New FDA Warning Regarding association of Guillain-Barre Syndrome with J&J Covid-19 Vaccine

On July 13, 2021, the FDA issued a revision to the J&J COVID-19 vaccine fact sheets regarding the increased risk of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) with the vaccine. According to the announcement, the benefits still outweigh the risks for getting the vaccine and so far no causal association has been found. GBS is rare and has been associated with other vaccines, including the flu vaccine. GBS has not been associated with the mRNA vaccines, so far.

Grim Fandango Nostalgia

I’ve been playing an adventure video game called Grim Fandango Remastered, driven by nostalgia. I can remember playing the first part of it 20 years ago when the original Grim Fandango was released for the PC. I just finished the game this afternoon and I couldn’t remember a darn thing about most of it.

Anyway, the main character is a dead guy, Manuel “Manny” Calavera, working as a travel agent at the Department of Death selling tickets to the newly dead who are trying to get to a kind of heaven called the Ninth Underworld. Manny’s job gets pretty complicated when he uncovers a scam involving counterfeit tickets. He loses a client, Mercedes “Meche” Colomar, an unfortunate victim of the scam, and sets off on a long journey through the underworld to right the wrong.

I think I know what happened. The original version didn’t play well on the PC we had back then. I think I just gave up, not so much because of the difficult puzzles, but because of the glitchy gameplay.

But I do remember being fascinated by the art, the music, and the Day of the Dead theme. Most experts say the game really didn’t get much of a remastering job, but I thought it was gorgeous (and so did Sena, who played along with me toward the end).

I like the story and the mystery. You interact with the characters by asking them questions, which are to some extent fed to you in order to help keep you on track. The puzzles are sometimes fiendishly difficult and I couldn’t finish it without peeking at the walkthrough.

The characters tell a story full of heroism and villainy evoking themes of altruism, loyalty, kindness, and courage in the face of avarice and cruelty. And even the good guys have flaws.

I need a good story like that now and then, especially these days.

Just Because it’s Vintage Doesn’t Mean it’s Wreckage

I still have a vintage calculator. It’s a Sharp ELSI MATE EL-505. You can buy one on eBay for $30. I bought this dinosaur back in the early 1980s just before heading to college at Iowa State University. It’s still usable, so just because it is vintage doesn’t mean it is wreckage. The original batteries last for over a decade at least, and probably longer.

My original major was engineering but I quickly changed my mind and eventually ended up in medical school at The University of Iowa. I’ve been retired from being a consultation-liaison psychiatrist now for a year. A couple of days ago, I ran into someone I know from the hospital and she asked me how retirement was going. She was on her way into and I was on my way out of Best Buy (nothing big, just a toner cartridge). I mumbled something quickly about having ups and downs but in general doing OK. The automatic door kept opening and closing. It was distracting so we said quick goodbyes.

We’ve got a couple of computers at home that are probably quickly becoming vintage, especially now that Microsoft is pushing the next iteration of the operating system (OS), Windows 11. The introduction is having a rough start, beginning with the puzzling PC readiness checker. You got a message that your PC would either be good to go with Windows 11—or not. That was pretty much it until the complaints started cropping up, generally starting with “What the heck do you mean it won’t run on my machine; why not?” They finally dropped the PC checker routine.

We’ve been through pretty much every Windows OS since Windows 95. If you’re wondering why go through all that, let me say that I actually started with a Mac at the hospital in my first year on the job at the hospital, on the advice of my mentor and first supervisor on the psychiatry consult service. He had a Mac and liked it a lot. On the other hand, even though I liked it too, it soon became clear that it was often impossible to interface with the PC-based office support staff network. I ended up going with a PC and have been dealing with Windows ever since.

Actually, my very first computer was given to me by an endocrine staff physician who co-attended with me in the medical-psychiatry unit. I didn’t pay a dollar for it and it was obviously vintage, in the negative connotation as I soon discovered after trundling it out to the parking lot in a cart and getting it home. When I pressed the power button—nothing happened. I returned it the very next day. My colleague could not explain it.

