17 ms·

Is there a strategy here, or is this all emotional. Or is the strategy like, we can reduce social security spending if more old people die of the flu? This is

Is there a strategy here, or is this all emotional. Or is the strategy like, we can reduce social security spending if more old people die of the flu? This isn't entirely cynical, I do assume there are some pragmatists who might think this way.

dekhn 2y ago
There is no strategy here except to disempower the establishment.
- cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
  They are the establishment. The goal is destruction of government for tax breaks.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    No, Trump etc are not the establishment. They are effectively a foreign invader that the immune system of the establishment wants to evict. But we've reached cordyceps levels of infection at this point. If you want to see the establishment's viewpoints, read the NY Times (the news articles, and analysis, but not the op-eds).
    - red-iron-pine 2y ago
      the GOP has been pulling for this since the HW Bush era. dismantling the Dept of Education, reducing spending across all areas, reducing government involvement in healthcare -- take a look at the Fortune 100 list and see how many healthcare companies are in the top ranks -- have been top priorities for decades. they're just saying the quiet part loud now, and acting on it.
awnird 2y ago
[flagged]
- techorange 2y ago
  For people who get the flu? I thought that was just for mental health problems.
  - awnird 2y ago
    For any undesirables. It never ends with just the first outgroup.
    - edoceo 2y ago
      Outgroups expand until only "True Scotsmen" remain.
    - tiahura 2y ago
      Concentration camps for people with the flu? Trump really did cause the left to lose their minds.
- jurenbert 2y ago
  I hope there's a slightly different timeline where people with hopelessness or depression have a place in nature to pursue purpose, community, diet, exercise, and meaningful labour. I think we all know in our gut that this would be of incredible benefit to most of these people. And I hope the public in this world are horrified by the idea that anyone could instead pump them full of addictive or unknown drugs and leave them to fester in their obesity, drug dependency, poverty, loneliness, emptiness and misery. Our current approach isn't working.
  - conception 2y ago
    Our current approach is to not fund adequately support our citizens and if you’re poor, good luck. The public, thus far, is generally ok with this. They’d be even more okay shipping them to underfunded camps where they are even more out of sight out of mind.
  - techorange 2y ago
    I don’t entirely disagree with you but this is a _very_ different world, that requires unraveling like everything about our modern society. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of overlap between RFK jr’s vision of the world, and the current chainsaw approach to government that calls every piece or government spending an entitlement.
Freedom2 2y ago
It's about encouraging the free market. Drug makers will naturally compete and it's up to the American public to reward the flu shot with the most efficacy, or in some cases, not take a shot at all and rely on natural immunization. This will spur competition and bring prices down. At least that's what this forum has taught me.
- teeray 2y ago
  > This will spur competition and bring prices down. Without the effects known for months, it sounds a lot like gambling to me.
  - atmavatar 2y ago
    The most cherished free market principle of the current administration is caveat emptor.
- darkteflon 2y ago
  That’s an interesting comment. I often see this repeated - that HN as a whole leans libertarian - but I don’t see it personally. Just as many people will jump in to point out that market failures are common for reasons of monopolistic behaviour, regulatory capture, etc, as will people regurgitating Reagan, Thatcher and Thiel. Whoops, gave away my political leanings.
SmirkingRevenge 2y ago
We simply now have a completely nuts anti-vax Secretary of Health. He probably actually thinks he's saving people from vaccine injury.
- jsisto 2y ago
  He was actually injured by the flu vaccine. That’s why his voice sounds the way it does
  - SmirkingRevenge 2y ago
    I don't think this is true? He has a neurological disease called Spasmodic dysphonia. I can't find anything about this being related to a flu vaccine.
  - conception 2y ago
    No, he claims that’s what caused it some years after being diagnosed.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    I don't think he's ever said this. As usual, providing a few citations we can follow would greatly help your case.
  - seanmcdirmid 2y ago
    I thought he said the injured voice was due to worms eating his brain? It’s hard to keep up with such lunacy.
- cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
  Nuts, crims, and greedy billionaires out to blow up all of government because they don't understand it, privatize everything, and slash Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while lying about the tax breaks they're going to get out of it.
_heimdall 2y ago
Attempting to steel man the decision, they may not believe the vaccines work or are worth the expense and overhead. They may even go one step deeper and believe the vaccines aren't proven properly to know whether they work well enough.
- dekhn 2y ago
  It seems like the results will be somewhat predictable: the impact flu has every year is variable, with some years being incredibly bad and some being not that bad. Part of that is attributed to the vaccine rate, and how effective the vaccine is (this meeting is key to decision making about our expectations and how to make an effective vaccine), and part is simply random (based on too many correlated values, preventing good estimates of causation). If this meeting is cancelled, we would expect the vaccine to be less effective and would see greater impact (simply because it wasn't tailored to the be the most likely effective vaccine), but due to all the variables I mentioned it could even appear that "things got better after we did this" (post hoc ergo propter hoc). There is no steel man here, RFK just wants to demonstrate that his beliefs about viruses are true. We may or may not get enough unambiguous data to make conclusions about his beliefs in a year or two, but given the concomitant reduction in the effectiveness of the CDC due to Trump policies, and the sycophantic nature of the people being placed into leadership roles, we may simply never know because the data would not be collected, or the research not funded, or the publications retracted. Or RFK could somehow be right and we see a huge magic increase in public health across the country (not seen in other countries that keep vaccination). I am not aware of very many scientists who believe this will happen.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    > If this meeting is cancelled, we would expect the vaccine to be less effective and would see greater impact (simply because it wasn't tailored to the be the most likely effective vaccine), but due to all the variables I mentioned it could even appear that "things got better after we did this" (post hoc ergo propter hoc). There is an alternative here - a population left to fight an outbreak through natural immunity will be stronger in the end. That's definitely not a popular opinion, and it may not be worth the cost, but it does align with large drops in death rates of past outbreaks which generally happened before a vaccine was even available. > There is no steel man here That's not how steel manning an argument works. The whole point is to make the most generous version of the argument, usually assuming the best intent. There is always a most generous explanation that would lead to the argument made, you just may not like it or may not think its likely. > Or RFK could somehow be right and we see a huge magic increase in public health across the country (not seen in other countries that keep vaccination). I am not aware of very many scientists who believe this will happen I don't know RFK's stance particularly well, but I would guess that he wouldn't expect a noticeable increase in health over a short timeline and without improving peoples' health in general. I'm pretty sure I've seen him argue for removing toxins from our food and water, reducing dependence on pharmaceuticals, etc. All of those are important factors and it isn't realistic to assume that removing only one factor would magically fix everything.

