I'll take my chances with Cancer, thank you very much.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Originally posted by Doc H.:
So in short, make your own decision, based on your own research for your own risk group, your own health, and your own opinion based on real data for empirical action.  Or not.  Your feelings shouldn't count with regard to your physical health and safety, but from a personal viewpoint they certainly do.  "I won't take it because I don't want to" is as valid as anyone else's opinion, risks accepted, for free-will adults.

Thanks, Doc.

Let your residents know when Congress repeals the law, referenced above, giving pharma a free pass.

It's an interesting take on USC 42 (note the date of 1988, long before the "pandemic").  Clearly vaccine developers should be responsible for due diligence and proper research.  And appropriate disclosures about risks.  But no vaccine has been without risks of adverse effects, ever.  And clearly vaccines have been effective at saving lives, and preventing pandemic disasters - smallpox being a sentinel example.  Some early vaccines probably wouldn't make it through the vetting process today.  So considering value (saving lives) against risk (you may die from the vaccine), somewhere a happy medium has to be struck.  Outlaw all vaccines?  Not a good option, public health-wise.  Open developers to a lawsuit every time a vaccinated patient demonstrates a fatal or disabling allergy to a product otherwise effective for millions?  Probably not good either - else no one would develop anything.  Somewhere in the middle - not dissimilar to holding every gun manufacturer responsible for every shooting death, intentional or accidental.  Not an exact parallel, but similar outcome.  You make a gun and someone dies, I can collect big.  No more guns.  Vaccine developers should be liable for proven negligence, for releasing a product without proven efficacy, for failing to research adequately adverse outcomes.  Even in the middle of a "pandemic."

Behind all of this is the late, great, worldwide debacle with COVID.  It had been so long since the planet had seen a potentially global pandemic, science and medicine lost its way, fueled by media (and actually new science and medicine) hysteria.  We've known for decades that wearing an ordinary mask is ineffective at best for preventing viral transmission, much less from acquiring a viral infection (old science and medicine).  That went by the board with the media screaming "We're all gonna die!  Try anything!"  We laughed at pictures of 14th century doctors wearing bird masks and burning incense during the plague, and yet we did it. The various states making their own rules, IIC (Idiots In Charge) in government making THEIR own rules - often conflicting.  Lock downs (largely unneeded and ineffective), clamping down on any contradictory opinions, refusing to follow any real, effective protocols while chasing "Let's disinfect our phones with UV boxes!" 

We (all of us humans) are lucky beyond what we know that this particular organism, at that specific time, with that specific modality (or modalities) of transmission was what it was.  Not that it didn't tragically kill millions of people (as the flu does annually), not that it didn't have the potential to mutate into something to truly fear (Sudor Anglicus - likely hantavirus origins), but that it was what it was.  There will be a next time.  And next time we may not be so lucky.  A 1-3% CFR (Case Fatality Rate) like COVID will seem like a picnic in Piccadilly. We collectively had better remember our mistakes, next time.  And pay attention to dissenting, reasonable voices, next time.  And plan, right now, for what we will do, next time.  Because there is every biological potential that there won't be a next time, after next time, unless we do.

I’ve had shingles twice. Once on the left side of my face and once on my back. Not at all interested in the snake oil they call a ‘vaccine’. Same with the flu shot.

The short term inconvenience far outweighs the long term harm that big pharma wants to do to your body to make you permanently dependent on them.

We are nothing more than potential revenue streams and if we are healthy we are of no use to the medical industry.

Still working nurse of 27 years here. I have embraced the science and technology over the years, plus getting my "regular" flu shot every year. This is a big nope just like the covid stab! Almost lost my job until "they" realized they were going be short staffed. Then, all of a sudden "they" came up with exemptions which "I qualified for". As of right now, between our clinic and hospital, we are abnormally short staffed even more.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9876036/

At least one study shows a reverse transcription is possble.

quote:

Originally posted by Fly-Sig:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9876036/

At least one study shows a reverse transcription is possble.

I read this abstract for this paper and while it is dense with molecular biology and genetics and I am dense (outside my area of specialty), certain things stood out, namely the potential for reverse transcription of the mRNA and the potential for that reverse transcribed DNA to enter the cell's genome and create havoc.

Mostly it illustrates that despite decades of effort with mRNA manipulations, how little research has been accomplished on the down stream effect of inserting artificial genetic coding into a living organism.

