Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics Quackery

“Censorship”: The word disinformation artists use when called out

COVID-19 minimizers and antivaxxers at the Brownstone Institute, the “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration,” really don’t like having their disinformation called out.

The Brownstone Institute has been one of the more vocal and, unfortunately, persistent and prolific spreaders of COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation during the pandemic, starting with misrepresenting science to oppose any public health interventions designed to slow the spread of the virus and then going full-on antivaccine. A particularly pernicious relatively new right wing “think thank,” Brownstone was founded in 2021 by Jeffrey Tucker, previously of the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER). Tucker is a far right wing neo-Confederate who in his previous role at AIER had also been instrumental in bringing together the public health-“skeptical” scientists in October 2020 to issue the statement known as the Great Barrington Declaration, which famously advocated a “let ‘er rip” approach to the pandemic in order to achieve “natural herd immunity” within six months. A eugenicist manifesto for the pandemic through and through, the GBD also advocated an ill-defined and ineffective strategy of “focused protection” for all those pesky (to the GBD signatories) elderly and people with chronic diseases who were at high risk for severe disease and death that never would have worked and that Brownstone flacks don’t even appear to be seriously defending anymore.

Basically, according to Tucker himself, the Brownstone Institute was founded explicitly as the “spiritual child” of the GBD and has likened public health interventions to slow the spread of COVID-19 to slavery, religion, or a Communist dictatorship while just plain spreading pure, unadulterated antivax misinformation and advocatingNuremberg 2.0“-like trials of public health officials to punish them for their perceived misdeeds, an old antivax trope. So it should be no surprise that the flacks who write for the Brownstone Institute very much do not like being called out for spreading misinformation and disinformation. What caught my attention in particular a couple of days ago was an article by Daniel Klein entitled Misinformation Is a Word We Use to Shut You Up. It is as predictable as you might expect but nonetheless worth examining because it is merely a manifestation of a general phenomenon in the pandemic misinformation- and disinformation-promoting ecosystem. Basically, the article is a modified version of an article published as a preprint that rants about—you guessed it!—pandemic contrarians being called out for spreading disinformation. Unsurprisingly, Klein starts right out with comparisons to Nazi-ism and other totalitarian political systems, claiming that efforts to slow the spread of disinformation are merely a tool or pretext to “crush dissent”:

The policing of “information” is the stuff of Naziism, Stalinism, Maoism, and similar anti-liberal regimes. To repress criticism of their dicta and diktats, anti-liberals label criticism “misinformation” or “disinformation.” Those labels are instruments to crush dissent. 

This paper offers an understanding of knowledge as involving three chief facets: information, interpretation, and judgment. Usually, what people argue fervently over is not information, but interpretation and judgment. 

What is being labeled and attacked as “misinformation” is not a matter of true or false information, but of true or false knowledge—meaning that disagreement more commonly arises over interpretations and judgments as to which interpretations to take stock in or believe. We make judgments, “good” and “bad,” “wise” and “foolish,” about interpretations, “true” and “false.” 

On that understanding, the paper explains that the projects and policies now afoot styled “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” are dishonest, as it should be obvious to all that those projects and policies would, if advanced honestly, be called something like “anti-falsehood” campaigns.

This argument is one that uses a grain of truth to paint a false picture, although it also has a falsehood at its core. It is certainly true that a lot of misinformation and disinformation are narratives and claims based on misleading or false interpretations of existing data. However, it is also true that a lot of misinformation and disinformation are also based on demonstrably false claims and narratives (e.g., vaccines cause autism or COVID-19 vaccines are causing huge numbers of young people to “die suddenly”) undergirded by demonstrably bad science—or no science at all. Klein then uses that blending of a grain of truth with a whole lot of misrepresentation and fiction to paint all efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation as inherently dishonest attacks on free speech.

Ironically, Klein is not entirely wrong when he suggests a name like “anti-falsehood” campaigns; that is, if you take the word “falsehood” literally and don’t actually call the falsehoods lies, even though arguably many of those promoting falsehoods about COVID-19 know that those falsehoods are, in fact, false, which is the very distinction between a falsehood (which might be innocently spread) and a lie. Actually, knowledge and intent are also the difference between misinformation and disinformation, the former being simply wrong—or at least highly misleading—claims or narratives and the latter being intentionally misleading and/or wrong claims and narratives. Like a falsehood, which is simply an untrue statement, misinformation can be innocently believed and spread by people who don’t know better. Like a lie, disinformation is spread maliciously, with intent to mislead.

Of course, Klein is going for this narrative himself, which is highly misleading and thus arguably disinformation itself:

But to prosecute an “anti-falsehood” campaign would make obvious the true nature of what is afoot—an Orwellian boot to stomp on Wrongthink. To support governmental policing of “information” is to confess one’s anti-liberalism and illiberality. The essay offers a spiral diagram to show the three chief facets of knowledge (information, interpretation, and judgment) plus a fourth facet, fact, which also deserves distinct conceptualization, even though the spiral reminds us: Facts are theory-laden.

That’s right. No claims are so wrong or so maliciously spread that they should ever be labeled misinformation or disinformation. To Klein it’s all just free speech based on intellectual disagreements over how to interpret facts, science, and data! Klein even admits that not all usage of the terms “misinformation” and “disinformation” are Orwellian assaults on free speech. (How generous.) Instead, he opines:

Writing at Discourse, published by the Mercatus Center, Martin Gurri describes “disinformation” as follows:

The word means, ‘Shut up, peasant.’ It’s a bullet aimed at killing the conversation. It’s loaded with hostility to reason, evidence, debate and all the stuff that makes our democracy great. (Gurri 2023)

That is from Gurri’s excellent piece, “Disinformation Is the Word I Use When I Want You to Shut Up.” The piece prompted the present essay, the title of which is a variation on his.

With such titles, Gurri and I are being polemical, of course. Not all usages of “disinformation” and “misinformation” come from people intent on shutting someone up. But a lot are. The “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” projects now afoot or in effect are about shutting up opponents.

In fairness, it must be conceded that sometimes the terms “misinformation” and “disinformation” are thrown around a bit too freely and that there can sometimes be intent behind such efforts to shut up opponents. However, conceding that that can happen does not mean that one has to accept Klein and Gurri’s “polemical” take that most efforts to combat misinformation and disinformation derive from an authoritarian impulse to put an “Orwellian boot on Wrongthink”:

The policing of ‘information’ is the stuff of Naziism, Stalinism, Maoism, and similar anti-liberal regimes. In my title “Misinformation Is a Word We Use to Shut You Up,” anti-liberals are the “We.” To repress criticism of their dicta and diktats, they stamp criticism as “misinformation” or “disinformation.” Those stamps are Orwellian tools that anti-liberals wield in the hope of stamping out Wrongthink—for example, on climate, election integrity, the origins of the Covid virus, therapeutics such as Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine, the effectiveness of masking, the effectiveness of the Covid injections, the safety of the Covid injections, and the effectiveness of lock-downs. “Anti-misinformation” could be deployed in keeping with whatever the next THE CURRENT THING might be, with associated slogans against, say, China, Putin, Nord Stream, racists, white supremacists, MAGA Republicans, “deniers,” et cetera. And then, of course, there’s all that “misinformation” disseminated by “conspiracy theorists”.

Klein elaborates later in the article:

When despots label opposition “misinformation” or “disinformation” they abuse language. They invoke presuppositions built into the word information, presuppositions that are false. When despots label opposition “mis-” or “disinformation, they are, at best, objecting in the interpretation and judgment dimensions of knowledge, or, at worst, they are speaking in a way that has abandoned civil engagement altogether, instead using words as instruments of wickedness. 

Usually, what people argue fervently over is not information, but interpretations and judgments as to which interpretations to act on. What is being labeled and attacked as “misinformation” is not a matter of true or false information, but of true or false knowledge. The projects and policies now afoot styled “anti-misinformation” and “anti-disinformation” are dishonest, as it should be obvious to all that those projects and policies would, if advanced honestly, be called “anti-falsehood” or “anti-falseness” or “anti-foolishness” or “anti-untruth” campaigns. But to prosecute an “anti-falsehood” campaign would make obvious the true nature of what is afoot: The persecution and silencing of Wrongthink. In misrepresenting matters of interpretation and judgment as one of “misinformation,” they misrepresent the nature of their projects and dodge the responsibility to account for how they judge among vying interpretations. 

Klein then invoked a facepalm-worthy interpretation that what is being labeled “misinformation” and “disinformation” are nothing more than different opinions or interpretations of facts, evidence, science, and data, invoking a truly risible example:

If interpretative effort is called for, the matter is no longer within the information dimension—is Citizen Kane a better movie than Roman Holiday? Only to be ironic would someone say: Dad misinforms you when he says that Citizen Kane is better than Roman Holiday. The irony there would be in the implied high self-estimation, as the speaker sets up his own aesthetic sensibilities in judging movies as a standard so precise and accurate as to warrant “misinform” when Dad disagrees with that standard.

The despots are without irony. They dodge interpretive engagement by labeling dissenting statements “mis-” or “disinformation.” They are simply bullying and intimidating their opponents.

Note the highly slanted language. After a (sort-of) concession in the article that not all uses of “misinformation” and “disinformation” to describe, well, misinformation and disinformation are dishonest and authoritarian, Klein is constantly using words like “despots,” “repression,” “diktats,” “Orwellian,” and “Wrongthink.” There’s no nuance whatsoever. I could take Klein more seriously if he toned down the language, but he can’t and won’t. The Brownstone Institute demands that its message portray any attempt to control misinformation and disinformation as ideologically motivated despotism putting the boot on the throat of truth tellers like its flacks.

One can hardly avoid chuckling at the irony. Usually it is right wingers like the Brownstone Institute flacks who argue that there is such a thing as verifiable truth or knowledge, which is different from mere opinion about, for example, art. It is often they who complain about “postmodernism” that, in their straw man characterization of it, portrays all knowledge as depending upon one’s point of view and culture. Unfortunately, in science there is such a thing as a scientific consensus, which is generally held as the best explanation of a phenomenon or, in the case of medicine, assessment of whether a treatment is effective or ineffective. Sure, such consensuses are always considered approximations and can later be demonstrated to have been incorrect. However, that’s different from what people like Brownstone flacks have promoted, namely facts and claims that are demonstrably false and interpretations of existing facts and data that are demonstrably misleading or even outright false.

