Thursday, June 25, 2009
Are you a moron? Maybe you should become a porn producer like Donny Long!
I saw with sadness but without much surprise that earlier this month, a porn actress tested positive for HIV. Per usual, the organization primarily responsible for testing porn stars, AIM, was not cooperating with public health officials. The last time an outbreak occurred in the porn community, AIM also refused to assist the health department, and then publicly disclosed the names of possibly infected talent when their press went accordingly south for being incompetent and more interested in self-preservation than the safety and health of people who work in the business.
As an interested follower and consumer of the pornographic industry, I promptly went to some of the industry blogs to see what sort of chatter was going on there. I was disappointed to see much of the usual: a lot of speculation about which actress was "responsible" for costing the production companies so much money. Because it's that unfortunate woman's fault for an industry standard that rejects condom use and relies on an organization run by an inept, self-serving media whore named Sharon Mitchell whose public health credentials include being a former junkie porn star and holding a bullshit Ph.D from an unaccredited institution.
I was even more disappointed to see that the loudmouth idiots working as producers in this industry took this as an opportunity to demonstrate what a bunch of accomplished homophobes they all are. In particular, this dumbass named Donny Long went to his equivalent at the cathedral at Wittenburg (aka the gofuckyourself.com message board) and nailed up the following theses regarding his concerns for the health of his employees:
HIV, fags, and tranny fuckers doing straight scenes in this businessSo the time has came. Huge HIV break out in Los Angeles and I dont even live or run a business there any more hahahha. THANK GOD.
I have posted countless times about this issue and I want it to be known because the real news is about to come out.
I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO. I TOLD YOU ALL SO.
When you have a faggot agent that rep's trannies and faggots as well as more straight girls in this business than anyone you are asking for it. I am sitting in Florida laughing my ass off at all the idiots in LA that hire trannyfuckers for straight scenes and fag male talent for straight scenes. I wont even book from girls from the fags anymore because I have no need to and everyone that knows the agencies in LA know who I am talking about. All I can say is I feel bad for the victims of others stupidity, but I TOLD YOU ALL SO.
Anyone want some content from a place where we dont hire fags or trannyfuckers to fuck straight girls and or have HIV problems HIT ME UP!
Yes, Donny, the time has indeed came. And I'm hardly surprised, considering that the porn industry seems to be replete with idiots like Donny who seem to think that only gay men can transmit HIV, and that having a gay agent alone is enough to taint an actress. The worst part is that Donny's colleagues reading his message board thread all seem to agree with him, saying things like "most of the gays have HIV" and "when you hire gay talent to shoot straight...you are asking for this shit to happen."
Did I somehow get into a fucking Delorean going 88 miles per hour? Because reading the opinions put forth by the gfy.com brain trust, I'd think I was in 1985, since that's the last time anyone with a shred of intelligence thought that HIV might be an epidemic specific to the gay community. Then again, since I once heard a dude getting a Ph.D in biology at Columbia tell me that straight people can only swap HIV during anal, I should hardly marvel over the ignorance exhibited by these high school dropouts, especially considering said fucktards are all raging homophobes.
While there are probably far too many polysyllabic words on this website for an imbecile like Donny Long to cope with, I would like to offer my own professional opinion on the subject. ANYBODY CAN GET HIV FROM HAVING UNPROTECTED SEX WITH ANYONE ELSE AND **PLENTY** OF STRAIGHT PEOPLE ARE HIV POSITIVE. And by "straight" I mean people who never have had any kind of hot same-sex action whatsoever and contracted HIV from heterosexual sex, probably with someone who also contracted their HIV from heterosexual sex. Furthermore, given that porn producers always complain that condoms will cost them dearly by cutting them out of supposedly lucrative fetish markets like ass-to-mouth and facials and whatnot, it would be easy for a cohort of exclusively heterosexual performers to start spreading HIV around with one another. In fact, if you look at the statistics, in 1985, only 3% of new HIV infections were transmitted heterosexually in the United States. In 2004, 31% of new HIV infections were heterosexual. Worldwide, 85% of HIV transmission occurs from heterosexual sex. When you work in an industry where people are having unprotected sex with multiple partners and rely on an organization run by an inept woman whose sole medical credential is her chronic viral hepatitis infection, you are always at a higher risk of contracting HIV. Period.
In case anyone wants to criticize me for not "understanding" how the porn industry works because I am not a part of it, I'd like to acknowledge that may be true. However, I do have a Ph.D in microbiology from Columbia, and my current specialty is hepatitis C, which is transmitted EXACTLY THE SAME WAY AS HIV. Given that AIM doesn't routinely test for either hep B or hep C, I wouldn't be surprised if those are completely endemic among no condom performers, gay and straight. In my work, I have to undergo extensive training to avoid occupational exposure to hep C, HIV, and other bloodborne pathogens. I cannot work with any human samples without wearing proper protective equipment, and I'm issued a prophylactic antiviral drug cocktail to take on the way to the emergency room should I ever have an accidental exposure such as a needle stick. The porn industry has no such safety standards in place. Furthermore, you will not test positive for HIV the second you contract it. Even the most sensitive test can't detect infection for several days. Considering most performers are tested once or twice a month, it's easy to see how HIV could spread rapidly in this community.
Donny Long should just be honest about why he's laughing at those unfortunate enough to have contracted HIV occupationally. It's because he's a fucking homophobe and a prick, which accounts for his completely asinine epidemiological theories. When Donny Long decides to stick his dick in some porn bitch who meets his criteria of not being represented by a "fag agent" or who has not shot scenes with a "tranny fucker" and contracts HIV or viral hepatitis anyway, I will be the one saying "I TOLD YOU SO."
HIV is a bloodborne pathogen that doesn't care what your sexual orientation is, or what gender you are, or what gender you have adopted. As a virus, its sole objective is to find a new host, and condom-free pornography of any genre is a great way to facilitate that process. Donny Long ought to grow a fucking brain and a pair of fucking balls and just admit that he's a fucking bigot of the highest and most idiotic order.
Labels: epidemic geekery, porn, retard rage, scathing indictments, viruses rule
Thursday, February 26, 2009
I WANT THAT COPY OF PoV!!!!!!
So my PI (boss/mentor) has this blog and podcast, which I was once a guest on in what a Razzyphile deemed "the geekiest thing ever." Yes, I am a huge nerd. This is not news.
Anyway, my PI is having a contest on his podcast that if you put up links to him and drive enough traffic his way, he'll give you a free copy of the third edition of Principles of Virology, his textbook. I only have the second edition and you might think that he would bless all the students in his lab with free copies of the new version. Not so...the book is over $100 a copy and he apparently doesn't get enough free copies from his publisher to be generous. So I've got to earn mine with webmastery. And since, as many of you regular Razzyphiles have noticed, I've been awfully remiss on the posting because I'm finishing up my dissertation frantically and getting ready to move to Seattle for a virology postdoc there. In addition to just wanting the newest, hottest edition of PoV, I'm actually going to need it.
I did double check with him that he wanted his considerably classier web ventures associated with a lowbrow site purporting to be the ultimate source of useless bullshit. He did explicitly state that he doesn't mind getting traffic from RAZZY.org, and in fact, I'm his second highest referrer after the American Society for Microbiology's website! I should think that fact right there should earn me one of these free copies of PoV, but just in case, I'm shamelessly plugging the AWESOME VIROLOGY BLOG and EVEN MORE AWESOME THIS WEEK IN VIROLOGY PODCAST here. I especially encourage those of you who like when I occasionally drop a little science on your asses to go. Neither are designed for a hardcore scientific audience, and my PI's writing/conversing style is engaging and easy to follow. Besides, my PI is basically a legend in the field, and you will definitely learn a great deal from him about the fascinating field of study I've chosen. Okay, I know I bitch about it all the time, but that's just because I've been in grad school forever. I actually think virology is really great and I am very glad to have chosen it as a career.
So GO READ THE VIROLOGY BLOG AND LISTEN TO TWiV!!!!
