Is the influenza vaccine the best vaccine ever? No. Does it give immunity to all of the people who get it? No. Will it protect you, as an individual, from getting the flu this winter? Probably, but there are some years when its effectiveness is less than 50%.

If you think “they” don’t have this information already, I have a bridge to sell you, cheap.

What is “something that never happened”?

Whatever, Andy Wakefield.

We know, Jenny McCarthy. We know.

I’m seeing it more and more in the younger journalists and journalism students that they get caught in the trap of the official-sounding groups against vaccines. For example, the “National Vaccine Information Center” is purely anti-vaccine, but they get quoted over and over in coverage about vaccines, especially every…

What’s your take on “balance” in scientific and medical discussions? If we hear about the benefits of, oh, I don’t know, vaccines... Should we also hear about how vaccines turn you into the incredible Hulk from that weird guy who hosts an AM radio show at 3am from his shack in Montana?

Feral pigs constitute the one true threat to our democratic way of life... I’ve heard.

Honestly, no lie, not joking... I cannot tell them apart.

See above.

So... We’re sitting in a meeting at a health department that will go unnamed. Suddenly, there’s a phone call for someone who works at the state laboratory. They get up, walk out of the meeting for a few minutes and then come back. “You’re never going to believe this,” they said...

The average person living in the United States, yes. But there are certain professions and certain locations that increase your risk. It may be negligible, but it’s not to be ignored.

I was walking my german shepherd (rest in peace) last year when a pair of children ran up to it and asked to pet it. I said it was fine. She was very well-trained. Well, the little girl didn’t pet the dog... She grabbed the dog’s ears and screamed into them, “Sit! I told you to sit!”

Sadly, the anti-vaccine crowd is now targeting dog owners, telling them to avoid the rabies vaccine (among others). I wish I were joking. Some have gone as far as to claim that dogs have been “injured” by vaccines and made autistic, without any evidence... Or with evidence by some weirdo veterinarian who hasn’t…

You’re masturbatory of the english language is fenomenál. Plase, speak us more.

You win the internet today. I’d like to buy you a coffee.

If being free to not have to salute the flag under duress means having to dodge landmines on my way to dig food out of a dumpster, then I choose freedom.

With great power comes great responsibility. Make sure to take a good picture.

Sigh. How many times is the world going to end before it really ends? I wish whoever (or whatever) was going to end us would sh*t or get off the pot.

Yeah, probably not. What a f*cking mess. This was a failure at so many levels. The minute the rate of confirmed cases passed the epidemic threshold, it should have been all hands on deck. Hep A is just too infectious.