Is your state getting vaccinated?

 

Find out where your state ranks in vaccine rates.

This week, CNN ranked the states by order of percentage of residents who have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine dose.

The numbers can be looked at in several ways, but they are falling short, in some states very short, of the goals for herd immunity, i.e., community immunity. President Biden has set a goal to have 70% of Americans with at least one vaccine dose by early July. 

We need to pull together in this effort, to encourage people to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and then even to get angry that people are ignoring the science and risking the health of their neighbors, friends, and families. 

Get more information for yourself by ordering a copy of the book listed below. 

Here are the states and their vaccination rates as of May 19th.

1. Maine 50.12% 
2. Connecticut 49.29% 
3. Vermont 48.39% 
4. Rhode Island 47.97% 
5. Massachusetts 47.68% 
6. New Jersey 45.16% 
7. New Mexico 44.92% 
8. Hawaii 44.68% 
9. Maryland 43.66% 
10. New York 43.44% 
11. Minnesota 42.41%, 
12. Wisconsin 42.05% 
13. Colorado 41.94% 
14. District of Columbia 41.54% 
15. Virginia 41.32% 
16. Washington 41.28% 
17. South Dakota 41.25% 
18. Iowa 41.22% 
19. Pennsylvania 40.11% 
20. Nebraska 39.98% 
21. Oregon 39.98% 
22. Delaware 39.81% 
23. California 39.33%, 
24. Michigan 39.25% 
25. Maryland 38.90%
26. Ohio 38.14% 
27. Alaska 38.04% 
28. New Hampshire 37.93%
29. Illinois 37.11% 
30. Kansas 36.71%
31. Kentucky 36.56% 
32. Montana 36.55% 
33. Florida 36.15% 
34. North Dakota 35.33% 
35. North Carolina 34.42% 
36. Nevada 34.25% 
37. Texas 33.06% 
38. West Virginia 33.02%
39. Indiana 32.99% 
40. Missouri 32.83% 
41. Oklahoma 32.58% 
42. South Carolina 31.97%  
43. Idaho 31.16% 
44. Wyoming 30.6% 
45. Utah 30.22% 
46. Tennessee 30.17% 
47. Louisiana 29.88% 
48. Georgia 29.53% 
49. Arkansas 29.5% 
50. Alabama 27.79% 
51. Mississippi 26.24%

Learn more about the vaccine, about Covid-19 and about public health in this new book:

Get the facts today!

The road from Chicago to food and drug safety

In 1906, The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, shocked Americans about a dangerous lack of food safety.

Mary had a Little Lamb

And when it began to sicken,

She sent it to Chicago

Where now it's a can of chicken.

--Satirist on The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Supposedly over dinner one night in the White House, President Theodore Roosevelt was glancing through an advanced copy of The Jungle, the muckraking novel of scurrilous practices by the nation's meat producers. 

Dead rats, Sinclair wrote, were winding up in hot dogs, for example.

Roosevelt dropped his fork and exclaimed, "I'm pizzened!" 

In short order in 1906, Roosevelt pushed for and passed a meat inspection law and the Pure Food and Drug Law.

These acts led to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration, which conducts rigorous tests and enforces strict protocols on products introduced to Americans via processed foods, new drugs, and new medical procedures. 

The Covid-19 vaccines had to pass rigorous tests involving hundreds of thousands of volunteers. The testing is arduous and conducted with strict safety in mind. 

Learn more about the vaccine, about Covid-19 and about public health in this new book:

Get the facts today!

Distillery milk and Covid vaccine safety

Distillery milk, or swillmilk, poisoned and killed New York City children in the late 1800s. This and other scams led to today's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to protect American health.

Among the many reasons I've found for vaccine hesitancy, probably the most common one is whether it's safe. How can a vaccine, people ask, be developed so quickly? They must have taken shortcuts. 

Well the "they" in this instance is the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, which we hear talked about so often when news of the vaccine and its development and implementation is given over TV, the Internet, radio, etc. Now the FDA is more than 100 years old and has a very interesting history in protecting the health of Americans from new drugs, new food additives, or any medical device and procedure that is made available to the general public. 

In the late 1800s health standards were so low or non-existent that there existed a dangerous type of milk, more poison than food, that was delivered to children of New York City.

Devious dairy farmers and makers of grain alcohol combined to produce a concoction known as distillery milk. The scheme work this way: after grain alcohol was produced, there remained a weak yet slightly nutritious type of mash. The unscrupulous businessmen thought that this gruel could be given to dairy cows, which were producing milk in the borough of Brooklyn... remember this was the late 1800s.

The distillery owners and the dairy farmers got together, literally moving their plants next to each other to save every penny for their scam. The barely nutritious mash left over from the alcohol production was sent next door to the dairy cows. There the emaciated cows produced thin, blue colored milk, almost completely lacking in nutrition. 

To fix the color, the dairies added chalk. To thicken it, they added Plaster of Paris. Thus was born "distillery milk," also know as "swillmilk."

Children around New York City, particularly in Manhattan, were given this poison in schools, got sick, and died. An investigation by the private New York Academy of Sciences unveiled the scheme, and it was eventually stopped. 

So bad was the need for regulation that the federal Department of Agriculture began an investigation and by 1906, with the backing of President Theodore Roosevelt, the Pure Food and Drug law was enacted. With that law came the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration.

So while nothing is certain in this world, the presence and the rigorous testing and precautions of the FDA give us a sense of safety and security. Clinical trials are the gold standard for drugs. foods, and any medical devices or procedures. The Covid vaccines underwent rigorous four-step clinical trials, that were only speeded up by the vaccine makers who took the gamble that they could conduct several of these steps, at their own financial risk, at the same time. So sure were they that the vaccines would prove safe and effective that manufacturing actually began before the vaccines had received complete approval. The vaccines however could not be released to the public until that approval was granted by the food and drug administration.

Get the facts today!