JeanM
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Posts posted by JeanM
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Thanks! I'm not sure if I'm ready to buy anything yet. I was hoping for mobile apps but I looked at Sibelius and that's not in our price range. I'd almost rather something much cheaper that she has to correct more. It would be different if manual transcription were impossible, but it's not. :)
How does this look?
It looks like it's free, so you could try it, but I have no personal experience with it. I've used Finale notepad a lot (http://www.finalemusic.com/products/finale-notepad/), which is also free.
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I agree that it isn't "a big thing," but I don't know why anyone would have an issue with someone pointing out the fact. I think all parents should be warned to keep their kids away from vulnerable people after a live vax, and clearly that is not happening.
There are a lot of things that aren't statistically "a big thing" that people bring up, discuss, and even get angry about on here.
I totally agree with you, that it isn't a "big thing" and I don't have issues with people pointing this out. I agree that parents should be made aware if the live vax is possibly contagious.
I do have issues with articles like the one linked in the OP (http://www.cnbc.com/id/102473744#). In that article there are statements like, "The public health community is blaming unvaccinated children for the outbreak of measles at Disneyland, but the illnesses could just as easily have occurred due to contact with a recently vaccinated individual." It is true that the MMR does contain live virus. However, the odds of contracting measles from a recently vaccinated individual are virtually zero. So it is completely untrue to say that the illnesses could just as easily have been due to the vaccine.
The article goes on to quote the Weston A. Price foundation as saying, "the best protection against infectious disease is a healthy immune system, supported by adequate vitamin A and vitamin C."
It seems to me that the article is really trying to justify not vaccinating. In my opinion, there is a big difference between saying, hey, be aware that your child was just vaccinated with live virus, and saying that you don't need to vaccinate your child, just be sure to feed him or her a healthy diet.
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In 2013, Eurosurveillance published a report of vaccine strain measles occurring weeks after MMR vaccination in Canada.
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Found this above.
If anyone wants to read more on it they can copy that into their browers etc...
This is a link if anyone is interested: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=24330942.
The case reported in the paper though has no transmission. They describe a child who had a measles-like symptoms after getting the MMR vaccine, but they specifically say "It is possible that the case’s symptoms were not measles-vaccine-related." They do say that they made sure the child's contacts were vaccinated, but they don't report any symptoms in anyone except the one child. They also make the point, "Of note, only one case report of transmission from vaccine-associated measles has been identified." That is one case, and it it was in 1989.
It seems that it is not impossible to get transmission, since they are reporting one case in 1989, but that is pretty close to zero, considering how many people have received the MMR vaccine between 1989 and 2013.
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If I come into contact with someone who has wild chicken pox and someone who is shedding the virus post vaccination, I am equally likely to get chicken pox simply because three cases haven't left me immune. Because there is a vaccine and most people do get it and so don't get wild chicken pox, I am much more likely to come into contact with someone who is shedding the virus post vaccination than someone who has wild chicken pox. Because of this, my risk of getting chicken pox (again) is greater from someone who was vaccinated than someone who is just infected.
This was the case with polio. Since the late 70s the only people who got polio in the US were infected via viral shedding post vaccination. The odds were MUCH greater of being infected that way than from some random person who had polio.
Well, I've gotten chicken pox twice before the shot started being used in the US and once since. The two before were, of course, from people who had wild chicken pox. The one since was from someone who had been recently vaccinated. I am much, much, much more likely to come in contact with recently vaxed people today than people with wild chicken pox. I don't know if that was true in 2008 when we last got chicken pox, particularly since the "crowd" I tended to be around at the time were non-vaxers and many of them were actively looking to infect their children with chicken pox (which is a whole other issue that I have rather strong feelings about).
I was responding to your statement that "If I come into contact with someone who has wild chicken pox and someone who is shedding the virus post vaccination, I am equally likely to get chicken pox simply because three cases haven't left me immune." It isn't equally likely.
I'm so sorry that you have had the chickenpox repeatedly, I've had it once and it was no fun. If you ever get it again, as a plea from the scientific/medical community, please try to make sure your doctor reports it. I totally understand that isn't your highest priority when you are sick.
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I doubt anyone knows how many vaccinated people are actually immune to the diseases for which they were vaccinated, as I'm sure most people never bother to be tested to find out. People simply assume that because they had the shot, they are immune, and that is clearly not always the case.
On an individual level this is generally true. Most people don't get tested after a vaccine. However the rates of immunity are carefully tested when the vaccine is developed, and immunity in the population is tracked after the vaccine. This is how they come up with numbers to show percent effectiveness of vaccines.