Labels: down with OPB (other people's blogs), epidemic geekery, nerd alert, science, viruses rule
Sunday, January 25, 2009
My byline will never be as good
Since I've spent the last four days pulling 10 to 14 hour days in lab frantically trying to get as many experiments done as possible before my thesis defense (and, essentially, graduation) in April, I haven't had much time for anything non-scientific. I got the postdoc I interviewed for, so I'm going to be moving cross-country shortly after my defense and I won't have much time to finish up any lingering last minute experiments. Therefore, I've been practically living in lab.
In the course of my work, I've been up to my tits in scientific literature trying to finish the discussion section of my two papers. Today I was reviewing a paper which I know only too well, since J-Sexy e-mailed me an article a year ago from the BBC in which this English asthma expert was claiming to have developed a mouse model of rhinovirus infection. As that is what I have been slaving away trying to do for the last five and a half years, this was deeply upsetting to me. Add to it that the paper was published in a goddamn Nature journal! For those of you who very wisely chose a career outside science, Nature, Science, and Cell are probably the best journals you can get published in. This paper wasn't in Nature proper, but it was still in Nature Medicine, which is definitely a respectable publication.
After freaking out for a while, I realized that the paper actually leaves a lot to be desired for a variety of reasons I won't bore you with. I also took comfort in the fact that this paper has a zillion authors. Apparently it took a village to produce a model that barely produces any measurable infectious virus. It's hard to beat twenty-some authors from four collaborating labs on your own in terms of sheer productive output, so I can't beat myself up too much for getting scooped. Besides, I've developed my model and it's sufficiently different (and better) that I can still publish in a quality journal.
Anyway, I've read and re-read this paper so that I can do some studies to compare my model with theirs, and also so I can do some different studies and include some new information in my paper. Today I was reading it yet again and making snotty comments to myself in my head about their experimental methods. When I got bored of thinking things like "no DUH virus production is going to be statistically significant if you're comparing it to UV-inactivated virus that DOESN'T REPLICATE AND ISN'T INFECTIOUS," I idly flipped to the front of the paper and for the first time noticed the names of some of these authors.
While I believe my model is superior in terms of actually mimicking human rhinovirus pathogenesis in a mouse, I know that inevitably their byline is going to be better, and not just because it has a big Nature Medicine logo on it.
It's like this paper was authored by a cadre of gay porn stars. My name is nowhere near as awesome as "Bruno Guy," "Alberto Papi," or (my personal favorite, the obvious power bottom) "Dallas M. Swallow." Are these even real names? I'm imagining these dudes finishing up an ELISA for Th2 cytokines in BAL fluid, then traipsing over to the set of Bareback Mechanic Fuckers 4. I hope that my paper is regarded scientifically as an improvement over this model, but there's no way that unless I use a stage name my byline will be more entertaining than one featuring the name Dallas M. Swallow. In this area, this group will always be superior.
RAZZY EDIT: Oops. I just Googled Dallas Swallow, and it turns out Dr. Swallow is in fact a woman, and her expertise is mucin expression. "Gel-forming mucin" is a fancy way of saying "snot." So...now that I know Dr. Swallow is a respected mucus geneticist, well, I'm still laughing. I have the maturity of a ten-year-old boy. It's like when my mom starts talking about the goings on in the world of ultrasound and mentions "Siemens." HA-I'm actually snickering thinking about that now. I should grow up.
Labels: epidemic geekery, grad school bullshit, nerd alert, science, viruses rule
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Nerd alert
I know I've been MIA lately, but that's because I've literally been up to my tits in lab work that needed to get done six months ago. Also, I took a break for a hot second to guest on my mentor's podcast, This Week in Virology. I think it's a testament to how lab-intensive my life has been of late that the only time I take a break is to talk virology.
So if you want to hear my sexy voice talking with a bunch of other sexy-voiced science nerds about viruses, give it a listen. The podcast is geared toward a lay audience, so you don't have to be a big nerd yourself to understand what we're talking about. In fact, you'll probably enjoy my blaming bird flu for the soaring prices of chicken wings at my usual football bar. You can either subscribe through iTunes using this feed, or just go to the TWiV website.
I'll be back with some non-virological Razzification next week, I promise.
Labels: epidemic geekery, excuses, grad school bullshit, science, viruses rule
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
With virology, anything is possible
Thursday night television is really a great conduit for my rage. All night there's something on TV for me to utterly hate. At eight, we have a double dose of "Ugly Betty" and "Smallville," followed by an hour of stupid Seattle surgical sex drama on "Gay's Shitnatomy." Now that I know the producers of this broadcast spunktrap (my new favorite word) are total lesbian-hating homophobes, "Gay's Shitnatomy" may as well be the proposition 8 of primetime television. I also especially want nothing to do with any type of drama involving science. On CBS there is some shitshow called "Eleventh Hour" that looks a lot like that "Fringe" trash on Fox, except it doesn't have Pacey from "Dawson's Creek" in it. There's a freaky, borderline autistic yet obnoxiously arrogant scientist who knows everything about everything in spite of the fact that his hypotheses are ill-informed and he can't bother to run a single fucking control on any of his poorly designed attempts at experimental science. Somehow this ass-clown got a job with the FBI despite having zero social skills (which, one could argue, makes him far better suited for academia) and competence only in the area of insufferable scientastic gibberish, and he's in charge of solving any X-Files-type crap that should arise.
Last Thursday, I was busy working (hence no updates in a week...sorry, dudes, it's been a rough week) and texting (unfortunately, my primary means of communication these days) and turned on the TV for some background noise. Apparently I turned on this "Eleventh Hour" crap, because I was jerked away from my attention to rhinovirus 1A sequence data on my laptop when I heard the following words issue from my television:
"With virology, anything is possible."
Virology? On TV?! That hardly ever happens! Despite the fact that viruses impact all our lives on every level, from the cold that infects us to the HIV epidemic that burdens our global economy, most people don't find viruses sexy or interesting enough for primetime. They certainly don't find virologists to be a component of engaging television programming, so I was slightly shocked to see that CBS not only had that hot swarthy guy from The Mummy and Resident Evil: Apocalypse playing a virologist, he was waxing poetic about the grand potential for a career in virology. I got momentarily excited.
My excitement, unfortunately, was short-lived. Almost immediately Annoying Know-It-All Doctor Guy started having a conversation with the Hot Swarthy Virologist that made my blood boil with rage at the piss-poor fact-checking on the part of the "Eleventh Hour" writers. They were talking about how some terrorist or something made a chimeric virus out of adenovirus (another cause of the common cold, although not NEARLY as hot as rhinovirus) and variola, which is better known as smallpox. Supposedly this was done to make smallpox airborne, like the common cold. Too bad this is unnecessary because a simple Wikipedia search would have informed Hot Swarthy Virologist that variola is already transmitted by the airborne route. Frankly, if he's the "Head of Virology" somewhere, he should know that anyway. It certainly would save him all the time and trouble of making an adeno-poxvirus chimera that is unnecessary and after all the tedious cloning required to construct such a thing, probably wouldn't even be infectious. If you're such a crack virologist that "anything is possible" on your watch, then maybe it would be possible to learn how to pronounce "adenovirus" correctly, you loser!
This annoyed me because there are way more pressing issues in the field of virology that people should know about. I don't like shows coming along that confuse people with a lot of scientastic, impossible, pointless bullshit when there are more pressing virology-related issues to address. In fact, while I was busy fucking around with virus sequence data and getting pissed at the scientific implausibility of "Eleventh Hour" episode plots, I was also trying to improve public health by educating a concerned layman. Specifically, I was discussing diseases that one might get from banging porn stars. I was texting back and forth with my ex-boyfriend Benzo about whether or not the Daily Kos is full of self-congratulating jerkoffs when he got sick of arguing with me and decided to switch to a topic we both enjoyed discussing: pornography. It seems Benzo has recently discovered the many talents of one Miss Flower Tucci, the star of cinematic masterpieces such as Flower's Squirt Shower vols. 1-6, Jam It all the Way Up my Ass, Can a Brotha Get a Squirt?, Viagra Falls, Squirt in my Gape 2, and White Butts Drippin' Chocolate Nuts, to name a few. Here she is, dressed in finery reflecting the elegance and sophistication befitting an anally inclined female ejaculation specialist like Flower:
I've always been somewhat intrigued by Flower because the girl has a fucking firehose in her vagina. I've personally female ejaculated a couple times, but it's always been really random. I couldn't really associate it with any sort of particularly amazing or distinctive sex. It just happened and I have not figured out how to do it on cue, much less with anywhere near the volume and force someone like Flower Tucci achieves on a regular basis. I'm pretty comfortable with my body and generally very aware of how it works, but that's one of the few aspects of my sexuality that remains shrouded in mystery for me. However, clearly Flower has knowledge more advanced than I because the woman has mastered the craft. She's so infamous for her squirting talents that she even engaged another squirting pornstar, Cytherea, in the porn star equivalent of a 2Pac vs. Biggie style beef over who could get the most distance. This is a level of sexual competence above and beyond what most people can even imagine, and it's hardly surprising that even veteran porn viewers like Benzo and myself would be impressed by it. However, the price of porn is often infection, and as I pointed out to Benzo, I don't think from a virological perspective it's a very good idea to take a faceful of Flower's squirt.
