From "My Patients Used to Be Gung-Ho About the Covid Vaccine. What Changed?" Danielle Ofri (NYT).
"I do want my patients to maintain a healthy skepticism about any proposed intervention to the body, whether it comes from their doctor or from social media.... We are all profoundly disconcerted by states of ambiguity. In deconstructing these uncertainties I get a sense of many patients feeling a stronger sense of control. They don’t immediately yank up their sleeves for the jab.... As time-consuming and exhausting as these conversations can be, we have a communal duty to try to unmuddy the waters — all of us...."
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89 comments:
Doctors could just tell them the truth: “I don’t know if this is effective or not.”
I have had only the two original shots and one booster, after which I moved out of NYC. Primarily because I'm no longer in the city, I haven't had any follow up boosters. However, given that I've had COVID twice in the past six months--after remaining COVID-free from January 2020 to August 2023*--I feel I should get the latest booster and stay up to date with them going forward.
I have zero reservations about getting the COVID shots, and I never experienced any of the temporary feelings of feeling "flu-ish" after the shots that some have reported.
*(I do believe I had COVID in December 2019, before it was announced to the world the next month.)
"...waters being muddied..."
You'd have to have a heart of stone...
A 'vaccine' that neither prevents getting nor spreading the disease? Yeah. It's a total mystery, doc.
excuse me.. excuse me for being a Luddite; but WHY?
WHY would *I* take an untested, unproven, unregulated "vaccine".. That ISN'T EVEN A VACCINE!
For a cold? Could SOME ONE explain that to me?
When was the last time someone in Iowa died of this HORROR Disease?
When that person DID die.. how many "vaccinations" had they had?
Is there any (ANY?) evidence that this "vaccine" EVER helped ANYONE?
if you think so.. You should try to learn math
of the people in the US, that died "of covid".. How many were "vaccinated"
of the people in the US, that have HAD covid... How many were "vaccinated"
There are just not enough people with adverse effects to stop the vax train.
There are more deaths, but those could be blamed on covid. So, it's all good.
The population needed culling anyway.
The lab mice revolt.
I haven't seen any efforts by the NIH or media to regain the trust they lost in regards to the covid vaccine. I have seen them attempt to deplatform people that point out they are not trustworthy. That's just the beginning of the concerns and questions. Next will be how much they are compensated by the pharmaceutical companies to not question the covid vaccine despite the concerns?
When I ask my patients if they have any concerns or questions about the Covid vaccine... [t]here’s just a vague hedge or an abashed, 'I don’t know, I just don’t' ...Health professionals everywhere are hearing this kind of hesitance.
They've lost the trust of their patients. Example: Bending the definition of vaccine to fit the mRNA injection, for one.
Watch how AP came to the rescue in 2022 with another red herring "fact check" asserting the concern raised by the mRNA jab is its "effectiveness," not the safety of the switch to a genetic therapy as a population-wide prophylactic. People are primarily hesitant over safety.
Experts say changes to CDC’s vaccination definition are normal, February 9, 2022
CLAIM: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has changed its definition of vaccination because COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. The CDC has altered the language in the definition of vaccination on its website, including after the development of COVID-19 vaccines, but the changes were made to prevent potential misinterpretations, and did not alter the overall definition, according to the agency. Experts confirmed to The Associated Press that the changes reflect the evolution of vaccine research and technology.
THE FACTS: The suggestion that COVID-19 vaccine ineffectiveness led the CDC to change its definition of the word online was amplified this week by U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican who has been critical of pandemic mask and vaccine mandates.
Massie shared an image containing three definitions for the word “vaccination” with his 326,000 followers on Sunday. One was labeled “pre-2015” and described vaccination as: “Injection of a killed or weakened infectious organism in order to prevent disease.” Another was dated 2015-2021 and said: “The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” The third was from September 2021, calling vaccination: “The act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce protection from a specific disease.”
Massie added the caption: “The vaccine that redefined vaccination,” and in a follow-up tweet stated that he made the image by compiling definitions from the CDC’s website, “using wayback machine to find copies of their old websites.”
The claim has previously spread online from other sources, with the false suggestion that the definition changes prove the vaccines don’t work.
The AP was able to verify through web archives that the language on a CDC page titled “Immunization Basics,” has changed in these ways over time. But this does not mean that the agency altered it because of problems with the coronavirus vaccines.
The CDC told the AP in a statement that it made the language shifts to add detail and increase transparency.
“While there have been slight changes in wording over time to the definition of ‘vaccine’ on CDC’s website, those haven’t impacted the overall definition,” the statement said, noting that the previous definition “could be interpreted to mean that vaccines were 100% effective, which has never been the case for any vaccine.”
Dr. John P. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at the Weill Cornell School of Medicine, said Massie’s remarks amounted to “disinformation” and were based on “semantics not science.”
“I have no problem with the CDC’s language tweaks,” Moore wrote in an email to the AP. “They are informative, not sinister.”
...Dr. Ryan Langlois, a microbiology and immunology professor at the University of Minnesota, says the CDC’s changes “make total sense,” and add nuance following emerging vaccine developments such as mRNA technology.
"My Patients Used to Be Gung-Ho About the Covid Vaccine. What Changed?"
The data? We now know it doesn't prevent you from getting covid, nor does it prevent you from transmitting covid.
Wish I could read the article to learn what Dr. Ofri's argument for the "vaccine" is. I'm immune compromised, and even my oncologist has backed off pushing me to get the latest jab.
Myocarditis dishonesty.
e-liminate co-morbidities is hard work.
In deconstructing these uncertainties
Poor word choice. "Deconstructing" makes it smell of politics, she needs to be more subtle before slipping in the needle.
What a conundrum for the doctor! If he previously told his patients that taking the vaccine was okay (or better yet socially responsible) what's he going to say now what with patients expressing reluctance and/or uncertainty about the vaccine? And if that doctor is finally opening his eyes to the certainty that the vaccine was a form of poison to a statistically significant number of people will he caution against the vaccine even though he may have previously recommended it? I'm surprised that we haven't heard more about medical practitioners (doctors and hospitals, not just the big pharmas) being sued by patients for malfeasance. By the end of this year I expect to see ads on TV touting class action suits as a result of Covid poisoning and death.
Say "i no longer trust you to be objective and look out for my best interest" withoit actually saying that.
1) It is not a vaccine in any sense of the word.
2) It does not keep you from getting the virus.
3) There is no proof that if you have received the shot, that when you become infected with Covid it is less severe.
4) It does not keep you from transmitting the disease.
5) There is mounting evidence that deaths of "vaccinated" people is in the millions.
6) It has been [proven that the vaccine is contaminated with DNA.
7) it has been proven, the higher the number of doses the higher the number of covid infections.
8) The products that were injected into millions of people was not the same as what was tested by the clinical trials.
Please, PLEASE watch this video. It is not very long and is very informative!!
https://jessica5b3.substack.com/p/my-presentation-to-the-croatian-parliament
"they may be reacting to a sense of the waters being muddied"
But the waters are so clear! Look! Who are you gonna believe, prog experts or your lying eyes?
