A survey came out last week involving members of the public and scientists.  It says that 84% of the public feels that science has had a mostly positive impact on society.

That’s good news—shows we’re not trashing the scientific method.

About half of that 84% cite medical developments as the positive impact:  “The largest share of that group (32% of the total) names medical and health care in general, 24% cite disease research, cures or vaccines and 4% cite advances in the use of stem cells.”

While most of us are yahooing over the science, it has to be said that the scientists aren’t exactly happy about us.

A whopping 85% of scientists say our lack of scientific knowledge is a problem and almost half shake their heads at our unrealistic expectations.  They also say that members of the media kind of stink at educating the public and getting the facts right.  (OK, we’re paraphrasing, but you get the idea.)

There are shocking differences of opinion between scientists and the public and some comforting similarities.

The survey covered more areas than are discussed here and is worth a read.  As members of the public, we walked away with the notion that providing more education in the sciences for America’s youth is a critical next step.

But, let’s not forget communication.

Scientists are more accustomed to lecturing than listening.  It’s not surprising, given the training they go through, but it can be alienating.  They need to learn to have conversations with us.  Listen to us.  And, we need to listen to them.

Want to do something for your fav nonprofits, but the wallet’s a bit thin?  Try GoodSearch.

It’s a Yahoo! powered search engine that donates to the charity of your choice for every search you make.

If shopping online is more your thing, GoodSearch also operates GoodShop, an online store that gives back up to 30% of every purchase to the charity of your choice.

Using GoodSearch

Go to GoodSearch and enter the charity you wish to support in the second search box under WHO DO YOU GOODSEARCH FOR?  Click the verify button.

If the charity is listed on GoodSearch, you’ll see this under the search box: “Search now and money will go to your designated cause.”  That means the charity is verified.

Once it’s verified, go to the search box above the charity search box and enter your search term(s), as you would in any browser.  Use this each time you search and money will be donated to the charity you choose for that search.  If you have more than one charity that you support, you may alternate between the various charities.

Charity not verified?

If the charity you entered can’t be verified (you’ll see text below the search box indicating that you need to re-try your search), then go to the Add A New Charity page. The link to that page is at the bottom of the GoodSearch home page.

Registration of a charity is free and easy, but you’ll need to be familiar with the charity to fill out the form.  Also, make sure you have the nonprofit’s EIN, or Employer ID Number, for the form.

If everything is entered correctly, you’ll get an email stating the acceptance of your charity and instructions on how to promote your charity’s new revenue tool.

Once your charity’s accepted, you can start searching and shopping for good!

Using GoodShop

Once you’re at GoodShop, fill in the WHO DO YOU SUPPORT box, if it’s not automatically filled in with the charity of your choice, then click the verify button.

There are several ways to find stores:
•    Near the top of the page, search for a specific store, or
•    search the alphabetized dropdown list, or
•    scroll down the page to see the most popular stores, or
•    search by category from the left side of the page.

At the bottom of the GoodShop page, there are popular coupons and deals, or there may be deals and coupons to be found on a store’s page.

Top retailers like Best Buy, Amazon, Buy.com, and eBay are participants in this cool deal that benefits buyers, sellers and, most of all, nonprofits!

Just click on the store where you want to shop, use any coupons that are listed on the store’s GoodShop page, and click the “GoodShop This Store” icon to begin shopping for good!

Browse the Internet with GoodSearch and shop with GoodShop.  It’s the feel-good way to help out PKIDs and other nonprofits without squeezing your budget.

YouTube is a vast library of online videos.  There truly is something there for everyone.

This amount of content makes narrowing a search challenging, but doable.  It is possible to find quality health-related videos on YouTube.

Creating An Account
Go to YouTube.com and create an account by clicking the Sign Up link on the top right.

As you’re filling in the blanks on the sign-up page, notice the little box that says, “Let others find my channel on YouTube if they have my email address.”

Channels are people’s accounts. Think of YouTube as a giant TV and everyone signed up, including you, is hosting his/her own channel. Yikes! Very crowded, but there are gems in the crowd.

Once done with the sign-up page, you’ll go to another page where you’ll type in your email and password.  At the end of this process, YouTube sends you an email asking you to confirm your account.  Follow the email instructions and you’ll soon be on your very own YouTube account page.  When you get there, look in the upper right corner of that page.  If your user name is there, you’re signed in and ready to go.