Benzo: Oh by the way, what do you think of pornstar flower tucci?Benzo: She's a squirter!Razzy: Oh i know who she is! famous ass, loves anal, and can squirt 100 feet. But i find her striking because she looks a lot like (this girl who went to college with me)!Benzo: Ooooh that kinda ruins it for me. Although (this girl) was physically hot I felt she always came off in a non-sexual manner.Razzy: Yeah me too! I imagined she was always busier smoking joints than smoking poles.Benzo: Now flower looks like the kind of girl that might fuck you to death!! A wet death! :-)Razzy: Truly. Flower is no joke.Benzo: I'm not sure why flower is sooo hot but she's a slut and she's hot!! Anal and squirting don't bother me at all.Razzy: Nor I. I'd just think she was hotter if i didn't think of (this girl) chuckling that 'heh heh heh' stoner laugh at (this girl's ex) every time i see herBenzo: Now that's funny, (this girl's ex) used to stop in at my old job and see meRazzy: Not really something you want to masturbate to, thoughBenzo: That dependsRazzy: And how can you argue with fact? (This girl) is no flower tucci.Benzo: No argument. I'd let flower fuck me before I fucked (this girl)!Razzy: You know, though, flower probably has the herp. Almost all pornstars do. Now known thanks to an outbreak belladonna myspace blogged aboutBenzo: Yeah, that's why you j/o to porn and fuck real girls w/ rubbers. In nyc you can find a "pornstar" experience any night. Nut you've got to wrap it.Razzy: As lil wayne says, 'better wear a latex, so you don't get that late text, that i-think-i'm-late text.' Equally bad is the 'call me ron mexico' text.Benzo: Yeah...blah, blah! Lil wayne blows.Benzo: Having said that, I would still love to hook up with Flower TucciRazzy: You can still get herpes with a condom, ESPECIALLY during anal and doing stuff like getting squirted directly on a mucosal surfaceBenzo: Damn science...such a dick limper!Benzo: But only during an outbreak right??Razzy: Usually, but you often cant tell just by looking. And ppl can still shed virus between outbreaks. Getting anything on your mucosa is asking for troubleBenzo: Fair enough, I'll tell flower that we're off for dinner this weekend. I won't even eat her ass.Razzy: Yeah, she'll be disappointed. But i bet your girlfriend will be glad she's on ass-eating detail instead of flowerBenzo: She will be
A little more investigation confirmed that indeed Flower has starred alongside the 2007 "Dirtiest Girl in Porn" Belladonna herself in 5 different movies. About a year ago, Belladonna confirmed that not only is this title accurate because she can do things like deep throat all eleven inches of Lexington Steele's penis and get assfucked by baseball bats, but because she had a vicious outbreak of the herp all over her infamous ass. She said she was planning to retire, then changed her mind because in her words, "Dude, there's no way I can not be in that scene sucking that dick." Since her retracted herpes-based retirement, Belladonna has starred in Belladonna: Manhandled 3, Belladonna's Cock Pigs, Belladonna's Cock Happy 2, Belladonna's Fucking Girls 6, Defend Our Porn, Discovering Alexis Texas, Pirates II, and Strap-On Chicks 20. In the course of filming these eight cinematic classics, probably at least 20 actors/actresses were exposed to Bella's herpes. When you consider that she claims to have been infected in 2002 and she has starred in over 200 films since then, it's a wonder that there are any porn stars who aren't spreading the simplex. Considering Flower's professional associations with Belladonna, it's hard to imagine her signature squirting as anything but a gushing torrent of infectious herp. Probably some papillomaviruses too, since Flower starred in an orgy scene in Fashionistas Safado: The Challenge with Sasha Grey, who is rumored to take long career breaks due to recurrent anal warts.
According to hot, swarthy fake virologists the sky's the limit for crafting scary bioweapons with nature's coolest intracellular obligate parasites, but I'd be far more wary of Flower Tucci's ejaculate than some sort of made-up super smallpox (that isn't all that different from regular smallpox). While anything might be possible with virology, it's a lot more probable that it's just going to make your porn a little less fun to watch knowing that everyone starring in a given scene is popping an industrial-sized dose of Valtrex and rubbing Herpecin on their genitalia before the camera starts rolling.
Labels: Benzo, epidemic geekery, perversion, porn, science, TV, viruses rule
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The only thing missing was "Razzy's a pimp" on the Goodyear Blimp
So you may have noticed that I've been remiss the last week or two in posting regularly. In fact, you were probably rending your garments and wailing and gnashing your teeth and other assorted Biblical-type expressions of lament and sorrow that you weren't getting Razzified on the regular. This is because unfortunately I have this thing I'm doing called grad school, and I'm almost done with it. Therefore, not only do I have acute senioritis (or more accurately, sixth-yearitis), I have more bullshit to do than you even want to hear about. I have experiments to run, mice to kill, viruses to grow, cloning projects to finish, two riveting first-author papers to write, and a thesis committee to appease. I was doing the latter today, which is why I spent most of the week cranking out some last minute experiments and preparing to rock their faces off with some hot Power Point action.
Well, not only can I say "mission accomplished" to that notion, but on the VERY SAME DAY I discovered that, after two long years of passaging and plaque assaying and begging my virus to replicate, I gave a mouse a goddamned cold! And not some bullshit real-time PCR assay showing RNA replication like certain competitors of mine managed to get published (in a fucking Nature journal, of all places), but actual, honest-to-God, infectious motherfucking rhinovirus that kills cells and will give you a cold, make you miss work or school, and possibly exacerbate your asthma, COPD, or cystic fibrosis. REAL rhinovirus, not some pussified replicative form of the viral genome.
I know this doesn't sound like much, but I'm seriously having a fucking awesome day. In fact, this is one of the most awesome days in recent grad school memory. In fact, I can't think of a day when I was happier in grad school. I suppose the day I graduate will be better than this, but for now, I'm right up there in O'Shea "Ice Cube" Jackson territory regarding "good day" status. This is the science nerd equivalent of looking in the mirror and ascertaining that there are no jackers in sight while getting a beep from Kim, who reputedly can fuck all night. This is like no barking from the dog and mama cooking the breakfast with no hog (if I were a fake-me-out Muslim like Ice Cube apparently was when he released The Predator, anyway). It's like picking up the cash flow, then playing bones and being the individual skillful enough to be repeatedly yelling "domino." I probably won't be getting laid tonight with anyone who can fuck all night or doing any backyard gambling, but I will at least be having beers with J-Sexy, who apart from my PI is the one person in the entire world capable of deeply appreciating exactly how fucking mindblowingly, orgasmically, phenomenally awesome THIS is:
I know, I know...try to resist masturbating furiously at the sight of such a sexy piece of data until you are in a private place more appropriate for that sort of activity. I'm off to drink some beer and eat a fucking cheeseburger. And come up with topics for lots of interesting posts that I'll have slightly more time to throw together every couple of days, of course. Thanks for your patience with me being an absentee blogger, and please feel free to have a drink or fifty in my honor!
Labels: epidemic geekery, excuses, grad school bullshit, I LOVE IT, rap, Razzification, science, viruses rule
Friday, August 22, 2008
Parasites get parasites
I have never paid much attention to Amanda Peet, since any actress introduced as an "X Files: I Want to Believe star..." draws my gaze about as much as a bowl of plain oatmeal or a selection from Oprah's book club. However, a while back, Amanda Peet made me care about her for five seconds when she told some parenting magazine that not only did she vaccinate her spawn, she thinks people who don't are "parasites."