For example, Klein neglects to mention is how misinformation about COVID-19 “therapeutics” like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine arguably harmed many people who chose these ineffective drugs as either preventatives or treatments for COVID-19. A considerable proportion of that misinformation was arguably spread by doctors with severe conflicts of interest due to the profits they raked in selling these drugs and others and groups with ideological aims opposed to collective action to slow the spread of COVID-19 for whom the existence of a cheap and effective treatment for COVID-19 would imply no need for “lockdowns,” vaccines and vaccine mandates, or any other collective actions they don’t like. (FLCCC is a great example of the former, having been busted for running an ivermectin prescription mill, and the Brownstone Institute is a great example of the latter, having spread since its founding all manner of misinformation designed to present a false picture of COVID-19 as not dangerous, mask mandates and lockdowns as ineffective tyranny and carnage, and COVID-19 vaccines as ineffective and dangerous.)

Particularly disingenuous is Klein’s attempt to liken misinformation to mere mistakes in information using the example of a clerk who gives him incorrect information in a store:

I enter a supermarket and ask a clerk where the peanut butter is, and he responds, “Aisle 6.” I go there but don’t find it. I wander about and find it in Aisle 9. 

The clerk was mistaken. He gave me false or bad information. The idea Peanut butter is in Aisle 6  is a matter of information, an idea sitting within a set of working interpretations. The working interpretations include those of ordinary human purpose and of ordinary trust and common decency. The clerk and I were notplaying a game, nor was it April Fools’ Day. Importantly, the working interpretations include those of plain English—the semantic conventions of “peanut butter,” “6,” the syntactical conventions of English, and so on. 

Later:

I take my peanut butter to the check-out line where the same clerk is working, and say, “I found it—but in Aisle 9!,” trying to be humorous as though a joke had been played on me. Being a mere matter of information, the mistake is readily accepted. The clerk responds, “Ah?! Sorry about that!”

Of course, Brownstone never, ever readily accepts correction, which makes this passage by Klein particularly rich:

When one person, Bob, misinforms another, Jim, without realizing that the information is false, the mistake is amendable to ready corrected, without fuss, assuming the falseness is realized by Jim or Bob. Such misinformation events are trifling; we don’t debate them or dwell on them. Misinformation is rather like a typo, corrected by a proof-reader. 

Scarcely ever do we speak of the mistake with the five-syllable Latinate word misinformation. Heavy usage of the word misinformation so often occurs in reference to “anti-misinformation” projects, usage either by the perpetrators and cheerleaders of those projects or by those who fend off threats from the perps. 

Klein can’t be so dense as not to see the obvious difference between his example of a clerk making an honest mistake of telling him the wrong aisle for peanut butter in a store or of Bob “misinforming” Jim about something and the sorts of misinformation about COVID-19 being promulgated on social media. In fact, I suspect that he is not and is indeed putting forth a disingenuous argument. Indeed, Klein paints a picture of misinformation as being easily corrected, a simple matter of correct information (“peanut butter is in Aisle 9”) driving out incorrect information (“peanut butter is in Aisle 6”). Again, this example is so much different than a false claim that, for instance, COVID-19 vaccines are causing athletes like Damar Hamlin to have sudden cardiac arrests, for which no amount of simple “correction” appears to change minds, at least of true believers.

In fact, this passage, above all, led me to a massive facepalm:

The sincere human wants to be corrected. He welcomes correction. Sincerity is evident in the human’s openness to engagement. The sincere human welcomes deep-dive conversation, debate, and challenge. He is eager to learn. 

If the sincere human rejects a purported correction, he is eager to explain the interpretations and judgments that motivate his rejection of the purported correction. He explains why he rejects it. And he welcomes a response to his explanation. He is agreeable to continuing the engagement.

The sincere human wants to sit down, human-to-human, and hash things out. He wants to enter into the mind of his intellectual adversary and see why the adversary says what he says. The sincere human wants to hear about the adversary’s portfolio of possible interpretations. The sincere human is eager to compare the adversary’s portfolio to his own portfolio of interpretations. 

No, many humans, sincere or not, do not welcome correction. Indeed, I like to point out that the difference between a true skeptic and most other people (and especially pseudoskeptics) is that a true skeptic does indeed welcome correction when he is wrong, while most people (especially pseudoskeptics) interpret correction or criticism as a personal attack, at least for deeply held beliefs that have become part of their core identity, such as resistance to “lockdowns” or mask and vaccine mandates—or that vaccines cause autism or sudden death.

Klein builds up a straw man of misinformation as being like a collegial debating club, where back and forth between “sincere” individuals will eventually get to the “truth”—or at least allow for reasoned disagreement and debate to continue. That is not what we are talking about when we talk about misinformation and disinformation. Moreover, in science there are assertions that are, quite simply, demonstrably wrong from a scientific standpoint; e.g., the claim that vaccines cause autism. Before the pandemic, I used to point out that this sort of model of “debate” over misinformation served one purpose primarily: To give the appearance that the misinformation was a legitimate alternative conclusion or interpretation of existing information and scientific data and that the person promoting the misinformation and disinformation is at least close to the same plane as legitimate experts pointing out how wrong the misinformation and disinformation are from the standpoint of their discipline.

To that end, he gives an example of how refusal to accept correction is supposedly not evidence of spreading “misinformation”:

I wrote above of “quite decisive proof that presuppositions of the information dimension do not apply,” in noting that Peter McCullough does not readily accept the supposed correction. But what if McCullough is a liar? Then it would be no surprise that he does not readily accept the purported correction. What, in other words, about the possibility of disinformation? An insincere disinformationist would stand by his informational statements and persist in misinforming his listeners.

So do “misinformationists.”

If you really want to see how disingenuous Klein is being, just look at his primary example of the “sincere human”:

The sincere human looks like—from what I can tell—Peter McCullough. 

I single out Peter McCullough as exemplar simply to single out someone. All of those who are eager to engage adversaries illustrate the most salient feature of the sincere human, and the more that that eagerness fits the rest of my description above, the more sincere that human likely is.

There is only one reaction. I’ve mentioned it, but I haven’t pulled out my usual image for it:

Godzilla facepalm is the only reaction to Klein's defense of disinformation and misinformation
Seriously, Dr. Peter McCullough?

You might recall that Dr. Peter McCullough has been a serial spreader of COVID-19 misinformation (I’m being generous and assuming that he believes the BS that he peddles) since fairly early in the pandemic. Most recently, I described his advocacy of yet more COVID-19 quackery, specifically a claim that nattokinase can be used to “detox” yourself from spike protein from COVID-19 vaccines and thus treat “vaccine injury.” However, this was far from the first example of Dr. McCullough’s antivax stylings and quackery. Although Dr. McCullough had jumped on the antivax quack train far before, about two years ago I noted that he had been promoting the false claim based on the usual antivax misrepresentation of the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database that COVID-19 vaccines were causing mass death and destruction and that Mike Adams (yes, Mike Adams) and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (yes, RFK Jr.) were using his statements to support the conspiracy theory that these vaccines were part of a “depopulation agenda.” (When your statements are enthusiastically embraced by the likes of Mike Adams, I find it hard to call you a “sincere human.”) Dr. McCullough has also been a regular fixture at conferences and rallies opposing vaccines, masks, “lockdowns,” and basically every other public health intervention against the pandemic, while promoting disinformation about vaccines by writing bad review articles (e.g., with longtime antivaxxer Stephanie Seneff), and promoting the false “died suddenly” conspiracy theory.

There’s even more in this article that I could address, but I think I will conclude with a few observations. First, the straw man characterization of misinformation as nothing more than false information that is “easily corrected”—or at least easily discussed and debated—leaves out the role of ideological players who promote misinformation and align it with ideological beliefs that are like (or even are) religion in that they are part of a person’s conception of self so that attacking these beliefs is viewed as an attack on the person. Second, it leaves out the role of social media algorithms and ecosystems that were (mostly) unintentionally designed so that they amplify the sort of misinformation that is most divisive and harmful. Again, misinformation is not just a clerk telling a customer the wrong aisle to find an item in, nor is disinformation as simple as a clerk lying to a customer about in which aisle the peanut butter can be found. It’s not just a matter of easily correctable erroneous information. Klein likely knows damned well that his analogies are simplistic and inappropriate.

Third and finally, Klein’s invocation of “despotism” is hilariously at odds with the actual reality that we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic. Where Klein sees the iron boot of Big Brother stomping on the throat of “dissidents” who disagree, what I saw at every turn were government officials and regulatory bodies who were utterly oblivious to the problem of misinformation, such as recently retired NIH director Dr. Francis Collins and White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha. Collins, for instance, repeatedly expressed regrets during his retirement media blitz at how huge a problem COVID-19 misinformation had become, how much harm it was causing, and how the NIH under his leadership had “underinvested” in studying such behavior, leading those of us who had been warning about it to collectively facepalm. More recently, Jha seemed to be blaming physicians as individuals for not doing enough to combat COVID-19 misinformation and dumping the primary responsibility for it on us without even trying to provide the tools or resources to be effective at it. Another facepalm, for sure.

Meanwhile, as I like to point out, state medical boards have with few exceptions been largely too timid to discipline physicians—like, for example, Dr. McCullough—who spread disinformation or misinformation as a simple matter of judging them not to have lived up to the professional responsibilities required of them when they were licensed. What should be viewed as quality control and professional accountability is portrayed by people like Klein as “censorship” and tyranny. It’s also vastly exaggerated, because in fact government has been extremely timid about combatting misinformation. So have social media, for the most part, because their entire advertising model is based on engagement, and, let’s face it, misinformation and disinformation promote engagement. They are good for business.

Klein’s attack on “misinformation” and “disinformation” as words used as nothing more than tools of despots to crush dissent is, in the end, nothing more than the standard technique of cranks who try to portray criticism and attempts to slow the spread misinformation—even just refutation of the ideas behind the misinformation and disinformation—as “censorship” and an affront to free speech and cozy academic debate between “sincere humans.” You know that that’s not what’s going on, and so do I. So, too, I suspect, does Klein. In attacking the very concept of “disinformation” and “misinformation” as nothing more than tools of despotism, he is promoting the Brownstone brand of disinformation. It’s no surprise that I learned that he is an economist at George Mason University and the JIN Chair at the Mercatus Center, which prepandemic had long been a key group for recruiting, training and connecting people to attack climate science. The work continues, this time attacking public health.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

137 replies on ““Censorship”: The word disinformation artists use when called out”

It’s not the mature or scientific thing to try to silence those you disagree with. It’s cowardly and authoritarian and combined with government-Pharma pushed mandates, fascist by definition.

