WaPo | I
think it’s time for us to extend the newfound normalcy from social
settings to business operations. While the CDC guidance currently
discourages vaccinated people from gathering in public places, this
should be overridden if businesses can verify vaccination status.
Imagine that you own a gym that used to have high-intensity exercise
classes but had to stop because it’s high risk to have lots of people
breathing heavily in crowded indoor spaces. You could reopen these
classes if everyone attending is guaranteed to be vaccinated. Or imagine
that you run a restaurant that has had to operate at 30 percent
capacity to keep distancing between tables. You could establish certain nights where you serve at 100 percent capacity, if all patrons and servers are reliably known to be vaccinated.
Some entities are already exploring such possibilities, including cruise operators and a handful of colleges.
By requiring proof of vaccination, they will aim for herd immunity on
their ships and campuses. Not only could they return to full operation,
but also they could probably give their customers and students something
close to the pre-pandemic experience, with full interaction and
possibly without the need for masks.
In
these examples, vaccination isn’t a government-imposed requirement but a
voluntary action facilitated by the private sector. Any outcry over
government overreach shouldn’t focus on proof of vaccination, but rather
on attempts to ban businesses from asking for it. It’s the height of
hypocrisy for politicians who normally tout their support for free
markets to now bar the private sector from covid-safety innovations. Why
can’t businesses offer customers the peace of mind that comes with
much-reduced risk from a potentially deadly disease?
Some
have made the equity argument: How could vaccination policies be fair
as long as some aren’t able to get shots? I am the mother of two young
children, and I know they probably won’t be eligible until 2022; until
then, I am happy for others to have privileges that my family can’t.
This isn’t so different from, say, adults-only resorts: Just because
some people can’t enjoy them doesn’t mean that no one should. In fact,
the more incentives the better, because the more people vaccinated, the
better we all are protected.
Throughout the pandemic, there have been polarizing terms that trigger fierce opposition. Just as we should never have invoked “lockdowns,” we need to stop debating “vaccine passports.” Instead, we should define what it is that we need to move toward normalcy:
a covid-19 health screen that enables people to associate with one
another free from pandemic restrictions. That’s a concept I hope most
Americans can get behind.
thescientist | Despite being treated with drugs designed to target this gene, the
patients were not getting better, and when we interrogated the genomes
of their cancers after the tumors were surgically removed following
treatment, we saw that they had changed. The tumors had dramatically
reduced the number of copies of the targeted epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR)
gene, presumably giving them an advantage to escape the drugs, and they
had evolved these genetic differences at a rate that seemed to make no
sense—within just one to two weeks.
Normally, we think of cancers evolving over many cell divisions, as
the cells carrying genetic changes that provide a fitness advantage—such
as an ability to resist a particular treatment—will be more likely to
survive and divide. Here, we were noticing a change in the copy number
of the gene within just a few generations. There was no way that we
could explain how the tumors were altering their DNA so quickly.
Even
stranger, we could take any cell from the tumor, and whether it had
high or undetectable protein levels of EGFR, it would give rise to a new
tumor when cultured in the lab or implanted into a mouse. Each of these
new tumors would then display the full spectrum of cells found in the
original tumor, varied in their EGFR copy number. This makes no
sense according to what we know about classical genetics. We would have
expected that tumors arising from a cell with low levels of EGFR would
give rise to a tumor with low EGFR levels, whereas a tumor arising from a
cell with high levels of EGFR would give rise to a tumor with high EGFR
levels.
When we removed the treatment with the EGFR inhibitor from
cultured tumor cells, EGFR copy number quickly rebounded, but again, not
on chromosomes. When we saw this, we realized that ecDNA might explain
why some cancers can become resistant to treatment so quickly, allowing
tumors to evolve at a rate that far exceeds anything that could be
accounted for by classical genetics. We published our results in Sciencein
2014, but they were not immediately accepted by the community. Although
we had only studied one tumor type, glioblastoma, we began to wonder
whether this might be the tip of the iceberg.
Without realizing
it, this study led us, and now others, to a series of discoveries that
have changed the way that researchers view cancer in general, revealing
frightening ways that tumors can evolve. We have learned that ecDNA is
central to the behavior of some of the most aggressive forms of cancer,
enabling remarkably elevated levels of oncogene transcription, creating
new gene regulatory interactions, and providing a powerful mechanism for
rapid change that can drive very high oncogene copy numbers or allow
cancer cells to resist treatment. Fist tap Woodensplinter
francesoir |In a letter dated March 21, 2021 published on the Nakim.org website, Professor Montagnier, Nobel Prize winner in medicine, supports the request of Dr Seligmann and engineer Haim Yativfor the suspension of vaccination against Covid-19judges of the Supreme Court of the State of Israel.
This letter is in support of the petition for the suspension of vaccination against covid-19 which was presented to you by MM.Yativ and Seligmann.
I am Luc Montagnier, doctor of medicine, professor emeritus at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, director of research emeritus at CNRS, Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for the discovery of the AIDS virus.
I am an expert in virology, having devoted a large part of my research to RNA viruses, in particular mouse encephalomyocarditis, Rous sarcoma virus, HIV 1 and HIV 2 virus.
Considerable effort has been devoted to vaccination against the coronavirus covid-19 responsible for a global pandemic.In particular the State of Israel has organized a mass vaccination of its population so far, 49% of its total population has received two doses of Pfizer vaccine.
First of all, I would like to stress the novelty of this type of vaccine.
In conventional vaccines, the genetic information carried by viral DNA or RNA is inactivated and virus proteins are used to induce vaccine antibodies.In some cases, the virus remains alive, but is attenuated by successive passages in vitro.
In the case of so-called RNA messenger vaccines, these vaccines are made from an active fraction of the virus's RNA which will be injected into the vaccinated person.It therefore penetrates the cells of the latter which will manufacture the vaccine proteins from the code of the injected RNA. We immediately see that this last step depends a lot on its success on the physiological state of the recipient.
I would like to summarize the potential dangers of these vaccines in a mass vaccination policy.
1.Short-term side effects : these are not the normal local reactions found with any vaccination, but serious reactions are life threatening to the recipient such as anaphylactic shock linked to a component of the vaccine mixture. , or severe allergies or an autoimmune reaction up to cell aplasia.
2.Lack of vaccine protection :
2.1 induction of facilitating antibodies - the induced antibodies do not neutralize a viral infection, but on the contrary facilitate it depending on the recipient.The latter may have already been exposed to the virus asymptomatically.A low level of naturally induced antibodies may compete with the antibodies induced by the vaccine.
