During my medical training, one of my attendings who did a fair bit of teaching used to parrot the same 3 bits of advice. He rose to relative prominence as the first Chief Cancer Control Officer of the American Cancer Society and I remember my interactions with him as generally favorable. His advice was spot-on, in a humorous way.
His 3 points of advice:
1. Eat plants - okay, few would argue 25 years later that this is largely good advice
2. Estrogen replacement is a fountain of youth - Oopsies! Turns out it increases the risk of breast and uterine cancer as well as cardiovascular disease. So...that bit of advice changed maybe 15 years ago now.
3. Half of all we teach you in medical school will be proven wrong.
Kudos to our instructor as 1 and 2 proved 3 correct - though a small sample, for sure. The third point is the most important advice you can give in medicine - "This is my best advice with the information available to me now".
No hubris that we are always right.
This disinformation nonsense is anti-science. Arguing that the science is settled is only true until disproven. The first step in the scientific method is the observation that something is not as it should be based on prior assumptions and knowledge. This leads to a hypothesis that is counter to the common belief, and then to a study (or studies) pursuing the truth.
Anti-science is denying the scientific method, not denying those using it. The thought that medical boards are going to police when and how the "truth" can be challenged is an almost unthinkable premise. You want more doctor shortages? Start slapping the wrists of those willing to challenge convention by trying to move the needle of knowledge. Watch the rats continue to jump from the sinking ship.
I had a physics professor who would laugh when someone used the phrase "laws of physics". When queried he would explain: "there may be laws but we have no idea what they are. What we have are gentleman's agreements which we keep so long as they are useful, and revise when as we learn that they are not".
I laughed at a biologist friend, who told me years ago that Science was a stable given. I asked her to get me a bucket of H2O and I still see that stare. Science is based on human made agreements. Some old greek said that one thing is for sure, and that is, that nothing is for sure (Heraclitos perhaps). But the thought did not sink in. A convinced True Believer in Scientism. So sad. A brilliant mind lost to dogma.
He had a point. Yet the hard sciences and their laws etc. are as close to "truth" about the universe as we are likely to ever obtain. Yes, in principle any "theory" (or "Law") is always subject to falsification. That noun itself is curious. In the scientific sense, it means "subject to being disproved." Alas, in our modern world where ideology swamps science, it also means what it does to the common man: a lie, a counterfeit, an untruth. Returning to sciences, the point is that a good theory (or Law) withstands many assaults. As long as it stands, it's valid. Challengers are welcome, but the burden of proof is high.
It's also worth noting that the further you get from "pure" science (usually Mathematics is the sole example offered), you rapidly move from the Hard sciences (Physics, chemistry, etc.) into the social "sciences" (sociology, economics, etc.) The actual amount of objectively discoverable "truth" rapidly diminishes, as more ideology and opinion necessarily clutter the discipline. Medicine falls somewhere in between but in theory should be closer to a hard science since at least in theory, it's based upon traditional sciences.
While there is a finite probability that there exists a universe in which I agree with "Yet the hard sciences and their laws etc. are as close to "truth" about the universe as we are likely to ever obtain". But in the one I'm currently occupying I have to say absolutely not unless by "hard" you mean "political science" and I'm pretty sure you don't. If by "hard" you mean physics, then no. We are no where near as close to truth as we can or will get. Just n my lifetime our understanding of the physical world, both on a macro and micro scale, has changed profoundly. As an example we look back at much of what was "truth" a few decades ago in solid state physics with much the same amusement we ponder the analysis that led to the conclusion the earth was flat. Based on what was observed up to then, sure, it made sense...until it didn't. As our observational methods improve, our understanding changes, sometimes fundamentally. I see nothing to suggest we've peaked in our ability to observe, challenge, question and contradict through new observations what we thought to be true.
Which I think is your main point, with which I agree with enthusiastically: real science is about inquiry, and everything MUST be challenged. A theory that "withstands many assaults" is useful. It may may not be truth, but it is solid science. A theory or any other idea for which challenge is not allowed can not be science.
I would love to entertain a debate on "is mathematics a science, or an essential tool for science?". That would be fun...but more than will fit here :-). Again though I think not your point. And again my observations and experience agree with yours: many areas claiming to be "science driven" rely more on definitional decrees than the methods of science. Defining "questions" in terms so that there can be only one answer, or where there can be no answer at all. We certainly have seen political objectives driving these "sciences" more than repeatable methodologies for decades or probably centuries. Those "hard" sciences are not immune from politics, either. The history of physics is replete with established organizations rejecting new ideas and falling back on poor methodology to defend failing positions.
History is also replete with examples of non-science forces driving conclusions based on various "motivations" - in the modern world it is funding, status and position often used to motivate, and in many kingdoms (past and present) it was (or is) "support what the king wants or die" either of which has been shown effective at over-riding sound principles and shutting down inquiry. In medicine in particular I have observed a lot of sloppy methods and mathematically unsupportable conclusions. My theory is that in part this is due to ethical constraints: you can't design valid comparative studies with human populations. We tend to frown upon those who have tried. And so compromises must be made, and compromise becomes lack of rigor (sloppy) which then becomes habit. Ever tried to explain statistics (I mean the real math) to an MD? You'll see what I mean ;-).
It is one thing to be sloppy out of habit and another to deny those that would be less sloppy and yet another to suppress actual inquiry. Or is it?
So is there a difference between 2020-22 and the dark ages? We see much the same pattern - what we now call "science" was termed "denial", "heresy" and so on. With some amusement I note the politically correct self-anointed intellectual academics will decry the suppression of what we now recognize as "science" while endorsing the same kind of labeling and suppression. I wasn't around during the onset of the dark ages but I can imagine it started much the same way - "your misinformation is causing panic and danger!".
Yes, I really enjoy thinking and conversing about such things! Thanks....
"This is my best advice with the information available to me now".
And even that isn't necessarily true, because it requires an honest doctor with no agenda or ulterior motive (for example, protecting his license to practice in the face of despicable threats from medical boards).
I know this from personal experience, as I had an unsatisfying "conversation" with my doctor when I asked for a prescription for IVM that I wanted in my quiver in case I ever contracted the Chinese virus.