“Fascist.” You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Sure, real censorship (not what Klein describes) is part of fascism. It is not “by definition” fascist. (Authoritarian regimes of all political bents engage in it, for instance.) Of course when we look at the real affinity for fascism, it’s the antivaxxers who have that affinity, as I wrote a year and a half ago, complete with an extended discussion of the characteristics of fascism as described by a philosopher and Umberto Eco.

Enjoy.

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2022/01/28/why-is-there-now-such-an-affinity-between-antivaxxers-and-fascism/

Of course, “censorship” is not really what we are looking at here. Klein’s characterization of the situation is a massive straw man of the true situation, with just enough of a grain of truth to make it seem compelling.

I just hallucinated that I saw a post from John LeBarge, but that can’t be right, because he’s being BRUTALLY censored by the forces of evil, who are also moving his keys when he’s not looking, and changing the thermostat by 2 degrees every few hours. Maddening. Meanwhile in the real world, pro-children’s health people get death threats from the real fascists who never met a disease they didn’t love

Well, stop trying to censor our commentary! We are free to point out the errors and obvious intent to deceive others through deliberately misleading rhetoric. When people make statements contrary to established facts (reality) the role of the ethical members of society is to oppose them. Libel and slander are venerable tenets of justice and law. Impugning the motives of public health initiatives and medical practitioners is a form of Bills of Attainder. I.E. declaring an individual or group to be criminal without due process of law.

“Nothing brings in revenue like telling your millions of followers that you are being censored.”
– Conspirituality episode 154, The Truth Wars http://www.conspirituality.net

“Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yep. Most definitely. It’s a marketing gimmick in addition to a useful rhetorical device to portray oneself as a “persecuted” minority opinion.

Also, I always find it hilarious how those who complain about being “censored” always seem to have a huge audience many-fold larger than mine, as well as access to media outlets that I never dreamed of.

Conspirituality episode 154, The Truth Wars

I only recently encountered this word, from someone who studies “sovereign citizens.” It’s a fine coinage.

Orac, is there a point here in your dogma? It’s obvious you loath “disinformation”, “unscientific conclusions” stated as fact. But, what’s the bottom line? Do you think such speech should be banned? If so, how do you reconcile that sentiment with the First Amendment? (Please don’t make a strawman BS argument based on fact speech can be legally, and constitutionally regulated, as in shouting “Fire” in a theater). If you support censorship, how, exactly, do you propose to manage it? Who decides what is “acceptable” versus what is not? And, if you don’t support censorship, what, exactly is your point? That there are crackpots out there, and plenty of shepple that listen? Who cares.

I am reminded of Howard Stern, back when Howard Stern was relevant, way back, around 1996. He regularly aired an old guy, a total white supremacist from Georgia, who had a fringe radio show, where he ranted “Wake up White People”,,, then he’d go on and on about idiocy. Howard interviewed him a bunch of times.

Back then, we didn’t have the idiocy of cancel culture and “unacceptable” thinking. That said, Howard was called to task for airing the guy at all–e.g., promoting hate for ratings. But, Howard said, and I agreed–letting the buffoon bloviate his racist garbage was actually positive–because, people can think. You will always have idiots that will suck in all in, hook line and sinker–that is true about racist BS, it’s true about COVID BS (and, I mean BS on both the right and left when it comes the disastrous response of the pandemic). That said, most have a brain, and most will actually use said brain, and see thru the BS. Thus, censoring is not merely unneccessary–it is dangerous, because, it surrenders people’s free thought to be at the mercy of (dare I say it) folks like you and those lurking on this board who, of course, know what’s right–but, more important–what is acceptable to read, think, and say.

You remind me of me in 2005-2007. Very longtime readers know that I was so much of a free speech absolutist back then that I used to rant against Germany’s laws against Holocaust denial, even as I worked to counter online Holocaust denial. Here’s an example of one of my posts about Holocaust denial:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2008/07/29/an-english-holocaust-denier-in-new-york/

And here are a couple of receipts from my free speech absolutist days, c.2006-2007. No doubt sadmar will have something to say about them if he reads them:

http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2006/02/shooting-free-speech-in-foot-david.html

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2006/12/21/david-irving-to-be-released/

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2007/01/15/stomping-free-speech-flat-in-europe/

I’m a bit embarrassed by the above three posts now, even as I enjoyed rereading my post about David Irving in New York in 2008. However, as is the case for any post that I write that isn’t factually definitely wrong, I never deleted them no matter how much they embarrass me now. It’s rather like how I never deleted the post I did about Mark and David Geier in 2006 in which I ranted about their use of puberty blockers to treat “vaccine injury” and autism, even though over the last two years transphobes have been cherry picking a certain passage from that post whenever I discuss their dishonest and pseudoscientific attacks against gender-affirming care for trans adolescents, their purpose being to give the false impression that I am, at best, somehow inconsistent or, at worst, a hypocrite. Transphobes might dishonestly weaponize my words from 17 years ago against me by failing to mention how different the context was back then, but that just makes it easy for me to explain the context now.

So what changed? In a word, social media algorithms. The argument that the answer to bad speech is more speech was always naïve in the extreme (as was my free speech absolutism before about a decade ago), based as it is on information deficit theory that argues that misinformation can be most effectively fought by providing accurate and correct information. We now know that’s nowhere near enough. Debunking has its role, but it’s nowhere near enough.

Here’s the problem now. It’s nowhere near a level playing field now. Misinformation and disinformation have done and continue to do real harm. Nor is this a matter of just opinion. We are talking about claims that are objectively false or clearly misleading, Because these claims tend to result in the most engagement, they are preferentially amplified by social media compared to science- and fact-based takes. In fact, the “brave truth warriors” (like Brownstone) spreading misinformation and disinformation are at a huge advantage.

Moreover, it is a matter of professional ethics for physicians not to spread misinformation and disinformation, just as it is against professional ethics to recommend quackery. It’s also no coincidence that the physicians who most avidly spread disinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines generally also have quackery to sell. This is not a new problem. I’ve been complaining about how wimpy state medical boards have been disciplining quacks for two decades. However, COVID-19 put the problem on steroids.

Are there gray areas? Of course. Are there sometimes conflicts between the First Amendment and professional regulation? Sure, generally in those gray areas. However, that is not what Daniel Klein is arguing or even acknowledging. He is misrepresenting all efforts to slow the spread of misinformation and disinformation as due to malign intent and despotic in nature. Why? First, for quacks and contrarians it’s good propaganda and business to portray oneself as somehow being “persecuted” for their beliefs. Second, it’s effective propaganda against any effort, no matter how tentative, to rein in clear disinformation.

Anyone has the right to say whatever they want, but that doesn’t guarantee them the right to speak in a large theater, or on a television show.

A doctor has responsibilities to conform to medical standards of care in order to maintain a license to cut and treat people. If a medical person wants the “right” to speak nonsense that can harm patients, let them give up their MD or RN or whatever and make internet videos selling supplements …

I recently hired an electrician and he had the obligation to understand the need for accuracy – an electrician who denied the existence of electrons (like some anti-vaxxers deny viruses) would risk being shocked, burning down a client’s home, and should not be licensed.

Well, as That Guy, I should point out that an electrician doesn’t deal with electrons as such — you could undoubtedly wire a house beautifully even if you thought that currents were made of a continuous, individible electrified fluid, provided you did everything carefully to code.

But I see your point.

I write fiction of dubious quality rather than science, so I definitely believe that all sorts of speech and expression need to be protected and frequently find myself on the sidelines of how far we should go in protecting various topics so I can give a very internet insight into the situation.

Is free speech a thing to be protected when it can lead to real harm? Let us say (internet person that I am) I make a series of ticktock videos aimed at young viewers, where I blatantly state that the videos are parody and not to be taken seriously, but then I claim to grow awesome crystals by mixing common household chemicals, when in reality those chemicals produce toxic gas when mixed.

I am making it clear that the videos are parody, and not something people should actually do, but in making those videos I am instructing impressionable children to do a thing that can result in direct harm or even death and because of that people would have every right to want those videos taken down.

Let us say that another person starts publishing articles and making videos encouraging other impressionable, naive and vulnerable groups into taking actions that can harm or even kill them should they follow the instructions presented in those videos and rather than being clear parody these videos are presented as deadly serious. Should that person be allowed to tell people to do things that are proven to be harmful or should measures be taken to prevent that harm from happening?

Silex “Should that person be allowed to tell people to do things that are proven to be harmful or should measures be taken to prevent that harm from happening?”

A good question. How do you answer it?

In general, I think that it’s okay to have different rules for children and other individuals who can’t be trusted not to harm themselves inadvertently. But I don’t think we should pull books off the library shelves or videos off the internet for that reason. Parents and guardians are supposed to be keeping them safe, so I can understand having to negotiate some tricky territory in terms of public access that keeps harmful material from those too young or otherwise unable to handle it.

YouTube reportedly has banned videos of certain dangerous stunts. But it still allows how-to videos on high-voltage fractal burning, where disassembled parts from microwave ovens and other devices are used to burn lightning-like patterns into wood for artistic effect.

At least 33 people have died in the course of such projects since 2016; electrocution is a major hazard.

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/viral/wisconsin-couple-electrocuted-attempting-viral-wood-burning-art-techni-rcna26109

So we should never never interfere with promotion of reckless life-threatening behavior whether it’s fractal burning or other public health menaces because Freedom?

Interesting.

Yeesh, funny you should mention fractal burning, it’s one of the stupid internet things that I’ll cite when I’m being serious about how dangerous a place the internet can be.

It’s basically the adult arts and crafts version of trying to convince a small child that sticking a fork in an electrical socket is a funny thing to do. So few of the videos about it do enough to make it clear how unsafe it is and some have just enough information about how it works to get sufficiently creative and ‘clever’ people to give it a try.

So yeah people are prone to doing stupid things when they think they have enough information to know what they’re doing and that’s not a good thing.

Fractal burning = lacked all learning.

Good grief. Microwave ovens are not diy projects.

YouTube’s contradictory and ineffective enforcement procedures are characteristic of other large enterprises like eBay and Amazon. If you can navigate their labyrinthine procedures for reporting dangerous products/frauds/”hacks”, they may remove the one you reported, but will take limited or no action against the many similar schemes from which they derive revenue. When I checked recently, there were numerous “kits” sold on eBay and Amazon for making MMS a.k.a. chlorine dioxide bleach, that magically healing liquid that has been (among other things) inflicted on autistic children in the form of enemas. Nudge nudge wink wink copy in the ads notes that the MMS kits are for “home cleaning” or “water purification”. Must be a lot of people out there needing the bleach generated from those high-priced little kit bottles to clean their countertops or generate safe drinking water.

