Found an interesting post here: (https://open.substack.com/pub/lonewolfblog/p/dog-hip-dysplasia-and-nutrition?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) - check out substack for more posts!
The "Lone Wolf" Graphic Arts Technologist
I have been involved in high tech, graphic arts, computer software and hardware design for more than 40 years. I've been blogging about vaping since early 2009. I work on advanced robot vision, 3D, SONAR, LIDAR, and software technology. I own my own business. I have set up this blog to talk about who I am, what I do, and to publish my opinions...
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Sunday, August 13, 2023
Sunday, August 6, 2023
Miss Information: Girl Dinner and Malnutrition
From the Telegraph article linked below. |
Miss information is back!
Today we are again going to make much deserved fun of MedPageToday. As you may or may not know MedPageToday is a "top" site for true, clear, concise "medical" information - they never, never, ever publish "misinformation". In fact, they despise all purveyors of "misinformation" - especially people like Meryl Nass (not, see: https://substack.com/@merylnass and https://merylnass.substack.com/p/paxlovid-given-license-inappropriately).
You can see MedPageToday's recent thoughts "misinformation" via this link: https://www.medpagetoday.com/search?q=misinformation. They also despise lawyers taking their misinformation hating pals like Pfizer to court: https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/105484 (https://vsrf.ticketleap.com/covid-litigation-conference/).
Now let's look at this fabulous case of "Tik Tok" misinformation at MedPageToday: "What's Wrong With Girl Dinner — Experts say the trend highlights the best and worst of social media's messaging on healthy eating" - https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/cultureclinic/105684?xid=nl_popmed_2023-08-04&eun=g1720904d0r
For some reason the words "misinformation" do not appear in this article?
I wonder why that might be?
So an example of a "Girl Dinner" is a "Tik Tok" influencer telling young, impressionable women that a great breakfast is "bread, cheese, grapes, and pickles". MedPage "experts" deride this because "...these posts may promote unhealthy lifestyle and dietary choices."
But this apparently doesn't meet the criteria, whatever that might be, for "misinformation."
How interesting.
The article goes on to suggest a "social media" aspect: "It's not unreasonable today for primary care doctors to say, tell me what your habits are in terms of your use of social media," Fornari said. "I think that physicians need to be aware of the trend".
This is why the government needs access to your social media accounts - you might not be controlling things sufficiently for them.
And a "mental health" aspect: "'Girl Dinner' and Mental Health These posts would likely not have a negative effect on healthy people, but those who are more vulnerable to messages about body image issues might be influenced, Fornari noted. "Adolescent girls are more vulnerable to this because they're often feeling a sense of inadequacy and striving for perfection, which of course doesn't exist," he said. "So that's a population that I think is more at risk."
Again, manipulating impressionable young girls does not fall to the level of "misinformation..."
Hmmn...
So remember, at least as far as MedPageToday is concerned this is all perhaps a bit troubling but still, apparently, does not reach a level to be called "misinformation."
What does meet that level?
Let's take a look at what Vinay Prasad (see: https://substack.com/@vinayprasadmdmph) has to say (his background: @VINAYPRASADMDMPH at SubStack, THOUSANDS OF PAID SUBSCRIBER, Hematology Oncology Medicine Health Policy Epidemiology Professor). He's also on youtube.
Here's one example: "The Cochrane Review on Masks is Damning - Masks have no good data to support them| - It is a religion, not a science" https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/the-cochrane-review-on-masks-is-damning
Another: "Randomized trials are the BEST way to test masking & other NPIs - Anyone who says otherwise is wrong" https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/randomized-trials-are-the-best-way
Old Vinay goes on quite a bit regarding the lack of randomized control studies. Studies where one can gather unequivocal evidence as to whether something actually has an effect.
I wonder why no one at MedPageToday wants to hear from poor Vinay...?
Vinay, of course, is not alone (see my related article here: https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2023/08/my-old-friend-scurvy.html as well as google folks like Dr. Peter McCullough in McKinney Texas).