Is "my body, my choice" too difficult of a concept for them to grok?
"My Patients Used to Be Gung-Ho About the Covid Vaccine. What Changed?"
Just a wild guess, but reports of young, healthy people dropping over dead might have something to do with that.
Well, it doesn’t actuallly prevent you from getting covid like originally claimed. That would be one thing.
That it still is under an emergency use authorization without complete studies like other vaccines. That would be another thing.
This person is supposed to be an intelligent doctor and they have no idea why people think it is sus. That’s all you need to know.
Doctors cant understand the hesitancy of not being gung-ho, to take the covid vaccine?
Doctors don't understand why I have questions about the treatment they are pushing, that does not prevent me from acquiring covid, nor prevent me from spreading covid? AND still insist on calling it a VACCINE ? ? ?
Maybe if the Doctors would stop lying to me, I would trust them.
As it is, the entire Medical field has a lot of trust to rebuild.
And playing stupid for interviews like this, just digs their hole deeper.
Patients are smarter than the doctor.
Anecdotes are not data, but since data has deliberately not been collected, it's all we've got:
* All the people I know who have gotten covid have been "vaccinated" (i.e., inoculated with the mRNA prophylaxis) and boosted.
* All the people I know who have had "long covid" symptoms (i.e., unexplained sequelae of upper respiratory infection) have been multiply vaccinated and boosted.
* I personally know one person who died of a massive right atrium thrombosis 24 hours after her second Pfizer shot. She had no history of heart disease, though she was in her 60s.
* Eight people I know who refused the vaccine had covid once as a mild cold and never again. No repeat infections even though most of them got sick in the spring and summer of 2022.
It makes you wonder. And it certainly makes me not trust any doctor who claims to KNOW that the prophylaxis is either effective or safe. Because statistical data has (deliberately) not been collected, they cannot "know."
I had the J&J one shot and done. During two of my yearly check-ups my doctor asked me if I wanted a booster. Nope. The second time I refused he said that he gets that a lot from the people who had the J&J. I got COVID eight months after the J&J. It was like getting influenza and I toughed it out. Haven't gotten it a second time. I have a mild cold right now. Unless it's mild COVID. I don't feel like testing for it because I'm staying home anyway.
I got every vax out there, no worries. A regular pin cushion.
Other vaccines are only partially successful too like shingles, and of course the flu shot. So I'm used to the concept.
There's still no HIV/AIDS vax, after 40 years. How come Big Pharma isn't faking that one if they're so corrupt?
Because reasons!
I got every vax out there, no worries. A regular pin cushion.
Other vaccines are only partially successful too like shingles, and of course the flu shot. So I'm used to the concept.
There's still no HIV/AIDS vax, after 40 years. How come Big Pharma isn't faking that one if they're so corrupt?
Because reasons!
Trust once lost is hard to regain. And the fallout from this hoo hah is not yet fully determined. I got the original shot, plus the booster. I still got a bad case of covid. My daughter had the original shot plus several boosters. She still got covid.
Thanks but no thanks. No more boosters for me. I still get my flu shot each year.
It's a funny thing, but my interest in getting the vaccine ended almost precisely when the CDC's and FDA's transparency and commitment to science did.
They were lied to. They know they were lied to. They fell for the lies and were played for fools.
This is a grave problem- no one wants to admit they were gullible and believed, what in the aftermath were easily detectable lies. Something that the science deniers and conspiracy theorists saw immediately.
Except we were the ones following the science. And there was a conspiracy to deny us our rights and destroy our lives for not falling for the lies. And a vast majority of those who fell for the lies were part of that.
Just say no to any and all mRNA shots for anything. None of them are yet proven to be safe and effective. Nor will they ever be.
Ann, you got the shot. Are you willing to admit you got it because you fell for a lie? Or are you still in denial?
It's been four years. Can someone please tell me why we don't have a conventional vaccine by now?
Non-sterilizing, obfuscatory, and viremic is a lethal triad. The vaxxxine was spiked (pun intended).
I have almost exactly the same medical history on this subject as Robert Cook - the two initial shots plus the first booster. And we think our daughter had the OG COVID strain before it was widespread and publicized.
But I do have reservations about further boosters. The public health authorities have abused their trust too many times for me to believe what they say now, even if they have more or less backed away from the initial claims that it would prevent COVID infection and reinfection.
And worst, for me, is that I've lost all sense of where I can go, to whom I can listen with confidence. I don't discount the possibility that the new versions of the "vaccine" boosters may actually do some good. But how would I know, now?
We had the doctors promoting smoking; I learned about that and thought, "How quaint - luckily we're past that now." We had the food pyramid; when it became clear how wrong that was, I thought, "Well, we all make mistakes." Now we have this - not just the misrepresentation of what the "vaccine" could do, but the public policy full court press to compel everyone to shut up and take it, and the lack of reporting on adverse effects, which always happen, with every vaccine. And I no longer think it's a quaint, forgiveable error.
Now I think it is the will to power.
Bullshit. The only people who are still getting the jabs are the idiots wearing masks. The terminally hypochondriac.
Experts, in virtually every field, could do a lot of good at repairing the institution of "Expertness" if they said "I don't know," or "It is not certain," a lot more than they do.
“I have zero reservations about getting the COVID shots, and I never experienced any of the temporary feelings of feeling "flu-ish" after the shots that some have reported.”
“*(I do believe I had COVID in December 2019, before it was announced to the world the next month.)”
COVID-19, then vaccine, the far better way to go, than the other way around. If you really got the virus first, you were very lucky. The problem the other way around, vaxing first, is that it mostly prevents full virus natural immunity from developing. Fauci had been had the virus at least 4 times in the first year or so, and apparently caught it again last month. He’s too old for those chances, but then walking up of office with $12 million or so, and the blood of millions of SARS2 virus and vaccination victims on his hands, I don’t feel much sympathy.
There is no rational reason for you to get further vaxed. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Even if you are 99, diabetic, and morbidly obese (which you assuredly are not, since you have been both vaxed and had the virus).
I knew this would bring out the nonsensical pseudoscience from the people who are sure they know more than what genuine skepticism would tell them, because, y'know, just doubting what the toffs think is the height of wisdom.
Since March of 2020 I have yet to see one skeptic do a reset and look at the evidence rather than preen like a peacock about how smart they are. The accusers of false claims make five times more false claims. They find one fool on the pro-vax side and claim victory because, y'know SMART. We know more than all those guys. Oh, you can find someone online who believes everything the "experts" (always in sneer quotes) tell them? Why, that proves that the whole medical establishment are fools doesn't it? You know a nervous coward that still masks? Why, that tells you everything you need to know, doesn't it?
Please, don't help any middle-schoolers with their science homework, OK?
You have given skepticism a very bad name. Take each claim one at a time and read the pros and cons. I have been reading many of you for years, including here, and you haven't. People give you decent answers and you ignore them. I have a dozen names here who I now know are fools, and will never listen to them again.
