Blog Category
Up in a high place
Posted on July 14, 2016
The first time I went to High Rock was when I first moved to south-central Pennsylvania in 2000. I was a stranger in a strange land, but sitting atop that high place allowed me to see that it was not much different than other places I’ve been to. It was very green, yes, but the […]
Of numbers and proportions
Posted on July 11, 2016 4 Comments
Last week, after the events in Dallas, Texas, where 5 police officers were shot dead, the Chief of Police in El Paso, Texas, decided to make a statement. Unfortunately, he decided to label the “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) movement as a hate group. This is unfortunate because we’re at a point in history where there […]
Public Health is in a bit of a pickle over the nasal flu vaccine
Posted on June 29, 2016 4 Comments
No more FluMist vaccine for flu this coming flu season. What are the implications? Many.
The fight against inanimate objects
Posted on June 27, 2016 6 Comments
The US Representative (Scott Perry) for my district had a “town hall” over Facebook the other night. He was sitting in his Washington office and took questions from people watching the live feed. On the one hand, I’d like to give him credit for taking questions from his critics (like myself). On the other, he […]
The Rorschach Test of anti-vaccine beliefs
Posted on June 15, 2016 1 Comment
You have probably heard by now about a documentary spliced together by known anti-vaccine fraud Andrew Wakefield. I write that it was “spliced together” because so much of it is non-linear. There’s no introduction, thesis statement, and supporting facts. It’s all a hodge podge of talking heads, testimonials, spliced sampling of a recorded conversation of […]
The fear a 12 year old Mexican can raise
Posted on June 5, 2016 16 Comments
I think I’ve told you this before once or twice, but let me just repeat the story again. When I was a kid, I was always interested in all things having to do with science and technology. Dad was a car mechanic, his two brothers fixed televisions and radios. They learned their respective trades through […]
Where have they seen me before?
Posted on May 31, 2016 1 Comment
Right before I started the doctoral program, I had enrolled in a certificate program for leadership in public health. It was aimed at professionals who worked full time, but it had a couple of shortcomings. First, the assignments required working in groups at a time when there wasn’t a particularly good online/remote way of doing […]
Another day, another bad anti-vaccine study
Posted on May 27, 2016 6 Comments
Let’s say that you think food A caused disease B. To test your theory, you get cases of people who got B and controls of people who did not get B. Then you compare the odds of exposure to A. The ratio between the odds is called the odds ratio, and anything significantly different from […]
Guess who got published?
Posted on May 26, 2016 10 Comments
If antivaxxers didn’t like me before, they are probably going to hate me. It’s okay though. I’m a big boy. I can take it. Anyway, I had the privilege of collaborating with Dorit Reiss on a paper about mandates that require health care workers to be immunized against influenza. I wrote the parts about influenza disease […]
Talking Tuesday: Spanish Interview on Flu Edition
Posted on May 24, 2016
Back in 2010, right before the flu season started, the bosses at the health department allowed me to do an interview with an AM radio station out of Washington, DC. The interviewer was awesome, and she really did a good job of asking pertinent questions and keeping my answers in line. It was a great opportunity to practice public speaking and speaking in Spanish. Although it is my first language, sometimes I forget some of its conventions. I’ve speaking English too long, I guess.
EpidemioLogical 