dekhn 2y ago

There is no strategy here except to disempower the establishment.

cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
They are the establishment. The goal is destruction of government for tax breaks.
- dekhn 2y ago
  No, Trump etc are not the establishment. They are effectively a foreign invader that the immune system of the establishment wants to evict. But we've reached cordyceps levels of infection at this point. If you want to see the establishment's viewpoints, read the NY Times (the news articles, and analysis, but not the op-eds).
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    the GOP has been pulling for this since the HW Bush era. dismantling the Dept of Education, reducing spending across all areas, reducing government involvement in healthcare -- take a look at the Fortune 100 list and see how many healthcare companies are in the top ranks -- have been top priorities for decades. they're just saying the quiet part loud now, and acting on it.

awnird 2y ago

[flagged]

techorange 2y ago
For people who get the flu? I thought that was just for mental health problems.
- awnird 2y ago
  For any undesirables. It never ends with just the first outgroup.
  - edoceo 2y ago
    Outgroups expand until only "True Scotsmen" remain.
  - tiahura 2y ago
    Concentration camps for people with the flu? Trump really did cause the left to lose their minds.
jurenbert 2y ago
I hope there's a slightly different timeline where people with hopelessness or depression have a place in nature to pursue purpose, community, diet, exercise, and meaningful labour. I think we all know in our gut that this would be of incredible benefit to most of these people. And I hope the public in this world are horrified by the idea that anyone could instead pump them full of addictive or unknown drugs and leave them to fester in their obesity, drug dependency, poverty, loneliness, emptiness and misery. Our current approach isn't working.
- conception 2y ago
  Our current approach is to not fund adequately support our citizens and if you’re poor, good luck. The public, thus far, is generally ok with this. They’d be even more okay shipping them to underfunded camps where they are even more out of sight out of mind.
- techorange 2y ago
  I don’t entirely disagree with you but this is a _very_ different world, that requires unraveling like everything about our modern society. I don’t think there’s a whole lot of overlap between RFK jr’s vision of the world, and the current chainsaw approach to government that calls every piece or government spending an entitlement.

