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What happens if I no longer trust our government to protect me from predatory business practices? I ask that, because I no longer trust the CDC after their ser

What happens if I no longer trust our government to protect me from predatory business practices? I ask that, because I no longer trust the CDC after their series of recent scandals. Ironically, it's largely due to successful Russian efforts that I no longer know who to trust for advice on vaccines. From what we're hearing so far [1], it seems that POTUS will promise a vaccine is on its way just before the election, but then never deliver it. What I'm worried about, though, is that a vaccine will simply show up and start being rolled out by a compromised CDC, or FEMA, or Army, or whoever the administration can force to do it. [1] https://www.axios.com/trump-cdc-redfield-vaccine-d266121c-88f0-4b82-bd97-4a4125089f93.html https://www.axios.com/trump-cdc-redfield-vaccine-d266121c-88...

r00fus 6y ago
Maybe this is the October surprise? The rushed Russian vaccine that Trump’s friendly relationship with Putin helped to secure? I wouldn’t put it past them to try.
didibus 6y ago
> I no longer trust the CDC after their series of recent scandals Care to link? Feel I must have missed some news, as I'm not aware of any scandals around the CDC?
- thedudeabides5 6y ago
  https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-dont-have-to-wear-facemasks-because-of-coronavirus-2020-01-30 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-don... https://www.foxnews.com/media/surgeon-general-explains-masks-public-coronavirus https://www.foxnews.com/media/surgeon-general-explains-masks...
  - didibus 6y ago
    I mean, if not making wild guesses is considered a big scandal, well so be it, but I find it quite exaggerated to call this a "scandal". There was no lie, no one was mislead, they weren't even wrong in a sense. At first there was no evidence that masks could prevent the spread, and then there was a shortage of masks for medical workers who needed them, and only later did the data show that asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission was possible, so there was now evidence to advice wearing a mask, even a non-surgical one. You could say they are to be blamed from making the default position the status quo. But the opposite is a harder default, how far do you go when nothing has been shown to be necessary or prevent anything yet? Like do you tell people to just go full on quarantine? To wash all their delivered packages and produce with soap? Like how far? And then if you tell them to do all that, and it later shows they arn't necessary and don't help prevent the spread? So in some way, the status quo does seem like a good default. Basically, the CDC just said: Go on with your daily life, don't panic, don't buy all medical equipment that the medical professionals need, and as the data arrives and shows evidence of what measures actually help to prevent the spread we will update our guidelines.
    - addicted 6y ago
      Posting stuff that was not approved by CDC scientists, as coming from the CDC is a pretty massive scandal however you want to slice it.
- anon9001 6y ago
  Sure, most of it comes down to the administration putting unqualified people with poor financial incentives in positions of high power. There was this particularly transparent example by the Director of the CDC a couple of years ago, about buying tobacco stocks when put in charge of programs for reducing tobacco usage: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/30/cdc-director-tobacco-stocks-after-appointment-316245 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/30/cdc-director-tobac... Also this story about how FDA appeared to bend to political pressure to greenlight an experimental treatment due to political pressure, bypassing the normal guidelines for demonstrating efficacy: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/why-did-fda-authorize-convalescent-plasma-potential-treatment-covid-19-n1237848 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/why-did-fda-autho... There's also been a general failure to respond appropriately to the pandemic. We're so many months in and PPE is still an issue: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/8-months-into-pandemic-largest-n95-producer-ceo-says-ppe-demand-still-greater-than-entire-industry-capacity/ar-BB1975yY https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/8-months-into-pandemic-... And that's not even counting what the White House is doing, which is not good. Especially with the recently leaked audio tapes from Woodward from the same time POTUS was publicly downplaying it: https://youtu.be/-cfd_pJVYiM?t=179 https://youtu.be/-cfd_pJVYiM?t=179 Plus the hydroxychloroquine thing... There's a lot of buzz lately about how the administration is trying to influence the CDC, but most of it is journalism/politics blue twitter insider type chatter: * https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/politico-trump-aides-demand-that-cdc-publication-be-more-optimistic/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/politico-trum... * https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/trump-e2-80-99s-attempts-to-corrupt-the-cdc-explained/ar-BB192e7i https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/trump-e2-80-99s-att... * https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/politico-trump-aides-demand-that-cdc-publication-be-more-optimistic/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/politico-trum... * https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-appointees-sought-to-alter-cdc-scientific-reports-so-they-dont-contradict-or-undermine-the-president/ar-BB18X6nO https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-appointees-sou... But there is a lot of it, and that's pretty unusual for an organization like the CDC. Maybe it's all disinformation, but keep in mind it's the President's job to appoint the Director of the CDC: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/trumps-cdc-director-has-a-history-of-controversial-opinions-on-controlling-viruses/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/trumps-cdc-dire... I'm not saying every smear against the man is true. But after the last director had to resign over the tobacco thing, and the current director is now clearly affiliated with the President, so I'm skeptical if he has the public interest at heart. I've never had less faith in American institutions, and I think it's for good reason. There's a lot of corruption at the top, and it's clearly infiltrating the institutions. If they say a vaccine is safe to get, I don't think I can trust it. I'm going to need to dive deeper into opinions of professionals when it becomes available before I get it.