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If I come into contact with someone who has wild chicken pox and someone who is shedding the virus post vaccination, I am equally likely to get chicken pox simply because three cases haven't left me immune. Because there is a vaccine and most people do get it and so don't get wild chicken pox, I am much more likely to come into contact with someone who is shedding the virus post vaccination than someone who has wild chicken pox. Because of this, my risk of getting chicken pox (again) is greater from someone who was vaccinated than someone who is just infected.
This was the case with polio. Since the late 70s the only people who got polio in the US were infected via viral shedding post vaccination. The odds were MUCH greater of being infected that way than from some random person who had polio.
Actually this isn't correct. You are much more likely to contract chicken pox from someone who has wild chicken pox. Wild chickenpox is very contagious. The virus in the vaccine is attenuated, and it has been shown to be genetically different from the wild virus.
These papers explain: http://jvi.asm.org/content/72/2/965.full#sec-18and http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/197/Supplement_2/S45.full.
"V-Oka, the varicella vaccine strain, is attenuated in its infectivity for human skin by virologic measures, including reduced yields of infectious virus and decreased viral protein synthesis."
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But exposure is more likely from a recently-vaxed person than from an unvaxed person, because the unvaxed person probably doesn't have the disease at all. And if he does come down with it, he's going to be quarantined (unlike the recently vaxed person) as soon as symptoms are identified.
Statistically we have millions of recently vaxed people walking among us at any given time, but statistically there are very few unvaxed people walking around with those diseases. So the risks are not directly comparable.
Exposure to a recently vaccinated person is clearly more likely, but *most* vaccines are not live viruses. Of the vaccines that are live viruses, most recently vaccinated people most of the time are not shedding virus. Of those who are shedding virus, the virus is an "attenuated" or weakened virus, that is much, much less likely to infect.
Being exposed to a person who has the measles, either someone who has not been vaccinated or someone for whom the vaccine did not work, is *highly* likely to result in measles transmission. Being exposed to someone vaccinated with an attenuated measles virus is highly *unlikely* to result in measles transmission.
And just FYI, a measles outbreak is defined as three confirmed cases in a geographic area in a month (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK143963/). The definition is not based on origin of the cases. It's true that one person getting measles is not an outbreak, but it is rare for one person to have active measles and not infect anyone else. Measles is really, really contagious.
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This is just unvarnished truth.
I saw a blog post on Twitter by a guy posting about how agonizing it was that his kid got pertussis and that everyone needs to be vaccinated RIGHT NOW. But his kid was fully vaccinated!
What else could he have done and how is anyone else to blame? His son could have been infected by a newly vaccinated person, for all he knew.
Strange.
Actually the DtAP vaccine is acellular - not live virus. You cannot catch pertussis from a someone who just got the DtAP vaccine.
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My younger ds will be a 9th grader next year. We're still working on plans, but he's definitely doing some classes at the local public high school.
At public school:
honors Spanish 2
band
honors English 10 (probably)
AP European history
At home:
Algebra 2 - using Lial
Science - not sure about this, probably biology
Health - combination of red cross, some sort of nutrition, and "Your Body in the World" (free online class)
AP computer science - maybe?
Extracurriculars:
swim team
jazz band
debate team
orchestra
??
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So because Walmart makes its money creating unskilled jobs in the US and Microsoft / Apple make their money by NOT creating jobs in the US, WalMart is the evil one.
Actually that's not what I said. First, I never said Walmart was evil. I said that people tend to focus on it because there are just so many employees in the US. An awful lot of people are either are Walmart employees, are related to a Walmart employee, or know a Walmart employee.
Also, I said that they both create jobs overseas. I have no idea how many jobs each company creates overseas. It's kind of a weird comparison because Walmart sells both Microsoft and Apple products.
Edited to fix grammar errors.
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To answer the question about why people tend to focus on Walmart and not someplace like Microsoft, I think part of the answer is because Walmart has so many employees in the US who are earning less than a living wage. Walmart is the single largest employer in the US outside of the federal goverment, with about 1.4 million employees. Microsoft has about 59,000. And I don't have a citation, but a much larger percentage of Microsoft US employees receive benefits and earn enough money to be above the poverty line. Microsoft is on this list of 25 companies with the best pay, according to employees:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-25-companies-with-the-best-pay-and-benefits-2014-5?op=1
Now if you're including workers outside of the US, that's really hard to compare. Walmart also gets tons of stuff from overseas.
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I think it's very helpful to have classes taught by people who actually use the relevant skills in the "real world."
And as a person who has taught as a part-time professor, I can say they don't do it for the money. There are other reasons. I did it because it was enjoyable to share my experience with younger people, and because it was a resume enhancer.