/sarcasm

Please don’t make a strawman BS argument based on fact speech can be legally, and constitutionally regulated, as in shouting “Fire” in a theater

:Headdesk:

Thanks for impugning his motives. There is every difference between allowing hate speech to be subject to public purview, versus deliberately endangering public health by disseminating artfully conceived false statements about vaccines, public health measures, and the realities of the pandemic. You are intelligent enough to know both the difference and how to conflate, confuse, and counteract the truth. Which makes you an enemy of the public. Simply put.

Well, I’m a language guy and trying to wrap my head around Klein’s argument just enveloped it in a fog. He seems to be mounting a critique of the ideological implications of the label “misinformation”, which could have some (limited) validity, but he ignores other connotations of the term that go in a different direction, imputes far too much moustache-twisting intent to appearances of the term… and never establishes that this is anything like censorship. IOW, doesn’t his volley just ricochet back at him: the “misinformation” label is ultimately a form of judgement, so by telling his opponents they can’t use the term… well who’s censoring who? Uh… no one, of course.

BTW, what I mean about “misinformation” having contradictory connotations is that while his argument that it suggests a particular kind of delegitimation isn’t totally wrong, it’s also clearly a half-euphimism, or perhaps better to say an attempt at ‘fair and objective’ suspension of judgement. How Klein construes saying “Mr. Carlson has shared misinformation,” is more diabolically insulting than saying “Carlson us a lying, hypocritical fraud” is truly special.

At least when I see the “misinformation” label I always feel pro-science folk are pulling their punches to the point of mischaracterizing the COVIDiot right, and that “disinformation” is a far more apt term, if you want to go with the -info root. I suppose “mis-” gets used because the user doesn’t want to impute anything to the immediate utterer of the bad -info, who may be just naively passing along a bit of something they take as ‘news’. But the focus should be on the message itself, and even if it’s passed along innocently ‘wow, they proved a thing called ivermectin beats the COVID, and you can get it at Farm and Fleet’ functions as disinformation…

Obligatory reference to proper use of the word.
“I came to Casablanca for the waters.”
“What waters? We’re in the desert!”
“I was misinformed.”

I was actually interested in seeing what your thoughts were on Klein’s article, as I figured his clever obfuscation would catch your attention. Among your comments, this one was of most interest to me:

At least when I see the “misinformation” label I always feel pro-science folk are pulling their punches to the point of mischaracterizing the COVIDiot right, and that “disinformation” is a far more apt term, if you want to go with the -info root. I suppose “mis-” gets used because the user doesn’t want to impute anything to the immediate utterer of the bad -info, who may be just naively passing along a bit of something they take as ‘news’. But the focus should be on the message itself, and even if it’s passed along innocently ‘wow, they proved a thing called ivermectin beats the COVID, and you can get it at Farm and Fleet’ functions as disinformation…

I actually struggle with this issue, in part because of comments that you have made over the years. I do think most disinformation is actually believed by most of the people spreading it, in which case calling it “disinformation” imputes a malign intent to deceive that is usually not there. On the other hand, as you say, functionally it is disinformation in many ways. That’s the problem, and perhaps part of the intent of the few who are actually spreading the disinformation that people come to believe.

The way I’ve traditionally dealt with this is to view those who spread disinformation/misinformation, but are not the actual few who started or spread the disinformation, the same way that I view those who fall for quackery: as victims. They’re the victims of the disinformation spreaders, having been deceived by disinformation in ways that can harm them and others. Think of the patients of cancer quack Dr. Stanislaw Burzynski. He was the disinformation spreader, as well as the grifter. (There’s an interesting argument to be had over whether he actually believed in his own quackery or not. I suspect that he did early on, as in nearly 50 years ago, but now it’s hard to believe that he still thinks that his antineoplastons are any sort of “miracle cure.”)

Whatever Burzynski believed, his patients and their families believed his disinformation and then became some of his most effective defenders. Burzynski routinely weaponized them against the Texas Medical Board and the FDA whenever he faced potential legal action and/or regulatory repercussions for his quackery. In fact, Burzynski is an excellent example of how wimpy and tentative state medical boards and other regulatory bodies have long been about reining in quacks.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken this dynamic and weaponized it on a scale that we have never seen before. Ivermectin comes to mind in particular.

I can understand how a Burzynski happens and I’m not even a specialist.

A few times a year, I’ll think I’ve stumbled across some genius fix for a patient’s issue.

A good example is the correlation between elevated liver function studies and low Vitamin D. You exhaust all the hepatitis panels, rule out structural damage, yada yada, and check and find their Vitamin D is low. A few studies support this.

You replete…a few months later viola! Normal LFTs. You think you “fixed” something. All you really did is “fix” the lab value, probably. Maybe there’s a bearing on course, outcome, mortality, etc, but I wouldn’t argue that’s been resolved.

I know an FP who just checks vitamin D on everyone as a part of general health panels. One can see how this becomes a panacea in her mind. It’s a short leap from there to “This prevents cancer” because NAFLD imparts a higher risk of HCC (Maybe.)

Then it’s “Vitamin D might TREAT cancer.” And then, and then…

That’s just one example I can think of off-hand. I’ve seen whacky ideas about Diabetes, Hypertension, you name it. All of those came from a physician who was sure they were “Onto something.”

As Upton Sinclair said. a man would not admit his mistake if his income depends on it.

I’m OK with retiring “misinformation” and “disinformation” from regular use, instead referring to falsehoods and (in the case of deliberate spreading of untruths or pushing them in reckless disregard for the facts), lies.

There’s no need to sugar-coat consistent attempts at deception.

I think these people are all getting orders from somewhere telling them to talk about disinformation and censorship and propaganda right now. Most likely to try and stay relevant. I just listened to James Lyons-weiler on Robert Scott Bell show in Idaho from 2 days ago at some so-called freedom conference talking about the nature of propaganda and truth and how their side is able to spread so called truth and it was all just a bunch of crap. He’s truly down the rabbit hole and somewhere in the mantle of the earth because at one point he talked about how he spoke for over an hour recently at a Georgia conference telling people how what’s happened with vaccines in the US was necessary for the CIA to do what they had to do.

Let’s separate “name-calling” and “censorship”.

Calling people “misinformation superspreaders”, “pharma shills”, “ignorant fools”, “antiscience grifters”, “science grifters”, “quacks”, “charlatans” etc is name-calling. Name-calling is a part of free discourse and free speech. Possible not the best part of free speech, but a part nevertheless.

Demanding to close social media accounts, withdraw physician licenses, asking employers to fire undesirable people is censorship. Censorship is always used to hide the truth and manipulate the masses for nefarious purposes.

The COVID pandemic was a perfect example of how censorship was used for nefarious purposes, but eventually failed. Now the governments, such as the UK government, are desperately resisting public calls to release information on how the public was manipulated and lied to.

I love when antivaxxers say things like this, given how enamored they are of calling science communicators defending vaccines “pharma shills,” corrupt, ideologically blinded, and worthy of punishment at a “Nuremberg 2.0”-style tribunal with the implication that the should be hanged. Basically, when they call for “civility,” I tell them to piss off, as such calls for “civility” are, like Klein’s article portraying any attempt to label or tamp down “disinformation” as Orwellian despotism putting its boot on the neck of “Wrongthink,” utterly transparent attempts to shut the other side up by portraying them as enemies of free speech and even despotic.

“Demanding to close social media accounts, withdraw physician licenses, asking employers to fire undesirable people is censorship. Censorship is always used to hide the truth and manipulate the masses for nefarious purposes.”

Would you like to remove ALL censorship Igor? Certainly make it easier on the social media companies if they no longer have to even attempt to control online bullying, grooming, suicide groups, eating disorder and self harm promotion, revenge porn etc etc.

You are asking a very good question. No absolutes work and that applies to speech. Do we want to allow a pharmaceutical company to lie about efficacy of its products? Not really.

My own attitude is, the less restrictions, the better.

The First Amendment was litigated in thousands of lawsuits.Each had unique circumstances.

“Do we want to allow a pharmaceutical company to lie about efficacy of its products?”

Most definitely not! What we want are people who’s job it is to check that the data reported, support the conclusions published. Then we want real world monitoring to make sure everything still checks out at population levels.

Which is only effective if carried out by people who understand he subject and the mathematics involved.

Igor.

‘The COVID pandemic was a perfect example of how censorship was used for nefarious purposes, but eventually failed. Now the governments, such as the UK government, are desperately resisting public calls to release information on how the public was manipulated and lied to.’

What “nefarious purposes” are you referring to, please be specific.
Who was “censored”, please be specific.
Which, and name them all, governments are resisting public calls. Please be specific and provide some examples of “who” in the public are making such demands.
“Release information” it has always been the case, for the UK anyway, that a public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic will be held, and that inquiry has already started. Do you not watch the news?, oh, that will be no then. Finally “manipulate and lied”. Be more specific, especially about the lies.

A lot of your posts are just accusations with no attempt to provide evidence. It’s as if you expect us to just accept your comments without a thought.

@ Vicintheshed:

Agreed.
I wrote a long response to Igor elsewhere that hasn’t appeared but he asserted that research about anti-vaxxers/ conspiracy believers by psychologists is worthless.

I’ve got used to hearing that results alties disagree with are bogus/ compromised/ lies BUT they are not able to provide evidence.
Basically psychologists say that people who accept anti-vax/ CTs have different personality profiles than people who do not. In addition, there are other demographic differences and voting patterns. These data have been accumulating over 15-20 years and have been shown by real world observation concerning voting and Covid rates.

Asserting something doesn’t make it true.

I am writing a post about Karen Douglas, hopefully I will be able to finish it.

Their research is not exactly worthless, it is interesting, but it is based on a wrong epistemological platform because these researchers automatically assume the theories in question to be false.

So, their articles and studies sometimes reveal more about who the researchers are, than about who their subjects are.

There could be three explanations for such behavior by these psychology researchers:

1) They are genuinely closed minded and uninformed individuals

2) Their institutional circumstances incentivize them to take such a point of view

3) Contrary articles are not accepted by scientific journals

Your response is not surprising.
I have yet to see you actually acknowledge any data that doesn’t fit with your negative. What kind of critical thinker to you think that you are?

@ Igor:

So you don’t appreciate how this group of psychologists characterises anti-vaxxers and CT believers. Not entirely flattering, is it?

