4 ms·

> I think it is a disservice to outright label people as anti-vaxers simply for questioning the risk-calculus of vaccines. It's the same idea though, and shoul

> I think it is a disservice to outright label people as anti-vaxers simply for questioning the risk-calculus of vaccines. It's the same idea though, and should still be called out. It's people who have unqualified medical opinions, and who are then often spreading that opinion to others as if it's useful. Let the agencies figure it out, pay attention to the latest recommendations from them, and go with that. Anything else is just the blind leading the blind and should be called out.

AndrewBissell 5y ago
In 2012 if someone decided against their doctor's advice not to take an opioid which the FDA had greenlit as safe in far too many cases, would you call that "blind leading the blind"? Iatrogenesis rivals strokes as a cause of death. Most doctors are just slavishly following official doctrines from authorities, and sometimes those authorities get it wrong. We don't even have to look to the Before Covid Times to see examples!
- thelean12 5y ago
  > sometimes those authorities get it wrong Yes. That's correct. That doesn't change what I said. Answer me this: why do you think unqualified individuals are better suited to get it right? Just because there are examples in the past of people who went against the recommendations who ended up being right, doesn't mean you should take everything else into your own hands. Unless, of course, it's literally your job.
  - blitz_skull 5y ago
    It’s not a question of getting it right, really. I haven’t heard a single uneducated opinion say, “You should not get it because X”. I’ve seen several say, “I will not get it because X” It’s a subtle, but IMO important distinction. If people wanna rationalize not getting the shot based on their own misunderstanding of the science, that’s fine. That’s okay. We don’t need universal understanding here for the vaccine to do it’s thing. Let those who want to get it, get it. And those who don’t, to not get it.
    - spion 5y ago
      That's a good method to not develop immunity and develop resistant strains.
    - thelean12 5y ago
      > I haven’t heard a single uneducated opinion say, “You should not get it because X”. It's not even 3 hours into my day and I've already received 3 texts from family saying something along those lines regarding J&J, even if it gets unpaused. It's a much more prevalent thing to say than you think. > If people wanna rationalize not getting the shot based on their own misunderstanding of the science, that’s fine. That’s okay. It's not okay. We need shots in arms. And you're doing your part by enabling those who are misunderstanding the science by making them feel like it's okay to not get the shot.
- cbkeller 5y ago
  Deciding that your pain is well managed without opiates has always been a perfectly reasonable and medically-accepted option, and unsurprisingly there has never been any sort of social stigma against people who decline painkillers. Most to the point, declining to take painkillers does not adversely impact other people's health. This is not a good analogy. eta: ironically, the problem with the opioid crisis was not too much regulation and oversight by "the authorities", but too little; too much freedom for doctors to prescribe stronger painkillers, and for patients to request them.
ironmagma 5y ago
Careful to not play the appeal to authority. Anyone can understand anything, regardless of their so-called qualifications. Are they likely to? No, and that’s why someone’s qualifications are purely a heuristic, not a prerequisite.
- ryankemper 5y ago
  It's extra frustrating because organizations like the CDC get held to lower standards than anyone else. They can make a pronouncement recommending the use of face masks for SARS-CoV-2 community transmission when the body of the research confirms that (a) such intervention has never been tried in an RCT and indeed the whole "my mask protects you" hypothesis is intentionally unfalsifiable, (b) the research literature documents numerous negative impacts whereas the positive impact on transmission is completely unproven at best, and yet their evidence-less pronouncement is considered evidence in its own right and such a pronouncement is used as a citation in Wikipedia articles, etc. (Just using masking as an example, if any onlookers strongly believe that masking is efficacious for the stated purpose just imagine I gave a different example, although I don't see how anyone could reach that conclusion about masking specifically based on the research literature out there which is neutral at best) Or as another example, the CDC loves to try to encourage people to take the flu vaccine, and yet I was shocked to discover that it takes 71 flu shots to prevent a single flu case, 29 flu shots to prevent one ILI (this is a better number than the flu case number since really we care about ILI in general, but even so 29 is an abysmal number), AND that regardless of the mediocre reduction in cases/ILI, it makes essentially no difference in hospitalizations. Citation on the flu vaccine stuff: https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influenza-healthy-adults https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influ... -- I didn't realize until this year how much of "public health" involves (a) actively and intentionally lying to the public (for example, if you read about the AIDS crisis you learn about the "noble lies" told about who was vulnerable as well as the not-even-noble lies like when Fauci told people you could get AIDS from close contact with someone with AIDS when the scientific evidence showed that to be false), and (b) is really a giant marketing campaign for various big pharma interests (I say that as someone who is an unashamed free-market capitalist, not that the US is actually a true free market when it comes to the pharma/medical industry)
- 5y ago
JoshuaDavid 5y ago
I agree that, unless you have specific concrete reasons to think a public health agency is distorting the facts or making decisions based on politics and ass-covering instead of optimizing for health, you should trust that agency. However, once you have concrete reasons to think that the public health agency is acting on politics and not science, you should not continue to blindly trust them. There are other sources of information besides the public health agency of your particular country, for example public health agencies in other countries, or directly looking at the stats and research papers. In this case, looking at the stats makes it blatantly obvious that your risk from the J&J vaccine is much, much lower than your risk from getting COVID, so if your choice is "J&J" or "no vaccine for another month or two", you should probably pick J&J.

