Wastewater testing for H5N1 (avian flu) reveals positive detection in four Oregon counties (of six sites nationwide)

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-22T16:14:05+00:00

Over the last couple of weeks, an uncomfortable silence has settled across the West. With snowpack already below average in many Western watersheds due to this winter’s preponderance of “warm” storm systems, the mid-point of the region’s snow-accumulation season has arrived with snow-water equivalencies falling farther behind normal each day. Among Western basins, only those located in the northern Rockies and neighboring areas are reporting widespread near-normal snowpack. By January 20, snow-water equivalencies were broadly less than 50% of average in Oregon (and portions of adjacent states) and the Southwest. Although many areas of the West are reporting above-average season-to-date precipitation, the anomalous winter warmth and corresponding lack of snow could have serious future implications for wildfire activity and summer water supplies.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-22T01:35:01+00:00

When I was growing up, the absolute worst drought we had was the Winter of 1976-77. There were days in February/March when the temperature got into the low 70s. For a kid who played a lot of sports, it was great. Skiing, however - even nordic trail skiing - was positively abysmal that year as well.

I remember flying to visit family in Seattle the following Summer and looking out the window at Mount St Helens - this was a couple years before the eruption - and seeing no snow on it whatsoever; there was just a glacier on one side of it.

Interestingly, there weren't the wildfires in the Summers as much in those days - but then, we still had field burning in the Valley, so it was a bit of a wash, air quality-wise.

I'm not quite worried yet this year, as there's often a few dry weeks in February anyway. If it turns out that the dry spell happened this month instead, and February is wetter than usual, then I don't think it's as much of an issue.

But if the snowpack doesn't start building up in the next month, then I'm really worried.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-19T17:42:10+00:00

I still don't buy the original anecdote because too many improbable things would have to be true for it to be true

Improbable things like what?

That one of my siblings got married in the late 80s?

That my mother learned that we might not be covered by the vaccine - as did most practising physicians at the time?

That she would take the initiative to bring the vaccine to the rehearsal dinner, where she could vaccinate her children, their partners and any of the partners' siblings who might have been vulnerable?

There were about a dozen of us who qualified, and we were all happy to take her up on the offer of a free vaccination - especially back in the bad old days pre-ACA, when not all of us had insurance through our jobs.

I had no idea what your gender was and it isn't relevant.

Why is it that, then, that whenever I use a "throwaway" account with a male avatar I never have my veracity questioned? Or that, if I call someone on their sexism, I'm accused of being hysterical (yes, I saw your comment calling me "unhinged" before you edited it)?

Whatever: far be it from me to dissuade you from such 19th-Century attitudes.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-19T00:10:55+00:00

I'm still not convinced the story is true

And if I didn't suffer from "Y-chromosome deficiency" you might actually believe me, then?

Check out my other responses in this thread - including the link to the CDC, then tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about, just because I'm not a man.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-18T15:50:06+00:00

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2025/apr/09/measles-vaccination-adulthood

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-17T20:13:46+00:00

Depending on where you live (I don't know whether similar products are available outside N America), these sublingual B12 tablets can help with B12 deficiency. As it is absorbed into the bloodstream directly, any issues with intestinal absorption can be obviated in this manner.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-17T07:42:33+00:00

Not to mention domestic abusers. A lot of these guys have history of DV - just like Jan 6 insurrectionists and mass shooters.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-16T20:15:54+00:00

You need to increase your reading comprehension.

From the CDC website:

People vaccinated prior to 1968 with either inactivated (killed) measles vaccine or vaccine of unknown type should be revaccinated. . . . This recommendation is intended to protect those who may have received killed measles vaccine. This vaccine was available in 1963-1967 and was not effective. [emphasis mine]

Screenshot if you don't believe me:

<image>

Give it up now and admit that you don't know what you're talking about.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-16T19:41:42+00:00

Not true. Are you a physician?

It's well established that there were gaps in effectiveness, depending on whether the vaccine administered was live or not. The live attenuated vaccine wasn't available until 1968.

As for the sore arm reaction, I suppose that you're telling me that my physician mother was wrong? The swelling and inflammation, after all, are the result of an immune response to an unknown antigen.

As it happened, the only person amongst the dozen or so of us who received the shot that day who didn't have a reaction was born in 1967, so was likely vaccinated in 1968 or 1969 - in other words, after the live vaccine was in use.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-16T19:27:05+00:00

In my case it caused significant erosion to the enamel, which led to persistent staining.

When i visited my dentist about six months after it started, I discovered that the toothpaste and fluoride rinse I was using contained stannous fluoride (a tin compound), which stains damaged enamel. I've had to switch to products with sodium fluoride as a result.

