Brought to you by the letters B & R as in Brief and Random

1. I can’t stand seams in my clothes. (Don’t even get me started on tags…)

2. I spent a summer studying the relationship between algae and bacteria in a stream ecosystem.

3. I can eat an entire jar of Fluff in one sitting

4. Columbus Day is my favorite holiday.

5. I always have buyer’s remorse after a major purchase no matter how long the planning.

6. My favorite name used to be Delta Dawn. Agent K is lucky I grew out of that.

7. I once set my menu on fire on a date.

8. The night I was in the hospital in labor with Agent J, Dave and my sister both fell asleep on me. I kept myself entertained by singing Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax, Don’t Do It.�

9. I was a Candy Striper because I loved Cherry Ames Student Nurse.

10. I will remain bitter about the 2000 presidential election for the rest of my life.

11. I know how to make a lot of things from scratch like yogurt, bread, cheese, and yarn, but I never make brownies from scratch.

12. I have a goal of seeing every movie that John Cusack has been in. If I made it through The Ice Harvest, I can make it through 1408, right?

13. I think that sheep butts are funny.

14. Fish find me shocking.

15. I have a secret thing for Snape.

16. I stalk famous knitters.

17. Agent B was born in the Jacuzzi at The Birthing Center.

18. I’m tired of the debate about whether global warming is “real� or not. I think we should use universal precautions and always make the best choices for our environment.

19. I can’t remember ever wearing legwarmers. Either that or I’m repressing the memory.

20. I believe the owls are not what they seem.

21. Snakes absolutely terrify me. When I dream of them, I wake up screaming.

22. I have learned the hard way that 3 appletinis are way too many for me.

23. I hope when my daughters get married they do not play the song Celebration at their wedding reception.

24. Growing up with a black and white TV, I was shocked to learn just how green Kermit really was.

25. When I’m in a bad mood, I listen to the Violent Femmes really loud and it makes me feel better.

So there you have it. This is a meme that has been going around on Facebook. I actually did it once, but it turned out to be neither brief nor random and only one person commented on it so I took it down and started working on a second list.
I can’t believe that I haven’t even posted here yet in February. Don’t worry though, I have not abandoned this blog, and I do have some finished and up-and-coming knitting to show you. Stay tuned…I’ll be back…

A new yarn shop opened near me yesterday! It is just a scant 15 minutes from my house. This new shop is going to have a spinning group that will meet once or twice a month.  I think it is fate as one of my New Year’s resolutions is to get out and meet more knitters and spinners and to be more social.  Oh yeah, and you are probably wondering what the name of this shop is and how you too can go there!  It is called New England Yarn & Spindle and it is located in Bristol, CT.  It is a bit small and they are just starting to build an inventory.  They really did just open yesterday!  It is very encouraging to hear about places that are opening rather than closing and I wish them much success in their endeavor.

I have some other New Year’s Resolutions too.  In December we joined a gym and Agent K and I have started taking classes together.  I want try to make it to at least 2 classes a week.  I want to scrapbook more and get out and knit socially more.  I hope that 2009 is a more lighthearted year and I want to do more fun things with my friends and with my family.  I want to continue to buy as much organic food as will fit in our grocery budget (which really isn’t that much right now but I figure as long as we are buying some, they will keep growing it and eventually the prices will come down).   I’m saving money to buy a new camera which will be a digital SLR.  I would like to take a photography class when I get that and start taking some better photos.  I want to try to post more blog entries of course!  Always a goal with me!  As for my Spincerely yours fiber business, I think I would like to try to branch out and maybe start doing some wholesale orders.

Of course there is the old stand-by resolution of getting out on that net and reading and commenting on YOUR blogs!  Which of course would bring me to the resolution of not being on Facebook so much.  I have mixed feelings about Facebook.  In theory, I like it a lot — probably due to its addictive nature — I wouldn’t be surprised to find out someday that there is something subliminal going on over there.  My main problem is that it is very superficial.  It is not a useful database like Ravelry.  For example, at Thanksgiving, I posted a link to a recipe thinking that it was a safe place to keep it for future reference, but when I went to find it the other day, I had to just scan back through my wall history.  Things go by and then they are over. It is not really a record of anything like a blog is.  Oh, and of course the thing that I love the most about websites – statistics – Facebook has none.  You can’t see how many views you are getting or who is looking at what unless they leave a comment. There are no charts, no graphs, no mean obsurities…  Even Flickr has stats for goodness sake!  Also, Facebook doesn’t even do widgets well – at least not the ones I really like…  Well, with all that said, I just can’t stay away, so won’t you please come be my friend (you can find me by searching for Spincerely)?

After writing this post on Tuesday, I still had a lot of questions about the Gardasil vaccination. One friend asked, “How do we know it doesn’t cause infertility?” Another asked, “What about the boys?” I still can’t figure out how “they” can really be so sure about its safety and effectiveness when the longest study only lasted 4 years.

I searched through many websites and I finally found an article that looks reputable and answers many questions — it even answered questions that I didn’t know that I had yet. I know it is long, but I really recommend reading it. I’ve read quite a few articles on the web and the facts in this article all seem to jive with other websites.