Vaccines prevent epidemic disease thanks to the concept of herd immunity, the notion that if enough of the population is immune to an infectious disease, said pathogen won't be able to cause an epidemic because it can't spread due to a dearth of susceptible people. Amanda Peet's point seems to be that people who choose not to vaccinate their children are relying on herd immunity rather than maintaining it themselves. Ultimately, like with parasites, this will be detrimental as the ranks of the unvaccinated swell to provide a new reservoir of infection.
Viruses are by definition parasites. They are technically not considered "living" by biologists because they cannot reproduce without a host cell. Viruses then reproduce at the expense of their host, appropriating molecular machinery normally performing cellular functions for viral replication. Therefore, Amanda Peet's observation concerning the parasitism of parents who don't vaccinate (usually because of vague, unfounded concerns about autism) is underscored by the irony of their kids succumbing to the very diseases they choose not to protect their children–and the entire population–against. Congratulations, idiots: your kids don't have autism, but they sure as fuck are enjoying a scourge of yesteryear like motherfucking MEASLES.
The last time I wrote about vaccination, I got a bunch of haughty referrals to various websites "proving" the link between immunization and autism. This "proof" amounts to little more than circumstantial evidence and the hysterical first-person accounts of parents whose children were diagnosed with autism around the same time they received their first immunizations...since coincidentally, autism typically becomes apparent around age two. Because autism has increased as childhood vaccination has become more prevalent, the two must be related. Never mind that autism was basically unrecognized as a legitimate disorder until 1938, and wasn't officially diagnosed until 1943. One could argue that given the coincidental chronology of autism diagnoses and childhood immunization, the increases have more to do with physician awareness about autism than with vaccines taken by the vast majority of the population. I don't see anyone blaming global warming, nuclear power, or whatever other unfortunate by-product of our developed civilization for autism. This is because those arguments are obviously bullshit, so people unfortunate enough to have an autistic kid rely on scientastic misinterpretations of epidemiology statistics concerning a topic most people are poorly educated about: vaccination.
Vaccination has been going strong since the fucking tenth century, when the Chinese realized that infecting someone with a low dose of smallpox produces immunity (although sometimes had the unfortunate consequence of actually causing smallpox). This practice, known as variolation, was used until Edward Jenner developed vaccination in the eighteenth century. Edward Jenner was a physician in the English countryside who observed that milkmaids were relatively immune to smallpox and this resistance seemed associated with crusty sores on the milkmaids' faces. In an experiment reflecting the extremely lax ethical standards of the time, he took scrapings of the milkmaids' faces and injected them into a ten-year-old boy who had never contracted smallpox. He subsequently injected the boy with the exudate of pustules from a smallpox patient, and observed that the boy did not develop disease. Though he did not know it at the time, infection with the cowpox virus causing the unattractive but relatively harmless milkmaid face sores elicits antibodies which cross-react and protect against smallpox. The old timey medical name for cowpox is vaccinia virus; hence the term "vaccination." While vaccination is no longer practiced in the literal sense since smallpox was eradicated in 1972, we refer to immunization as "vaccination" out of convention.
The development of vaccination radically changed the way we regard epidemic disease, and as far as viruses are concerned, smallpox was one of the worst. I guarantee if these assholes who spend their time reading blogs written by parents more concerned with seeking an explanation for their child's autism than being scientifically factual were faced with the prospect of their kid coming down with variola major, they would be singing a different tune. Behold, the disease which merited the original vaccine:
Measles might not be QUITE as bad or as deadly as smallpox, but it's still pretty fucking gross:
If you are stupid enough to believe that you're protecting your kids from unsubstantiated, conjecture-based autism risks by declining to immunize them, consider that by making this decision, you are not only exposing them to the risk of contracting the disease above, you are putting everyone else's kids (especially those too young to be vaccinated, who are more likely to die from measles) at risk too. You truly are a parasite, as your own need for enforcing your ignorance damages everyone else's right to public health. Shut the fuck up and stick your kids with the MMR.
Vaccines prevent epidemic disease thanks to the concept of herd immunity, the notion that if enough of the population is immune to an infectious disease, said pathogen won't be able to cause an epidemic because it can't spread due to a dearth of susceptible people. Amanda Peet's point seems to be that people who choose not to vaccinate their children are relying on herd immunity rather than maintaining it themselves. Ultimately, like with parasites, this will be detrimental as the ranks of the unvaccinated swell to provide a new reservoir of infection.
Viruses are by definition parasites. They are technically not considered "living" by biologists because they cannot reproduce without a host cell. Viruses then reproduce at the expense of their host, appropriating molecular machinery normally performing cellular functions for viral replication. Therefore, Amanda Peet's observation concerning the parasitism of parents who don't vaccinate (usually because of vague, unfounded concerns about autism) is underscored by the irony of their kids succumbing to the very diseases they choose not to protect their children–and the entire population–against. Congratulations, idiots: your kids don't have autism, but they sure as fuck are enjoying a scourge of yesteryear like motherfucking MEASLES.
Measles cases in the U.S. are at the highest level in more than a decade, with nearly half of those involving children whose parents rejected vaccination, health officials reported Thursday.Although Jenny McCarthy literally screamed "BULLSHIT!" on Larry King about this, the fact is that no matter how much she wants something to blame for her son's autism, there is no correlation between autism and childhood vaccines. In fact, 10 of the 13 authors of the only legitimate study to ever speculate about a causal link between the MMR vaccine and autism have retracted their conclusions. That study examined only a dozen autistic children, and other studies examining thousands of patients have repeatedly shown no statistically significant causal relationship between vaccination and autism. There is, however, a direct correlation between measles outbreaks and a refusal to vaccinate. As these recent measles outbreaks demonstrate, vaccines are a much less serious public health problem than the abject stupidity of people who rely on former Playmates and Candies shoe spokesmodels for medical information.
Worried doctors are troubled by the trend fueled by unfounded fears that vaccines may cause autism. The number of cases is still small, just 131, but that's only for the first seven months of the year. There were only 42 cases for all of last year.
In a typical year, only one outbreak occurs in the United States, infecting perhaps 10 to 20 people. So far this year through July 30 the country has seen seven outbreaks, including one in Illinois with 30 cases, said Seward, of the CDC's Division of Viral Diseases.
None of the 131 patients died, but 15 were hospitalized.
Childhood measles vaccination rates have stayed above 92 percent, according to 2006 data. However, the recent outbreaks suggest potential pockets of unvaccinated children are forming. Health officials worry that vaccination rates have begun to fall — something that won't show up in the data for a couple of years.
The vaccine is considered highly effective but not perfect; 11 of this year's cases had at least one dose of the vaccine.
Of this year's total, 122 were unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status. Some were unvaccinated because the children were under age 1 — too young to get their first measles shot.
In 63 of those cases — almost all of them 19 or under — the patient or their parents refused the shots for philosophical or religious reasons, the CDC reported.
In Washington state, an outbreak was traced to a church conference, including 16 school-aged children who were not vaccinated. Eleven of those kids were home schooled and not subject to vaccination rules in public schools. It's unclear why the parents rejected the vaccine.
The last time I wrote about vaccination, I got a bunch of haughty referrals to various websites "proving" the link between immunization and autism. This "proof" amounts to little more than circumstantial evidence and the hysterical first-person accounts of parents whose children were diagnosed with autism around the same time they received their first immunizations...since coincidentally, autism typically becomes apparent around age two. Because autism has increased as childhood vaccination has become more prevalent, the two must be related. Never mind that autism was basically unrecognized as a legitimate disorder until 1938, and wasn't officially diagnosed until 1943. One could argue that given the coincidental chronology of autism diagnoses and childhood immunization, the increases have more to do with physician awareness about autism than with vaccines taken by the vast majority of the population. I don't see anyone blaming global warming, nuclear power, or whatever other unfortunate by-product of our developed civilization for autism. This is because those arguments are obviously bullshit, so people unfortunate enough to have an autistic kid rely on scientastic misinterpretations of epidemiology statistics concerning a topic most people are poorly educated about: vaccination.
