I know that, since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, I keep repeating the mantra, “Everything old is new again.” I even know that I probably repeat it so much that it sometimes gets annoying. So be it. It’s a message that is important to me due to my simple hope that, if the newbies who have joined “our side” understand that none of this is new, they will learn the recurring themes, narratives, and forms of quackery, misinformation, and disinformation, the better to be prepared for the future. That brings us to homeopathy.
Remember ivermectin (you know, the new hydroxychloroquine)? Who can forget it, the repurposed drug used to treat helminthic (round-worm) diseases in animals and humans that COVID-19 quacks quickly repurposed to claim as a miracle cure for COVID-19 as evidence mounted that the last repurposed “miracle cure,” the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine (which is also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis), didn’t work against COVID-19, leading me to refer to it as the “Black Knight of COVID-19 treatments.” Basically, ivermectin was the new hydroxychloroquine, but its being the new hydroxychloroquine didn’t stop both drugs from remaining in the armamentarium of COVID quacks everywhere, immune to evidence, complete with conspiracy theories and dubious meta-analyses—even an appeal to the Nobel Prize!—to explain its lack of acceptance by “mainstream medicine.” Personally, I came to the conclusion that ivermectin was the acupuncture of COVID-19 treatments (a highly implausible treatment from a basic science standpoint supported by the flaws in the evidence-based medicine paradigm) and a perfect example to explain how science-based medicine isn’t just for “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) or “integrative medicine” or whatever advocates of combining quackery with evidence-based medicine are calling it these days.
Which brings us back to Dr. Tess Lawrie.
Lawrie, you might remember, first made her name as one of the founders of the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development (BIRD) Group, a group that teamed up with the US group the COVID Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) to vigorously promote ivermectin as a highly effective treatment for COVID-19, despite all evidence to the contrary, including basic pharmacokinetics. When last I discussed Lawrie, she had done what most quacks who believe in a particular treatment eventually do and embraced ivermectin as not just a highly effective treatment for COVID-19 but as a potential cancer cure.
Given that background (and the title of this post, which gives it away), I suspect that you know what’s coming next. That’s right. Lawrie has now embraced The One Quackery To Rule Them All for COVID-19, long COVID, and a number of other things. That’s right, it’s homeopathy time, baby!
Homeopathy: The air guitar of medicine
Advocates of science-based medicine like to refer to homeopathy as the “air guitar of medicine,” because, like an air guitar, it’s performative and can appear impressive, but, just as pretending to play guitar doesn’t produce any actual music, homeopathy doesn’t produce any therapeutic effects because almost by definition it can’t. I realize that our regular readers know what homeopathy is and why it’s quackery, but whenever discussing homeopathy I always feel obligated to provide a brief explanation for those who’ve never encountered this blog before, rather than just links. I hope our regulars will bear with me.
To reiterate, homeopathic remedies are the purest quackery, and I frequently refer to homeopathy as “The One Quackery To Rule Them All.” I also generally think it’s always worth a brief explanation of why. Basically, homeopathy was invented by a German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796 and is based on two “laws” that have no basis in science. (I suppose calling them “laws” made them sound more important, like Newton’s Laws of Motion.) The first is the Law of Similars, which states that you treat a given symptom using something that causes that symptom. No matter how much homeopaths try to claim otherwise and cite cherry picked examples, there is no physiologic, biochemical, or medical basis for such a broad general principle, and in fact what the first law of homeopathy resembles more than anything else is the principles of sympathetic magic, specifically Sir James George Frazer’s Law of Similarity as described in The Golden Bough (1922) as one of the implicit principles of sympathetic magic.
The second “law” of homeopathy, the Law of Infinitesimals, is even more ridiculous and pseudoscientific (or even mystical). I also find it the easiest to explain to the uninitiated why this “law” is utter bunk. In brief, the Law of Infinitesimals states that homeopathic remedies become stronger with dilution. Indeed, the process of making a homeopathic remedy involves serial dilution, usually 1:100. The mother tincture (or original compound or medicine) is diluted 1:100 and then shaken vigorously (succussed), the succussion step being claimed by homeopaths to be absolutely essential to “potentize” the remedy. After that, the remedy is diluted again in the same way. Each 1:100 dilution is designated by “C”, such that a 6C dilution equals six 1:100 dilutions. The problem comes with the higher dilutions. For instance, a 12C solution is on the order of a 10-24 dilution ((10-2)12 = 10-24). Many homeopathic remedies are on the order of 30C, which is a 10-60 dilution, or more than 1036-fold greater than Avogadro’s number. Some homeopathic remedies go up to 100C or more, or 10-200. Here’s a hint: The number of atoms in the known universe is estimated to be around 1078 to 1082. The math just doesn’t work, and remedies over around 12C are basically water. “Lesser” dilutions contain so little remedy that it’s highly unlikely that they have a pharmacological effect.
Even though these days Richard Dawkins gets on my nerves for a number of reasons that I will not go into here, I do have to give him props for perhaps the best two-and-a-half minute explanation why homeopathy is quackery ever committed to video:
With that explanation taken care of, let’s move on.
Tess Lawrie embraces homeopathy for COVID-19
Yesterday, as I was looking for topics to blog about, I came across an article on Tess Lawrie’s Substack entitled Homeopathy for long Covid. It is, unfortunately for my purposes, one of her articles only for paid subscribers, but, as is her wont, Lawrie had posted a promotional Substack newsletter three days before entitled There’s a reason why the Queen had a homeopath. I was half-tempted to retort that there’s a reason why King Charles III is heavily into homeopathy—something we used to criticize him harshly for when he was Prince Charles—but it’s not because homeopathy works. Instead, I noted how Lawrie had bought into the usual homeopathy narrative about its being “suppressed,” with a tagline reading: “On the pernicious rewriting of homeopathy’s history, and how well-crafted research is revealing what many have known all along: homeopathy works.”
Where have we heard that one before? Also, as Dr. Mark Crislip has described, there is no good evidence that homeopathy is effective against COVID-19. As you will see, that is not unexpected given that homeopathy is basically quackery, mostly water or ethanol diluent with no medicinal value.
Lawrie, as is the case with most quacks, is not happy with Wikipedia. Indeed, she starts out by looking at Wikipedia:
Let’s start with the lies and misinformation about homeopathy. Here’s how the internet’s propaganda factory Wikipedia currently defines it:Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific[1][2][3][4] system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people can cure similar symptoms in sick people; this doctrine is called similia similibus curentur, or “like cures like”.[5]The entry then describes homeopathy as ‘quackery and fraud’ and goes on to state:During the 1970s, homeopathy made a significant comeback, with sales of some homeopathic products increasing tenfold. The trend corresponded with the rise of the New Age movement, and may be in part due to chemophobia, an irrational preference for “natural” products, and the longer consultation times homeopathic practitioners provided.Reader, are you suffering from ‘chemophobia’? I think I may be, though I would argue that a preference for natural products is entirely rational. Out of curiosity, I thought I’d look at what the Wikipedia entry for homeopathy used to say. Here’s what it said on 31 October 2003:Homoeopathy is a method of treating diseases and medical conditions invented, or at least popularized, by the German Samuel Hahnemann in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is based on the theory that each naturally occurring element, plant, and mineral compound will, when ingested or applied, result in certain symptoms. Hahnemann believed that, by diluting these substances in a standardized manner, one could reach the true essence of that substance. Hahnemann described this process of dilution as “potentizing” (German: “potenziert”) the substance. These dilute amounts could then be used to treat the very symptoms they were known to produce. Hahnemann and his students approached their treatments in a holistic way, meaning that the whole of the body and spirit is dealt with, not just the localised disease. Hahnemann himself spent extended periods of time with his patients, asking them questions that dealt not only with their particular symptoms or illness, but also with the details of their daily lives.Well, that’s quite a shift in perspective isn’t it?
Gee, Lawrie says that as though it were a bad thing to have quackery properly described as quackery and pseudoscience on Wikipedia!
It is a shift in perspective, but the shift doesn’t show what Lawrie thinks that it shows. Rather, it shows just how much alternative medicine practitioners dominated Wikipedia entries. Indeed, back in 2004-5, when I first started blogging, one of my biggest complaints about Wikipedia was that cranks and quacks had a lot more time and believers to edit entries like the one on Wikipedia, far outnumbering skeptics, leading to credulous Wikipedia entries just like the one that Lawrie posted. At this point, a shout out to Susan Gerbic and her Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia project is obligatory, to express gratitude for working to change that.
Complete with the narrative that homeopathy is being unduly “suppressed,” Lawrie continues, likening this “suppression” and “redefinition” to various narratives about COVID-19:
It continues to amaze me how successfully nefarious influences can redefine how we see the world. We have seen this in technicolour over the past three years, with respected dictionaries redefining words such as ‘vaccine’ to comply with a big pharma narrative, and people described as ‘variant factories’ in a clear attempt to demonise a specific group.
The claim that the word “vaccine” has been somehow “redefined” in order to encompass mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines is, of course, a favorite conspiracy theory of antivaxxers. Let’s just say that the word “vaccine” was not “redefined,” although the definition was clarified to try to prevent misunderstandings, basically changing a very specific definition of “vaccine” to a more general accepted phrasing of the definition. There was no nefarious intent, but Lawrie, being the conspiracy theorist that she is, imputes nefarious intent.
She then likens that “redefinition” to what she perceives as having happened to homeopathy:
I was reminded of this recently, when I spoke to Dr Philippa Fibert, my next Tess Talks guest. Philippa is a practising homeopath, and also Research Fellow at St Mary’s University, Twickenham here in the UK. She pointed out to me that the intense scepticism about homeopathy is actually a recent phenomenon. It wasn’t that long ago that homeopathy was fairly mainstream, and is still available on the UK’s National Health Service, albeit in only two locations: the NHS Centre for Integrated Care in Glasgow, and the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine. The latter used to be called Royal London Homeopathic Hospital; this was where Philippa’s great aunt, Dr Lena Banks, and her great aunt’s partner, Dr Marjorie Blackie, worked. Dr Blackie was the Queen’s Homeopath.
Only someone utterly devoid of knowledge of history can claim that skepticism about homeopathy is a recent phenomenon. Whenever I see that claim, I like to refer to a classic essay entitled Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions. The author? Oliver Wendell Holmes. The year? This essay was based on two lectures that he presented to the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge—in 1842! It is an essay worth reading in its entirety. Other than the lack of knowledge in the 1840s of Avogadro’s number, whose first accurate measurement was at the time of Holmes’ lectures decades in the future and whose magnitude lets us know that in 30C dilutions it is unlikely that even a single molecule of starting substance remains, its devastating critique of homeopathy as pseudoscience is relevant today.
That must be why Lawrie invokes the fantasy of future vindication, which is a favorite of quacks and supporters of quackery everywhere—and writes:
Like many safe, natural alternatives to pharmaceuticals, homeopathy has been under a sustained and calculated attack for some time. But I do believe that is about to change – and Philippa is playing a key role in its rehabilitation as an accepted and respected form of medicine.
So what is Fibert claiming. I think you can predict. Again, as I pointed out, there is no evidence that homeopathy can effectively treat COVID-19—not that homeopaths would ever admit that—and it’s equally improbable to think that homeopathy could be used to treat long COVID. None of this stops Fibert or Lawrie:
Those suffering from Long Covid have been turning to homeopathy – and so Philippa has led a service evaluation project to document the outcomes. The results have shown that people are experiencing improvements with homeopathic treatment so now, Philippa is spearheading a well-designed randomised controlled trial to evidence the outcome of the homeopathic treatment of the symptoms associated with long Covid.
It is not my purpose to discuss all the ins and outs of why homeopathy is quackery and will not be useful for COVID or long COVID. It’s homeopathy, and I have spilled so much digital ink explaining why homeopathy is quackery that I don’t want to reinvent the wheel here yet again. Rather, what interested me is the inevitable progression we have seen in Tess Lawrie. First, she started out promoting ivermectin for COVID-19, helping an army of quacks cement the narrative that ivermectin is a cheap, safe, and “suppressed” cure for COVID-19 in the public’s mind. Then she decided that COVID-19 wasn’t enough; ivermectin should also be used to treat cancer, because of course she did. Now she has gone beyond ivermectin for COVID or cancer and embraced The One Quackery To Rule Them All, homeopathy.
I will revisit this observation. First, however, who is Philippa Fibert, besides being a homeopath?
How medical academia can promote COVID quackery
At this point, I’m going to shift gears a bit and refer to an article by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling that appeared in this month’s issue of The New Republic entitled, A Doctor’s War Against the Right-Wing Medical-Freedom Movement, which carries the tagline, “As alternative medicine infiltrates mainstream health care, one physician is fighting back with everything he has.” I’ll come clean right here. The doctor in the article is me, and the article is basically about how alternative medicine quackery has infiltrated medicine over the last couple of decades, laying the groundwork for a lot of what we are seeing now. As the “main character” in the article, I will say that I’m (mostly) happy with the narrative and how I come off. (My quibbles might be a topic for a future post sometime. For example, I get the impression that I come across like the aging gunslinger played by John Wayne in The Shootist, whom all the young guns are looking to knock off and who is on the declining side of his career, which, come to think of it, might not be that inaccurate. I do prefer, however, to look at myself more like G’Kar in Babylon 5 episode The Long Twilight Struggle, if only because G’Kar does ultimately triumph even if he does later die a tragically foretold death. (But I digress, as I often do.) What Hongoltz-Hetling gets right is how alternative medicine has infiltrated academic medicine:
Between 1999 and 2017, NCCIH had spent a total of about $2.2 billion “for clinical trials [that] produced no sound, consistent evidence for the efficacy of any alternative therapies,” Dr. Donald Marcus of the Baylor College of Medicine pointed out in a 2020 article in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. The National Library of Medicine lists 49 different NCCIH-funded studies that reference homeopathy; some of the study authors lack medical degrees, and yet have associations with top-tier medical institutions—for instance, Ted Kaptchuk, an acupuncturist who went on to direct an alternative-medicine program at Harvard Medical School; or Gary Schwartz, whose research at the University of Arizona is focused primarily on mediums and energy healing. The alternative-health industry also influences academia through overt lobbying. And even as it enjoys the financial benefits that come with being embraced by the political right (Americans spent $34 billion on products and services in 2007), it has aggressively wooed the academic circles that are usually dominated by the political left. For example, in 2017, after receiving a $200 million gift from the Henry and Susan Samueli Foundation, the University of California Irvine earmarked funds for up to 15 faculty chairs supporting a curricular focus on integrative health in its College of Health Sciences. Deep-pocketed alternative-medicine groups have also funded partnerships with University of California San Francisco, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Sidney Kimmel Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. As of 2017, 15 research medical schools had begun offering alternative medicine to the public, according to Marcus. Johns Hopkins offers Reiki “to transmit Universal Life Energy to the client”; Duke University offers acupuncture for stroke victims.