The author is oblivious to how COVID was politicized in ways the flu has never been. With COVID came unprecedented state control of individual liberties. A third to a half of small businesses, coping with restrictions, failed during COVID. This colors how we see COVID now. I doubt the waters will be unmuddied on this one.
In early December 2023 I had the first "annual" physical since late 2019 with my primary care doctor of 25+ years. I hadn't seen him in the 4 years between.
He asked whether I wanted a flu shot (nah, never have had one) and recommended I get the shingles vaccine, being of that age.
He did NOT speak of the Covid vaccine AT ALL. He didn't ask whether I had gotten the Wuhan Virus vaccine, and certainly didn't recommend the vaccine or getting a "booster". The closest we came to speaking of the vaccine was when I sought confirmation that the shingles vaccine was of the mRNA variety. (It's not; old school and has been around safely for decades.)
He did, however, recommend the antiviral medicines available if I got Covid again.
My experience was followed a few days later by my wife having lunch with an old college friend who was passing through town. Her friend has been a pharmacist for 40+ years, and said she had done the reading on mRNA vaccines in general and the Covid vaccine specifically. She hasn't been vaccinated and said there's no way she voluntarily takes one.
My early 30's stepniece who worked in healthcare was required by employer to get the jab. Soon after, she developed blood clots in her lungs. A year and a half later she gave birth and had another round of blood clots. She had a investigative procedure for an imaged mass on her bladder a couple weeks ago. I should find out how that went.
I mean, you could look at Data Ed Dowd collected regarding excess deaths correlating with fully employed under 50 professionals.
I say if you can mix and match those jabs, they gotta be harmless.
"COVID-19, then vaccine, the far better way to go, than the other way around. "
Natural exposure to spike protein followed by artificially inseminated Spike...netter.
Injected systemically, assisted by lipid nanoparticles to go everywhere, triggering inflammation and self production of Spike for an indeterminate length of time?
FFS..NO!
Why on Earth would anyone want to trust these “experts” anymore. You cannot unsee an emperor shown to be naked…
Oh for fuck's sake! Have these concoctions yet be PROVEN a) efficacious, and b) safe for use?
Someone came into the pharmacy recently to pick up Paxlovid for her husband. It was his third time getting Covid and he'd had "all the boosters". She was pissed, and concluded "Fauci lied".
AVI @ 8:03pm,
Looks like you are ready for promotion to Head Village Idiot.
Let's start with just the original round of testing -- given the fact that this was a brand new technology never used before in humans (though there were a few failed attempts to bring a veterinary MRNA project to market), should these candidate vaccines have received at least as rigorous testing as is usual for vaccines, or a brief truncated test? How is the latter, which in fact is what happened, able to test for even medium term safety, much less long-term?
And then to top it off, Pfizer blew up the control group by offering them all the vaccine. I didn't read about this in some unapproved right wing rag, I read about it on NPR - - and the rider was so stupid that they marveled at the few stalwart participants who decided they should still be part of the control group and said No thanks.
And Pfizer wanting to keep the records under wrap for 70 years? That didn't make you even the slightest bit suspicious? You can just go to hell.
“I knew this would bring out the nonsensical pseudoscience from the people who are sure they know more than what genuine skepticism would tell them, because, y'know, just doubting what the toffs think is the height of wisdom.”
What pseudoscience? Did or did they not substitute N1 Methylpseudouridines for Uridines (nucleoside-modified messenger RNA technology or “ModRNA”) to generate the (Wuhan variant) SARS2 S1 and S2 spike proteins in the vaccines? Why was that done? What mechanism were they utilizing? How effective were the antibodies produced as a result of the vaccines against Delta variant virons? Against Omicron? What was the medical purpose of vaccinating with a Wuhan variant spike producing vaccine, when that and closely related variants have been nonexistent in this country for several years? What were the Infection Fatality Rates (IFRs) for various age cohorts for different variants? The CDC actually published that data, at least through 2022, when the vaccination rate started interfering. What were the IFRs for those under 20? (Hint, under 1/1,000,000). Why were they Vaxed? If the goal was herd protection, then what was the required vaccination level (assuming a completely effective, sterilizing, vaccine, which we have known since summer 2021 that these were not) for Wuhan, Delta, and Omicron variations?
My view is that any “expert” who really can’t answer those questions, doesn’t deserve being treated as an “expert” here. The problem is that expertise tends to be very narrow these days. Dr Jill, with her EdD, has zero expertise over most of us in the realm of COVID-19 vaccines. Actual knowledge of the real issues concerning these vaccines in the medical field is extremely spotty. You can discuss the substitution of N1 Methylpseudouridines for Uridines with some MDs, while most have their eyes glaze over, with the mere mention of nucleoside-modified messenger RNA technology. They had to learn some of it to graduate from Med school, but that may have been decades earlier. They may be experts in pain management, pulmonology, etc, but the more they become expert there, the further they become from expertise elsewhere. And don’t get me started on PharmDs.
It should be remembered that “Climate Science” went through something similar. Only trained “climate scientists” were allowed to opine, and opinions from others, such as astrophysicists (pointing out that statistically, the primary drivers for global temperature are mostly external, that determine how much solar radiation is received, when, and where), could be safely ignored. Then, some statisticians started blowing up their research, starting with Michael Mann’s “Hockey Stick”. He apparently developed it, working on his PhD dissertation, using shockingly bad statistics, to arrive at a predetermined result. The field has progressed little since then, despite $billion$ in research, confabs around the world, and computer models that stubbornly consistently run hot.
Am I an expert? Hell no! But then, most of the “experts” opining about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines aren’t close to being experts either. What I am good at is figuring out how things work. And, for the ModRNA vaccines, I haven’t heard any rational explanations why I shouldn’t be scared of them. They appear to work just as they were designed. It’s like a computer program - they work great until they don’t, and when you did downndeep enough, you find that they did just what you told them to, which very often isn’t what you wanted them to.
“"COVID-19, then vaccine, the far better way to go, than the other way around. "
Natural exposure to spike protein followed by artificially inseminated Spike...netter.
Injected systemically, assisted by lipid nanoparticles to go everywhere, triggering inflammation and self production of Spike for an indeterminate length of time?
FFS..NO!”
My point is that the ModRNA vaccinations over-imprint immune memory with the knowledge that the Wuhan (and years later, subsequent) variant spike proteins are antigens. Every time, after the first, that you get jabbed, your immune system has to fight off a massive infection of Wuhan (ultimately etc) spike proteins, that lasts up to maybe 3 months. Certainly over the one month between the 1st and 2nd jab. Then, you catch the virus. The immune system memory is too deeply imprinted with the knowledge of the two Wuhan spike proteins as antigens, to properly imprint on the entire virus, or even later spike proteins. Colloquially, it is called “Original Antigenic Sin”. Which is to say that if you are Vaxed and boosted before you catch COVID-19, you are significantly less likely to develop an adequate natural immunity to the virus. Hence, the more that you are vaxed and boosted, the more likely that you will catch the virus multiple times. On the flip side, natural immunity doesn’t seem to interfere with whatever (now unnecessary) immunity you might get later with a ModRNA vaccine. (Though, there may some signal that some side effects might be more common).
