4 ms·

literally no one is telling you to get medical advice from the media or Twitter. ask your Dr for medical advice.

csdvrx 5y ago
I think you missed the point: the OP problem is that trusted source of information, even highly credentialled and respected, have shown some disturbing sign that they may not be fully honest or reliable. That's the great tragedy of this pandemic: it has destroyed trust in institutions, by showcasing a few disturbing things.
m3047 5y ago
It's really not that easy to get a doctor any random place in America. I live in a city in a larger metropolitan area; it is in the county which has the worst medical care in the state: we pay more (federal study), we are underserved (state study) and the medical conglomerates which control care delivery extract more profit... in absolute dollars... from this county than the richer, younger, whiter, more populous adjacent county (union study). The epidemic of nonreproducible scientific studies is... an epidemic and it's astounding nobody pays attention. Ten years ago I was misdiagnosed with a condition, at least in part because the closet Stalist "doctors" thought my body should fight off the infection... didn't wanna cause any antibiotic resistance, ya know. When my wife suffered a detached retina, they opened the surgical wing of a regional hospital on a Saturday to fix it. (They did a great job.) For years I got the PSA as part of my yearly physical. This test has a lot of false positives. Eventually it was positive two years in a row so I was "ok doc, guess you gotta start feeling my prostate". He looked definitely uncomfortable and found an excuse not to do it until the next year. He told me to go research it on the internet. I don't get the PSA any more, it's not the answer to any question: "do you want to know more?" Let me pause to point out that we're really good at heroic measures which cost a lot of money and not so good at, you know, health. We see this in Covid, where if people are hospitalized we're willing to take all kinds of heroic measures, even if it kills them... but I don't see a lot of interest by the medical establishment in prophylactics or early mitigations (I know it's out there). Moving on, the "doctor" doesn't want to give me a professional opinion, notwithstanding that he doesn't understand Bayes. "Do you want to know more?": That might be an ok manipulation on a web site, but it has no place in medical care. We're supposed to be enabled to purchase medical care, but we're not supposed to do it based on price or quality. So I suppose the first thing we're supposed to buy is more information so we can make the right decision because it's "your own fault" if you're ignorant: "do you want to know more?" Well, I worked at biotechs I at least have NBC safety training. Crunching data from different sources concerning all things COVID doesn't reach the same conclusions. Stuff is reported and defined differently. Obvious questions from an epidemiologic standpoint aren't answered. Stuff seems to be omitted for curious reasons. Contact tracers can't contact 1/3rd of positives for followup? We don't know the race of 45% of the patients in hospitals? What kind of living and working conditions does it spread in? As for the vaccine, it is leaky and most definitely not sterilizing. Funny that doctors understand how slathering yourself in antibiotics (mayonnaise optional) leads to resistant bac and it's most def not ok to give them to livestock, but "antibiotics ok"... until the science... the actual science, catches up: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-m... It's as obvious that the powers that be have no interest in actual public health as it is that they lack the intellect and public trust to do so. As a student of human nature it is also obvious that belief and science are orthogonal, as quite evidently people can have faith in science without ever exercising the testing and critical evaluation required. It's impossible to understand medical care without understanding the conditions under which it is delivered.
- kooshball 5y ago
  I dont really understand your point. Yes agreed for complicated, rare problems you should do your own research if you can. You're clearly smart enough for primary sources so the media pipeline doesnt matter for you anyways. I would argue most Dr in America will give good advice for covid. Certainly better than most media sources! Having media in between is what I'm arguing against. Media is biased and not objective and should play no role in health.
  - m3047 5y ago
    > Yes agreed for complicated, rare problems you should do your own research if you can. When it doesn't work out the way they planned when they pull it out their a* they call that a "complication". Seriously. I think there's operant conditioning at work: It seems like there's less interest in extracting money from us by (cough) "practicing" medicine than in edubicating us that something is "serious" and it's our obligation to learn more about it, and extracting money from us that way. I think there's a model for this operational paradigm, I think it's the smart phone. They train you to dismiss "alerts". Then they show you inchoate alerts, engendering anxiety and a feeling of lack of control. Then they propose a way you can get "in control" by following their narrative. Are you really an expert because you're over 50 and you still have college loans to pay off? Really? You're gonna say that with a straight face, doc? Funny you should mention Covid. Last year I asked for an antibody test, they said they'd do it. They didn't. They lied and said I'd never asked. Then they piled it higher and deeper by telling me that if they had, they'd have had to report the result to the CDC. WTF? Is that a bad thing? My wife was there for both exchanges. Furthermore, because electronic records there is no record of the tests which were ordered, only of the ones they want to tell you about: that is correct, I have no receipt for the blood which was taken or the tests which were ordered. (Lesson learned.) I suppose it's easy to attribute this to some grand plan, but I'll choose mundane misfeasance as the reaction to errors arising from incompetence. If there's any question about the efficacy of the treatment or any way for these amateurs to screw it up, why the hell would I trust my life to them?
- DanBC 5y ago
  > Moving on, the "doctor" doesn't want to give me a professional opinion, notwithstanding that he doesn't understand Bayes. "Do you want to know more?": That might be an ok manipulation on a web site, but it has no place in medical care. This is genuinely baffling. Of course "do you want to know more?" is a valid question in healthcare. Here's one example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038hhs7 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038hhs7

