Measles has made a shocking return to the US

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The World Health Organisation recommends that 95 per cent of people need to be vaccinated against measles to achieve herd immunity, which stops the infection spreading through populations.)  An estimated 169 million children worldwide have missed out on getting the first dose of a measles vaccine, according to Unicef. This includes nearly 2.6 million children in the US, 608,000 children in France, and more than half a million children in the UK.

The study analysed global data from 2010 to 2017, and found that an average of 21.2 million children are missing their first dose of vaccine every year.   Children need two doses of the MMR vaccine for protection. An estimated 110,000 people – most of them children – are thought to have died from measles in 2017, a 22 per cent increase on the previous year.  In the first three months of 2019, more than 110,000 measles cases were reported worldwide, up almost 300 per cent on the same period the year before.

“The measles virus will always find un-vaccinated children,” says Henrietta Fore, of Unicef. “If we are serious about averting the spread of this dangerous but preventable disease, we need to vaccinate every child, in rich and poor countries alike.”  (Owen Humphreys/PA Wire)

The five characteristics of science denialism:

1.  Conspiracies:  Arguing that scientific consensus is the result of a complex and secretive conspiracy.

2.   Fake experts:  Using fake experts as authorities combined with denigration of established experts.

3.    Selectivity:  Referring to isolated papers that challenge scientific consensus.

4.  Impossible expectations:  Expecting 100% certain results or health treatments with no possible side-effects.

5   Misrepresentation and false logic, jumping to conclusions, using false analogies etc

If you find yourself confronted with avaccine denier, you  should remember that the most substantial arguments are on your side. Having a vast body of evidence agreed by the majority of scientists to back up your position makes you well-prepared from a scientific perspective. The scientific consensus that you are representing can serve as an initial “gateway” through which to influence your audience’s key beliefs and increase their support for public policy in support of immunization. Emphasizing the existing scientific agreement on vaccine safety and efficiency can strongly influence people’s attitudes towards vaccinations. You should emphasize how overwhelmingly the evidence supports vaccine safety and efficacy – not just one or two studies – and that the vast majority of scientists and clinicians in the field agree with this.

Golden passports for a corrupt elite

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For years people have been complaining about Cyprus’s “golden passport” scheme.  Launched in 2013, it offers citizenship to anyone investing €2m in Cypriot property, giving 4,000 members of the global mega-rich residency, voting rights and a back door into Europe.

Earlier this year, President Nicos Anastasiades reacted angrily to claims Cyprus was abusing the practice by handing out passports to corrupt individuals. Far from being a money-laundering paradise, he thundered, Cyprus has the “most stringent” vetting criteria in the EU. How hollow that claim sounds now. After Reuters revealed the identities of dubious recipients, the government has had to take back passports from 26 individuals, including Cambodians suspected of corruption and a Malaysian wanted for fraud. Few took Anastasiades’s protestations seriously, given that his family’s law firm facilitates passport sales. Now, alas, suspicions that Cyprus is a place of “corruption and intrigue” have been amply confirmed.  (Philenews, Nicosia)

My personal comment:  I was, years ago, stationed in the British military in Cyprus. At the time I had a sneaking sympathy for the Greek Cypriot call for enosis (self- determination).  Cyprus was treated by the Brits at the time as a mixture of backwater and aircraft carrier (military and listening base), but corrupt it was not. Is the above what the “freedom fighters” were fighting for?  Blatant corruption? And why are so many former colonies now ruled by crooks, authoritarians and people on the make.  They were at least left with parliaments, elections and rational laws, however imperfect? But these institutions turned out to have shallow roots.  The moral seems to be, “perfect your own garden before you try to tell others how to govern themselves”.

Cooking

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Only 11% of British adults cook the majority of their meals from scratch, says the remaining 89% mainly rely on takeaways or ready meals. In the past 12 months, one in ten Britons admit to not having cooked at all, and to having relied entirely on takeaways or pre-prepared food. Men are less likely to cook than women: 16% haven’t cooked at all, compared with 5% of women.

These are truly amazing statistics.  No wonder so many people are over-weight.  Unless you buy ready-cooked meals from an upscale restaurant (expensive) you don’t know how much salt and other additives there are in them. Aside from this I assume that, while buying in saves time, it is more expensive to buy in ready- cooked food, if you costed it out.

