Vaccines against S. pneumoniae, tetanus boosters, and Shingles.
As alluded to above, VAERS wasn’t on many people’s radar previously. So there may be a bias there.
But there are clearly rare and devastating side effects to the vaccine. Where the risk/benefit ratio meets a threshold to vaccinate I can’t say. I’ve been telling patients that, IMO, it’s a no-brainer to get it if you’re over 50. And probably younger if you’re chunky and/or have diabetes or are immunocompromised (or if one of your household/frequent contacts is).
But I’m also sympathetic to folks who aren’t sure if they should do it because the elites push it with such unearned condescension.
I see a lot of breathless fear porn giving absolute numbers on people getting COVID despite vaccination. They should start teaching math in school. Or maybe just get folks to read Moneyball.
Isn’t it smart for younger people like me (33, not obese, not diabetic, no comorbidities) to be vaccinated to keep from unknowingly spreading Covid to the vulnerable when we are pre symptomatic? And isn’t it smart from a pragmatic point of view because it means you get your civil liberties back and you don’t have to wear a mask?
You work in the medical field. I’m asking you. I’ve assumed that all adults should get vaccinated if they can. But maybe there is something I’m missing.
That’s certainly valid reasoning (kind of what I was alluding to with the household comment). But it doesn’t rise to the level of warranting civil liberty violations.
And the benefit of masks, though real, is marginal enough that I don’t think it warrants any compelled action at all by authorities (except maybe healthcare workers). This especially holds true now that most Americans who want the vaccine can get it (and who want to wear a mask can wear one).
What most people don’t realize is that numbers based research rarely ever establishes causality, but rather rejects or accepts a hypotheses as you say, based on an acceptable confidence interval. This means that much of the research based decisions that we rely on are never made based on known causality.
Regression analysis does help establish which variables likely have the most causality, but the data required for that simply is not available for any new vaccine research. It requires before and after data and multiple variables that may each have a potential of causality. So denying a correlation because causality hasn’t been established is simply a bridge too far.
Source? For paper masks, my understanding is that the research shows a statistically insignificant difference between wearing and not wearing. Hence why Fauci told everyone not to mask up.
I’m your source. But since being a physician is considered a detriment to some I’ll give you a couple of links.
(Sorry 18 months of watching people butcher medical evidence to confirm their priors is getting to me… I’m still rabidly anti-mask mandates and lockdowns)
"Science as an institution has “a naive belief that if only scientists were in charge, they would run the world well.” Perhaps that’s what politicians mean when they declare that they “believe in science.” As we’ve seen during the pandemic, science can be a source of power.
But there’s a “tension between scientists wanting to present a unified and authoritative voice,” on the one hand, and science-as-philosophy, which is obligated to “remain open-minded and be prepared to change its mind.” Mr. Ridley fears “that the pandemic has, for the first time, seriously politicized epidemiology.” It’s partly “the fault of outside commentators” who hustle scientists in political directions. “I think it’s also the fault of epidemiologists themselves, deliberately publishing things that fit with their political prejudices or ignoring things that don’t.”
Epidemiologists are divided between those who want more lockdowns and those who think that approach wasn’t effective and might have been counterproductive.
“Conformity,” Mr. Ridley says, “is the enemy of scientific progress, which depends on disagreement and challenge. Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts, as [the physicist Richard] Feynman put it.” Mr. Ridley reserves his bluntest criticism for “science as a profession,” which he says has become “rather off-puttingly arrogant and political, permeated by motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.” Increasing numbers of scientists “seem to fall prey to groupthink, and the process of peer-reviewing and publishing allows dogmatic gate-keeping to get in the way of new ideas and open-minded challenge.”
In Mr. Ridley’s view, the scientific establishment has always had a tendency “to turn into a church, enforcing obedience to the latest dogma and expelling heretics and blasphemers.” This tendency was previously kept in check by the fragmented nature of the scientific enterprise: Prof. A at one university built his career by saying that Prof. B’s ideas somewhere else were wrong. In the age of social media, however, “the space for heterodoxy is evaporating.”
"I’ve written hundreds of peer-reviewed medical studies, and I can think of no journal editor who would accept the claim that 335 deaths resulted from a virus without data to indicate if the virus was incidental or causal, and without an analysis of relevant risk factors such as obesity.
My research team at Johns Hopkins worked with the nonprofit FAIR Health to analyze approximately 48,000 children under 18 diagnosed with Covid in health-insurance data from April to August 2020. Our report found a mortality rate of zero among children without a pre-existing medical condition such as leukemia. If that trend holds, it has significant implications for healthy kids and whether they need two vaccine doses. The National Education Association has been debating whether to urge schools to require vaccination before returning to school in person. How can they or anyone debate the issue without the right data?"
No surprise here. Many have wondered what happened to the flu. It was so scared of covid that it disappeared, the joke was. Well, turns out the conspiracy theorists actually were on to something. If the tests were flawed, what does that mean for all the covid case numbers? Does it even matter? In heavily vaxxed CA, restrictions are back in place as the breakthrough cases aren’t quite as rare as “Science” insists. Never fear, however, science will produce ever more shots to line the pockets of those powers on high. I mean, trust the science!
Not every medical professional who urges the shot does so out of avarice, and not everyone who accepts the shot does so out of gullibility.
Your brothers and sisters in Christ who view this situation differently to you deserve for you interact with their positions charitably and respectfully.
Perhaps not. But considering that every contribution you’ve made to this thread is only skepticism, it might be worth considering if you’re hearing the rest of the conversation.
I’m not sure anyone here is recklessly accepting the given narrative.
Hence my encouragement for you to deal more graciously with this topic.
Although I do not recall charging anyone with reckless behavior, I accept your encouragement to be more discreet in my commentary of news articles.
Naturally we are more sensitive to criticism of our deeply held beliefs. Robust Christian engagement should allow for dissenting viewpoints that don’t assume character assassination.
Dear Pastor Aaron,
I reread your posts to try to understand why I seem to be provoking you.
I think you are understandably saddened by the division over covid related problems in the Church. I am very sorry your not getting the shots would have caused division in your church.
I don’t understand that but truly sympathize. I’m sure your decision was based on the fear of God and not the fear of man.
I don’t envy your position and responsibility.
Please know that I have no desire to criticize those who chose to get the shots. I am sorry for (obviously) coming across as ungracious in raising concerns about the injections.
While this is a huge hot button topic, I believe it is relevant and helpful to those who are trying to decide what to do with work and school mandates. (And of course, how to navigate it in the church).
I wonder what the COVID-19 endgame is going to be. I can’t imagine that the public health authorities expect that they will be able to completely stamp it out. I also can’t imagine that masks and and various social distancing procedures and closures are going to remain indefinitely. Perhaps there are some that wish it so, but will the majority of the population be willing to go along? It’s one thing to adopt restrictive measures when one is waiting for a vaccine to be developed, but the vaccine is here and anyone who wants it can get it. Is there anything better on the horizon than what we have now? If so, I haven’t heard of it. So when do we say that we’ve done the best that we can, accept that COVID-19 is here to stay, and get on with life?
Most places have, right? Mask mandates are gone for the most part and people are going back to work. Canada and Australia are slow on the uptake, but I imagine will get there.
The CDC recommended yesterday that fully-vaccinated people wear masks indoors. I know that some employers reacted by reducing the worker density and requiring everyone to wear masks.