I think you missed the point: the OP problem is that trusted source of information, even highly credentialled and respected, have shown some disturbing sign that they may not be fully honest or reliable. That's the great tragedy of this pandemic: it has destroyed trust in institutions, by showcasing a few disturbing things.

m3047 5y ago

It's really not that easy to get a doctor any random place in America. I live in a city in a larger metropolitan area; it is in the county which has the worst medical care in the state: we pay more (federal study), we are underserved (state study) and the medical conglomerates which control care delivery extract more profit... in absolute dollars... from this county than the richer, younger, whiter, more populous adjacent county (union study). The epidemic of nonreproducible scientific studies is... an epidemic and it's astounding nobody pays attention. Ten years ago I was misdiagnosed with a condition, at least in part because the closet Stalist "doctors" thought my body should fight off the infection... didn't wanna cause any antibiotic resistance, ya know. When my wife suffered a detached retina, they opened the surgical wing of a regional hospital on a Saturday to fix it. (They did a great job.) For years I got the PSA as part of my yearly physical. This test has a lot of false positives. Eventually it was positive two years in a row so I was "ok doc, guess you gotta start feeling my prostate". He looked definitely uncomfortable and found an excuse not to do it until the next year. He told me to go research it on the internet. I don't get the PSA any more, it's not the answer to any question: "do you want to know more?" Let me pause to point out that we're really good at heroic measures which cost a lot of money and not so good at, you know, health. We see this in Covid, where if people are hospitalized we're willing to take all kinds of heroic measures, even if it kills them... but I don't see a lot of interest by the medical establishment in prophylactics or early mitigations (I know it's out there). Moving on, the "doctor" doesn't want to give me a professional opinion, notwithstanding that he doesn't understand Bayes. "Do you want to know more?": That might be an ok manipulation on a web site, but it has no place in medical care. We're supposed to be enabled to purchase medical care, but we're not supposed to do it based on price or quality. So I suppose the first thing we're supposed to buy is more information so we can make the right decision because it's "your own fault" if you're ignorant: "do you want to know more?" Well, I worked at biotechs I at least have NBC safety training. Crunching data from different sources concerning all things COVID doesn't reach the same conclusions. Stuff is reported and defined differently. Obvious questions from an epidemiologic standpoint aren't answered. Stuff seems to be omitted for curious reasons. Contact tracers can't contact 1/3rd of positives for followup? We don't know the race of 45% of the patients in hospitals? What kind of living and working conditions does it spread in? As for the vaccine, it is leaky and most definitely not sterilizing. Funny that doctors understand how slathering yourself in antibiotics (mayonnaise optional) leads to resistant bac and it's most def not ok to give them to livestock, but "antibiotics ok"... until the science... the actual science, catches up: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-makes-virus-dangerous https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/tthis-chicken-vaccine-m... It's as obvious that the powers that be have no interest in actual public health as it is that they lack the intellect and public trust to do so. As a student of human nature it is also obvious that belief and science are orthogonal, as quite evidently people can have faith in science without ever exercising the testing and critical evaluation required. It's impossible to understand medical care without understanding the conditions under which it is delivered.

kooshball 5y ago
I dont really understand your point. Yes agreed for complicated, rare problems you should do your own research if you can. You're clearly smart enough for primary sources so the media pipeline doesnt matter for you anyways. I would argue most Dr in America will give good advice for covid. Certainly better than most media sources! Having media in between is what I'm arguing against. Media is biased and not objective and should play no role in health.
- m3047 5y ago
  > Yes agreed for complicated, rare problems you should do your own research if you can. When it doesn't work out the way they planned when they pull it out their a* they call that a "complication". Seriously. I think there's operant conditioning at work: It seems like there's less interest in extracting money from us by (cough) "practicing" medicine than in edubicating us that something is "serious" and it's our obligation to learn more about it, and extracting money from us that way. I think there's a model for this operational paradigm, I think it's the smart phone. They train you to dismiss "alerts". Then they show you inchoate alerts, engendering anxiety and a feeling of lack of control. Then they propose a way you can get "in control" by following their narrative. Are you really an expert because you're over 50 and you still have college loans to pay off? Really? You're gonna say that with a straight face, doc? Funny you should mention Covid. Last year I asked for an antibody test, they said they'd do it. They didn't. They lied and said I'd never asked. Then they piled it higher and deeper by telling me that if they had, they'd have had to report the result to the CDC. WTF? Is that a bad thing? My wife was there for both exchanges. Furthermore, because electronic records there is no record of the tests which were ordered, only of the ones they want to tell you about: that is correct, I have no receipt for the blood which was taken or the tests which were ordered. (Lesson learned.) I suppose it's easy to attribute this to some grand plan, but I'll choose mundane misfeasance as the reaction to errors arising from incompetence. If there's any question about the efficacy of the treatment or any way for these amateurs to screw it up, why the hell would I trust my life to them?
DanBC 5y ago
> Moving on, the "doctor" doesn't want to give me a professional opinion, notwithstanding that he doesn't understand Bayes. "Do you want to know more?": That might be an ok manipulation on a web site, but it has no place in medical care. This is genuinely baffling. Of course "do you want to know more?" is a valid question in healthcare. Here's one example: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038hhs7 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038hhs7