Epicurus, contrary to the fake news put out by the Christian church in the centuries after his death, is supposed to have regarded bread and water as a feast.  His diet was simple, to say the least.  The writer cannot emulate Epicurus, but then he has a wife who is a stellar cook and only cooks fresh food at every meal, unless we go out to eat.   Guess I am very lucky.

Messing up the trade war

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Dictatorships are un-Epicurean.  Period.  Thus, standing up to China, which already  by some measures is economically ahead to the US (dear, oh, dear) is to be applauded.  While I agree that politics should not be discussed on this forum, resisting dictators and would-be dictators intent on world domination seems to be a no-brainer.

It appears that, after all the fuss about the US-China trade agreement, all that has been achieved is to get an undertaking from China to “buy more American farm goods”.  That is all. Left untouched are all the handouts and subsidies given by China to companies operating overseas, something everyone in the West agreed should be reduced or eliminated during the negotiations in the cause of a level playing field.  The US objective was to close the trade deficit with China.  Instead, it has risen from $544 billion in 2016 to $691 billion in the 12 months ending in October.  Meanwhile US tariffs are affecting US consumers and companies, and Chinese retaliation on US farm exports is hitting American farmers badly – the farm bailout has already cost more than twice the bailout of the auto industry under Obama.  According to diplomatic sources, Chinese officials are “jubilant and even incredulous” – out-negotiating the US was easy, so they claim.

Few in the US understand or seem to care, except for some in academia and the civil service.  But who listens to them anymore?

(Paul Krugman commented on this issue in the New York Times, 17 Dec 2019.  The opinions are  my own)

The Good Husband Guide for 2020

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Care of the Husband’s Person

On 8 April 2010 the London Review of Books reviewed a 14th Century Parisian book of household management called The Good Wife’s Guide: A Medieval Household Book.   This is a compendium of medieval lore which aimed to instruct young wives how to be good, efficient, and obedient.  The following is an excerpt from a section entitled Care of the Husband’s Person.  (It’s fun, so I am repeating it ten years later):

“Therefore love your husband’s person carefully.  I entreat you to see that he has clean linen, for that is your domain, while the concerns and troubles of men are those outside affairs that they must handle, amidst coming and going, running here and there, in rain, wind, snow and hail, sometimes drenched, sometimes dry, now sweating, now shivering, ill-fed, ill-lodged, ill-shod and poorly rested.  Yet nothing represents a hardship for him, because the thought of his wife’s good care for him on his return comforts him immensely.  The ease, joys and pleasures he knows she will provide for him herself, or have done for him in his presence, cheer him:  removing his shoes in front of a good fire, washing his feet, offering clean shoes, and socks, serving plenteous food and drink …. she puts him to sleep in white sheets  and his nightcap, covered with good furs, and satisfies him with other joys and amusements, intimacies, loves and secrets about which I remain silent.”

 With the above in mind let us now fast forward seven hundred years, noting the changed roles of husband and wife.  This is the 2020 version:

Care of the Wife’s Person (2020)

“Therefore love your wife’s person carefully.  I entreat you, before you sit down to watch sport on television all day with a can of beer in hand, to see that she has clean underclothes, for the washing machine is your domain, as is the washing up and the making of the bed in the morning.  The concerns and troubles of women are those outside affairs that they must handle, amidst taking the children to school, getting the car serviced, running here and there in rain, wind, snow and hail, sometimes drenched, sometimes dry, now sweating, now shivering, dealing with the bank, the mortgage and an unsympathetic boss, buying new shoes for the children and taking them to football practice, violin lessons and ballet; getting her facial, haircut and manicure and answering all the emails during her half hour lunch break. 

“Despite eating on the run, arranging all the social commitments and the visits of plumbers and electricians, nothing represents a hardship for her, because the thought of her husband’s good care for her on her return home comforts her immensely.  The ease, joys and pleasures she knows he will provide for her cheer her:  removing her shoes in front of a good fire, washing her feet, offering clean shoes, and socks, cooking plenteous food and pouring copious drink …. he puts her to sleep in white sheets, and, after he brings her a nice hot drink of cocoa and she has taken her anti-depressants, he tries to satisfies her with other joys and amusements, intimacies, loves and secrets, before she falls asleep exhausted.  As to his feelings about this I remain silent.”

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The Good Wife’s Guide: A Medieval Household Book was translated by Gina Greco and Christine Rose and published by Cornell, £16.95, March 2009, ISBN 978-0-8014-7474-3.