Vaccination has been going strong since the fucking tenth century, when the Chinese realized that infecting someone with a low dose of smallpox produces immunity (although sometimes had the unfortunate consequence of actually causing smallpox). This practice, known as variolation, was used until Edward Jenner developed vaccination in the eighteenth century. Edward Jenner was a physician in the English countryside who observed that milkmaids were relatively immune to smallpox and this resistance seemed associated with crusty sores on the milkmaids' faces. In an experiment reflecting the extremely lax ethical standards of the time, he took scrapings of the milkmaids' faces and injected them into a ten-year-old boy who had never contracted smallpox. He subsequently injected the boy with the exudate of pustules from a smallpox patient, and observed that the boy did not develop disease. Though he did not know it at the time, infection with the cowpox virus causing the unattractive but relatively harmless milkmaid face sores elicits antibodies which cross-react and protect against smallpox. The old timey medical name for cowpox is vaccinia virus; hence the term "vaccination." While vaccination is no longer practiced in the literal sense since smallpox was eradicated in 1972, we refer to immunization as "vaccination" out of convention.
The development of vaccination radically changed the way we regard epidemic disease, and as far as viruses are concerned, smallpox was one of the worst. I guarantee if these assholes who spend their time reading blogs written by parents more concerned with seeking an explanation for their child's autism than being scientifically factual were faced with the prospect of their kid coming down with variola major, they would be singing a different tune. Behold, the disease which merited the original vaccine:
Labels: epidemic geekery, retard rage, scathing indictments, science, viruses rule
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Anthrax ROCKS
I received the following e-mail from a Razzyphile the other day:
Hey, Razzy
Thank you for the useless bullshit. You are definitely fulfilling a societal need.
I was hoping you could post about the anthrax dude who recently killed himself. You are an expert in the field and we razzyphiles would like to hear from you anything germane to our greater understanding of the entire incident.
PS great rack
I'm a recent law school grad but not admitted so I can't help legally yet.
I am always happy to accommodate requests to drop some science for an interested Razzyphile, particularly one who simultaneously compliments my tits, declares the demand for useless bullshit a "societal need," and might be able to potentially join my crack pro bono legal team of criminal defense and bankruptcy attorneys once he passes the bar exam. I'm also always especially happy to discuss this sexy Gram-positive spore-forming facultative anaerobe:
I've had a real scientific hard-on for Bacillus anthracis since I started studying microbiology. By all accounts, it's a hardy little survivor, which is what makes it a successful pathogen and a relatively efficient biological weapon. The above picture (which looks like a colored transmission electron micrograph) depicts B. anthracis in a state called vegetative growth, which is the type of growth most people imagine bacteria do in an Erlenmeyer flask or a petri dish of culture media. They divide by binary fission until they run out of nutrients or growth conditions become otherwise unfavorable. Most bacteria, like E. coli or Salmonella species, will proceed to die or at least stop dividing under conditions of nutrient deprivation, but B. anthracis can do something special. It can sporulate, meaning it changes into a dormant spore form, until it is again exposed to more favorable growth conditions. This is equivalent to watching TV and taking a nap on the couch when nothing good is on, to conserve your strength and attention for when something awesome like "I Love Money" or a rerun of Red Dawn merits waking up.
B. anthracis spores are extremely durable and can remain viable for decades in the soil, which is why livestock are most often afflicted with anthrax. The spores get from the earth into grazing animals' hair and basically hang out there. If they get into vulnerable areas of skin (via a cut or a mucosal surface like the eye), they germinate, and result in cutaneous anthrax. Generally the humans that get this are farmers, herders, slaughterhouse employees, and other people working with livestock. In both animals and humans, cutaneous anthrax presents as an ulcerating lesion that is usually pretty gross, but usually treatable with antibiotics and not fatal.
It's much more serious when the spores are inhaled and germinate in the lungs. Prior to the Cold War era of state-sponsored bioweapons programs, pulmonary anthrax was known as "Woolsorter's Disease," because it typically affected people who worked in places where animal hides were processed and resulted in high concentrations of airborne spores. However, when World War II came around, a number of countries (including the great U.S. of A., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union) decided to test the feasibility of using aerosolized anthrax spores as a biological weapon. They are naturally a great bioweapon because not only are the spores incredibly hardy, but pulmonary anthrax is not transmissible from person-to-person. Therefore, you can target an enemy efficiently without worrying about causing an epidemic. However, nobody ever used anthrax as a weapon in an actual war, partly because of the lasting effects. Gruinard Island, off the Scottish coast, was used by British scientists to test their anthrax bombs in the hopes of using them against Germany. They stopped developing anthrax as a weapon when they concluded that, while effective at killing their test sheep, the spores were so durable that they would render any German city attacked this way uninhabitable for years afterward. In fact, Gruinard Island was so heavily contaminated that it was quarantined for almost 50 years after these tests, until the Brits got sick of going back to test it all the time and bombed the whole place with 280 metric tons of formaldehyde.
The major world powers then signed a treaty in 1972 pledging not to develop new biological or chemical weapons. Apart from an incident in the Russian city of Sverdlovsk in 1979 when a number of factory workers across the street from a "vaccine plant" died from pulmonary anthrax (the Kremlin attributed the incident to contaminated meat, while Soviet defectors involved in the Soviet bioweapons program attributed it to a filter being left off an exhaust vent), no government has openly developed anthrax as a biological weapon. However, anthrax is still studied from both a basic research and a biodefense perspective, and there are certainly cultures of highly virulent B. anthracis growing in many research facilities all over the world.
For anyone with a basic knowledge of microbiological technique, weaponized anthrax is easy to make. In fact, if you can make homebrewed beer, you can make an anthrax weapon. Anthrax is not like Ebola virus, which is hard to get, harder to culture, and almost impossible to deliver to the intended targets. If you wanted to attack someone with Ebola, you'd have to go to Africa in the midst of an Ebola outbreak, somehow smuggle viable samples of virus through customs (and "samples" in this case would probably consist of bloody vomit or shit from an Ebola patient on ice), find a bunch of monkeys to covertly infect to grow more virus, and try to attack and inject infected tissues from these monkeys into my unfortunate victims since most strains of Ebola (at least the ones that infect humans) don't appear to be airborne. Since Ebola is a virus, it needs a host cell to grow in, and the virus particles alone are not stable for long at room temperature or when exposed to UV radiation (ie: sunlight). You can't just make some powdered Ebola and spray it all over people, and someone is bound to notice if you're running around attacking people with a syringe. There's about fifty ways that such a scheme would fail, and even if you somehow did manage to make some homegrown Ebola, it would be pretty fucking difficult to infect many people before your evil plot was discovered.
Anthrax is much easier to make. I could go dig up soil from a cow pasture in Oklahoma, culture anthrax bacilli from that, grow them in a fermentation tank which can be constructed from materials at my local hardware store, dry the culture, chop it into powder, and mail it to whoever I wanted. Even worse, pulmonary anthrax is usually deadly, because the initial symptoms aren't much different than a chest cold. Unlike other bacteria that cause pneumonia by growing to the point of taking over the lungs, pulmonary anthrax causes respiratory failure via a toxin the bacteria secrete. By the time it becomes apparent that a patient has pulmonary anthrax versus a more common respiratory pathogen, even getting rid of the bacteria with antibiotics doesn't get rid of the toxin, and then it's usually too late. Therefore, it's quite easy for someone with a rudimentary knowledge of microbiology to make a deadly, easily transportable terrorist weapon. Fortunately, most scientists (including myself) aren't looking to break into the bioterrorism business, and have serious ethical problems with biological weapons. Unfortunately, there are some who do not fit that description, which is where the recently suicide-d Dr. Bruce Ivins comes in.
In the wake of those anthrax mail attacks in 2001, the federal government obviously put a lot of effort into determining where that anthrax came from. Like people or any other living organism, anthrax from a lab is genetically distinct from anthrax in a podunk cow pasture somewhere, so the government was able to determine that it came from a virulent lab strain. In fact, it came from a strain that our own government uses to develop anthrax vaccines. That's why the government fucked up royally by running a colossally inept investigation of Dr. Steven Hatfill, the wrong anthrax scientist, who just collected a $5 million settlement from the federal government for the ruin it wrought on his career and his not-a-terrorist reputation.