Why do I mention this—other than wanting to slip in a link to an article in a mainstream magazine about myself, something that has never happened before?—and point out how medical academia has been corrupted by quackery? Simple. Let’s take a look at Philippa Fibert. She is indeed a Research Fellow at St. Mary’s University Twickenham in the Department of Psychology and Pedagogic Science. Interestingly, this department is listed as a department of the Faculty of Sport, Allied Health and Performance Science, which lists itself as offering programs in these areas:
- Applied Physics
- Health and Exercise
- Nutrition
- Physiotherapy
- Psychology
- Sport Rehabilitation
- Sport Science
- Sports Coaching
- Strength and Conditioning
Worse, Fibert describes her history thusly:
I am a Research Fellow with a particular interest in improving long-term outcomes for children, and assessing the effectiveness of non-pharmacological treatments. I started out working with children with special needs as a teacher, then as a parent educator. I then came across a treatment that seemed to be really helpful for them, however few think it can work apart from those who have experienced it first hand. So, to start untangling the evidence, I embarked on research into this area. I completed a psychology research MSc at Goldsmiths University where I conducted a comparative case series examining the effectiveness of this treatment for children with ADHD. This was partly funded by Turner’s Court Youth trust, an ex borstal supporting crime prevention measures (1:4 prison inmates have had a diagnosis of ADHD). The treatment is called Homeopathy. The Case Series findings were significant, and in several cases, life changing. Patient stories are available in articles in Green Parent and Autism Now Magazines, case reports in the European Journal of Integrative Medicine, and the full case series in the journal ‘Homeopathy’.
Quelle surprise. She plied her quackery on autistic children and children with ADHD, and Goldsmith University supported this research as part of her degree program. But let’s get to the quackademic medicine that allowed her to test water on children with significant medical conditions:
A pilot randomised controlled pragmatic trial was then conducted at the University of Sheffield to provide more substantial information about the long-term effectiveness of non-pharmacological approaches. It assessed the effectiveness of homeopathy and nutritional therapy. Results suggest that both treatments may be helpful: in particular nutritional therapy for restlessness/inattention, and homeopathy for emotional dysregulation (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00431-019-03374-z). I now work at St Mary’s University, Twickenham: within the department of Psychology and Pedagogic Science where we’re running a trial exploring the effects of Kefir on ADHD, sleep and the microbiome; and I teach on the MSc in Chronic Disease Management. Meanwhile I continue to pursue my research interests in improving health outcomes. A recent study explored the effectiveness of the homeopathic remedy bacillinum for ringworm in rural Africa, and found it better and cheaper than conventional care over the long term. A service evaluation of homeopathic treatment for long COVID suggests that patients feel 47% better after 2 consultations (12 weeks).
Let’s look at her study cited above. Basically, it claims to be a randomized trial of homeopathy and nutritional therapy in ADHD, but it was not blinded, much less double-blinded. Those assessing the subjects after interventions knew which child was in which group. So basically, it was a useless trial, even as a “pilot” trial.
As for bacillinum? I hadn’t heard of this particular homeopathic remedy before, but a quick Google search revealed that it is purported to be made from the sputum of a patient with tuberculosis. I kid you not. It is claimed to be useful for:
Addison’s disease. Alopecia. Consumptiveness Growth, defective. Hydrocephalus. Idiocy. Insanity. Joints, affections of. Phthiriasis. Pityriasis Ringworm. Scrofulous glands. Teeth, defective; pitted. Tuberculosis.
If you ever want more of an indication that homeopathy is quackery, just look at the list of the diseases supposedly treated by a homeopathic remedy claimed to have been made by diluting the sputum of a patient with tuberculosis! Then be thankful that the sputum was diluted to nonexistence and bacillum is basically water, just as I was thankful to learn that Lyssinum, a homeopathic remedy purported to have been made from the sputum of a rabid dog, is also generally diluted to 200C, far beyond nonexistence. Ditto a homeopathic remedy to treat Ebola made from the sputum of Ebola patients. Again, you can’t make stuff like this up. (At least, I can’t.) It makes me wonder why the homeopaths didn’t use diluted SARS-CoV-2 to treat COVID.
Quackademic medicine, COVID, and homeopathy
We at SBM have been writing about quackademic medicine ever since the very beginning of this blog. Although I wish I could claim to have coined the term “quackademic medicine,” unfortunately I can’t. (Dr. R. W. Donnell has that honor.) The point, however, is how before the pandemic quackery had so thoroughly infiltrated itself into medical academia that even “hard core” academic medical centers, like Duke, Stanford, the Cleveland Clinic and even my alma mater, the University of Michigan, have embraced quackery, to the point where U. of M., for instance, has a naturopath in a high-ranking faculty position in its Department of Family Medicine who promotes homeopathy there.
Across the pond, Philippa Fibert is fundraising £40,000 to do a “pilot RCT” of homeopathy for long COVID. with this preliminary data:
Dr. Fibert told HINT: “This trial provides an excellent opportunity to develop much-needed evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathy at a time when other healthcare providers are struggling to develop effective protocols for the treatment of Long-COVID. “In a prelude to the pilot RCT, we have already been collecting the MYMOPs (Measure Your Own Medical Outcome Profile) of Long-COVID patients and found a 36% improvement after just one consultation. After their second consultation the improvement climbed to 48%.” We hope this project will put homeopathy front and centre as the medicine of choice for the symptoms associated with Long-COVID. You can be part of this ground breaking project by helping us raise the funding needed. We have the enthusiasm, now all we need is £40,000 and with your help we know we can do it!
There’s nothing like subjective outcome measures in a survey as “evidence” that magic water helps a poorly understood condition that often has vague symptoms and whose diagnostic criteria aren’t fully solidified yet to guarantee that placebo effects will provide a seemingly positive outcome to justify raising money for a pointless RCT. Let me remind you what the remedies used in the “preliminary trial” were:
Basically, it’s just a grab bag of common homeopathic remedies, including the quite rightly mocked Oscillococcinum®, which includes extract of duck liver and heart. Basically, it’s a “throw everything but the kitchen sink” approach to COVID-19, if that everything is the water in the kitchen sink without the actual, you know, kitchen sink.
I argued in Matt Hongoltz-Hetling’s piece that quackademic medicine is both a cause and symptom of what led so many doctors to embrace COVID quackery, antimask stances, and antivax beliefs. Certainly, homeopaths in universities and medical schools doesn’t help. It should thus be no surprise that people like Philippa Fibert exist and are now promoting homeopathy for long COVID, after having promoted it for so many other conditions.
Unfortunately, this example of Tess Lawrie expanding her quackery suggests two things that seem new but are not. First, once a doc starts down the dark path of quackery, forever will it dominate her destiny. Consume her it will (with only rare exceptions). This has clearly happened to Lawrie, who started out embracing the then “sort of” quackery of ivermectin, which is now COVID quackery because the evidence clearly shows that it does not work, and then progressed to embracing ivermectin quackery for more diseases (like cancer), and then ran headlong into the arms of The One Quackery To Rule Them All. It is incredibly likely that there is any coming back from this for her. The question is: Is there any coming back from this, period?
172 replies on “Dr. Tess Lawrie expands from ivermectin quackery to homeopathy”
We HOPE it’s water. Tuberculosis is a real problem in South Africa. In fact, there are MDR and XDR strains here.
“The question is: Is there any coming back from this, period?”
Well, it’s probably a way to earn money and recognition, so it’s rewarding BUT ALSO if she actually believes, and psychologists are right about alties ( Douglas et al), it might reflect an aspect of her personality which would be very difficult to change.
The more long covid I see the more I’m convinced it’s going to turn out to be an autoimmune disease. A couple of the worst cases act like seronegative lupus( Too bad HCQ doesn’t work like it does for SLE.)
No surprise, then, that good old metformin seems to be helpful (As opposed to, say, IVM.) guess what cranks? We finally DID find a cheap, generic drug that no one can make billions on that helps long covid. I’m sure they will just shift to some other whackadoodle argument.
I cannot see why anyone would be opposed to Metformin as such, if it is helpful.
You are either very naive or being disingenuous. Lots of antivaxxers, steeped in alternative medicine, portray metformin as a poison on par with what they consider vaccines to be.
Homeopathic water sounds like holy water used by the Catholic Church. And the “law of similars” – does that apply to eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ via crackers and wine?
I liked James Randi’s stunt where he ate a whole bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills without adverse impact.
Aren’t there cases of people becoming sick from contaminated holy water? I’d actually trust homeopathy over this.
The components of the bread and wine used in communion celebration are symbolic of the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross to remind us of His substitutionary death for those of us having received Him.
1 Corinthians 11:24
And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.
1 Corinthians 11:25
After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me
I did this in front of a class once. I’m a pharmaceutical sciences professor and was teaching my pharmacy students how homeopathy was bullshit.
After I ate the whole bottle of the 30c pills in front of them, we did some math to show how I could confidently do that.
More glurge today from Canadian free-lance medical writer Gabrielle Bauer, who gloats in the Wall St. Journal about relaxing of pandemic restrictions being a repudiation of the hated “expert class”.
“With their blinkered focus on a virus, they failed to consider that most of us want more from life than avoidance of illness. We’re even willing to tolerate getting Covid to get to the good stuff. Imagine that.”
“To paraphrase George Costanza: We’re back, baby! We’re flying in planes and jostling each other in crowds and offering our friends a lick of our ice cream cone, and there’s nothing the doomsayers can do about it.”
This is the same Gabrielle Bauer who recently authored a Brownstone Institute essay admitting that the Great Barrington Declaration “didn’t get all the details right”.* But that class of faux “experts” didn’t receive her scorn.
Bauer previously authored a piece in Medpage Today about her “half-vaxxed” daughter (I keep reading that as “half-assed)’s supposedly legit reasons for scorning Covid vaccination, lamenting the “extra burden imposed on the young”, saying that she “stood with” Belgian psychology professor Mattis Desmet, who viewed Covid-19 as the “tipping point in the process of totalitarianization” and demanding “more respect for the arts”, which one presumes have been greatly traumatized by pandemic control measures.
In the next pandemic, which may very well be worse, how much more resistance will we face from fools like this who just want to party on?
*in the MedPage Today article, she said “When you screw up, say “I screwed up”. Irony meters have suffered.
Also harming the irony meters is the WSJ editorial page running an anti-pandemic-mitigation screed bemoaning the suffering of the arts under the restrictions. Yes, they’re all about supporting Off-Off-Broadway theater, the Whitney museum, Anthology Film Archives, CBGB…. Why, look at all the funds Wall Streeters generously donated to these cultural institutions to keep them afloat during the crisis when patrons wisely stayed home… Oh wait, that didn’t happen, and oodles of non-elite arts orgs went under, or are barely squeaking by after cutting back their programs.
SOP for these people: all gaslighting, all the time.
It’s worth noting that the WSJ editorial page is not a one-trick pony when it comes to dishonesty:
He didn’t address whether the banks that failed in the early 2000s also had the “too few white men” problem.
The WSJ editorial board has long been bad, but they’ve shifted to an entirely new level of bad: As Dorothy Parker would say:
Wasn’t Peter Thiel involved in this?
I think he was the first to withdraw all money from this bank.
https://www.newstatesman.com/quickfire/2023/03/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-hypocrisy-libertarian-tech-bros
Thiel stoked the fire by sending tweets that basically said “OMG all the banks are going to fail everyone get your money out now now now”, yes.
It’s interesting that the SVB doesn’t seem [based on current information] to have involved fraud: they invested heavily in t-bills with low interest rates, when rates went up they were caught, but they still had almost all of the money needed to cover things. There were some stupid moves, but the people at the top aren’t going to be reimbursed, so there is that. One reason helping the bank is important [and I’ll shut up after this] is the fact that it wasn’t just tech bros stashing money and startups putting seed money in the bank: lots of “regular people” had money in it, as well as several payroll service companies. For the latter, when the bank closed those payroll companies couldn’t access funds, and so the smaller companies they serviced were faced with not being able to make payroll.
@ Idw56old:
It seems that bank runs these days involve a lot less effort than old timey ones because customers can “withdraw” money without leaving their home. Also, isn’t crypto somehow involved in the US failures?
OBVIOUSLY, loons I survey ( NN, prn) are drumming up fear, uncertainty, doubt and advising putting savings/ investments in precious metals. Actually, Mike’s broadcast is sponsored by a….
precious metals sales company. The other advocates “intentional communities”/ farming/ off-the-grid living for which he sells seminars and may be possibly starting at his compound in Texas.
Players gotta play, scammers gotta scam.
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blockquote>Also, isn’t crypto somehow involved in the US failures?<?blockquote>
Silicon Valley Bank went down after people and businesses took $42 billion out in a short run. Earlier in the week bank leaders said they needed $4.25 billion to cover an on-hand cash shortfall [hence thiel’s asinine tweets of gloom and doom]. It had money from crypto-related startups but crypto wasn’t a major component.
Silvergate Capital and Signature [I think Signature was a good bit larger than Silvergate] were both strong lenders in the crypto world. I’m not sure about the extent to which that impacted them, but if I were to guess I’d guess that it played a big role [crypto currencies and related items are, IMO, just immensely speculative scams with huge, unavoidable, instability].
Veterans are now by definition non-white?
[checks skin tone] that’s news to me! haha
They were probably from the secret born female now LBGTQ aligning non white Special Forces unit tasked with infiltrating old white guy society. They were probably also left-handed, which increases the threat.
As an old white guy, I, for one, welcome our “born female now LBGTQ aligning non white ” overlords.
Speaking of fools who just want to party on, I wonder if Gabrielle Bauer has read Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death”?
OMG–how is she in any way qualified to do trials of any kind, let alone medical trials. She has no clue what evidence is or what constitutes scientific inquiry. It would be laughable if she didn’t have so much (supposed) academic visibility. Ugh!
In other news, I was at the drugstore (big chain) today picking up a prescription and saw some Ivermectin preparation for LICE. It was with the other lice treatments and not the homeopathy or supplements–but it gets harder to find any distinction every day. At least it looks as though someone made them take down the posters that were great promotional materials for getting Covid shots, but sadly were also promoting supplements for various “support” themes.
Ivermectin is in fact a useful treatment for head lice. In lotion form it has full FDA approval for treating head lice in persons over 6 months of age. The oral tablet form doesn’t have FDA approval for treating head lice, but its off-label use is endorsed by the CDC.
The disinformation about Ivermectin coming from the quacks who think it’s useful in treating Covid is far more prevalent and dangerous, but there is disinformation going in both directions. There are veterinary formulations of Ivermectin which are toxic to humans, and there have been cases of people taking veterinary Ivermectin, but dismissing Ivermectin as “horse medicine”, as some skeptics have done, is misleading at best. It’s a perfectly safe and highly effective treatment for parasitic worms in human beings. It’s also a safe and effective treatment for some other parasites, including head lice.
Throwing the water at people would only get them wet (though, of course, as it prevents them from getting actual treatment it can harm them).
Throwing sinks at them is dangerous.
Don’t give these people ideas, you know someone will start writing that throwing kitchen sinks is the next remedy for long COVID.
As Elon might say, ” Let that SINK in.”.
“The claim that the word ‘vaccine’ has been somehow ‘redefined’ in order to encompass mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines is, of course, a favorite conspiracy theory of antivaxxers.” Are you now redefining “redefined” so that a change in the dictionary definition doesn’t count? Unfortunately for you, the wayback machine still hasn’t been scrubbed. Let’s see what it reveals about the http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vaccine page, shall we?
October 13, 2019:
vaccine, noun:
“a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease”
March 15, 2023 (changed as of January 26, 2021):
vaccine, noun
1: “a preparation that is administered (as by injection) to stimulate the body’s immune response against a specific infectious agent or disease: such as
a: an antigenic preparation of a typically inactivated or attenuated (see ATTENUATED sense 2) pathogenic agent (such as a bacterium or virus) or one of its components or products (such as a protein or toxin)
b: a preparation of genetic material (such as a strand of synthesized messenger RNA) that is used by the cells of the body to produce an antigenic substance (such as a fragment of virus spike protein)
“Produce or increase immunity” is dropped as a requirement, and the definition has been extended so as to include gene therapy. Gee. I wonder what happened in early 2021 that might have prompted such a change. “Conspiracy theory?!” I think you’ve misspelled “news.”
The change is verifiable and indisputable. What makes you think you can get away with prevarication? And you wonder why the so-called “health” industry is losing credibility with the public.