2.2 The production of antibodies induced by vaccination in a population highly exposed to the virus will lead to the selection of variants resistant to these antibodies.These variants can be more virulent or more transmissible.This is what we are seeing now.An endless virus-vaccine race that will always turn to the advantage for the virus.
3.Long-term effects : Contrary to the claims of the manufacturers of messenger RNA vaccines, there is a risk of integration of viral RNA into the human genome.Indeed, each of our cells has endogenous retroviruses with the ability to reverse transcriptase RNA into DNA.Although this is a rare event, its passage through the DNA of germ cells and its transmission to future generations cannot be excluded.
“Faced with an unpredictable future, it is better to abstain."
theintercept |Pfizer, Moderna, and other coronavirus vaccine makers have said repeatedly that they intend to hike prices on vaccines as early as this year, as the potential need for additional booster shots and future demand could lead to an unprecedented financial windfall. One estimate projects that if Pfizer raised the price of its coronavirus vaccine from $19.50 to $175 per dose, as one Pfizer executive recently suggested, and if every adult American were to take it, the cost would be $44.7 billion — nearly 10 percent of all U.S. drug spending.
But the federal government, which
funded crucial biomedical research to develop the patented messenger RNA
technology behind the leading Covid-19 vaccines, is on the verge of
eliminating a legal mechanism to control the prices of key medical
products, including vaccines.
Next week, the National Institute of
Standards and Technology, or NIST, will wrap up a comment period to
modify the rules governing the Bayh-Dole Act, a law that regulates the
transfer of federally funded inventions into commercial property. Under
the current interpretation of the law, the government may “march in” and
suspend the use of patents developed via government-funded inventions
if it determines that the products are excessively priced.
The rulemaking is the latest flashpoint
in a decades long battle to control drug prices. The drug industry has
fought successfully to prevent “march-in” rights in the past; the
government has never managed to exercise them. But over the last year, a
growing number of Republicans and Democrats, including newly appointed
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccera, have called for the
use of march-in rights to rein in drug prices.
This supposed leverage to control
prices — on coronavirus medications and dozens of other drugs whose
development relied heavily on government-backed research — would be gone
if the rule-change proceeds.
theconversation | At the end of 2020, there was a strong hope that high levels of
vaccination would see humanity finally gain the upper hand over
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In an ideal scenario, the
virus would then be contained at very low levels without further
societal disruption or significant numbers of deaths.
But since then, new “variants of concern”
have emerged and spread worldwide, putting current pandemic control
efforts, including vaccination, at risk of being derailed.
Put simply, the game has changed, and a successful global rollout of
current vaccines by itself is no longer a guarantee of victory.
No one is truly safe from COVID-19 until everyone is safe. We are in a
race against time to get global transmission rates low enough to
prevent the emergence and spread of new variants. The danger is that
variants will arise that can overcome the immunity conferred by
vaccinations or prior infection.
What’s more, many countries lack the capacity to track emerging
variants via genomic surveillance. This means the situation may be even
more serious than it appears.
As members of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission Taskforce on Public Health, we call
for urgent action in response to the new variants. These new variants
mean we cannot rely on the vaccines alone to provide protection but must
maintain strong public health measures to reduce the risk from these
variants. At the same time, we need to accelerate the vaccine program in
all countries in an equitable way.
Together, these strategies will deliver “maximum suppression” of the virus.
What are ‘variants of concern’?
Genetic mutations of viruses like SARS-CoV-2 emerge frequently, but some variants are labelled “variants of concern”, because they can reinfect people who have had a previous infection or vaccination, or are more transmissible or can lead to more severe disease.
There are currently at least three documented SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern:
B.1.351, first reported in South Africa in December 2020
B.1.1.7, first reported in the United Kingdom in December 2020
P.1, first identified in Japan among travellers from Brazil in January 2021.
Similar mutations are arising in different countries simultaneously,
meaning not even border controls and high vaccination rates can
necessarily protect countries from home-grown variants, including
variants of concern, where there is substantial community transmission.
If there are high transmission levels, and hence extensive
replication of SARS-CoV-2, anywhere in the world, more variants of
concern will inevitably arise and the more infectious variants will
dominate. With international mobility, these variants will spread.
FT | The tax fight is a preamble for an upcoming mayoral election that all sides view as one of the most consequential in New York’s history. The Democratic primary, which is expected to crown the eventual winner in a city where seven out of every eight voters are Democrats, is in June.
Business leaders and the wealthy have been nursing existential dread at the possibility of what one prominent property developer calls another “ideological” mayor. That is, someone in the mould of the current mayor, Bill de Blasio, who is limited to serving two terms.
Two days after winning the 2013 Democratic primary, De Blasio attended a private lunch with the city’s business leaders and promptly alienated many of them. They expected he would solicit their advice and extend a hand. Instead, the mayor reprised his “tale of two cities” campaign rhetoric, and declared that he cared about the other side. “Faces dropped,” one attendee recalls.
That divide has only deepened in the ensuing years. De Blasio’s legion of executive class critics deride him as a lazy manager who deploys politicised rhetoric to cover for his own incompetence. While the budget has increased by 35 per cent during his tenure, problems like homelessness and public housing have worsened — even before the pandemic.
“The city is at a crossroads. This is truly the most important election of our lifetime and in NYC’s history,” Stephen Ross, chair of The Related Companies, and de facto king of the city’s developers, wrote to fellow business leaders last month as he urged them to join his effort to elect a business-friendly mayor. The race’s outcome, Ross wrote, will determine whether “NYC will rebound or languish”.
Looming large for executives like Ross is the grim memory of the 1970s, when a fraying city ended up losing half its Fortune 500 companies — many fleeing to surrounding suburbs — and shedding more than 1m inhabitants. That era also birthed a civic movement.
It was christened at a breakfast meeting at the Regency Hotel on Park Avenue in 1971 when the developer Lew Rudin and hotelier Robert Tisch hatched what would become the Association for a Better New York, a group of business leaders who aimed to step in where city government was failing. ABNY’s moguls lobbied the federal government on the city’s behalf. They also brought labour leaders into their tent.
pluralistic | The zombie economy shambles on. Obama's loan-shark bailout and the
eviction crisis let the architects of subprime buy up whole towns' worth
of homes and turn them into hugely profitable slums: high-rent,
low-quality deathtraps.