As it turns out, it was more likely Dr. Bruce Ivins, who killed himself last week when he discovered that he was going to be indicted on capital murder charges for being the actual anthrax mailer. Dr. Ivins was involved in all sorts of sketchy activity, including renting post office boxes under assumed names, using his lab after-hours (although as a grad student, that seems like a perfectly normal workday in the slave labor culture of academic research), having a number of unreported anthrax spills, threatening to kill co-workers, frightening his shrink into getting a restraining order against him, and being strangely obsessed with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority at Princeton. He was also apparently a loner and a dick.
While anyone has reason to be skeptical of the FBI's largely circumstantial case against the late Dr. Ivins given their total shitshow of an investigation into the now-exonerated Dr. Hatfill, I can state from personal experience that science has been known to harbor some disturbed people that remind me of Dr. Ivins. Without specifically referring to anyone in particular, a person with a need to dominate, threaten, and harass his colleagues, has a troublesome and obsessive relationship with women, does not respond to reprimands or psychological treatment, and takes no personal responsibility for his actions is not unprecedented in the field of microbiology. Unfortunately, these kinds of mentally unstable people can simultaneously be good enough at their jobs to get access to dangerous pathogens, and sometimes the underlying craziness isn't recognized until it's too late.
Even worse, this personality type can sometimes combine the monstrous need to kill innocent people via anthrax with a desire for personal gain. Because these people are Ph.D scientists, they are obviously intelligent, and can sometimes engineer a situation to benefit financially from their own reprehensible crimes. For example, a person might be able to get away with being a scary, abusive, potentially violent asshole by threatening lawsuits or otherwise manipulating the legal system to get what they want along with a substantial cash award. In Dr. Ivins's case, his numerous patent claims over anthrax vaccine technology would provide a significant financial motive to create a nationwide panic about attacks with weaponized anthrax. Currently, the anthrax vaccine approved for use in the U.S. is primarily reserved for military personnel and the odd first-responder. If everyone in the country suddenly became hysterical over the prospect of a large-scale anthrax attack, the demand for a vaccine would increase logarithmically. Dr. Ivins stood to make millions of dollars personally from this kind of nationwide terror, and that can only be icing on the cake for acting out on his reprehensible misanthropic impulses.
Now, many people are probably wondering whether or not they should be afraid of future anthrax attacks since it's so easy to grow and distribute as a lethal bioweapon. I would say no. Sure, the possibility exists. So does the possibility of a flu pandemic as serious as the Spanish flu of 1918 that killed as many as 100 million people by some estimations. So does the possibility of some terrorist getting their hands on one of the few poorly secured smallpox samples, of an airborne strain of Ebola emerging, of all bacteria developing multiple antibiotic resistance, and so on. The Russians alone have a whole arsenal of Cold War-era biological weapons that could be procured on the black market and released, but I'm not laying awake worrying about dying from a terrorist attack of weaponized Soviet tularemia or glanders. The microbiological world is full of nasty (and fascinating) pathogens, and there are plenty of nasty human beings who would gladly facilitate their assault on us. However, I find it more productive to worry about the infectious problems we already have to contend with than the ones that may or may not decimate our civilization. I think it's much more practical and sensible to worry about getting HIV when I have incautious drunk sex with a fellow New York City resident than to fret that there's a slight chance some lunatic spiked my cable bill with anthrax spores. Hell, I'm even more worried that I might get herpes! I dodged that bullet one time when I ALMOST had unprotected sex with a guy who then advised me that he had it (because he is a decent and ENTIRELY admirable human being), and 20% of adults have the herp. As a microbiologist, I'd advise you all to think more about the scourges we already face than the hypothetical ones that might be.
Labels: correspondence, crime and punishment, epidemic geekery, nerd alert, Razzyphiles, science, terror, viruses rule
Friday, July 18, 2008
How NOT to throw a virology conference
I just got back from the absolutely thrilling annual delight known as the American Society for Virology Conference. The last time I attended ASV two years past, it was in Madison, Wisconsin and was quite fun. They have a large conference hall in close proximity to both our hotel and the many bars where all the UW-Madison college kids get their drank on. I was expecting something similar this year, except minus the agonizing Northwest Airlines flight home that J-Sexy and I endured with one hour of sleep and a crushing hangover. Too bad I was very, VERY wrong. The only thing this year's ASV had in comparison to Madison was the central theme of virology; every thing else could be considered a cautionary tale about how NOT to throw a major scientific conference. I have conveniently itemized the lessons for your edification, because I know you're all contemplating getting into the virology conference organizing business, and you might want to know what NOT to do.
Everything is a million fucking miles apart. When I arrived, I received a folder saying "Cornell: More than a great resource–a SPECTACULAR setting for academic and professional events." This folder included a pamphlet noting that Cornell is a "a full-service 745 acre conference center in the heart of the beautiful Finger Lakes." What these pamphlets gloss over is that Cornell is atop a gigantic fucking hill, which means that you are always huffing and puffing up some steep-ass grade to get wherever you are going. Furthermore, the "745 acres" mentioned in the pro-Cornell material also ensure that everything is spaced at least a half-mile apart, so if I want to catch a talk about poliovirus replication and immediately after go to some talk about innate immunity in a different session, I have to hope that there is some talk I don't care about in between because transferring sessions means a 15 minute run uphill. Of course, despite the fact that there are large college lecture halls everywhere, the organizers planned all the sessions in the most disparate locations possible.
2. Ensure that the shuttle service runs as infrequently and unpredictably as possible
Given that Cornell is huge, you would think that ASV would compensate by arranging a regular shuttle service to ferry us around from nerdy talk to talk, or back down to the main part of Ithaca where all the hotels are. Instead, they chartered three decrepit old school buses with no air conditioning and semi-retarded drivers who actually asked US for directions. They also instructed said shuttles to run sporadically early in the morning and late at night, so if there was no shuttle, you had to call your hotel or take a city bus. Luckily most of the hotels (including ours) ran free shuttles, but sometimes these were in high demand and you had to either walk or catch Ithaca public transport. I live in New York City and take public transport all the time, so this would normally be no problem...except for the fact that my trusty ASV bag didn't come equipped with a bus map or schedule. It's hard to take the city bus when you don't know where to catch it, you don't know where it goes, and it doesn't run on Sundays.
3. Require use of precious drink tickets for non-alcoholic drinks
When I picked up my hot-ass "ASV 2008" bag and my $200 travel grant, I immediately dove in to find the drink tickets. When I saw there were seven of them, I thought, "BOO YAH!" This momentary elation turned quickly to horror, however, when I realized that you had to use these for water as well as beer. This was a slap in the face to those of us who rely on the generosity of the sober nerds for extra swill, because it guaranteed that those (lame) scientists who don't drink weren't willing to give up their drink tickets to their boozy colleagues as they normally would. Last time at ASV, my drunken crew managed to acquire at least fifteen extra drink tickets from kindhearted teetotalers willing to put their spare booze to good use. This time, all those drink tickets were wasted on Cornell Big Red water and apple juice by the temperance-minded set and by day 3, I was actually paying for alcohol.
4. TOO MUCH VIROLOGY
I know this is a virology conference and I shouldn't complain about hours upon hours of virology talks, but even for professionals in the field, FOURTEEN HOURS A DAY IS TOO MUCH. The conference organizers were not selective about who got to present a talk, and let everyone who wanted give one. That meant that talks went on until ten p.m., and half of them were unfinished crap that had no business wasting my twelve minutes. For every interesting talk in which I heard about "abortion storms" (gross) caused in livestock by Rift Valley fever virus, I got to hear two talks where some dumb skank elaborated on optimizing buffer conditions for some assay they just got working and thus don't have any real data from whatsoever. Thank God Cornell was at least equipped with wireless everywhere and I could spend these talks surfing the internet or simply spacing out.