r00fus 6y ago

Maybe this is the October surprise? The rushed Russian vaccine that Trump’s friendly relationship with Putin helped to secure? I wouldn’t put it past them to try.

didibus 6y ago

> I no longer trust the CDC after their series of recent scandals Care to link? Feel I must have missed some news, as I'm not aware of any scandals around the CDC?

thedudeabides5 6y ago
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-dont-have-to-wear-facemasks-because-of-coronavirus-2020-01-30 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-don... https://www.foxnews.com/media/surgeon-general-explains-masks-public-coronavirus https://www.foxnews.com/media/surgeon-general-explains-masks...
- didibus 6y ago
  I mean, if not making wild guesses is considered a big scandal, well so be it, but I find it quite exaggerated to call this a "scandal". There was no lie, no one was mislead, they weren't even wrong in a sense. At first there was no evidence that masks could prevent the spread, and then there was a shortage of masks for medical workers who needed them, and only later did the data show that asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic transmission was possible, so there was now evidence to advice wearing a mask, even a non-surgical one. You could say they are to be blamed from making the default position the status quo. But the opposite is a harder default, how far do you go when nothing has been shown to be necessary or prevent anything yet? Like do you tell people to just go full on quarantine? To wash all their delivered packages and produce with soap? Like how far? And then if you tell them to do all that, and it later shows they arn't necessary and don't help prevent the spread? So in some way, the status quo does seem like a good default. Basically, the CDC just said: Go on with your daily life, don't panic, don't buy all medical equipment that the medical professionals need, and as the data arrives and shows evidence of what measures actually help to prevent the spread we will update our guidelines.
  - addicted 6y ago
    Posting stuff that was not approved by CDC scientists, as coming from the CDC is a pretty massive scandal however you want to slice it.
anon9001 6y ago
Sure, most of it comes down to the administration putting unqualified people with poor financial incentives in positions of high power. There was this particularly transparent example by the Director of the CDC a couple of years ago, about buying tobacco stocks when put in charge of programs for reducing tobacco usage: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/30/cdc-director-tobacco-stocks-after-appointment-316245 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/30/cdc-director-tobac... Also this story about how FDA appeared to bend to political pressure to greenlight an experimental treatment due to political pressure, bypassing the normal guidelines for demonstrating efficacy: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/why-did-fda-authorize-convalescent-plasma-potential-treatment-covid-19-n1237848 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/why-did-fda-autho... There's also been a general failure to respond appropriately to the pandemic. We're so many months in and PPE is still an issue: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/8-months-into-pandemic-largest-n95-producer-ceo-says-ppe-demand-still-greater-than-entire-industry-capacity/ar-BB1975yY https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/8-months-into-pandemic-... And that's not even counting what the White House is doing, which is not good. Especially with the recently leaked audio tapes from Woodward from the same time POTUS was publicly downplaying it: https://youtu.be/-cfd_pJVYiM?t=179 https://youtu.be/-cfd_pJVYiM?t=179 Plus the hydroxychloroquine thing... There's a lot of buzz lately about how the administration is trying to influence the CDC, but most of it is journalism/politics blue twitter insider type chatter: * https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/politico-trump-aides-demand-that-cdc-publication-be-more-optimistic/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/politico-trum... * https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/trump-e2-80-99s-attempts-to-corrupt-the-cdc-explained/ar-BB192e7i https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/trump-e2-80-99s-att... * https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/politico-trump-aides-demand-that-cdc-publication-be-more-optimistic/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/09/politico-trum... * https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-appointees-sought-to-alter-cdc-scientific-reports-so-they-dont-contradict-or-undermine-the-president/ar-BB18X6nO https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-appointees-sou... But there is a lot of it, and that's pretty unusual for an organization like the CDC. Maybe it's all disinformation, but keep in mind it's the President's job to appoint the Director of the CDC: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/trumps-cdc-director-has-a-history-of-controversial-opinions-on-controlling-viruses/ https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/trumps-cdc-dire... I'm not saying every smear against the man is true. But after the last director had to resign over the tobacco thing, and the current director is now clearly affiliated with the President, so I'm skeptical if he has the public interest at heart. I've never had less faith in American institutions, and I think it's for good reason. There's a lot of corruption at the top, and it's clearly infiltrating the institutions. If they say a vaccine is safe to get, I don't think I can trust it. I'm going to need to dive deeper into opinions of professionals when it becomes available before I get it.