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The arrogance of preventive medicine - David Sucket

Preventive medicine displays all 3 elements of arrogance.  First, it is aggressively assertive , pursuing symptomless individuals and telling them what they must do to remain healthy. Occasionally invoking the force of law (immunizations, seat belts), it prescribes and proscribes for both individual patients and the general citizenry of every age and stage.  Second, preventive medicine is presumptuous , confident that the interventions it espouses will, on average, do more good than harm to those who accept and adhere to them.  Finally, preventive medicine is overbearing , attacking those who question the value of its recommendations.
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Understanding disease spread - the underlying math

A fundamental issue when it comes to understanding pandemics - and epidemiology in general - is the crucial role of mathematics combined with the lack of math skills among the majority of "specialists" involved in disease control, general medicine, policy and even medical research. This follows through to the general public, who are bombarded with various opinions and analyses from these specialists and an uncoordinated response from the government. Ironically, a random computer scientist would be able to grasp the theoretical basis of the equations below than your family doctor. The basic reproduction ratio, R 0 = 1 + rΤ; where r is the intrinsic growth rate, and T the mean generation interval. r can be estimated by Poisson regression of the epidemic curve. The "final size" or the proportion of the population that will eventually get infected can be estimated by solving the following for  χ. ln(1 - χ ) + R 0 χ = 0 By the way, Prof Neil Furguson and associa...
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Vaccine adverse events and the TGA's role in monitoring them - is it failing the Australian public?

TGA   Database of Adverse Event Notifications (DAEN)  is where all suspected side effect reports following vaccination are collated in collaboration with state level databases like  SAEFVIC  in Victoria. It is commonly reported in the media by politicians, epidemiologists, CHOs etc that all adverse events post vaccination are monitored by the TGA. However, the reality is that the TGA depends on health practitioners and the general public to report them. I quote from the TGA  website :  " The TGA encourages health professionals and consumers to report suspected side effects following immunisation with COVID-19 vaccines. Every report is valuable and contributes to our safety monitoring." The TGA claims to collect data of adverse events presenting after the administration of any medication irrespective of causality being established. This is good practice and a requirement in any data set that is to be used for statistical inference purposes - to asc...
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