’s put it this way…would you rather scientists find a treatment of vaccine for cancer….wouldn’t you rather be able to save people from the suffering that comes with both the disease and the treatment?

You give a bunch of statistics about the diseases that vaccines aim to prevent…but the way the statistics are presented and interpreted is just awful….take the first graph for example…yes, the number of cases (total) was down to 15/100,000 (about 25,0000 cases based on the population of the US in 1955) after introduction of the vaccine, but an important thing to note is that those fluctuations happened even before the vaccine as there were periods of outbreak…for instance, in 1946 they were as low or even lower…. but since the introduction of the vaccine there has been a downward trend and has never peaks as much as it did before the introduction…also, the data is only until 1970…it is worth noting that there the graphs still shows about 1/100,000 (almost 2,000 cases)….while there haven’t been any polio cases since 1979…also….are we even reading the same graph? you are saying that paralytic polio only happened in 0.5-2% of the cases…but the graph clearly shows otherwise…..take any year….for instance, 1951 (the highest). The total number of cases was about 3.75/100,000 with paralytic cases being about 2,25/100,000, 60%!..and for comparison let’s look at a low year such as 1941 with about 7/100,000 total cases and about 3/100,000-4/100,000…still about 50%….Or am I reading this wrong? I have no idea where you get that figure …that is And FYI, the great depression was definitely over by the late 40’s….. Not to mention the lack of any reliable statistics regarding vaccine injuries…did you for instance note that only one autism related compensation has been made out of the 5,636 claims since 1988? And yes, compensation for non-autism related injuries have been made in 2,620 cases, but I believe that injuries from the diseases would have been exceedingly large in the absence of vaccines.

So, while I was trying to stay calm and have a respectful conversation, you sir, do not deserve respect. You are just a liar and a manipulator that misrepresents data in order to convince people that probably don’t know any better….and therefore I won’t even argue with you anymore.

Jumping on the vaccine debate bandwagon

I am pretty tired of seeing articles pro-vaccination on my FB newsfeed. It is not that I am against vaccines...on the contrary, but I think that the important thing is to educate people and not chastise them. The way I see it, people who don;t vaccinate are either ferociously against vaccines or just not sure about them... the people who are passionately against them will never change their mind, no matter what, so we need to focus on the people who are unsure about them, because these are probably people who just have doubts and fears and will not respond to being called dumb or ignorant....

So, I decided to do some research and find out why people decide not to vaccinate. I found this:
http://www.thankyourbody.com/why-we-chose-not-to-vaccinate-our-child/

This is my response to that

Dear Robin,

Thank you so much for posting about your decision to not vaccinate your kids. It was a very brave move, and frankly, as someone who believes in vaccines I have been trying really hard to understand why people are against them, and I am very interested to have a respectful and open-minded discussion about it.

Let me give you a little bit of background on myself. I am a research fellow at XXX with a PhD in Bionegineering from the XXX. I have worked on research in a wide range of issues including cardiovascular stents, cytomegalovirus and breast cancer cell motility but my true expertise and main research focus for the past 6 years has been pancreatic and hepatic tissue engineering…so I don’t claim to be an expert in vaccinations, but have a enough scientific training hat I consider myself capable of deciphering through the literature with relative ease and have been trained to critically an objectively read through scientific literature.

As a disclaimer, and so that you understand that I have no ulterior motives here, I will let you know that after 6 years of graduate school, I make 42K a year (The NIH standard) as a research fellow, and my goal is to eventually establish myself in academia, so I don’t foresee ever working for a pharmaceutical company, or enter industry in general.

So, going back to your article, I would like to offer a discussion of some of your concerns.