But, if you think that I am wrong, please provide a credible mechanism to support your theses.
Both of my brothers were vaxxed. Both died from sudden cardiac events, the first in 2021 and the second in 2023. Neither had any medical history of heart problems.
Of course, there is no way I can know - for certain - that their deaths were caused by the vaccinations.
But I have my opinion. And I know which way I am betting my life. I've never taken the vaxx and I never will.
If I sound bitter about it, it's because I am.
"You cannot unsee an emperor shown to be naked…"
Echoed by Pedo Pete's secret service detail and young daughter.
I have covid as I write this. I also had it a year and a half ago. All this despite having the first two shots and a booster. Everyone I know got covid, despite being vaccinated and boosted. My personal experience tells me that these mRNA vaccines don’t provide any protection. I’ve worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 35 years as a scientist, a manager, and as a lawyer. I was always suspicious of the rush vaccine claims because normal clinical trial development takes many years. There is no way to get reliable safety and efficacy in eight months. I got the original jabs only because I had undergone open heart surgery during the pandemic and really didn’t want covid while my breast bone was separated and was willing to try snake oil to prevent it.
After being censored and nearly shut down for voicing his anti-state opinions about vaccines, Youtube continues to slap "Visit the CDC for the latest Official Truth(tm)" warnings to many of Dr. John Campbell's videos.
Watch a few of his videos--where he simply summarizes research reports on adverse side effects--before you touch a COVID vax in 2024. The vaccines may have made sense for some people before Omicron, but today they merely enrich Big Pharma and the political demons who colluded to require them. I fear there may be severe long-term health issues (e.g., heart, cancer) for those who received the mRNA vaccines too.
https://www.youtube.com/@Campbellteaching
He's also on anti-censorship Rumble:
https://rumble.com/c/DrJohnCampbell
COVID is not that big a deal anymore and COVID vaccines are not that effective. There is no longer a reason to short-circuit the development process (as there was a few years ago).
That’s a plenty good enough reason for a person not in a high-risk category to hesitate over getting the shot.
Most individuals have realized they were bamboozled and have moved on. I wonder what psy-op will be rolled out for the upcoming election. Will they unleash BLM again? A fake alien invasion? The ruling trash can't help themselves.
AVI, sure, some people may be motivated by a desire to stick it to the "toffs," as you said. But a big issue for, I think, most of us here is the gross overstatement of what the vaccine would do, with no caveats at the time, no oopsies when they were wrong, definitely no apologies for coercing its application once it became clear that it hadn't slowed, much less halted the spread (same goes for lockdowns - no apologies for that either).
We knew from early days that the elderly, the obese, the otherwise health-compromised were the people at risk for serious disease and even death, and that children were basically bulletproof. But schools shut down for months to over a year (I'm SO GLAD I live in Texas, so my high school kids only lost three months), and parents were urged - in some places, required - to vaccinate their not-at-risk children despite the lack of reported data on vaccine ill effects in children. Schools that required vaccination made that policy decision on the basis of what "The Science" told them; they didn't have staff epidemiologists or anything. And "The Science" has yet to eat crow for what it did to those kids - to those families.
And we still have no public reporting on ill effects from ongoing studies.
So if I'm a fool for not knowing where to turn for trustworthy information, so be it. I am not a virologist and won't be able to become one, even an amateur, at my age and with my background. I have to rely on "experts" in many fields, not just this one. But I feel a lot more confident that my dentist is giving me good dental advice because what he advises me to do hasn't been demonstrated not to work, that the woman who does my hair is going to do a good job because I've been seeing the results for years, that the people who designed and built my car aren't going to get me killed through their bad design or poor workmanship because when they do discover a problem, they issue a recall and fix it.
"The Science" has none of that going for it. The NIH had my trust until they utterly screwed up the public policy side of dealing with this disease. I understand that in an epidemic or a pandemic, decisions have to be made fast and on imperfect information, and I know they decided to present their case as if they were unshakably confident in order to get the public onboard. I gave them a lot of leeway and complied with everything they said to do, until the point where it became clear that we now did know who was vulnerable, but they weren't changing their policy recommendations at all. And even now, there's been no lookback study, no postmortem - as far as we, the public, know, they have learned nothing from what went wrong - or right, if there was anything.
When I had my annual checkup my doc, who is generaly very conservative about prescribing new medications, told me I should get the covid vac along with the flu shot. I said I would take the flu shot but not the covid shot. He didn't say a word. I had the feeling he really didn't believe in the covid vac but the clinic protocal was for him to offer.
A couple of years ago I sold a vintage woodworking machine to a guy out east and agreed to meet him at another buyer's home in West Lafayette, home of Purdue University. Both dumb lefties. The guy whose home we were at asked if we had been vaxxed. Buyer said yes, I said of course not. I was told I could enter his home. Other guy commented "so you're just going to wing it, huh?" I replied it seemed that they were winging it...taking an experimental gene altering drug that has not gone through any long term testing.
I think I may have had COVID twice, although I was never tested. If I did both were very mild cases, low grade temperature and achy for a few days.
By the way, there are businesses in Madison that still require masking up! LOL
My son and his fiancee took her twin girls to the pediatrician last year for a well child visit and were pressured to get the vaccine when they explained that they have not yet received the shot (both have had COVID). The doctor went so far as to tell them that they could die and the little girls would have to go into foster care if they did not get the vaccine. Why such fear-mongering?
hypotheses on their vague responses:
This doctor's patients must really like him, want to keep him and don't want to offend him, so they are polite and vague instead of forthright like I have been able to be with my doctor.
Also, since Obamacare sucked up our amazing free-market system, the federal government can know everything that goes on between a patient and my doctor in the privacy of his office. Perhaps they want to make sure no actual outright statements by them against the vax shows up on their "permanent record", to be seen by IRS tax police, for instance, or any other fed.
smart patients.
It's fascinating, isn't it, that so many people are reluctant about the "vaccines" despite the universal MSM propaganda amplifying the official CDC line. Maybe there's hope for us yet.
It's fascinating, isn't it, that so many people are reluctant about the "vaccines" despite the universal MSM propaganda amplifying the official CDC line. Maybe there's hope for us yet.
Most youngish and generally healthy people were not enthusiastic about the vaccine because they worried they would get the disease (since most already had it and didn't die) - they were enthusiastic because they saw widespread vaccination (including themselves) as (1) being necessary to get the various covid restrictions lifted and returning to normal life - even if they thought the vaccine was intrinsically useless or unnecessary for themselves, they were willing to pay the price to get back to life, and/or (2) protecting the more vulnerable on a society-wide level.
Now, the public health establishment has credibility that is lower than whale shit. Almost everything we were told in 2020 and early 2021 has turned out to be a lie or at least materially incorrect. So there is no trust. Plus a lot of folks (or their friends or family members) have been experiencing health issues in the last few years that MIGHT be related to vaccines - they can't prove it, but they also can't get any straight answers.
