12 ms·

Weber Shandwick provides PR for Moderna and Pfizer, while staffing the CDC

108 points by qwertyuiop_ 4y ago

chatterhead 4y ago
- gremlinsinc 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    - whywhywhydude 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - tomp 4y ago
        99.9% of people under 45 (that's like 1 year old info, probably much more with Omicron) unvaccinated people survive. So, yeah.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      > I remember when I got vaccinated, and "science said", that I won't get covid or be able to spread it after the second shot (94% or whatever the number was for not getting it at all). The 90-95% number was always for preventing severe disease. No one listened to the details, it seems.
      - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        [flagged]
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        > Some of us also remember the health authorities promising herd immunity (and end of lockdowns) after X% get vaccinated. Herd immunity was a key argument of the anti lockdown folks; the people responsible for the Great Barrington Declaration regularly claimed it was almost here. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4 "Despite widespread critique, the idea keeps popping up among politicians and policymakers in numerous countries, including Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. US President Donald Trump spoke positively about it in September, using the malapropism “herd mentality”. And even a few scientists have pushed the agenda. In early October, a libertarian think tank and a small group of scientists released a document called the Great Barrington Declaration. In it, they call for a return to normal life for people at lower risk of severe COVID-19, to allow SARS-CoV-2 to spread to a sufficient level to give herd immunity." Fauci and others openly noted they didn’t know the exact amount of immunization needed to reach it - numbers given were openly stated to be an estimate - and we never hit the 80-90% numbers often speculatively thrown around. Variants then made things worse.
        ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        [flagged]
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        > health authorities threw out numbers They gave estimates - stated as such - based on existing knowledge about disease and vaccines.
        peteradio 4y ago
        They didn't just give estimates, they gave recommendations based on weak knowledge.
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        Yes, that's what you do when there are a lot of unknowns. You make an educated guess, based on the available information. Some were wrong, like discouraging masking. Others were correct. Getting them all correct would've required a time machine. IT folks should understand this pretty well. "Reboot your computer, it might help" is a recommendation based on weak knowledge, made with a wealth of experience behind it.
      - yrfhvcg223 4y ago
        [flagged]
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        > those video clips are still out there if you believe otherwise Here, I'll link to what Fauci was saying; "might slow", "looming question", "early studies": https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/looming-question-fauci-says-studies-suggest-vaccines-slow-virus-spread-n1258142 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/looming-question-... No experts were giving statements that this was a sterilizing vaccine. The strongest claims on this front made were that the vaccines appeared in studies to reduce transmission of the original strain, by a hard-to-determine amount.
    - creato 4y ago
      Around 10 comments in this thread and not one remembers or points out that 94% effectiveness was for OG covid or whatever was circulating at the time. Then came delta, then came omicron. It's a different virus now (both in severity and ability to evade the vaccine).
  - RichardCNormos 4y ago
azinman2 4y ago
> To ensure public trust, CDC must provide accurate, science-based evidence on vaccines,” Kulldorf said. “They have failed to do so.” This didn’t prove anything about them failing to do so. This is just a bunch of assumptions into conflicts of interests with zero actual evidence.
- jrm4 4y ago
  I say this as someone as fully vaxxed and boosted -- they really did mess up some weird things in the beginning, especially on masking?
  - jvanderbot 4y ago
    Masking seems like a normal way to prevent respitory diseases. It is still advised if someone wants full protection.
    - jrm4 4y ago
      Right, that is my point. The CDC should clearly the whole time have been "Go ahead and mask, it can't hurt. Even a bandana or whatever if we're worried about the good ones for doctors" That was NOT what they did.
      - tchalla 4y ago
        And even if they did that, that's ok - CDC made a mistake. However, some people - not necessarily you - draw the conclusion to be "haha, look ... CDC makes mistakes we can't trust them!! Down with experts!".
        jrm4 4y ago
        It's a bad mistake though. Like, really bad. Like, that gave the anti-maskers SO MUCH FUEL.
      - alamortsubite 4y ago