The total extent of his responsibility to me as MY physician was expressed thusly: The WHO doesn't recommend IVM; then, the CDC doesn't recommend IVM; then, the FDA doesn't recommend IVM. I pointed out to him that THEY'RE not my doctor; YOU are. Fell on deaf ears. (My side of the conversation was MUCH longer and more detailed than just that, and references were cited; his side was brief and dismissive.)
So no, in many cases it's NOT the "best advice with the information available to me now".
Apparently to my doctor, I myself am not a party to my own healthcare. It's between him and a political alphabet agency.
One of his responses to my request included a listing of the potential side effects of IVM. I then listed all the potential side effects of a different particular drug, a list nastier than his, and then I pointed out that HE prescribed THAT drug for me (a topical ointment, not something ingested), so what's the problem with the lesser-side-effected (and 50+ years of proven safety, and the fact that our own government REQUIRES incoming refugees to take IVM) Ivermectin?
I survived ICU and remdesivir. After release from the hospital, I had no energy. I raise livestock so I stock easily 1500 ml of IVM 1% injectable at all times. I spent time researching post COVID treatment protocol and found a five day IVM treatment. I can calculate dosage because of my livestock breeding experience so I took it orally in dark chocolate cashew milk (dairy allergy that causes asthma). My energy came roaring back. Need to do blood work outside the sickness industry because they refuse to follow up. Easy to buy the 1% injectable and there are weight charts by ml dosage out there. Tractor Supply sells it. Just tell them you raise goats or alpacas and you can score a bottle!
Once upon a time people using veterinarian meds out of desperation was touted as the principal reason for centralized health care and the ACA. In the last two years taking vet. meds has been the only options available because of centralized health care and the ACA
They are cracking down on feed stores that stock penicillin. Only big box stores will be able to carry it. AVMA is an evil group that works hand in glove with FDA/USDA to limit the OTC drugs available. The goal is to force us to buy from our veterinarian who charges a hefty fee to set foot on one’s farm. We won’t be willing to pay $85 for a farm visit so they can hand over a $6.99 bottle of penicillin. Big gun antibiotics are a different matter. Some are $300/100 ml bottle. Right now, the vet supply houses can supply most items. However, I expect them to start requiring an Rx from a vet. After all, the USDA hires the top large animal graduating vets and puts them at desks in DC pushing paper at starting salaries that are ten times what they make as a large animal vet. Employment at USDA surged by 40% over recent years. Take it from a 25 year veteran of livestock breeding whose prior position was making the mega trend calls for Wall Street firms and the buy side.
I did change to a doc in Virginia, with whom I do tele-med visits and pay out of pocket (because insurance won't pay). She's the one who prescribed IVM for me.
I keep the other guy, nominally anyway, in case I need him in a way that the VA doc can't provide, since I'm a flight away from VA and can't get there quickly or easily.
I saw one of the doctors from FLCC is offering telemed for IVM. He wants around $350 for the consult. The IVM (at least around these parts) goes for about $100. Yes. It should cost about @20, but do you think the feds will investigate that gouging? No.
When your doctor works for a corporation and they tell him or her that no ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine will be prescribed (unless patient has rickets or RA), then your doctor will not be prescribing it. Ditto for the doc in the hospital. Unless your doctor has a private practice with no affiliation (because if he is affiliated w a hospital and prescribes it, goodbye privileges. And then find a pharmacy that will fill it (usually a compounder). It won't be your local, friendly Walgreens. Why? See above.
Exactly. And a good model we can generalize. Why do multi-state or even state medical boards exist? To protect patients...so that was the promise. Concentrate power so as to "protect" - safety, security, and the common good. Once power is concentrated, it will be abused. And as I've said for decades, that is not a slippery slope, kids, it's a cliff. It may seem fine to step off, for a while it even feels "free", but it never ends well.
This is true. But the message of these "truth guidelines" is that even if you are one of those few docs who practices independently you will follow the approved doctrine or you will not "practice" at all. This is another one of the incremental stories that has been creeping for years but 2020 showed they need not creep, or be subtle or clever, anymore.
Although the function of face masks as preventing spread, "protecting you and protecting me," was nothing but a lie from the start and will remain so no matter how often they repeat it. Yet doctors are some of the worst in perpetuating this unnecessary, harmful practice -- I just don't get it.
So putting a useless but harmless covering on your face is, in my opinion, no big deal. If it makes someone else feel better, why not. I'm like that. Besides, I'm told it improves my appearance :-). But...
Non-covid respiratory infections have exploded since masking became a thing. No mystery why: wearing the same mask for hours creates a lovely environment to grow bacteria (lots of research on this and one reason you docs are supposed to change your mask often in a clinical setting). Pretty easy to see what folks do is get a cloth mask, wear it day in and day out, maybe wash it once a week, and so viola, millions of needless yet sometimes life threatening respiratory infections.
I'm not anti-mask or advocating you stop wearing whatever affectation you find pleasing, for whatever reason. I find the cosmetic and emotional value sufficient. These days while traveling I get a box of 50 disposable masks so I can change them often. At home I carry a bottle of alcohol (not the good kind) to disinfect my stylish custom made face covering often (Vodka will work in a pinch, but not while you're driving!).
I thing people should know and choose for themselves. Apparently that makes me a right wing extremist insurrectionist republithug conspiracy theorist who is anti science. I suppose I can live with that :-)
It certainly is useless, but it definitely is *not* harmless, either to you as the wearer (which I suppose is ultimately your business) or to those around you. There is evidence it *increases* the spread of a virus and other pathogens and it is abundantly clear that it has a terrible, negative psychological effect on other people, arousing anxiety, making communication difficult (especially harmful to children and the elderly who often have trouble hearing), covering emotional clues , and generally rending the fabric of society. Making others who are clinging ignorantly to a magical talisman "feel better" is not doing them a favor either. It is enabling and perpetuating a mental illness or addiction, which is what mask wearing has become for many, and that is never a kindness.
So yes, of course, I am against forcing the wearing of masks on anyone, but I am also anti-mask and will continue to rail against the wearing of them (except obviously in the extremely limited and rare circumstances where they may be somewhat useful).