Why the lack of interest? They lied about the origins of COVID including censoring those that disagreed with them, they lied about alternate treatments, they lied about the "vaccine" preventing the spread. They pushed the "vaccine" on children, despite 99.9% of children being unaffected. It is obvious that the pharmaceutical companies are using the boosters as a cash cow. Then you have the lockdowns that caused major learning loss do to ineffective online learning, prevented funerals, blocked people going to church, most of which seems to have had no purpose other than to make life worse.
Yeah. If you cannot trust liars who actively harm you, who can you trust?
Now, the public health establishment has credibility that is lower than whale shit. Almost everything we were told in 2020 and early 2021 has turned out to be a lie or at least materially incorrect.
And no walkback. No retractions. Not even "We were operating on the basis of what we knew them, and here is how the situation has changed." Instead, it's, "We never said you had to get vaccinated! We never forced you to stay in your houses!"
It's not "vax hesitancy" and it's certainly not "vax denial." It's deep suspicion about, now, everything "they" say and do, because they abused our trust so egregiously.
The only piece of data you need to know that the vaccines were ineffective is the death numbers after March 2021- more people in the U.S. have died from COVID since March 2021 than died from COVID prior to March 2021. This is even clearer in a lot of countries in Europe and the eastern Asia. And, I point out that essentially everyone over the age of 70 or in very poor health in the U.S. got at least the first two shots while the people dying from COVID were still almost all over the age of 70. The vast majority of people who died after March 2021 were vaccinated and the ones who weren't were usually advised to skip the vaccine because they were already too infirm to take such a medical intervention.
The vaccines were, at best, worthless.
"Also, since Obamacare sucked up our amazing free-market system...."
Hahahahahaha!
Oh, wait...you really mean that!
Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!
FWIW, from the earliest days I* figured out that only a small slice of the public was at significant risk for covid complications/death. Also took me half a day on PUBMED to figure out that there was zero evidence that masks did anything. Not much more to find that they pulled this "6 feet social distancing" from their @sses. None of this was a big secret, or it shouldn't have been (it wasn't to professionals, but most of 'em played along anyway, for whatever personal reasons). Thus, I did nothing different in my daily routine, save for what was imposed upon me, and even then didn't really do it; ferinstance, I wore a comical steam-punk-style plastic respirator apparatus that didn't even have filters. Reason being, I wanted to expose myself early and often and thus allow my immune system (which apparently 99% of the Official Science Community claimed no one had) to react. Have never gotten the covids, unless it was so mild I didn't notice.
I got the Modernas in mid-2021, although in retrospect I shouldn't have even bothered. Though I've been 58-61 years old since early 2020, health is excellent and I'm not at even moderate risk for severe complications or death. A friend has gotten all of the shots and boosters and has had it twice and the last booster she got she said put her in bed for an entire day.
There was simply not enough testing done on these shots. At best, they should have been an option for high-risk individuals.
* Been doing research in public health/epidemiology since 1990.
There simply is no clean statistical data about the safety of the mRNA prophylaxes because the definition of "adverse reaction" for the purposes of the study did not include cardiac or cerebrovascular events (you can look this up in the Pfizer materials). So even though there were more cardiac/CVA events in the vaccinated group than in the control group (I think it was 4 vs. 2), no one investigated further.
When Hank Aaron and Marvin Hagler each died of heart attacks less than a week after their very public vaccinations, it was reported that those deaths were not vaccine-related because heart attacks and strokes were BY DEFINITION not vaccine-related.
It was that circularity, immediately followed by my colleague's death 24 hours after her second Pfizer shot, that made me wonder.
To this day we do not know for certain if the covid shots (both mRNA and the J&J adenovirus vector) cause cardiac/CVA events because those exact events were excluded from the statistical data related to vaccine side-effects. When I asked a biologist colleague about this, she said "that's because vaccines can't cause heart attacks or strokes," and I realized that despite my humanities Ph.D., I was--at least at that moment--a better 'scientist' than she was. We do not know because we CAN NOT KNOW that covid shots don't cause heart attacks or strokes because that question was not been investigated due to the a priori definition of "adverse event". That the covid shots do not cause cardia/cva morbidity is not even a tested hypothesis, much less an established fact: it is a pure assumption, no different from "a swan CANNOT be black because no one has ever seen a black swan." (Oops).
And indeed, now that we KNOW that the covid shots can cause myocarditis (and this is now even admitted in the disclaimers on the tv advertisements for "Spikevax"), there is zero reason to think that these shots CAN'T cause heart attacks or strokes, both because myocarditis itself can cause heart attacks, and because whatever qualities of the covid shots that cause myocarditis might also cause other diseases (this seems very likely, but we can't be sure because, again, IT HASN'T BEEN studied rigorously because the data are not collected).
It would be very easy to demonstrate statistically if there really is no connection between the covid shots and the increased excess deaths, the massive surge in cardiac/cva events in young, healthy people, and the general increased morbidity--very easy, except that there were no diagnosis codes for cardiac/cva events coincidental to the shots and no tracking of "vaccination" status in post-2021 deaths (you'd think that would be a no-brainer so as to prove definitively that the shots are safe, but vaccination status only seems to be recorded in people who died of Covid, so, again, cardiac/cva deaths are excluded ab initio. (And all this despite there being diagnosis codes for--and I am not making this up--"injury by sea animal: jellyfish," "injury by sea animal: lobster," "injury by fall: ladder; injury by fall: stairs," "injury by fall: tree climbing" and hundreds and hundreds of other subdivisions for every possible contingency; and it's easy to add new Dx codes).
Maybe there are innocent explanations for all of this, but I have to say, as much as I don't WANT to distrust those selfless geniuses who run our ever-benevolent government agencies, hospitals, insurance agencies, and pharmaceutical companies, I am starting to have some doubts.
“The only piece of data you need to know that the vaccines were ineffective is the death numbers after March 2021- more people in the U.S. have died from COVID since March 2021 than died from COVID prior to March 2021.”
Yancey is a statistics guy, and has been very good throughout the pandemic. Many of us enjoyed his ability to tease statistical relationships out of available data, esp when the Feds seem to have tried to prevent such. For one thing, why haven’t we seen anything about the effects of vaccination status and either excess deaths, or specific possible side effects, like myocarditis? The CDC, etc have the underlying data, so why are they sitting on it?
I, on the other hand, am for functional. I have this drive to figure out how things work. It was an important part of my job for decades as a patent attorney. If you don’t understand how an invention works, you aren’t going to do a competent job drafting and prosecuting a patent application on it. Seeing that in the work of other practitioners is probably the fastest way to detect incompetence.
So, how do normal vaccines work? You expose a patient’s immune system to either a weak (e.g. Cowpox) or inactivated version of a virus. Their immune system imprints on parts of the virus as antigens, then when those parts of the virus are detected later, the immune system quickly cranks up antibodies to fight the virus. Brilliant, in retrospect, as to its simplicity. And it works.