I would like to state for a fact that I am not anti-vaccine and have had more that a few over years. I think that people should be informed as to the potential down side of vaccines they are offered. I also state with absolute certainty, I AM DEAD SET AGAINST THE POLY-VACCINATION PRACTICES OF THE PEDIATRICS SPECIALITY THESE DAYS. Sometimes too much is simply too much.

Bottom line, do what you think is best for you and then be prepared for whatever comes next. Good luck.

RMD

quote:

Originally posted by taco68:
Still working nurse of 27 years here. I have embraced the science and technology over the years, plus getting my "regular" flu shot every year. This is a big nope just like the covid stab! Almost lost my job until "they" realized they were going be short staffed. Then, all of a sudden "they" came up with exemptions which "I qualified for". As of right now, between our clinic and hospital, we are abnormally short staffed even more.

Yea, the day after I turned in my resignation at my EMS job over the vaccine mandate, the VP called me and told me he was sending me an exemption form to fill out. We have a required influenza vaccine policy. But no way I will do a mRNA vaccine

quote:

Vaccine developers should be liable for proven negligence, for releasing a product without proven efficacy, for failing to research adequately adverse outcomes. Even in the middle of a "pandemic."

Yes. Instead they said "Just shut up, and take the shot!" and "This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated!" and silenced dissent.

quote:

There will be a next time. And next time we may not be so lucky. A 1-3% CFR (Case Fatality Rate) like COVID will seem like a picnic in Piccadilly. We collectively had better remember our mistakes, next time. And pay attention to dissenting, reasonable voices, next time. And plan, right now, for what we will do, next time.

The CFR often starts out fairly high and mutates to a less lethal strain.

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:

I read this abstract for this paper and while it is dense with molecular biology and genetics and I am dense (outside my area of specialty), certain things stood out, namely the potential for reverse transcription of the mRNA and the potential for that reverse transcribed DNA to enter the cell's genome and create havoc.

Chemistry and cellular biology are far from my knowledge base, but I took the same thing from the paper.

Even if reverse transcription turns out to be all hooey, there is nothing good about mRNA that will ever have me allow it into my body.

What bothers me most is how the broad topic of vaccines and pandemic response has become so ultra-politicized. Current understandings change over time as newer information is discovered. The marrying of medical opinion to political affiliation is terrible.

quote:

What bothers me most is how the broad topic of vaccines and pandemic response has become so ultra-politicized. Current understandings change over time as newer information is discovered. The marrying of medical opinion to political affiliation is terrible.

It's one thing to say "Hey, we've developed a possible vaccine, here it is, take it or leave it. Your choice."

It's another thing to say "Take the shot, or lose your job and you won't be able to feed your family!"
And if you speak out against it, we will take away your medical license or shut down your social media accounts.

That's what politicized it.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

quote:

Vaccine developers should be liable for proven negligence, for releasing a product without proven efficacy, for failing to research adequately adverse outcomes. Even in the middle of a "pandemic."

Yes. Instead they said "Just shut up, and take the shot!" and "This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated!" and silenced dissent.

quote:

There will be a next time. And next time we may not be so lucky. A 1-3% CFR (Case Fatality Rate) like COVID will seem like a picnic in Piccadilly. We collectively had better remember our mistakes, next time. And pay attention to dissenting, reasonable voices, next time. And plan, right now, for what we will do, next time.

The CFR often starts out fairly high and mutates to a less lethal strain.

Indeed.  Many have argued that the purpose of existence is to exist.  This filters down through all living things, including sub-cellular viruses.  For organisms that lost that prime directive, or lost the opportunity through unfavorable mutations, the Universe weeded them out, and they no longer exist - multiple examples occur throughout geologic time.  A pathogenic organism that relies on a host to survive loses the opportunity to transmit itself broadly if the host dies too quickly, and loses to less-lethal varieties of itself as a result of random mutations that can spread and grow.  Ebola is a case in point with its limited contact transmission.  The "English Sweat" likely burned itself out, because more than half the hosts who had symptoms in the morning died before nightfall in some cases - today's existing hantavirus genome may be the result of that down-mutation centuries ago.  So the natural order is for the CFR to reduce over time.   But there are, and have always been, wild cards.  Humanity has been throughout its existence one or two proteins away from a global pandemic (COVID also case in point).  There is research that implies there may have been one that reduced the human population on Earth to the thousands.  Maybe the low thousands, and we have some genetic markers that may back that up.  Lyssavirus has a CFR as close to 100% as you can statistically get for symptomatic rabies - less than 40 validated survivors in all of history, out of millions of fatalities.  And most of them had or have significant neurological deficits.  But it's strictly contact transmission only.  Anything that changes that could result in a worldwide pandemic of biblical proportions - a CFR well over 50% and a very rapid transmission rate, with additional vectors mammalian and otherwise.  And there are others. 