First, there is the issue of the ingredients of vaccinations. Now, I can’t really discuss each of them individually, so I would like to discuss the ingredients in the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles, which is the culprit of the current state of panic. The CDC link you posted states that the MMR vaccine contains Medium 199, Minimum Essential Medium, phosphate, recombinant human albumin, neomycin, sorbitol, hydrolyzed gelatin, chick embryo cell culture, WI-38 human diploid lung fibroblasts. So, Medium 199 and Minimal Essential Medium (MEM) are common cell culture medias. They are used for the maintenance of cell cultures and contain a number of nutrients necessary for the cells to survive. All this nutrients are things that you’d commonly ingest such as vitamins, amino acids (which make up proteins) and some inorganic salts (such as just normal table salt). Once again, most, if not all of the ingredients are things that you’d ingest with most foods and are necessary for survivals of cells in culture or n the body. Phosphate is also naturally occurring and we need it for survival. It is part of the energy metabolism of all cells and many other cell functions and the body produces it…briefly, ADP is converted into ATP by addition of a phosphate group and ATP is converted to ADP by losing a phosphate group , and this constant cycling is what produced energy for cells to survive. Also, phosphate is added to glucose entering pancreatic  beta cells, and then cleaved, which results in release of insulin, which is necessary for the cells to uptake glucose and therefore survive (glucose is our main source of energy). Human albumin is a protein produced by liver and it is very important for a number of things, including detoxification. A recombinant form of the protein just means that it is made in the lab, which is good, because you know it is free of possible pathogens. Recombinant proteins are purified, so it really is just the active form of a protein that is produced in the human body. Neomycin is an antibiotic, which just protects the vaccine from getting contaminated with bacteria. sorbitol is a type of sugar that you find in corn syrup and a number of fruits. Hydrolized gelatin is derived from collagen. Basically, gelatin is denatured collagen, which is found in the skin and most tissues. Denaturation takes place by heating collagen (or altering the pH). Through denaturation, the collagen bonds break down in a process called hydrolysis, changing the structure, but not the content of the collagen. The last 2 are a little bit deceiving. They don’t actually put whole chick embryo cells or human lung cells into the vaccines, but the inactivated viruses are propagated in the cells and then extracted, but they list them because there may be some cell components in the vaccine. This is important for people with allergies…for instance, if you are allergic to eggs or poultry, since there may be some traces of chick cells in the vaccine, you may get a reaction from it. Finally, let me say that I was actually surprised at how harmless the ingredients of the MMR vaccine are.

As for the safety of the vaccines, the pharmaceutical companies do the testing required by the FDA, but in order to have long term studies you’d need to give the drug as experimental drug to a lot of volunteers and follow for a long time before approval. I have never been involved with FDA approval, but have studies the process, and believe me when I say; it is not an easy process. Long term effects may not be studied by pharmaceutical companies but they are done by researchers in academic institutions. Typically, when submitting these studies for publication, the manuscripts is reviewed by people who are considered experts in the field to make sure it was properly performed and the conclusion are well supported by the observations. Ina addition, you are required to disclose any conflicts of interests (such as affiliation to pharmaceutical companies). Failure to do so could destroy your career. An interesting fact is that Andrew Wakefield, the author of the study that linked vaccines to autism, was hired as a consultant for a pharmaceutical company designing a new line of vaccines that claimed to be better than the ones that supposedly caused autism. He failed to disclose this, on top of a deeply flawed study with a very homogeneous and statistically too small group of patients.

As for the increase in diseases including allergies and psychological disorders, there are a number of things that may contribute to it, and while there may be a correlation, causation has never been proven. I once heard someone saying that linking vaccines to autism is like linking climate change to the decrease in pirates…the correlations are practically the same (but causation has never been proved) On top of an increase of vaccines, we have seen an increase in pollution, technology, change if lifestyles…all of which could very well contribute to these. Another plausible explanation is that while the rate of diagnosis has increased, the rate of the diseases has not. For psychological diseases, guidelines for diagnosis have been created in the last 30 years, so, before these guidelines, kids often when without a diagnosis and simply labeled as trouble makers or problematic. For allergies, there are actually several interesting articles that suggest that the increase in incidence is not wide-spread in the world and changes in our behaviors have affected that. For instance, 30 years ago, nobody really avoided peanut butter, which this days is suggested to be avoided until the age of 2. When compared to other countries where peanuts are widely used in their diet and there are no recommendations against it (such as Israel) the incidence of peanut allergies is much greater here. To me, that makes sense….the reason being that babies are born without an immune system, and maturation takes a long time. Allergies are an extreme immune response to something…so if we introduce allergens at an age where the immune system is not fully developed this extreme reactions are not possible sensitizing people to the culprits so that in the future no allergic reaction is developed. Now, understand that I am not saying that we should go out and give peanuts to newborns… this is just a hypothesis and one that I have never tested…and to the best of my knowledge nobody has either… but is a hypothesis based on scientific facts.

About the pharmaceutical industry being a money making machine, I totally agree…they are evil (which is why I don’t want to go into industry), but the FDA is a government run regulatory agency, and while obviously there may be some corruption behind it, I like to think for the most part their main goal is the wellness of the population. Also, the FDA makes no money from pharmaceutical companies.