Wall St landlords package rents from subprime rentals into bonds,
backed by the loan-shark's guarantee: arm-breakers will evict the shit
out of anyone who stops paying.
America-a land where eviction was once a rarity-now faces an eviction epidemic.
The foreclosure crisis was only possible because Wall St and the
courts collaborated to streamline the historically complicated and
time-consuming process of taking away someone's home. Same goes for the
eviction epidemic.
It's a simple equation: the more loan-sharks spend on arm-breakers, the lower the expected profits.
Improvements to arm-breaking processes – cost-savings on traditional
coercion or innovative new forms of terror – are powerful engines for
unlocking new debt markets.
When innovation calls, tech answers. Our devices are increasingly
"smart," and inside every smart device is a potential arm-breaker.
Digital arm-breakers have been around since the first DRM systems, but
they really took off in 2008.
That's when subprime car loans boomed. People who lost everything in
the GFC still needed to get to work, and thanks to chronic US
underinvestment in transit, that means owning a car. So loan-sharks and
tech teamed up to deliver a new lost-cost, high-efficiency arm-breaker.
They leveraged the nation's mature wireless network to install
cellular killswitches in cars. You could extend an unrepayable loan to a
desperate person, and use an unmutable second stereo system to bombard
them with earsplitting overdue notices.
Within a decade, the bond-market for payments from subprime car
drivers was edging up on $1T; not because borrowers didn't default, but
because they defaulted later, and the car could be easily re-leased to
another desperate person.
The zombie economy shambled on. Tech built undeletable, always-on
kill-switches, lo-jacks, and spyware into an ever-expanding
constellation of devices, like laptops.
Rent-to-own subprime laptops were the epicenter of innovation in
digital arm-breaking. Laptops shipped with spyware for covert operation
of cameras and mic and access ot files.
That went beyond repoing a laptop! Lenders could make and share covert sex-tapes of their customers!
They spied on children, plundered MP3 collections, stole passwords,
read email. It was beyond the wildest dreams of analog loan-sharks.
NYTimes | America’s most powerful people have a problem. They can’t admit that they’re powerful.
Take
Andrew Cuomo. On a recent call with reporters, the embattled Mr. Cuomo
insisted that he was “not part of the political club.” The assertion was
confounding because Mr. Cuomo is in his third term as governor of New
York — a position his father also held for three terms. Mr. Cuomo has
also served as state attorney general and as secretary of the Department
of Housing and Urban Development.
Or
think of Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence. After her
appointment was announced, Ms. Haines declared, “I have never shied away
from speaking truth to power.” That is a curious way of describing a
meteoric career that includes stints at exclusive universities, a
prestigious judicial clerkship and important jobs in foreign policy and
intelligence before her appointment to a cabinet-level office overseeing
a budget of more than $60 billion.
This
sort of false advertising isn’t limited to Democrats. Senator Josh
Hawley of Missouri, for instance, has embraced an image as a populist
crusader against a distant “political class.” He does not emphasize his
father’s career as a banker, his studies at Stanford and Yale Law
School, or his work as clerk to prominent judges, including Chief
Justice John Roberts. The merits of Mr. Hawley’s positions are open to
debate. But his membership in the same elite that he rails against is
not.
And it’s not only politicians.
Business figures love to present themselves as “disrupters” of stagnant
industries. But the origins of the idea are anything but rebellious.
Popularized by a Harvard
professor and promoted by a veritable industry of consultants, it has
been embraced by some of the richest and most highly credentialed people
in the world.
Examples could be multiplied, but these cases are enough to show that
the problem of insiders pretending to be outsiders cuts across party,
gender and field. The question is why.
Part of the explanation is strategic. An outsider pose is appealing
because it allows powerful people to distance themselves from the
consequences of their decisions. When things go well, they are happy to
take credit. When they go badly, it’s useful to blame an incompetent,
hostile establishment for thwarting their good intentions or visionary
plans.
FREEP | State health officials say 246 fully vaccinated Michiganders contracted coronavirus from January to March, and three have died.
"These
are individuals who have had a positive test 14 or more days after the
last dose in the vaccine series," said Lynn Sutfin, a spokesperson for
the state health department.
Some of the 246
people may ultimately be excluded from the state's tally of vaccine
breakthrough cases because they may have had earlier coronavirus
infections and still tested positive two weeks post immunization.
"These
cases are undergoing further review to determine if they meet other
(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) criteria for determination
of potential breakthrough, including the absence of a positive antigen
or PCR test less than 45 days prior to the post-vaccination positive
test," Sutfin said.
Although so-called vaccine
breakthrough cases are rare, and all three COVID-19 vaccines on the
market are considered highly effective with efficacy rates ranging from
72% for Johnson & Johnson's vaccine to 94% and 95% for Moderna's and
Pfizer's, respectively, it can happen.
"While it is significantly less likely, it is still possible to contract
the virus after being vaccinated," Sutfin said. "Studies indicate that
even if vaccinated people do become ill, they are far less likely to
experience severe illness requiring hospitalization or resulting in
death.
"But the possibility of infection and further
transmission is why we continue to encourage Michiganders to take
precautions while out in public, including wearing masks, washing hands
and social distancing, even after receiving the vaccine until more
Michiganders have been able to be vaccinated."
Hospitalization
data for 129 of the fully vaccinated cases is incomplete, Sutfin said.
But for the 117 people for whom hospitalization records are known, 11
were hospitalized.
"A number of these are new cases that have been
reported ... as a result of a positive test, but local health
departments are either early in their investigation or have yet to begin
their case investigation," Sutfin said.
The
three fully vaccinated people who died, Sutfin said, were all ages 65
and older. Two of them were within three weeks of full vaccination.
nakedcapitalism | My worst nightmare concerns are starting to come true and the media
will not be able to hide this for much longer. Today, I am not concerned
about the SCIENCE of medicine – I am concerned about the ART of
medicine.
The ART can best be summarized as encouraging patients to do the
right thing for THEM. With regard to COVID 19, that would be to meet the
patient at whatever level they are and find ways to encourage social
distancing rules, masking and to correctly guide them on vaccine choice.
It would also include encouraging them to be engaged in the healthiest
behaviors possible during this time of crisis. Eat well, exercise, sleep
and de-stress.
The ART is often much more important to a physician’s medical
outcomes than the SCIENCE – something our society and our medical
establishment has long ago forgotten. ART requires as a foundation
explicit trust and honesty between a patient and the physician. There is
no other way.