It is on the Medical Accountability Website and it is called “Not so Miraculous.”

Did you know that the control group (ie, the study group that received the placebo vaccination) was not given a straight saline solution as is normal protocol, but the base solution of the actual vaccination that contains aluminum? This is important to know because the aluminum solution causes its own background clutter of side effects thusly making the Gardasil’s group side effects not appear to be statistically significant.

Did you know that the studies did not inquire about condom usage? While the pro-vaccination propaganda wants us to believe that condoms do not prevent HPV infection, they are 70% effective. If the subjects in the study used condoms, how does that skew the data?

Did you know that there is still some doubt in the medical community that the HPV causes cancer? Some think that abnormal changes in cervical cells make those cells “more friendly” to HPV, not that the HPV has caused the changes.

Did you know that there were 5 cases of birth defects in women in the Gardasil group who became pregnant shortly after vaccination and 0 in the control group?

And to my friend who asked about fertility, this is what the above linked article had to say: “The longest portion of the study only lasted just under four years. Thus there is no long term data on how it affects the ability to become pregnant (fertility). This is especially concerning because the FDA has approved the vaccine for as young as 9 year old girls. The effect of artificially influencing the immune system during a time of tremendous hormone shifts of puberty is unknown. The package insert specifies that the vaccine has not been tested for altering genes in the patient or her future children (genotoxicity).”

Just to provide one more quote and I think this is the most significant of all:
“U.S. statistics show there are 30 to 40 cervical cancer cases per year per one million women age 9-26, the ages the vaccine was tested on. Gardasil®’s reduction of pre-cancers by 12.2% in the general population would mean that instead of 30 to 40 cases of cancer, there would only be 26 – 35 cancers. So it would take vaccination of a million girls to prevent cancer in 4 to 5 girls. About 37% die from cervical cancer, so that would prevent 1 to 2 deaths. So $360 million in vaccine would prevent 1 to 2 deaths.

However this is all conjecture. In the Merck studies the follow up was too short and the numbers too few to prove prevention of cervical cancer.”

Here is something else to think about. If the vaccination is given to a 10-year-old girl by the time she is 15 there is only a 24% chance she will have had a sexual encounter. That is how long the vaccination has been studied. How will we know she won’t already need a booster shot?

Also — how are they going to do more studies on such young girls in a timely manner to give us more information. Are they going to have to find the 24% of girls who do have sex before age 15 without condoms to measure if the vaccination prevents HPV infection? How do you even get enough data? OK, maybe they don’t have to prove that by age, but still, it does make getting the vaccination sound silly, doesn’t it?

My issues with this vaccination are 2-fold and I think that is why I’m a bit obsessed with it. I’m worried about the safety (and at this point the need) and I’m also worried about the politics. Here is a scary thing to me. I actually agreed with my newspaper! We subscribe to the Waterbury Republican-American, not so much because we agree with its editorial content, but it provides us with the best local news. I usually end up shaking my head when I read the editorials, but I mostly (not completely, you hear) agree with yesterday’s editorial (Wednesday, February 14, page 8A), “Mandate Sends Wrong Message.” Here is the part that I strongly agree with: “But larger issues remain. Executive orders usurp parents’ rights to make medical decisions for their children. This is the first vaccine mandate for a disease that isn’t communicable through casual social interaction; once society goes down this road, children could become guinea pigs for all manner of social-science experimentation.”

(All day Tuesday — that was my mantra – “My girls are not going to be guinea pigs. No way.” )

I was a little worried that sort-of almost agreeing with their editorial would mean that I was becoming a Republican, but then I found out that Gov. Rick Perry of Texas (whose executive order mandates the vaccination for all 6th grade girls by the fall of 2008) is a Republican and that cleared up my worry.  (Don’t worry though, my parents are republicans and I still love them dearly!)
Well, I think that’s it for now! I once again promise to return to knitting and spinning content soon.

I like choice.

I like living in a country and a state where we have freedom of choice.

I do not like to be told what to do or have decisions made for me.

That said, I can not for the life of me figure out what the freaking rush is on this Gardasil vaccination. Please people, you are not going to catch HPV of any strain walking down the 6th grade corridor of any middle school. There is no reason for anyone to start dictating what we have to do to our daughters. I don’t know when it was that we started living in the U.S. of Merck.

It is true, I do not want my girls to have cervical cancer. I think we can all agree that we want less cancer in the world. But if that means losing our freedom, is it really worth it? It is a slippery slope, you know.

I think this is a crazy issue to begin with – big government versus parents rights? What about the girls rights? Don’t you think they have the right to make the choice? If 10- and 11-year-olds are not old enough to be involved with the decision to have a vaccination to prevent an STD, then perhaps they are not old enough to be involved in the decision to have sex and therefore do they really need to have the vaccination in 6th grade?

I know there is a lot of gray area there – rape, incest, promiscuity, but I still don’t see the rush. How do we know there are no risks yet, has there even been any independent testing that was not funded my Merck? (Please, I would love to see it, if you have it.)