Then there's this recent vegan genius: "Influencer who promoted virtues of fruit-only diet dies aged 39 'of malnutrition' - Zhanna Samsonova, a Russian blogger, was described as a ‘walking skeleton’ as she embraced increasingly restrictive regimen" (see: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/08/01/zhanna-samsonova-tiktok-instagram-vegan-diet-dies/).
Well, MedPageToday, "veganism" sure is a "thing" today...
But, apparently, no worries about sending Zhanna Samsonova's message to teen age girls. No, no, that's not "misinformation."
No consistency problem here...
I hate to tell you, MedPageToday, that there is only "information" - the term "misinformation" is itself "misinformation".
When you have a society largely composed of idiots who cannot think for themselves for whatever reason, you need to make up terms like "misinformation" to control them.
In reality, it is up to the consumer of any "information" to decide on it's quality and value.
Only dictators try to force their ideas of what information should be consumed on others...
It seems like MedPageToday thinks that only government and big-pharma-blessed social media and talking points constitute "information" where as actual science does not.
How interesting...
My Old Friend Scurvy...
Discovering the "cure" for scurvy |
Scurvy is a deficiency of vitamin C - if you don't know what it is you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scurvy).
A long time ago (decades before the article) I had noticed two things: occasional bleeding gums and plaque on my teeth. In those days these things were not uncommon. The bleeding gums were always, at least at that time, attributed to a lack of trips to the dentist. Ditto for plaque. I figured I was healthy - I ran and exercised, at what was considered "good food" at the time. What could be wrong...?
These symptoms would come and go for no reason or pattern I could see.
Over the years Mrs. Wolf's research came into play and I realized what was wrong: subclinical scurvy (see this JAMA article from 1934: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/247759).
Supplements solved the problem - I've been taking 2g per day for about fifteen years at this point. (This amount has nothing to do with the US RDA which is completely wrong, inadequate and dangerous - 65mg/day - just enough so that the symptoms of scurvy don't show...)
What's interesting is, that in today's modern times, everyone should be "healthy" - at least in regards to nutrition and vitamin C - right...? All the vegans eating great, nutritious, healthy food - no one should have this deficiency, should they?
Recently this MedPageToday article caught my eye: Fatigue and Pain Sent Her to the ED: Medical Mystery Solved — YouTuber and physician Siobhan Deshauer, MD, delves into the case (https://www.medpagetoday.com/popmedicine/popmedicine/105459). From the article: "Meet Jennifer. She is a healthy, active 54-year-old woman, who is currently training for a 5 km run. Over the past few months she has been having increasing fatigue and some knee pain, but she figured it was from all the extra running she has been doing."
Like me... interesting.
Now let's go through the doctor's thought process and the steps taken in this situation (in order from the article). Feel free to google the costs yourselves:
1. "swelling in legs" - Action: MRI of both legs - Cost $400-$12,000 - Side Effects: negligible
2. "the team ordered a CT scan of her chest, abdomen, and pelvis, which didn't show any signs of cancer" - CT Scan - Cost: $300-$3,280 - Side Effects: (see: https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2012/06/ct-scans-known-cancer-cause-in-children.html)
3. "EMG [electromyography], which is the test that measures the electrical activity produced by a muscle" - Action: EMG Scan - Cost: $50-$500 per extremity - Side Effects: Unknown but probably negligible.
4. "low red cell blood count" - Action: reticulocyte count - Cost: $4-$59 - Side Effects: N/A
5. "skin biopsy" - planned but since the results would take days or weeks and Jennifer would need a blood transfusion before that this was not done.
6. "they noticed that Jennifer left a lot of food on her tray and she wasn't touching it"
At point #6 (Jennifer is in the hospital, of course, so figure two days @ $2,800/day) Jennifer "explained that over the last 2 years she has been worried about allergies and intolerances to foods, so slowly she's been restricting her diet and cutting out foods that she suspected were causing her issues. At this point, she stopped eating all fruits and most vegetables without taking any new supplements".
(For those keeping score we are probably two days into it, adding a 1% chance of cancer from the CT scan, have spent about $7,500 - $22,000 depending on location and insurance.)