AndrewBissell 5y ago

In 2012 if someone decided against their doctor's advice not to take an opioid which the FDA had greenlit as safe in far too many cases, would you call that "blind leading the blind"? Iatrogenesis rivals strokes as a cause of death. Most doctors are just slavishly following official doctrines from authorities, and sometimes those authorities get it wrong. We don't even have to look to the Before Covid Times to see examples!

thelean12 5y ago
> sometimes those authorities get it wrong Yes. That's correct. That doesn't change what I said. Answer me this: why do you think unqualified individuals are better suited to get it right? Just because there are examples in the past of people who went against the recommendations who ended up being right, doesn't mean you should take everything else into your own hands. Unless, of course, it's literally your job.
- blitz_skull 5y ago
  It’s not a question of getting it right, really. I haven’t heard a single uneducated opinion say, “You should not get it because X”. I’ve seen several say, “I will not get it because X” It’s a subtle, but IMO important distinction. If people wanna rationalize not getting the shot based on their own misunderstanding of the science, that’s fine. That’s okay. We don’t need universal understanding here for the vaccine to do it’s thing. Let those who want to get it, get it. And those who don’t, to not get it.
  - spion 5y ago
    That's a good method to not develop immunity and develop resistant strains.
  - thelean12 5y ago
    > I haven’t heard a single uneducated opinion say, “You should not get it because X”. It's not even 3 hours into my day and I've already received 3 texts from family saying something along those lines regarding J&J, even if it gets unpaused. It's a much more prevalent thing to say than you think. > If people wanna rationalize not getting the shot based on their own misunderstanding of the science, that’s fine. That’s okay. It's not okay. We need shots in arms. And you're doing your part by enabling those who are misunderstanding the science by making them feel like it's okay to not get the shot.
cbkeller 5y ago
Deciding that your pain is well managed without opiates has always been a perfectly reasonable and medically-accepted option, and unsurprisingly there has never been any sort of social stigma against people who decline painkillers. Most to the point, declining to take painkillers does not adversely impact other people's health. This is not a good analogy. eta: ironically, the problem with the opioid crisis was not too much regulation and oversight by "the authorities", but too little; too much freedom for doctors to prescribe stronger painkillers, and for patients to request them.

ironmagma 5y ago

Careful to not play the appeal to authority. Anyone can understand anything, regardless of their so-called qualifications. Are they likely to? No, and that’s why someone’s qualifications are purely a heuristic, not a prerequisite.

ryankemper 5y ago
It's extra frustrating because organizations like the CDC get held to lower standards than anyone else. They can make a pronouncement recommending the use of face masks for SARS-CoV-2 community transmission when the body of the research confirms that (a) such intervention has never been tried in an RCT and indeed the whole "my mask protects you" hypothesis is intentionally unfalsifiable, (b) the research literature documents numerous negative impacts whereas the positive impact on transmission is completely unproven at best, and yet their evidence-less pronouncement is considered evidence in its own right and such a pronouncement is used as a citation in Wikipedia articles, etc. (Just using masking as an example, if any onlookers strongly believe that masking is efficacious for the stated purpose just imagine I gave a different example, although I don't see how anyone could reach that conclusion about masking specifically based on the research literature out there which is neutral at best) Or as another example, the CDC loves to try to encourage people to take the flu vaccine, and yet I was shocked to discover that it takes 71 flu shots to prevent a single flu case, 29 flu shots to prevent one ILI (this is a better number than the flu case number since really we care about ILI in general, but even so 29 is an abysmal number), AND that regardless of the mediocre reduction in cases/ILI, it makes essentially no difference in hospitalizations. Citation on the flu vaccine stuff: https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influenza-healthy-adults https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influ... -- I didn't realize until this year how much of "public health" involves (a) actively and intentionally lying to the public (for example, if you read about the AIDS crisis you learn about the "noble lies" told about who was vulnerable as well as the not-even-noble lies like when Fauci told people you could get AIDS from close contact with someone with AIDS when the scientific evidence showed that to be false), and (b) is really a giant marketing campaign for various big pharma interests (I say that as someone who is an unashamed free-market capitalist, not that the US is actually a true free market when it comes to the pharma/medical industry)
5y ago

JoshuaDavid 5y ago

I agree that, unless you have specific concrete reasons to think a public health agency is distorting the facts or making decisions based on politics and ass-covering instead of optimizing for health, you should trust that agency. However, once you have concrete reasons to think that the public health agency is acting on politics and not science, you should not continue to blindly trust them. There are other sources of information besides the public health agency of your particular country, for example public health agencies in other countries, or directly looking at the stats and research papers. In this case, looking at the stats makes it blatantly obvious that your risk from the J&J vaccine is much, much lower than your risk from getting COVID, so if your choice is "J&J" or "no vaccine for another month or two", you should probably pick J&J.