Mar 212014
 
Fred Phelps' death is not the end of the story — UPDATE

I could not help but feel a dark cloud lift when the news broke that Fred Phelps had finally died. I’m not particularly proud of that first reaction: one of relief and even something akin to happiness. I didn’t dance around the house right away, but after the news sank in, I admit I did pull up “Ding Dong, the wicked witch is dead,” by the munchkins.

Why would my reaction be considered hateful or negative? I think it was extremely human and natural, if not a bit disrespectful. Like I care if Fred knows I have zero respect for him?

I never imagined that Fred would die like this: alone in a hospice, rejected by much of his family, excommunicated from the cult/church he founded. I expected one of two different stories when his obituary was published.

What does Google have to say about resistanceisfruitful?

 Posted by on March 4, 2014 at 10:06 am
Mar 042014
 
What does Google have to say about resistanceisfruitful?

I have noticed a shift in the kinds of traffic being sent to this blog from Google since moving to a new domain. More than five years of data being displayed on Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools has been reset and is gradually being replaced with new information since the first of the year. This is probably of more interest to me than it is to readers, but who am I to assume that?

The most popular search terms offer no real surprises. They mostly relate to stories that have not been covered elsewhere. There are dozens of variations, and I’ve taken the liberty of consolidating them here.

Higher CD4 count increases risk of ARV adverse effects

 Posted by on March 1, 2014 at 9:02 am
Mar 012014
 
Higher CD4 count increases risk of ARV adverse effects

Each patient fell into one of three groups: <350 CD4 cells/muL; 351-499; and >500. This last group would be considered “normal” according to AIDS.gov, which lists the range for CD4 counts as 500-1000. Yet, according to this study, this group of so-called “healthy” patients were almost one and a half times more likely to experience a drug-related adverse effect.

The report reinforces another point that I find I must continue to drive home over and over again, and that is the definition of “low CD4 counts”.