Little wonder it took so much money and time to figure this out given https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2012/07/md-no-knowledge-of-nutrition.html - yes, that's right, doctors don't learn about nutrition. Perhaps there have been some changes since 2012 but I doubt it.
Mrs. Wolf, reading a $60 book on dog health and John Gault discussing it with her: Cost $60 w/no side effects. Walmart vitamin C supplements (and others) $30/year.
Scurvy is not new. "Limey's" - an American slang for British seamen was coined because the Brit's used limes and lemons to ward off scurvy during the British sea faring days (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limey).
What's new is ignorance.
Ignorance of health and what causes it.
(Image credit: https://www.thearmorylife.com/forum/threads/finding-the-cure-for-scurvy.6340/)
Saturday, July 29, 2023
Lithium Doomsday Dreams...
Lithium Mining in South America |
I remember standing at the gas pump around 1973 filling the family Pacer. The newspapers reporting that the "end of oil" is a mere twenty years away. Today, man is attempting to terminate societies use of the unlimited shale gas (recoverable U.S. [shale] gas from “traditional” resources, which include shale, conventional, tight sand and carbonate, jumped from 2016 by 21% to 3,218 Tcf [ trillion cubic feet]).
Saturday, February 18, 2023
Huntington Bank and ChatGPT: Statistically Not Reality
I recently chatted with ChatGPT. What a stupid and sad program.
I asked it (https://chat.openai.com/chat) "So there is no correlation between your answers and actual reality ..."
"... my responses are generated based on statistical patterns in language data, and are not always representative of objective reality or truth. It is important to interpret and evaluate the information provided by an AI language model like myself with an appropriate level of skepticism and critical thinking."
So ChatGPT is basically a glorified spell corrector.
It's remarkable that anyone would give a rat's ass about this thing.
It's neither an AI nor anything else interesting.
Fortunately I am not fooled by this nonsense but apparently everyone else is: in the Wall Street Journal, which should know better, spouts nonsense like this: "The AI Boom That Could Make Google and Microsoft Even More Powerful."
As I see it people are getting dumber and dumber - and this shit show simply adds to the speed at which this occurs.
The most basic flaws in even Google search (and YouTube) - the case where you search for something you don't like and google makes money selling your search results to people who then try to sell you the same products you don't like - have not been addressed (nor in fact can they). Why not you ask? Because these tools have no real context. If I search for "dogs" no AI or search engine will never know why unless I tell it or lie to it.
It's hard to imagine why any company, in this case "Huntington Bank", would buy ads this ridiculous:
There's another ad just as dumb (from the video below)...
For whatever reason I only ever see these two. We can see the nonsensical reasons the ads where created in this video:
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Mad Cow Science
I really loved being told when I was in a store without a mask that I was "killing people" or that I "didn't trust the science."
Unfortunately, the "science" is now out and there's some sad news...
Perhaps ironically, or even of irony poisoning according to https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/life-science-industry-mourns-death-astrazeneca-s-cancer-r-d-chief-jose-baselga "AstraZeneca's cancer R&D chief José Baselga, M.D., Ph.D, passes away, as industry chiefs lead mourning - According to local reports from his native Spain, Baselga died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an incredibly rare and fatal condition causing brain damage that worsens rapidly over time."
AstraZeneca, of course, produced a Covid-19 vaccine. According to https://www.astrazeneca.com/country-sites/thailand/press-releases/astrazenecas-and-mrna-vaccines-provide-equivalent-protection-against-covid-19-hospitalisation-and-deaths.html "The newly reviewed data makes it clear that both AstraZeneca’s vaccine, which is known as a viral vector vaccine, and ‘mRNA’ COVID-19 vaccines, offer equivalent protection against hospitalisation (91.3-92.5%) and death (91.4-93.3%), regardless of age, with no statistical difference"
Unfortunately for Mr. Baselga it looks like someone forgot to check for "side effects..." - I guess they forgot to follow the "science" of medicine that says "do no harm"...
Oh wait, I musts be wrong.
It's all just a coincidence!
Saturday, January 21, 2023
An "Insult to Stupid"
Academia, the fount of all knowledge, clearly knows best and we should blindly follow.