I have a tent stake. I need to drive it into the ground. I have a small hammer. I have a large, flat rock. The rock is heavier. The rock will work better. I take some twine and fix the rock to a stick. I use the rock. I “hammered” the stake into the ground. The rock was used as a hammer. The stake was hammered into the ground.
Get it, now?
Best play ( inversion?) on “when all you have is a hammer……..” EVER!
Brava!
The “They changed the definition!!11!!!” wail is one of the most pathetic antivax arguments around. The definitions found in general purpose dictionaries weren’t change to accommodate the mRNA vaccines, they were changed because many of them were just plain bad.
The original “definition” cited is actually remarkably poor as a definition. It is mostly a description of how a vaccine might be made and was seriously out of date many years ago. “Produce or artificially increase” is pretty awful.
In a minimum of words I would define a vaccine as a substance administered to an animal [or other words more pleasing to sensitive humans who don’t like being called animals] to elicit an adaptive immune response without causing the targeted disease. I might go on to provide a bit of description of how a vaccine might be made, but I could comfortably quit without doing that.
The new definition cited is substantially better than the old but still fails to mention that the objective is to elicit an adaptive immune response that carries implications of “memory.” Just stirring up the innate immune system isn’t helpful, which is why methods of vaccination typically deliberately go past the intrinsic barriers and innate system. If the innate system cleans up the mess without the adaptive system getting involved virtually nothing of value has been accomplished.
Some people regard things like monoclonal antibodies as passive vaccines. I guess that’s OK but I don’t like it because I regard it as confusing the issue.
The latter definition includes all of the things included in the earlier definition. 5he diphtheria toxoid vaccine (not covered under the 2019 definition as they are not an organism, alive or dead) was first used in the 1920s. The 2019 definition has been outdated by nearly a century.
LOL. You are an idiot.
That Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of vaccines also does not apply to tetanus vaccine, made from modified toxoid. As of yet, antivax dingbats do not refer to tetanus “vaccine”. But that could be next.
I had started with the recombinant subunit vaccine for Hep B from the 1980s, moved back to the Pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine from 1945, to the tetanus toxoid vaccine from 1924. I believe the diphtheria toxoid vaccine was slightly earlier, but wasn’t widely used until the 1930s, because there was an existing AT treatment.
It just goes to show that vaccines have been made from bits from organisms for a very long time. Chaos Infusion appears to think this is some recent event that disqualifies mRNA being in vaccines.
If you want quackery…
FDA approved a COVID booster for 6-months to 2-year-olds yesterday. Based on the current CDC schedule, a 10-month-old baby could receive FOUR doses of mRNA Covid vaccine.
There is ZERO indications that “Covid vaccine” prevents Covid or “severe outcomes” in young kids. (yes I have links)
That’s quack vaccine science for you people
As soon as quacks are mentioned two of the biggest supporters of quackery come to demonstrate their lack of understanding. [Almost as if someone said “bullshit bullshit bullshit” into a mirror three times to summon them.]
I am very glad I will be gone for a few days, even if it is to a funeral, since it means I get to avoid the stupidity of chaos and igor.
Post them. I need some mental exercise.
Sure, here’s the link from June 15, 2022 Pfizer submission to the FDA asking to approve infant vaccines:
https://www.fda.gov/media/159195/download
Look at page 38.
Out of seven “severe cases”, six happened in the VACCINE GROUP, and only ONE happened in the PLACEBO group.
I feel sorry for the babies.
QUOTE:
Seven cases in participants 2-4 years of age met the criteria for severe COVID-19: 6 in the
BNT162b2 group, of which 2 cases occurred post unblinding, and 1 in the placebo group. All
cases occurred post Dose 2 (range 32-208 days post Dose 2), and none occurred post-Dose 3.
In the BNT162b2 group, 5 of the 6 cases met criteria for a severe case based on 1 criterion:
increased heart rate (n=2) or increased respiratory rate (n=3), all of which were considered by
the investigator as not clinically significant based on examination at the illness visit and
contributing circumstances such as the participant crying during examination. All cases occurred
post Dose 2 (range 32-208 days post Dose 2). The final severe COVID-19 case in a BNT162b2
recipient occurred 99 days post-Dose 2 in a 2-year-old participant who had increased
respiratory rate (RR), decreased SpO2 as severe case criteria and was hospitalized due to
COVID-19. The participant reported fever, new or increased cough, and new or increased
shortness of breath, with at least 1 symptom ongoing as of the last report. During the urgent
care visit, the participant had hypoxemia and was hospitalized with wheeze on lung
auscultation. BioFire testing was positive for parainfluenza virus 3, in addition to the positive
central laboratory COVID-19 result. The participant received oxygen via nasal canula, inhaled
salbutamol and oral steroids while hospitalized, then was discharged home 3 days later.
In the placebo group, a 2-year-old participant met severe criteria because of decreased SpO2
(88% on room air) with symptoms of new or increased cough and nasal congestion.
In your frenzy to cut and paste, “Igor”, you missed this part. From your own post:
“In the BNT162b2 group, 5 of the 6 cases met criteria for a severe case based on 1 criterion:
increased heart rate (n=2) or increased respiratory rate (n=3), all of which were considered by
the investigator as not clinically significant based on examination at the illness visit and
contributing circumstances such as the participant crying during examination.”
Wow, that’s severe. Not.
Who defines a “severe” Covid case as one in which the child cries during a medical exam? Dr. Demento?
Still waiting for “Igor”‘s response to previously linked clinical trial evidence showing Covid vaccines are effective in preventing infection and severe illness in children under five.
Yeah the second I read that I thought “Maybe these people have never examined a kid before?” glad Bacon caught that tidbit.
My MAs will often annotate the vitals with (crying) so that I don’t freak out seeing them before going into the room. You also don’t want that in the record without explanation.
I also immediately thought “Odd they mentioned HR/RR but nothing about a pulse ox.” That kind of says it all. Resp rate of 50 AND spO2 90%? Now we’re getting somewhere…
These situations are too easily abused by Igor types because the researchers and clinicians are being OVERLY generous and careful not the opposite. They wanted to be sure they didn’t miss any potential issue so they included a couple of vitals that ALWAYS require clinical correlation and are useless alone (e.g. – were these vitals transient? How is that defined? Were they rechecked, etc, etc.)
Mountains from molehills and all that…
They defined severe illness prior to the trial.
The kids met the definition and were severely ill (SpO2 = 88 for example, or elevated heart rate or labored breathing)
They likely expected that the unvaxed kids will be severely ill — but it was the vaxed ones.
At that point the Covid vaccine for infants should have been halted.
Then Pfizer tried to explain away their severe illness, with the corrupt FDA and YOU assisting them in their deception.
If my kid had SpO2 of 88, very elevated heart rate etc I would worry very much.
You missed this:
Preliminary descriptive efficacy analyses of COVID-19 cases occurring at least 7 days postDose 3 included 376 BNT162b2 recipients and 179 placebo recipients 6-23 months of age and
589 BNT162 recipients and 271 placebo recipients 2-4 years of age. In these analyses, three COVID-19 cases occurred in participants 6-23 months of age, with 1 COVID-19 case in the BNT162b2 group compared to 2 in the placebo group, corresponding to an estimated VE of 75.6% (95% CI: −369.1%, 99.6%), and 7 COVID-19 cases occurred in participants 2-4 years of age, with 2 cases in the BNT162b2 group and 5 in the placebo group, corresponding to an
estimated VE of 82.4% (95% CI: −7.6%, 98.3%). In a combined analysis of both age groups, VEwas 80.4% (95% CI: 14.1%, 96.7%)
So vaccine actually prevents COVID
Of course, you read just antivax links. FDAs basis is here:
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-authorizes-bivalent-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine-booster-dose
You should really share your links. From a lying lawyer, perhaps ?
Aarno, I posted a link to the Pfizer submission to the FDA in response to Julian Frost, I hope that my response will be approved.
Out of 7 “severe cases”, six happened in the Pfizer group and ONE happened in the placebo group.
You have have already been answered. Per your own citation, for starters, 3 severe cases were baby crying during examination.
There’s ZERO evidence that the bot calling itself “Igor Chudov” is truthful about the effectiveness of Covid vaccines in children under five.
https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/covid-19-vaccines-kids-under-5
@ Igor:
I just read some comments on your latest Substack article:
do you really think that you are educating these people? Or that you’re helping them in any way? Do not Orac and his regulars make you suspect that you may not be correct about vaccines in general? Do think that all of us are lying and misleading audiences? Being paid or suchlike?
Think about what Orac et al say… are we bad people, out to destroy babies and de-populate world? Or might it be that some of your sources are suspect? Look into your sources: who they are and how they might have MOs/ COIs.
Denice, not being sure whether my reply will be approved, I will keep it short.
You asked an excellent question: ==> “are we bad people, out to destroy babies and de-populate world”
My answer is that good people sometimes do bad things. For example, not knowing your personal life, you can be a great person to your loved ones or your pets, and yet you could be supporting some things that are evil and bad for the humanity.
In this specific case, the Covid vaccines for children and young people represent evil and anyone supporting them is supporting evil. This is a judgment of Covid vaccine, not of you as a human.
(Covid vaccines for children are banned in many European countries)
Whether YOU are evil for supporting evil depends on your intention, your state of mind, which we cannot know. For example, if you promote Covid vaccines while being paid to do so, that would make you evil in my opinion. If you are sincerely mistaken about Covid vaccine’s value for children, then you possibly are not evil but simply a mistaken individual.
In any case, you definitely do not get any brownie points for supporting the evil Covid vaccine for kids. Again, as a human being, you can be a good person who is mistaken.
You do, however, have a responsibility to question things that you are promoting. I do question things that I am promoting and I do not promote ideas that I know to be false, even if I could make money doing so.
Make sure that you also question things that you support – you carry a responsibility, as a thinking human, to not mindlessly lead people astray.
Covid vaccines for children are not allowed in many European countries.
“Make sure that you also question things that you support – you carry a responsibility, as a thinking human, to not mindlessly lead people astray.”
True.
“Covid vaccines for children are not allowed in many European countries.”
Have you thought why? Is it a medical harm issue? Or a risk/benefit calculation? Are you sure that those calculations use the same variables as in the US? I bet you arent. Are the cultures in question identical to the US? I bet they aren’t.
Of course, on top of that, there is a difference between saying “we calculate this is safe”, “we recommend this” and “you must do this or you will be punished”.
COVID vaccines for children presents evil ? You have ZERO evidence for that.
You just destroyed my irony meter.
@ Igor:
I’ll rephrase:
do you honestly think that Orac & Co, who are incredibly skilled at digging into research would easily miss evidence of the wanton, wholesale destruction of babies by vaccines? These doctors, scientists and educated people regularly comb the net for data and evidence of harm and news worldwide.
Where do you get these ideas? Who are your sources?
Anti-vax material broadly emanates from two groups :
— doctors/ scientists who depart from consensus
— natural health providers and contrarians
I’ll leave the first group to Orac who discusses them in great detail;
I have studied the second group for many years.
By and large, they consist of non-professionals/ professionals in irrelevant fields who attract attention by seeding fear and doubt in their audiences. Usually they sell products that compete with SBM meds/ vaccines such as supplements and health foods;
in addition, some of them branch out into politics, psychology and economics. They sell “educational ” material ( books, films, seminars, Substack) as well as themselves. They earn money, a few rake in fortunes, including through their “charities”. Some benefit psychologically from fame and “discovering” an external cause for their children’s disabilities.
Who are they? As I’ve written before, the lot haven’t as much life science education as I have so I can easily tell when they are distorting information and misleading people. When Wakefield’s infamous study came out I knew it was off because it didn’t fit in with the bulk of research about brain development/ autism that I had already studied. He was found out as a fraud and in the 25 years since his study, a confluence of evidence across several areas of inquiry increasingly has shown why he couldn’t be right ( in short, autism originates prenatally).
Some of the greatest spreaders of misinformation have little or no background in relevant science: neurology, vaccinology, developmental psychology, virology etc as well as medicine, statistics and biology. Their average follower probably doesn’t have enough understanding to spot their distortions and misguidance as well as how they manipulate emotions by “revealing” how the public has been fooled by experts/ government/ media/ corporations. As they blithely manipulate their audiences with misinformation.
Psychologists like Douglas and Hornsby have shown that particular personality profiles are more likely to accept anti-vax and conspiracies in general: they are more suspicious, less accepting of hierarchies of expertise, self concerned and believe that they are special- not common. I imagine this describes their leaders as well.
One of their usual invocations encourages followers to distrust ALL experts and rely upon them only.
-btw- my opinion about children and vaccines counts little as I don’t advise them.
Denice, you have a good point about well educated doctors, scientists etc. Your reverence and respect for for degrees is understandable. I still trust doctors when it comes, for example, to getting surgery for a broken foot. I would not want a natural healer to operate on my broken foot. (even though I used comfrey grass to great success when the bone would not heal after surgery)
But in case of Covid vaccines, any trust given to these degreed and credentialed people is totally unwarranted.
Let me give you an example:
Just like in the US, the UK had its share of respectable well paid doctors, well known scientists receiving large grants, famed public figures advocating for Covid vaccines with the aura of authority, TV presenters urging everyone to ignore antivaxxers, and so on.
That all ended ignominiously, with Covid boosters no longer given to anybody in the UK since February of 2023. Lip service is given to “autumn boosters”, but in my opinion it is empty talk.
Covid vaccines came to an end in the UK.
The talk is now about investigations and retributions, Matt Hancock files etc.
This article from Bill Gates-sponsored The Conversation complains about that but describes the UK situation accurately: “COVID vaccines: why the UK needs to rethink its decision to stop boosters for young and healthy people”. Check it out.
The US, unfortunately, has crazy press and crazy federal government. People are no longer vaccinating but the public policy makers are not noticing that. The FDA approved the fourth booster for INFANTS, to be given TWO MONTHS after the primary series, with total blindness as to how ridiculous they look.
As a long-term science educator, I have to confess that the term “pedagogic science” completely stumps me.
@Igor Chudov
“If you want quackery…
FDA approved a COVID booster for 6-months to 2-year-olds yesterday. Based on the current CDC schedule, a 10-month-old baby could receive FOUR doses of mRNA Covid vaccine.
There is ZERO indications that “Covid vaccine” prevents Covid or “severe outcomes” in young kids. (yes I have links)
That’s quack vaccine science for you people”
One would expect those Orac minions here learned some wise lessons meanwhile and stopped ridiculing themselves here.
There’s people that are easily fooled and there’s people that ask for lies.
It’s amusing to me how you all have shifted to “But think of the poor children!!” it’s reeks of qAnon.
I have a pet theory that the people who jump on these “Save the babies” crusades were crap parents to their own kids and it’s a complex form of actualized self-loathing and guilt.
If parents don’t want to give their kids covid vaccines? I don’t argue. They’re here if they want them. Don’t want them? I don’t care because I have seventy other things that are more important in that 15 minute visit to cover. Increasingly, one of those things is childhood obesity.
Hell, even our one overworked, strung-out pediatrician in the area quit arguing. If they are immune compromised, have asthma, etc, etc, maybe they get a small speech from me. Those parents usually jump on every vaccine because they have watched their child nearly die many times and have no desire to take that risk again so those convos are vanishingly rare.
Is there some nefarious, mass vaccination campaign afoot to assault every little kid with four doses before he/she can walk? Not in my neck of the woods.
“and there’s people that ask for lies”
Is that a glimmer of self awareness?
You will notice that minions actually read Igor Chudov’s links. He just dooes not understand anything does not want to learn anything, definition of a fool.
