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by arjie 233 days ago
Haha, I can simultaneously try to minimize neither kinds of food nor number of friends while minimizing number of medical interventions. I suppose to some people all three of these must either go down or all three must go up, but I think I can move the three for my child in different directions with different intensity.
1 comments
novemp 233 days ago
Medicine is good, actually.
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arkey 233 days ago
This is like saying food is good.

It is. But then you have ultra-processed food, junk food, food you might be allergic to...

Some medicines are good, some medicines are the lesser bad, some medicines will kill you if you take them when not needed, some medicines you might be allergic too, and some medicines are just a patch to have you feel well and keep you going.

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ifyoubuildit 233 days ago
This is the result of the covid era info landscape, thinking like this.

Medicine is not an unqualified good. Here's a simple test. Go take some chemo meds. Assuming you don't have cancer, would that be good? Or go swallow a bottle of Tylenol. Would that be good?

Medicine is only good in certain specific circumstances when administered in the right way. Its not "more doses of anything labeled vaccine equals more good". Otherwise we would give children the rabies vaccine.

If you are a perfectly healthy person, one surefire way to become a not healthy person is to put a bunch of drugs that you don't need into your body.

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arjie 233 days ago
On the whole, I think Western medical authorities manage to balance public health vs. risk fairly well[0]. Their principles of parsimony of intervention are sound.

I think the consensus across Western nations around the COVID vaccine to allow for shared clinical decision making rather than a universal recommendation is well-informed.

My daughter, like almost every child in the West, didn't get the BCG vaccine at birth either (I did). If this (and forgoing the COVID-19 vaccine) are mistakes, then that's life. Those of us who make those choices must live with the consequent regrets.

But she's got two surgeons as grandparents. And they're aligned with the CDC and STIKO schedules. I'm comfortable with the decision-making process.

0: errors like allergen management are unusual, and fairly quickly resolved; even the errors in COVID response were adaptively handled

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