Some points for thought, definitely. Argues further for an informed choice. I am seeing the "common good" being harmed in many ways, some you mention I'd not realized. The point on enabling addiction is worth pondering. It is surely not a kindness. And I see it all the time: either because of false information that the mask somehow protects them, or a flawed belief they are helping the grater good, or just because it's a habit, the mask wearing continues - and see people alone in a car wearing masks. Had a professor of physics (really) try to convince me that the DoT/CDC mandate for truckers to wear masks WHILE ALONE IN THEIR TRUCKS made sense. That kind of loyalty induced brain death is worrying, for sure.
FWIW I don't see the need to stop other people from smoking tobacco (or anything else) when I'm not around. Your lungs, your choice. I mean, I even tolerate people who carry M1911a1s chambered in 9mm :-).
“ I don't see the need to stop other people from smoking tobacco (or anything else) when I'm not around.” I note that you add the caveat “when I’m not around”, indicating that harm to others limits their choice. And masks are extremely harmful to others, as I indicated. In addition to the things I mentioned, they establish an atmosphere of fear, not just of a trumped up “deadly virus” but of other people, saying that we are all dangerous bioweapons set to kill one another without warning, better avoided, and not to be trusted. They also, as an act of irrational compliance, send a signal legitimizing the totalitarian biofascists’ demands that we follow orders that are contrary to science, instinct and common sense. They are telling children that this is normal and helping to create a fearful, unthinking generation that will cement dystopia in place for decades at least. Wearing masks, unless alone in the desert or at home, is not simply a personal choice.
I do NOT suggest that "harm to others" justifies limiting their choice. In fact tobacco smoke doesn't bother me at all (and I've seen the "second had smoke" argument for what it is). Pot smoke does, so I choose not to be around people smoking pot. That is MY choice. Didn't mean to suggest I'd impose restrictions on others, beyond perhaps the restriction of not having me hanging out with you.
I agree that the "for the protection of others" should always be suspected (and usually based on a collection of false premises and faulty logic). It is the most popular claim of totalitarian fascists in modern history.
I think you raise a valid challenge to my "if it doesn't do harm". I was considering the harm to myself, which I feel I can manage with safe mask practices. The use of mask mandates as a political tool to deepen division and justify hate is definite harm. The characterization of scientific method as "disinformation" is definitely harming millions of people. I had not associated those harms with my choice to cover my face.
Let's ponder the argument. Is my choice to cover my face the trigger? I see your point that it might support fear. But ultimately, is it not your choice to believe in false gods and political propaganda while ignoring the actual science? Is it not a choice to comply, irrationally and absolutely, even when your own faculties are capable of seeing the flaws and warning signs? Where is the edge of that cliff?
I can tell you that putting control of educating our children soley in the hands of governments is way over that line - it is the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. And that's real long term harm to all of humanity. That's why billions of people are willing to abandon not only their freedoms but condemn all of us to totalitarian rule in some irrational belief it is for our own good. That's how I see it, at least - generations educated by the state just happen to be loyal and submissive to the state. By design.
FWIW when I'm with folks who are bothered by tobacco smoke, I may politely ask someone to not smoke around us. I have never had a tobacco smoker be an ass**** when asked politely. Not once has a polite request been met with anything other than "sure, no problem". That's my personal experience. Of course I'm considerate too - if I walk into a smoke filled bar or nightclub (the do still exist), I'm not going to ask the people already there to stop, as that make me the ass**** and I do attempt to avoid being a jerk (I said attempt... ;-). Pot smokers are an entirely different experience....
They’re for the first time finding microplastics in lungs. Guess what masks are made of. An epidemiologist who is also an MD warned me to wear those things as infrequently as possible because decades old studies have shown that mask fibers are inhaled ans get stuck in lungs.
Your wearing your mask is no big deal. Forcing everyone else to wear the useless things just to show allegiance or something, is a big deal. I loathe the political statement they make and, yes, you are somewhat anti-science or at least ignorant of science.
Exactly - that was my point if not clear - for ME to decide that I'll cover my face if only because it makes others more comfortable is a choice I have made, not one I'd impose on anyone else. Though some of the responses have me reconsidering the actual harm being done. I had not thought of my courtesy as enabling harmful fears and addiction in others, nor supporting the abdication of personal responsibility (that is the last thing I want to enable).
Your correction of #2 is itself wrong. The "study" that demonstrated this was so bad it's used in the teaching of statistics as an example of what not to do.
I believe there have been so many holes poked in that study that virtually no conclusion has much validity. Thank you for bring this up; I wasn’t sure where to address it.
The moment you claim "this science is settled" - it stops being science.
Regarding estrogen replacement - I am not religious but when I see that I as a woman was "designed" to end up with way lower estrogen production around age 45-55, I think "gee, there's probably a really good reason for that". Don't fool with mother nature. I think the same about statins. Our liver makes tons of cholesterol. Maybe there's a damn good reason for it.
Laughing at Rachel here. A few weeks ago a guy In our industrial neighborhood was chest banging to me that he was *proud* that he was triple vaxxed. I asked him if he took the flu vaccine every season. He says “ hell no!”. Ok I’m doubting his intelligence at this point. Yesterday he walks up the alley all masked up , low energy body language. He stops 15 feet away. “ I have COVID” he says. I want to laugh, but I humor him a little bit. I said, “ I thought you were vaxxed?…. so the vaccine doesn’t work?”. Then he got angry with me, “ of course you can get it if you vaxxed!” Ok. I asked what the symptoms were. “ like a bad cold” he replied. “ but I took got some Tamiflu and it helped.”
WTFing bloody hell! I’m going insane surrounded by STUPID people!!!!
Like when the triple-jabbed still die from COVID: "It would have been so much worse if they weren't vaccinated." It's surreal and the reason why we're probably doomed.
I have two of those in my life; they will NOT get flu shots, but one is vaxxed and boosted and will probably get #4 because she's a caregiver and is afraid that if she doesn't get vaxxed, she will end up killing her elderly Mom. The other one-- who is not as intelligent-- got the J & J, got Omicron, and does not want to get another shot. It was the 24/7 death drumbeat from the MSM for a year. They're all terrified of dying.