I think a university that recognizes the value of real-world experience deserves kudos, not suspicion.
I'm sure that's true for some adjuncts, but there are definitely people who are trying to earn a living. I know multiple people who are teaching as adjuncts who *need* that income. A few value the flexibility - they are homeschooling or part-time homeschooling. A few have had trouble finding full-time positions and are "adjucting" while looking for something else. It is really sub-optimal in many, many ways. These are not necessarily people with "real-world" experience outside of grad school either.
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It varies. I know FAFSA's calculator was laughable.
Oh, I'm sure it varies depending on your circumstances. I was trying to make the point that it isn't necessarily true that "meeting need only applies to the poor. Not to the workers or middle classes."
And sometimes it can be more affordable to go to a private school than a state school. There are many, many factors involved. I do know some middle class families whose kids are grown who can't retire because they're still paying for their kids' colleges. I'm not saying the system is perfect by any means.
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I agree completely that this just doesn't make sense in terms of three classes. I think that how I grew up and was taught in college most certainly acknowledged more than one social class.
There was poor (dependent on benefits), working and artistic class aka lower middle class, middle-class (corresponding to middle management and the merchant class), upper-middle class (including the creative class with connections, upper-middle management), and finally the elite.
My grandfather grew up at a time when poor meant minority/unhireable, disabled. Orphans, widows, invalids, the traditional poor classes.
If you were working, you were working class. You could eat. You could take a stay-cation. You didn't get any form of handout. But now the workers cannot necessarily afford to buy their own food in many areas. They qualify for benefits. This is the outrage one sees on the streets. Nobody whines about poor people suffering. But when being in the 30th%ile intellectually means you are too poor to feed a family then people start freaking out and rightly so. The idea that a working entitles you to be paid for that work... revolutionary (literally).
Also, on these boards, you see a lot of confusion. Some people are so keen to encourage others to aim high, that they forget that "meeting need" only applies to the poor. Not to the workers or middle classes. So there are a lot of people who talk about their EFC for private school, because they thought that private school was accessible to people from all classes.
The reality is that this myth has helped private schools rake in a ton of $$$ for applications but most people simply cannot afford their EFC for those schools. I'm always floored, since we actually are middle class though I identify as working class as those are my roots, I had to scramble to get this far--when people claim on the one hand they are scraping for soup and on the other hand their child has applied to several lib arts private schools. In my world, you apply to an elite school if you're a national merit semi-finalist and have one amazing characteristic AND your family can meet EFC for a state school no problem.
That's not us at this point. My kids will be working their butts off to get great deals at our local colleges or MAYBE one of the Jesuit schools which have very liberal aid (thank you, Catholics).
Why Americans do not see this as a problem between themselves and their employers who are getting richer and richer, but instead talk about "elites" and "class" and "the government" I will never know. Take it all out of the equation and you need to find a way to get paid a living wage for your life's work.
I'm not an expert, but I'm starting to research this stuff since my oldest will be applying to colleges in a few years. My understanding is that the "EFC" is the same - there isn't a private school vs state school EFC. If you qualify for financial aid, as far as I know there isn't necessarily a reason to prefer a state school. In fact, it seems that many well-endowed private schools will meet your need grants rather than loans. So there are definitely reasons to shoot for private schools. It's not just to give application money to private schools.
My family is definitely middle class. I've run net price calculators at several schools, and we qualify for need based aid at all of them.
Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm hoping to avoid debt for my dc.
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Of course vaccines are less profitable than other drugs. They have guaranteed sales to an extremely large market, thus no real risk of sales fluctuations, and they have very little liability risk since the government has shielded them from this. Low risk, low return. That's basic economics.
But even a very low return on hundreds of millions of guaranteed sales is a considerable profit.
They can use this guaranteed cash cow to fund their more risky, potentially more profitable developments.
Of course it is in their best interest to keep this stream of money coming in. "Low profitability" is just a distraction.
That makes sense. I'm wondering then, why so few companies are making vaccines. It seems like more companies should be getting into the business, but that isn't the case. Maybe even though they are a guaranteed cash cow, the bad publicity doesn't make it worth it?
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Last year, five pharmaceutical companies made a profit margin of 20% or more - Pfizer, Hoffmann-La Roche, AbbVie, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Eli Lilly. Ok, Merck is listed at 10%.
And this: But as the table below shows, drug companies spend far more on marketing drugs - in some cases twice as much - than on developing them. And besides, profit margins take into account R&D costs.
Is making a profit bad? No, not standing alone. Goodness, people throw money at Apple for the latest iphone every year. But it isn't obligatory, nor are people demonized for failing to purchase one.