5. Bad food
It's not like I expect Daniel Boulud to cater this thing, but in Madison they at least had respectable lunch and dinner pasta or taco bars at an indoor facility capable of accomodating chafing dishes. At Cornell, we were lucky to get anything besides a nasty boxed lunch, because in spite of all the empty cafeterias around, our meals were served in a fucking tent on a hill so steep we had to keep an eye on our drinks to ensure they didn't succumb to gravity and slide down the table. The first day, they served something called the "Pacific Noodle Bowl," which consisted of a bunch of horrifically overcooked noodles, shredded carrots, and about five cups of peanut oil. I didn't eat most of mine, but J-Sexy did and paid the price. She said that when she ran to the bathroom, it was full of ladies suffering similar digestive ailments. You know there's a problem when you feed a roomful of virologists something that gives everyone acute gastroenteritis. We all expected to hear a lot about noroviruses and rotaviruses, but I don't think anyone actually expected to learn about them through firsthand experience.
6. No free drinks at the banquet
We all paid $50 extra to attend the banquet "gala" on the last night of ASV. In Wisconsin, we got gift bags of free crap (ASV placemats adorned with structural representations of various virus capsids, ASV water bottles, ASV stress balls, ASV coffee mugs, ASV pencils, etc.). We also got several bottles of wine for our table. At Cornell, we got naught but some marginally edible chicken tikka masala and even had to use our (at that point, non-existent) drink tickets for hooch, as the only liquid they provided was a complimentary bottle of Cornell Big Red water at every seat. Well, we also got a live band that played the disco hits of yesteryear and a DJ who didn't kick me out when I snuck up to his computer and turned on "Nuthin' But a G Thang," the only rap on. He was even going to let me hook up my computer and play some Lil' Wayne until it occurred to him that a song about Weezy being so sweet it makes his woman wanna lick the rapper might offend some people. On the bright side, the band allowed me to singlehandedly change the tone of the banquet for the better by welcoming them back from a break with an acapella rendition of "The PCR Song." You haven't lived until you've taken the stage to drive a tentful of scientists into hysterical cheers by singing "Denaturing, annealing, and extending...well it's amazing what heating and cooling and heating will do." After that, I was high-fived by about fifty people and everyone hit the dance floor ready to party. Thank God for me watching geeky science YouTube ads for Bio-Red thermal cyclers enough times to memorize all the words, because this was the best part of the conference next to the scintillating conversation about strap-ons I had with one of my hot bisexual geek friends from Brown.
There you have it. Next time any of you consider running something like ASV, please heed my warnings and do it up right.
Labels: epidemic geekery, nerd alert, scathing indictments, science, viruses rule
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Daily Douchebag: people who don't vaccinate
DOB: various
Occupation: gullible disease-promoting losers
Hometown: Anytown, USA
Current residence: Everywhere
Douchebaggery: I always get really annoyed when I hear someone talking about how they're not going to vaccinate their kids. For one thing, I'm annoyed they had kids in the first place, because kids are fucking annoying. For another, people who oppose vaccination are usually really fucking pompous about it and spout off a bunch of condescending bullshit like "don't you know that vaccines cause AUTISM???"
Usually when I come across one of these people, I school them hard by dropping a truckload of virology all over their asses, because they are wrong about almost every bit of scientastic made-up crap they patronizingly present as factual. For starters, the link to autism has been disproven by every major clinical study ever conducted. When you mention this, you usually hear something like, "Oh yeah? Well, what about the THIMEROSAL in vaccines? It's made from MERCURY!" Maybe that would fly if thimerosal was still included in most of the childhood vaccine preparations. Since pharmaceutical companies began packaging vaccines in single-use vials, there is no longer a need to use preservatives such as thimerosal since health care providers aren't double-dipping needles anymore. The rate of autism has not changed significantly in relation to the exclusion of thimerosal from childhood vaccines, nor has it decreased in populations that skip vaccination. However, I guess things like "studies published in reputable peer-reviewed journals" don't mean much to people like Jenny McCarthy, who has an autistic kid and blames that on vaccination. She went on Larry King to demonstrate her simultaneous desire to blame someone for her kid's condition and her total ignorance on the subject, as she went off about how the studies disproving the link between vaccines and autism were totally wrong. It speaks volumes about the innate intelligence of the anti-vaccination movement when they consider the former host of "Singled Out" and 1994's Playmate of the Year a more credible scientific authority than the fucking American Medical Association when it comes to the interpretation of clinical data from multicenter studies involving thousands of patients.
I Googled "people who don't vaccinate" just to see what other wacked-out excuses people were using to avoid vaccination. This one dude's blog, called "massivetruth," claims that "human diploid cells" (translation: any kind of cell except a sperm or egg) in vaccines are a huge ethical problem, because "some pharmaceutical companies are extracting them from aborted fetuses such as the WI-38 and MRC-5." This sounds like some sort of mwah-ha-ha-type evil scientist-type shit that has something to do with cloning, but the fact is the WI-38 and MRC-5 are cell lines that were isolated in 1962 and 1966 from embryonic tissue and have been banked ever since. It's not like pharmaceutical companies are running some kind of abortion factory for vaccine production. And almost every drug has, at some point, probably been tested on WI-38s, MRC-5s, or HEK293s (another line derived from embryonic tissue), so if you don't want something that has been tested on a cell line with fetal origins, then you better give up popping Advil for your headaches, taking antibiotics for infections, and modern medicine altogether.
This dumbass goes on to bitch about how "we also see a rise in super virus strands such as the ever-evolving flu virus. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has noted that the flu vaccine has become increasingly ineffective. This is because the flu viral strands are adapting, becoming stronger. I personally attribute this to the mass inoculations people take without regard." Well, "massivetruth," you'd be better off calling yourself "massiveidiot" with something like that. Influenza is constantly evolving, but not because of "mass inoculations." Not that I would expect this moron to know anything about how RNA viruses such as influenza mutate more rapidly than DNA viruses (such as smallpox, herpes, etc.) because of the 100-1000 fold higher error rate of RNA polymerases. Flu viruses–which are taxonomically grouped into "STRAINS," not "strands"–not only constantly evolve due to their fundamental molecular nature, but they're not necessarily becoming "super" or "stronger." And the reason flu vaccines sometimes don't work is because every year, the vaccine powers that be gather a bunch of epidemiological data and try to predict which flu strains will emerge during the next flu season so they can make a vaccine against the top 3 most likely strains to circulate widely. Sometimes they are correct, and sometimes they are not, but it has to be done this way because there are hundreds of flu strains and the vaccine takes months to make.
In fact, the only thing this asshole does get right is that Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Act in 1986 to shield pharmaceutical companies from excessive liability due to vaccine side effects. The author notes "I can't imagine the guilt of losing my child because I let someone inject them with micro-doses of viruses." It's true that live attenuated vaccines (which are weakened viruses that infect the recipient but don't cause disease, like the Sabin polio vaccine) sometimes have side effects and can result in disease occasionally. However, I would feel a hell of a lot more guilty if my kid got polio the old-fashioned way and wound up permanently disabled or dead because I was taking drastic stands on scientific matters I didn't fully understand.
These anti-vaccine people really piss me off, because thanks to their self-righteous ignorance, they are bringing the vanquished diseases of yesteryear back into vogue. A measles outbreak is currently spreading through 15 states, mostly through the unvaccinated population. I would be willing to bet that population is comprised mostly of kids younger than 15 who have dumb parents that heard somewhere vaccination is bad and thus put their offspring at risk for diseases that haven't been a significant problem since the dawn of the fucking Cold War. I can't wait until polio starts tearing through the suburbs. Maybe when all their kids are strapping on their leg braces and climbing into their iron lungs instead of going to soccer practice these fucktards will realize how fucking stupid they are. Until then, take it from me (and no matter what people say about my personal life, I am a virologist by training)...don't be as dumb as Jenny McCarthy. Immunize your brats.
Labels: Daily Douchebag, destroy all children, epidemic geekery, retard rage, scathing indictments, science, viruses rule
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Watch the eyes
In a week or so, I'm going to be attending an event (read: bachelorette party) where there will most likely be a professional male entertainer who specializes in taking off his clothes. LL Cool Jew told me the other day that she had never seen a male stripper before, and I reminded her that she had once before at Senior Banquet, a Smith event in which the graduating seniors get the underclassWOmen of Jordan House drunk and "will" them crap they want to part with.
"At my Senior Banquet at Smith! Remember? I know you were there...I willed you my Dr. Dre poster!"
"Uh, I remember going to your Senior Banquet. I don't remember a stripper there."
"Dude, the Jordan underclassbitches totally hired one for us! He came in dressed as a cop and then proceeded to wag his smiley-face banana hammock in all our faces!"
