[solarkraft]

It's a bit funny that some commenters relate this to vaccines. I also see a similarity, but maybe in a slightly different way.

The tobacco industry paid doctors to become outliers and promoted them to imply expert consensus and push their product.

People not very fond of vaccines also promote outliers attempting to imply some form of consensus or at least scientific validity. Quite a few of them also have products or a whole world view to sell (which often includes buying specific products).

[pstuart]

Mercola and RFK Jr both make a good living from their anti-vax positioning.

[fsociety999]

Do you really believe the financial and other incentives are greater for the people pushing _against_ vaccines and Big Pharma as opposed to the politicians, “experts“, and doctors who are pushing the vaccines so aggressively to the point where they are okay if you lose your job if you don’t take them?

That is a bit of an upside down view of the power structure in society. Pharmaceutical companies are literally making hundreds of billions of dollars off of their products. These companies are not exactly innocent. They have very little morals and are generally okay with mass suffering as long as their profits are increasing (look at the opioid epidemic as an example).

If anything, I think it is much more likely that the reverse is happening. The scientists, doctors, etc. are designing studies in a way to paint a more favorable view of the products that they are looking at. They are cherry picking data to show that they are good while ignoring any data to the contrary. It looks a lot more like they are in the pocket of Big Pharma to me.

In addition, there is a social stigma where if you take an unpopular view here, you will likely be seen as a “conspiracy theorist”, or face the possibility of losing your job, friends, family members.

Most of the people against Big Pharma promote living a healthy lifestyle, taking supplements, going outside, getting sunlight, eating well, exercising, etc. It is not like they are trying to sell you some expensive products.

When governments all around the world are providing billions of taxpayer money to pharmaceutical companies who have legal indemnity and can’t be sued if people have adverse reactions to their products, and those same governments are forcing their citizens to take the products (often against their will) in order to be allowed to participate in society, it is probably time to start questioning who the “good guys” really are here.

[inter_netuser]

I would never agree with this comment above, but today we see nurses fired over this whole vaccine issue. Nurses, who worked frontlines during the first wave when vaccines weren't available, contracted and recovered from covid, and have antibodies to prove it.

They were called heroes.

Today, none of that apparently matters, valuable medical staff were fired anyway, in a middle of pandemic. Why???

Only to turn around, and demand that the vaccinated, but COVID-positive workers (who'd normally have to isolate) work the COVID wards instead?

Couldn't they just ask those that declined vaccination, but previously infected with COVID, work in those wards?

They've done that in 2020, and if they are willing to do that again, are they not heroes, risking their own lives to save others? Well, suddenly they are now pariahs instead of heroes, and must be fired and ridiclued.

How does any of this make sense???

I'm lost at this point.

[ceejayoz]

> They've done that in 2020, and if they are willing to do that again, are they not heroes, risking their own lives to save others? Well, suddenly they are now pariahs instead of heroes, and must be fired and ridiclued.

If you treat a gunshot victim with napkins from McDonalds because it's the only thing you have, that's great. If a year later you've got better options and you're still using the napkins, you're an asshole.

It was brave of folks to work in healthcare before we had the vaccine, knowing that there was a very good chance they'd get sick and that there wasn't much they could do to prevent it. It is stupid to take that risk now, when there is something they can do.

"I'm not taking the vaccine because there isn't one" and "I'm not taking the vaccine despite there being one" aren't comparable, and it's weird to pretend they are.

[inter_netuser]

> “ It is stupid to take that risk now”

This is just handwaving. Where is your data to support that it’s in your own words “stupid”? This seems like an emotional feeling rather than a thesis well supported by data.

I’ve specifically stated “with antibodies to prove it”, which you conveniently ignored. This would be a much higher bar than even previous infection, and perhaps even unnecessary.

Vaccination isn’t some ritual we must perform to exorcise some mythical ghost.

It’s a medical intervention, with measurable results and risks, but also consumes a scarce resource, and therefore must be offered ONLY when appropriate.

vaccinating people who don’t even need it results in denying life-saving vaccines for people who actually DO need them. Like the entirely unvaccinated billions around the world who live on 2 dollars per day. Numerous guidelines recommend postponing vaccination after positive results by months. Mayo clinic recommends 90 days or even longer, depending on the situation at hand. Is Mayo Clinic “stupid”?

Please explain how this guideline is “stupid”: https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-if-a...

As you can see below, from BMC and Lancet, reputable journals, reinfection is very infrequent in health care workers. 2-8 incidents per 100,000 people-hours. Case fatality is at 0.13%, nearly 30 times lower than non-HCW, and I believe a lot of these have been primary infections too.