In short, anti-vaxxers and CT believers vary by personality differences that are identifiable, reflect a particular mindset and influence how they behave. These beliefs function as explanation, make them feel safer/ in control and view themselves in a particular way. These results are not an isolated study but a series of explorations by researchers in the UK, US, Australia, the Netherlands since 2004-5. Beliefs may affect how people behave especially in regard to vaccines and can predict that.

I suppose you think that the universities who employ these psychologists and the periodicals ( e.g APA) that publish them are all tied up in a scheme to hide the truth? That the Covid conspiracies being studied are indeed true? That anti-vax ideas are reasonable and correct?
A field of inquiry and a large group of psychologists are all wrong and you’re not? Isn’t that precisely what Douglas and company say about anti-vaxxers and CT believers? You prove them right.

I continue…

Research suggests that anti-vaxxers/ CT believers don’t recognise hierarchies of expertise and view themselves as being somehow “special” and ahead of the curve:
how frequently are these qualities exhibited on RI?

I recall an anti-vax mother teaching an RI doctor/ commenter about how a specific intestinal illness could be detected by smell alone rather than through tests ( and, of course, how the nurses all laughed at the doctors).

Every day, Orac’s “friend” is maligned by alties who never studied
bio, medicine, bio etc. on twitter.

RFK jr and his colleagues dismiss most research about vaccines as a matter of course and then sue people and companies. CHD

Alt med gurus disparage most SBM research but laud small, bizarre, statistically inept research and their personal observations. NN, prn.live, Mercola
They go even further in invective against professionals in general: their knowledge, work, lifestyle and immorality.

Largely, they do this because they haven’t data to prove their theories. Most of the research discussed at RI are not single, one-off examples but consensus built upon dozens- even hundreds of studies- accumulating over time across different areas of inquiry. Social science research can predict how people behave in the real world such as vaccine refusal / hesitance or acceptance. It might predict rates of illness and perhaps how they vote or support/ reject various causes.

Whom subjects accept as experts – including themselves- tells us volumes.

Or conspiracies does not exist. Have you consodered his possibillity ? Perhaps it is you that is genuinely closed minde.

Only government can censor things. A provite company has a right to deplatfrom you and you have right to find another platform.
Check reason why antivax doctors have lost their license. And losing medical license does no prevent you speaking.
Speaking about grifters, what name you would use for a doctor who sell useless pills and advice against efficient treatments.?

Only government can censor things. A provite company has a right to deplatfrom you and you have right to find another platform.

Exactly. People like Igor and most of the other voices on the right don’t really know what the First Amendment says, or really what any of the Constitution says, only what they think is said.

Most of the people I survey shriek about being censored on the net which I learn about by reading/ hearing their websites, podcasts, broadcasts, tweets on the net. Several of their big guns have books and films currently for sale on the net.

@ Aarno Syvanen:

Many of those who were de-platformed by social media companies used their already functioning websites to complain about it and some went on to create their own outlets; it wasn’t just about censorship but because social media allowed them greater reach– a larger audience and easy accessibility.
Also new platforms/ social media cost money.

“Only government can censor things. A provite company has a right to deplatfrom you and you have right to find another platform.”

With the dominance of the big social media platforms and the Essential Facilities doctrine, freedom of contract might have (somewhat fuzzy) limits there.

Sigh.
SIGH.

I swore an oath. So did Orac. So did others. I expect the medical board to hold me to that oath if I lose sight of reality.

If I told patients that ivermectin would prevent or treat covid when ALL of my VAST experiences said it absolutely would not-I’d expect to have action taken against my license. I’d deserve it.

This has NOTHING to do with free speech. You go tell people whatever you want about ivermectin. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about; and, importantly, have no responsibility to society as such or, thankfully, a medical license.

No matter how much so-called facts may themselves be based on interpretations of some reality (like language (and conception/conceptualization/creation/imagination/belief/etc.) itselve is), changing those facts (or tactically ommitting less-suitable facts) in order to make them better suit your interpretations of them, is not interpretation!
Doing my own research (as advised) i too often found out that this is what “they” do a lot of the time with facts and data: not interpreting them, but something else..
In the end i decided that overall (more times) arguments against anti-(covid) vaxness and measures and such, were much stronger (more, more supporting eachother (integrated?)), and not needing such intensive changing and/or omissions and/or also misrepresentations (of studies!) of all kinds of facts and data(or, indeed, re-interpretation) than arguments against pro (covid) vaxness, measures and such.
Also i found out that many questions just asked, were just answered, without the questioners even listening!
In short, i decided that (if i do have to choose between two) the pro-vax story is a much better story (allthough still with some sidenotes).

I also think that although in principal total free speech also protects/includes the freedom to state falsehoods, misleadings, lies and such without limits, i do not believe (they are not right) that this freedom was traditionally the goal, let alone the first goal, of the concept of free speech. I think the Brownstone Institute could be a bit more traditionalist with this, instead of all this post-modernism till over the brink..

Of late, I’ve been carefully using misinformation/ disinformation to label the … material?.. I survey because I venture that even the worst of the worst alties/ anti-vaxxers actually believe the crap they broadcast around the intertubz:
they take their own advice ( Gary Null’s self-poisoning episode with vitamin D; Mike Adams on how to self-dose with ivermectin by pipette, various anti-vax moms poisoning autistic kids with MMS; bizarre diets to “cure” cancer/ hiv/aids)
HOWEVER where I detect a hint or a glimmer of self-awareness of their own deceitfulness is how they repeated over-determinedly state their own veracity by quoting their “studies”, giving multiple anecdotes: they just are trying too damn hard.

I find critics of censorship disingenuous because they firmly censor their critics, tar them with invective ( e.g. Orac, Dr Novello,
Drs Hotez, Fauci, Offit, Skeptical Raptor, Prof Dorit et al) or challenge them to faux. “debates”.

Also social media are companies that can determine EXACTLY whom they help spread ideas. I notice that our dear, little Elon is quite open-minded in his acceptance of altie/ righties/ CTs.

I’ll be back.

I notice that our dear, little Elon is quite open-minded in his acceptance of altie/ righties/ CTs.

He’s also rather harsh on shutting down people who disagree with him or his besties.

On a previous post, I shared about asking Amazon’s artificial intelligence (i.e., Alexa) who is “Orac”, spelling the name for clarification. Alexa only described Dr. David Henry Gorski and his accomplishments and efforts. This is misinformation in that “Who is Orac?” is clearly defined in this website.

Here’s my point, if AI can communicate misinformation can it also communicate disinformation?

For example, I asked Alexa “Is Ivermectin useful for COVID-19?” Alexa said, “Hmm, I don’t know that.” Now, is this disinformation in that the scientific consensus communicates that Ivermection is ineffective against COVID-19?

Saying I do not know is not misinformation, it is admission of lack of knowledge.

Steve Kirsch is considering blocking opponents on Twitter, for not answering his loaded questions the way he wants them to.

Dr. Gorski is in the cross hairs, oh my!

You see, CENSORSHIP is what’s done to Covid contrarians/deniers and antivaxers, not something they’d ever be guilty of.

@ Everybody

As you’ve notice, Igor Chudov keeps posting his antivax bias without any supporting evidence; e.g., references. Just his ignorant unscientific bias. A while back Igor admitted he doesn’t know/understand even the basics (see below), so why does he keep making a fool of himself?

Igor Chudov
says:
April 19, 2023 at 6:45 pm
Just like Orac, I find it odd that Dr Bridle wants to debate Covid vaccines with Dr Caulfield, but for a different reason.
Dr. Bridle is a viral immunologist, an expert in vaccinology and virology, and an author of dozens of related scientific studies.
Dr. Caulfield is a professor of law, with zero education pertaining to virology or vaccinology. His level of expertise in vaccines, virology and vaccinology is on par with my own. In other words, he is an amateur to the field of vaccines and viruses.

So, Igor, STOP MAKING A FOOL OF YOURSEL

Igor’s ignorance is crucial to his overconfidence. It enables his to make that statements he does.

@ John Rober Labarge

You write: “t’s not the mature or scientific thing to try to silence those you disagree with. It’s cowardly and authoritarian and combined with government-Pharma pushed mandates, fascist by definition.”

Orac already tore you to shreds; but just to supplement. I’ve been monitoring several antivax websites for many years; e.g., Age of Autism. Please, tell us how many comments of provaccinationists can be found on these websites. Sometimes, very seldom, they allow one or two comments by provaxxers that are then attacked by multiple comments by antivaxxers, comments not backed with any science and the provaxxers not allowed to respond. Then tell us how many comments just you have submitted have been posted on this website and multiple comments by other antivaxxers such as Igor Chudov, Ginni Stoner, etc.

And I have responded several times to your comments and asked what you base them on; e.g., basics of immunology, microbiology, infectious diseases, etc. Never a response.

As for silencing those who disagree. Besides umpteen antivax websites, Respectful Insolence and Science-Based Medicine allowing numerous antivax comments, one can find them posted at FDA website, Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization website, etc.

Basically you are an extremely ignorant antivax biased dishonest person, with what you wrote above just one strong example.

@ Aarno Syvänen

You write: “Check reason why antivax doctors have lost their license.”

Given, though a small minority, of doctors are antivax, how many have lost their licenses? What reasons were given? And estimate percentage of antivax doctors.

Just another example of you and others who make claims without any supporting documentation/evidence.

Joel, in Aarno’s case he is suggesting that Igor check the reason for a licence being revoked BEFORE claiming it’s a big conspiracy to silence a brave maverick physician. Not agreeing with him.

@ NumberWang

Maybe your right; but given his previous comments, perhaps, I read into what he wrote rather than take it at fact value.

@ Number Wang

I should have added, given the multitude of wrong comments by Aarno Syvänen, an old saying: “Even a broken clock gets the time right twice daily.”

Funny thing is that you yourself admitted two times that you were wrong. Wrong comments anyone ?

Look out, we apparently have had another Holistic Doctor Murder.

The grapevine is dripping with dire rumors about Arne Burkhardt, a retired German pathologist and Truth Teller about Covid-19 vaccine harms, who died June 2 “suddenly and unexpectedly”. This naturally has admirers speculating darkly that he was assassinated, because as we all know, 79-year-old men don’t just drop dead.

Burkhardt may have been best known for his contention that Covid-19 spike proteins cause infertility by completely replacing sperm, which sounds really painful.

https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/32ad733d?hs_amp=true

A giant has been taken from us.

The article in logically.ai is factually false.

While I do not think that “all vaccinated sperm was replaced by spike protein”, which is a totally ridiculous claim made to make one certain video go viral, there is an issue with the impact of Covid vaccine on sperm.