@Denice Walter
“Do not Orac and his regulars make you suspect that you may not be correct about vaccines in general? Do think that all of us are lying and misleading audiences? Being paid or suchlike?
Think about what Orac et al say… are we bad people, out to destroy babies and de-populate world? Or might it be that some of your sources are suspect? Look into your sources: who they are and how they might have MOs/ COIs.”
There are different kinds of lies; white lies, lies by omission, mistake, denial, minimization, lies of exeggeration and deceit, deliberate and compulsive lies, self-deception and a couple more.
The thing is, Denice, they’re all lies. No matter the reason: lies harm. One such lie is injecting babies mRNA vaccines out of necessity.
Harm, no benefit – except of some dirty profit. Perhaps it’s time to clap to a different beat.
You’re not necessarily bad people. You are, however, very wrong and that very wrongness is causing harm.
See the difference?
“There are different kinds of lies; white lies, lies by omission, mistake, denial, minimization, lies of exeggeration and deceit, deliberate and compulsive lies, self-deception and a couple more.”
Wow, the projection is strong today.
While a good start, Lucas’ list hardly scratches the surface of lies in the antivax repertoire. For instance, he left out the most important ones: bold-faced lies and pathological lying.
Or are those the “couple more” you allude to?
Credit where credit’s due, Lucas.
re “.. they’re all lies”
If you regard information from standard sources like governmental agencies, medical associations, universities, research journals and the media worldwide to be lies as many anti-vaxxers often do
then, whose information do you believe to be valid?
Do you trust RFK jr? Or Mike Adams? Gary Null? Del Bigtree? CCDH ( counterhate.com) lists major vaccine mis-informers and Substack millionaires.
From those I observe, I can summarise that they frequently mislead and misquote research as well as omitting information that is essential.
As mentioned previously, anyone who buys into Wakefield’s ideas about vaccines at age 12-18 months causing autism is automatically ill informed because the parts of the brain that are implicated in autism develop prior to birth: in people with autism, architecture of the PFC is very different than that of average people- cells are smaller, mis-aligned, poorly connected /other regions are implicated too.
Researchers know this from animal studies, autopsies, abortions/ still births, imaging, brain wave studies, studies of drugs, infection and poisoning during gestation, genetics, physiognomy and trained observation of very young infants. Autism doesn’t happen at age 1-2: it was already there.
Much of anti-vax rests upon Wakefield’s capture of parental fear and contrarian imagination. Vaccines were viewed as dangerous and destructive and opportunists capitalised on their audiences’ fear and lack of knowledge to perpetuate other myths about vaccine “damage”.
I do NOT trust many antivaxxers (who I will not name). Some make up stuff to make money and some are outright unhinged.
However, I do trust Del Bigtree and RFK Jr. Del Bigtree almost died when he refused vaccinated blood transplant after his hemorrhoid surgery. Possibly the owner of this blog alluded to that story. This means that Del sincerely believes in his own ideas.
A lot of “sincere” antivaxers haven’t been as lucky as Del.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-star-cirsten-weldon-who-said-only-idiots-get-vaccinated-dies-of-covid
@ Igor:
You may trust that they believe in what they promote but that doesn’t make it true.
They both cavalierly disseminate misinformation that could harm people. They don’t have the ability to separate fact from fiction and research from speculation.
Del’s mistaken beliefs could have cost him his life- he feared vaccinated blood when he was bleeding to death. He even reported his symptoms and results of blood tests: he was in real trouble.
Where you get the idea that COVID vaccines for children have no benefit ? They prevent most infections. Read Igor Chudov’s link.
@Denice Walter
“OBVIOUSLY, loons I survey ( NN, prn) are drumming up fear, uncertainty, doubt and advising putting savings/ investments in precious metals. Actually, Mike’s broadcast is sponsored by a…. precious metals sales company.”
Your choice to survey loons of course, but actually you should put your wealth (let’s say 15% of it) in precious metals. You’d be a fool (or prophet) not to.
And pray you’ll never make any profit on it.
Had you done that a long time ago, you would have found out it had been a hedge against inflation without much risk. Same goes for the future.
Dear Lucas,
I grew up in a business oriented family where my father and uncles discussed investment as long as I could remember. They studied commodities, stocks, bonds and real estate. My grandmother owned land and several buildings on her own and distributed them to her children when she was over 80. As a student I inherited a commercial property from another relative that I rented out and managed for 20 years, investing the proceeds in a diversified portfolio.
You’re not talking to a group of rubes at RI.
@MedicalYeti
“It’s amusing to me how you all have shifted to “But think of the poor children!!” it’s reeks of qAnon.
I have a pet theory that the people who jump on these “Save the babies” crusades were crap parents to their own kids and it’s a complex form of actualized self-loathing and guilt.
If parents don’t want to give their kids covid vaccines? I don’t argue. They’re here if they want them. Don’t want them? I don’t care because I have seventy other things that are more important in that 15 minute visit to cover. Increasingly, one of those things is childhood obesity.
Hell, even our one overworked, strung-out pediatrician in the area quit arguing. If they are immune compromised, have asthma, etc, etc, maybe they get a small speech from me. Those parents usually jump on every vaccine because they have watched their child nearly die many times and have no desire to take that risk again so those convos are vanishingly rare.
Is there some nefarious, mass vaccination campaign afoot to assault every little kid with four doses before he/she can walk? Not in my neck of the woods.”
If you quit stuffing up your kids with shit they don’t need, they were obese nor vaxxed.
You said it yourself: you’ve got “more important things to cover”.
I don’t understand your reply. Are you suggesting that vaccines are making kids obese? That’s a new one
Actually, it’s not. RFK Jr. has been beating the drum that vaccines supposedly contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic for several years now in his “sickest generation” blather.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2019/08/12/sickest-generation/
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2020/03/02/vaccines-did-not-cause-obesity-epidemic/
Oh joy. Next it’ll be “vaccines are turning everyone gay” or have they already made it there?
@Denice Walter
“Some of the greatest spreaders of misinformation have little or no background in relevant science”
Really? “Take your vaccine and you won’t get sick”, take it and you “prevent transmission” (even save granny), take it, “it’s safe and effective”, take it “so we can reach herd immunity”, take it and “become a dead end for the virus”, take it because “vaccinated people do not carry the virus”.
Ultimately the greatest misinformation I’ve heard of and the spreaders did have a background in relevant science.
Please explain why some smart people recognized the BS from the moment it was launched, while you still seem to believe these quacks.
No one ever said that vaccines work perfectly but they reduce infection, transmission and serious outcomes. Places with higher vaccine rates had less hospitalisation and death.
@Denice Walter
“Psychologists like Douglas and Hornsby have shown that particular personality profiles are more likely to accept anti-vax and conspiracies in general: they are more suspicious”.
Isn’t that a skill?
They don’t mean it in a good way. They’re not talking about abilities but lacks.
“Isn’t that a skill?”
“You think we are not smart. We are smart.”
– Grebnedlog, 2365
@Denice Walter
“If you regard information from standard sources like governmental agencies, medical associations, universities, research journals and the media worldwide to be lies as many anti-vaxxers often do then, whose information do you believe to be valid?”
For what reason do you present me a choice?
Am I defending “anti-vaxxers”?
Denice, you’ve got a lot to learn about the inverse relation of money and integrity. Your country is corrupt.
Why don’t you start your journey tracking David Gorski, perhaps a bell might ring.
Every country and profession has corruption. And love of money can incite wrongdoing.
Because I survey alt med/ anti-vax, I know that their business model is based upon misleading people and selling largely ineffective products as they scare people away from more effective, tested therapies. Many of them have become wealthy and live on estates. Easy to find images on the net. Mercola, Null, Wakefield, Oz.
Dr DG has been “investigated” by one of the biggest liars and misleading “educators” in the English speaking world, Mike Adams. In fact, Orac himself has written about it in detail. Easy to find on RI.
One of my foci has been how alt med/ anti-vaxxers react to our revelations about them: one has spent countless hours writing 60 or more articles about Wikipedia because it tells the truth about his activities and background. They pad resumes, invent careers and mislead people who spend hard earned money on their products, books, films, etc. They even sue accurate reporters. The suits don’t get anywhere. See Gary Null, Andrew Wakefield.
@Denice Walter
“As mentioned previously, anyone who buys into Wakefield’s ideas about vaccines at age 12-18 months causing autism is automatically ill informed because the parts of the brain that are implicated in autism develop prior to birth: in people with autism, architecture of the PFC is very different than that of average people- cells are smaller, mis-aligned, poorly connected /other regions are implicated too.
Researchers know this from animal studies, autopsies, abortions/ still births, imaging, brain wave studies, studies of drugs, infection and poisoning during gestation, genetics, physiognomy and trained observation of very young infants. Autism doesn’t happen at age 1-2: it was already there.
Much of anti-vax rests upon Wakefield’s capture of parental fear and contrarian imagination. Vaccines were viewed as dangerous and destructive and opportunists capitalised on their audiences’ fear and lack of knowledge to perpetuate other myths about vaccine “damage”.”
I haven’t expressed any opinion on Wakefield or autism, Denice.
But what you say is nevertheless interesting; last week I had a conversation with a friend I had not seen in many years. I knew she got a baby boy back then, he’s now 18 y/o. She told me about his (severe) autism. Later at home I had a discussion on the topic and did some reading on the subject. I found a graph that showed a substantial increase in autism in the population (period 1970 – 2022). Suppose this increase is real, while you say “it was already there” (I guess you mean at the conception), for what reason the increase?
I read about low maternal melatonin level, but that doesn’t make much sense to explain the supposed increase.
Interestingly, it’s not as though I haven’t written a number of times over the years about the reasons for the apparent increase in autism prevalence. A few examples:
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2018/05/07/autism-prevalence-increases-antivaxers-blame-vaccines/
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2017/01/25/another-reminder-that-there-is-no-autism-epidemic/
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2014/03/31/the-antivaccine-movement-resurrects-the-zombie-2014/
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2013/03/22/autism-prevalence-is-reported-to-be-1-in-50/
Gee, these posts go back ten years, namely because the antivax lie that there is an “autism tsunami” because of the expansion of the recommended childhood vaccine schedule in the 1990s goes way, way back, but it’s been five years since I last updated the discussion. (Hint: Nothing much has changed in antivax rhetoric.) The bottom line is: A combination of broadening the diagnostic criteria in the 1990s, increased awareness, screening for the condition, and greater access to services led to a lot of previously undiagnosed autism getting an autism diagnosis. It has nothing to do with vaccines.
@ Orac:
It seems as though anti-vaxxers have sure got a lot of mileage out of that chart/ figure showing that autism “increased” from 1 in10,000 to 1 in 50 or whatever they’re claiming. One of their biggest propaganda weapons.
It would be nice if someone could illustrate the true situation graphically or numerically – e.g. parts due to diagnostic expansion, dx substitution, inclusion of HFA, screening.
@ Lucas:
All of anti-vax was enabled by Wakefield’s activities although it existed since the first vaccine in the 19th Century. He achieved celebrity status first in the UK when the press enabled his rise and acquired a group of followers who spread his misinformation through the internet and later, social media.
The research I mention derives from studies in a diverse array of fields has been accumulating for more than 40 years which means that Wakefield- as a physician and researcher- must have been aware of at least some of it. Yet he was engaged by lawyers who represented parents who believed that their children were harmed by vaccines. He was paid well and imagined great profit from a new vaccine he would develop.
Research by Courchesne, Ozonoff, Lein, Aldridge show prenatal origins of autism since at least 1980.
Orac discusses the expansion of diagnostic criteria/ diagnostic substitution and other factors BUT I must add that activists on the net certainly helped spread misinformation. Many of the “new” cases were not the most affected but from the other end of the spectrum.
@Dangerous Bacon
“There are different kinds of lies; white lies, lies by omission, mistake, denial, minimization, lies of exeggeration and deceit, deliberate and compulsive lies, self-deception and a couple more.”
Wow, the projection is strong today.
While a good start, Lucas’ list hardly scratches the surface of lies in the antivax repertoire. For instance, he left out the most important ones: bold-faced lies and pathological lying.
Or are those the “couple more” you allude to?
Credit where credit’s due, Lucas.”
The “bold-faced lies and pathological lying” only relates to you and were therefore not relevant to mention, just as “the lies in the antivax repertoire” had no relevance. Blabla. Thanks for the credit anyway.
@Denice Walter
“I grew up in a business oriented family where my father and uncles discussed investment as long as I could remember. They studied commodities, stocks, bonds and real estate. My grandmother owned land and several buildings on her own and distributed them to her children when she was over 80. As a student I inherited a commercial property from another relative that I rented out and managed for 20 years, investing the proceeds in a diversified portfolio.
You’re not talking to a group of rubes at RI.”
Which makes me wonder even more you haven’t invested a part of your wealth in precious metals. But who knows you can teach me on sound investments.
Yeah yeah, all these people discussing investments. In the end the results are mediocre at best. Not that I give advice on investments, but had you been tracking securely what I said about the subject here at this forum, you could have ended up extremely rich.
Btw, wise to have invested the proceeds. Hopefully your timing was right.
Oh, I love precious metal scammers. They are the funniest people on Earth. Everything they say can be summarized as “Gold and silver are the only valuable things – paper money is worthless. Please give me paper money and I’ll give you gold and silver (or a piece of paper saying that you own some gold or silver”
@NumberWang
“Isn’t that a skill?”
“You think we are not smart. We are smart.”
Who told you so?
“You think we are not smart. We are smart.”
– Grebnedlog, 2365
I guess you’ve never been a Star Trek watcher. It’s a somewhat disparaging analogy (?) of anti-vaxxers. The Pakled often think they are being clever whilst being the opposite. It’s a bit unfair though. Anti-vaxxers aren’t stupid people, just unable to imagine a world where their ‘common sense’ isn’t the same thing as ‘scientific insight’.
You only have to look at flat earthers and young earth creationists to see this in action. They, unfortunately, cannot critique their own beliefs in the light of the incredible detail and evidence that proves them totally wrong. I’m sure they also think they have the ‘skill’ to see through all those governmental lies.
@Denice Walter
“No one ever said that vaccines work perfectly but they reduce infection, transmission and serious outcomes. Places with higher vaccine rates had less hospitalisation and death.”
I guessed that would be all you’d say as a defense. Poor.
No Denice, you have been lied to and tricked into a health intervention you didn’t need; assuming you took the jab, you’re not that old or suffer from certain medical conditions. Stupid.
Indeed no one has said that vaccines work perfectly. Your scientists just said “take your vaccine and you won’t get sick”, take it and you “prevent transmission” (even save granny), take it, “it’s safe and effective”, take it “so we can reach herd immunity”, take it and “become a dead end for the virus”, take it because “vaccinated people do not carry the virus”. Like I said, all lies for a corrupt goal.
Indeed, for a while higher vaccine rates showed less hospitalisation and death, reason to possibly take the jab in case of frailty. All we had to do is protect the vulnerable and let society continue. Now the damage is undescribable.
Yet that seems to be the straw man that antivaxxers like you always attack when invoking the “transmission” gambit, along with a Nirvana fallacy in which anything less than perfect prevention of transmission is described as “doesn’t prevent transmission” at all!
@Denice Walter
“And love of money can incite wrongdoing.”
Doesn’t that sound like the Bible (1 Timothy 6:10)?
It certainly applies to the quacks that you lionize at least as much as big pharma, if not even more.
@Denice Walter
“Because I survey alt med/ anti-vax, I know that their business model is based upon misleading people and selling largely ineffective products as they scare people away from more effective, tested therapies. Many of them have become wealthy and live on estates. Easy to find images on the net. Mercola, Null, Wakefield, Oz.”
