abqtommy
abqtommy's JournalOh wotta day! This morning I was looking forward to our usual relaxing Sunday but due to
a couple of people driving recklessly in our building parking area we lost electric power around
1:30 PM And power wasn't restored until 10:40 PM. Then after that it took about a half hour for our cable tv/internet to become operational. I'm either too addicted to The Interwebs or too old or probably
both but all is well now.
To put this in perspective about a year ago we had lighting strike the main transformer that serves our building and we were without power then for 24 hours. So today wasn't so bad, right? I guess not. But during the outage I talked to a neighbor who was using his tablet to keep caught up. So now I'm going
to check that option out. I can't stand being left out and without... 
A comparison between Mad Cow Disease and COVID-19, just for perspective...
I agree that COVID-19 is bad. But there's a lot of information about survivability and that's good.
I previously posted about the hazards of tropical diseases* and just a few minutes ago I was thinking
about other world health alerts I'm familiar with. I came up with Mad Cow Disease that causes the
variant Creutzfeld-Jakob-Disease**. There aren't any incidence maps but lots of chilling information.
* https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213035502
** https://healthresearchfunding.org/18-profound-mad-cow-disease-statistics/
Excerpt: (much more at link** above)
"18 Profound Mad Cow Disease Statistics
Mad Cow Disease is one of the few transmissible diseases that can affect humans, although direct transmission isn’t possible. It is a fatal brain disease and is known to cause the variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease, which causes the same symptoms and end result. It is spread through the recycling of cow carcasses back into the livestock’s food supply. The bones are ground up to create protein and then this is fed to the cow. In cows and humans, the disease causes deficits in movement, behavioral changes, and memory disturbances.
Statistics About Mad Cow Disease
1. Eating the muscle tissue of a cow infected does not cause an increased risk of CJD development. It comes from eating the spinal, nervous, or brain tissues of an infected animal.
2. About 85% of the cases of human CJD are considered sporadic, with no known cause behind the development.
3. The number of people who have died because of CJD in the United States: 4.
4. Only four cows in the US have ever been known to be infected with Mad Cow Disease.
5. The number of cases of Mad Cow Disease that have been reported in Canada: 19.
6. In Great Britain, it is believed that over 180,000 cattle have been infected and destroyed because of Mad Cow Disease.
7. The prions that cause Mad Cow Disease are extremely hardy, able to survive in heat that exceeds 1,700F.
8. In 2011, there were only 29 cases of the disease reported around the world, which is a 99% decrease from the record high of 37k cases in 1992.
9. Milk and milk products are not believed to pose any risk for transmitting mad cow disease to humans.
10. The first person to develop symptoms of what turned out to be CJD became ill in January 1994.
11. Symptoms typically don’t start showing up until several years after infection, sometimes taking nearly a decade to appear.
12. By October 2010, a total of 222 definite and probable variant CJD cases had been reported worldwide in residents of 12 countries.
13. Almost five million cattle have been slaughtered to stop the spread of Mad Cow Disease.
14. Mad Cow Disease is sometimes thought to be a variant of a similar disease that affects sheep called Scrapie.
15. In 2010, only 11 infected cattle were registered in the United Kingdom.
16. There are two identified strains of Mad Cow Disease and the atypical strain is believed to occur spontaneously, as it appeared to do in the fourth US case of the disease.
17. In Canada, the chances of a cow having this disease are 3 to 8 per 1 million livestock.
18. In the United States, the chances of an infected cow being in any given herd: 0.167 per 1 million."
When I lived in Wisconsin in1997-2005 there were news reports about deer hunters that came down
with CJD because they were eating the brains from the deer they killed. I don't have a link for that
but it's an illustration of how stupid people can be.
So we survived CJD, except for those people that didn't. The CJD cauused widespread economic harm with many animals killed to prevent the spread of it.
We can survive COVID-19 with what we know now and the odds of that will improve as more new information comes out. Don't be afraid. Take actions to guarantee survival. Don't be stupid. All this
is always good advice!
Sophia Loren: 'Female directors don't yell'/ BBC Online article/see link*
I enjoyed this article since Sophia Loren is one of my favorite actresses. I first became aware of her when I was 7 years old, way back in 1956...
*
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51750210?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world&link_location=live-reporting-story
Guardian interview with Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, 2-20 2020...
I enjoy seeing the Guardian interviews, especially this one that reminds me of watching these guys on tv when I was a child.
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2020/feb/20/love-and-free-food-mel-brooks-and-carl-reiner-share-the-secrets-of-their-70-year-friendship
"Every evening, Mel Brooks leaves his home in Santa Monica, gets in his car and stares down Los Angeles’ notorious rush-hour traffic to go to Carl Reiner’s house in Beverly Hills. There, the two comedy icons do what they like to do most these days: chat, eat dinner together and watch the long-running quiz show Jeopardy!
“This is a great place because I got friendship, love and free food. Free eats are very important, you know,” says Brooks, as we wait for Reiner in his den. His voice is a little raspier than it once was, but that signature puckishness is fully intact.
Brooks knows this home well because Reiner, 97, has lived in it for 60 years. Gene Kelly used to be his neighbour; Kirk Douglas, 103, until last month, lived close by. Brooks – a mere whippersnapper of 93 – remembers when Reiner moved in because their friendship predates the house: they have been best friends for 70 years.
“Robbie used to sit on the stairs, looking through the banisters, watching us do the 2000 Year Old Man. I’d say, ‘You should be sleeping!’ but he’d just sit there,” says Brooks. (Robbie is better known to those outside the inner Reiner circle as the film director Rob Reiner, Carl’s oldest child and still a baby at 72.)
more at link
There was a recent op that stated that Malaria treatment has been used to successfully treat
COVID-19. The treatment is a form of Quinine and due to the discussion that accompanied that op I decided to try tonic water with quinine. As I've found now, any benefit from using tonic water with
quinine would not provide anything but a placebo effect. So here we go... I'll provide some different points and further information then let the gentle reader decide.