        > The CDC should clearly the whole time have been "Go ahead and mask, it can't hurt. Even a bandana or whatever if we're worried about the good ones for doctors" This is wrong for a couple reasons. First, it would have led to a run on masks, which were already in short supply for medical professionals. My girlfriend is a physician at a major east coast hospital and has been treating patients with COVID from day 1. People don't seem to want to accept how dire the lack of PPE was for them. Intubating a patient with COVID isn't on the same level as walking past someone in the supermarket. The situation was dangerous. To add to this, even if we somehow equipped everyone with a properly fitted N95, the average American would amaze you with their inability to use it effectively. On multiple occasions I've seen adults in crowded airports lower their masks to sneeze, for example.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mc32 4y ago
Ah, the same tactics from Iraq II. Embed the journalists in order they develop empathy for the troops protecting them (and hope they slant the reporting enough). This is in the least, a conflict of interest.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  I think that's the opposite of what's implied here. They're implying CDC is being infiltrated by the people is is supposed to be regulating. In your example, the troops were not being infiltrated by journalists to circumvent the armies control over journalists.
  - stjohnswarts 4y ago
    The point is nepotism, not a point for point identical situation. The problem is that groups are cross pollinating in a situation that should be independent and by its nature adversarial a lot of the time.
  - perfecthjrjth 4y ago
    What is happening is collusion. This collusion is legal too; no amount of laws on conflicts of interest will fix this.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  Better they don't embed journalists, and nobody is reporting from the front lines?
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    Some would argue that propaganda is worse than nothing. Depending on your objectives, of course. > "The first casualty when war comes is truth" - Hiram W Johnson
  - lostlogin 4y ago
akomtu 4y ago
- MajimasEyepatch 4y ago
  This is a ridiculous take. Vaccines have long been our most effective weapon against infectious disease, especially viruses. The CDC screwed up a number of things in the last few years, but vaccination is a vital tool for protecting the whole community with very few downsides.
  - glerk 4y ago
    Except that these so-called “vaccines” don’t stop transmission like the vaccines you’re thinking about.
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > these so-called “vaccines” don’t stop transmission like the vaccines you’re thinking about Like the inactivated poliovirus [1]? Sterilising vaccines [2] haven’t been a priority because the subpopulation that enjoys getting measles was historically small. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine [2] https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/vaccine-types https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/vaccine-types
      - glerk 4y ago
        From the article you linked: > OPV produces excellent immunity in the intestine, the primary site of wild poliovirus entry, which helps prevent infection with wild virus in areas where the virus is endemic. It seems like the polio vaccine actually prevents infection which is not the case for the COVID “vaccine” which is purely therapeutical.
        arrosenberg 4y ago
        The vaccine isn’t therapeutic, it just doesn’t confer total immunity like some vaccines, mostly because COVID mutates frequently. Are you thinking of the monoclonal antibody treatment?
draw_down 4y ago
FooledAgain 4y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. And with a new pandemic, literally everyone is incompetent. We have learned a ton about treating and preventing this disease, and vaccines are still the right answer for preventing mass public infection.
  - FooledAgain 4y ago
    [flagged]
  - programmarchy 4y ago
    There’s really no functional difference between malice and incompetence, or even between evil and weakness. The problem is when incompetent people are given power to force their erroneous beliefs upon other, more rational, people.
    - jvanderbot 4y ago
      That's a reasonable stance, though I don't agree in general. But are you saying that's what the CDC is doing?
  - thunky 4y ago
    > And with a new pandemic, literally everyone is incompetent. Then the right thing to do is to not pretend to be competent. Especially when speaking from a position of authority. Fauci continues to present the vaccine as 100% safe without mentioning possible negative outcomes.
    - jvanderbot 4y ago
MikeYasnev007 4y ago
tptacek 4y ago
who seem to have tossed aside all caution and critical thinking when it comes to medical interventions that get labeled “vaccines.” So... this is an antivax substack? (I think this is being taken as a glib dunk, but I'm really asking: is there a way to write that sentence and not be an antivax person? "The mRNA vaccines are not really vaccines because they're not sterilizing", or something like that, is a core antivax talking point.)
- spinlock 4y ago
  I read through a few paragraphs of weird rants before I gave up. No mention of the cdc from what I saw there.
  - peteradio 4y ago
    Huh? I see CDC mentioned 26 times.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      The link was changed to a different post on the same substack.
- yrfhvcg223 4y ago
  [flagged]
- helf 4y ago
- programmarchy 4y ago
  [flagged]
- peteradio 4y ago
  Is there no middle ground between being pro-vax and anti-vax? What about vax skeptical or vax agnostic? Seems to me that anti-vax definition is overally broad for its highly negative connotations.
dang 4y ago
Url changed from https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/weve-unlocked-the-article-weber-shandwick https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/weve-unlocked..., which points to this.