Yves, I appreciated your post the other day on the Christian
Nationalism aspect of COVID 19. I made a comment on the post about this
not just being an Evangelical problem. I even suggested in the comment
that there could be issues brewing among Roman Catholics, based on what I
had been hearing as a physician.
As of Easter Sunday, there are now multiple videos being widely
circulated and they all speak to the issue better than I could ever type
out in a comment. I have been seeing this problem slowly brewing for
weeks and it has largely been completely ignored by our mainstream
media.
I will state for the record officially today – the public health
authorities have lost the narrative. They apparently have also lost
their minds. If they think this type of behavior on the most Holy Days
of the Church is not going to go unnoticed – they have rocks for brains.
This kind of thuggishness is not going to help their cause in any way;
rather, it will make these people dig in more. And trust me – as of this
Easter Sunday AM – they are digging in. Bunker-style. A clarion call
has gone out and it could not be more clear. And I am talking about
Roman Catholics – not my Evangelical family – they went off the
reservation long ago. Now even my Orthodox friends have taken notice.
As I have been stating over the past few days – the authorities have
repeatedly allowed discredited, hypocritical and lying Hoohahs to be
their voice in the national media. Outside of our big blue cities and
states – NO ONE AMONG MY PATIENTS COULD GIVE A RAT’S ASS WHAT THESE
PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY ANYMORE ABOUT THIS PANDEMIC. I hear this refrain
constantly every day. The lying, dissembling, crying, misstatements,
backtracking and hypocrisy have taken their final toll. If they are not
careful, they will soon be public enemy #1.
We have made many errors as a society in the past 12 months, but
probably the most important mistake is hardly ever mentioned. One which
our forbears in public health, like my father, worked to eradicate for
decades. It is very simple – national “one-size-fits-all” narratives and
plans in public health do not now nor have they ever worked. Never
have. Never will.
lockdownskeptics | Now that we are allowed to meet up in groups of six outside their
homes, Matt Hancock is warning us not to do anything foolish, like hug
one another or breach the two metre rule. “Do it safely,” he tweeted.
“Don’t blow it now”.
But in fact, the people who shouldn’t “blow it” are Boris Johnson,
Sir Patrick Vallance, Chris Whitty and, yes, Matt Hancock. That is the
view of Martin Kulldorff, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical
School, biostatistician and epidemiologist at the Brigham and Women’s
Hospital, Massachusetts, and co-author of the Great Barrington
Declaration.
Professor Kulldorff has told the UK Government and its scientific
advisors exactly who they should be listening to and why if they want to
save lives – and it doesn’t include vaccinating the entire population,
including children. He said this on Twitter on March 15th – “Thinking
that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking
that nobody should. Covid vaccines are important for older high-risk
people and their care-takes. Those with prior natural infection do not
need it. Nor children.” – and Twitter attached a health warning to his
Tweet: “This tweet is misleading. Learn why health officials recommend a
vaccine for most people.” Because, of course, a 22 year-old graduate in
Whiteness Studies sitting in Twitter’s HQ in Silicon Valley knows much
more about infectious diseases than a Harvard professor of medicine.
Speaking to me in an exclusive interview for Lockdown Sceptics, Kulldorff said:
That warning was rather silly.
When making unscientific claims, media often refer to ‘health officials’
or ‘health experts’ without naming those experts. I challenge Twitter
to name vaccine epidemiologists who think that everyone must get the
Covid vaccine, including children and those with immunity from prior
infection.
Equally strange, they even concur with my tweet when
they say “most people” rather than “all people”. Right now, children are
clearly not part of “most people”, since a Covid vaccine has not yet
been approved for them and we know nothing about efficacy or potential
adverse reaction in children. Since most children are asymptomatic or
only mildly symptomatic, it will be hard to show that the vaccine can
reduce symptoms, hospitalisations or mortality in children, requiring a
large sample size in countries that still has considerable disease
spread.
I have worked with vaccines for a couple of decades, but
Twitter clearly thinks that scientific discussions about these things
are dangerous. Maybe social media is dangerous to those in power. I do
hope that social media is dangerous to the lockdowns that have done so
much damage to public health during this past year. The enormous
collateral public health damage, which is being documented by Collateral Global,
is something that we will continue to to live with, and die with, for
many years to come. It truly is a public health tragedy of epic
proportions.
The catastrophic impact of the lockdowns on public health has been
exacerbated by headlines and adverts striking the fear of god into
millions, making them less likely to seek medical help for non-Covid
diseases.
thehill | Republicans are seizing on the intensifying debate over coronavirus
vaccination passports as part of their strategy for recapturing control
of Congress in 2022.
In interviews and conversations with The
Hill, GOP strategists and operatives acknowledged the growing eagerness
among Americans to be vaccinated against COVID-19. But many are also
betting that emerging debates about so-called vaccine passports will
help them play on voters’ fears of government overreach and privacy
violations.
The idea of vaccine passports has gained increasing
attention in recent weeks as eligibility for COVID-19 vaccinations has
rapidly expanded and Americans begin to see glints of a post-pandemic
normal on the horizon. The White House has indicated that it will issue
basic guidelines for such programs, though it has also said that it has
no plans to create a centralized, federal requirement.
Still, some of the country’s most prominent conservatives have begun
to latch on to the emerging possibility of vaccine passports or
certificates, seeing such proposals as an extension of their campaign to
rally the GOP base in opposition to coronavirus-related restrictions
like lockdown orders and mask mandates.
“It’s a political winner,”
Ford O’Connell, a Florida-based Republican strategist, said. “They look
at it as an all-out assault on personal freedoms and the Constitution,
but also, it’s about protecting the average, ordinary Floridian who
wants to live their regular day-to-day lives.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
is among the Republicans who have come out early against the proposals.
He criticized the idea of vaccine passports at a press conference
Monday, calling it “unacceptable” for local governments or businesses to
require proof of vaccination for people to “participate in normal
society.”
On Friday, he signed an executive order banning any
future vaccine certificate requirements in Florida, and called on the
GOP-controlled state legislature to draft a bill to enshrine such a
policy into law.
Republicans are hoping that their early efforts
to define vaccine passports as a symbol of government overreach will
help counter what Democrats see as their most powerful political weapon
in the 2022 midterms: their efforts to combat the coronavirus pandemic
and the resulting economic crisis.
Democrats are hoping that a
massive $1.9 trillion stimulus package signed into law last month, along
with a sweeping proposal to overhaul the nation’s infrastructure, will
help them stave off the typical electoral shellacking that a new
president’s party typically sees in the first midterms following his
inauguration.