Do you have any numbers to provide support your thesis that it’s “stupid” at all? You’d only have to prove that infection controls and previous exposure is a less effective intervention than a vaccine, specifically in HCW setting, and that its so ineffective it supports denying vaccine supply to those at 30 TIMES MORE RISK.

In essence your statement reads: 1) “hospitals can’t control infectious agents”, 2) “we should NOT prioritize those 30x at risk and too poor to afford it”, 3) “HCW are too “stupid” (in your own words” to assess risks of infection controls they themselves institute and operate; and risks of the disease they themselves see every day”

Seems like big claims to me.

Looking forward to your data to support your thesis.

Actual data: Reinfection rate in HCW: “2.5 reinfections per 100,000 person-days)”

https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s128...

“The incidence density was 7·6 reinfections per 100 000 person-days in the positive cohort, compared with 57·3 primary infections per 100 000 person-days in the negative cohort, between June, 2020, and January, 2021. The adjusted IRR was 0·159 for all reinfections (95% CI 0·13–0·19) compared with PCR-confirmed primary infections. The median interval between primary infection and reinfection was more than 200 days.”

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

“case fatality (0.13% versus 2.77%, p<0.001) were significantly lower in HCWPs compared with non-HCWPs.”

https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(21)00564-6/ful...

[solarkraft]

> Do you really believe the financial and other incentives are greater for the people pushing _against_ vaccines and Big Pharma as opposed to the politicians, “experts“, and doctors who are pushing the vaccines so aggressively to the point where they are okay if you lose your job if you don’t take them?

Definitely. I must confess that I am much more familiar with the situation in Germany, where the commercial entanglement of doctors and pharma companies may be much weaker. We do have a lot of Anti-Vax propaganda, however, which I follow somewhat, so I do know their ways. From what I know they are similar (if not more radicalized) than their counter parts in the US.

> Pharmaceutical companies are literally making hundreds of billions of dollars off of their products. These companies are not exactly innocent. They have very little morals and are generally okay with mass suffering as long as their profits are increasing (look at the opioid epidemic as an example).

I agree! They must be tightly controlled. They're not all evil, though. Like most companies they also have some utility to society: They produce medicine that clearly works, in some cases even remarkably well (sure, arguably at inflated prices). This is the case with vaccines.

> In addition, there is a social stigma where if you take an unpopular view here, you will likely be seen as a “conspiracy theorist”, or face the possibility of losing your job, friends, family members.

I try not to do this, but you're right. Sometimes it's a bit hard because the stereotype is often true. I do have an anti-(corona)vaccine friend and while I think her considerations are irrational here, it's not like she's malicious herself. Especially when wanting to convince her of my changing her mind, there's nothing good not treating her respectfully will do.

> Most of the people against Big Pharma promote living a healthy lifestyle, taking supplements, going outside, getting sunlight, eating well, exercising, etc.

This is where things get hairy. Going outside, getting sunlight, eating well and exercising are all fabulous things and I am all for promoting them.

The issue begins to appear when you insinuate that these can be better than a proven treatment for a given sickness, like telling people to just take more walks outside and the cancer will solve itself. That is what harms people. And it's something a large portion of people in this bubble definitely do. That is where the issue lies.

> It is not like they are trying to sell you some expensive products.

Many influencers out of this bubble absolutely are, especially regarding the supplements you previously mentioned (plus some weird devices, sculptures, things with magnets ...). They can contain nothing of much value and just be ineffective at curing illnesses, leading to people not seeking real treatment and wasting their money, they can also be actively harmful, see "Miracle Mineral Solution", which contains literal bleach [0]. That is doubly harmful and absolutely to be fought. These people are enriching themselves from gullible people by telling them fantasy stories and it is highly despicable.

------

Of course there's a spectrum. Not everyone who as safety concerns about the vaccines automatically believes in wild conspiracy theories. However the seed of "look at what shady things people up there are doing" can often grow into "all the system is evil and we must fight it with fire" and that's what I'm afraid of. That this radicalization frequently happens is at least supported ancedotally (I have been in that loop for a short while myself) and why I'm so passionate about this topic.

Real conspiracies exist! But please use your critical thinking skills to evaluate the evidence and likelihoods of things.

End of rant, I guess.

[0]: https://scimoms.com/coronavirus-mms/

[blindmute]

> It's a bit funny that some commenters relate this to vaccines.

This is literally the only comment chain in the entire thread to reference vaccines

[solarkraft]

It looks like they were rightfully flagged.