Here is the original op that I read concerning the use of quinine to treat COVID-19 posted Sat Feb 29, 2020:
"Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19
Has there been a run on chloroquine yet? Forewarned is forearmed........... ??
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/32074550/
(more at link found within above link:
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/bst/advpub/0/advpub_2020.01047/_article )
Breakthrough: Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19 associated pneumonia in clinical studies.
Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) virus is spreading rapidly, and scientists are endeavoring to discover drugs for its efficacious treatment in China. Chloroquine phosphate, an old drug for treatment of malaria, is shown to have apparent efficacy and acceptable safety against COVID-19 associated pneumonia in multicenter clinical trials conducted in China. The drug is recommended to be included in the next version of the Guidelines for the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Pneumonia Caused by COVID-19 issued by the National Health Commission of the People's Republic of China for treatment of COVID-19 infection in larger populations in the future."
found at link: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213032549
I finally found out the following information, after I'd already purchased 4 liters of tonic water. Yes,
that's kinda foolish but I'll use it even if it's not doing me much good. Gotta hydrate, right?
1. Quinine for medical use is very old science and comes with the usual lists of side-effects and
interactions. link: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323692#is-quinine-safe
2.* (I)n the U.S., (i)n fact, the FDA has banned all but one brand of quinine, Qualaquin, for medicinal
use. link: https://healthfully.com/list-foods-contain-quinine-7317456.html
I noted that the Chloroquine in the op is not the same as Qualaquin referenced here...
3. (Y)ou'd have to drink almost 20 liters of today's dilute tonic water daily to achieve the daily dose
typically prescribed for malaria. link: https://www.livescience.com/36536-tonic-water-quinine-
malaria-health.html
*I did an additional search for FDA prescribing information and there is information for both
Chloroquine and Qualaquin and each appears to have different applications depending on the
type of malaria being treated. How this would translate to COVID-19 treatment is an unknown
right now. link to FDA guidelines for Chloroquine: https://www.drugs.com/pro/chloroquine.html
link to FDA guidelines for Qualaquin : https://www.drugs.com/pro/qualaquin.html
Conclusion: Tonic water with quinine is not medically effective. The use of quinine/Qualaquin can
be hazardous and should be undertaken under a doctor's supervision. There ain't no easy way
to treat this COVID-19, but there is a way and that's good.
I apologize for the flippant information I've posted about tonic water with quinine. I was very wrong.
A quick search didn't turn up any updates from the original op posted Sat Feb 29, 2020
Upbeat/Positive News Of The World 3-3-20
I've often observed that any news organization presents mainly negative, hope-rending information
so today as I read through my International News Sources I purposely selected a few upbeat stories
that restore and support the hope I have that in the end we'll all be alright... I hope you'll find the same.
1. https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-51637876/nneamaka-anyanwu-i-m-empowering-girls-through-basketball?intlink_from_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.com%2Fnews%2Fworld&link_location=live-reporting-map
2. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-51706774?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world&link_location=live-reporting-story
Note: I include this since there are those who take pleasure that William and Kate are Anywhere But
Here.
3. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2020/mar/03/i-can-see-the-mobile-team-saving-sight-in-the-kenyan-bush-in-pictures
4. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/20
This photo gallery is titled "Through The Mosque Window".
5. https://www.theguardian.com/news/gallery/2020/mar/02/mascot-fashion-and-a-dinosaur-delivery-mondays-best-photos
Enjoy!
A great deal of attention is being paid to COVID-19, and rightly so. Today I got to thinking about
various diseases that have been in the news over the last several years. These include Zika, Dengue Fever and Malaria plus many others that kill or injure millions of people around the world each year.
I've found two different websites that inform us about this, one for Neglected Tropical Diseases/NTD and another supporting the 3d International Conference On Tropical And Infectious Diseases to be held November 16-17, 2020 in Bali, Indonesia.
There's just too much information to post all the relevant text but I'm providing links so that if you have
any interest the information is accessible. This is very sobering since it shows just what we had to deal
with before this COVID-19 showed up. And still have to deal with.
link to Neglected Tropical Diseases/NTD:
https://blog.bccresearch.com/dengue-zika-drive-global-markets-for-neglected-tropical-diseases
link to 3d International Conference On Tropical And Infectious Diseases:
https://tropicaldiseases.infectiousconferences.com/
It's good to know that all these problems are being addressed.
Link to thread about the Chinese using malaria meds to treat COVID-19.
Chloroquine phosphate has shown apparent efficacy in treatment of COVID-19
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213032549
sorry about my confusion
I've released some of my brain cells to enjoy the old Al Franken movie Stuart Saves His Family
this morning. Dang, I miss him in many ways but especially in the Senate.
Guardian Online headlines with my no-so-objective commentary:
"Labour must be ruthless to win next election, says Long-Bailey"
commentary: Sorry, Ruth, you gotta go...
Steve Bell on Mike Pence leading US's coronavirus response – cartoon
Steve Bell. 28 February 2020.
Illustration: Steve Bell/The Guardian (check it out for the 'toon since I'm technically challenged) *
accompanying text: 'tRUMP insisted that the risk to the American people remained "very low".'
commentary: Quoted text is the usual tRUMP lie/deflection. The risk to the American people will not again reach "very low" until after tRUMP is removed from power.
* https://www.theguardian.com/politics
disclaimer: Be it known to all and sundry that I donate to support The Guardian.
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Member since: Fri Sep 26, 2008, 10:10 PMNumber of posts: 14,118