Regarding your healthy life-style, access to clean water and a strong immune system, some scientists would actually disagree with you. In order to be immune to things you need to be exposed to them….which is why kids get sick more often that adults do. Basically, the body sees microbes and doesn’t recognize them, therefore can’t fight them as fast…but if your body has seen a disease causing pathogen before it has the machinery to fight it fast (it already has the antibodies against it). This is one reason people sometimes get sick when they travel while the locals tolerate the local food, water. Don’t get me wrong…I am not saying go get aids, or hepatitits…those are deadly diseases and you should stay away from them! But, a little bit of dirt doesn’t hurt anyone!

So…with that, I am done with my rant, and all I ask is for you to give it some more thought. I would be very happy to answer any other questions you have, or at the very least, try to help you find the answers. Thanks again for being so brave as to openly admit that you chose to avoid vaccinations…I am sure there has been some hate mail, and I am sorry if that is the case.

Have a great day

Oldies

1. Rant about Zakaria/Job creation
I was watching Fareed Zakaria GPS this weekend. He had an interesting debate on who creates jobs. The whole section itself was very interesting, but what I want to discuss right now is this: 
At some point on of the guest speakers said the following “You're making a moral argument as opposed to an economic argument” (This was in response to an argument that the so called risk takers are not really taking any risks, but that is besides the point I am trying to make). Later on he said “It doesn't matter whether it's moral or not, it's what's the economic cost to get those guys to walk away, to create the next Google, the next Facebook”
I guess where I am trying to get at is that it seems like I have heard this exact same argument from a lot of my republican and libertarian friends. I have also heard this argument and read this argument from politicians, journalists and commentators. And I think this clearly helps me pinpoint what it is that I so much dislike about republicans… I believe that morality should never be a different conversation. I think morality should always be part of the equation regardless of whether you are talking about economics, health care, education or anything for that matter.

2. Election night

Today I get to vote for the first time ever! To commemorate such a historic occasion I want to write down some thoughts to immortalize this day.

Not too long ago I was asked why I would be voting for Obama. Is it because he is a democrat? Do I really know what his plan is? Am I aware that he has not accomplished a lot of his promises and flat out lied?  Can I even mention anything he has done that I like? The answer to all this questions is yes.

I will vote for him because he is a democrat. I believe in their overall ideology. I consider myself lucky to have been born to parents that could give me everything I ever needed and more and thanks to them I consider that I have succeeded in life. I wish everyone had the same opportunities I did, which is why I am perfectly fine with the government lending a hand to those who want to succeed even if it means me paying some extra taxes. I am OK with a big government that will impose some regulations that will ultimately protect us as costumer and as citizens. I believe everyone should be afforded the same rights regardless of who they choose as a life partner. I find it funny that people often refer to Obama as a socialist as if it was the biggest insult and such a dirty word, however, modern socialism is not necessary Cuba and it is definitely not the Soviet Union. Some nations have managed to embrace a socialist system mixed with a free market and they happen to have the best standards of living in the world: they have the highest literacy rates, highest GDPs, best health systems.

I don’t know every detail of Obama’s plans, but I know where he stands on those things that are important to me (education, health care, environmental issues and immigration to mention  a few) . I know a lot of his previous plans went unfinished, which is why I want him to have a second term. I believe he will get a better chance to get a lot more done.

I don’t think Obama is a saint. I am aware that he is a politician. As so, I believe he has been campaigning for reelection since January of 2009. This may have something to do with some of his “broken promises” or his compromises, but that is the game that has to be played which is why I think his second term could be more successful. There is no reelection agenda and he will be freer to make decisions that will anger people who support him (I think he has been dilly dallying with the XL pipeline to avoid angering some environmental groups that are against it) . That being said I also think the opposition has a lot to do with his shortcomings. Let’s be honest here, no other president has faced an opposition that has openly admitted that their only job is to make sure Obama is a one time president. Do we need examples? The debt ceiling debacle. I can’t believe how people still blame Obama for the S&P downgrade when it was the congress who hijacked the budget and it was Obama who showed some willingness to compromise. Also, let’s not forget that Obama tried on several occasions to pass a jobs bill that got filibustered by the GOP. I often hear that Obama’s presidency has lead to the greatest number of deportations, but I don’t think this has much to do with Obama, after all, he is not the one out there hunting people down for deportation. During his presidency several states have passed very strong immigration laws that probably have a lot more to do with deportation rates. Also, immigration enforcement officials have actually sued Obama over his policy to stop deportations of the dreamers showing their unwillingness to respect his orders.