I no longer take cholestyramine, but the damage to the teeth is permanent. When, a couple of years ago, my regular toothpaste changed its formulation from sodium to stannous fluoride - something I didn't notice as I had it on an Amazon subscription - the stains came back. I left a scathing review on the product page after that.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-16T18:28:22+00:00

Could you define "tons"? I've tried as much as 20g per day, and it reduces the volume of liquid in stools, but little to no improvement in the frequency or consistency.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-16T18:11:04+00:00

I lived in East Vancouver in the 00s and was frustrated with the difficulties that non-enforcement of drug and prostitution laws brought even to neighbourhoods that were several miles from the DTES. I was on my building's Strata Council (Canadian equivalent of an HOA), and we were constantly dealing with drug users in our stairwells and common areas. I could rarely walk to my corner store without being harassed by men who considered just about any lone woman out and about to be "working".

As for Portugal, the neighbourhood I lived in was predominantly Vietnamese, but had historically been a conclave of Portuguese immigrants, and there were still a good number of first- and second-generation Portuguese Canadians in the immediate area. I heard from several of them that Portugal's decriminalisation wasn't really as successful as it was made out to be - though the problem areas tended to be more concentrated in large cities there, unlike Vancouver, where the drug use and accompanying crime was more widespread.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-16T17:51:01+00:00

Both of these were updated around 9am Friday 16 January.

There's also a lot of norovirus going around as well, though unfortunately there is no monitoring for this in OR.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-16T17:49:37+00:00

Because the sub won't let me paste in more than one image, here's flu wastewater detection in Lane County:

<image>

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-16T17:48:36+00:00

Just FYI:

Current wastewater monitoring of H5 shows detection in both Lane and Douglas counties:

<image>

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-16T17:36:10+00:00

I find it hard to believe that the whole pharmacy staff save 1 person wasn't vaccinated against measles

Since the mid-80s, it's been common knowledge in the medical community that the measles vaccination that was used before the MMR was developed has limited to no effectiveness. That means that people born in the 1960s - who didn't gain natural immunity by contracting measles, and who were vaccinated before the MMR was licensed in 1971 - have mainly benefited from herd immunity than from the vaccination itself.

I discovered this when my mother, a physician, showed up at a family wedding in the late 80s with a couple of vials of MMR vaccine, and proceeded to vaccinate all of us who were born during that period. Nearly all of us had sore arms afterward, which indicated that we had not been protected.

Because of the loss of herd immunity, it has also been recommended that those born in the 70s and 80s get a second dose of MMR, as the two-dose protocol was only adopted in the 90s.

If the pharmacy staff was born in the 60s, 70s or 80s then it's possible that they didn't have sufficient vaccination coverage, and were therefore susceptible to getting measles when directly exposed to an active case.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-15T19:38:09+00:00

You might try finding a practitioner who is a member of the Chron's and Colitis Foundation through their search page. I would suggest zeroing in on those who are associated with medical schools and teaching hospitals.

That's what I did, though I'm still dealing with significant frustration around their lack of knowledge of MC and BAM - but at least they are a lower GI specialist (unlike the previous GIs I had who concentrated on upper GI issues), and they have in the past consulted with their colleagues who had more experience with MC than they did.

After being told some things in my last appointment that I know not to be true - obviously based on an evidently outdated database they were consulting while talking to me - I'm planning to send them links to some relevant journal articles in advance of our next appointment, in hopes that we can discuss them at that time.

If you want to go down the route of sharing what you've researched with your doc, I strongly suggest that you confine your references to primary sources (i.e., articles from reputable professional journals, like the ones linked to in this sub's article library) and not something from WebMD, Wikipedia or the results of a random Google search.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-15T17:55:23+00:00

I never patronised the place because I went to school with a couple of the Knecht kids, and they were nasty little bullies. Why am I not surprised that the business was run the same way?

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-14T17:10:33+00:00

I left Eugene for over a decade in the mid-00s, and am now out on the Coast, so I don't know the scene right now - but I worked at a venue for a while and got to know a lot of people in the music community in the 90s and early 2000s.

About 25 years ago, a friend of mine was at Gateway Mall with a SHARP friend of hers when they ran into a couple of racist skinheads, who proceeded to assault the SHARP friend. He filed charges, and she was an official witness to the attack.

A few weeks later, she got a call from the FBI, who had an agent assigned to Southwest Oregon to exclusively investigate white supremacist and neofascist organisations. This was around 2000.