So the point being is that we weren't prepared for COVID, and we should have been.  We had plenty of test runs in recent and distant memory.  A more lethal bacteria, or virus, or prion, or something we don't even understand yet has always been a gamma ray away.   You don't even need GoF (Gain-of-Function) research to sober up and realize Mother Nature can do that for us, thank you very much, and has been for eons.  The next round could line up the cartridge in the cylinder to the barrel, and many are now rightly concerned that we aren't any better prepared still.  It's been proposed that viruses, or something very like them or smaller, may in fact be the "Great Filter" that is the reason that we don't find aliens on our doorstep, or teeming throughout the Galaxy, when statistically by some theorists, there clearly should be.  It may be that the smallest component of life when it arises, out-competes any multicellular variant eventually and regresses to some universal norm of one cell, or less.  My microbiology prof had always told us that "bugs" will win eventually,  because "they're little, they're cunning, and they got no feelin's."

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:

It's one thing to say "Hey, we've developed a possible vaccine, here it is, take it or leave it. Your choice."

It's another thing to say "Take the shot, or lose your job and you won't be able to feed your family!"
And if you speak out against it, we will take away your medical license or shut down your social media accounts.

That's what politicized it.

I think that was downstream of the politicization. For a few decades there has been a soft undercurrent of politicization of "anti-vaxxers" because they were associated, rightly or wrongly, with fringe anti-government sentiments. e.g. homeschoolers in rural flyover states.

But it really went hyperbolic under Trump. When C19 first became publicly known in the early days, the DC swamp and leftist media saw it as just another topic to oppose anything Trump. They hated his travel ban before they loved lockdowns and castigated him for not acting sooner!

They harassed him mercilessly every day, misquoting and misrepresenting everything he said or did. When he said HCQ and IVM showed promise and might be useful, they had to destroy both medications. When he pushed Operation Warpspeed to develop vaccines, they intentionally delayed the rollout in order to hurt him in the election.

At some point, The Narrative took on profit motive behind the scenes. Protect the near-future revenues for big pharma by preventing the use of HCQ and Ivermectin. Keep society locked down. Keep the fear pumped up. This had a secondary function of protecting Fauci et al from accountability. The media gleefully obliged, because it hurt Trump.

The Narrative thus created two distinct camps which followed political orientation. If you identified as D, you were obliged to love Fauci and believe in the whole narrative. If you publicly criticized anything in The Narrative (Fauci, lock downs, mRNA is good, hospitals were overrun with the unvaccinated, death rates were high, etc) then you were categorized as right wing and probably extremist right wing MAGA. **

Everything C19 from January 2020 through to today is defined against how it relates to Trump.

** eta: Numerous lefty celebrities who came out against something in The Narrative were ostracized by the left and tarred with all kinds of labels. e.g. Eric Clapton took an mRNA jab and was injured. When he went public he was attacked and called an anti-vaxxer. Evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying were solid Dem voting professors who initially supported masking and lockdowns, but as soon as they publicly questioned something they were cancelled, de-monetized, and demonized.

quote:

The "English Sweat" likely burned itself out, because more than half the hosts who had symptoms in the morning died before nightfall in some cases - today's existing hantavirus genome may be the result of that down-mutation centuries ago. So the natural order is for the CFR to reduce over time. But there are, and have always been, wild cards. Humanity has been throughout its existence one or two proteins away from a global pandemic (COVID also case in point). There is research that implies there may have been one that reduced the human population on Earth to the thousands. Maybe the low thousands, and we have some genetic markers that may back that up.

Well, perhaps the planet is a bit crowded at over 8 billion?
No, I'm not Klaus Schwab, the WEF guy; I'm not cheering for the virus!
But 50 years or so ago, when I was a wee lad, the world population was about half what it is today...