BMJ |The critical issue is not the effect
that vaccine passports might have on people in general. If one wants to
increase take-up, it is the effect on those individuals and communities
who harbour doubts about vaccination which matters.
Based on hard experience, such
communities (ethnic minorities in particular) have reason to question
whether medical and governmental authorities treat their needs as a
priority and this historical distrust provides a framework for
interpreting contemporary pandemic policies.
[18] Members of these communities are more attuned to the possibility
that such policies (including vaccination) are something done to them rather than done for
them by authorities who are not of them but against them. Moreover,
there are plenty of anti-vaxxers aiming to promote this view by arguing
that covid measures are not a matter of public health, but of social
control by a hostile elite. [19]
The reality, and even the rumour, of vaccine passports for core
activities serves to give substance to these fears and to give traction
to the anti-vaxxers. Passports can be seen as confirming the perception
that vaccination is a measure of compulsion imposed upon the community.
And once people begin to regard vaccines as compulsory then the evidence
suggests that this produces anger and reduces willingness to get
vaccinated. [20]
All in all, there are reasons to
conclude that vaccine passports for basic activities may actually
undermine vaccine rollout by disincentivising the very populations who
most need incentivising. Closer inspection of the Israeli “green pass”
scheme serves to reinforce this message. The evidence for passes
increasing vaccination uptake is weak, while suspicions of compulsion
and reports of people barred from workplaces for not being vaccinated
have “resulted in antagonism and increased distrust among individuals
who were already concerned about infringement on citizens’ rights”.
[21] By contrast, what has proved successful in Israel are basic
measures of community engagement: involving trusted community leaders,
taking mobile vaccination units into communities, bringing along medical
experts who can answer any questions, and providing food and drink to
those who attend, has proved successful in Israel. [22]
To conclude: there are many good
reasons to reject any passport scheme which makes everyday social
participation dependent on vaccination. There are arguments on the
grounds of liberties, of equalities, and of practicalities. However,
even some of the grounds used to support them (i.e. vaccine take-up) may
be another reason to oppose them. At a point in the pandemic where
increased engagement is critical, both in order to overcome doubts about
vaccination, and to enhance the pandemic response more generally, the mere possibility of vaccine passports threatens to alienate marginalised communities still further. [23,24]
So, let’s stop discussing the use of
vaccine passports as a criterion for basic social and economic
participation. This is an idea with few redeeming features and even
talking about introducing them may be enough to do damage.
architectsforsocialhousing | I want to start our awakening from the sleep of reason by looking at
the social practices of the coronavirus crisis [to] correct the
conspiracy theory of an elite with their hands … on the gears of
history. Let’s [instead] look at the machine of history. We all know its
name, and despite all the renewed predictions of its death it hasn’t
gone away. On the contrary, it’s just going through a revolution … but
its name is still the same. Capitalism.
Marx was right. When the material productive forces of society come
into conflict with existing relations of production — its property
relations — a period of social revolution begins. ‘With the change of
the economic foundations’, he wrote, ‘the
entire immense superstructure is more or less rapidly transformed.’ The
expansion into new markets of the neoliberal capitalism that has
dominated Western democracies for 40 years no longer has to accommodate
liberal democracy. What we are undergoing — what we are colluding in
producing — are the new political, legal and social forms for a
multinational biosecurity state. And no elite, no matter how powerful,
is in control of it for the simple reason that, despite immensely
powerful international organisations increasingly divorced from and
opposed to democratic process, capitalism is a dynamic process that
develops by conflict and contradiction.
Capitalism has a grip on the world the like of which it has never had
before, and as it faces the long-heralded limits to [its] expansion it
is developing new forms and powers to extend that grip further over the
world’s diminishing resources. But there is no single government or
corporation ruling the globe, no secret society whose members sit on
every cabinet and board.
The US Government is the greatest military power the world has ever
seen, and the United Nations has long been superseded by far more
unaccountable coalitions of state and corporate powers whose activities
are largely secret and getting more so. And the power of technology to
monitor and control the world’s populations is expanding at an
exponential rate in both breadth and depth. But the world is not a
single, supra-political block.
There is no invisible hand of the market-god ruling over us, for good
or for evil; there are only devils competing for his crown. The world
undergoing this revolution in capitalism remains a conflict whose
battleground, now and for the immediate future, is the coronavirus
crisis. What makes that conflict new for Western democracies is that the
war being waged is a civil one, of governments against their own
people, rather than against other countries.
By looking at how this civil war is being waged, therefore, we can begin to understand to what ends it is being fought.
CTH | Consider if you will, the backdrop of current U.S. politics; the
influence of Wall Street and the multinationals who align with
globalism; the reality of K-Street lobbyists writing the physical
legislation that politicians sell to Americans; and then overlay what
you are witnessing as those same multinationals now attack the
foundation of our constitutional republic. All of this is CORPORATISM, a continuum that people were ignoring for decades… Now, thankfully, there is a new awakening.
In these economic endeavors President Trump was disrupting decades
of financial schemes established to use the U.S. as a host for their
endeavors. President Trump was confronting multinational corporations
and the global constructs of economic systems that were put in place to
the detriment of the host (USA) ie YOU. There are trillions at stake; it is all about the economics; everything else is chaff and countermeasures.
The road to a “service-driven economy” is paved with a great
disparity between financial classes. The wealth gap is directly related
to the inability of the middle-class to thrive.
Elite financial interests, including those within Washington DC, gain
wealth and power, the U.S. workforce is reduced to servitude,
“service”, of their affluent needs.
The destruction of the U.S. industrial and manufacturing base is
EXACTLY WHY the middle class has struggled, and exactly why the wealth
gap exploded in the past 30 years.
Behind this dynamic we find the international corporate and financial
interests who are inherently at risk from President Trump’s
“America-First” economic and trade platform. Believe it or not,
President Trump is up against an entire world economic establishment.
When we understand how trade works in the modern era we understand
why the agents within the system are so adamantly opposed to U.S.
President Trump.
♦The biggest lie in modern economics, willingly spread and maintained by corporate media, is that a system of global markets still exists.
It doesn’t.
Every element of global economic trade is controlled and exploited by
massive institutions, multinational banks and multinational
corporations. Institutions like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and
World Bank control trillions of dollars in economic activity.