This study: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/andr.13209

Titled: Covid-19 vaccination BNT162b2 temporarily impairs semen concentration and total motile count among semen donors

reports that semen quality declines significantly after vaccination and, for some people, does not recover well after vaccination.

If I recall correctly, the study did not look at “boosted” people, so the effects on the population could be even worse since many people were “boosted”.

The fact checks, speedily written about this study, misstate its findings. One example of such a dishonest fact check, is here: https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-israel-sperm/fact-check-israeli-study-finds-drop-in-sperm-count-after-pfizer-vaccine-is-temporary-no-sign-of-sperm-damage-idUSL1N2YU17F

It is entirely possible that COVID-19, a lab-made disease released for an unknown purpose, and producing the same spike protein as the vaccine, indeed also reduces fertility.

If so, I am sorry for the Covid-vaccinated people who get endlessly reinfected with COVID-19.

Ok Igor. What does a natural covid infection do to semen counts? Do you know? Do you CARE?

I was responding to a link with this logically.ai article: https://www.logically.ai/factchecks/library/32ad733d?hs_amp=true

It states: “The meta-analysis also states that COVID-19 infection may be associated with impaired fertility and that the vaccine could “preserve reproductive function” by preventing COVID-19 infection.”

That was why I commented on Covid-19 impairing fertility. As to the question “do you (Igor) care” the answer is absolutely YES. I do care whether Covid-19 impacts fertility.

I am an aspiring grandfather and this question is of utmost importance to me.

So how do you prevent exposure to both covid-19 and its vaccines? Live in the country? Ivermectin? Special diets?

Speaking of diets, I heard eating walnuts and making sure you have enough zinc in your diet can potentially help with male fertility, as can keeping cool (loose underpants) and staying in shape. These all sound easier than avoiding both covid and covid shots and indulging concerns that George Soros (or whoever your favorite “face of Them ™ may be) is trying to castrate you.

semen quality declines significantly after vaccination and, for some people, does not recover well after vaccination

Dear L-rd.

Speaking of “factually false”:

There’s been considerable research into the fertility issue, and the weight of evidence is overwhelmingly against any negative effect on fertility by Covid vaccination. From a systematic review and meta-analysis published in Vacccine last year by Zace et al:

“Sperm concentration post-COVID-19 vaccination with any type of vaccine did not remarkably vary in the meta-analysis of eight pre-post studies that included 451 males. The meta-analysis of six studies that included 346 males did not exhibit any significant variation in the sperm volume prior to or after vaccination with any vaccine type.”

“Furthermore, the biochemical pregnancy rate and clinical pregnancy rate did not differ significantly among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated cohorts. Also, estradiol levels did not show any significant difference between the vaccinated and unvaccinated women.”

Given that Covid infection could negatively impact fertility, vaccination offers protection against that outcome.

Igor’s suggesting that Evil Powers created Covid-19 to reduce the population signifies that he is becoming as nutty as his looniest followers. More evidence of the perils of audience capture..

==> Given that Covid infection could negatively impact fertility, vaccination offers protection against that outcome.

How does vaccination “offer protection” if it does not protect from Covid?

==> Igor’s suggesting that Evil Powers created Covid-19 to reduce the population signifies that he is becoming as nutty as his looniest followers.

What an odd comment, contradicting your own suggestion that “Covid infection could negatively impact fertility”.

Sars-Cov-2 was created in a lab. It is a wildly successful virus, showing most sophisticated viral engineering. We are in the fifth calendar year of the pandemic. Sars-Cov-2 infected most people on this planet. It keeps reinfecting people. Whoever created it, clearly succeeded.

Who exactly created it and for what purpose? We do not know that with sufficient precision.

However, if Covid-19 affects fertility, it is not at all crazy to suppose that it does the job it was intended to do, right?

“However, if Covid-19 affects fertility, it is not at all crazy to suppose that it does the job it was intended to do, right?

If you accept that what was intended was a shit job.

“That’s right my evil world domination team-mates, we’ve created the ultimate depopulation weapon. If you’ll all jump into your cryogenic chambers, we’ll check how it looks in a thousand years or so”.

… … … Okay, I’m going for it here because I can’t help it. So sorry that I’m a total kusogaki.

“Sars-Cov-2 was created in a lab. It is a wildly successful virus, showing most sophisticated viral engineering. We are in the fifth calendar year of the pandemic. Sars-Cov-2 infected most people on this planet. It keeps reinfecting people. Whoever created it, clearly succeeded.

Who exactly created it and for what purpose? We do not know that with sufficient precision.”

Based on what you’re saying Igor and my extensive lack of knowledge of real virology, I can safely say that Albert Wesker created it, using using money and labs given to him by Tricell for the purpose of eliminating over 90% of the earth’s population so that from the ashes a new race of super humans would arrive.

And unlike your fanfiction Igor, mine is free to read and doesn’t do anyone any harm.

“How does vaccination “offer protection” if it does not protect from Covid?”

Igor knows very well that vaccines offer protection from Covid, but likes to pretend that less than perfect protection = no protection at all.

How is anyone supposed to take you seriously when you tell such whoppers so blatantly?

It is a wildly successful virus, showing most sophisticated viral engineering.

They teach engineering in business school?

Of course vaccination protects from COVID. You should cite studies showing otherwise.
SARS CoV 2 was not created in lab. Spliced virus must have a reporter gene. Check SARS CoV 2 genome.

True Aarno but the current conspiracy seems to be something like “they did so many passes through mice that those promoters were lost.” It’s not at all clear to me how that could happen but I don’t do this work everyday.

Note-I’m not ruling out the possibility it was accidentally released. It could have been.

@Medical Yeti If reporter gene is lost, otheer genes couuld be lost too. Grea way to make a mouse irus.

Where does the paper find that “for some people, does not recover well after vaccination”?

JFC Igor, don’t you ever read the entire paper you think supports your bullshit? From the discussion section of that paper [highlighted portions from me].

<

blockquote> In conclusion, in this longitudinal multicenter study, we found a selective temporary decline of sperm concentration and total motile count 3 months post‐vaccination followed by recovery among SD. While on first look, these results may seem concerning, from a clinical perspective they confirm previous reports regarding vaccines’ overall safety and reliability despite minor short‐term side effects. Since misinformation about health‐related subjects represents a public health threat, 23 our findings should support vaccinations programs.<?blockquote>

Some here (well, mostly Igor) are confused about what censorship and violation of the First Amendment entail.

The FIrst Amendment only applies to federal, state and local government and those acting for them, not private individuals or groups.

Censorship can be carried out by the government or private entities. It may be an attempt to impose political or personal beliefs on others, or it can be in response to threats against public welfare or security. Wartime censorship, for example, can be either self-serving or necessary to keep vital information from benefiting one’s enemies.

By the way, although I am not a free speech “absolutist”, it wouldn’t bother me greatly to be labeled as such.

So, the act of using the courts, or any governmental/state body, as a means to punish someone for what they say, would be in violation? Does that allow a sort of ‘once removed’ action? Like, you can say what you like but you can be punished for the consequences?

Given the fact that many of these people claim to be ‘censored’, they are wrong. They have their own websites (brownstone etc), they have articles included on other web sites (natural news etc), they have social media sites, if they get banned (YouTube, Twitter etc) there’s always rumble, bitchute, Reddit, truth social etc. Censorship is removing all of that. So they have a free reign in reality….they don’t get censored.

It’s not that the definition of ‘censorship’ isn’t wide enough to include some of the things the righties complain about, it’s that there are different levels or extents of censorship, many of which don’t equate to ‘silencing’ at all. Freedom of expression is about the ability to be heard generally not free rein (as in horses, not monarchs) to utter anything you want, any time, anywhere.

I learn something new every day. Today it was ‘never trust auto complete’…rein, reign, rain,rayon….etc etc.

@ Igor Chudov

I suggest you begin any future comments with: “I am really stupid, ignorant of science; but here I go again” 😀

@ Igor Chudov

You write: “It is entirely possible that COVID-19, a lab-made disease released for an unknown purpose, and producing the same spike protein as the vaccine, indeed also reduces fertility. If so, I am sorry for the Covid-vaccinated people who get endlessly reinfected with COVID-19.”

“Who get endlessly reinfected with COVID-19” and what do you base this on as it goes against numerous studies over the past three years?

And the overwhelming evidence is it is not a lab-made disease; but you just keep on without strong supporting evidence.

As for reducing fertility for a short period of time, better than dead which, of course, means NO fertility. And the reduction in sperm count from the article does not necessarily mean one couldn’t impregnate ones partner. It only takes one sperm to impregnate a woman; but, as usual, you are too stupid to understand this.

You really are the perfect role model for the Dunning-Kruger Effect, that is, too stupid to know you are stupid.

Igor writes.

“ I am sorry for the Covid-vaccinated people who get endlessly reinfected with COVID-19.”

I did a quick count of family and close friends. All vaccinated. About a quarter of us had covid post vaccine but only once. But more importantly no hospitalisation, no deaths. The rest, myself included, have never been infected. I know that’s anecdotal but doesn’t seem to conform to Igor’s expectations.

@ Igor Chudov

“Semen is not infectious with SARS-CoV-2 at 1 week or more after COVID-19 infection (mean, 53 days). However, couples with a desire for pregnancy should be warned that sperm quality after COVID-19 infection can be suboptimal. The estimated recovery time is 3 months, but further follow-up studies are under way to confirm this and to determine if permanent damage occurred in a minority of men.”

Gilbert G.G. Donders et al. (2022 Feb). Sperm quality and absence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in semen after COVID-19 infection: a prospective, observational study and validation of the SpermCOVID test. Fertility and sterility; 117(2): 287–296

And I actually found several more studies documenting COVID-19 infections on sperm quality and count.

And I forgot to mention in my previous comment that I doubt the many who experienced severe symptoms and even hospitalizations for weeks or more engaged in sexual activity.

@ Igor Chudov

You write: “The fact checks, speedily written about this study, misstate its findings. One example of such a dishonest fact check

From the study: “Repetitive measurements revealed −15.4% sperm concentration decrease . . . In conclusion, in this longitudinal multicenter study, we found a selective temporary decline of sperm concentration and total motile count 3 months post-vaccination followed by recovery among SD.”

From the Reuters Fact Check: “A June study published in the journal Andrology shows a transient drop of about 15% in sperm count . . . sperm counts were returning to pre-vaccine levels after 145 days.”

