It’s back. Eliminated in 1998, thanks to vaccination, measles is making a comeback.This highly-contagious disease has been spreading around the world and there are now dozens of cases in this country, mostly in Ontario and Quebec. At the same time as measles is thriving, opposition to vaccinations has been increasing
Continue readingTag: vaccination
Views from the Beltline: The Doctor Who Fooled the World
I rarely do book reviews. Nor do I often suggest books to read. But every once in a while I come across one that is simply too good to just read, return to the library, and carry on without comment. Such a one is The Doctor Who Fooled the World
Continue readingScripturient: Freedom or Just Free-Dumb?
It’s a sad statement on modern affairs that the word “freedom” has been reduced to a generally meaningless term, thanks to the constant gaslighting by the right. Every rule, regulation, protocol that the right doesn’t like, doesn’t agree with their ideology or that hurts their feelings is trumped up as
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: National Post Letter
The old poli sci major in me could not allow John Ivison’s column to stand. Please see the letters section in today’s National Post for my response to the argument that it is somehow “illiberal” for governments to impel individuals to get vaccinated. Re: Trudeau shows liberal principles have left
Continue readingSong of the Watermelon: National Post Letter
The old poli sci major in me could not allow John Ivison’s column to stand. Please see the letters section in today’s National Post for my response to the argument that it is somehow “illiberal” for governments to impel individuals to get vaccinated. Re: Trudeau shows liberal principles have left
Continue readingScripturient: Jail the Unvaccinated
In a recent opinion piece in Macleans Magazine, Scott Gilmore wrote what I expect many vaccinated Canadians felt about those who still refuse to get vaccinated and help end this pandemic: We need to begin treating the vaccine holdouts as the fools they are. It is not fair that reasonable
Continue readingViews from the Beltline: Is Facebook killing people?
President Joe Biden missed his goal of 70 percent of Americans vaccinated against Covid by July 4th. Some cities are now urging even vaccinated residents to resume mask-wearing, and in states such as Missouri and Utah, where large swaths of the population remain unvaccinated, health officials are warning of hospitals
Continue readingScripturient: The Cancer Diaries, Part 29
I began to write this post on the anniversary of my prostate surgery, July 8. Anniversaries are a time to reflect on the past and look to the future, even for events that are not always the happiest to recall. I took some time for such reflection and contemplation this
Continue readingA. Picazo: Inoculating Against Science-Denialism
This op-ed appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on February 10, 2015. There’s an illness sweeping its way across North America, one which has long-troubled the scientific community and baffled even the most seasoned medical expert. This problem isn’t new, but was once considered primarily a threat to underdeveloped nations which have yet to
Continue readingcentre of the universe: You’re to Blame
I wasn’t going to say anything about this, but as usual, semantics made me do it. Because we live in a free and democratic first-world country (except for those places you don’t want to walk through), you get to choose not to vaccinate your children, and your reasons for that
Continue readingScripturient: Blog & Commentary: The dangerous idiocy of the anti-vax movement
Measles is on the rise in Canada. There have already been many cases in 2014: in PEI, London, Ottawa, southern Alberta, Regina, Qu’Apelle, Calgary, Fraser Valley (320 cases), Hamilton, Halton, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Waterloo, Nanaimo and other locations. Eleven cases in Ontario this year alone. Nine in Alberta. That ancient, deadly
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Society of Ob-Gyns Wants Boys Vaccinated for HPV
Canada’s Society of Obstetricians & Gynecologists has set the cat among the fundamentalist pigeons this time. They want all Canadian provinces to follow Prince Edward Island’s lead and make HPV vaccination available to boys as well as girls. HPV, or human papillomavirus, is generally considered a disease transmitted unknowingly by
Continue readingbastard.logic: Big Pharma Cashing In On Global South Vaccination?
The Graun: Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), the Nobel prize-winning organisation working on the frontline in remote and conflict areas, says vaccines bought with UK and other donor governments’ money cost too much and are not designed for the needs of hot and impoverished countries. When the pot of money subsidising
Continue readingwRanter.com: Slicing through ignorant anti-circumcision rhetoric
Share this: Every once in a while, the subject of circumcising male newborns and boys rears its ugly head – no pun intended – and the discussion rarely takes long to veer into ethnocentrism, if not outright intolerance. With the best of intentions, and without realizing it, many people who
Continue reading