I initially got suspicious of the ModRNA vaccines when I saw a paper by an immunologist, who did a full immune system panel on a patient before his first jab, before his second jab, and after his third. Shockingly, his immune system collapsed after the 2nd jab. Essentially that jab wore the immune system out. They can take months to fully recover, at which time, authorities are pushing for another jab. What’s going on?
First, and foremost, the first jab works. A COVID-19 naive immune system easily imprints on the two spike proteins as antigens in response to the first jab, for almost everyone. Thereafter, when encountered in the body, the corresponding antibodies are quickly produced. So what is the purpose of 2nd and subsequent jabs? It turns out, it appears, to have the antibodies
Immediately available, in large quantities, whenever the virus is encountered. The problem though is that producing those antibodies, when they aren’t needed, is costly in terms of immune resources. Every time you get jabbed, after the 1st one, the ModRNA pumps out the two spike proteins in massive quantities, for a month or two, until the cells containing the ModRNA are destroyed by the immune system. Making things worse, the spike proteins are generated in vastly greater quantities than is the case in a typical viral infection, in the wrong places (often in the heart and circulatory system, instead of the nasal passage), for far longer. DEFCON 4 is declared by the immune system, and everything else it is doing is put on hold. Then, as the level of spike proteins drops, so do the antibodies for the spike proteins, and it is time for a booster. Rinse and repeat.
One of the side effects of this, that I didn’t catch at first, was that this approach placed significant evolutionary pressure on the virus to mutate and adapt. For better than two years, Wuhan (original) spike protein generating ModRNA was utilized in the vaccines. This appears to have pushed the virus to mutate its spike proteins. And it did. Delta variant was significantly less reactive to the Wuhan spike antibodies, and Omicron had little reaction. Turns out that SARS2 is an RNA respiratory virus with a robust cell entry mechanism, so it can, and does, successfully mutate easily. Same applies to flu viruses. The difference is that the vaccines were very likely pushing the mutations, to get around the antibodies generated to fight the Wuhan (and later Delta, and belatedly, Omicron) variant spike proteins produced by the ModRNA.
Then, something else caught my eye. Dr Robert Malone mentioned that these vaccines weren’t using mRNA, but rather synthetic mRNA, to produce the spike antibodies. It turns out there were two interrelated reasons for this. One of these is that RNA is relatively unstable, esp in comparison to DNA. It’s not just the double strand of DNA, but also the presence of Uridine(U) as one of the four nucleobases. DNA really wasn’t possible until the ability to turn Uridine into Thymine(T) was developed. And indeed, the two are routinely swapped back and forth when RNA is converted to DNA, and visa versa. So, instead, Pseudouridine(Ψ) could have been utilized, except that it wobble bonds with Guanine(G), instead of the usual Adenine(A). So, instead, N1 Methylpseudouridine(N1Ψ) was substituted for the Uridines(U) in the spike producing mRNA. It doesn’t wobble bond, but it appears to occasionally fold differently, which can result in frame skipping translation errors. It appears unknown right now whether that causes problems, but prion diseases (involving misfolded proteins) appear to be a vaccination side effect, so there may be an issue there.
The other problem with using mRNA to produce spike proteins is that mRNA is supposed to remain in cells. When it escapes, the immune system immediately destroys it. But it doesn’t recognize, and thus destroy, ModRNA, where the Uridines have been replaced with Pseudouridine or N1 Methylpseudouridine. It allows the ModRNA to effectively vanish from the sight of the immune system.
Why is this important? Because the pharmaceutical companies didn’t want their mRNA destroyed at the injection site. They wanted to get it at least as far as the lump nodes, so that the immune response could better be spread through the body. The key problem with this, is that there is no “off” switch. The ModRNA is picked up by the circulatory system from the lymphatic system, and thence is transported throughout the body. Wherever the ModRNA enters a cell, it sets up shop, to produce spike proteins, which it does, until the immune system detects the spike proteins, and destroys the cell producing them. If enough ModRNA enter heart muscle cells, the result can apparently be myocarditis. Etc throughout the body, but probably most notably in the circulatory system, which had picked up the ModRNA in the lymphatic system, and distributed it throughout the body. For those who suggest that this is all conjecture, I will point out that spike sensitive dyes have been developed, that fluoresce in the presence of specific spike proteins. And substantial concentrations have been found in heart muscles accompanying myocarditis, in veins accompanying massive clots, and in certain fast spreading cancers.
There are also issues with the delivery system that transports the ModRNA. The original trials used a very clean process (Process 1) to produce the vaccines utilized. That process doesn’t scale well, so Pfizer and Moderna utilize a different process (Process 2) to produce the vaccines. As I understand it, they utilize monkey DNA, and that has been found in vaccines, along with other contaminants. Not always, but sometimes the vaccines are quite dirty from contaminants, which plausibly explains why some batches of vaccines produce many more side effects than other batches. Under FDA regulations, producing the same pharmaceutical with a different process, the new process is required to be validated, in particular, by looking for contaminants. We see this with production of generic drugs. Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to have been enforced with the COVID-19 ModRNA vaccines.
PMD,
There's also the known underreporting in VAERS prior to the career risking pressures of COVID era. And..that the two stage jab schedule allowed 1st jab issues to be dissociated from the jab.
Bruce,
Yes, natural exposure is superior. All the more reason to not mess with via subsequent ystemic (not respiratory) exposure to an artificial spike toxin creating misdirected (but countablle!) antibodies, riding in lipid nanoparticles flying all around the body and brain...while generating the toxin inside the body for an unknown duration.
Despite the fuckery regarding the data collection, there's more than "some" signal of ill effects.
I have a dozen names here who I now know are fools, and will never listen to them again. - Chief Village Idiot
Well, considering you're a sneering jackass who still refuses to look at four years of evidence proving our skepticism was spot-on, nobody should ever listen to you again, either.
"There's still no HIV/AIDS vax, after 40 years. How come Big Pharma isn't faking that one if they're so corrupt?"
Would you want it?
Bruce,
One of the ironies of the "two different production methods" issue is that the original, clean method might have actually sufficed to produce enough vaccine, if they had actually been administered in the manner legally required by the Emergence Use Authorization -- opt in, fully informed consent-- and recommended in the only ethically possible way -- only for those who had a high risk of serious outcomes.
""Also, since Obamacare sucked up our amazing free-market system...."
Hahahahahaha!
Oh, wait...you really mean that!
Hahahahahahahahaha!!!! "
Yeah funny as hell. Our youngest son takes days and days seeking the "best" coverage possible for his situation. My wife assists. He's only paying 4 times what he paid pre-Obama care, lost access to one of his favorite docs a couple years ago. Has a massive deductible.
Yeah, boy, Obama care is a scream.
A recent study I read said there is evidence that the mRNA has the ability to breach the blood/brain barrier. The doctor that posted it is doing further studies and recruiting other MDs from various countries to do studies there.
Well, well, well another scary as shit potential issue with this crappy shot.
I get much of my info to read from X from The Ethical Skeptic, Phil Kerpen and Dr. Pierre Kory. The last guy a doctor the UW chose to fire because he dared treating patients with ivermectin.