I won’t bother copying and pasting every single point made in study and in Reuters Fact Check; however, both emphasize that actual COVID infection causes much more severe damage to sperm cells and both emphasize that those vaccinated experienced complete recovery of normal sperm count.

Please, copy and paste quotes from the study and misstatements from Reuters, if they actually exist?????

Low sperms count doesn’t worry me. Vasectomy, even had to do it twice.

Igor wrote.

‘1) They are genuinely closed minded and uninformed individuals

2) Their institutional circumstances incentivize them to take such a point of view

3) Contrary articles are not accepted by scientific journals’

So he’s a 1 then.

@ Vicintheshed

You write: “Does Igor drive?”

Yep, he drives people crazy with his unscientific antivax bias. 😀

Not only I drive, I even wrote a long post about that specific study.

This study, like many other studies coming out of University of Toronto (I love making fun of that specific university) is a piece of garbage. It perfectly exemplifies “Covid vaccine science” as a field of quackery.

The study forgot to account for “miles driven”. So the Canadian working class, who was reluctant to vaccinate and drove to work, had more “miles driven” than the laptop class, who was sitting at home masked, vaccinated and did not drive to work.

They former category was “essential workers” and indeed they were more reluctant to vaccinate, as another study explains:

https://covid19-sciencetable.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Science-Brief_Vaccines-in-Essential-Workers_20210423_published2.pdf

This study, like many other studies coming out of University of Toronto (I love making fun of that specific university) is a piece of garbage.

Since the University of Toronto is a top-tier university with world class researchers, your “making fun of them” is right in line with your history of spouting bullshit. You just don’t have any clue about reality or facts do you Igor?

I’m shocked Igor hadn’t come out with “They designed this thing to target fat people in the West before the Chinese lose world dominance.”

I just cooked that one up sitting in one of our cafeterias and looking around. Shocked it isn’t a CT narrative yet since obesity was an unequivocal risk factor for worse outcomes.

The question of “who designed Sars-Cov-2 and for what purpose” is the most important question of this pandemic!

The answer is: Almost certainly it was zoonotic in origin. It is possible that it was made in a lab, but that possibility is so much less unlikely than a very common way new viruses arise (zoonosis) as to be almost homeopathic by comparison.

@ Igor Chudov

Why would someone design such a basically innocuous virus? COVID-19 is really not much more deadly than many other viruses. Years ago the University of North Carolina had a lab that did a gain-of-function on a corona virus that made it much more deadly than current one and it really did escape from the lab. Fortunately it did not break out into general population.

You ignore evidence, typical of you given your ignorance of science, etc. and choose to believe it escaped from lab in China and as Orac points out, though highly unlikely, as opposed to you who have a rigid bias, Orac, myself, and others don’t completely rule it out; but if it escaped, it wasn’t a gain-of-function and if the US had better leadership and public health system, the death rate would have probably been under 250,000 rather than one million and even today if more people got vaccinated we would see hospitalizations and deaths tumbled.

You just choose to ignore the real world and live in your ignorant unscientific biased world

There is a popular CT that ‘they’ are going to depopulate the world. Agenda 21 and agenda 30. Ie, to reduce the global population to 1/2 a billion, starting 2021 (on track) and reaching that figure by 2030.

A few notes
1/ at current rate of excess deaths, they are off target by some 300 years.
2/ why kill the compliant first and not the dissenters?
3/ what effect will this have on the world economies. Big pharma profits will collapse.
4/ maybe the plan is actually on target, create a virus, creat a vaccine, let dissenters get confident, release a super unstoppable variant that only the vaccinated can survive, watch dissenters drop like flies.
5/ no more CT.
6/ no more Igor, crikey……what if?

Covid maybe killed twenty to thirty million people, worldwide, if excess deaths (ie. coverups) are considered. Population goes up about 80 million a year, so the worldwide globalist Soros Gates Fauci super conspiracy to depopulate the world isn’t going very well.

Before Covid I wondered if some of the antivax stuff was a reverse psychology campaign by the covert agencies to ensure that the most paranoid anti-government people get more sick … now I see it as a rejection of modernity (and of Moderna), a form of fundamentalism. Terrain theory. Viruses don’t exist. Polio cured by soap and water. Smallpox wasn’t a virus (know someone who claimed this to me – who is deep into AntiVa narratives). Fundamentalism of various flavors seem to be united in wanting to roll back to before the 20th century, whether explicitly religious or quasi secular (New Age movement).

Watching too many people lose their sanity and become ultra paranoid because they couldn’t cope with the reality of the pandemic is a reason I’m not a progress-ive. We’re devolving.

@ Mark Robinowitz:

“.. a rejection of modernity..”

Certainly. Alt med/ anti-vax often encourage rejection of basic facts of
21st century living when most people live in or near cities, women enjoy ( nearly) equal opportunity, professionals treat illness/ teach/ counsel and governments provide support for disadvantaged people.

Amongst those I survey there is support for a return to farming, traditional family roles, self-care/ alternative medicine, home schooling and ultra small government with much lower taxes. A return to gold and self-protection with firearms. Reliance upon family/ friends to deal with catastrophe ( if your barn burns down, they’ll pitch in and build you a new one). Less reliance upon SBM/ psychology, instead utilising folk medicine/ healers, “wise” relatives/ religious leaders for psychological issues and old fashioned thriftiness and re-use rather than banks and credit.

Some of what I hear/ read sounds like ‘life on the frontier’ novels and movies about earlier times not the realities.
This “better life” is contrasted with harried city dwellers, pursuing “careerism” on their laptops, cherishing their advanced degrees while their poor neglected children experiment with drugs, are vaccinated/ given meds, receive worthless government sanctioned instruction without spiritual guidance and are taught LGBTQ+ life choices.

==> why kill the compliant first and not the dissenters?

You need to study history, in all such depopulations the compliant would go first.

The dissenters and disbelievers usually are the survivors.

Anyway, this is all obviously speculation.

There is another theory. “Sars-Cov-2 is a prion vector” theory suggests that all people who had Sars-Cov-2 before Omicron and who lost smell, are gonna die from a neurodegenerative prion disease. (like the mad cow disease) So, if that theory proves right, the people who disregarded health advice would be overrepresented among the victims of such deadly prions.

I am not endorsing that particular theory, even though it is very interesting, but thought you would find it to be an interesting food for thought.

There is another theory. “Sars-Cov-2 is a prion vector” theory suggests that all people who had Sars-Cov-2 before Omicron and who lost smell, are gonna die from a neurodegenerative prion disease. (like the mad cow disease)

It’s always risky asking you for a scientific reference because one of two things happens: you either never give one or it’s from some clown just as loony and uneducated as you. But: where is this “theory” published?

If you are interested, I suggest searching Google Scholar for “Sars-CoV-2 prion”.

Here’s one article that is a good introduction: https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/12/9/1253

SARS-CoV-2 Invasion and Pathological Links to Prion Disease

It explains that Sars-CoV-2 contains “prion-like” domains and possibly plays a role in Long Covid, which presents similarly to early stages of dementia, which is sometimes caused by prions (such as mad cow disease).

Some quotes:

Lingering and often serious neurological problems for patients in the post-COVID-19 recovery period include brain fog, behavioral changes, confusion, delirium, deficits in intellect, cognition and memory issues, loss of balance and coordination, problems with vision, visual processing and hallucinations, encephalopathy, encephalitis, neurovascular or cerebrovascular insufficiency, and/or impaired consciousness.

Interestingly, the amino acid sequence of the SARS-CoV-2 viral ‘S1’ spike protein shares a number of ‘prion-like’ attributes and properties that appear to contribute to various aspects of the PrD neuropathology, neurophysiology, and the pathomechanism of prion-type infection and neurodegeneration. These attributes include the ability to bind various natural glycosoaminoglycans such as heparin, heparin binding proteins (HBP), and disease-associated molecules such as amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptides and prion proteins; the ‘S1’ spike protein therefore acts as ‘seeding centers’ for the formation of disease-characteristic intracellular inclusions in the brain and CNS. These pathological lesions support pro-inflammatory neurodegeneration, neuronal cell atrophy, death, and/or PrD-type change.

I do not feel competent enough to make an independent judgment on this theory but I find it fascinating and worth exploring. I am doing some reading on this.

I own a small business so I meet a lot of people. I am personally observing very many working age people in intellectual decline, doing crazily stupid things, forgetting important appointments, becoming professionally incompetent etc. It is very disturbing and I have not seen such changes before the pandemic.

My second reply to you, regarding “loss of smell”. Loss of smell, according to proponents of the prion theory, means that Sars-Cov-2 invaded the nerves leading to the olfactory bulb in the brain and thus delivered the prions to the CNS.

A fascinating idea, and it is disturbing to me since I had Covid in Nov. 2020 and lost smell for a month.

I forgot an appointment recently, which was totally impossible in the past and makes me wonder if I am also affected by such a hypothetical development.

Igor, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been isolated and its genome sequenced. It is not a prion.

Repeat, SARS-CoV-2 is not a prion. It’s a coronavirus.

You need to stop getting your information from loons-R-us.com.

Orac, thanks for the link, but the mdpi study that I referred to, and my own reply, discuss only the SARS-COV-2 virus, not the vaccines.

@Igor:

There are many ways to be forgetful. For one, you can have trouble commiting things to memory, trouble recalling them from memory, or both. Alzheimer’s is one way, mad cow disease is another, being tired or drunk or stressed are yet other ways, and well, some of us, particularly those of us labeled ADHD, are this way from birth or early childhood and it’s associated with slow prefrontal cortex growth and/or low levels of dopamine and noradrenaline. They may all look alike on the surface – you forgot your appointment – but the mechanisms are different. The ones not known to be neurodegenerative (Alzheimer’s, mad cow) or neurodevelopmental (ADHD) are generally short-term. Many of the things found after covid infections, including “brain fog,” have also been reported as usually temporary symptoms after other nasty infections. Causes are uncertain, but effects can generally be managed by reducing other short-term sources of similar symptoms, such as stress, poor sleep, alcohol, or being out of shape.

@Orac: holy mad cow, the comments on that old thread. Alzheimer’s and autism the same thing at different ages? Autism starting at age 2? I never saw that particular kind of bull before. (Don’t most antivaxers say it starts at 1 to 1 1/2?) I probably just haven’t followed this stuff consistently enough.

I own a small business so I meet a lot of people. I am personally observing very many working age people in intellectual decline, doing crazily stupid things, forgetting important appointments, becoming professionally incompetent etc.

What is the common factor with all of the people met? (hint)

Is all this prion discussion mere theorizing, hand-waving, and scare conspiracy talk?