Dr DG has been “investigated” by one of the biggest liars and misleading “educators” in the English speaking world, Mike Adams. In fact, Orac himself has written about it in detail. Easy to find on RI.
One of my foci has been how alt med/ anti-vaxxers react to our revelations about them: one has spent countless hours writing 60 or more articles about Wikipedia because it tells the truth about his activities and background. They pad resumes, invent careers and mislead people who spend hard earned money on their products, books, films, etc. They even sue accurate reporters. The suits don’t get anywhere. See Gary Null, Andrew Wakefield.”
Add regular med to your survey list. Sure you’ll find scum that’s much worse.
Denice, I’m not into anyone, ‘antivaxxers’ (whatever this rediculous expression may contain) included. But it sure seems that you look at antivaxxers as crooks, while in the regular medical field you’re not likely to trip over such people. Don’t make me laugh.
Almost every physician is willing to lie under pressure of loosing his or her job, falsify data or even cooperate in ending a life, if that’s the course of the hospital they work for.
And now you pretend to be the saint denouncing the misdeeds of antivaxxers???
“ Almost every physician is willing to lie under pressure of loosing (sic) his or her job, falsify data or even cooperate in ending a life, if that’s the course of the hospital they work for.”
No. Now we are not. I took an oath and it wasn’t to a hospital. I can find 20 new jobs tomorrow but I could never get my integrity back. You really live in a fantasy world, don’t you?
“Almost every physician is willing to lie under pressure of loosing his or her job, falsify data or even cooperate in ending a life, if that’s the course of the hospital they work for.”
Well, you can hardly claim that doctors are more corrupt than any other human being. So I guess you’re also willing to lie, cheat and murder in the name of keeping your job?
@ Lucas:
Physicians and other HCW are monitored by legal systems that regulate how they behave/ treat patients. In the US, UK, AUS and other countries, doctors can lose their license/ licence if they don’t follow accepted procedures. In certain places ( California) dispensing mis-information alone can get them into
trouble. Andy Wakefield got struck off for his actions. Meryl Nass has been investigated recently. They don’t need me.
Alt med practitioners/ anti-vax “informers” are not subject to any obvious rules. They operate in a Wild West, often masquerading as medical experts and ( mis) guiding patients away from standard medical care and substituting supplements, herbal formulae, special diets, exercise programmes etc that are without peer reviewed research to support their usage. Some use scare tactics to frighten patients away from vaccines, meds or other procedures resting upon adversarial advertising techniques to entrance their followers.
The alt med prevaricators I follow discourage medical care and substitute alternatives that they sell such as “pure” foods and supplements instead of vaccines. Often, they post legalese disclaimers on their websites that tells followers that this is “not medical advice, speak to your doctor” as they simultaneously ( wink wink) instruct them to disregard physicians and their advice.
There is an entire, mutually enabling ecosystem of alt med and anti-vax which has existed for decades but has strengthened recently: they discourage experts in medicine, governmental agencies and universities as a matter of course and substitute themselves. As I’ve listed, many of their superstars have NO actual background in biology, medicine, psychology or most of the topics they discuss and advise followers in. They get followers by misrepresenting who they are. Some raise money through their “charities” to “educate” the public and oppose SBM through law suits.
Of course, people harmed by them can sue but that is a rather difficult proposition because they disregarded medical advice of their own free will as adults. They might also be embarrassed to discuss how they were duped by charlatans. The internet is rife with mis-informational websites, books, films and instruction manuals that earn their producers money. In some cases, millions of dollars, pounds or euros.
@ Lucas:
Let me conclude our conversation with a simple illustration:
Mike Adams, an expert liar, wrote many articles about Orac, claiming he was a criminal in league with a doctor** who was found by authorities to have harmed patients and was punished appropriately.
He wanted to sully Orac’s reputation because he wrote about Adams’ shady business/ lies/ misguidance.
Adams was not disciplined by any organisation or court. If Orac wanted to sue, he could but it would cost a great deal of money.
Orac’s recourse was writing about Adams’ articles. All of the details are available at RI which you can read. See search fx
I could give other examples of alt med people attacking realistic sources but I have other work. See Wikipedia topics on RI for a start.
** Orac had no professional connection to this guy except that he worked nearby in the same city.
“Almost every physician is willing to lie under pressure of loosing his or her job, falsify data or even cooperate in ending a life, if that’s the course of the hospital they work for.”
Of all the dumbest things you’ve posted, this ranks close to the top.
Try searching under “physicians sues hospital” to come up with loads of cases where docs go after the hospitals where they work(ed) over allegations of improper care, unfair competition, alleged retaliation for whistleblowing etc.
The idea that physicians would set themselves up for patient lawsuits and criminal prosecution to protect hospitals is beyond bizarre.
MDs change hospital affiliations all the time. Your image of hospital administrators as all-powerful Mafiosos pulling docs’ strings is laughable.
@MedicalYeti
“If you quit stuffing up your kids with shit they don’t need, they were obese nor vaxxed.
You said it yourself: you’ve got “more important things to cover”.
“I don’t understand your reply. Are you suggesting that vaccines are making kids obese? That’s a new one””
Sure you understand.
I understand that you’re just regurgitating standard antivax disinformation.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2020/03/02/vaccines-did-not-cause-obesity-epidemic/
@Orac
“Interestingly, it’s not as though I haven’t written a number of times over the years about the reasons for the apparent increase in autism prevalence. A few examples:”
Thanks, will look into it. Not to start a discussion, though.
“Gee, these posts go back ten years, namely because the antivax lie that there is an “autism tsunami” because of the expansion of the recommended childhood vaccine schedule in the 1990s goes way, way back, but it’s been five years since I last updated the discussion. (Hint: Nothing much has changed in antivax rhetoric.) The bottom line is: A combination of broadening the diagnostic criteria in the 1990s, increased awareness, screening for the condition, and greater access to services led to a lot of previously undiagnosed autism getting an autism diagnosis. It has nothing to do with vaccines.”
Never said it had anything to do with vaccines. It’s just that children with deviant behaviour seem to be more present now, claimed highly gifted as usual. Perhaps a result of more individualism then before? Likely to normalise at older age and not so gifted as supposed.
“Deviant behavior”? Autism is “deviant behavior”? I think that tells me all I need to know about you, none of it good.
@Orac
““Deviant behavior”? Autism is “deviant behavior”? I think that tells me all I need to know about you, none of it good.”
That’s the disadvantage of English not being a native tongue. ‘Afwijkend gedrag’ (Dutch) translated literally would be deviant behaviour; I ment to say something like behavior that is in some ways different.
Btw thanks for rushing to conclusions. I think that tells me all I need to know about you.
@Orac
“I understand that you’re just regurgitating standard antivax disinformation.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2020/03/02/vaccines-did-not-cause-obesity-epidemic/”
Aren’t you tiring. And completely obsessed about ‘antivax’ and ‘disinformation’.
Why don’t you relax and improve reading comprehension. I repeat the original phrase for you: “If you quit stuffing up your kids with shit they don’t need, they were obese nor vaxxed.”
You will remember that I responded to Medical Yeti who said: “Increasingly, one of those things is childhood obesity.” Medical Yeti did not imply that the cause of childhood obesity is vaccination, did he? No, it goes without saying that he ment that typical American junkfood is the underlying cause. So when you then read my line, how can you conclude that I’m “just regurgitating standard antivax disinformation”? It makes no sense.
The “shit they don’t need” of course is junkfood (for the obese part) and mRNA vaccination (concerning other health aspects). Children in general are better off without both, so “quit stuffing them up with it”.
@Denice Walter
“Physicians and other HCW are monitored by legal systems that regulate how they behave/ treat patients. In the US, UK, AUS and other countries, doctors can lose their license/ licence if they don’t follow accepted procedures. In certain places ( California) dispensing mis-information alone can get them into trouble. Andy Wakefield got struck off for his actions. Meryl Nass has been investigated recently. They don’t need me.”
‘They’ may not need you there, but you are needed there more then anywhere else, Denice.
Problem especially in the regular medical sector is that a legitimate appeal to legal systems is so often prevented by fraudulent behavior of physicians and lawyers; simply put: they omit and falsify when necessary (and possible) to avoid bad publicity and claims.
In reality a lot goes wrong in hospitals because of not following procedures, of inexperience, malpraxis, indifference; often a lack of time, of cooperation, of stupidity and of empathy / humanity lie at the root.
However, giving proof as a patient in case of harm is a different story; basically it means that you step in a medical environment like a lawyer, recording almost everything, often survey your medical record, read yourself in, etcetera.
“Alt med practitioners/ anti-vax “informers” are not subject to any obvious rules. They operate in a Wild West, often masquerading as medical experts and ( mis) guiding patients away from standard medical care and substituting supplements, herbal formulae, special diets, exercise programmes etc that are without peer reviewed research to support their usage. Some use scare tactics to frighten patients away from vaccines, meds or other procedures resting upon adversarial advertising techniques to entrance their followers.”
Sure these things occur, but most alt med practitioners are wise enough to refer to a physician when necessary. They often try to find out underlying reasons for problems, like an unhealthy lifestyle, your workplace, traumas and the like, which can be added value. Most physicians don’t interfere with that.
“The alt med prevaricators I follow discourage medical care and substitute alternatives that they sell such as “pure” foods and supplements instead of vaccines. Often, they post legalese disclaimers on their websites that tells followers that this is “not medical advice, speak to your doctor” as they simultaneously ( wink wink) instruct them to disregard physicians and their advice.”
I wouldn’t know, as this is certainly not the situation in The Netherlands.
“There is an entire, mutually enabling ecosystem of alt med and anti-vax which has existed for decades but has strengthened recently: they discourage experts in medicine, governmental agencies and universities as a matter of course and substitute themselves. As I’ve listed, many of their superstars have NO actual background in biology, medicine, psychology or most of the topics they discuss and advise followers in. They get followers by misrepresenting who they are. Some raise money through their “charities” to “educate” the public and oppose SBM through law suits.”
May be so, still the damage done by the regular circuit far exceeds it. And in general no one is held accountable there. Why don’t you shift your focus if it’s your wish to serve the public? Much more difficult and demanding I’m sure then haunting some homeopath quacks.
And please stop using the word ‘anti-vax’ if you just mean someone sees risk without use in mRNA vaccination for himself. Makes no sense at all.
“Of course, people harmed by them can sue but that is a rather difficult proposition because they disregarded medical advice of their own free will as adults. They might also be embarrassed to discuss how they were duped by charlatans. The internet is rife with mis-informational websites, books, films and instruction manuals that earn their producers money. In some cases, millions of dollars, pounds or euros.”
Perhaps all true in your country, but like I said before: I’m not denying this, so no need to convince me.
There is fraud at many places; but when your health is directly duped it is most distressing. The charlatans you describe are generally not responsible for such harm with a few exceptions here and there. And while nothing is black or white, in my perception they did a good job warning people (if so, I wouldn’t know) for the possible harm of mRNA vaccination, which is not necessary if not frail and in good health without underlying conditions. That people have been lied into taking these vaccines, while needless for them is criminal.
“There is fraud at many places; but when your health is directly duped it is most distressing. The charlatans you describe are generally not responsible for such harm with a few exceptions here and there.”
Charlatans and earnest but useless alt med practitioners by definition do not offer any health benefits to their victims. Therefore, the harm they do is a net minus to society.
Legitimate, evidence-based practitioners
help the great majority of patients, as is obvious to anyone paying attention. Even when you add in cases where treatment is ineffective, mistakes or bad actors, the overall outcome is a large net positive.
That you can’t or won’t acknowledge this reflects a severe critical thinking deficiency, being delusional or that you enjoy being a troll.
“They often try to find out underlying reasons for problems, like an unhealthy lifestyle, your workplace, traumas and the like, which can be added value. Most physicians don’t interfere with that.”
People like you keep repeating this theme and it is pure, insulting, unadulterated BULLSHIT. I spend a helluva lot of time working with patients on these issues DAILY. We have an expert dietician, social services, and dozens of other allied health professionals working with us to maximize interventions that are patient-centric. I can’t go home with patients and slap the ice cream or cigarettes out of their mouthes.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither do the other bozos who come here and make similar claims. You all come here and repeat the same tired, baseless claims and telling you people you don’t know what you are talking about is becoming tedious.
@Orac
“Yet that seems to be the straw man that antivaxxers like you always attack when invoking the “transmission” gambit, along with a Nirvana fallacy in which anything less than perfect prevention of transmission is described as “doesn’t prevent transmission” at all!”
Better call me an antinonsensist.
Doesn’t “less than perfect transmission” equal “doesn’t prevent transmission” at all” if in the end transmission happens to everyone?
No, it does not. But thanks for demonstrating my point about antivax black and white concretely thinking for me yet again.
Between everybody was infected and nobody was infected is somebody
was infected. Simple, is it no ?
@Orac
“It certainly applies to the quacks that you lionize at least as much as big pharma, if not even more.”
I’m Dutch, I don’t lionize oversees quacks, nor any other.
Given your comments, you could’ve fooled me.
@NumberWang
“Well, you can hardly claim that doctors are more corrupt than any other human being. So I guess you’re also willing to lie, cheat and murder in the name of keeping your job?”
It is human nature to cover up when things go wrong and it happens a lot everywhere (even in a relation). However, in many jobs this is impossible, more difficult or the consequences simply matter less, which makes a cover up less ‘necessary’. And of course you need at least some intelligence f.e. in order to avoid loose ends; doctors don’t lack that in general.
The question is where malpraxis hurts most and is more easily done. That’s in the medical field.
What I would do under certain conditions is not really relevant; difficult to foresee the future, but looking back you’re wrong. I did loose my job because of integrity.
When I was young my employer (government) asked me to manipulate numbers (a.o. double counting) in order to realise a new incinerator for one of the provinces here; these things cost about a billion back then and the interests (profits) were high. Another incinerator in the province (Amsterdam) was already being constructed with a lot of hidden capacity (hidden due to a lack of integrity from the administrators of that city). The rule was that the flammable fractions had to be processed in the province they originated, of course in order to benefit (not damage more than necessary) the environment. Long story short, I refused falsification in my report and warned for the problems to be expected once both incinerators would be operational (until today waste is being imported from Italy to fill the incinerator). This resulted in the exact same problems physicians encounter when they don’t comply with a hospital’s strategy in certain undesired situations (in most cases unnecessary as the phycisian has already dealt with the situation himself).
I walked away with a compensation, but not without a good lawyer and after I wrote a report about what had happened, which was then leaked out to most media outlets; that forced the government to come up with a financial compensation. Not that I never violated my integrity (with regret), but your assumption is wrong.
“I did loose my job because of integrity.”
Given your history here the obvious conclusion is that integrity was expected of you and you had none to offer.
I think you have a language barrier.
You also talk a huge amount of irrelevant bollocks.
Assuming that all doctors would happily lie, cheat and murder to keep their jobs, which is what you did, is illogical. UNLESS you assume that the same moral failings apply to every human in employment. Since you have already told us that you refused to compromise your integrity and lost a job because of it, then that clearly isn’t the case.
Add a shortage of medically trained personnel to the situation and you’ll see that there’s even less leverage.
Frankly, your position is untenable and you clearly haven’t bothered to sense check what your fingers are typing.
@Orac
“Given your comments, you could’ve fooled me.”
It seems you’re easily fooled indeed.
Defending third party covid vaccines as one distressing example.
Not ment as proof, but you might have a look at “Is there a Link between the 2021 COVID-19 Vaccination Uptake in Europe and 2022 Excess All-Cause Mortality?”, published in the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway. Not peer reviewed btw.