Yup. I'm an atheist but I've never feared death. Never feared total annihilation of my existence either. As I think Mark Twain said, (paraphrase) I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it didn't trouble me one bit.
I do fear living a medicalized life, and more so one enforced against my will in which all bodily autonomy and right to informed consent are stripped from me, rendering me little more than humanoid livestock to be worked, examined, treated, or experimented on at the will of and for the monetary benefit of others.
If I don't at the very least own my body, I truly own nothing.
But needless to say, I never feared covid enough to join the cult.
I'd ask him if he was aware of what several studies are showing and evidenced with higher hospitalizations and deaths amongst the vaccinated, and would he be willing to look it over. Then forward him to any credible sites that show how to boost his immune system so that it will attack the vaccine and flush it from the body.
Justin, I have always hated indifference as a coping mechanism for people and things that made no sense to me. The word “whatever “ seemed lazy to me. The last 2 1/2 years have changed that. I have realized that I only have so much energy available to give against my self imposed social contract. In my senior years I have been forced to adapt the so called only “so many f$&ks to give” concept.
This particular guy will get none of my time. Zero.
I totally get it, Buzz. I have family members who have labeled me as "that guy", akin to a John the Baptist crazy person, crying out from the wilderness of conspiracy-land, and they're trying to have me fitted for a camel hair suit. :-)
I still keep trying... until they ask me to stop, or they're hostile. I keep looking for simple and clear charts that can help convey information.
I admit, I'm not as diligent as I was even a few months ago in collecting info about the vaccines, feeling like more and more people are getting it and telling their trusted relations. But that might be wishful thinking on my part. Many of the sources I've seen in the past have been deleted, and I'm grateful I have some copies still.
We need to continue to persuade if possible, because people need to know they're not alone. Hopefully we can convince them that they too can have courage to stand up against the current of fake news and deliberate misinformation. We need more people to stand up and resist against the doubling down that the govt is trying in order to try to silence us.
But ask them questions. Let them ponder and look into it. They won't listen if we tell them. But if we direct their gaze through our questions, they will learn/accept on their own.
All good advice. To which I'll add one observation of human behavior: There is a gulf a mile wide between what a person SAYS they will do and what they ACTUALLY do.
Wouldn't it be nice if these politicians decided to become sane overnight?!
We still have mandates....they only recently revoked the one for education workers in NSW because they were so short-staffed!! Even though they SAID they'd revoke all these other ones as well eg 'Vaccination of health care workers', they have not. I for one am not surprised because I know that politicians are permanent LIARS and generally EVIL people. So I just ignore their requests and do my own thing. I mean ha, nothing's really changed there: that's me in a nutshell!! :-D
Public health orders in Victoria: https://www.health.vic.gov.au/covid-19/pandemic-order-register (basically, if you're a worker, just mask up & jab up or you don't have a job, but if you're a customer? That's fine, you don't need a mask or to be jabbed! So in other words, if you have enough money to NOT need to work, you are somewhat free. But if you are like most people who need to work to live, then you can suffer...).
And all the other states are pretty well just as bad.
This thing is far from over. Why would megalomaniacs just give up their power? Who cares about science? Who cares about people dying? Who cares about fraud? Just stay in power! At all costs!!!!
The pass is well gone in NSW, as it is in Victoria. But I'm sure once the Federal election is well and truly over (it happens this weekend) the state govts will sink their claws in some more. I fully expect them to demand people line up for boosters #3 & #4 before the end of the year (or they won't keep their jobs...) as well as bringing back QR code check-ins and vaccine passes again. They'll just make up some horrid scariant (again...) and people will fall for it (again...). See, this is what happens when you live on Prisoner Island, PolarNinja!!! :-D
Sure, lots of people don't like this insanity, but I wonder, with so people having convict ancestry, possibly it's easier for them to kowtow to the madness; who knows. Anyway, the stats (and general talk with others...) show 90% of people in OZ are absolute twits who have been injected with poison. There's no hope for us here, really, there's not. Maybe an asteroid strike might happen....after all, we can't hope for earthquakes or volcanoes blowing their top in Australia! Or maybe we just have to wait for injected people to get sick and/or die. But given how hardy some people are, that could actually take a while in many cases...
Ha ha re covid & that 'last man standing'... ;-) Too true, that!
Being in health care, this is a critically important piece of writing. Few outside of health care, realize that their trusted physicians, ARNPs, nurses, pharmacists were required to be "on message" irrespective of how erroneous, at the risk of immediate and permanent suspension of license. Older health care professionals simply walked away. Younger professionals with significant educational debt, mortgages, families faced a choice of immediate penury (if the license is permanently suspended on grounds of dishonesty, moral turpitude - which were the enabling statutes by which the licenses were taken, any other employer in another field would assume a serious felony). And, if the CDC were tracking tweets/etc of our congressmen and senators, one can be sure that state health boards were tracking doctors and others. Meryl Nass is an exemplar of this situation - a la Russian tactics, her health board not only suspended her license but is also requiring a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation from one of their own (You're not only a de facto felon, but also crazy). Furthermore, health care providers and all related associates were in many states required to be vaccinated in order to continue to hold their licenses. But to this day we do not know how many CDC, FDA, NAID staff were vaccinated! Nor were any key players in this dictatorial tragedy required to do so to hold their positions.
The real tragedy of this in concert with other health care dictatorial policies, is the literally tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths that occurred owing to withholding of virtually any medical intervention, save remdesivir and vents, neither with any reasonable research based track record of efficacy regarding this virus. In addition to all of those who died or were permanently disabled by adverse vaccine events, another topic that is disallowed by by CDC, FDA, FSMB.
I was a patient in the Soviet system, my family doctors in it. We could rely on no-one. The one benefit was it was so decrepit that docs had wide latitude. My uncle treated autoimmune disease with fasting and cabbage (our most abundantly reliable veggie) to reduce inflammation. Now the west is catching on. You’re right about the Soviet-style repression here. It’s very scary
I am in Canada. My docand I have a pretty good arrangement. He tells me when he is toeing the party line to recommend something. Then we both smile knowingly...and I tell him what will actually happen.