"I still don't remember that," LL Cool Jew said.
"Yes! And then, do you remember that shitty bar in Leeds or wherever called The Office? Well, the stripper came there with us afterward, and then Martindale brought him back to Jordan and fucked him!"
"How do I not remember that?" LL Cool Jew wondered.
I then took it upon myself to explain to LL Cool Jew what it's like witnessing a male stripper in action: BORING. Male strippers never take it all off. While LL Cool Jew pointed out that many female strippers keep their bottoms on too, they at least have tits. I could care less about some pretty boy guido's muscle definition. Sure, I might say, "He's got a hot body," but after about 30 seconds of lame gyrating I'm going to get bored without seeing some weiner. I mentioned that LL Cool Jew's bachelorette party, in which we had that bitch in the private party room at Scores literally drowning in lady strippers, was going to go down in history as being WAY better in the nudity department than this upcoming shindig because male strippers are by definition sort of boring.
Anyway, I did a little research about male strippers, and I concluded that some of them may actually take it all off. For a moment, I felt cheered up. However, then I went to see what was going on in the world of internets celebrity gossip, and came upon a disturbing anecdotal tale. I'm now a little nervous after hearing this story courtesy of Michael K. at Dlisted:
So, my friend was at some bachelorette party and of course they had some guido stripper shaking his junk for all of them. Guido stripper went from girl to girl and practically dick slapped them. The next day, my friend's eye was all swollen and nasty. She went to the doctor and guess what was in that bitch's eye? A fucking dead crab.
So, my friend was at some bachelorette party and of course they had some guido stripper shaking his junk for all of them. Guido stripper went from girl to girl and practically dick slapped them. The next day, my friend's eye was all swollen and nasty. She went to the doctor and guess what was in that bitch's eye? A fucking dead crab.
This just validates my view that male strippers are far more loathsome than their female counterparts. I have enough trouble with guys and my eyes as it is. One time a dude shot his load on my face and hit me in the eye, and it felt like my contact got soaked in liquid fire. You wouldn't think that shit would sting so bad, but then again, semen is at a pretty alkaline pH to counteract the acidic environment of the vagina and maximize sperm survival, so I guess it can really fuck up a pH neutral mucosal surface like the eye. On that occasion, the guy noticed me clutching my hands over my eyes and saying "Holy FUCK, ow!", and was like, "What's the matter, baby?" Then I was all, "Nice shooting, asshole! Annie Fucking Oakley you are not! No more facials for you." As semen was bad enough, I have absolutely no desire to be picking the exoskeletons of pubic lice out of my tender, contact-wearing baby blues, so if this dude plans to dick slap me, he better brush up on his physical defense skills, because there will be no weiners in my face. In my mouth, vadge, or ass, maybe, but NOT IN MY FACE!
Labels: assholes, epidemic geekery, gross, holy fucking matrimony, nudity, oh the horror, sexual assault, weiners
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Boo hoo, I don't have the HIV
I make a point of getting HIV tested at least twice a year. For one thing, I'm a virologist by profession, and I know that if (God forbid) I did get the HIV, the most important thing to do for long-term survival is get on a HAART regimen immediately. For another, I work with engineered HIV viruses, and while if I accidentally infected myself with those I would just express EGFP rather than develop AIDS since they are incapable of going through the viral replication cycle, I could still register as positive on a HIV test as these pseudotyped lentiviruses contain Gag-Pol proteins from HIV-1. I think it's important for me to stay abreast of my HIV status.
There's all kinds of rules and regulations associated with HIV testing. By law, you can't get HIV test results over the phone, you have to sign a consent, you have to receive counseling about HIV with it, etc. I've fortunately never received the counseling that comes along with a positive HIV test result, but I've gotten the negative HIV test result counseling numerous times. At Columbia Student Health Services, this consists of my doctor harping on me about condom use and giving me a piece of paper explaining how I should deal with the conflicting feelings I might have about my negative HIV test result:
Today you were tested for HIV using a rapid antibody test. Your test result was negative. Although a negative HIV test result can alleviate anxiety, in many people it precipitates a mixture of emotions. This is normal and expected. At first, you may feel relief knowing that you are not infected. However it is not uncommon to experience mood swings in the days and weeks following a negative HIV test result. Concerns about past behavior that led to the testing, the potential of infecting a partner or significant other, and feelings of sadness or guilt may follow the news of a negative test result. You may also wonder whether you will be able to avoid risk behaviors in the future.
I guess I'm not normal, because I don't have any concerns upon getting my negative HIV results. My only concern is how I'm going to celebrate not being afflicted by the scourge of our age. Usually my emotional response involves fist-pumping, shouting with glee, saying things like "Na-na-na-na, I don't have AIDS!", and treating myself to a stiff drink (and possibly a stiff dick, if one is available). I've certainly never experienced sadness that my CD4+ T cells aren't all HIVved up. This is normal? Normal for who?
Labels: epidemic geekery, Razzification, sex, sluts, viruses rule
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Daily Douchebag: my worn-down immune system
DOB: November 17, 1978
Occupation: failing to protect my respiratory epithelium from whatever virus is infecting it
Hometown: Puyallup, Washington
Current residence: Sugar Hill, Harlem, New York, New York
Douchebaggery: I suppose really more than my immune system, I should blame myself. Over the past couple weeks I've dealt with my problems in typical fashion: with a resounding "FUCK IT, WHO CARES?" and a deep glass of scotch. This drinking to escape my woes hasn't seemed quite as sad as it should because I've had a birthday party to attend every week for the last four weeks. Last Saturday, I went to two different birthday parties in one day. I have a lot of friends who were born in March.
Unfortunately, the consequences all this boozing and not sleeping include coming down with whatever virus is currently ravaging my respiratory organs. I'm thinking that it's probably a rhinovirus, coxsackievirus, adenovirus, or coronavirus. I praying to God that it's not influenza, because I don't have time to be incapacitated. I have more birthday parties to attend, and I have a bunch of shit brewing in the old laboratory that I need to handle so I can give a kick-ass seminar in two weeks, and hopefully, a kick-ass thesis committee meeting after that. So far I haven't developed any GI symptoms or myalgia, so I'm optimistic that I don't have the flu, but it would be just my luck to get that now at the worst possible time to do so. I hope it's not a portent that the above graphic I chose to illustrate antiviral innate immunity appears to be showing influenza virus, or at least some other enveloped virus with a segmented RNA genome (and flu is the only one I can think of offhand that's a relevant human respiratory pathogen). I tried to find one with a (hot) picornavirus, but that was the most comprehensive schematic of both the antiviral RNA virus-sensing machinery, subsequent production of interferon and signaling through the JAK-STAT pathway, and induction of interferon-stimulated genes, and I didn't feel like digging through 10,000 backissues of Nature Reviews journals.
Anyway, just take my word for it that all that science stuff I put up there isn't working for me like it should because I've been coping with stress via too much hard livin', and now my health is paying the price. So please be patient with me the next couple of days as I try to take it as easy as I can and recover so that my adaptive immune system can succeed where the innate system failed at controlling infection and viral spread. Hopefully I'll be back in full Razzified effect in 48-72 hours once my B and T cells drop some effector function all over this bitch-ass acute infection.
In the meantime, you can wish for my speedy recovery (or, if you're a Razzy Hater, my rapid decline and excruciatingly painful death) on the comments page. Or, if you're really bored, you can go meet other Razzyphiles in the hottest internet personality fan club group on Facebook. Seriously, only 999,950 more people need to join before it becomes more popular than those "Six Degrees of Separation-The Experiment" or "One Million Strong for Barack Obama" groups. Everybody's doing it! Don't be the last one to get on this train.
In the meantime, you can wish for my speedy recovery (or, if you're a Razzy Hater, my rapid decline and excruciatingly painful death) on the comments page. Or, if you're really bored, you can go meet other Razzyphiles in the hottest internet personality fan club group on Facebook. Seriously, only 999,950 more people need to join before it becomes more popular than those "Six Degrees of Separation-The Experiment" or "One Million Strong for Barack Obama" groups. Everybody's doing it! Don't be the last one to get on this train.
Labels: Daily Douchebag, epidemic geekery, excuses, science, viruses rule
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