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Saturday, May 9, 2026

Post #7676 J

 Endemic Report

CDC stats over the past week:






The Sick Times


The winter surge continues to recede, with the virus failing to advance in any state and retreating in most. Two principal stories dominated the headlines: the FDA joining the CDC in suppressing a report on the effectiveness and safety of recent COVID-19 vaccines. Second, there's the hantavirus outbreak on a Dutch cruise ship, stirring fears of a second pandemic, along with a crackpot rumor that it stems from the Pfizer mRNA vaccine. As the WHO points out, this virus is not spread by bioaerosols via asymptomatic individuals.

COVID news items include:

Other Notes

The blog averaged over 1K pageviews prior to Saturday. No new May essay yet, but I expect to write one over Trump and Pope Leo soon. It seems that my X/Twitter followers' dive stopped above the 200 level

I haven't published in my nutrition blog for a while. In part, if you've been overweight over the life of a multi-year blog without health/medical credentials, you have a credibility problem. I had been overweight even during my UH graduate years, but then I was doing weights and jogging around campus.I continued working out after buying a membership at a Chicago-area fitness club. There was a 10-year stretch over the century when I was largely a road warrior, with long, weird work hours and late eating (I remember one gig near Provo where my only options for dinner were a greasy all-night diner or a Taco Bell/Wendy's). I rarely went to all-you-care-to-eat buffets — I did go to some Pizza Hut or Chinese buffets with work colleagues.. And quite often, IT companies will treat you to lots of pizza at mandatory lunches or maintenance periods. The weight crept up on me. I mostly noticed when my clothes got tighter, and I had to order online in larger sizes. I think my real wake-up call was when I flew from Chicago to Baltimore for a job interview (unsuccessful) and could barely squeeze into my suit. (I hadn't worn the suit in a while because most clients had a business casual dress code)

I encountered a seriously weird DBA from Florida on a project while subcontracting for the Chicago Park District. He swore to the Atkins (low-carb) diet, arguing he had dropped a ton of weight on a diet where you could eat as much meat as you wished, and the weight just dropped off. That was an oversimplification, of course, but that was his pitch.

The fact is, I quickly dropped almost 70pounds until I hit a long plateau. At then Yahoo had an active group program.I joined a couple of low-carb groups (one of them was for recipes). These groups were dominated by Atkins fundamentalists who could quote Atkins chapter and verse and were out to harass any heretic from the group. I was broadly supportive of a more inclusive diet, including more complex carbs, like certain beans. The fundamentalists came after me all the time, but at one point one woman was frustrated because she was stuck on her weight and published her recent meals' items. The fundamentalists quickly fixated on the corn kernels in her mixed vegetables. I quickly pointed out that the corn kernels weren't retaining water. I asked the lady about exercise, and she reacted defensively, saying she was chair-ridden, so how could she exercise? At this point, others got involved with the exercise thread I opened, but the fundamentalists furiously went after me personally. I'm an academic and not afraid of a debate, but it wasn't worth my time and effort. I thought these guys didn't serve the lower-carb movement well. A couple of group members wrote me personal emails urging me to return.

This all happened maybe around 2004, and I didn't start blogging until 2008. I eventually started a layman's nutrition blog. As I write, I'm maybe 11 pounds over when I was living in rehab with a dictated menu. I'm still in the general range of my graduate school/professor days, but I still need to drop another 50 to get into the weight range of being a Navy officer for my height 

I may follow up on this discussion next week. More recently, I've been reflecting on the dietary nuances of aging, water vs other beverages, and types of bread (forbidden on Atkins).

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