Obamacare works great for people like me- retired but not 65 years old yet and able to adjust taxable income to be right at the poverty level (95% of my assets are in retirement accounts) to garner the maximum subsidy. It allows me to pay $140/month for a solid, low-deductible insurance policy that actually costs almost $1100/month. Of course, it wasn't people like me that a lot of progressives were hoping would benefit. As for people near or at 400% of the poverty income, they are fucked by Obamacare if they don't have an employer sponsored plan- no subsidy, and insurance plans pretty much double the cost they were prior to 2014 in current dollars.
“A recent study I read said there is evidence that the mRNA has the ability to breach the blood/brain barrier. The doctor that posted it is doing further studies and recruiting other MDs from various countries to do studies there.
Well, well, well another scary as shit potential issue with this crappy shot.”
It was easy to confirm - as noted above, it’s now fairly easy and straightforward to identify vaxing produced spike proteins. Researchers now have stains that floresce in their presence. The problem is that they are most useful postmortem (e.g. in autopsies). Which is to say that they know that it does happen, but as far as I know, not how it does. One theory is that the same mechanisms that hide ModRNA from the immune system, do the same on the blood/brain barrier. We shall see.
"Yeah funny as hell. Our youngest son takes days and days seeking the 'best' coverage possible for his situation. My wife assists. He's only paying 4 times what he paid pre-Obama care, lost access to one of his favorite docs a couple years ago. Has a massive deductible.
"Yeah, boy, Obama care is a scream."
I am sorry your son is one of the victims of our rapacious for-profit medical/insurance combine. I assume he is not receiving medical care through an employer, (as slightly more than half of all Amercans do). Obamacare did not consume the larger health insurance industry. All Obamacare did was provide a means for those with no other access to medical care--those with no job-provided care, those too poor to buy insurance or too sick to be approved by for-profit insurers, or those denied coverage due to "pre-existing conditions"--to obtain lower-cost medical care, (and no one denied for pre-existing conditions). What innate feature of Obamacare--as opposed to plain profit-seeking opportunism by the insurance and medical providers--do you believe made providers price their services higher than would occur with normal inflation?
I'm not championing Obamacare as an exemplar of how to provide health insurance/coverage. It is still a part of the for-profit medical/insurance industry, provided by the same corporate entities, but it allowed millions of people who had NO health insurance coverage to obtain some degree of coverage, which is better than none. It is just a shame Obama was captured by the for-profit corporate entities who essentially make all politicians dance to their tune. At this point, with Obama gone for seven years, I don't even know what changes may have been effected to Obamacare which may have undone some of the benefits it did offer.
Many years ago, my employer's health insurer, Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield was a not for profit entity. We had excellent coverage at reasonable costs. (26 years ago I became sick and was treated for hairy-cell leukemia, spent about three weeks in hospital, received chemotherapy, etc. I think my total out-of-pocket costs were less than $1,000.00--and my chemotherapy drug alone cost $20,000.00--so the whole bill probably hit at least low six figures.) At a certain point EMPIRE BCBS transitioned to a for-profit entity. After that, the coverage became more expensive and we were required to pay higher deductibles and higher co-pays. Again, we have to blame the for-profit health industry for...seeking higher profits.
We need "medicare-for-all" type coverage such as is provided in most of the civilized world. I am on Original Medicare with a supplement, now that I'm retired...and NOT on Medicare Advantage (MA)--or Medicare DisAdvantage, as Ralph Nader terms it. MA is "managed care." MA seems great while one is healthy, but once age-associated illnesses start to become frequent or chronic, MA quickly becomes far more expensive than Original Medicare, with high co-pays and high deductibles, or procedures or remedies denied, as we're all familiar as the norm with the for-profit managed care that most Americans have, either through their employers or otherwise.)
Medical care should be a public service available to all, and not a precious commodity only available to those who can afford (or must go broke) to obtain.
Robert, you could have just said 'I apologize, I was wrong'.
Robert Cook - ("We need "medicare-for-all" type coverage such as is provided in most of the civilized world.")
I work as a physician. Medicare is both bankrupt and pays insufficiently. Medicare rates are insufficient to keep an office open. So you accept medicare patients I wouldn't say as charity cases, but you must limit your medicare patients otherwise there's just not enough money to keep the lights on. Additionally as I understand it, medicare is like SS in that not enough money is coming in to pay for it and it is bankrupt. Both factors are important. For now medicare pays for everything. But if everyone were on medicare, physicians would not be able to stay open. So either the government would drastically increase their reimbursement rates (but they are already out of money so that's not an option) or 1) they would mandate all physicians take it in which case many providers would close and 2) many treatments would no longer be available or would be delayed.
Look at Canada and Britain. It's "free." It's just that it takes something like a half year or year to get in to see a specialist and it takes over a year to receive elective surgery. In USA if you have PPO you can see your specialist next week. If you have HMO you can see your specialist in a couple weeks or so. If you have medicaid you can see your specialist in a month. All of these options are much much better than "free" medicine in Canada and Britain where 1) you simply don't have an option for the best options, and 2) your access to medicine is delayed months.
“All of these options are much much better than "free" medicine in Canada and Britain where 1) you simply don't have an option for the best options, and 2) your access to medicine is delayed months.”
Had a client who was a nuclear radiologist. He was Canadian, and had his own particle accelerator, and commented that he had as many as Canada did. Down here, X-rays seem to be in every doctor’s office, MRIs are everywhere, etc. About the time that client was showing off his toy, there were Canadian provinces with a single MRI. Spokane, Kalispell, and Missoula still do good business from Canadian medical tourism.
"Robert, you could have just said 'I apologize, I was wrong.'"
But I wasn't wrong. The problems with health insurance in the US do not derive from Obamacare, (to the degree it still exists). It has to do entirely, to repeat myself, with the rapacious profits driven insurance and medical providers.
"I work as a physician. Medicare is both bankrupt and pays insufficiently. Medicare rates are insufficient to keep an office open. So you accept medicare patients I wouldn't say as charity cases, but you must limit your medicare patients otherwise there's just not enough money to keep the lights on. Additionally as I understand it, medicare is like SS in that not enough money is coming in to pay for it and it is bankrupt. Both factors are important. For now medicare pays for everything. But if everyone were on medicare, physicians would not be able to stay open. So either the government would drastically increase their reimbursement rates (but they are already out of money so that's not an option) or 1) they would mandate all physicians take it in which case many providers would close and 2) many treatments would no longer be available or would be delayed."
This all has to do with the perverted priorities of the US government. Rather than spending billions (or trillions?) of our tax dollars on our annually increasing War Department budget, the government's expenditures of our tax payments largely could and should be spent on the direct needs of the American populace, including thorough health care for all. When we hear asshole Congresspersons deriding the "excessive entitlement programs" (which we pay for) such as SS and Medicare, among others--lecturing us that we should expect (and live--or die--with) ever lower and lower benefits, and eventually the termination of the programs--but, at the same time, we see the President and/or Congress pouring ever-more billions and billions of our tax dollars into killing endeavors--our own corpulent War Department budget--as well as handing over billions to our "allies" (i.e., those we want to have on strings of US-indebtedness or who we want to use as surrogates for the US in military mayhem throughout the world), it tells me that everything is about priorities.