108 points by qwertyuiop_ 4y ago

gremlinsinc 4y ago
[flagged]
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  - whywhywhydude 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - tomp 4y ago
      99.9% of people under 45 (that's like 1 year old info, probably much more with Omicron) unvaccinated people survive. So, yeah.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    > I remember when I got vaccinated, and "science said", that I won't get covid or be able to spread it after the second shot (94% or whatever the number was for not getting it at all). The 90-95% number was always for preventing severe disease. No one listened to the details, it seems.
    - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        > Some of us also remember the health authorities promising herd immunity (and end of lockdowns) after X% get vaccinated. Herd immunity was a key argument of the anti lockdown folks; the people responsible for the Great Barrington Declaration regularly claimed it was almost here. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02948-4 "Despite widespread critique, the idea keeps popping up among politicians and policymakers in numerous countries, including Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. US President Donald Trump spoke positively about it in September, using the malapropism “herd mentality”. And even a few scientists have pushed the agenda. In early October, a libertarian think tank and a small group of scientists released a document called the Great Barrington Declaration. In it, they call for a return to normal life for people at lower risk of severe COVID-19, to allow SARS-CoV-2 to spread to a sufficient level to give herd immunity." Fauci and others openly noted they didn’t know the exact amount of immunization needed to reach it - numbers given were openly stated to be an estimate - and we never hit the 80-90% numbers often speculatively thrown around. Variants then made things worse.
        ajsnigrutin 4y ago
        [flagged]
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        > health authorities threw out numbers They gave estimates - stated as such - based on existing knowledge about disease and vaccines.
        peteradio 4y ago
        They didn't just give estimates, they gave recommendations based on weak knowledge.
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        Yes, that's what you do when there are a lot of unknowns. You make an educated guess, based on the available information. Some were wrong, like discouraging masking. Others were correct. Getting them all correct would've required a time machine. IT folks should understand this pretty well. "Reboot your computer, it might help" is a recommendation based on weak knowledge, made with a wealth of experience behind it.
    - yrfhvcg223 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        > those video clips are still out there if you believe otherwise Here, I'll link to what Fauci was saying; "might slow", "looming question", "early studies": https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/looming-question-fauci-says-studies-suggest-vaccines-slow-virus-spread-n1258142 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/looming-question-... No experts were giving statements that this was a sterilizing vaccine. The strongest claims on this front made were that the vaccines appeared in studies to reduce transmission of the original strain, by a hard-to-determine amount.
  - creato 4y ago
    Around 10 comments in this thread and not one remembers or points out that 94% effectiveness was for OG covid or whatever was circulating at the time. Then came delta, then came omicron. It's a different virus now (both in severity and ability to evade the vaccine).
- RichardCNormos 4y ago

> To ensure public trust, CDC must provide accurate, science-based evidence on vaccines,” Kulldorf said. “They have failed to do so.” This didn’t prove anything about them failing to do so. This is just a bunch of assumptions into conflicts of interests with zero actual evidence.

jrm4 4y ago
I say this as someone as fully vaxxed and boosted -- they really did mess up some weird things in the beginning, especially on masking?
- jvanderbot 4y ago
  Masking seems like a normal way to prevent respitory diseases. It is still advised if someone wants full protection.
  - jrm4 4y ago
    Right, that is my point. The CDC should clearly the whole time have been "Go ahead and mask, it can't hurt. Even a bandana or whatever if we're worried about the good ones for doctors" That was NOT what they did.
    - tchalla 4y ago
      And even if they did that, that's ok - CDC made a mistake. However, some people - not necessarily you - draw the conclusion to be "haha, look ... CDC makes mistakes we can't trust them!! Down with experts!".
      - jrm4 4y ago
        It's a bad mistake though. Like, really bad. Like, that gave the anti-maskers SO MUCH FUEL.
    - alamortsubite 4y ago
      > The CDC should clearly the whole time have been "Go ahead and mask, it can't hurt. Even a bandana or whatever if we're worried about the good ones for doctors" This is wrong for a couple reasons. First, it would have led to a run on masks, which were already in short supply for medical professionals. My girlfriend is a physician at a major east coast hospital and has been treating patients with COVID from day 1. People don't seem to want to accept how dire the lack of PPE was for them. Intubating a patient with COVID isn't on the same level as walking past someone in the supermarket. The situation was dangerous. To add to this, even if we somehow equipped everyone with a properly fitted N95, the average American would amaze you with their inability to use it effectively. On multiple occasions I've seen adults in crowded airports lower their masks to sneeze, for example.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mc32 4y ago