Freedom2 2y ago

It's about encouraging the free market. Drug makers will naturally compete and it's up to the American public to reward the flu shot with the most efficacy, or in some cases, not take a shot at all and rely on natural immunization. This will spur competition and bring prices down. At least that's what this forum has taught me.

teeray 2y ago
> This will spur competition and bring prices down. Without the effects known for months, it sounds a lot like gambling to me.
- atmavatar 2y ago
  The most cherished free market principle of the current administration is caveat emptor.
darkteflon 2y ago
That’s an interesting comment. I often see this repeated - that HN as a whole leans libertarian - but I don’t see it personally. Just as many people will jump in to point out that market failures are common for reasons of monopolistic behaviour, regulatory capture, etc, as will people regurgitating Reagan, Thatcher and Thiel. Whoops, gave away my political leanings.

SmirkingRevenge 2y ago

We simply now have a completely nuts anti-vax Secretary of Health. He probably actually thinks he's saving people from vaccine injury.

jsisto 2y ago
He was actually injured by the flu vaccine. That’s why his voice sounds the way it does
- SmirkingRevenge 2y ago
  I don't think this is true? He has a neurological disease called Spasmodic dysphonia. I can't find anything about this being related to a flu vaccine.
- conception 2y ago
  No, he claims that’s what caused it some years after being diagnosed.
- dekhn 2y ago
  I don't think he's ever said this. As usual, providing a few citations we can follow would greatly help your case.
- seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  I thought he said the injured voice was due to worms eating his brain? It’s hard to keep up with such lunacy.
cantrecallmypwd 2y ago
Nuts, crims, and greedy billionaires out to blow up all of government because they don't understand it, privatize everything, and slash Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while lying about the tax breaks they're going to get out of it.

_heimdall 2y ago

Attempting to steel man the decision, they may not believe the vaccines work or are worth the expense and overhead. They may even go one step deeper and believe the vaccines aren't proven properly to know whether they work well enough.

dekhn 2y ago
It seems like the results will be somewhat predictable: the impact flu has every year is variable, with some years being incredibly bad and some being not that bad. Part of that is attributed to the vaccine rate, and how effective the vaccine is (this meeting is key to decision making about our expectations and how to make an effective vaccine), and part is simply random (based on too many correlated values, preventing good estimates of causation). If this meeting is cancelled, we would expect the vaccine to be less effective and would see greater impact (simply because it wasn't tailored to the be the most likely effective vaccine), but due to all the variables I mentioned it could even appear that "things got better after we did this" (post hoc ergo propter hoc). There is no steel man here, RFK just wants to demonstrate that his beliefs about viruses are true. We may or may not get enough unambiguous data to make conclusions about his beliefs in a year or two, but given the concomitant reduction in the effectiveness of the CDC due to Trump policies, and the sycophantic nature of the people being placed into leadership roles, we may simply never know because the data would not be collected, or the research not funded, or the publications retracted. Or RFK could somehow be right and we see a huge magic increase in public health across the country (not seen in other countries that keep vaccination). I am not aware of very many scientists who believe this will happen.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  > If this meeting is cancelled, we would expect the vaccine to be less effective and would see greater impact (simply because it wasn't tailored to the be the most likely effective vaccine), but due to all the variables I mentioned it could even appear that "things got better after we did this" (post hoc ergo propter hoc). There is an alternative here - a population left to fight an outbreak through natural immunity will be stronger in the end. That's definitely not a popular opinion, and it may not be worth the cost, but it does align with large drops in death rates of past outbreaks which generally happened before a vaccine was even available. > There is no steel man here That's not how steel manning an argument works. The whole point is to make the most generous version of the argument, usually assuming the best intent. There is always a most generous explanation that would lead to the argument made, you just may not like it or may not think its likely. > Or RFK could somehow be right and we see a huge magic increase in public health across the country (not seen in other countries that keep vaccination). I am not aware of very many scientists who believe this will happen I don't know RFK's stance particularly well, but I would guess that he wouldn't expect a noticeable increase in health over a short timeline and without improving peoples' health in general. I'm pretty sure I've seen him argue for removing toxins from our food and water, reducing dependence on pharmaceuticals, etc. All of those are important factors and it isn't realistic to assume that removing only one factor would magically fix everything.