If it’s not peer-reviewed. Also, tell me that you don’t understand the ecological fallacy without telling me that you don’t understand the ecological fallacy.
@ldw56
“Given your history here the obvious conclusion is that integrity was expected of you and you had none to offer.”
Al least I knew how to spell the word, while you needed to copy paste mine.
So nice you’re back again here. When did you say you’ll be gone again?
@NumberWang
“I think you have a language barrier.”
Because of not watching Start Trek?
Oh well, not using a mother tongue is always a ‘barrier’. As well as not being part of a country and culture.
The funny thing though is the arrogance you sometimes meet from these smart mouths apparently not accepting this; the same morons that don’t know shit vice versa.
“You also talk a huge amount of irrelevant bollocks.”
Isn’t that the result of asking irrelevant questions?
Btw, watch Joel A. Harrison (or Orac for that matter) using an hour, while 5 minutes are enough to make his point. Comes with age too, I suppose.
“Assuming that all doctors would happily lie, cheat and murder to keep their jobs, which is what you did, is illogical. UNLESS you assume that the same moral failings apply to every human in employment. Since you have already told us that you refused to compromise your integrity and lost a job because of it, then that clearly isn’t the case.”
No, like I said not all doctors lie. And of course they do not ‘happily lie’ either, avoiding liability and bad rap is the reason. I guess you don’t do that for fun. But many, if not most (it’s the latter), will cheat when under pressure. And that’s not illogical: bad consequences if you don’t.
Yes, it basically applies to most humans in employment (or elsewhere, like in a relationship), it’s just that it doesn’t hurt as bad elsewhere, problems are often not masked as easily elsewhere, you need to be smart (which most people aren’t) not to cause loose ends and the more of a money and status lover you are (doctors don’t suffer from that at all – the irony), the higher the chances are you will cheat.
The good book says: “Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.” If this is correct you have already half your answer. You suggest doctors are not prone?
“Add a shortage of medically trained personnel to the situation and you’ll see that there’s even less leverage.”
Like I made clear in a recent post to Medical Yeti, this is BS. Not sure whether that one came through here, otherwise just say so and I’ll repeat.
“Frankly, your position is untenable and you clearly haven’t bothered to sense check what your fingers are typing.”
I wished it was. More than 10 years of personal experience dictate my fingers without error what they’re typing.
Tell me NumberWang, is this you in the following situation or not?
You’re a young physician at the ER where someone with a tiny bit of a leftover from a cold enters and tells you that 3 days ago the dentist performed a root canal treatment; the person (and some accompanying relatives) explicitly tell you that since that treatment the symptoms have gradually developed into: very nauseous, a real bad headache and lots of pain in the neck. These would be indicative for further investigation, no doubt.
Nevertheless, you don’t follow up standard procedures and send the person home, perhaps out of inexperience. 10 Days later the person shows up at the ER again, with the same symptoms like before, but now with rising temperature. A colluegue of yours there does follow procedures and has a spinal anesthesia performed. It turns out the person has a meningitis. Unfortunately during the following hospital stay, while of course at antibiotics, a clot from the neck causes a cerebral hemorrhage. Apraxia of speech and movement, light one sided paralysis, severe epilepsy and some years later vascular dementia are the lasting consequents. Which in turn brings harm to family members.
Meanwhile your head of neurology pressures his next in rank to rewrite the file of what exactly had happened. This partly based on the downplayed and untrue information you gave him. A.o. the report does not mention the severe headache and pain in the neck. What the report does mention is that the patient just had some cold and did not appear very ill; there was no meningitis at the moment of the patient’s first visit, is what the hospital suggests.
Your head of neurology meanwhile knows exactly what has happened (the family members as well as the GP that sent the person in, gave him additional details). In order to prevent claims and a bad rap now, he decided it would be better to omit a couple of important details that were, or should have been, in the file. You now only have to (silently) agree to this procedure, are put off the file and remain your job and reputation.
So NumberWang, could this be you?
And could you be that dentists that made a worthless X-ray (lenghth of the root tips not visible), therefore punctured through the barrier into the blood stream and next removed all the relevant files and instead falsely claimed he filled an adjacent molar and not even performed a root canal treatment at all?
Would you be that liar or that rare guy with integrity, no matter what the consequences?
Lucas, there IS a shortage of medical personnel in the US (also in the UK). Less than five minutes of research will show you that this is an incontrovertible fact. Therefore it would not be difficult to leave a job where you feel pressured to (insert unethical behaviour) and find another.
“But many, if not most (it’s the latter), will cheat when under pressure”
So you say my understanding of you is wrong and then proceed to demonstrate that I understood perfectly.
Apologies, no, the language barrier isn’t related to Star Trek but because you didn’t twig that it was a quote aimed at anti-vaxxers rather than an inflated opinion of my own intelligence. I should have been clearer.
The waffling is amply demonstrated in the rest of your post. You originally singled out the medical profession as INHERENTLY unethical but medical staff and hospital management are no more likely to behave unethically than any other profession. Reputation of a hospital, reputation of a political organisation, reputation of an international legal firm…….or kickbacks to build an incinerator. Either way, your statement has nothing other than your opinion behind it. You might as well have said “all Dutch people grow tulips, live in windmills and smoke weed constantly”.
Followed by a shaggy-dog story. The irony, it burns.
@Aarno Syvänen
“Between everybody was infected and nobody was infected is somebody
was infected. Simple, is it no?”
In the end transmission hit them all, be it somewhat delayed. So what do you mean?
It was only the frail that protection was worth considering of. And we knew it.
I’m not the only one still waiting.
“Focused protection,” wherefore art thou?
See “Wences, Señor.”
“If it’s not peer-reviewed.”
Then what?
“Also, tell me that you don’t understand the ecological fallacy without telling me that you don’t understand the ecological fallacy.”
Now you’re teaching me on ‘ecological falacy’?
Glad to hear the relevance and the logical error from you.
@Narad
“In the end transmission hit them all, be it somewhat delayed. So what do you mean?
I’m not the only one still waiting.”
Who cares if the speed of transmission is slowed down if that transmission is a 100%?
Explain what’s Chinese to you.
“It was only the frail that protection was worth considering of.
“Focused protection,” wherefore art thou?
And we knew it.
“See “Wences, Señor.””
Which is your way of acknowledgment.
That’s an impressively weak attempt at diversion. Howsabout you cough up an appropriate SEIR model?
I’ll also note that you skipped right over the built-in failure of “focused protection.” Selah.
@MedicalYeti
“People like you keep repeating this theme and it is pure, insulting, unadulterated BULLSHIT. I spend a helluva lot of time working with patients on these issues DAILY. We have an expert dietician, social services, and dozens of other allied health professionals working with us to maximize interventions that are patient-centric. I can’t go home with patients and slap the ice cream or cigarettes out of their mouthes.”
“People like me” – the stigmatisation.
Of course you ‘can’t go home with them’ and this goes for your entire team.
And obviously you have a more comprehensive health care system than ours: obese patients or the ones not being able to quit smoking are hardly ever redirected; that’s left to the patient / parent.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Neither do the other bozos who come here and make similar claims. You all come here and repeat the same tired, baseless claims and telling you people you don’t know what you are talking about is becoming tedious.”
What “claims”?
As far as I know all I did was replying crucifying Denice Walter. As if a homeopath is synonym for a quack and never has added value (time to demand a proper education?) and as if your doctors haven’t behaved like quacks to vaccinate children against covid.
Well, homeopaths are quacks. They are as worthless for advice on vaccines and health as you are.
Except, again, the science is against you. It’s just your lack of knowledge and your willingness to lie profusely that are responsible for the continuing string of crap in your posts.
This reminds me of his claim that one of the positives of “alt-med practitioners” was that they could help with “trauma.” This, in turn, reminded me of Ryke Geerd Hamer and his campaign not to just kill all his “patients” but also to blame them for it.
“As if a homeopath is synonym for a quack and never has added value…”
In order for you to save money on that added value, you should use this recipe to create your own homeopathy. That way you do not have throw money at Boiron:
Recipe for Nat Mur or Natrum Mur or Natrium Mur or Natrum muriaticum:
1) Take ½ teaspoon of sea salt and dissolve into 1 cup of distilled water in a bottle.
2) Shake well.
3) This is a 1C solution (ratio 1/100).
4) Take ½ teaspoon of the 1C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 1C solution.
5) Shake well.
6) This is a 2C solution (ratio 1/10000).
7) Take ½ teaspoon of the 2C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 2C solution.
8) Shake well.
9) This is a 3C solution (ratio 1/1000000).
10) Take ½ teaspoon of the 3C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 3C solution.
11) Shake well.
12) This is a 4C solution (ratio 1/100000000).
13) Take ½ teaspoon of the 4C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 4C solution.
14) Shake well.
15) This is a 5C solution (ratio 1/10000000000).
16) Take ½ teaspoon of the 5C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 5C solution.
17) Shake well.
18) This is a 6C solution (ratio 1/1000000000000).
19) Take ½ teaspoon of the 6C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 6C solution.
20) Shake well.
21) This is a 7C solution (ratio 1/100000000000000).
22) Take ½ teaspoon of the 7C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 7C solution.
23) Shake well.
24) This is an 8C solution (ratio 1/10000000000000000).
25) Take ½ teaspoon of the 8C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 8C solution.
26) Shake well.
27) This is a 9C solution (ratio 1/1000000000000000000).
28) Take ½ teaspoon of the 9C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 9C solution.
29) Shake well.
30) This is a 10C solution (ratio 1/100000000000000000000).
31) Take ½ teaspoon of the 10C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 10C solution.
32) Shake well.
33) This is a 11C solution (ratio 1/10000000000000000000000).
34) Take ½ teaspoon of the 11C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 11C solution.
35) Shake well.
36) This is a 12C solution (ratio 1/1000000000000000000000000).
37) Take ½ teaspoon of the 12C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 12C solution.
38) Shake well.
39) This is a 13C solution (ratio 1/100000000000000000000000000).
40) Take ½ teaspoon of the 13C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 13C solution.
41) Shake well.
42) This is a 14C solution (ratio 1/10000000000000000000000000000).
43) Take ½ teaspoon of the 14C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 14C solution.
44) Shake well.
45) This is a 15C solution (ratio 1/1000000000000000000000000000000).
46) Take ½ teaspoon of the 15C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 15C solution.
47) Shake well.
48) This is a 16C solution (ratio 1/100000000000000000000000000000000).
49) Take ½ teaspoon of the 16C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 16C solution.
50) Shake well.
51) This is a 17C solution (ratio 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000).
52) Take ½ teaspoon of the 17C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 17C solution.
53) Shake well.
54) This is an 18C solution (ratio 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000).
55) Take ½ teaspoon of the 18C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 18C solution.
56) Shake well.
57) This is a 19C solution (ratio 1/100000000000000000000000000000000000000).
58) Take ½ teaspoon of the 19C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 19C solution.
59) Shake well.
60) This is a 20C solution (ratio 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
61) Take ½ teaspoon of the 20C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 20C solution.
62) Shake well.
63) This is a 21C solution (ratio 1 in 10^42 or 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
64) Take ½ teaspoon of the 21C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 21C solution.
65) Shake well.
66) This is a 22C solution (ratio 1 in 10^44 or 1/100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
67) Take ½ teaspoon of the 22C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 22C solution.
68) Shake well.
69) This is a 23C solution (ratio 1 in 10^46 or 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
70) Take ½ teaspoon of the 23C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 23C solution.
71) Shake well.
72) This is a 24C solution (ratio 1 in 10^48 or 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
73) Take ½ teaspoon of the 24C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 24C solution.
74) Shake well.
75) This is a 25C solution (ratio 1 in 10^50 or 1/100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
76) Take ½ teaspoon of the 25C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 25C solution.
77) Shake well.
78) This is a 26C solution (ratio 1 in 10^52 or 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
79) Take ½ teaspoon of the 26C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 26C solution.
80) Shake well.
81) This is a 27C solution (ratio 1 in 10^54 or 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
(the zeros are running off of the page!)
82) Take ½ teaspoon of the 27C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 27C solution.
83) Shake well.
84) This is a 28C solution (ratio 1 in 10^56 or 1/100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
85) Take ½ teaspoon of the 28C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 28C solution.
86) Shake well.
87) This is a 29C solution (ratio 1 in 10^58 or 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
88) Take ½ teaspoon of the 29C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 29C solution.
89) Shake well.
90) This is a 30C solution (ratio 1 in 10^60 or 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
And then you are done! To make the pills, go to baking center of your grocery store and get some plain cake decorating sprinkles. You can try dropping some of the solution on the sprinkles, or just set the bottle next to the solution for it to absorb the energy (which is the typical method used for over the counter homeopathic remedies).
You can make up other remedies by knowing what the mother tincture is… For instance “Nux Vomica” (or Nux Vom) is from the Nux Vomica plant which contains the poison strychnine, Nux Sulph uses sulpher, and the stuff advertised on the radio for colds, Oscillococcinum is from duck bits.
“(time to demand a proper education?)”
Did this educate you on what homeopathy actually consists of…or not consists of?
One duck per year that was sacrificed to supply worldwide demand, that is.
BINGO!
A duck a year brings Boiron a lot of money.
Alas I can’t make it rhyme like “A duck a day keeps the quacks away.”
I forgot one bit about making homeopathic meds: when you shake it, remember to thump it against a leather bound Bible. It confirms that homeopathy is sympathetic nonsense: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sympathetic_magic
I am not quite sure that Boiron employs Bibles. Though if you truly believe that homeopathy is useful, do call up the source of your homeopathic meds for clarification. Especially if they are in India.
Obviously you will correct that omission when you make your own homeopathic pills. Make sure it is a good leather bound Bible. Definition of “good” is undefined.
YAWN. Lame response, dingleberry. More proof what I first said holds.
@NumberWang
“Lucas, there IS a shortage of medical personnel in the US (also in the UK). Less than five minutes of research will show you that this is an incontrovertible fact. Therefore it would not be difficult to leave a job where you feel pressured to (insert unethical behaviour) and find another.”
Not denying there is at this particular moment, but you’re suggesting jobhopping, especially under such circumstances, is an easy one and won’t be a career killer?
There will not be that many hospitals in a catchment area and in case there are several, without a doubt you will be recognised by former colleagues of yours and others that work there; it’s a small world. How will you hide your non-compliance or mistakes? What makes you sure no one is or will be informed of what has happened in your former position? And what do you do a next time? I could go on, but you get the point I hope.
““But many, if not most (it’s the latter), will cheat when under pressure”
So you say my understanding of you is wrong and then proceed to demonstrate that I understood perfectly.”
Like I said, it is useless to reflect if it’s not to derail you’re after. Merely I answered a question about loosing my job when integrity was at stake, but I’m not in the equation here.
“The waffling is amply demonstrated in the rest of your post. You originally singled out the medical profession as INHERENTLY unethical but medical staff and hospital management are no more likely to behave unethically than any other profession. Reputation of a hospital, reputation of a political organisation, reputation of an international legal firm…….or kickbacks to build an incinerator. Either way, your statement has nothing other than your opinion behind it. You might as well have said “all Dutch people grow tulips, live in windmills and smoke weed constantly”.”
In fact your statement is that if everyone shows unethical behavior you are excused to do the same? If not, why would you so be playing it on the person?
And yes, I gave the reasons they are more likely than people in other professions (politics not included) to behave unethically. But my question to you wasn’t about whether or not that’s the case. It was if that could be you in the scenario outlined.
If you wish not to answer, fine.
Btw, it’s the tourists that smoke the weed constantly.
“In fact your statement is that if everyone shows unethical behavior you are excused to do the same?”