Your Page
Take a look at your personalized home page. The first option you have is Add/Remove Modules.  Click on that to go to Account Settings, where you pick and choose what you want to see on your home page (e.g. add/remove subscriptions, recommendations, friend activity, ect.).

Subscriptions is next (videos from channels to which you’re subscribed), then Recommendations (videos recommended by YouTube that you may like), followed by Friend Activity (videos your friends have uploaded), Featured Videos (videos that are featured on YouTube), and Videos Being Watched Now (which is self-explanatory).

Searching YouTube
Finding health channels to subscribe to is easy―just type a keyword (e.g HIV/AIDS, pertussis, H1N1, etc.) into the search box.

The search brings you results from Channels (other users’ accounts) and Playlists (a user-maintained list of videos).

Browse the channels and playlists and when you find something you like, click the gold Subscribe button on that page.

Subscribing allows you to get up-to-date videos from the channels or playlists you select and feeds those videos to your home page.

When looking for a range of information providers to subscribe to, sorting by Playlist can be beneficial, as playlists may be made up of videos created by that particular user, or videos the user likes that are created by others, or a combination.

You can also click on the Community tab (see above) and browse videos by categories, shows, movies, channels, contests and events.

Once you’ve identified a health information source and determined its credibility, click subscribe.

The new videos from that user’s channel or playlist will then show up on your YouTube home page under subscription.

It is that easy, so jump in and don’t forget to find some funny vids to get you through the day.

Visit PKIDs and GETVAXED on YouTube, subscribe to our channels and check out our favorites.

This week, the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) revised Gardasil’s label. 

Gardasil is a vaccine to prevent certain cancers and genital warts caused by some types of human papillomavirus (HPV).  

The change is in the warnings and precautions section.  It indicates that those who’ve received the vaccine may faint and sometimes will have “tonic-clonic” (jerking) movements and seizure-like activity.

Some women and girls faint after they get this vaccine and when they do, they drop where they stand.  This has caused injuries.  

When you get the vaccine, stay seated or lay down for several minutes in case you’re one of the few who faint upon receipt of the vaccine.

It’s not thought that an ingredient in this particular vaccine is causing fainting.  People faint with other meds, vaccines and under a host of other circumstances.

The FDA website has more on this label change.  Info about fainting following vaccination can be found in the MMWR and the revised Gardasil package insert can be found online as well.

After weeks of saying it without saying it, today WHO is moving the pandemic scale from phase 5 to phase 6.

In the U.S. and many other countries, this is simply a formality, as the actions being taken by the various governments (local, state, provincial, federal) will stay on course, unaffected by the WHO declaration.

CDC believes that novel H1N1 (swine flu) is at a category 2 out of 5 on the pandemic severity index.

Brushing away all the extra words and getting to the core, nothing new has happened with the virus.

Everyone is waiting to see what happens in the Southern Hemisphere this summer.  It’s their flu season and the virus may mutate, get more severe, die down, or remain at its current level of severity.

There will be another holding of the collective breath this fall as we see what happens when flu season gets going in the North.

The National Viral Hepatitis Roundtable (NVHR) is a coalition working to eliminate viral hepatitis in the U.S.

They have a Call to Action that, when implemented, will save lives by preventing infection.

Hepatitis B and C can cause cancer or even death in children and adults.

Join with the NVHR in asking that funds be put toward the elimination of these deadly diseases.

Nurse Mary Beth explains what cytomegalovirus (CMV) is and how we can avoid infection.

Listen now!

Right-click here to download podcast (4mb, 8min)

Nurse Mary Beth talks about herbal medicines and when, or when not, to use them.

Listen now!

Right-click here to download podcast (4mb, 8min)

Facebook (FB) is a good place to network with friends or keep up with your favorite causes or orgs.  It’s also good at causing confusion.

On FB, there are Pages, Profiles, Groups and Applications – and there’s Home.  Well, there’s a lot of other stuff, but we have to start somewhere.

Here are a few tips, but you’ll get the most out of FB by clicking on things and trying them out.

Profile

The Profile is your starting point. Before you can do anything else on FB, you need to have a profile.  After you sign up on FB, you fill in the profile info.

You can then adjust how open, or how private, you want your FB profile to be.

You’ll find that the Profile page and the Pages page(s) look very similar. That’s because they are, but they’re not.  It’s painful, isn’t it!