I could not get Windows 95 to run basic computer games at first. Even Myst, a simple point and click game that probably nobody remembers, would freeze and lock up the machine. I spent hours on the phone with tech support. You could do that then. It was not fun. Windows 98 was only slightly better. I’m still trying to forget Windows Me (Windows Millennium Edition or Mistake Edition). Windows XP had some longevity and ran OK. Windows Vista was another dud. I can’t remember much about Windows 7. I hated Windows 8 Live Tiles nonsense. We’ve been coping with Windows 10 and the updates to the present day.

Now here comes Windows 11 and seems like the most I can recall from articles about it is that it will have a Mac-like graphic interface. Then why shouldn’t I just go back to the Mac?

In some ways, my vintage calculator has done better over time than Windows. I can even spell “hello” on it.

New Namesake for Johnson County

I never knew until today that Johnson County; Iowa had originally been named for a slaveholder. That has changed since the Johnson County Board of Supervisors voted to rename the county for distinguished African American scholar, Dr. Lulu Merle Johnson on June 24, 2021. Read the Iowa Now story for the details. The drive to rename the county for Dr. Johnson, an accomplished University of Iowa alumna, began last year with an on-line petition that gathered 1,000 signatures, led by David McCartney, an archivist in UI Libraries’ Special Collections.

According to the Iowa Now story, the drive to rename the county for Dr. Johnson was also in the context of the deaths of several African Americans by police officers earlier this year. It reminds me of another famous African American, James Alan McPherson, a long-time faculty member at the Iowa Writers Workshop, for whom a local neighborhood park was recently renamed. Part of the drive for that came from members of Black Lives Matter.

McPherson was written about in the book Invisible Hawkeyes: African Americans at the University of Iowa during the Long Civil Rights Era, edited by former UI faculty, Lena and Michael Hill. Although Dr. Johnson was not mentioned in their book, she certainly could have been because of her towering status as an educator, historian, and activist.

Support for the change also came from Leslie Schwalm, professor of gender, women’s and sexuality studies, and members of Dr. Johnson’s family.

Results of CDC Emergency Meeting Today on COVID-19 Vaccine Safety

The ACIP presentation slide sets available for June 23, 2021 regarding safety of COVID-19 vaccine including myocarditis and pericarditis and booster doses are here. Updated CDC recommendations for myocarditis and pericarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination are here. Data does not support recommending booster doses currently although monitoring will continue.

Get the Bullet Head Cut

Man, you know you’re retired when the most exciting event going on in a typical day is going out to get a haircut. It was an even bigger deal today because I haven’t been in a barber’s chair in about 35 years. Sena usually cuts my hair, but if I hadn’t gone out today to get a pro job haircut, I’d have very little else to write about except this poem that occurred to me last night.

I cannot say I know

That any UFO

Has an interstellar driver.

And if I then insist

No aliens exist,

Would you think I’m even wiser?

Weirdly, this doggerel is relevant since my head now reminds me of a bald alien. Don’t get me wrong, I actually think the stylist (I guess that’s what you call them nowadays) did a great job. I call it the Bullet Head cut or just the Bullet Head for short.

There were only two stylists and only one wore a mask. Masks were optional and since I’ve been fully vaccinated for almost 3 months, I left mine in my pocket.

My haircut took only 15 minutes. Did you want that sentence served with “literally?” OK here you go, but just this once: My haircut literally took only 15 minutes.  I’ve never had such a fast haircut. On the other hand, I’ve had a lot shorter times sitting in barber shop waiting rooms. The shop takes walk-ins, if you’re willing to wait for at least an hour, often longer. The air-conditioning really worked. I was afraid to step outside to warm up a little because I didn’t know if that would remove me from my place on the wait list, which I could see on a video screen from my chair (along with the wait time, typically 90 minutes or more). Step to the right, step to the left, attempt to escape.