Ah, the same tactics from Iraq II. Embed the journalists in order they develop empathy for the troops protecting them (and hope they slant the reporting enough). This is in the least, a conflict of interest.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jvanderbot 4y ago
I think that's the opposite of what's implied here. They're implying CDC is being infiltrated by the people is is supposed to be regulating. In your example, the troops were not being infiltrated by journalists to circumvent the armies control over journalists.
- stjohnswarts 4y ago
  The point is nepotism, not a point for point identical situation. The problem is that groups are cross pollinating in a situation that should be independent and by its nature adversarial a lot of the time.
- perfecthjrjth 4y ago
  What is happening is collusion. This collusion is legal too; no amount of laws on conflicts of interest will fix this.
fallingknife 4y ago
Better they don't embed journalists, and nobody is reporting from the front lines?
- arcticbull 4y ago
  Some would argue that propaganda is worse than nothing. Depending on your objectives, of course. > "The first casualty when war comes is truth" - Hiram W Johnson
- lostlogin 4y ago

akomtu 4y ago

MajimasEyepatch 4y ago
This is a ridiculous take. Vaccines have long been our most effective weapon against infectious disease, especially viruses. The CDC screwed up a number of things in the last few years, but vaccination is a vital tool for protecting the whole community with very few downsides.
- glerk 4y ago
  Except that these so-called “vaccines” don’t stop transmission like the vaccines you’re thinking about.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > these so-called “vaccines” don’t stop transmission like the vaccines you’re thinking about Like the inactivated poliovirus [1]? Sterilising vaccines [2] haven’t been a priority because the subpopulation that enjoys getting measles was historically small. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_vaccine [2] https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/vaccine-types https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/vaccine-types
    - glerk 4y ago
      From the article you linked: > OPV produces excellent immunity in the intestine, the primary site of wild poliovirus entry, which helps prevent infection with wild virus in areas where the virus is endemic. It seems like the polio vaccine actually prevents infection which is not the case for the COVID “vaccine” which is purely therapeutical.
      - arrosenberg 4y ago
        The vaccine isn’t therapeutic, it just doesn’t confer total immunity like some vaccines, mostly because COVID mutates frequently. Are you thinking of the monoclonal antibody treatment?

draw_down 4y ago

FooledAgain 4y ago

[flagged]

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jvanderbot 4y ago
Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. And with a new pandemic, literally everyone is incompetent. We have learned a ton about treating and preventing this disease, and vaccines are still the right answer for preventing mass public infection.
- FooledAgain 4y ago
  [flagged]
- programmarchy 4y ago
  There’s really no functional difference between malice and incompetence, or even between evil and weakness. The problem is when incompetent people are given power to force their erroneous beliefs upon other, more rational, people.
  - jvanderbot 4y ago
    That's a reasonable stance, though I don't agree in general. But are you saying that's what the CDC is doing?
- thunky 4y ago
  > And with a new pandemic, literally everyone is incompetent. Then the right thing to do is to not pretend to be competent. Especially when speaking from a position of authority. Fauci continues to present the vaccine as 100% safe without mentioning possible negative outcomes.
  - jvanderbot 4y ago

MikeYasnev007 4y ago

tptacek 4y ago

who seem to have tossed aside all caution and critical thinking when it comes to medical interventions that get labeled “vaccines.” So... this is an antivax substack? (I think this is being taken as a glib dunk, but I'm really asking: is there a way to write that sentence and not be an antivax person? "The mRNA vaccines are not really vaccines because they're not sterilizing", or something like that, is a core antivax talking point.)

spinlock 4y ago
I read through a few paragraphs of weird rants before I gave up. No mention of the cdc from what I saw there.
- peteradio 4y ago
  Huh? I see CDC mentioned 26 times.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    The link was changed to a different post on the same substack.
yrfhvcg223 4y ago
[flagged]
helf 4y ago
programmarchy 4y ago
[flagged]
peteradio 4y ago
Is there no middle ground between being pro-vax and anti-vax? What about vax skeptical or vax agnostic? Seems to me that anti-vax definition is overally broad for its highly negative connotations.

dang 4y ago

Url changed from https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/weve-unlocked-the-article-weber-shandwick https://disinformationchronicle.substack.com/p/weve-unlocked..., which points to this.