Underneath that economic activity there are people who hold the
reigns of power over the outcomes. These individuals and groups are the
stakeholders in direct opposition to principles of America-First
national economics. Collectively known as “The Big Club”.
The modern financial constructs of these entities have been
established over the course of the past three decades. When you
understand how they manipulate the economic system of individual nations
you begin to understand why they are so fundamentally opposed to
President Trump.
In the Western World, separate from communist control perspectives
(ie. China), “Global markets” are a modern myth; nothing more than a
talking point meant to keep people satiated with sound bites they might
find familiar. Global markets have been destroyed over the past three
decades by multinational corporations who control the products formerly contained within global markets.
The same is true for “Commodities Markets”. The multinational trade
and economic system, run by corporations and multinational banks, now
controls the product outputs of independent nations. The free market
economic system has been usurped by entities who create what is best
described as ‘controlled markets’.
U.S. President Trump understood what had taken place. He used
economic leverage as part of a broader national security policy; and to
understand who opposes President Trump specifically because of the
economic leverage he creates, it becomes important to understand the
objectives of the global and financial elite who run and operate the
institutions. The Big Club.
Understanding how trillions of trade dollars influence geopolitical
policy we begin to understand the three-decade global financial
construct they seek to retain and protect.
That is, global financial exploitation of national markets.
nbcnews | Republicans and corporate America are on the outs.
In the past week alone, American Airlines and computer company Dell came out strongly against
GOP-led bills that place restrictions on voting in their home base of
Texas. South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a rising star in Republican Party,
continued to take heat for nixing a bill
that would have imposed a ban on transgender athletes in sports, citing
the potential impact on her state's bottom line. And conservatives
spent days bashing "vaccine passports" some businesses think are needed
to return to normal.
"Boycott
baseball and all of the woke companies that are interfering with Free
and Fair Elections," former President Donald Trump said in a statement.
"Are you listening Coke, Delta, and all!"
"Why are we
still listening to these woke corporate hypocrites on taxes, regulations
& anti-trust?" Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., tweeted.
Such
public dust-ups between businesses and members of the GOP are becoming
more frequent, though the divide — possibly one of the most
consequential in U.S. politics and society — is years in the making. The
shift is the product of a Republican Party increasingly driven by
"culture war" issues that animate a base invigorated by Trump and
corporate powerhouses that are under more pressure than ever to align
themselves with the left on voting rights, LGBTQ rights and anti-racist
efforts.
The result is a fraying in relations between a
GOP that has for years advocated for the kinds of libertarian economic
policies that have widely benefited these businesses and companies that
are using their might to help advance racial and social justice causes.
"We
have long thought and still think of the big institutional drivers of
this culture war as more in academia, the arts, the media, and corporate
America has mostly sat it out until recently," retiring Sen. Pat
Toomey, R-Pa., told NBC News in an interview. He added that while he
does not think of corporate America "as the biggest player yet,"
companies coming off the sidelines "can change the dynamic."
off-guardian | Asymptomatic false-positive diagnosis is unforgivable, but one
without testing for other common causes is even worse. Misdiagnosing
what would have been death from old age or some other usual event with
an asymptomatic false-positive Covid test is falsifying the cause of
death and is literally criminal. Natural deaths seem no longer a thing.
Bad science, shoddy medicine, central directives to certify COVID-19
where there is any doubt, and poor data gathering mean the crime is
perfect.
Tossing a coin is far more diagnostically accurate than community
Covid PCR testing on well persons. Ideally, there should have been a
parallel influenza test for each Covid test. My experience of patients’
hospital discharge letters reveals not one influenza test result was
recorded.
Our police, who under their own oath should police the criminal
common law with our consent are now acting like the vigilantes of
commerce. They enforce unnatural statutory law, regulations and
guidelines. Where does that leave non-commercial, natural human
interests? They tackle unmasked, healthy people as if they were
undetonated bombs.
Since when did the spread of a cold or flulike illness become a
crime? Since when did a well person become a potential suspect? The
police never used to become involved in the politesse of a cough, fever
or cold.
In 2019 it used to be a badge of honour to keep coming, sniffling
into the office. Now it seems a crime against humanity. I am waiting for
the first bona fide coryzal assault case, where the brain-washed
magistrate will accept that the victim reasonably apprehended a harm
from a defendant’s sniffle.
What material difference is there between terrorists and the actions of the WHO, Gates and our government?
Well, those three seem like mere terrorists, but not also another’s freedom fighter. Our government preach of how ‘hateful extremists exploit the pandemic,’ but there is no mention of themselves. Moreover, it is the questioning norm which is smeared as terrorists. What if the vaccines are killing more than Covid. Do we convict Drs. Whitty and Fauci for crimes against humanity?
In stark contrast to my first patient, I speak with my last patient, she is socioeconomically vulnerable.
In March 2020 she complained of a lump in her throat. Her urgent scan
was cancelled due to ‘Covid measures’. In February 2021 she complained
of multiple lumps in her throat and difficulty swallowing.
This is the mountain of disease concealed under the magic carpet of
Covid. Coronavirus Regulations-sponsored NHS medical negligence is often
grossly negligent, bordering on criminal.
The game is to keep the patient away and out of your zone of accountability. Like hands-free patient ping-pong.
One might conclude life on earth is impossible without Big Pharma. It
has moulded the world in its own vision. The vaccine passport is
likewise an inappropriate response. Particularly when viewed through the
lens of another continuously, unpredictably mutating, elderly-targeting
respiratory virus. Would anyone else find the prospect of a flu vaccine
passport troubling?
When Gates becomes America’s biggest owner of farmland one has
confirmatory triangulation that Mother Nature is no longer boss. Most of
us only need basic sanitation, an active life, family love and a
natural diet to remain well.
slate | The
second reason shame has been criticized is that many have conflated
shame’s worth as a tool with the norms some use shame to try to uphold.
The shame that accompanies sexually transmitted infections, for example,
has more to do with the problematic norms around sex that remain in our
society then shame itself. The shame that accompanies illness more
broadly has to do with the problematic norm that assumes, falsely, that
we will all remain able-bodied and healthy and that if we do not, it is
linked to some form of moral or behavioral failing. In both cases, the
shame isn’t the problem—the norms are. Instead of throwing out shame,
we should be more conscious of how we use it.