Is profit bad when you force people to purchase the item (or force one to jump through hoops if one can decline), hide its bad effects, and lie/obfuscate/bully, and when the item is inherently invasive and dangerous to some percentage of those forced to utilize it? I think so. Your values may differ.
See if you can find the profit on vaccines alone. I found one report that cost $3,995.00, an obvious attempt to minimize access to that information.
I can't find the profit on vaccines alone either. Mostly articles just say that they are "less profitable" than other drugs, which isn't very helpful. I do know that the number of companies manufacturing vaccines has gone down. This article (http://magazine.jhsph.edu/2002/fall/vaccines.html) says:
in 1967, the "FDA had licensed vaccines made by 26 different manufacturers. By 1980, the number had fallen to 17. Today it stands at 12, of which only four are large pharmaceutical companies."
On the other hand Russia has as many as 20 manufacturers of one childhood vaccine. Maybe making vaccines *more* profitable would encourage more competition? I'm not sure if that would be better or worse.
I'm curious about your statement, "Is profit bad when you force people to purchase the item (or force one to jump through hoops if one can decline), hide its bad effects, and lie/obfuscate/bully, and when the item is inherently invasive and dangerous to some percentage of those forced to utilize it?" If the pharmaceutical companies are lying and hiding bad effects (and I'm not saying that they aren't), what would be the best means to address this? We do already have government oversight of vaccine development and manufacture. Do we need more regulations?
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Yes, I know it is sales. I clarified that. There is profit built in, which I also clarified, though they keep the profit under wraps. You restate it as if I didn't understand what I cited. I should have simply quoted, since others did, but I thought we were not supposed to do that here now.
But I will do it now from that article: While a spokesperson for Merck told The Atlantic that vaccines remained one of its key areas of focus—it generated $5.3 billion in sales in 2014—she did not comment on the profit margins. Analysts peg the profit margin of giant pharmaceutical companies at anywhere ranging between 10 to over 40 percent. “Nobody knows exactly how much it costs for them to make it, because they don’t want to reveal that,†says Halsey. They fear that they would face pressure to lower prices in the U.S., Europe, and the developing world.
So you can take that as you will, whether you believe the profit margin overall for pharmaceuticals is 10-40% or whether the vaccine industry contains that profit. The article is entitled in part, "Vaccines are profitable", so I think it is pretty clear that the implication is that the reference to "how much it costs to make it" is to vaccines.
Quibble if you like, but vaccine making/pushing not an altruistic move, so do not mistake that. People should use their own best judgment, taking their family histories into consideration.
Do whatever you like. Just permit others to do the same.
I never said that vaccine making was altruistic. I said that I was sure that they were making money. In the link that you include, http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223, it clearly states that Merck's profit margin (overall, not from vaccines) is 10%. Call it quibbling if you like, but I value accurate information.
You didn't actually answer the question though, is it bad to make a profit?
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No hysteria here. I'm a business owner and understand how profit works.
Merck made 1.4 billion on Pro-Quad, and 1.7 billion on HPV in 2014, but made 42.2 BILLION DOLLARS overall. Merck intentionally cloaks the profits, but it is suggested by analysts that the profit margin is between 10 to over 40% on vaccines, especially in America and Europe, where price gouging occurs.
Money IS being made hand over fist, though it is true that the lifestyle drugs they push on TV are more lucrative than vaccines.
The article you linked does not show that Merck made 1.4 billion on Pro-Quad, they say, "sales of ProdQuad (a vaccine for measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella), MMR II (for measles, mumps, rubella), and Varivax (a chicken pox vaccine) together came in at $1.4 billion." Sales, not profit. They take in more money on Gardasil, btw.
And the article does not say that the profit margin is between 10-40% on vaccines. They say the profit margin for giant pharmaceutical companies in general is 10-40%, and they link to this article: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-28212223. Generally vaccines are less profitable than other pharmaceuticals.
Regardless, I'm sure they are making money. Is that a bad thing? Would it be better if they made no profit? They would stop manufacturing if there was no profit. This is an article discusses the profit issue:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/vaccines-are-profitable-so-what/385214/
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Here is my question, and it could be really dumb, but it is something I don't understand. Those who vaccinate have protected their children against the diseases we are talking about, right? So why does anyone say that if you don't vaccinate you are putting other people's children at risk? You are only putting at risk those who have chosen NOT to vaccinate, not those who have vaccinated. But it is the pro-vaxxers that are up in arms about their children being at risk. Am I missing something?