The US could decide that its priorities are first the education and good health of our citizens, with all efforts and concerns focused on what can we do to spend the people's funds responsibly for their direct benefit, and we could allocate nothing or, at best, a pittance to our own War Machine and the military assistance of other nations.
We could have a populace, young and old, who had access to medical care and who never had to fear dying or being bankrupted--or both--because of exorbitant medical expenses. But we don't, because that is not among the priorities of those we pay and vote for to serve us, but who see us as cattle to be herded when necessary and ignored otherwise, left to starve or die.
Priorities are all...and we are not included in priorities of "our" hired masters.
Bruce - I don't know the number of MRI's in Canada but it's not a lot. I live - granted - in a major metropolitan area but there are probably 5-10 MRI's within 5 miles of my office. You want an MRI? If you have PPO I can write a prescription and you'll get it within a week. Cash? Ask for the cash price and you can get one <$400. HMO? It will take a couple weeks to get an authorization after you see me, then 1-2W to have it done. Medicaid? About the same.
Canada? Britain? Good luck. My recollection is 6-12 months to see a specialist, 6-12 months to get an MRI, 6-12 months to get elective surgery. Free? Yes free. Besides the massive taxes required. And it's free. You just can't get one.
It's like when Mrs Schwartz went to the kosher butcher. She said she'd like 5 pounds of ground beef. The butcher said it's 9.99 a pound. ARE YOU NUTS? Said Mrs Schwartz!?! It's 6.99 at Cohen's. The butcher says so go to Cohen's. She said "Cohen's is out."
The butcher says "when I'm out, it's 6.99 too."
That's the Canadian and British system. It's free. You just can't get medical care.
Robert - Medicine doesn't have to be expensive. Pay cash for doctor visits. The huge costs are in the ER and hospital fees for surgery. They are terrifying. However the ER must charge a ton because the ER has 24-hour labs, CT, MRI, and every emergency covered, regardless if you use it or not. The techs and staff are paid whether or not you use them. It's like gas consumption on a truck. In order for the power to be there it's constantly consuming gas massively. So the power is available whether you use it or not.
Doctors visits are no more than $200. Follow ups less. MRI < $400 cash. It seems to me we could solve this problem if everyone took out a high deductible policy so nothing is covered until say $6500 or whatever deductible. High deductible policies generally are not expensive. Get rid of all government programs except medicare. Use that money for this. Under 6500 you pay cash. That way people are incentivized not to use the ER as primary care. You want birth control? It's not that expensive. Insurance shouldn't cover it. You need insulin? beta blockers? It's not that expensive. All the money you spend on your gold plated expensive policy that covers everything incentivizes increased utilization of medical care. High deductible incentivizes don't use it if you don't need it. For poor people instead of medicaid you could give them - or give all of us - $6500 in an HSA. You have a high deductible policy that prevents you from bankrupting yourself on medical care and incentivizes you to minimize your care. And a $6500 HSA that keeps getting funded year after year that you can use as a 401K when you are older if you only used the system when necessary.
I would prefer to get govt out of medicine but the horse is out of the barn on that one. I've never heard anyone propose the recommendation above but I'd love to see how it works.
Robert Cook - "Rather than spending billions (or trillions?) of our tax dollars on our annually increasing War Department budget"
To be honest, the defense budget is, I suspect, cost efficient. Without a strong defense our enemies will become frisky. The amount of money spent on defense vs. not having secure oil and not having secure commerce lanes is I think a pittance. Imagine if we shorted our defense and Iran was in charge of all commerce around the Persian Gulf and China was in charge of all commerce involving the Pacific ocean and Russia was in charge of all commerce in Europe. It seems to me the money spent on defense is spent very efficiently.
"To be honest, the defense budget is, I suspect, cost efficient. Without a strong defense our enemies will become frisky. The amount of money spent on defense vs. not having secure oil and not having secure commerce lanes is I think a pittance. Imagine if we shorted our defense and Iran was in charge of all commerce around the Persian Gulf and China was in charge of all commerce involving the Pacific ocean and Russia was in charge of all commerce in Europe. It seems to me the money spent on defense is spent very efficiently."
BALONEY! How can you (or they) know? The Pentagon keeps failing annual budgets and cannot account for nearly three quarters of their multi-trillion in assets. I'm certain a big portion of those unaccountable taxpayers' dollars is in the embezzling hands of the profiteers-of-war, for whom wars and intimations of wars is fucking good business...always!
Frankly, most of the antagonism between the US and other nations is fomented by the US. If we didn't have "enemies" to "defend against," there would be no rationale to squander trillions of dollars on the War Department, freeing up those funds to be spent on the needs and benefit of the people, leaving the war-grifters going wanting.
Robert Cook - We know the military's budget. We don't know where it goes but we do know the budget. So then the question is - who should be the guarantors for ships passing in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf? Would it be better for Iran, China, or us? That is the question you are asking. You seem to think USA would be financially better off with Iran or China dominating those shipping routes. There isn't another option. Same question - the world's shipping routes. However much we like it or not, we are the world's policeman and thank G-d! Bec if it were not us it would be China and Russia and the world is a much better and much more profitable place with us in charge vs Commies.
“Robert - Medicine doesn't have to be expensive. Pay cash for doctor visits. The huge costs are in the ER and hospital fees for surgery. They are terrifying. However the ER must charge a ton because the ER has 24-hour labs, CT, MRI, and every emergency covered, regardless if you use it or not. The techs and staff are paid whether or not you use them. It's like gas consumption on a truck. In order for the power to be there it's constantly consuming gas massively. So the power is available whether you use it or not.”
ER visits are esp costly, because they can’t turn you away, if you don’t have the money to pay them. So, there are a lot of people, esp families, who use ERs for their primary. And many, if not most, of those patients don’t pay. It’s bad with the ERs we see here in Las Vegas. The ambulances around here are required to take you to the closest three ERs (to the strip). One is friendly, but incompetent. Second one has surly, and not much more competent. Third one is UMC, the big teaching hospital. We have had bad experiences with all three (my partner’s first husband was born and died (from malpractice) at UMC, she was flatlined at the surly hospital (again, malpractice). And at the friendly one, they couldn’t get a line in last time. She had bruises from her knuckles to well above her wrist for weeks afterwards). We have found an 24 hr Urgent Care by two of those hospitals, that covers our needs, has X Ray and MRI, and is less than a mile from UMC. My favorite is the Mayo Clinic, a mile west of us in PHX. And their menu is superb, if you spend the night. And most expensive was St Anthony’s, the Level 1 trauma center west of Denver. That’s where Flight For Life brings their most critical patients, for skiing and car accidents from the west and north of there, etc. We went there when my partner’s nose was broken, and their billed cost was somewhere around $75k.
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