So, what has Obama done that I agree with? Well, for starters his first move as president was to end the ban on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. You may not have heard about it, you may not care about it, but to me it is a big deal. For the last 4 years I have been working on embryonic stem cell research under a federally funded grant that has paid for my tuition and stipend. Obamacare is also a big one. I don’t think it is the ideal system, but I think it is a step in the right direction and I would hate to go back to the way things were. I particularly like the ban on pre-existing conditions and I am perfectly fine with the individual mandate being a tax. I was asked if I did not feel like Obama lied by stating the mandate would not e a tax, and I really don't. I think it is all a matter of semantics. There is the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell which I know was a democratically started policy. I think DADT was the right step towards progress at the time, but times have evolved and the policy needed to be repealed. There is the amnesty program for the dreamers. It is no dream act, but, once again, it is a step in the right direction. There is the end of the war in Iraq which was a senseless war to begin with. Those are the things I most agree with and care about.

Very briefly I need to mention that I don’t hate Romney. I just don’t agree with the republican ideology and I don’t really know what he stands for (not for the lack of trying). It would be hard for me to vote for someone who said “On day one, I will announce deficit-reduction measures that end the era of big government ushered in by President Obama” on his facebook page this morning. How can one be expected to vote for someone without a clear idea of their plan or their beliefs for that matter? For someone who at some point implemented a plan similar to Obamacare but then claims he would repeal Obamacare and then says he would only cut parts of it? Someone who says that his plan for immigration would be to make immigrant’s life so miserable that they would self-deport, but then says that he would staple a greencard to every diploma, but opposes to the dream act?

But that is enough about my reasons to vote for Obama or against Romney, and that being said, if Obama loses today I hope to wake up one of these days and find that Romney is the best version of himself. If he is not, I would hope to be proven wrong about many of the things I believe in. I wish he can indeed put people back to work and ensure everyone has a fair shot at a good life. I hope this partisan BS ends and both sides of the aisle learn to play nice and remember that they are there to make this country a better place for all their citizens (not just the 1%, not just 53%). I will understand that if Romney wins it is because the people spoke and that is what they wanted. I will never question the legitimacy of his presidency and while I will likely disagree with his plans I will give him the respect he deserves. Conversely I hope that if Obama wins we can end this birth certificate or college transcript debacle. I hope the GOP learns to play nice and work with him instead of trying to stop him every step of the way. I hope we all learn to stop rooting against a guy we disagree just for the satisfaction of being right, even if it is at the expense of the American people. 

Guilt

Despite coming back from my winter break feeling motivated, I am having a really hard time at work recently. I need to write it out to find some clarity and a way to snap out of this.

I think partly is that the working parent guilt is catching up. The crazy part is that I don’t think it comes from within me, but rather from social pressures and expectations.

So, for one, I sometimes feel bad that I don’t have that much to do at work, and yet I am here from 8-4…everything feels like I waste of time. Hopefully, things will pick up at work and I will soon be busier that I am right now and therefore the guilt of not being very productive at work, while also sending my kid to daycare will subside.

The other part is reading articles and comments from other parents regarding parenthood which leave me feeling slightly inadequate. I recently joined a group of grad school classmates that have become parents. They all talk about how hard it is not to sleep in bed with their babies, or how hard it has been to go back to work, and it makes me feel inadequate. When I went back to work I don’t remember having a hard time. I only got 6 weeks off, which sucked because it took me 4-5 to get the hang of staying home with a baby, and I had to go back very soon after that. Maybe part of it is that I had absolutely no help. Nobody cooked and brought me any food, my mom was there for the first week, which actually ended up being stressful for me due to the relationship I had with her at the moment. On top of it, she stared at me while I tried to breastfeed to make sure I was doing it right, never cooked for me, always took the baby away from me or told me I was holding her wrong, criticized me for not getting my hair brushed or makeup on…and we actually ended up getting into a fight. My husband’s family didn’t help either. They were actually mad at me and engaged in a full blown war over a number of things ranging from me not wanting anyone but my husband at the hospital before the baby was born, to my mom and sister being at my house when they wanted to come meet the baby. My mother in law made a few meals with explicit directions that they were just for my husband as the ingredients may cause the baby gas and the entire time I obsessed about the house being clean, laundry being done and life being in order….so in retrospective, going back was probably a lot less stressful and fun than staying home. Part of it is that by the time I had to go back, my mom came back and took care of the baby and I was able to do it gradually, so I started with a few hours a day and ended with however long I needed. Part of it was that when the time came to send her to daycare, I tried to look at it from a rational perspective, which was that they had more experience caring for babies than I did, therefore she was probably in better hands. Shortly after I went back, I started a new job at a terrible terrible place…and that was a bit harder. I remember there were days when I just lingered forever when I dropped of my daughter at daycare, or sat and play with her and the other babies for a few minutes before I left.

