scarlettrose:

I don't mean anything by this, I'm just curious.

Do you have an interest in recording and/or playing music or did you just join the forum to discuss this mercury thing?

Again, no harm meant, just curious. I haven't seen you add to any other threads.

-A

alex maiolo wrote:scarlettrose:

I don't mean anything by this, I'm just curious.

Do you have an interest in recording and/or playing music or did you just join the forum to discuss this mercury thing?

Again, no harm meant, just curious. I haven't seen you add to any other threads.

-A

Hi,

I said in my intro that I came across this accidently and wanted to join the debate.

Is it against the rules to only post in the one section? If it is I extend my apologies.

scarlettrose wrote:

alex maiolo wrote:scarlettrose:

I don't mean anything by this, I'm just curious.

Do you have an interest in recording and/or playing music or did you just join the forum to discuss this mercury thing?

Again, no harm meant, just curious. I haven't seen you add to any other threads.

-A

Hi,

I said in my intro that I came across this accidently and wanted to join the debate.

Is it against the rules to only post in the one section? If it is I extend my apologies.

I'm not going back and reading 17 pages of stuff to find an introduction.

Very little is against the rules. Examples abound.

I was just curious, that's all. Most of the people here are recording nerds and you didn't seem like one.

Proceed and have fun. Well, not "fun," but you know what I mean.

-A

alex maiolo wrote:scarlettrose:

I don't mean anything by this, I'm just curious.

Do you have an interest in recording and/or playing music or did you just join the forum to discuss this mercury thing?

Again, no harm meant, just curious. I haven't seen you add to any other threads.

-A

Alex, Newberry recruited a user named 'tobias the commie' to this forum, who pumped in reams of pro-pharm literature for three solid days. He's a big reason why this thread is 17 pages, besides my usual hard work. He never wrote about recording or music, not that I remember.

post history for TobiasTheCommie: 75 posts, all to the autism thread, in three days

I know you're not being confrontational with her, Alex, but your questions do have a little edge to them. Even if most of the board's members may be 'recording nerds' like you say, it is provably the case that this forum ( and General Discussion in particular ) is not dominated by recording talk.

scarlettrose wrote:There was a mention of smallpox. IS the vaccine really responsible for having rid us of it?

A reality check -

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-97994374.html

A sample -

Four factors have contributed to skepticism of smallpox vaccine's effectiveness. First is the dubious notion that lesions from cowpox, a disease of cattle, could prevent smallpox, a related but different human disease. Second, during the 19th century, which preceded modern bacteriology and the age of refrigeration, it was impossible to know exactly what was in any given dose of vaccine. Third, the reported increase of smallpox disease in communities following the introduction of vaccination seemed to contradict the claims of vaccination proponents. A fourth disturbing fact is the total absence of any carefully controlled efficacy studies of the smallpox vaccine.

Scarlettrose: What's responsible for the eradication of smallpox, if not the vaccine?

eta: history of smallpox article

From the World Health Organization:

Smallpox

Smallpox is an acute contagious disease caused by Variola virus, a member of the orthopoxvirus family. It was one of the world's most feared diseases until it was eradicated by a collaborative global vaccination programme led by the World Health Organization. The last known natural case was in Somalia in 1977. Since then, the only known cases were caused by a laboratory accident in 1978 in Birmingham, England, which killed one person and caused a limited outbreak. Smallpox was officially declared eradicated in 1979.

clocker bob wrote:

alex maiolo wrote:scarlettrose:

I don't mean anything by this, I'm just curious.

Do you have an interest in recording and/or playing music or did you just join the forum to discuss this mercury thing?

Again, no harm meant, just curious. I haven't seen you add to any other threads.

-A

Alex, Newberry recruited a user named 'tobias the commie' to this forum, who pumped in reams of pro-pharm literature for three solid days. He's a big reason why this thread is 17 pages, besides my usual hard work. He never wrote about recording or music, not that I remember.

post history for TobiasTheCommie: 75 posts, all to the autism thread, in three days

I know you're not being confrontational with her, Alex, but your questions do have a little edge to them. Even if most of the board's members may be 'recording nerds' like you say, it is provably the case that this forum ( and General Discussion in particular ) is not dominated by recording talk.

Regarding my question being edgy, that's your opinion I guess.
I don't know how I could have been anymore polite about the question unless I had sent her flowers.
The hell of email and it's lack of tone, I guess.