In
spite of the current uproar against it, Americans do routinely use
shame as a tool, quietly and comfortably. “We shame poor people all of
the time,” said Phuong Luong, a certified financial planner and educator
at Just Wealth (and also a friend). In her role as a financial planner,
Luong, has helped low-income people access public services. “If you’ve
ever gone into an office to apply for public benefits like welfare or
food stamps, it can be a really demeaning and stressful experience,” she
said. “The quality, tone, and respect in customer service between a
private service and a public service is so different. And I think we
make poor people jump through so many hoops to show effort and to show
motivation, to get what they need.” It’s as if the process was designed to evoke shame.
But
shame can work positively as a tool with people or institutions when
the thing happening is in fact worth punishing, and other forms of
punishment are out of reach. “In a system where formal punishment is
missing, that’s when the informal mechanisms step in,” said Jacquet. You
can, for example, incarcerate an individual but, “it’s much more
difficult, almost impossible to take away the liberty of an entire group
like Exxon Mobil,” she explained. You can, however, shame them as climate activists do when they troll oil companies on Twitter. It’s about depriving these companies of their social license and reputation, which, in many cases, they worked very hard to create.
On
the individual level, Jacquet points to the policies that some states
have publishing the names of residents who owe a significant sum in
taxes—in California, it’s more than $100,000; in Wisconsin, it’s $5,000, but those on the top 100 list all currently owe more than $400,000—as
another example of effective shaming. The late taxpayers are given
letters in advance of the list’s publication, with the expectation that
the threat of exposure will get them to pony up (or at least enter into a
repayment plan)—and it often does. When the state of Wisconsin launched its tax-shaming program in 2006,
it thought it would recoup $1.5 million in its first year of operation;
the state ultimately collected 15 times that in that year.
sciencebasedmedicine | As much as I used to admire him, since the pandemic hit John
Ioannidis has consistently disappointed me to an extreme degree. In the
last year, my disappointment with Prof. Ioannidis has gotten to the
point where it’s hard for me to avoid lumping him with the COVID-19
minimizers/deniers like those who published and continue to promote the Great Barrington Declaration,
one of whom was his co-author on his infamous Santa Clara
seroprevalence study. The Great Barrington Declaration, boiled down to
its essence, asserted that COVID-19 is not dangerous to the vast
majority of the population, leading to its writers and signatories to
conclude that governments should, in essence, let SARS-CoV-2, the
coronavirus that causes the disease, run rampant through the population
in order to achieve “natural herd immunity”, while putting in place
measures designed to protect only those viewed as “at risk”, such as the
elderly and those with significant co-morbidities. (Note that, at the
time the Declaration was published, there was as yet no safe and
effective vaccine against COVID-19, while now there are at least four.)
Of course, as many noted, it is not possible to protect the vulnerable
if COVID-19 is rampaging unchecked throughout the rest of the
population. Also, as I noted when I wrote about it, the Great Barrington Declaration was the product of the American Institute for Economic Research,
a right-wing, climate science-denying think tank, which recruited three
ideologically—shall we say?—amenable scientists to sign on as authors
of the declaration, which was basically, as I put it,
“eugenics-adjacent” and full of misinformation and half-truths.
Moreover, I’m not the only one who’s now soured on Prof. Ioannidis. For example, Scientific American columnist John Horgan, someone with whom both Steve Novella and I have had disagreements based on his downplaying of skepticism in medicine with respect to homeopathy:
Optimism has also distorted my view of the coronavirus. Last March, I
took heart from warnings by Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis that
we might be overestimating the deadliness of the virus and hence
overreacting to it. He predicted that the U.S. death toll might reach
only 10,000 people, lower than the average annual toll of seasonal flu. I
wanted Ioannidis to be right, and his analysis seemed plausible to me,
but his prediction turned out to be wrong by more than an order of
magnitude.
Horgan didn’t go quite far enough in his criticisms for my taste, but such is life.
Then there’s Alex Rubinstein:
“What a weird turn to see John Ioannidis pushing one of sloppiest
studies in the deluge of Covid-19 papers,” Alex Rubinsteyn, an assistant
professor of computational medicine and genetics at the University of
North Carolina School of Medicine, wrote on Twitter. “If he weren’t an
author I would expect [the study] to show up in one of his talks as a
particularly potent cocktail of bad research practices.”
Then, of course, there are all the scientists on Twitter criticizing
Prof. Ioannidis. In fairness, one has to acknowledge that there are
things Prof. Ioannidis has argued that have some merit. His estimates of
IFR were closer to the mark than some of the very high estimates early
in the pandemic, but they were still off considerably in the other
direction. He was not wrong about the poor quality of so much of the
data and research on COVID-19; it’s just, in an amazing feat of lacking
self-awareness, he himself contributed to it as well.
This brings me back to that discussion of Ioannidis’ paper claiming
that the NIH is too conservative and that only conservative, “safe”
science is funded. It was more than that, though. He claimed that the
scientists on NIH study sections were no better than scientists not on
NIH study sections. Before I get to that, though, I note that Ioannidis’
cardinal sin since the pandemic started is not to have been wrong, even
repeatedly so. It’s been his extreme arrogance:
Instead, Ioannidis sounded sure of himself. He was right; the others had
it wrong. He called out other research teams by name—Johns Hopkins,
Imperial College London—to berate their findings as “astronomically
wrong,” and “constantly dialed back to match reality.” Here he was,
about to come out with an exciting and important finding—if he were
right, it could change almost everything about how we deal with this
virus—and he seemed unworried by the possibility that something might be
amiss with the project.
If anyone should understand how the pressure to contribute to the
science of the crisis might lead to flawed work and exaggerated claims,
it ought to be Ioannidis, arguably the world’s most famous
epidemiologist. Who knows? Perhaps like so many of us, he’s just
stressed out by the whole damned thing. Maybe he’s just off his game.
The article from which this quote came dates back to May 2020. Now,
eleven months later with the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think you can
say that Ioannidis was “off his game”. With his attack on a graduate
student, he’s continued to double down and, in fact, has even gone
further than Freedman had previously described. That is what brings me
back to my previous discussion
of his article about those “safe” scientists at the NIH, with a funding
process that he’d characterized as “conformity” and “mediocrity”. I
wrote this over eight years ago:
In the end, as much as I admire Ioannidis, I think he’s off-base here.