Definitely not a dumb question. The answer is that no vaccines (yet) are 100% effective. For example, according to the CDC, "One dose of MMR vaccine is about 93% effective at preventing measles if exposed to the virus, and two doses are about 97% effective." So out of 100 people who are fully vaccinated, only 97 are totally protected. Then there are a few individuals, I have no idea how many, can't get vaccinated either at all or on schedule. For instance, my 3 year old distant cousin who has leukemia and has been undergoing many treatments, couldn't receive some of his vaccines on schedule. So let's say we're down to 96% who are vaccinated. If someone who is infected with measles exposes these 100 people, it is very likely that the 4 who are not fully protected will get the measles, since the measles are incredibly contagious.
Also for a lot of diseases, babies and young children are more vulnerable to the disease and/or to complications from the disease. Like pertussis is very dangerous for babies who are too young to be vaccinated.
The trouble with a lot of diseases is that it can spread before you realize you (or your child) has a seriously contagious disease. You can have the measles, and spread the measles, for several days before the rash appears. And measles is so contagious that if somebody coughs and then leaves the room, you can catch the measles from the airborn virus after they are gone. Pertussis too often is undiagnosed initially. So you can expose many people, including unvaccinated babies, before you realize that you have pertussis.
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But, running off an another topic, does anyone have support for this idea: "here’s a little known fact about the benefit of vaccination. The measles vaccine doesn’t only protect against measles. Because it contains a small amount of a live virus, the immune system must rev up to fight it, which in turn reduces mortality from other infectious disease—including pneumonia, sepsis and others—by 50 percent.This protective effect [of the a live vaccine] lasts until a vaccine is administered with a killed rather than a live virus, such as the one for diphtheria and tetanus. So do you want to protect your kids? Give them the measles vaccine."
From this article: http://www.thenation.com/article/198609/what-anti-vax-movement-doesnt-tell-you-about-measles?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
a) I'd never heard of this and
b ) it lasts until a dead virus injection? um, what is the mechanism for that?
I had never heard of this myself. This paper addresses the issue:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12598383
It's interesting, but I think more studies would have to be done in order to reach any conclusions.
I think the phrase, "it lasts until a dead virus injection," is poorly worded. It seems like the author is trying to say that the protective effect of a live vaccine will no longer exist if they move to an acellular vaccine, like they did for dtp. Thus he's not saying that it lasts in an individual until the dead virus is injected, he's saying the effect in the population will only last until they switch to a dead virus. I could be off-base here, this is only my interpretation.
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I think this comes under the presumption that children should be protected from imminent danger, even if their parents think otherwise. There have been lots of court cases where medical treatment has been forced to save children's lives. In my opinion the court went too far here, but that is just my opinion.
And to address the potential issue that measles isn't "imminent danger," the article sadly says, "In the end, nine kids across Philadelphia died, including six from Faith Tabernacle."
And I agree with albeto in that this case was a long time ago, and it does not seem to have started a precedent where more children have been forced to be vaccinated.
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If parents get their beliefs from Jenny, then they are putting others at risk.
So to respond to the above quote - does it follow that if parents DO NOT get their beliefs from Jenny, but still believe differently than albeto, they are NOT putting others at risk? Logic fails me.
No, you cannot logically conclude from the above if p then q statement that if not p then not q. That is a logically fallacy called "denying the antecedent."
Edited to add: I didn't mean to be harsh about it. I'm agreeing with you that it doesn't work logically.
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You frequently connect Jenny McCarthy with people against mandatory vaccines on the CDC's arbitrary schedule. Do you have a scientific source you can link to prove that such people all got their beliefs from Jenny McCarthy?
Parents who opt out of vaccinations because they research at the School of Google with Professor Jenny McCarthy are putting others at needless risk.
I'm (obviously) not albeto, but if you look at the statement above, it does not say that all (or even many) people who opt out of vaccination get their beliefs from Jenny McCarthy. To paraphrase her statement: if parents get their beliefs from Jenny, then they are putting others at risk.
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Registration is now open at Spark:
https://esp.mit.edu/...park/index.html
This is a program for students in grades 7-8, and it runs the weekend of March 14-15. It's an incredible bargain - two days of classes for $40 total, including lunch. My dc have loved Spark (and Splash, which is for high school students). This will be my younger ds's second trip to Spark, and he spent a huge amount of time yesterday trying to decide what classes he wants to sign up for.
How often are homeschool students unable to take AP exams due to no testing site in big cities?
in High School and Self-Education Board
Posted
:iagree:
I'm really so happy with our local public school. This year ds is taking two AP exams that the school doesn't offer (AP calculus BC and AP physics C). They are happy to help him out, and they're organizing both tests just for him.