Men Blogs (29,411)

MYTH: The COVID vaccines were not rigorously tested, which is why they have only emergency authorization approval and not full Food and Drug Administration approval. (Update: Pfizer’s vaccine received full FDA approval on August 19)

FACT: “Vaccine developers didn’t skip any testing steps, but conducted some of the steps on an overlapping schedule to gather data faster.”—Johns Hopkins Medicine
Assoumou: This is the most common question I get asked. I think there is a perception that things moved very fast, but we want to underscore that the technology being used now was being studied for a decade. The main difference between emergency use versus full FDA approval is that you need two months of monitoring rather than six months. When you look at the history of vaccines, if patients were to develop side effects, these occurred within two months. We are now over six months into our experience with these vaccines. We have not seen anything that would make us believe that the risks outweigh the benefits. And vaccines have saved so many lives.

Hamer: The development was more rapid than many other vaccines. But it used the same process of phase one and phase two trials following appropriate safety measures. Stage three trials were large-scale trials done rigorously with very clear outcome definitions. The safety measures and approaches taken are standard for clinical trials. They just did it more rapidly than usual. The full process review is ongoing and we are already hearing that Pfizer will have full FDA authorization by September and Moderna soon after.

MYTH: The technology used to create the COVID vaccines is too new to be safe.

FACT: The technology used, called messenger RNA, or mRNA, is not new. Research on it actually began in the early 1990s, and two diseases that are very close to COVID—SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) in 2003, and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome)—helped bring the mRNA vaccine development to present day use.—Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Understanding mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines
Assoumou: The reason this is called SARS-COV-2 is that there was a SARS-1, the original one, and scientists were working on this vaccine. So when this pandemic arrived they had already developed a lot of the science. A decade of work was actually going on. That’s one issue I like to emphasize when people think it was rushed.

The other point I like to remind people is that these vaccines went through all the regulatory steps like any other vaccines. None of this was rushed. The FDA reviewed all the data. When you say “Emergency use,” people think it was rushed, but the way to think about it is that the benefits outweigh the risks.

MYTH: Breakthrough cases prove that even if I get the vaccine, I might still get COVID. So why bother?

FACT: As of August 9, the CDC said there had been 8,054 vaccinated people who were hospitalized or died who had also tested positive for coronavirus—out of more than 166 million fully vaccinated Americans. That’s roughly .005 percent. Additionally, CDC director Rochelle Walensky has said that 99.5 percent of all deaths from COVID-19 are in the unvaccinated.—Politifact, Fact Checking Joe Biden’s Figure on Unvaccinated COVID-19 Deaths
Hamer: COVID vaccines have been shown to be very powerful in preventing more severe disease and the need for hospitalization. Breakthroughs occur at a much, much lower rate than in people who are unvaccinated. The breakthroughs have been occurring more frequently with the Delta variant because of the high level of infectiousness (or transmissibility) of the Delta variant and lower protection of current vaccines against this variant. But people having breakthroughs have much more mild infection, more like an upper respiratory infection. The vaccines prevent severe disease and complications and allow people to return to a more normal state.

When I logged in this morning, I was greeted with an advertisement to Upgrade to Premium. It offers an add-free experience, ability to upload more photos, premium profile badge, send more messages and likes per day.

I didn't know there was a daily limit on the amount of likes or messages...

Okay, so who wants to be the first to upgrade?

Declaring Imran Khan guilty without a trial in the cipher case proves that *Imran Khan was and is honest, no evidence of corruption was found against him. The liar who spreads this lie that I have evidence of Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi's corruption is a traitor and Allah has cursed the liar in Quran. * The cipher was indeed true. Whoever called it a lie is a liar himself and the curse of Allah is on the liar. * Supreme Court judge Faiz Isa or younger Abul Hasnat Zulqarnain are all assets of the army. There is a serious lack of honor in the entire system. Army is absolutely scared of Imran Khan at this time. Hands and feet are swollen. Every rogue and rogue is doing actions but the system is still not under control.

Often... maybe too often, when you have people commenting on a blog who have a difference of opinion to other comments on the blog, will say something to inflame another person... be it the OP or another commenter.
Sometimes it's intentional or sometimes harmless words that are are misconstrued.
Political orientation, religion, ethnic background are hot topics where one person will 'strike the first blow' in an attempt to start a confrontation, often with name calling or words intended to put someone down. Usually, the first blow won't be the last and whenever the opportunity exists, it's like pulling off a scab and allowing the wound to bleed again... striking another blow!

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Guitarist Jeff Beck (1944-2023) released an album in in 1975 titled Blow by Blow.

One of my favorite cuts was the first song on the 2nd side titled "Cause We've Ended as Lovers"

Here he is in a live nightclub performance:

Joseph was born and raised in New York City. He had a job with the government and a few years after he retired, Joe decided to sell his house and move to Florida.
Not long after, Joe started worrying about his health and took his first colonoscopy at the age of 75. They found cancer and he went through surgery. He was lucky as they removed the cancer and he needs no additional treatment.
Joe was having issues with a swollen thyroid gland and went into surgery to have it checked out. Under anesthesia, they were unable to control his blood pressure and stopped in the middle of surgery. He remained in the hospital for testing and found that 2 arteries near his heart were blocked by 80%
Open-heart surgery would have been the normal procedure, but since he already had one issue, 2 stents were the least invasive and best thing.
He's recovering and should be out of the hospital this week.
All things considered... I wish him the best and reluctant to celebrate at the 'all you can eat' sushi restaurant. Pizza may also be out of the question.

Some say its hard to make good money. That is not true at all, its incredibly easy to make lots of money and fast. All you got to do is sell your soul. No soul, easy money.

Selling crack.
Human trafficking.
Pimp or a hooker.
Robberies.
Scamming.
Making meth.

As you can see, there are many ways to make big easy money, if you got no soul. Money is what everyone lives and dies for so everything got a price including your soul (and your organs on the black market).

The artist is in the background