FSM News and Articles
Accused Perth nurse Christine Hartmann Benz and the anti-vaxxers trying to avoid mandatory vaccination: Ken McLeod is part of a collective of pro-vaccination advocates, Stop the Australian Anti-Vaccination Network, and believe cases like Ms Hartmann Benz show that regulatory authorities are often too slow to crack down on medical professionals who sprout anti-vaxx views. Mr McLeod first became involved with pro-vaccine advocacy after anti-vaxxers targeted friends of his who had publicly encouraged immunisation after their four-week-old baby daughter Dana McCaffery died of whooping cough. He said over the last 11 years he had reported more than 100 registered health professionals to AHPRA for anti-vaxx activities. “We in the science-based treatment community are very distressed that the lack of action from regulators and responding now is many years too late,” he said.
FSM Friends’ News and Articles
Hidden camera reveals some pharmacists recommend homeopathic products to treat kids’ cold and flu: “Some pharmacists working in Canada’s top drugstores are recommending homeopathic products to consumers, even though, experts say, these products are essentially sugar water or sugar pills with no scientific evidence they can do what they claim, a CBC Marketplace investigation has found.”
General
In the ICU where only Maria is vaccinated, others die in disbelief: “Increasingly, the vast majority filling the hospital are severely ill unvaccinated people, some who remain adamant that COVID-19 does not exist even when they are succumbing to the virus. Others come to the realisation too late that the deadly virus is real, begging for a vaccine before being hooked up to a ventilator, unsure whether they will regain consciousness.”
No, vaccinated people are not ‘just as infectious’ as unvaccinated people if they get COVID-19: A common argument cited by those opposing COVID-19 vaccine is that when a vaccinated person is infected they have a similar viral load to an unvaccinated person, and are thus just as contagious. This is flawed logic: “These studies only show a similar peak viral load, which is the highest amount of virus in the system over the course of the study. But vaccinated people clear the virus faster, with lower levels of virus overall, and have less time with very high levels of virus present. Therefore, vaccinated people are, on average, likely to be less contagious.”
Great Moments in Health and Science
Penicillin – An accidental discovery changed the course of medicine: Imagine a world where even ‘simple’ surgeries like appendicectomies carried a high risk of death from subsequent infection. The world before the discovery of early antibiotics is a dire warning for what we may face again if antibiotics are not used responsibly and resistance is allowed to develop further.
Today’s Abused Health Concept
Chiropractic on infants – A 2-month-old infant seriously injured by chiropractic neck adjustment: A two month old infant was left with a brain injury, seizures and tissue death after so called ‘chiropractic adjustments’ dissected the vertebral arteries, partially cutting blood supply to the brain. The worst thing is that this was a completely unnecessary intervention. The child had a case of mild torticollis, unevenness in ability to turn the head. In conventional medicine, this is generally resolved through simple measures like alternating which side one holds the baby, or with massage and physio. Instead this child had their neck subjected to the violent movements of chiropractic treatment. “The child in this case report was severely injured by an unproven and implausible chiropractic intervention for a condition that has a proven safe and effective medical treatment. Add this report to the large and growing pile of evidence supporting calls to remove the right of chiropractors to treat young children.”