It’s not that I don’t agree that the NIH should try to find ways to fund
more innovative research. However, Ioannidis’ approach to quantifying
the problem seems to suffer from flaws in its very conception. In light
of that, I can’t resist revisiting the discussion in my last post on the
question of riskiness versus safety in research, and that’s a simple
question: What’s the evidence that funding more risky research will
result in better research and more treatments? We have lots of anecdotes
of scientists whose ideas were later found to be validated and
potentially game-changing who couldn’t get NIH funding, but how often
does this really happen? As I’ve pointed out before, the vast
majority of “wild” ideas are considered “wild” precisely because they
are new and there is little good support for them. Once evidence
accumulates to support them, they are no longer considered quite so
“wild.” We know today that the scientists whose anecdotes of woe
describing the depredations of the NIH were indeed onto something. How
many more proposed ideas that seemed innovative at the time but
ultimately went nowhere?
And my conclusion:
However, the assumption underlying Ioannidis’s analysis seems to be that
there must be “bolts out of the blue” discovered by brilliant brave
maverick scientists. It’s all very Randian at its heart. However,
science is a collaborative enterprise, in which each scientist builds
incrementally on the work of his or her predecessors. Bolts out of the
blue are a good thing, but we can’t count on them, nor has anyone
demonstrated that they are more likely to occur if the NIH funds
“riskier research.” It’s equally likely that the end result would be a
lot more dud research.
Maybe the problem with Prof. Ioannidis was there all along, and I
just didn’t see it until the pandemic amplified it for all to see. He
seems, dating back at least to 2012, have had the belief that
conventional science is too “safe” and “conformist,” perhaps with a bit
of a self-image of himself as being the “brave maverick doctor” or iconoclast. Maybe that’s why, during the pandemic, he was so easily drawn to being a “rebel” or a “contrarian,” whose findings bucked the existing consensus, and maybe that’s why he can’t give that up. After all, it’s happened to greater scientists than he.
Moreover, Prof. Ioannidis seems to be an excellent cautionary tale at
how being a critic doesn’t necessarily mean that you can do what’s being
criticized that well. He’s very good at finding the flaws in studies,
but his studies during the pandemic demonstrate that, when designing
studies of his own, he’s prone to every bias and flaw that he criticizes
in others.
In any event, I should go back and read some of Prof. Ioannidis’ old
work in light of what I know about him now, with the realization that
the pandemic has done me a favor. I wonder what I might find.
nakedcapitalism | Yves here. I’m running this post with its original headline, although
the article doesn’t make terribly clear what “Christian nationalism”
is. The author defines is at extreme evangelism but I’m at a loss to
understand what makes that “nationalism”. The reason I am running this
article is that it discusses an specific issue that IM Doc mentioned
back in early February.
And even though we are discussing different subcultures in America,
we might as well be talking about different countries. One of the
lessons I learned by virtue of deciding to see the world on the McKinsey
plan, was that virtually without exception, US companies entering a
foreign market would royally screw things up. Even if they’d managed to
hire good managers from the new market, the top brass would reject
recommended changes to the product or branding to cater to local tastes:
“They can’t possibly want that! Of course they’ll prefer our superior
dog food!” They almost always had to fail before they’d listen to how
the locals thought about things and understand why they wanted what they
wanted.
I had sent a link from the Ghion Journal, which was and is pretty up in arms about the Covid vaccines, as an example of vaccine alarmism in the black community.
IM Doc said then that he was hearing a lot of reports from doctors in
his network in big cities of vaccine hesitancy among blacks and if
anything more so among Latinos at that point. But he was the first to
alert me to opposition among conservative Christians, beyond those based
on the mistaken belief that fetal cells had somehow been used in
vaccine development (true in a very strained sense with the J&J
vaccine). From his e-mail:
We are seeing all this rage and rush to get vaccinated
right now. It is easy to assume there is widespread demand. That is not
true…. And then the fun will begin. If you think the anti-mask,
anti-lockdown people have been ridiculed and shamed – you have not seen
anything yet. I know my Big Pharma and it is obvious they have a
stranglehold on our agencies and politicians. They have gotten so used
to complete acquiescence that they are becoming supremely
over-confident. Trust me, if they think they will get away with forced
vaccination of kids for school, they have no idea what they are stepping
in. Also, I can think of no quicker way to bankruptcy for airlines and
cruise companies then to demand a vaccine passport. They will instantly
cut their customer base by 30-40%.
It is not just blacks and Latinos. Our medical and public health
elites have their head so far up their ass that they are missing
critical cultural and religious issues going on all over this country
with regard to the vaccine. For example, my oh so Protestant family
members and all their friends back home have zero intention of taking
this vaccine. All the talk of vaccine passports and vaccine cards to get
in and out of stores and restaurants and events have convinced them
that this is the first manifestation of the long anticipated Mark of the
Beast. To take the Mark of the Beast is a certain trip to Hell for
Eternity….And because of our elites’ complete bungling insensitivity,
they have already completely and permanently alienated these people.
Again, this is being preached from their pulpits, and no amount of
coercion or threats is going to work. I grew up in that environment. I
know what I am talking about. They will starve to death before they take
The Mark of the Beast.
I have no idea how large this population is. IM Doc gave an estimate
for rural America and the South that struck me as high, having lived in
the rural upper Midwest, Oregon, and spent a lot of time in Maine. But
the point is this is a cohort that is not trivial in size, and its
existence has finally gotten the attention of some in the officialdom,
too late in the game for them to change course. You’ll see the
out-of-touch recommendation in the piece:
…faith leaders can guide their followers and use their
pulpits to encourage parishioners that the vaccine is safe and in line
with religious doctrines.
That could work with concerns that are based on misinformation, but
not ones based on views that see social control/surveillance as evil.
There’s no way of prettying up the more heavy-handed schemes to get
citizens to take the shot.
And IM Doc, then as now, argued that the bureaucrats have done a
terrible job with general practitioners by failing to give the
information needed to give honest answers and “best available data”
assessments of outcomes and risks:
And again, I will remind you – as a primary care
physician I have been tasked with educating patients about these
vaccines. I have little if any information about safety. I have zero
information on how these vaccines will help death or hospitalizations. I
have zero information on how long the immunity will last. I have zero
credible and often wildly disparate information about whether it will
work on these variants, which are now this month’s panic porn topic on
the news. I have very educated patients who come to ask questions all
day every day. I will not lie to them, nor will I smile and pass out
happy horse shit like so many of my colleagues seem to be doing. The
medical elites have put the normal PCPs of this country in a very
difficult if not impossible situation.
I hope and pray that all goes well. I, like everyone else, want this
to be over. However, if something goes majorly wrong with this gamble,
God help us.
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sciencemag | This spring, after days of flulike symptoms and fever, a man
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He ...