I watched the segment on the Today Show this morning with my 10-year-old daughter. She says no way is she getting that shot after they showed all the long needles. I feel pretty certain that we can wait 5 years to have her vaccinated for HPV. I think that is reasonable. By 15 she will have a better understanding of sex and diseases and cancer and choices. 5 years will give us more data on the safety of the vaccination and its sucess rate.
(As an aside, I don’t usually watch the Today show (though I was a fan of Meredith Viera on the View). The only other time I’ve watched it was to see Melissa Summers talk about Cocktail Playdates. In some respects it was deja vu. The woman with the “underdog” opinion was totally obliviated by the mainstream establishment point of view.)

There is a poll on the Today Show’s website. The question they ask is: If states don’t require HPV vaccines for girls to prevent cervical cancer, I would: a.) arrange to have my daughter get one anyway, b.) decide that she wouldn’t get one, or c.) unsure, don’t know enough about the issue.

I would pick b. What would you pick? I just want to wait. I don’t feel the rush and I wouldn’t like not having a choice. If the question were worded: If your state were to pass a law that required that your 6th grader must be vaccinated to attend school, I would: a.) Just go along with it, no questions asked, of course politicians being bought out by pharmaceutical companies know better than I do, b.) fight it to the best of my ability, or c.) unsure, don’t know enough about the issue. I would choose b. I hope that Connecticut will hold strong and not fall to the pressure.

I have 3 girls, ages 8, 10, and 12. I know them. I know them very well. I feel very confident that together as a family we can make our own choices. I am very happy that Merck has given us this choice to make. I am glad that they are filling our TV screens with commercials to educate us and let us know of their product. I am glad that we live in a country where companies can try their best to make money and if we choose we can buy their stock. I hope that it stops there though. I hope that we are not going to be forced by our government to have our freedom of choice removed from us. I hope they decide to take their time, educate the people, and let the people decide for themselves.

Even as I write this, I can see the benefits of such an immunization. But it is just too soon and too rushed. My children will have this vaccination (when I feel that its safety has throughly been proven and the girls are capable of understanding and consenting to it). It would be negligent of me to deny them a protection from cervical cancer like I protect them from lung cancer by not smoking or from skin cancer by making them wear their sunscreen, but just not yet and don’t take away our choices. I know that in areas of lower income it may be hard to educate people on this vaccination, but we should focus there — make a law that provides funding and education for vaccinations to low income people. That is where the money should go.

I found this article from the American Cancer Society. Upon skimming it, it looks really good. I think I will print it when my printer ink arrives. Here are a couple quotes:

“It will be important to conduct surveillance studies to assess safety and identify rare adverse events, including those in pregnant women, as HPV vaccines are administered to large populations of girls and young women. Safety surveillance for coadministration of HPV vaccines with other adolescent vaccines is also needed. Monitoring rare events and pregnancy outcomes is challenging because it relies on education and commitment of providers to identify (usually during opportunistic observation) and voluntarily report such events.”

“There is little information currently available on duration of HPV vaccine-induced immunity. There is no available immune correlate of vaccine-induced immunity (eg, postvaccine peak or current antibody titers).”

“The reduction of cervical cancer risk by 70% or more becomes a theoretic possibility depending on the number of carcinogenic HPV types eventually included in a future HPV prophylactic vaccine and on the percent of the population vaccinated. However, even under the best of circumstances, it will be many decades before this could become a reality. Vaccinating young girls will not have a substantial impact on cervical cancer rates until they attain the median age of cervical cancer diagnosis, 48 years.³⁸ Ultimately, cervical cancer rates will depend on (1) the degree of vaccination coverage of the at-risk population; (2) the number of carcinogenic HPV types targeted by the prophylactic vaccine; (3) the durability of protection; and (4) whether the medical community and the public continue to follow recommended screening guidelines. If immune protection wanes with time, booster HPV vaccine shots may theoretically provide ongoing protection, but population protection will depend on the percent of the population obtaining the booster and the efficacy of that booster.”

“Most parents, young women, and adolescents have minimal knowledge of HPV and its association with cervical cancer.^120,121 Several studies indicate that vaccine acceptance is improved with increased knowledge.^{119,135,141,142} In one study of 575 parents of 10- to 15-year-old children, brief education significantly increased acceptance of an HPV vaccine, particularly for parents who were initially undecided.¹¹⁹ Results from a randomized intervention study designed to assess the impact of a brief HPV informational brochure (such as provided in doctors’ offices) on parental acceptability of HPV vaccines for their 8- to 12-year-old children, however, showed that the observed increase in knowledge related to receipt of the brochure did not result in a significant increase in vaccine acceptability. Attitudes and life experiences appeared to be more important factors.¹⁴³ Findings from these acceptability studies are limited by their small sample size and narrow population-based sampling. Many of the authors concluded that education of parents and providers should emphasize the risk of HPV infection in adolescents and the importance of vaccinating children before the onset of sexual activity. Acceptance also may be influenced by whether the vaccine is perceived as a vaccine to reduce the risk of cervical cancer or as a vaccine to prevent a sexually transmitted infection.”