This will hurt me...

A romantic evening outside the Royal Hobart Hospital. August 2010. Henry was born here 1,393 days ago. Ezra was born here 758 days ago. I've consulted my Last FM profile page , and formulated today's Sunday Top Five: My Top Five Recording Artists Played On My PC Since 2005! 5. The Mountain Goats 4. The Smiths 3. The Byrds 2. Marah 1. Wilco

I’ve banged on about immunisation in the past , so I will refrain from doing so at length again. But I want to post this link from the Stats Blog (also featured previously ), which is about identifying and correcting scientific misinformation in the media resulting from bad science, politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge. It disturbs me that the sort of simplistic thinking of many anti-vaccination campaigners has such carriage with a lot of people, especially when it threatens the health and wellbeing of kids. So I’m always about promoting evidence that undermines their cause. So if you’re at all interested, have a look at this quick read (with citations) about a number of measles outbreaks in the US among unvaccinated kids. The numbers of deaths pre-vaccination alone are telling, and well worth reminding people of when they resort to anecdote instead of hard evidence. NOTE TO SELF: Remember to include the link ! LATE LATE NOTE TO SELF [and the world], this is post num...

I was playing with some numbers yesterday that came across my desk and fed into the Department of Health and Human Services State of Public Health 2008 report and was surprised by a little quirk that I really hadn’t thought about. Now, we probably are all intrinsically aware of the clear divergence in health status between the most disadvantaged and most advantaged groups in our society. Statistically, lower socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with higher disability levels and higher premature death rates. Low SES – whichever way you choose to measure it: income, educational attainment or occupation – means poorer health, a higher incidence of chronic conditions and higher levels of health care utilisation. Moreover, health inequalities do not just indicate disadvantage, they tend to drive further disadvantage. Now for those who do not know, Tasmania – for a lot of historical, geographical, economic and sociological reasons – trails the rest of the country (bar the Northern Terri...

The descriptions in today’s ad are top notch. Only the best adman in the business could get some of this stuff across the line. As a lifelong non-smoker, for the most part the images promoted here are the antithesis of smoking in my mind. Read the descriptions to yourself, and even better, read them in a husky, feminine voice. Go on, you know that you like doing that: the 'coolness ' the ' true mildness ' the ' ripe, delicate taste and fragrance of smoking pleasure at its best '. Oops , excuse me; I think I've just climaxed... Right, where were we? Yeah, the whole thing screams what French literary ( wankery ) types call jouissance . Looking back at some of these ads, I can actually get some sort of sense of how something as unappealing (on so many levels) as smoking cigarettes managed to become so popular. If it weren’t quite so tragic, it rightly could be recognised of one of human history’s greatest achievements! I also like the notion of 'more sm...