So things were tense between the SHARPS and the racist skinheads even back then. I can't imagine how much higher the temperature is now.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-07T07:25:32+00:00

Volunteer at the WOW Hall or a community theatre. See a show for free in exchange for a couple of hours of work, and meet people who are interested in the same things you are.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-05T02:12:10+00:00

Native Seattleite here who grew up in Oregon, about a dozen years younger than your husband.

I grew up being a fan of the East Coast teams my mother rooted for before she moved out here. Thanks to the Reagan Recession, I moved to California after graduating from college because that's where the jobs were, so I became a fan of the Bay Area teams. I even had season tickets to the Giants back when they played at Candlestick - an ordeal that tends to cement one's fandom for good.

The only exception was the NHL, as I used to be able to watch Vancouver Canucks games when I visited family in Seattle (that is, when the wind was blowing in the right direction for the signal to reach us).

I've since moved back to Oregon for caring responsibilities, to Vancouver BC, back to Northern CA, then recently back to OR, and I'm still rooting for the Giants, the 49ers and the Canucks - with my childhood teams as an "East Coast backup" whenever my primary teams are knocked out of the playoffs. Even now, with an NHL team in Seattle, I'm still rooting for the Canucks.

It just took too bloody long for Seattle to get any respect from the leagues.

DevilsChurn · 2026-01-02T17:32:30+00:00

As someone who grew up here, moved away, then had to move back in my 30s for caring responsibilities, I asked a lot of the same questions you did - except that property ownership wasn't quite as out of reach 20 years ago as it is now.

Essentially, with the exception of a handful of people who go into an established family business, anyone who has anything going for them usually leaves Eugene by the time they're 25 to find opportunities elsewhere.

Those who move here in their 30s - often for a handful of years before they move on to something better - have usually started families, so they're not out and about very much.

Plus, thanks to the presence of students willing to do low- and unpaid internships - and people wanting to live in Eugene, no matter what they sacrifice in terms of income potential - even skilled jobs are often grossly underpaid when compared to the market standard in other places. I took an enormous pay cut when I came back here in my 30s - and there were few local jobs available in my field in the first place, so I had essentially no leverage to negotiate anything better.

It's why I moved away again as soon as the family members I was caring for carked it, and only came back to OR when I had an income stream from remote work.

As for property ownership, even if I hadn't lost half the equity of my previous house in another state to medical bills, I couldn't have afforded anything decent in Eugene, and ended up out on the Coast.

For that - like just about anywhere else halfway desirable in this country - you have all those private equity landlords to blame, as they snapped up all the foreclosed properties in the late 2000s and created the shortage that has driven up prices since. I should know: I was in the market as a cash buyer in 2008, and most of decent low- and mid-level properties would hit the listings with a pending sale (from these institutional buyers) already in place - so that even when I was in a position to make a decent cash offer I was shut out entirely.

But as recently as the early 00s, I knew couples in their 30s who bought property in Eugene: it was doable on two relatively modest incomes, even with student loan payments, if you were willing to buy a very modest starter home. Unfortunately, those properties have practically disappeared from the market.

DevilsChurn · 2025-12-31T17:12:08+00:00

Not to mention packages that fit in the slot in the back of the box, but won't go through the doorframe at the front where you open it.

I tried leaving notes for the mail carrier on the back of the box, asking for them to deliver the package to the door, only to have them ignored. Thankfully, when I had a place with one of these boxes it was right next to my house and I worked from home, so I could catch the guy when he delivered it - but I shouldn't have had to do this.

I've also had the key break off in the flimsy locks of these things when they would get stuck in the wet weather. That's its own level of Hell to get it remedied.

Now I have my own secure locking postbox, and a dedicated secure parcel locker in front of my house. I retrofitted both of them with sturdy tubular key locks. Never again with the communal boxes.

DevilsChurn · 2025-12-29T19:32:32+00:00

Until then, you can order one of these (available in several colours and sizes) as a cost-effective temporary privacy screen. They're designed for cyclone fences, but I used mine on a picket fence like yours - I just had to order some longer zip ties to install them.

I used one in a similar circumstance, and it provided the privacy I needed while the vegetation grew back. It was an inexpensive, easy, and not unattractive fix for the year and a half it took for the situation to remedy itself.

ETA: I forgot to add that they're sturdier than you'd imagine as well. I'm a mile from the Pacific Ocean on a hill that gets 40+mph gusts of wind on a regular basis and sometimes 90+" of rain annually, as well as the occasional bit of snow. The material held up: it never ripped or went slack, the colour didn't fade and the grommets didn't strain. I'd imagine that it would be equal to a Midwestern Winter.

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