The other thing I was not hip to was that I could have checked in on-line using my smartphone. It also sounded like they would give you a jingle a few minutes ahead of your appointment time. I did it the old-fashioned way—and spent a long time reading the labels on hair care products. Ever wonder what’s in that tall red spray can labeled Big Sexy Hair? Me neither.

I know you’re wondering what clipper guard number the stylist used. It was a number 2, which typically leaves about a quarter inch length on a scalp which could burn under a noonday sun. But I like it. I got the senior discount and a coupon for next time. You probably want to know the name of the place; it was Great Clips. I would go back, especially if they turn the thermostat up. If you go, ask for the Bullet Head. Tell them I sent you.

Common Trekkie Birds

We took a walk on the Terry Trueblood Trail yesterday and were struck by a goggle-eyed looking Tree Swallow, which was caused by the angle of the sunlight and the shot direction—we think. It reminded us of a big-eyed alien.

Partly because I’m kind of a Star Trek fan, I think many common birds have fascinating features which can make them seem almost alien. For example, the Common Yellowthroat has a weird call, which one author has described as “witchity-witchity-wichity-witchity” (Birds of Iowa: Field Guide by Stan Tekiela). We just managed to catch it–the bird’s call, not the bird.

The Eastern Kingbird is well known for its Klingon-like aggression. The Red-wing Blackbirds tend to dive bomb you if you get too close to their nest.

It was good to get outside. There are a lot of people who get credited with the quote “Keep looking up.” The one I remember is Jack Horkheimer, who used to host the public TV show Star Gazer.

Keep looking up.

Update: CDC Emergency Meeting June 23-25, 2021 on COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Including Myocarditis

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) emergency meeting is re-scheduled for June 23-25, 2021 to discuss COVID-19 vaccine safety including myocarditis after Vaccine Safety Technical Work Group assessment. You can find a webcast link and the draft of the working agenda details here. The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee report slide set summary as of May 31, 2021 is on slide 26. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) news story is here.

Magnetically Speaking

Today I saw the story about a nurse practitioner in the Ohio state legislature who tried to demonstrate how the COVID-19 vaccine magnetized her. However, she was like Teflon—nothing stuck. This occurred during the Ohio state legislature hearing about House Bill 248, which would prohibit mandatory vaccinations. I gather it is still being considered, although not on the strength of the scientific evidence favoring any magneto-genic properties of the vaccine. Even the CDC has a web page debunking this.

You know, when we were grade school kids, we used to do this trick of placing a spoon on our noses. The spoon sticks to your nose mainly because of the oil on your skin. The school lunchroom monitors did not get a big kick out of this, for some reason. They would make us sit in the bleachers. They also caught us stuffing spinach and fruitcake into our milk cartons, which brought the same penalty.

The CDC forgot to mention the other important issue, though. Aliens are installing tracking devices into the injection site. They want to see how many people are going to the marijuana shops in the states where it’s legal to get free joints for getting the jabs. Those aliens got it all wrong. In fact, I guess it’s tough to get the jab in the first place. You only get the marijuana for actually getting the shot in the pot shop (try saying that three times really fast), not for proving that you already got one by showing your vaccination card (like at beer gardens). It turns out that health care professionals are leery of administering the injections at pot shops because of some federal law against using or selling marijuana. Imagine that.

Anyway, there is no scientific evidence for COVID-19 vaccines making you magnetic. And they won’t make you like fruitcake, either. Is there any evidence for human magnetism at all, meaning can you make metal objects stick to you as if you’re a human magnet? Probably not. There are some colorful characters out there who claim they’re magnetic, though.

But is there evidence for humans having magnetoreception or some kind of magnetic sense? There might be some evidence although definite conclusions can’t be made yet. In an earlier post I mentioned that scientists believe there is evidence supporting a magnetic sense in some animals including foxes.

Try the sticky spoon trick at home.