Most of the stuff here has something to do with music in some way or another. If not recording, then things that people who are interested in the process talk about. Those people branch out to discuss other things, but the same people who are in here talking about vaccines generally have an opinion an Ampeg amps too.

No agenda - really, REALLY - just curious because I'm seeing a lot of people showing up at the PRF who don't follow about 95% of what gets discussed here. That surprises me.
If I were on a (mainly) gardening forum and someone who never planted a pea in their life showed up, I'd find that sort of surprising.


-A

alex maiolo wrote:No agenda - really, REALLY - just curious because I'm seeing a lot of people showing up at the PRF who don't follow about 95% of what gets discussed here. That surprises me.

Really? A lot? I can't name ten 'single topic intensive' posters on this forum. I'm not sure I could name five. The ratio between recording threads and non-recording threads doesn't seem to have changed that much in the three years I've been reading, either. If recording talk was what drove this forum, why do the page views and replies in General Discussion dwarf those of Tech Room? It's the same for C/NC- not too many crap/not craps for Quantegy tape in there.

It's a search engine driven internet. Input thimerosal and autism and vaccines into google, and you'll get this thread in there somewhere. I don't know how early in the results you'll get it, but it's in there.

I think it's great that we have long threads on autism on this forum. Maybe steve doesn't, but I've really never read him making that point.

Let me put it another way, because I don't think I did a good job before.

95% (or whatever) people who are here at any time could, if asked, have opinions about music related stuff - recording, playing, fan things and probably all of the above.
That's what I meant. I thought that was clear, but maybe not. My bad.

I'm not used to someone joining this forum only to talk about public health issues. It shows a broadening of the base that I didn't expect.

Go into any General Discussion forum and the vast majority, if not all of the people bitching about politics would be the types to have strong opinions about Mission of Burma or whether CDs are better than vinyl. That's how they got here in the first place in order to talk about 9/11 later.

Everyone's welcome - really.
I'm just surprised that non-music/recording geeks are hanging out here.

-A

alex maiolo wrote:Let me put it another way, because I don't think I did a good job before.

Okay, I've got you. You're saying that while the content of the discussion here is not dominated by recording talk, the forum is dominated by recording people, pros or hobbyists.

I think it is safe to presume that the forum has as much recording talk as people want, enough political talk as people want, enough public health talk as people want, etc. Why wouldn't it? There's nothing to prevent it. Topic selection is a matter of instant gratification, and the same for the choices we have about what to reply to. The forum must look exactly as we want it to look. It is our product.

maiolo wrote:I'm not used to someone joining this forum only to talk about public health issues. It shows a broadening of the base that I didn't expect.

It's a little early to say 'only' regarding Scarlettrose. I think a lot of times, people may begin by narrowcasting, but then expand as they realize the vast wealth of the PRF. Maybe she'll post on music shortly, but if she doesn't, I don't think it makes her an 'oddball'.

OK, to be honest, I DIDN'T plan on discussing music here - so that was an entirely reasonable question Alex (my brother is a musician - does that count?!) Anyway, thanks for allowing me to post.

Hi Newberry; I can't say definitively why smallpox dissapeared. The vaccine could have played a role but I think it is impossible to say just how much. It could be attributed to the natural decline of the disease as more and more people developed natural immunity. Do you think this is possible? Apparently only 10% of the population was ever vaccinated against smallpox (I'll try and find a reference later) so the fact it has dissapeared must not be completely due to the vaccine.

From what I understand in Australia (and I have been trying to find some information on the govt website) the disease had largely gone before the vaccine arrived here. They (health officials) are not attributing the dissapearance to the vax, anyway, from all I have read so far.

Smallpox may have declined/dissapeared of its own accord in the same fashion as the bubonic plague, scarlet fever, cholera, the Black death, yellow fever - and possibly others I'm not aware of. I don't know if the vaccine helped or hindered in this - some say that the innoculation especially kept the disease alive longer than necessary as it was so problematic. I am not dismissing the vaccine as having nothing to do with the decline - though I am questioning whether it is taking alot more credit than it deserves.

I don't claim to have all the answers - I am still learning! But when I read simplified statements of how we were saved from smallpox due to vaccination - I am suspicious. I have read enough to question this assumption. Common sense also tells me the disease would have waned on its own with improved sanitation. I think there is an association with bedbugs?

I'd be interested to hear what you think of some of this stuff, though -

http://www.whale.to/m/smallpox.html

I will also have a look at the CDC website later, but for now must get back to my girls!