Just remember that the Profile page is where all your power is, and you’ll be good.

Home

The Home page is like your hometown newspaper, if your newspaper only printed news about you and your friends.

Every morning, or five times an hour, depending on your level of addiction to FB, you get on FB and you look at your Home page.  You’ll see news that your friends have posted and you can post what you’re up to in the “What’s On Your Mind” share box at the top of the Home and Profile pages.

Anytime you post anything in that share box, it goes to all your friends.  If you want to communicate directly with one or more friends, and not blast something to all your friends on FB, go to “Inbox” at the top of any of your pages on FB and click on it.

Start typing in your friend’s name as it appears on FB and their name will pop up, you then click on it and type in your message and hit send.

Pages

Pages are a way of sharing your hobbies or interests, or promoting a business, organization or celebrity.

FB users can see your Page(s) and “fan” the page to show their support.  They don’t have to be friends of your FB account to see your Pages.

A Page looks similar to the Profile, and you have many of the same options for tweaking it, because it also has the Wall, Info, Photos and other tabs (see the PKIDs’ GETVAXED page below).

Pages allow information, pics and videos to be constantly streaming (much like Profiles).  This gives the FB Page an opportunity to be a main source of information for fans (a.k.a. page users).

For someone using FB to network as an org, one of the best parts of a Page is the analytics available to measure traffic and growth. Through these metrics, you can track your Page’s progress and set goals for success.

Groups

Groups were the first big thing on Facebook. Anyone could make one to show support for their passion (see the PKIDs’ FB Group below).

Compared to Pages and Profiles, Groups are more of a static source of information. You can “join” a Group just as you would “fan” a Page, but the Page and the Profile are the champions of providing quick information updates. You could almost look at a Group as a business listing in the phone book.

Applications

Applications, or Apps, can be integrated into the Profile or Page as tabs and boxes (under the Boxes tab or as a box on the Wall tab). This allows a Page or Profile to be much more interactive (and fun!).

FB apps are developed by companies and individual developers, not always by FB employees.

There are thousands of FB apps and the complete application directory can be found here.

P.S.

You can search for Groups, Pages, Profiles and Applications by using the search box in the top right corner (shown below).

Have further questions about FB? Ask them by commenting below. And look forward to next week where we go in-depth about finding and sharing health info on Facebook.

Whooping cough sounds like something a pioneer child would catch.  Maybe from trudging through the dust behind her Conestoga wagon. 

No doubt there were plenty of cases back then, and not a darn thing they could do about it.  Now, there is something we can do, and if you’ve ever had pertussis (whooping cough), or watched a loved one go through it, you would get vaccinated as fast as the wheels of your car could take you to the nearest immunization clinic.

Pertussis is a highly contagious and potentially deadly bacterial infection that makes life absolutely miserable at any age, but is particularly dangerous for babies. 

The sounds of pertussis are like no other, marked by a “whoop” made when babies are gasping for breath after a severe coughing attack.

More than half of babies with pertussis are hospitalized.  Coughing can be so severe that it’s hard for babies to eat, drink or breathe and they can suffer from these complications:

• Babies may bleed behind the eyes and in the brain from coughing.
• The most common complication is bacterial pneumonia.  About 1 child in 10 with pertussis also gets pneumonia, and about 1 in every 50 will have convulsions.
• Brain damage occurs in 1 out of every 250 people who get pertussis.
• Pertussis causes about 10-15 deaths a year in the United States.

Pertussis spreads through droplets from the mouth and nose when an infected person coughs, sneezes or talks.

Because it’s most contagious during the first two weeks of infection when symptoms resemble a cold, pertussis just zips through a household.  A parent, grandparent or babysitter suffering from what seems like a cold can actually have pertussis and spread the disease to the baby. 

Babies don’t start the series of vaccines that include pertussis until they’re two months of age, and they don’t get the final dose until they’re at least four years of age, although they’re fairly protected by the time they’re one year old.  But until then and particular when they’re under six months of age, no one should be around them who’s not received the booster shot as an adolescent or adult.

Half of babies with pertussis are infected by their parents.  Most unvaccinated children living with someone who has pertussis will get the disease, and 90 percent of pertussis-associated deaths have been among babies less than a year old.

This is why it’s so important for parents and other family members to get the pertussis vaccine themselves to help “cocoon” babies and young children when they are most vulnerable to the dangers of pertussis.