I just wrote about this in my comment. The medical industry can't be trusted about anything, particularly when it comes to chronic disease like CVD, Alzheimer's, cancer and T2D.
Where I live life is completely normal except for two pockets of insanity. One is Costco and the other is church. Half the people I see at my Costco are masked. It is not required to mask at Costco. It is not required to mask anywhere in the county. Literally no one in my suburb community masks But wearing a mask to Costco is a popular fashion choice.
At church it is the kids who mask. I understand the brainwashing that created this despicable habit. I do not understand the absence of pushback to teach "You do not need to do this!"
Our society is greatly corrupted by charlatans and cowards. Thank God for cats with attitude!
In Puerto Rico, virtually everyone still wears masks, at least in stores. Over the past week I've been in 2 grocery stores and 1 Costco. In the groceries, I saw maybe 2 other people without masks. Maybe 2. Certainly not more. In Costco maybe 5, at most. So what's that, 98%, plus or minus, idiots or scaredy-cats who 2+ years in STILL don't know the truth about masks??!!
It's so frustrating. I am often the only one without a mask in shops here in PR. My experience in the Costco of Bayamón is that a few more people are without masks than in other places. Sometimes as many as half the employees are face-pamper free. The one in Carolina, though, was heavily masked when I went. I was a week in Florida, and it was so refreshing to see faces for a change.
The Bayamon one (across from Rio Bayamon Golf Course) is the one I go to. That's where I think I saw 5 others without masks about a week ago (next time I'll need to pay more attention to the employees; it'll be soon, 'cuz I'm almost out of peanut butter). But the SuperMax on 199 in Guaynabo and the Econo across from Pep Boys? No more than 2 others, and that may still be generous.
In fact, I remember as I walked toward the SuperMax on 199 after having been away for the entire month of April, I noticed that literally EVERYONE else walking toward the store or walking out of the store was masked. Everyone. I then wondered, "Does SuperMax have its own mask mandate??" I thought I was going to be denied entrance.
That's how pervasive, and how disappointing and infuriating, this has become.
Maybe the Costco in Bayamón has had a relapse. Sorry to hear. It was a bit of a semi-oasis for a while. The SuperMax stores have indeed been awful every one.
What is wrong with people?
I noticed something when I was in Florida about my listening comprehension. A butcher (maskless) was chatting away about something. I didn't catch the half of what he said. I'm thinking that I've gotten so used to giving up on understanding what the masked are saying ("Mrfff mrffff mrffff"), that I have gotten in the habit of not listening to people. I haven't decided whether it is a blessing or a curse yet.
About 6 months ago I walked into the Bayamon store and I wasn't wearing my mask. The guy checking membership cards didn't say a thing. It wasn't until I was all the way back at the refrigerated produce section that a woman came up to me and told me to put my mask on.
It wasn't readily evident, so I asked her whether she worked there. I thought she might've been a Karen, and I was prepared to ignore her. But she said she was, so I asked to see her employee credential (it wasn't in view). She showed me.
But at least the guy at the entrance let me in unmasked. And I got all the way in before someone confronted me. So that was something.
NYC still has its "Mask Up" campaign in full force including announcements on the subways between stops. What's super interesting is the wide range of numbers masked by different train line and time of day.
You can see like 90% masked in midtown trains almost anytime but it drops to like 35% in Brooklyn except for hipster enclaves. Pretty funny to watch nearly all the masked faces exit the train at the same few stops. We humans are peculiar creatures, eh?
Just scored a job in one of the richer local communities. The number coming in, children and all in those dog snout monstrosities is far more than in the more mid to lower class towns I frequent. At least they have to wear the damn things rather than me. I turned down another job prior when it became apparent we had to mask 'for clients' whether they masked or not. The class ramifications of masks are something that needs to be addressed.
Masks are popular with a certain subset of the population for reasons having nothing to do with public health, as videos from a Philadelphia gas station this past week show.
Ok, Downton Abbey fans, one of the surprising moments to me was the moment when *someone* was dying (I don’t know - maybe you haven’t seen it and still want to?) and a character declares, how can that be? It’s the 20th, for crying out loud! Or something to that effect. As in, everyone thinks they’re so evolved that they KNOW. We should be immortal by now, right??
A lethal dose of aluminum is safe for babies, right? As long as you don’t inject their brains. It’s totally fine. It doesn’t travel anywhere else in the body. Right???
My father-in-law was a microbiologist in a lab in CA for decades. He recently retired. He said to me very recently, the secret is, we really KNOW NOTHING.
But sure, let’s pretend we do and squash open debate and innovation. It’s just people’s lives we’re dealing with. (It’s why some of us have exhausted the medical system and have turned to, say, homeopathy for help. And surprise, surprise, the homeopath is the only one to make some headway on complicated issues. As if humans have been around for millennia and not brand new creatures as of the year 2000.)
My uncle, a surgeon, a couple of years before his death at 90 years old: “Out pharmacology is so advanced and our understanding of health and disease so minuscule that I can more readily poison my patients than help them.”
And he had stopped practicing more than a decade before his death a decade ago. Imagine the situation now! The only thing to do is avoid disease and avoid them and their prescriptions when you come down with something.
[SPOILER ALERT] Yeah, that was a sad scene. Lady Sybil dying in childbirth, IINM. She didn't need to die, but the doctor's complete and absolute hubris is really what killed her.
Haha - I know, but still. The story of Philip Semmelweiss still blows my mind. How he knew what was causing puerperal fever in new mothers (as in, caused by the doctor) and was totally scorned for the VERY IDEA that doctors could be causing harm. How many mothers died? Infants left without mothers and families left destabilized because doctors literally thought they could do no wrong?
I was once in the position to train doctors. It breaks down that 30% truly have a calling. 65% or so are doing it for the paycheck and lifestyle. The other 5 percent or so are effing narcissists and psychopaths. Make of that what one will.
There's some bad kitty litter that needs cleaned out in the public health field. Here in Michigan all kinds of medical professionals will have to complete "implicit bias training" in order to stay licensed. Acknowledge your white privilege or you can't treat patients! Take a vax or you are fired! What is next? This is such a slippery slope we are going down at breakneck speed. I couldn't have more disdain for the public health and regulatory officials.
Public health appears to be the ultimate refuse for useful idiots and sociopathics needing to dominate. This morning I met an old friend whose daughter works in county public health. She had told him that he wasn’t allowed to get near me, my unvaxxed wife or unvaxxed grandchildren. Truly a sick fool. I could care less if she didn’t have some form of authority within the public health system. We are going the way of East Germany. And having visited that country from Hell, it wasn’t communist. It was pure, unadulterated fascism.
I have to admit I sardonically chuckle a bit over the people who think the COVID response was terrible but then go ahead and pop a statin because they think LDL causes heart disease. As was stated above, you need to be highly suspicious of doctors. These people are simply legal drug pushers for pharma, an industry that has no intention of actually curing people because people who are healthy would kill profits.
After COVID is there any doubt that almost all doctors simply do what they're told - "Push this drug or else you'll be fired and lose your license". And they even fool themselves into believing the crap so they can still tell themselves they're the good guy who just wants to help people. Yeah... no.
If you want to head down the rabbit hole a ways take a gander at this book by a favorite doctor of mine (a guy who actually thinks for himself and has the balls to talk about it) about heart disease. Everything you think you know is a lie.
While I have yet to act upon it, I'm now past 60 and in relatively good health. That said, I've been on a statin for two years and just started high blood pressure med this year. I should read up about them.
In defense of the medical profession, I haven't lost ALL confidence. While I admit I haven't researched it, I suspect that statins and hypertension meds have their place. Being careful has its place. However, it's probably just as wrong to be afraid of ALL medicine as it would be to have blind faith in anything the doctor tells you. The truth is likely somewhere in between.
One thing I often advocate: take generics where possible. I'm routinely prescribed them. There are at least two benefits: it saves the patient money. And perhaps more importantly, these are drugs that have been in use a very long time. They are off patent. That means nobody is making a lot of money off them, which naturally reduces the chance of greed swamping sound medical advice. Such a drug's side effect profile will also be well-known, or at least potentially so, since it's been in use for years, if not decades.
Compare and contrast with all the dubious products pushed for Covid-19. High profits, exempt for all liability, what's not to like? (at least from the pusher's viewpoint).
Read the book. I think you will be surprised at just how poor the science is behind cholesterol lowering. Most people (and doctors) think that heart disease is LDL clogging the interior of arteries, nothing could be further from the truth. Most people do not want to do the research for themselves, they just want to trust their doctor. I can't stress just how bad a strategy this is.
Look at it this way - we have drugs that are terrific at lowering LDL (statins, PCSK9 inhibitors) but heart disease is still the number 1 killer of Americans. How can that be if LDL is the cause of heart disease? And why do you think PCSK9 inhibitors were created when statins do a terrific job of lowering cholesterol? I'd bet it's because statins are now off patent.
Here’s a question. Take any Country - how many people have to be vaccinated to prevent one CoVid death, at what cost, at what risk? The USA FDA value of a statistical life is $7.9 million, so if vaccinating a population costs more than the value of lives saved, particularly if the lives saved are 82 year old with comorbidity and will expire within 12 months anyway.
Those who emote about ‘even one life saved’, and ‘you can’t talk about money when Human life is involved’ should consider we need money to do things, including medical care. The money we spend on ‘even one life saved’ isn’t available to spend on saving other lives.
Currently there are 6.4 million people on the NHS waiting list in the UK, the backlog from keeping hospitals empty to ‘save’ CoVid victims and staff self-isolating to ‘save lives’. A significant proportion of that 6.4 million will die because we know many of them are cancer cases.
Emote that.
Currently CoVid vaccination reported, confirmed deaths UK exceed 2 000 and rising. These are young, healthy individuals. That is a cost of about $16 billion - to save what? There is then a difficult to calculate additional cost of non-fatal injury requiring medical treatment, loss of time from work or long term disability.
It is estimated that adverse drug reactions are under reported by a factor of ten.
So the real cost of CoVid vaccine (that don’t work anyway) is enormous… and rising.
And if the indirect long term effects discussed here are elsewhere turn out to be real, the bill will be incalculable.
I realise talking about vaccine death and injury is disinformation, antivaxxer talk, and must be stopped.
Triage is a dirty word nowadays, as is the "Fatman and trolley"-question. Students simply can't handle the level of abstract thought needed to first choose an answer and then analyse both the answer in detail, following the logic to see where it leads, and take a third person look at their own emotional responses and reactions.
It's not that they balk at the horror of a 'Sophie's choice', it's that they simply can't. They lack the intelligence, moral fortitude and humble humility before inevitable situations necessary to make such decisions, even in theory or exercises.
Instead, they deflect, rationalise, become hysteric or angered, or take refuge in buzz word salad as magic formulae to ward off "evil".
People with such limited intellects can ever only be followers as they have been conditioned with a virtually physical slave reflex.
You touch on important topics: ethics, the need to make hard decisions and (alas) to recognize that not all problems can be solved; they can (at best) be managed. Some situations are a Hobson's Choice, damned if you do, damned if you don't. In other words, no clear alternative. But the real sin is that many difficult issues that DO have optimal (not to say ideal!) solutions are not addressed simply because of social, political or other opposition to solving them.
Oh yes, and that a lot of our cherished democratic, moral and religious ideals are bullshit; or to be more fair perhaps, a lot of them quickly break down in extreme circumstances. Many moralists assert that the same morals, ethics and standards should apply in all times in all places. As a counter-argument, I would ask them if they would really demand that in a foxhole in combat as compared to a Sunday afternoon picnic in the park? I'd say not.
To borrow the analogy from the famous essay "Lifeboat Ethics" (short and highly recommended), most of our institutions in the West seem to honestly believe that all comers are welcome and equally entitled to be rescued and given a place on the lifeboat. The very idea that seating is limited and that trying to please everybody will kill everybody, is anathema and the mere mention of it is harshly punished. At least as applied to medicine, we may be approaching a point where the individual will figuratively be better off floating alone in his life vest or even treading water.
Older generations had to struggle and strive for a better life, so had to make choices, some difficult and do things you didn’t like but had to. For example, your first job might be a real pig, low paid, but you did it because it was ‘a start’ while you gained experience and found something better. In those times there was no welfare and you were expected to work, not ponce off your parents… well, they wouldn’t let you nor could they afford to anyway. Nowadays, nobody must struggle or strive, or do a job they don’t like the State will provide or your nice middle class parents will.
I think you also describe critical analysis and this has to be taught - not as a subject per se but children early on have to learn to think about things, get more information, ask questions, make comparisons, comprehend and interpret what they see/hear. When I learnt English, essay writing was called ‘comprehension’, where we were given a poem, passage from a play, newspaper article or a picture and we had to write an essay about it. What the meaning was, the nuances or if pictorial what we thought was happening in the scene both from what we saw and could imagine. I recall we would be given the first line of a poem, then had to write a story based on that. As I understand it, that kind of teaching went out of fashion in the 1970s. Children no longer need to use their imagination, all they need to know and think is told them - don’t question, don’t dissent. Be obedient to the one source of ‘truth’. You can see how a ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ will fit right in with today’s generation.
As you note this kind of insanity is a longstanding history in medicine. What is different is that this "misinformation board" is overtly saying what has been somewhat well understood about medical boards: stay in line or there will be consequences to your ability to "practice".
And it's called "practice" for a reason, right?
Lat night we had dinner at a restaurant. I ordered a salad with my meal, as I often do (yes I know that is stuff is what food eats). When it arrived I scanned the table for a shaker of salt but none was to be found. So I had to ask for salt. "Oh we don't put out salt because it is bad for you" but being a friendly restaurant the brought be some anyway. This "it's bad for you" is a perfect example of not only medical organizations getting it wrong, but how difficult it is to kill the myths once adopted by the AMA. Anyone who cares to research the topic finds quickly that the AMA guideline for "low sodium" began with a story (and I mean story, not study) in the NEJM reprinted by the AMA which cited a study which claimed to find a correlation between reduced salt and reducing hypertension. Dig only one level into it, as in read the cited study, and you find the story gets it all wrong: the study, which observed dozens (!) of patients with a very specific type of hypertensive pathology found that lowering sodium "correlated" with a reduction in hypertension while it found this insignificant as it did nothing to address the underlying pathology of which hypertension was a symptom. Dig a bit further and you realize the "correlations" was in fact invalid, mathematically, as there were no controls. Subsequent studies that included larger samples and control groups subsequently found no correlation, even in that very specific population. Did NEJM or AMA change the recommendations based on the actual science? Not yet...almost 5 decades after.
In those 5 decades volumes of studies have shown the dangers of low-sodium diets. Blanket "recommendations" can be like that. Especially when based on flawed understanding of the source material. As a non-medical professional who knows how to read a scientific paper (and do the math that medical researchers seem unable to do so often), I am not a credible source for what is "right" but I can with some confidence point out the flaws in the math and inconsistencies in the logic.
How can you trust a professional organization such as the AMA, or state run medical boards, who continue to endorse "Body Mass Index" as a metric of health? The average athlete is "overweight" by BMI and a really healthy athlete is "obese" by there metric. I challenge those MDs who believe in this metric to walk up to an NFL player and tell them "you are obese". It makes no sense but that's what the "guideline" tells them.
You are so right about incrementalism. It is extremely powerful. What changed in 2020 was the size of the increments. 2021 abolished any pretense of subtle. I have for decades warned people that "reasonable restrictions" does not lead to a slippery slope: that is a cliff and once you step off it all feels fine until the last second when you hit bottom.
Spot on. What about all the warnings about "fat" that led to the low-fat food explosion (i.e. foods laced with sucrose). The correlation between fat in the diet and heart disease was the obsession of one pathologist who made up the data. As a real doctor seeing real people, I neither trust nor follow most guidelines. Medicine as a trusted profession is DEAD.
Initially ineptitude seemed like a reasonable explanation at the beginning of all this but it has become increasingly impossible to believe that now (unless incompetence can morph into something more sinister). I also think that for many normies, for lack of a better word, the 'pandemic' is over as they've been 'allowed' to resume somewhat of a normal existence . The problem is that they're not watching the slow viral creep of authoritarianism closely enough. The continued actions of these 'authorities' leaves little doubt of that in my estimation.
'Authority' is not synonymous with wisdom, knowledge or ethics. It's simply become a self-ascribed label fortyrants.
No, no. Hell no. This is not the way. We cannot live free like this. We are at war. They have unleashed a bioweapon upon us. We have not asked for this. And we cannot stand for it. The time to stand is now!
Are there practical examples of resistance that someone can share? It seems whatever we're doing is not enough because this evil is marching on and growing. Voting has been corrupted. Protesting can be hijacked. Petitions feel especially weak. How do we wrest the power away from the wicked?
I have labored and sacrificed for more than a dozen years on behalf of my severely disabled vaccine injured son, stood tall on my soapbox for over a decade, fought for political change for years, brought legal challenges, and did my "duty" to vote. So please understand that my question is a sincere one, looking for practical answers about what we can do together, collectively. I'm not looking for pontificating replies.
"The general sentiment of mankind is that a man who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others, and this sentiment is just. For a man who does not value freedom for himself will never value it for others, or put himself to any inconvenience to gain it for others. Such a man, the world says, may lie down until he has sense enough to stand up. It is useless and cruel to put a man on his legs, if the next moment his head is to be brought against a curbstone.
A man of that type will never lay the world under any obligation to him, but will be a moral pauper, a drag on the wheels of society, and if he too be identified with a peculiar variety of the race he will entail disgrace upon his race as well as upon himself. The world in which we live is very accommodating to all sorts of people. It will cooperate with them in any measure which they propose; it will help those who earnestly help themselves, and will hinder those who hinder themselves. It is very polite, and never offers its services unasked. Its favors to individuals are measured by an unerring principle in this—viz., respect those who respect themselves, and despise those who despise themselves. It is not within the power of unaided human nature to persevere in pitying a people who are insensible to their own wrongs and indifferent to the attainment of their own rights. The poet was as true to common sense as to poetry when he said,
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow. ...
