Dog Hip Dysplasia and Nutrition

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!

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

About thirteen years ago I wrote about scurvy (see: http://just-got-lucky.blogspot.com/2010/11/ruinous-health-capital-spending.html).  I indicated that, due to the research of my Mrs. Wolf, I knew that large animals such as humans do not make enough vitamin C on their own (if at all) hence proper diet or supplementation is required.  But part of the story was not told...

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/)

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]).

Marcellus shale alone "contains about 84 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas. Undiscovered resources are estimated using geologic knowledge, while technically recoverable resources may be produced using currently available technology"

So an error on perhaps an six or seven orders of magnitude in supply.

Oops...

It takes twenty two hundred metric tons of water to make one metric ton of lithium (see this).  Worldwide lithium demand is estimated at 900,000 Mt according to this.  So perhaps two trillion liters of fresh water per year.  Much of this mining occurs in South America and China.

I wonder how this lithium gets to the US?

I wonder what technology powers this shipment?

The US uses approximately 100 trillion liters of fresh water per year (see this).

By 2030 lithium demand is expected to reach (from this) 2,500,000 Mt.

Looks like the mining folks will be cutting substantially into the fresh water supply.

Where exactly the "waste water" goes from all this is unclear.  Much is presumably evaporated - though what non-water components does this evaporation carry with it into the sky...?

Rushing headlong into the lithium doomsday surely makes everyone feel good though.

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:

Further, why would I - clearly not in the ad's demographic - would react in anything but a negative way when shone this add (often repeatedly about every few minutes or so on YouTube) - hundreds of times - each time more annoying than the last.

Even better is the quote shown in the ad: "That's kind of unbelievable - Rebekah, Pennsylvania".

Believability is a binary choice - either it is or is not believable.  Yet here we specify "kind of" - which offers nothing that relates to banking.

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:

So, Huntington Bank, and specifically Nikia Reveal, Brand Director (real name?) and Julia Tutkovics, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer - why is Huntington Bank buying ad time on YouTube for me?

Why are you wasting your money?  (Of course, I am sure you're paying some tiny fraction of a cent.  But that's not the point.  You are damaging your reputation with me (someone who has money in the bank).  Perhaps your plan is to fleece young people with "shiny, spinning toys"?)

YouTube knows I don't fit your demographic yet it takes your money to show me these inappropriate ads.

Nikia and Julia - I hope you realize that YouTube knows everything about me and, based on my history there as well as through my extensive use of Google and this Google-sponsored blog, have exactly zero interest in your ads.  In fact, I so despise them so much that I am writing this blog about them (at least in part).

The question is who is being fleeced by who here?

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...

"Emergence of a New Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease: 26 Cases of the Human Version of Mad-Cow Disease, Days After a COVID-19 Injection"

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!

An "Insult to Stupid"

At the right you'll see the result of, as the content says, suggesting in a Facebook "dog forum" that, in fact, the female dog that birthed the puppies knows best how to raise them.  A violation of the rules.  

Wolves, and their successors dogs, have been around for a few hundred thousand years (see this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_wolf). Humans, and dogs specifically, have been around for twenty (20,000) or more years.

Hundreds of thousands of generations without human help.  My guess is they probably have some idea what they are doing, or they would have gone the way of the Dodo.

If someone struggles to control their dog I suggested they should observe the dogs behavior in the same situation where the mother is involved.  Mother has a mouth, teeth and paws.  That's it.  No smartphone, no computer.  Yet mom, if raised in a normal environment (without human abuse) knows perfectly well how to manage the little cuties.

Is this "adverse"?  Of course not.  It's reality.

Here’s my personal research and background: thirty five years of un-neutered males and females (some but not all).  At least two dozen dogs - many puppies and many liters - dog shows (a hundred or so) up to Westminster (invitation only) - professional (only income) dog handlers including a Westminster winner.  Travels across the eastern US. National specialty shows.

Dogs fights: yes, males, now and then.   All dogs fight if not controlled.  Misbehaving puppies, of course.  All dogs raised by their mothers unless there is some specific reason not too.

No one we’ve encountered along the way, and I mean no one, not even little kids at a dog show would ever believe the no-alpha/alpha disproven stories or the "pandering to the dog" nonsense like this you find on Facebook.  

It’s not the dogs behavior that’s an issue.

Unfortunately, on Facebook, suggesting the dog's familial parents actually know what is going on is considered an "adverse method."

The problem, of course, is that these nimrods people believe that they know better than the dogs how to raise a dog.

Additionally in the same forum, we see the extensive promotion of drugs and spaying/neutering as a way to control dogs.  Not discipline, not you, the human, as the alpha (because the's been "disproven" supposedly).

Academia, the fount of all knowledge, clearly knows best and we should blindly follow.

Though I never seem to have run across any of these academics at dog events over the last four decades. 

I also must confess to laughing at idiots who can't control for these reasons.

(see this older post: https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-parable-of-dog.html)

Gas Stoves Killing Children?

The "gas stove"  controversy takes stupidity down to new levels.

Here's a "study" provided by CNN (https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/20/1/75): "Population Attributable Fraction of Gas Stoves and Childhood Asthma in the United States".  From the Abstract:

"Indoor gas stove use for cooking is associated with an increased risk of current asthma among children and is prevalent in 35% of households in the United States (US). The population-level implications of gas cooking are largely unrecognized."  (Note my underline of "associated" - we are not talking about causality...)

Simple fear mongering.  That's all this is...

What are we supposed to do, use an electric stove?  Wait, isn't that electricity (like the electricity for your electric car) coming from coal and natural gas burning power plants?

I did write about this twelve or so years ago.  These same morons pushing this crap told you that coal plants were killing you (see: https://lwgat.blogspot.com/2011/04/10000-us-deaths-per-year-from-coal.html).  If coal plants are killing you why use electric cars?  Aren't these same coal plants creating your electricity to replace your gas stove killing children?  

Which is worse...?

When I bought my first house the remains of natural gas piping in each room was obvious.  Prior to probably the 1960s this was how a house was heated in an urban area.  Each room with a small gas heater.

Conveniently for this "controversy" it's very hard to find historical facts like this on the internet.  Even more inconvenient is the history of "childhood asthma" (at least in Europe where I could find stats back into the 1970s).  Sadly there wasn't any asthma to speak of in the olden days - right along with the in-room natural gas heaters.

(From https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/26/4/647):

This chart, from Europe, shows no rise in asthma until the 1980s.  Well after gas was used continuously in your home in your room to keep you warm.  

While there are more people today than 1981 when asthma starts to increase on the above chart it seems unlikely that a five percentage point jump is simply due to more gas stoves.  After all, the ratio of gas stoves to electric favors electric over the last decade or so (see: https://www.statista.com/statistics/295477/unit-shipments-of-electric-gas-cooking-appliances/):

Further studies like this clearly show asthma rates varying on their own (https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/26/4/647).  Asthmatics were a small minority in the olden days (before the 1980s).  And I suspect if gas heaters (which emit far more combustion products than a stove) were killing children in the 1940s someone would have noticed.

This is "controversy" is complete and utter nonsense.

It's designed to focus your thinking on something besides myocarditis and people falling over dead from heart problems.