I just saw a petition to make maternity leave with partial pay for a whole year mandatory and ,against all my principles and core (believe me,  am shocked about this), I am completely against this. I sort of got into a debate with someone about it and the arguments for it were that “maternity leave, aside from being good for children (and therefore society), encourages mothers to go back to work after having kids - many women don't because they find leaving a 6-12 week old in daycare unthinkable and because daycare is so expensive. And women going back to work is extremely important for GDP and income tax revenue. So really it makes sense for everyone, even employers and those without kids, to expand maternity benefits”. And while it all sounds nice and good, I still could not agree with it…so I decided to analyze in a little bit more depth.

Let’s leave the maternity leave being good for children and society statement for last and concentrate on the economics of the issue. Economically, daycare doesn’t make sense if your salary is less than the cost of daycare, so this law would be financially helpful if the partial pay represents more than the difference between salary and childcare. That may be the case for a lot of low income people, but there are other ways to financially support women going back to work after having kids. The main reason that I would advocate in favor of other solutions is that a year of maternity leave would put a lot of women at a disadvantage when looking for a job. Any employee would much rather hire a man than a woman who could potentially stop working for an entire year, while still receiving a salary….and as much as I hate to admit this, I think I agree with that. I have been trying to come up with scenarios and this is the best one I can come up with….let’s say that I finish my post-doc and get a great idea that I am able to use for a start-up company. Let’s say that I am going to need clinical trials and animal studies and therefore need to hire a highly specialized employee to take care of that. I find Cindy, a recent PhD graduate with all the necessary qualifications and experience….everything is going great and then, boom, Cindy tells me she is pregnant and will be taking a whole year of maternity leave… But this is a start-up company..it is a unstable situation and I hired Cindy because of her highly specialized skills…so now, I have to find someone as specialized to replace her..Probably have to bring that person in before Cindy leaves in order to have enough time to get trained and then continue paying her and Cindy (partially) for a whole year. This in itself is a big stretch to my budget and therefore I can’t commit to hiring the other person for more than a year, upon which the poor soul has to go back to being unemployed. And what happens if after a year Cindy decides that she doesn’t want to go back to work? Do I get to ask for the money back? Wouldn’t it make more sense to maybe hire someone without highly specialized training and ask Cindy to work part-time after let’s say 12 weeks of maternity leave…. that way I can hire someone at a lower pay rate to be supervised by Cindy who gets to spend some considerable time with her baby and everything is good! Other solutions (that big companies can implement) is having subsidized in-site daycares, allowing some flexibility to telecommute when the job allows for it, and a number of other solutions that could financially and emotionally help support mothers without implying a huge loss to companies.

So, now for the part where maternity leave is good for children and therefore for society…. it just strikes a chord with me… Although it doesn’t quite say it, it implies that mothers who go back to work are not as good as mothers who stay and that children of mothers who go back to work are damaged goods. Look, I support your choice to be a stay at home mom if that is what you choose. It is your life and your priorities are different from mine, so I have no right to judge or tell you what you have to do, but all I ask is the same in return. The way I see it, there are advantages and disadvantages to both choices. In my case (from the perspective of a mother who chose to work and the daughter of a mother that worked a lot too) being a working mom instills certain values in children. My mom worked really really hard, and granted, our relationship has had some ups and downs, but her career was actually one of the things that has created a bond between us. Growing up I was so proud of my mom! She was so hardworking, and smart, and her lab was so cool, and I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. I spent so much time in her lab, and she was always able to help me with my science fair projects, and with my science classes in school! These days my work is a common topic of conversation for us and something that brings us together. When I finished my PhD, it meant the world to me to have my mom sitting during my defense and telling me how she thought my work was beautiful and she was so proud of me.