Nope. It’s that your original implication was that doctors are unethical as a profession. My assertion is that doctors are no more likely to behave unethically than anyone else. I believe I’ve been fairly clear that this is what I’m saying.
Don’t think I didn’t notice your goalpost change a couple of posts back either. Suddenly limiting the accusation to only those who make a mistake, rather than the original implication that all Doctors would behave unethically under direction from above. Rather than your original accusation, you’ve retreated back to ‘people who make mistakes are afraid of the consequences’. Well duh! Now your incinerator anecdote doesn’t apply.
Like any storyteller, you’ve tailored a situation to suit your premise. Then implied that the situation and premise are universal.
“And yes, I gave the reasons they are more likely than people in other professions (politics not included) to behave unethically. But my question to you wasn’t about whether or not that’s the case. It was if that could be you in the scenario outlined.
If you wish not to answer, fine.”
No you didnt. Do you think that a financial mistake that costs hundreds or thousands of people their jobs is less serious than a doctors misdiagnosis of one patient? There are plenty of situations, outside of the medical profession, where mistakes and unethical behaviour are just as devastating. Look at the things that happen in armed conflict. Or large scale civil engineering.
As far as your situation is concerned, If I was a doctor, I would expect to be disciplined by my management because I made a mistake. It’s their job to determine If I’m incompetent or if it was a reasonable diagnosis or if hospital policy or medical insurance limitations made the correct diagnosis difficult.
You gave no such thing. You gave the reasons you dreamed up to say they are more likely to behave unethically, but as usual from you your “reasons” are pure nonsense.
Good read for all of you vax trolls: https://www.tga.gov.au/sites/default/files/foi-2389-06.pdf
Note the early date: January 2021
Page 4
“Almost similar microscopic lung inflammation was observed in both challenged control and immunised animals (macaques) after the peak of infection (Days 7/8)”
Challenged with infection, (unvaccinated) control animals
Almost similar microscopic lung inflammation
Challenged with infection, immunized (vaccinated) animals
Almost similar microscopic lung inflammation
Page 4
“There are no distribution and degradation data on the S antigen-encoding mRNA.”
A new therapy that uses an intra-cellular pathway to use intracellular ribosomes
We know from page 45 the lipid nanoparticles are systemically distributed,
But the spike protein that the RNA produces, distribution not tested
No data on how long the spike protein persists
Page 5
“Antibodies and T cells in monkeys declined quickly over 5 weeks after the second dose of BNT162b2 (V9), raising concerns over long term immunity”
Page 6 – A few unknowns were identified by the TGA
“Short term protection studies,
lack of pharmacokinetic data for the S antigen-encoding mRNA (BNT162b2 V9),
suboptimal dosing interval in the repeat dose study,
lack of repeat dose toxicity studies in a second species,
and genotoxicity studies with the novel excipients,
(a substance formulated alongside the active ingrediants)
and lack of studies investigating potential for autoimmune diseases were noted.”
Page 6 – Unknown go on
“Long term immunity,
vaccine induced autoimmune diseases were not studied in the nonclinical program”
Page 8
“BNT162b2 immunisation also induced proinflammatory cytokines such as GM-CSF, TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-18, in addition to IFN-γ, in splenocytes.”
Page 9
“One study found that among people who had recovered from COVID-19, 100% had S protein-specific CD4+ T cells in the circulation and 70% had S protein-specific CD8+ T cells in the circulation”
”Almost similar microscopic lung inflammation was observed in both challenged control and immunised animals (macaques) after the peak of infection (Days 7/8)”
Wow, that’s proof of…your ability to cut and paste.
Ever hear the expression used by researchers: “mice lie and monkeys exaggerate” – meaning it’s risky to extrapolate animal findings to human beings?
Humans on the other hand seldom lie, if we’re talking about large-scale, well-conducted studies in people. If we’re referring to antivaxers like Lucas and their preferred cherry-picked and refuted/retracted studies, then lying is a way of life.
It looks like Lucas has been watching Dr John Campbell who has posted a couple videos about that report.
That whole list looks cut and pasted from the description of his video.
Campbell is very excited to get these results from an FOI request. But the report on the monkey study was published 2 years ago. I think the radio and luminescence tests in rats were published even before that.
And all that pales compared with the safety results in millions of humans. But Campbell seems bent on finding an excuse to ignore those and claim “We were lied to.”
@ldw56old
“Well, homeopaths are quacks. They are as worthless for advice on vaccines and health as you are.”
And I guess as worthless as you are; or do you give advice on medical interventions?
My advice on health is ‘eat an apple a day and keep the vaccine away’.
“Except, again, the science is against you. It’s just your lack of knowledge and your willingness to lie profusely that are responsible for the continuing string of crap in your posts.”
Each day we (the not willfully blind that is) see more evidence that the science is misused by some scientists and other greedy quacks. With the amount of unscientific BS (lies) piling up.
That, of course, is a lie. Your continued misrepresentation of studies, cutting and pasting of things you don’t understand, and just blatant repeating of the most asinine conspiracies, proves that.
You’re not seeing evidence to support anything. You [and the other science deniers] have preconceived conclusions and won’t let any data sway you.
Go back to hawking late night “take my scam advice and invest in this…” lines of bullshit. Just don’t do it here.
[I would suggest you try to take some courses in basic statistics to at get a little bit of understanding of what constitutes data and what doesn’t, but given your history of avoiding education and dishonesty tell me that it wouldn’t work and you’d probably be kicked out for cheating by the middle of the semester.]
@Chris
“…. 90) This is a 30C solution (ratio 1 in 10^60 or 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
And then you are done! To make the pills, go to baking center of your grocery store and get some plain cake decorating sprinkles. You can try dropping some of the solution on the sprinkles, or just set the bottle next to the solution for it to absorb the energy (which is the typical method used for over the counter homeopathic remedies).
You can make up other remedies by knowing what the mother tincture is… For instance “Nux Vomica” (or Nux Vom) is from the Nux Vomica plant which contains the poison strychnine, Nux Sulph uses sulpher, and the stuff advertised on the radio for colds, Oscillococcinum is from duck bits.
“(time to demand a proper education?)”
Did this educate you on what homeopathy actually consists of…or not consists of?”
Heck, I got a bit dizzy following your endless instructions for the recipy and now I’m at 91, 31C. What now?
Nevertheless, I desperately needed something against daily stress and guess what? Your recipe helped! All this preperation calmed me down so much that my inner peace is now fully restored. Thanks man!
See that homeopathy works? And without falling to diazepam or other poisons. Isn’t that ‘added value’? If only Michael Jackson’s quack would have known.
Btw, that Nux Vomica you mention worked for me; as a child I was a bit stressy now and then, which had an effect on my stomache. So I used to take a couple of those drops and most of the times the pain was gone after a while. It must have been the suggestion that helped as I believe homeopathy has as much value as covid vaccines for most (i.e. no value). Perhaps I might have used magically irradiated waterdrops as well; point is that I benefited from it and this without side effects (except an empty wallet perhaps).
My GP once told me that 90% of the complaints was because of stress. Perhaps a holistic homeopath can work wonder here. After a good evaluation and some wise lessons put them on Nux Vomica and bingo. If it helps it helps.
Perhaps you guys need to calm down a bit on homeopaths and allow that other quacks make some profit as well. The entire beauty industry makes half of the population (today even more with all that female men) poor without any benefit except suggestion. Do you have a problem with that too?
So as long as homeopaths are wise enough to refer to the doctor when necessary (that alone makes them have added value, doesn’t it?), what’s your problem?
So Chris, calm down and follow your own recipe.
@Narad
“One duck per year that was sacrificed to supply worldwide demand, that is.”
Only at full moon.
@Chris
“I forgot one bit about making homeopathic meds: when you shake it, remember to thump it against a leather bound Bible. It confirms that homeopathy is sympathetic nonsense: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sympathetic_magic
I am not quite sure that Boiron employs Bibles. Though if you truly believe that homeopathy is useful, do call up the source of your homeopathic meds for clarification. Especially if they are in India.
Obviously you will correct that omission when you make your own homeopathic pills. Make sure it is a good leather bound Bible. Definition of “good” is undefined.”
With a PU cover it’s rash all over?
“Though if you truly believe that homeopathy is useful,”
Re-calibrate your sarcasm meter. Or at the least learn some chemistry, especially the bit about Avogadro’s Number and moles.
Also, Hannemann was quite adamant about thumping his magic nothing potion on a leather bound bible: https://www.skepdic.com/homeo.html
@NumberWang
“Nope. It’s that your original implication was that doctors are unethical as a profession.”
Please read back. If that can lead to damage compensation and / or a bad rap, most doctors behave in an unethical way in case they make mistakes that they’re able to hide. Colleagues are willingly to cooperate, as well as superiors. The latter will even initiate, if necessary. It’s the power of money and human weakness.
That’s the real world, Number Wang. And you know that for a fact, dependent of where you work and what age you have.
“My assertion is that doctors are no more likely to behave unethically than anyone else. I believe I’ve been fairly clear that this is what I’m saying.”
Please read back, but this time more careful.
Long story short: that is beside the point NumberWang, an argument you used to derail and irrelevant. I tried to explain that many, if not most, are not in the position to behave unethically in a profession (so whether or not they have integrity just isn’t relevant). Doctors are. And that’s where it hurts most too.
“Don’t think I didn’t notice your goalpost change a couple of posts back either. Suddenly limiting the accusation to only those who make a mistake, rather than the original implication that all Doctors would behave unethically under direction from above. Rather than your original accusation, you’ve retreated back to ‘people who make mistakes are afraid of the consequences’. Well duh! Now your incinerator anecdote doesn’t apply.”
Not at all, I spell it out again: those who make a mistake and those involved in covering it up; two seperate entities. Most – not all – would behave unethically.
And yes, that incinerator does apply. It is for processing all that medical scum! For sure many of them doctors deserve to be thrown into it alive. Filthy liars, not shying away from anything. That’s the reality of today.
So NumberWang, how about you? What would you do, is the simple question. It isn’t difficult to answer, unless you’re a piece of shit too.
@NumberWang
“No you didnt. Do you think that a financial mistake that costs hundreds or thousands of people their jobs is less serious than a doctors misdiagnosis of one patient? There are plenty of situations, outside of the medical profession, where mistakes and unethical behaviour are just as devastating. Look at the things that happen in armed conflict. Or large scale civil engineering.”
Like I said “politicians included”. They’re even so much corrupted that it is not unusual they even laugh their lies away when exposed.
And yes, there are more places outside the medical profession thinkable. But it’s not relevant for the question whether or not the medical sector is corrupted, is it?
True what you say about armed conflicts, but don’t hide behind mass murderers. True what you say about greedy (including central) bankers that can plunge the whole world into recession and even depression, but is that a motive for doctors to join corruption?
“As far as your situation is concerned, If I was a doctor, I would expect to be disciplined by my management because I made a mistake. It’s their job to determine If I’m incompetent or if it was a reasonable diagnosis or if hospital policy or medical insurance limitations made the correct diagnosis difficult.”
Your management will perhaps discipline you, but that’s not what my question is about. Nor is the judgement on incompetence.
Would you cover up your mistake in order to avoid claims and avoid a bad rap or dismissal? Would you cooperate if your superior asked you to lie for the sake of the hospital’s reputation and avoid claims?
“But it’s not relevant for the question whether or not the medical sector is corrupted,”
Yes it is. You singled out doctors as especially unethical. I’m telling you that they aren’t.
How about this? You’re an auto mechanic. One day you don’t double check that you’ve tightened up the new brake hose set you’ve just fitted to a school bus. The bus crashes into another bus full of disabled pensioners on a holiday of a lifetime, killing them all. The bus then catches fire and the fuel tank explodes, propelling the engine into a nearby infants school, killing an entire class of six year olds. Would you cover up your mistake Lucas? Would you?
This is proof that all mechanics are unethical.
@Narad
“In the end transmission hit them all, be it somewhat delayed. So what do you mean? I’m not the only one still waiting.” Who cares if the speed of transmission is slowed down if that transmission is a 100%? Explain what’s Chinese to you. “It was only the frail that protection was worth considering […]
Who cares if the speed of transmission is slowed down if that transmission is a 100%?
That’s an impressively weak attempt at diversion. Howsabout you cough up an appropriate SEIR model?
I’ll also note that you skipped right over the built-in failure of “focused protection.” Selah.”
I think that vacciantion against a disease is an impressively weak attempt if you get that disease anyway.
@ldw56old
“”And yes, I gave the reasons they are more likely than people in other professions”
You gave no such thing. You gave the reasons you dreamed up to say they are more likely to behave unethically, but as usual from you your “reasons” are pure nonsense.”
Guess you can read the reasons in my post of March 21, 2023 at 8:18 am and of March 23, 2023 at 1:40 pm.
And even though “more likely”, that doesn’t change most people being just as bad. The thing is that most of us are followers, we copy – especially the example set by the corrupt and we assume to benefit if we act similarly. And not least: we feel legitimized.
In some ways not to get caught becomes the challenge, not to follow innate conscience.
But oh my, doing so isn’t as smart as it looks; not only do we harm others (but do we care), in the long run we ruin ourselves. So if that’s what we want, why not enjoy while it lasts.
A shame you don’t read what matters, ldw56. That’s why I so frequently told you we will enter a dark period the moment our leaders come up with the lie of peace and security; you may at first be excited with this specific exclamation, but you’ll experience society starting to desintegrate immediatly after. I wrote this long before the war with Russia started, you’ll remember that. And not only did I tell you to reckon with a war, I said we would enter a “slow dive into chaos”. A couple of months ago I gave you an update after a year has gone by; now add a banking crisis to that list.
This is not some silly human conspiracy theory; why don’t you read it for yourself. Pro-vaccine, anti-vaccine, who cares if such prospect is real?
And the situation doesn’t look particularly good, ldw56. As you’ll have noticed, it has been getting messier indeed.
And talking about this banking crisis, one and a half year ago or so I gave the reasons why the policy of the self cornered central bankers is so absurd, remember?
I wrote that not only would “their policy put a brake on the economy”, but this “combined with higher interest rates, while private, corporate and public debt are at absurdly high levels” made me write: “THIS IS DANGEROUS.” You see that’s true now, ldw56.
But relax, it won’t get as bad that you won’t be able to buy your bread. At least not for now; first you will experience that “slow dive into chaos” with more and more trouble popping up. Until you’ll hear this specific exclamation, that’s when destruction sets in, starting with that distinguished institute that has been around for so long.
I would avoid being caught be surprise and take care now that my behaviour is correct in every aspect. But that’s just me.
Keep you updated.
Only a rank liar thinks everyone else walks around prepared to lie at all times like he does. Some of us have a conscience. Some of us are guided by values.
Since lucas’ posts are so easily identified as dishonest and fact-free, I have to wonder if lucas isn’t simply a disturbed teen trolling from some coffee shop.
Antivaxers in general accept lying as a central strategem.
Partly this is due to their conviction that the virtually the entire health and political establishment are lying to cover up vaccine harms, so lying in self-defense is the way to go. An innate attraction to deceit probably plays a role for some.
At any rate, it’s no surprise they think anyone who substantially disagrees with them is lying.
[…] will be—shall we say?—repurposed for other conditions, usually many other conditions (e.g., cancer). A corollary to this principle is that, sooner or later, the quack treatment will likely be […]
@MedicalYeti
Only a rank liar thinks everyone else walks around prepared to lie at all times like he does. Some of us have a conscience. Some of us are guided by values.[…]
“Some of us have a conscience” – the discussion stopper. Yes, we (almost) all have one; the question is to what degree it works / under what conditions we bypass it.