Take a look at this report from the Dutch institute RIVM, dated May 31, 2023:

https://www.rivm.nl/en/news/significant-increase-in-memory-and-concentration-problems-among-adults

Significant increase in memory and concentration problems among adults

In the first quarter of 2023, there was a 24% increase in GP visits related to memory and concentration problems among adults (age 25 years and older) compared to the same period in 2020. This is evidenced by the latest quarterly research update from the GOR Network. The increase in memory and concentration problems of adults seems to be a longer-term effect of the coronavirus measures as well as SARS-CoV-2 infections.

The number of GP visits for memory and concentration problems increased in all age groups among adults (aged 25 years and up), but the biggest increase was seen in the age groups from 45 to 74 years (+40%).

“I own a small business so I meet a lot of people. I am personally observing very many working age people in intellectual decline, doing crazily stupid things, forgetting important appointments, becoming professionally incompetent”

I, on the other hand, work in a largish factory and haven’t seen anything like this at all. Maybe you’re a pain in the bum as a customer or supplier.

Igor: “I am personally observing very many working age people in intellectual decline, doing crazily stupid things, forgetting important appointments, becoming professionally incompetent etc.”

Slight twist on an old saying*: Igor, if you’re constantly running into people who seem to be in cognitive decline, maybe it’s time for you to get a mental health evaluation.

*figuratively speaking, many of us have been telling Igor that he’s drunk, but he’s unwilling to lie down.

@Igor Chudov Even if two proteins have sequence similarities, they are not same. An article of COVID anosmia:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00405-022-07689-w
“ACE2 receptors are expressed at very high levels by olfactory mucosal supporting cells, such as microvillar and sustentacular cells [20]. Damage and infection of these supporting cells and resultant inflammation may induce anosmia.”
And you again forget age adjustment.

Igor said the report states the longer term effects “seem to be due to coronavirus measures [his emphasis] as well as the virus itself.

Under “Possible Explanations” at his link:

<

blockquote>The source of this increase in memory and concentration problems is unclear. A possible explanation could be that COVID-19 measures caused accelerated cognitive decline among people who were starting to have problems with memory and concentration (66 years on average).

<

blockquote>



Not quite the clearcut conclusion he implies. The increase was, apparently, somewhat expected. Again, from his link:

Researchers at the Alzheimer’s Centre at Amsterdam UMC and others also saw a trend in the primary care data that they had already expected to occur at the beginning of the Covid-19 period: an increasing group of people who were suffering from mild memory and concentration problems. 

 A supplementary explanation could be that some of these people have long-term symptoms after COVID-19. Various studies have shown that memory and concentration problems are common in post-COVID symptoms. Other infectious diseases, such as flu, can also cause these symptoms. However, recent studies have shown that long-term memory and concentration problems are much more common after COVID-19 than after flu. In addition, these symptoms are more common in older age groups. The figures provided by GPs are consistent with this expectation

Again Igor, not only do you deny it when clear research contradicts your fantasies, you can’t even report honestly on the things to which you link. If you got your assertions word-for-word from somewhere, it wasn’t the place you pointed to.

Re: Dangerous Bacon

==> Igor, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been isolated and its genome sequenced. It is not a prion. Repeat, SARS-CoV-2 is not a prion. It’s a coronavirus.

Right. It is a coronavirus with a “prion like domain”. It starts the protein misfolding, which then goes on its own. That’s what the MDPI article explains.

It’s always dangerous to generalize from extremely limited data to promote an all-encompassing theory.

But if you buy the idea that SARS-CoV-2 infection (which is what your linked article discusses) leads to neurodegeneration akin to what prion diseases cause, and that such infection speeds up and exacerbates latent CJD and similar prion-caused ailments, then two obvious courses of action suggest themselves.

1) do what you can to avoid Covid-19, in particular get vaccinated against it.

2) stop chowing down on deer carcasses.

https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/us/bizarre-security-cam-footage-shows-witches-in-canada-see-what-happened/articleshow/100831071.cms

Where you get idea that it starts misfolding ? Prion like is not prion

The complete confluence of RFK Jr. with the far right continues to draw closer.

In an interview (actually, more of a mutual admiration society meeting) with Elon Musk, RFK Jr. promoted the idea that antidepressant use causes school shootings.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/robert-f-kennedy-jr-conspiracy-theory-twitter-elon-musk-1234747479/

Such claims have been a staple of Natural News rantings and also emanate from the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson.

Alex Jones, a fervent supporter, views Junior as a virtual clone of Jones himself. And he’s not far wrong.

He can join forces with Nicky Haley, who just said trans kids being in girls locker rooms is leading to the rise of suicides among (cis) girls. “Biological boys in girls sports is the women’s issue of our time.”

BTW, why have the number of trans kids exploded? Just asking. Could it be… the vaccines? No wait. The combination of vaccines and anti-depressants… [whazzat Grampa… yeah…OK] and they’re swallowing those pills with FLOURIDATED water!!!!

Sure. The loons I survey blame most everything on meds and vaccines. Mental illness ( like hiv/aids) is caused by the meds prescribed to treat it. I usually ask if they were alright why were they given meds in the first place? I guess it’s because greedy doctors need more customers and taking meds lead to other meds ad infinitum.
Before kids were given “cocktails” of multiple vaccines, none of them were trans!**

** no, they were hiding away from crappy parents and relatives.

One of the most annoying things in my day is dealing with patients on medication. Especially those on a lot of them. It always cracks me up that these ghouls think we’re all out to slang meds like crack on a corner

@NumberWang: => I, on the other hand, work in a largish factory and haven’t seen anything like this at all. Maybe you’re a pain in the bum as a customer or supplier.

Since you are a factory guy, you may understand some examples I give.

We ordered a high-cube 40ft container to a particular site. Instead of a high-cube, the container company delivered a regular cube. The container broker asked them WHY did they do it. Their answer was “we thought it would be okay”. Excuse me? Nobody orders high cubes unless they actually need them. This was super stupid. The bropker could not get over how stupid t hat was and neither could I.
I and a factory maintenance guy discussed having my crew someplace on Friday and set up the appointment. Same day as appointment was made (Tuesday) my foreman visited the place just to scope out the job and saw the same maintenance supervisor. We show up on Friday and they FORGOT about us coming.
A company was supposed to turn off gas in a natural gas line before we would cut it. We were assured that they did it. My guy started cutting and the gas started coming out under high pressure (30-40 PSI or so) through a small hole. What followed was a comedy show.

They did not know wherethe shutoff valves were. (all the while the gas is coming out). I helped them find the valve. They said, literally, “this is not a valve it is something else”. Then they decided to unscrew the 1″ pipe union in the middle of the pipe to put a cap on. I told them that this is a high pressure gas and if they open a 1″ pipe they will NOT have enough physical strength to put the cap and will blow up the factory. (all the while the gas is coming out)

Fortunately they failed to open up the pipe union because they were not strong enough. This was their f…ng lucky moment.

I told them, give me insulation tape and the scissor lift, got up to the pipe where it was cut and taped the opening.

That was a stressful moment.

My workers went someplace to load a machine on a customer’s truck. What arrived was a hot shot pickup truck with a two-axle gooseneck trailer.

The problem is that the two-axle trailer was missing one axle which clearly fell off recently. (!)

The axles were supposed to be on a common beam, so without one, the other axle went up and the wheel was touching the bottom of the trailer deck. Does not matter, the driver said, get me loaded. Since he only had one axle, the tires looked flat due to double the weight. The guy took off with plans to take this load to MIAMI (1000+ mile drive).

Well, can’t argue with the stupidity. Undoing a union in a pressurised gas pipe is a recipe for danger although less than three bar isn’t particularly high (we use 8 bar compressed air for pneumatic systems). They’d have lost a lot of gas by the time they unscrewed the union and either capped the pipe or plugged the union. You obviously weren’t dealing with engineers, otherwise they’d know what a valve (gate, ball or butterfly) would look like and they’d have access to some decent sized stillsons for the union.

No offense intended, but you not checking the pressure in the line or confirming the valve shut off wasn’t particularly sensible either. If you knew it was gas then wouldn’t you want to know if it had been vented or flushed before whipping out the angle grinder or reciprocating saw? I know I’d damn well be checking voltage personally before I took a strangers word for it being safely isolated. Hopefully the MEWP had an earth strap fitted, there’s nothing like a nice spark next to a leaking gas pipe to make a dull day exciting.

Basically, your example shows a bunch of people out of their depth and clearly not working in a regulated environment. Otherwise they’d have permit to work systems and LOTO.

I agree with your criticism that I believed them and did not check the pipe pressure. It haunts me to this day even though nothing terrible happened.

The gas was natural gas, it is explosive/flammable at certain concentration and if they opened the union, the building would likely blow up in a minute or two. Possibly they would also lose conscience if the gas enveloped them. That place did not use scented gas due to massive gas usage (furnaces)

These sorts of things used to NEVER happen, and now they do happen.

“The gas was natural gas, it is explosive/flammable at certain concentration and if they opened the union, the building would likely blow up in a minute or two.”

Obviously dependent on the size of the enclosed space and a source of ignition.

“These sorts of things used to NEVER happen, and now they do happen.”

Not really relevant. Unless you can link two similar situations with identical personnel. There are so many possibilities that hanging your hat on one that isn’t being observed by everyone else isn’t justifiable. The more people you see, the more idiots you’ll encounter. The longer you operate and the more experience YOU have, the worse everyone else looks. Don’t forget that the pandemic caused job losses and death which leads to a loss of experience across the board.

@ Igor Chudov

You write: “Right. It is a coronavirus with a “prion like domain”. It starts the protein misfolding, which then goes on its own. That’s what the MDPI article explains.”

Nope. If you actually carefully read the article, it makes the point that if one has “prions” the coronavirus accelerates their proliferation. An analogy would be someone with congestive heart failure then infected with a virus, thus, worsening their condition. It doesn’t create prions, nor start their misfolding.

From the article: “The pathological and neurodegenerative pathways utilized by both SARS-CoV-2
and PrD have been shown to overlap, and this is of increasing concern. There is also the
evolving realization that SARS-CoV-2 accelerates and/or intensifies the pathomechanism
of PrD and other types of progressive pro-inflammatory neurodegeneration, including AD

Note if one wants one can always find some aspect of any disease has “some” similarities with others. And, as I wrote above, any virus can potentially accelerate many conditions

However, given the above, then a vaccine has another benefit for some people

Comments are closed.

Discover more from RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading