A rheumatologist, in a discussion about autoimmune disease and the immune system generally, at the time that I was first diagnosed, told me that cancer happens when the immune system fails to deal with the mutated cancer cells when they first appear, so that they can grow and spread, so it makes sense that any illness that affects the immune system can also affect someone's propensity to develop cancer. I realise it's not as simple as cause and effect (I think tumour cells can also somehow "disguise" themselves from the immune system even if it's working normally). The same chap also commented that he thought he saw lower incidences of cancer in his autoimmune disease patients than in the general population, but I don't know whether there's any research into that. I expect he was trying to cheer me up following the scary diagnosis.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
There is an article in the Times this morning that says if everyone had been vaccinated against Covid it would have saved 1000s of lives. I wonder what @punkdoc thinks of the article. Here is part of it.
"Thousands of hospital admissions and deaths might have been averted in the summer of 2022 if everybody had been fully vaccinated against Covid, a landmark study has concluded.
NHS data from all 67 million people in the UK was brought together for the first time to analyse the benefits of vaccines, in a significant moment for medical research.
Scientists found that 7,100 hospital admissions and deaths might have been prevented if everybody had had all their vaccinations and boosters.
The study, published in The Lancet, was based on anonymised health records covering the entire national population, making it a world-first for scientific research. The team came up with ways of pooling sources of routinely held NHS data that is stored and gathered differently across the four home nations. All the data was securely held, anonymised and available only to approved researchers.
They looked at Covid vaccination history, hospital records and death records for everyone over five years old between June 1 and September 30, 2022, and found that people who had not been up to date with their Covid vaccinations and boosters were twice as likely to die or be hospitalised with the virus."
Dordogne and Norfolk. Clay in Dordogne, sandy in Norfolk.
Makes perfect sense, but supplies of vaccines were quite limited early on, and of course the cost would have been huge. Some of my colleagues on various committees did argue strongly for this approach.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
There is an article in the Times this morning that says ...
..."Thousands of hospital admissions and deaths might have been averted in the summer of 2022 if everybody had been fully vaccinated against Covid, a landmark study has concluded....
....if everybody had had all their vaccinations and boosters....
Do the sections above refer to everyone having had all the vaccinations/boosters they'd been offered/invited to have, or the whole population being fully vaccinated/boostered? I read it as the former, just from the extract, but I don't think it's clear and I can't read the full article (paywall).
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
The bbc have an article on this and it says if everyone who was offered the vaccine had taken it up then it would have drastically reduced hospital admissions.
The bbc have an article on this and it says if everyone who was offered the vaccine had taken it up then it would have drastically reduced hospital admissions.
I fully intended to watch it, I really want to, but I don't know if I can cope with having more visual references for my brother's last hours than my imagination has already supplied. But at the same time it feels important to bear witness.
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
Posts
"Thousands of hospital admissions and deaths might have been averted in the summer of 2022 if everybody had been fully vaccinated against Covid, a landmark study has concluded.
NHS data from all 67 million people in the UK was brought together for the first time to analyse the benefits of vaccines, in a significant moment for medical research.
Scientists found that 7,100 hospital admissions and deaths might have been prevented if everybody had had all their vaccinations and boosters.
The study, published in The Lancet, was based on anonymised health records covering the entire national population, making it a world-first for scientific research. The team came up with ways of pooling sources of routinely held NHS data that is stored and gathered differently across the four home nations. All the data was securely held, anonymised and available only to approved researchers.
They looked at Covid vaccination history, hospital records and death records for everyone over five years old between June 1 and September 30, 2022, and found that people who had not been up to date with their Covid vaccinations and boosters were twice as likely to die or be hospitalised with the virus."
Some of my colleagues on various committees did argue strongly for this approach.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
That is the principle of vaccinations.