Stitt vs. Dorky Drew

[NeekReevers]

What is the logic behind not expanding Medicaid? Is it something more than just taking a principled stand against Obamacare? From what I've read it looks like the cost to the state would be around $100 million but we'd get a billion dollars in federal funds. I realize funds are tight but rejecting a 10:1 federal match seems foolish, especially when you know the feds will find another place to blow that billion bucks.

 

[Medic007]

87ish. Maybe 88.

Pretty sure I was there as well.

 

[blbronco]

I have read the Cochran report which this summary says:
"The infection rate in adults drops from 2% per year to 1%. You could say that’s halved, but it effectively only drops by 1%. So this means that out of every 100 healthy adults vaccinated, 99 get no benefit against laboratory confirmed influenza."

The NCBI has this to say:
"The BC network’s estimates of this year’s flu vaccine efficacy, published in Eurosurveillance, were −8% overall and 2% in young adults against medically attended, laboratory-confirmed influenza A (H3N2) infection — which Skowronski said she interprets as a null effect. This also represents the lowest measured protection against a seasonal virus in the program’s 10-year history, she added."

and also this...
"Universal influenza immunization programs, available in virtually every province and territory, may need to be reconsidered in light of emerging evidence that repeated flu shots may blunt the vaccine’s effectiveness in subsequent seasons.
That phenomenon was seen in the Jan. 29, 2015 interim estimates of the effectiveness of the 2014/15 vaccine against influenza A (H3N2) from Canada’s Sentinel Physician Surveillance Network, headed by Dr. Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control.
The effects of repeat immunizations need to be studied further. Meanwhile, a return to targeted, high-risk flu vaccine programs, rather than universal coverage, seems warranted, said Skowronski, the BC centre’s epidemiology lead for influenza and emerging respiratory pathogens."

Bville, I teach until late tonight, but I will get back to this. There is a lot to discuss on this, and I need to be on my computer instead of spending an hour trying to thpe into my phone.

 

[CowboyJD]

@BvillePoker bringing the heat ITT.

Mostly quoting Drew’s website and other recent posts.

Some of what he (Drew) says I agree with. Some I don’t.

But I do commend him for being accurate and using quotes

 

[poke2001]

Wow @Medic007 and @blbronco great discussion. One of the few back and forth’s you see on this board that is logical. Like others have said, I’m all for personal choice, but not if you are going to public schools. People have to understand that vaccines only work if everyone is immunized. It’s not really an individual thing, it’s a group deal. If you don’t want to vaccinate, fine, just stay away from public schools where they in close proximity of large groups of kids. Private schools can obviously have their own rules. I have mixed feeing towards flu vaccination, but ultimately think at least kids and healthcare workers should get them.

But these assholes will take their kids to restaurants, dr offices, grocery stores, etc.

 

[blbronco]

I have read the Cochran report which this summary says:
"The infection rate in adults drops from 2% per year to 1%. You could say that’s halved, but it effectively only drops by 1%. So this means that out of every 100 healthy adults vaccinated, 99 get no benefit against laboratory confirmed influenza."

The NCBI has this to say:
"The BC network’s estimates of this year’s flu vaccine efficacy, published in Eurosurveillance, were −8% overall and 2% in young adults against medically attended, laboratory-confirmed influenza A (H3N2) infection — which Skowronski said she interprets as a null effect. This also represents the lowest measured protection against a seasonal virus in the program’s 10-year history, she added."

and also this...
"Universal influenza immunization programs, available in virtually every province and territory, may need to be reconsidered in light of emerging evidence that repeated flu shots may blunt the vaccine’s effectiveness in subsequent seasons.
That phenomenon was seen in the Jan. 29, 2015 interim estimates of the effectiveness of the 2014/15 vaccine against influenza A (H3N2) from Canada’s Sentinel Physician Surveillance Network, headed by Dr. Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control.
The effects of repeat immunizations need to be studied further. Meanwhile, a return to targeted, high-risk flu vaccine programs, rather than universal coverage, seems warranted, said Skowronski, the BC centre’s epidemiology lead for influenza and emerging respiratory pathogens."

Ok, to address this appropriately takes some background. Cochrane analyses are good. They are not as robust as meta-analyses (considered the most robust of study types), but they are a very effective brief to make some assessments. They are written by reputable scientists, but the reports do not undergo the rigor of scrutiny that peer-reviewed articles go through (not saying all peer-reviewed are perfect). It would derail this thread to get into attenuated versus killed vaccines, but there are important differences.

What you have quoted is misleading. I am not saying the Cochrane report is trying to mislead, but that snippet is misleading if you account for all age groups. What you quoted is stating effectiveness (different from efficacy) of vaccinating against influenza in the healthiest groups that tend towards the LEAST complications with influenza infection. If you scan more into the reports (see linked below), you will also see that the Cochrane reports that the young and the elderly benefit from vaccination (they will most always use terms such as "probably" since there is so much potential for bias or poor scientific methodologies in the studies being utilized for these reports). What a Cochrane report misses, and where they can be severely (albeit unintentionally) misleading, is that they do not take into account "other" factors, because the likelihood of finding enough studies to incorporate into a report is uncommon.

Where that report is misleading, but addressed to a tiny degree in the last part, is that how can these exposures to the high-risk groups be exposed? That exposure often comes by the healthiest, least likely to suffer major complications age groups. Medic points out, accurately, that influenza vaccination rates tend toward the lower rates, which in general, decreases vaccine efficacy among most all (many exceptions do exist) vaccine-preventable diseases.

I appreciate that you actually did look at a reliable source, but there is still much outside interpretation needed.


children: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004879.pub5/abstract
elderly: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004876.pub4/abstract
adults: https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001269.pub6/abstract

There are other Cochrane reports on vaccination with attenuated versus killed vaccines in special cases (cancer, asthma, etc). These are populations that need the barrier protection in place.

 

[okstatefan1]

Most of the things that Drew rails about in his campaign are things he actually was for and instituted when he was AG. Do you remember the Oklahoma 3? Remember him fighting for private prison contracts? Tougher laws for drug crimes including death penalty for dealers? Here are some of Drew's quotes from the campaign trail.

• Guthrie News Leader, December 10, 2017: “I would also restore the income tax to its previous levels and raise the cigarette tax,” said Edmondson.
• Red Dirt Politics, November 3, 2017: “Fourth, I would give the voters the opportunity to uptick the personal income tax back to 6 percent. That’s going to have to be on the ballot because the legislature won’t do it,” said Edmondson.
• Miami Herald, Oct. 24, 2017: “In funding these endeavors, Edmonson advocates returning the gross production tax to a rate of 7 percent and following that up by giving voters the option of putting their personal income taxes back where they were. ‘I’m not talking about raising them over any historic level,’ said Edmondson. ‘We did a series of tax cuts and the voters should have the opportunity to decide whether we ought to be rolling those back.’”

When Oklahoma City Police Department chemist Joyce Gilchrist was accused of falsifying evidence in hundreds of cases, Attorney General Edmondson was asked to appoint independent counsel to investigate and refused to do so. In addition to having defended her work in appeals proceedings prior to the scandal, he made the decision that most of the death-penalty cases that depended upon her testimony did not need additional review.

Edmondson was a supporter of gun rights when he was running for the 2nd congressional district and took a LOT of money from the NRA for his campaign. Now he wants to change Oklahoma law to make it so you have to be 21 to buy a gun.

I didn’t realize the part about Gilchrist. Every single case she was ever involved with should have been reviewed. That lady was the devil.