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?
112 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.
@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.