Interesting, scooped from another site. I've been thinking about vaccinations for the kids and I if we go down to Mexico for a few months this winter. They have not had any, I have not had any in years. It's hard to know where to look for info on our particular situation, I've just been reading around and came across this tidbit.


"Whether not vaccinating is a personal health hazard or public health hazard depends one’s point of view. There are complicated facts on both sides of the debate.

One such fact is the existence of subclinical disease in vaccinated people. It has long been believed that vaccination prevents infection. But what is well documented, though not well known, is that in many cases, vaccination does not prevent infection, but only prevents symptoms. What you have then, are a bunch of symptom-free vaccinated people who are unknowingly infecting others–a bunch of Typhoid Mary’s if you will. Here is an example (one of many):"

[www.cdc.gov]

CDC ingredient list - this is enough to turn me off of vaccines.

[www.cdc.gov]

So the vaccines can be ineffective. But we should all get them anyhow. Heh?

Also, I cannot look at the title of this thread without hearing "Typhoid Mary!" sung to the tune of "Mustang Sally" by Wilson Pickett. Like, to a distracting degree, y'all

I can sort of understand why someone (especially with kiddies) would want to get shots to go down to Mexico. We keep hearing about all the bugs that we foreigners could contract. However, I wonder if after a while you'd get used to it? Why are you thinking of going down there--do you have friends and/or family? It seems a bit hairy these days with all those shootings...At least by the border. I think it must be really amazing in certain areas, though. I saw an exhibit about these indigenous people who live along the coast and they take peyote and paint their faces during their spiritual pilgrimages and travel to certain areas...Fascinating photographs and the landscape was...wow!

I've got plans to work/stay with a family and do some permaculture which will be terrific because I'd like to take what we learn and put it to practical good use in a variety of settings. Experience, trouble shooting, working hard in the dirt for a while, you know? Plus escaping a Canadian winter for once would just be, oh, so awesome.

Lucy you! I remember seeing pics of Ani Phyo in Baja. Looked gorgeous!

I don't think where we'll be going will be gorgeous at that time of year, sort of dry I'm told. Doesn't matter, it's the work I'm going for and that happens all year round. I'm excited.

coco i would in contact with dr mark sircus.hes the man when it comes to shots.also mexico is going is have a lot crazy problems.i would stay only in the deep south.the people have big hearts.but alot of problems.

Coco, I have been going every year to Mexico for over 23 years and never have heard of anyone getting a vaccine for the trip. Did I miss somthing? as for the violence- much safer than say L.A. People are very sick of the corrupt Gov Calderon PRI, My mex friends say mabey revolution,. anyway you here all kinds of things about Mex thats just not true. its a great country with most peoples warm and honest, have a great trip!

Numbers don’t add up in Mexico’s drug war, murder rate same as Washington D.C.


By Malcolm Beith
Published Friday, April 30, 2010 11:15 AM CDT


There have now been more than 100 homicides in Nogales, Sonora so far this year, according to local media tallies. That’s nearly 75 percent of all the murders registered in the city in the whole of 2009. And everyone knows who committed the homicides – the cartels’ “sicarios,” or hired guns.

Or, maybe not. It's quite likely some of these murders had nothing whatsoever to do with drugs. Since Mexico’s drug war was launched at full tilt in December 2006, the nation’s homicide rate has garnered much international attention. Ciudad Juarez is worse than Baghdad, some experts and journalists have claimed; others have correctly countered that the national homicide rate is no higher than that of Washington, D.C. But the fact is, deciphering the numbers in the drug war just isn't that simple.

Nogales is no exception. Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman's henchmen may well be in the process of taking back the Nogales “plaza” – as smuggling corridors are known – but some of the recent Nogales killings carried none of the trademarks of organized crime.





For instance, one man was found dead this week at the bottom of a ravine, his head smashed in with a rock, according to the local daily Nuevo Dia. Drug cartels usually use AK-47s, not rocks.

In another killing last week, AK-47s were used – but the killers who shot up the migrant-filled car as it drove down Calle Reforma appeared to have been targeting human smugglers, not drug traffickers. Or could the targets of the attack have been involved in both activities?

Regardless, those killings will likely be added to the national tallies for drug-related murders. After all, for the Mexican press, the first assumption – and often the last word on any killing – is that it was a drug-related homicide.

Easy write-offs

For many investigators, the same goes. One official for the state prosecutor’s office in the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa explains that “If there's an AK-47 involved, it goes straight to the [Attorney General’s Office],” and that’s the end of that.

Unfortunately, human rights activists say, that this is indeed the end of the matter. Activist Mercedes Murillo, based in Sinaloa, is just one critic who says that investigators rarely probe the circumstances of death, only the possible culpability of the deceased. If John Doe had a connection – any connection – with drugs or traffickers, critics such as Murillo say, the killing is instantly written off as a drug-related homicide. Never mind that the actual cause of the killing might have had nothing to do with drugs or the war against them.

The Mexican government often jumps to the same conclusion. When armed men stormed a party in Ciudad Juarez earlier this year and gunned down 13 students, the administration of President Felipe Calderon – not to mention the president himself – immediately jumped to the conclusion that the 13 dead were connected to drug trafficking. But as subsequent media reports would point out, maybe it was 15 who were killed. And maybe they weren’t even “narcos,” as Mexico's drug traffickers are known, as a suddenly doubtful Calderon would admit a few days after the incident.

The Calderon administration recently said that 22,700 people have been killed in Mexico’s drug war since late 2006. That figure is a fair bit higher than the 18,000 reported by the Mexican media, which in the past has traditionally recorded higher tallies than the government.