An example. Yesterday when I entered Amsterdam-West, famous for its criminal moroccan community, I heard the sound of a car crash just in front of me at an intersection with traffic lights. Two quite expensive cars collided, both with guys in their twenties, likely all criminals. One of the drivers (or both) must have ran a red light, which is not unusual behaviour with the ‘me first’ mentality here. What immediatly stands out is that both parties don’t shake hands and don’t even say a word, just ignorance. And while perhaps dizzy by the impact, you see them making a phonecall. That’s not to the police; instead they call a ‘friend’. Within five minutes these friends arrive with high speed, neglecting traffic rules and arriving in similar ‘wrong’ vehicles. The high speed is there to be able to arrive asap and in any case before the police does. This in order to give a false testimony about what they ‘witnessed’ has happened; and those will be lies, at least for one party.
To some degree the conscience of all of these guys work, but as soon as there are major interests you see them bypass that.
How about you? I’m sure you wouldn’t act like these punks; first of all you’re not used to such behaviour, no one of your friends and family would act like that; secondly, but I’m already not so sure about that, you might even prefer to take the damage for granted in case the damage is due to your fault.
Now suppose you find yourself in a similar setting as described in my post of March 23, 2023 at 1:40 pm. Ask yourself: would I lie to prevent the huge damage, like described before, to myself and my employer?
If that answer is negative, you’re one of the rare examples of integrity in your profession.
Let me get this straight…you’re comparing physicians to street gangs? Do you have any idea how much vetting we go through?
Forget the criminal background/fraud/basic psych checks, the entire seven years of training in med school and residency you are evaluated constantly in all kinds of settings by all kinds of observers. You get rated pretty much monthly.
Your core faculty are watching you like a Hawk that entire time, too. Figure that’s almost 100 evaluations of your performance, competence, and character. This stuff is written down and submitted. Character flaws do not go unnoticed.
People can and DO get fired from training. People do not match into residency. This is not just some job hanging drywall or whatever.
Btw what were you doing in that part of town? Buying more crack?
Lucas sounds like the typical bigots who rant about minorities in “Democrat-run cities” in the Fox News comment section.
@Dangerous Bacon & squirrelelite
“Wow, that’s proof of…your ability to cut and paste.”
“That whole list looks cut and pasted from the description of his video.”
You find the answer for yourselves whether it’s a scam or not having had such info and nevertheless launch a vaccine campaign.
The reason I copy-pasted the material is to find out whether or not provaxxers like you watch antivax material like such of Dr. Campbell. Obviously you do.
Please give me the reasons why.
@ldw56old
“Since lucas’ posts are so easily identified as dishonest and fact-free, I have to wonder if lucas isn’t simply a disturbed teen trolling from some coffee shop.”
Uhm you can talk to me, no need to search an audience, ldw56. Only the cowardly do so.
Well time will tell who’s disturbed and who’s not.
Ok. I believe that either you’re a severely disturbed teen trolling from a coffee shop or that you are simply an uneducated buffoon, with zero integrity, spouting baseless conspiracies and what-ifs about things you don’t understand and projecting your own lack of decency on others. Nothing you’ve posted, from your foolish “predictions about the world”, UN conspiracies, the horrible actions of the medical profession, indicate that you have any understanding of the issues involved. They do show you are incapable of learning.
I’ll also point out that my previous comment was a response to another person, not a lone voice looking for an audience. You can’t seem to get your lies straight.
@ldw56old
“That, of course, is a lie. Your continued misrepresentation of studies, cutting and pasting of things you don’t understand, and just blatant repeating of the most asinine conspiracies, proves that.
You’re not seeing evidence to support anything. You [and the other science deniers] have preconceived conclusions and won’t let any data sway you.
Go back to hawking late night “take my scam advice and invest in this…” lines of bullshit. Just don’t do it here.
[I would suggest you try to take some courses in basic statistics to at get a little bit of understanding of what constitutes data and what doesn’t, but given your history of avoiding education and dishonesty tell me that it wouldn’t work and you’d probably be kicked out for cheating by the middle of the semester.]”
Your endless grammophone, lol.
And hmm, did I give a “misrepresentation of studies”? Or did I just copy some of the work others have done, based on these studies (no more than copy paste in itself)?
And what has statistics to do with it now? Some confusing man you are.
But since you bring that up, every economist, at least in my specialisation (commercial economics), has statistics as a subject for two years. So instead of claiming a lack of background, why don’t you claim I perhaps.. lost it?
What you may or may not remember (I mentioned it before) is that I did a post academic study ‘Marketing management’, two years of psychology and sociology included. Not only do I know a few things about consumer behavior, but I was taught some skills (Neurolinguistic Programming as an example) valuable for the marketing of products and services. Some of these techniques are outright dangerous when used by badly motivated influencers.
Unfortunately such techniques have been used large-scale from the beginning of the pandemic. They have been helpful to efficiently impose vaccines that most people don’t need and otherwise force people to do what you want them to (lockdowns as an example). And even though some of you are highly educated, to me you seem victims of all the lies brought to you by pharma, media and your government. Well, not seem; you must be victims if it is not games for personal gain you’re playing.
It is human not wanting to admit you have been gaslit; but the sooner you are honest to yourselves, the better that is.
Perhaps you discover you are being gaslit in more ways; perhaps you believe you’re here as a result of abiogenesis and evolution. Just saying.
@MedicalYeti
“Let me get this straight…you’re comparing physicians to street gangs?”
I do not, just ment to show you what some punks do in a setting they are familiar with; then to ask you what you would do in the setting you are familiar with, see mentioned post. Mind you that even such criminals have a bit of conscience left, but when they find themselves in a more demanding setting you see it’s gone. How about you? And is this really so tough a question? Why?
“Do you have any idea how much vetting we go through?”
Yes I have. And even though that vetting is part of the job you are paid for, kudos to you if you do this thoroughly; that’s not so self-evident in complex cases.
Do you go through as much vetting when the patient is old with cancer (unknown how long to live)?
Btw, I never said you are not good at your job or suggested that you don’t take your work seriously. My impression has been that a patient can do worse. But here it is about how much integrity doctors have.
“Forget the criminal background/fraud/basic psych checks, the entire seven years of training in med school and residency you are evaluated constantly in all kinds of settings by all kinds of observers. You get rated pretty much monthly.”
Nevertheless, when something goes wrong – show some respect and don’t deny this doesn’t happen – and the doctor is to blame and you / the hospital are able to obscure this, what happens? What would you do was the explicit question.
“Your core faculty are watching you like a Hawk that entire time, too. Figure that’s almost 100 evaluations of your performance, competence, and character. This stuff is written down and submitted. Character flaws do not go unnoticed.
People can and DO get fired from training. People do not match into residency. This is not just some job hanging drywall or whatever.”
Who knows the system works so much better in your country.
Still you haven’t answered the question.
“Btw what were you doing in that part of town? Buying more crack?”
Like I said it’s the tourists that buy the crack.
What I’m doing here? Now it’s the time to maintain and plant the facade gardens in the city district (charity), so I’ll be staying for a while. I will visit some friends (grew up here) at the same time, visit the city center to buy my kuo tea and plan to modify an amplifier. More questions? Color of underwear?
Dangerous Bacon
“Lucas sounds like the typical bigots who rant about minorities in “Democrat-run cities” in the Fox News comment section.”
There is leftist fools discriminating everyone they feel so much high above and there is DB.
Look here wise guy, have you lived your entire youth between minorities? Or was it me? When I speak of overrepresented second generation moroccian criminals, you take that for a fact. If not, you tell me about reality, opinionated fool.
Do we really need to say there are so many good ones out there, every time before we can describe a less fortunate, nevertheless realistic situation? Fine DB, there are many good ones out there too.
This very evening we got some fried chicken parts brought by a previous Turkish neighbour (a married woman even, which is unusual if you know the culture); that alone should tell you your rant makes no sense. And the charity I do here is for minority refugee families, arrogant dummy.
Now that you’re such an excellent person, inform us on what you do to serve your fellowman?
Oh, I love precious metal scammers. They are the funniest people on Earth. Everything they say can be summarized as “Gold and silver are the only valuable things – paper money is worthless. Please give me paper money and I’ll give you gold and silver (or a piece of paper saying that you own some gold or silver” […]
Oh this is a good one. Almost as entertaining as someone here once trying to teach me in marketing. Great, never to old to learn.
So to the one who wrote this: aren’t YOU the funniest guy or girl in the Universe? If not, give me some sound advice on investment of savings / cash. I’d like to hear from you what we should invest in with a low risk profile and in order to keep up with inflation.
I said you’d be a fool not to convert 10 – 15% of your savings into physic silver and gold (no, that’s not that piece of paper / admission of guilt you mention); just don’t loose that proof of purchase!
I’m listening.
@NumberWang
How about this? You’re an auto mechanic. One day you don’t double check that you’ve tightened up the new brake hose set you’ve just fitted to a school bus. The bus crashes into another bus full of disabled pensioners on a holiday of a lifetime, killing them all. The bus then catches fire and the fuel tank explodes, propelling the engine into a nearby infants school, killing an entire class of six year olds. Would you cover up your mistake Lucas? Would you?
This is proof that all mechanics are unethical.[…]
Bad example. In a case like this be sure we have Technical Research (not sure about the name in your country) to search and trace the cause. Even when a plane crashes and catches fire, we almost always find the cause. As you will have noticed when thinking about it, there are not many applicable examples; if at all.
And besides, contrary to mistakes in a hospital, such scenario is very rare; if mistakes are made, the result will hardly ever be life threatening, just some financial issues. I would not have my car not repaired there because of the risk of a severe accident, but out of the risk to loose extra time and money lost.
And in case literally all goes wrong like you suggest, the firm goes bankrupt and the mechanics start a new company or look for a job elsewhere (garages everywhere). Much less of a deal compared to a hospital.
Like I said, the stakes are much higher for a doctor / hospital. And thus the higher chance of bypassing integrity.
Btw, I guess I would personally not lie about that mistake as a mechanic, even though the consequences are as you describe.
I agree that’s easily said, however I didn’t cheat in the past when working for the government, despite the pressure to do so; even though I was young (27) my attitude was ‘go to hell’ and didn’t bend. Once working for the Eur. Options Exchange I made a mistake entering a much too high number in a transacted option series and unfortunately this was after the checking system was shut down, so it was published in the financial paragraphs of the relative outlets. Obviously my employer was not happy and knew that either a colleague or me was responsible for the error. The guy said he could not remember, while I knew I worked in that fund. I took my responsibility while still in probation. Okay, not that special and I guess this would have been your response as well.
But you haven’t answered my question based on a much worse (but realistic and unfortunately true) scenario.
Medical Yet hasn’t answered either. Your silence betrays you, both of you seem capable of lying; apparently that physician could be you. Otherwise for sure you would have denied so immediatly. Not good.
I’m sure you follow protocols which basically will prevent attributable faults from happening. But in case you and / or your hospital will feel the need to cheat and the angry patient or his / her relatives will find out what you did, accept they will call you ‘a filthy liar’. And rightfully so.
@ldw56old
“Ok. I believe that either you’re a severely disturbed teen trolling from a coffee shop or that you are simply an uneducated buffoon, with zero integrity, spouting baseless conspiracies and what-ifs about things you don’t understand and projecting your own lack of decency on others. Nothing you’ve posted, from your foolish “predictions about the world”, UN conspiracies, the horrible actions of the medical profession, indicate that you have any understanding of the issues involved. They do show you are incapable of learning.”
Why do I always need to repeat and still you don’t understand?
First of all, these economic forecasts cannot come from a teen. What does a teen know? Even at your age you have no clue about economics and its social impact. My forecasts have come true as you’ve witnessed; feel free to share website or email if of more of such people; I know a couple of them, but they are rare; most of them are partly right at best, which is rather useless.
About these other predictions, in a post to you of December 24, 2022 at 3:08 pm you read:
“From the ancient book on the rise and fall of world powers I read that first we will experience that unexpected event I warned you about ten times or so. You’re not convinced yet, how could you possibly if you don’t read. But compare the situation now to a year ago and you might start to discover we are actually moving in that direction.”
You might check what is written about that rise and fall from this ancient book, beginning from before 500 B.C.E. (Babylon) down to the seventh and last world power in our days (dual power Britain – America). Interesting about the fall of Babylon is that some 200 years in advance you read that the name of the conquerer, Cyrus, was already mentioned, that’s perhaps 150 years before he was even born. It was forecasted that the protecting Euphratus river would dry up in order for Cyrus’ army to walk through the riverbed into the heavily fortified city. It was forecasted that the city gates would be left open and Babylon’s military would not even fight.
The same source makes clear that at the final stage of the last power, our leaders will come with this exclamation of peace and security (apparently a solution for some disturbing situation seems to be reached); but it will be a lie. Right at that moment that institute (find out for yourself what exactly that is) will be under attack and destroyed. That’s when we enter this period of unreal chaos that will hit us all not far from now; it does not look good if by then you still have no idea what is happening, simply because you refused to pay attention to what mattered most (your own fault).
In a post to Joel Harrison (December 26, 2022 at 5:46 pm) I wrote:
Take a Bible and you read about a final stage characterized by war, pestilences (widespread diseases, including pandemics), earthquakes, food shortages, fearful sights (heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods and what not), disturbances (citizen anger about economic problems like surging inflation, antigovernment protests), moral decline, etcetera. This might make time even more limited; so perhaps we had better use our time like we should.
Talking about “severely disturbed”, in my opinion anyone that values life is just that while ignoring what he or she needs to know and do to survive this coming period. And that’s not politics, your career, the vaccines, your bank account.
@Narad
“Oddly enough in the context of your just-so story, the current wave of inflation is not limited to the U.S.”
Not so odd Narad, all other central banks followed the same path as yours did.
@Aarno Syvänen
“You cite a link sayin that Biden loans too much. You yourself need financial education. “Printing money” means that central bank issues new money. Yourknoledge of vaccines are at same level.”
Do not worry Aarno, Portnoy bliss knows what he’s talking about.
Btw, central banks are not able to add to M, if that’s what you’re suggesting.
In simple language, either: a central bank buys financial assets with non existing money from commercial banks. Which makes it possible for commercial banks to lend more to their customers, which then pumps new money into the monetary supply. This is referred to as QE.
Or: a central bank extends a loan to a commercial bank, again out of thin air. The commercial bank keeps a percentage of the loan money as a deposit, then extends loans to other commercial banks using the remainder. These other banks can do the same thing with these new loans, they keep a required fraction and loan out the rest. These loans count as money, so add to M as well.
“Btw, I do advice against printing money”
Are you an economist now?
Basically it’s nonsense what you’re saying here, Aarno. Without a lot of explanation, let me just say: it all depends.
But basically I can’t disagree with you and have repeatedly said it has been misused to a large degree; as a result a stagflationary debt crises looms.
In 2021 Janet Yellen said that ‘central banks know how to subdue inflation; it is deflation that continues to puzzle them’. Meanwhile it is clear she had no idea what she was talking about. I warned about mega inflation in september 2019 and here we are. So Janet, you know how to subdue inflation; show us!
You’ll remember I said the central banks have cornered themselves. There is no way out of this mess without lots of pain. But if you think you’re smart and know about economics, Aarno, why don’t you present me your plan on how we can manage without creating a disaster.
Btw, what Portnoy bliss said is entirely true: “The idea the disaster of how COVID management happened was acceptable, productive, or, anything remotely good for American [and all other] citizens is laughable. It was a disaster. We are paying for the disaster right now…the current banking crisis is an offshoot of the disasterous policies promoted by geniuses like you and your minions.”
You HAVE created a mess, certainly an economic one.
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