From the perspective of a mother who went back to work,  I see the advantage of making me an equal partner to my husband in all senses. Not only I feel good about the fact that I financially provide, but it has also made us equal partners in terms of childcare. My husband changes diapers, and is getting great at doing my daughter’s hair, and sometimes is in charge of bath time. If she gets sick or has a doctor’s appointment, we share the responsibility of making alternative plans. I often hear other mothers talk about how hard motherhood has been for them, and, don’t get me wrong, there have been challenges, but it has been relatively “easy” for me, and I wonder how much of that I have to attribute to the fact that my husband is more than just someone who helps….he actually shares the responsibility equally with me.

Parenting Advise

I am pretty sick or articles, blogs and studies about parenting and what methods are best to be adopted. Every time I read this I feel like I am breaking my child by choosing to go to work, not breastfeeding until they are 3, technically, not breastfeeding (exclusively pumping instead), not co-sleeping, letting self sooth, etc, etc, etc.

I have come to the following conclusion…. my mom worked, didn’t breastfeed me, didn’t co-sleep and was terribly strict with me…. if the worst case scenario is my daughter turning a little bit like me, I think I can live with that.

Seriously speaking, I try to be auto-critical and be aware of my shortcomings. I’d like to believe that they are a result of more deep seeded issues than whether my mom chose to sleep in the same room (or bed) as me when I was growing up. I think everyone’s circumstances and personalities are different and there are so many combinations of these that it is impossible to come up with a universal parenting solution. Besides, what is the outcome of being a good parent? That can also vary depending on what your priorities are. In my case, I want my child(ren) to be happy, but be good people. I want them to have a sense of responsibility and find a meaning in trying to make the world a better place. Most of those are things I can try to teach and set an example for…however, happiness is a bit trickier. I think that beyond looking at studies and reading articles, the best thing I can do to help my children be happy is to examine my life. In order to be most successful I need to be honest to myself and find the things that make me unhappy and try to find the root of such unhappiness. The beautiful thing is that I don’t have to share this with the world, so I can be completely honest and then try to apply those teaching into my parenting style…..

So, for instance… my biggest source of unhappiness is that I have a lot of insecurities. Where do these insecurities come from? Well, I think partly from being bullied as a child… which I can’t stop from happening to my kids, but I can teach them to stand up for themselves…beyond that, I can make sure that I try to minimize unnecessary criticism and praise them when they deserve to be praised. There will be times when I’ll get frustrated because they are disorganized, or not doing well in school….and I think it is important to be strict with them because at the end these are things that will help them be happy and successful, but I should never put them down. I also struggle with people. I am too critical and resentful and at the end of the day it only damages me. I can try to change that so that my kids don’t learn to hold grudges like I do, or be critical as I am. I can try to purposely say good things about other people so they learn to be positive.

So…..that is the rant of the day. Sometimes I think I need to stay away from parenting articles and groups….they make me just feel inadequate and bad. I need to remind myself that I am trying my best and that is what matters the most.

I am back!

Okay…..so, I took a hiatus from my blog….and a lot happened since then…. I am not sure if we can really call it hiatus, since I only posted 7 thins before, but, the blog is still there, and I have decided to write on it again…..

So, first of all, I am a mom…. I have to admit that back then I had some strong opinions about parenthood, and I ll be the first to admit that some of the things I felt or said back then came back to bite me in the ass….. But overall, most of my sentiments from back then still stand, although there may be an added perspective.

I still think people should be more careful about procreation. As expected, I really struggled during pregnancy because of the environmental and the carbon footprint my kid would have….so, I have taken some measures to, at the very least, ease my guilt. I tried the cloth diapers, but it was just not for me…however, I did find some Scandinavian diapers that claim to be like 70-80% biodegradable and have been using those since the beginning. I have not bought baby clothes, unless they come from consignment stores, and have been dressing my kid for 2 years on hand me downs. I went back to work, finished my PhD and got a post-doc, so the whole family relocated to a new city. I can sincerely say that I have barely bought any toys and did ask both families to try to exercise some control and not go overboard with gifts (this was not received with overwhelming joy, and created a whole lot of drama, but ultimately, I think ended up being sort of accepted and respected). When I do buy gifts I try to make it so they are sustainable….it is more expensive, but I much rather give one good gift than a million crappy ones.

My biggest hope for raising this child is to bring up a human being that understands how big the world is, and how there are people out there who live in circumstances we can’t even conceive. I hope this brings her a sense of responsibility and at the very least does enough with her life to not be a burden on this planet and humanity.

With that being said, sit back and enjoy as I will be posting some stuff I have written in this past years, but never posted.