Different methodologies

One reason for the government and media not coming to the same conclusion is the way the two conduct their investigations. For the most part, reporters in Mexico determine the cause of death (in this instance, drug-related homicide) simply by making a call to the local authorities right after the incident, and then citing the preliminary line of investigation as the cause of death. Rarely is there any follow-up, both due to resources and safety.

There’s also a confusing numbers game surrounding the number of operatives caught from the Sinaloa cartel, headed by Guzman, Mexico’s most-wanted man. The Calderon administration has come under fire from critics for allegedly going easy on the Sinaloa cartel while hammering away at its rivals; one well-respected Mexican academic, Edgardo Buscaglia, claims that less than 1,000 of the 121,000 Mexicans locked up in the war on drugs have been members of El Chapo's crew. But equally respected newspaper accounts show that 16,000 Sinaloa members have been arrested.

One way to account for the discrepancy is that many members of the Sinaloa cartel don't necessarily know who they are working for; they are paid to deliver drugs or shuttle guns and are told very little about their employers – so if they are caught in Ciudad Juarez, or any other rival turf, the authorities may well assume they belong to a cartel other than Sinaloa. The Calderon administration recently said that 24 percent of the 121,000 arrested were affiliated with the Sinaloa cartel – that's roughly 29,000.

Are the government's numbers to be believed? Back in September 2009, the authorities put the number of detainees in the drug war at 80,000. Suddenly, just six months later, it’s 121,000? That's a lot of arrests for a nation where the prison system was already overflowing back in 2006 and even the authorities are pushing to speed up the construction of new maximum security penitentiaries.

Need for good data

There's an old adage about reliable numbers being hard to come by in Mexico. During last year's H1N1 crisis, Mexico's health minister Jose Angel Cordoba Villalobos put a temporary end to such talk, winning over the foreign press corps – not to mention a skeptical public – by bringing charts, hard numbers and any reliable data he could get his hands on to every press conference. Perhaps, instead of simply denouncing dead citizens as narcos and then having to backtrack and apologize to their relatives, Calderon should do the same in the drug war.

It would benefit both sides of the border. In March, the U.S. Department of Justice released its annual National Drug Threat Assessment, in which it expressed concern that eradication of marijuana was down in Mexico last year. But as any Mexican soldier – from grunt to general – will tell you, if eradication numbers go up, that simply means that the drug traffickers are producing more, growing on plantations that were previously destroyed, and rendering the army's efforts futile.

In Nogales, too, good numbers would help clear up any confusion on both sides of the border. Nuevo Dia puts the homicide rate this year at 105, while the national daily El Universal puts it at “approximately 100.” Sonora Gov. Guillermo Padres Elias, meanwhile, seems to think the total has yet to pass the century mark. Only one thing is certain: This year’s homicide rate will eclipse last year’s, which was 136. Or 130, depending on whose numbers you’re relying on.

(Malcolm Beith is a Mexico City-based freelance journalist who has written about the drug war for Newsweek, Slate and World Politics Review, among other publications. He is the author of a forthcoming book about Mexico's drug war, “The Last Narco.”



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2011 08:35AM by riverhousebill.

Oh I find that whole "drug war" stuff totally trumped up. Notice that they also mention beheadings when they describe the victims...what kind of crap is that? I think they are trying to suggest that Al-Qaeda is behind it or something. The point is that even the drug cartels/gangs may be funded by governments...And when the president was selected, there was a lot of protesting by the citizens. I hope there is a revolution!

culture of fear, boogie men, when you want to take a country, You need a reason for your jack boot on their throats, lets build a head cutting cartel and say bad, then we can manage your oil reserve. old uncle sam trick,
any idea how many drug related murders here in AmeraKa???
tourism is way up this year in Mex with most haveing a great vacation

Eh, Bill, it's crossing the boarder that's dangerous. No doubt, outside of Juarez, most places are relatively safe.

Travel smart, coconuts.

murder rate are we more secure from being murderd here in America? We rank 7th place mexico 17th. us 39,000 mexico 20,000 us population 308 mil mex population 110 mil not much better here
numbers,with firearms (most recent) by country
VIEW DATA: Totals
Definition Source Printable version

Bar Graph Map


Showing latest available data. Rank Countries Amount
# 1 Thailand: 79.5805
# 2 South Africa: 59.2028
# 3 Colombia: 45.2092
# 4 Slovakia: 45
# 5 Guatemala: 42.0706
# 6 Zimbabwe: 39.6026
# 7 United States: 39.5604
# 8 Paraguay: 37.8987
# 9 Macedonia, Republic of: 35.6164
# 10 Uruguay: 35.2941
# 11 Côte d'Ivoire: 33.6982
= 12 Germany: 28.5714
= 12 Barbados: 28.5714
# 14 Portugal: 25.3776
# 15 Slovenia: 25
# 16 Belarus: 24.628
# 17 Mexico: 20.6051
# 18 Lithuania: 18.3223
# 19 Hungary: 17.6707
# 20 Spain: 16.4129
# 21 Australia: 16.3435
# 22 Bulgaria: 15.9494
# 23 New Zealand: 13.4615
# 24 Czech Republic: 13.4432
# 25 Estonia: 12.8049
# 26 Latvia: 11.194
# 27 Chile: 10.3053
# 28 Azerbaijan: 7.377
# 29 Poland: 7.1062
# 30 Moldova: 5.4348
# 31 Ukraine: 3.7682
# 32 Singapore: 2.6316
Weighted average: 25.6

I agree border towns are a danger but so is La ect, new orleans has a scary muder rate 18. somthing I just think there is a number game being played on this mexico violence. I think the cia is trying to paint mexico as lawless,and needs help in management. large oil reserve needs texas help.
Lapaz rhb



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/2011 10:12PM by riverhousebill.

WTF where is Canada on that list? Weird. There are certainly more than 2 people dead by gunfire here yearly.

Hey Bill, I sent you a PM, did you get it?