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others."https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress/
Why are so many seemingly so downtrodden, then, when so much has been granted to them? To be sure, some victory was won by struggle, but (I would argue) the lion's share of their gains were by voluntary concession of the rulers who made good faith attempts to right previous moral wrongs. Yet by many measures, these people are worse off today on average than they were during the days of their claimed "oppression." Who, then, is the enemy today? Who now bashes the head against the curbstone when the old oppressor left the field long ago?
Could it be that, as someone mentioned above, that people do not value, or at least under-value, that which was given to them, as opposed to something they had to strive for, to at least earn, even if not necessarily physically fight to attain? Taking things for granted is a universal human failing.
Well, now you can sit anywhere you like on the bus and all the Confederate statues have been removed from the park. But as the bus rumbles down potholed streets, past decrepit tenements, block after block of shuttered or burnt-out businesses, vacant lots and crowds of rough-looking men idling on street corners, ask yourself "Are we really better off today than our grandparents or great-grandparents were in the bad old days?"
Clearly, the above examples dealt with the history of race relations. In my opinion, the issues raised have far broader applicability: the need for individual responsibility as well as (alas) the limitations upon what can actually be achieved.
"the greatest risk here is that we’ve become so acculturated to these endless assaults on our rights, reason, and sanity that they barely even register anymore."
True for many but those who do notice are acutely aware and growing in numbers as jab disasters mount and quality of life for most of the planet goes from bad to worse or free fall. In the end truth has a simplicity that resonates with reality and viral nature of its own, fingers crossed we're approaching a tipping point for greater good over profiteers.
During my medical training, one of my attendings who did a fair bit of teaching used to parrot the same 3 bits of advice. He rose to relative prominence as the first Chief Cancer Control Officer of the American Cancer Society and I remember my interactions with him as generally favorable. His advice was spot-on, in a humorous way.
His 3 points of advice:
1. Eat plants - okay, few would argue 25 years later that this is largely good advice
2. Estrogen replacement is a fountain of youth - Oopsies! Turns out it increases the risk of breast and uterine cancer as well as cardiovascular disease. So...that bit of advice changed maybe 15 years ago now.
3. Half of all we teach you in medical school will be proven wrong.
Kudos to our instructor as 1 and 2 proved 3 correct - though a small sample, for sure. The third point is the most important advice you can give in medicine - "This is my best advice with the information available to me now".
No hubris that we are always right.
This disinformation nonsense is anti-science. Arguing that the science is settled is only true until disproven. The first step in the scientific method is the observation that something is not as it should be based on prior assumptions and knowledge. This leads to a hypothesis that is counter to the common belief, and then to a study (or studies) pursuing the truth.
Anti-science is denying the scientific method, not denying those using it. The thought that medical boards are going to police when and how the "truth" can be challenged is an almost unthinkable premise. You want more doctor shortages? Start slapping the wrists of those willing to challenge convention by trying to move the needle of knowledge. Watch the rats continue to jump from the sinking ship.
"Half of all we teach you in medical school will be proven wrong."
and if we knew which half, then we'd really be getting somewhere!
From my vantage point, half seems optimistic :-).
I had a physics professor who would laugh when someone used the phrase "laws of physics". When queried he would explain: "there may be laws but we have no idea what they are. What we have are gentleman's agreements which we keep so long as they are useful, and revise when as we learn that they are not".
Is human physiology so different?
It’s the amount of potential revenue that’s different.
I laughed at a biologist friend, who told me years ago that Science was a stable given. I asked her to get me a bucket of H2O and I still see that stare. Science is based on human made agreements. Some old greek said that one thing is for sure, and that is, that nothing is for sure (Heraclitos perhaps). But the thought did not sink in. A convinced True Believer in Scientism. So sad. A brilliant mind lost to dogma.
He had a point. Yet the hard sciences and their laws etc. are as close to "truth" about the universe as we are likely to ever obtain. Yes, in principle any "theory" (or "Law") is always subject to falsification. That noun itself is curious. In the scientific sense, it means "subject to being disproved." Alas, in our modern world where ideology swamps science, it also means what it does to the common man: a lie, a counterfeit, an untruth. Returning to sciences, the point is that a good theory (or Law) withstands many assaults. As long as it stands, it's valid. Challengers are welcome, but the burden of proof is high.
It's also worth noting that the further you get from "pure" science (usually Mathematics is the sole example offered), you rapidly move from the Hard sciences (Physics, chemistry, etc.) into the social "sciences" (sociology, economics, etc.) The actual amount of objectively discoverable "truth" rapidly diminishes, as more ideology and opinion necessarily clutter the discipline. Medicine falls somewhere in between but in theory should be closer to a hard science since at least in theory, it's based upon traditional sciences.
While there is a finite probability that there exists a universe in which I agree with "Yet the hard sciences and their laws etc. are as close to "truth" about the universe as we are likely to ever obtain". But in the one I'm currently occupying I have to say absolutely not unless by "hard" you mean "political science" and I'm pretty sure you don't. If by "hard" you mean physics, then no. We are no where near as close to truth as we can or will get. Just n my lifetime our understanding of the physical world, both on a macro and micro scale, has changed profoundly. As an example we look back at much of what was "truth" a few decades ago in solid state physics with much the same amusement we ponder the analysis that led to the conclusion the earth was flat. Based on what was observed up to then, sure, it made sense...until it didn't. As our observational methods improve, our understanding changes, sometimes fundamentally. I see nothing to suggest we've peaked in our ability to observe, challenge, question and contradict through new observations what we thought to be true.
Which I think is your main point, with which I agree with enthusiastically: real science is about inquiry, and everything MUST be challenged. A theory that "withstands many assaults" is useful. It may may not be truth, but it is solid science. A theory or any other idea for which challenge is not allowed can not be science.
I would love to entertain a debate on "is mathematics a science, or an essential tool for science?". That would be fun...but more than will fit here :-). Again though I think not your point. And again my observations and experience agree with yours: many areas claiming to be "science driven" rely more on definitional decrees than the methods of science. Defining "questions" in terms so that there can be only one answer, or where there can be no answer at all. We certainly have seen political objectives driving these "sciences" more than repeatable methodologies for decades or probably centuries. Those "hard" sciences are not immune from politics, either. The history of physics is replete with established organizations rejecting new ideas and falling back on poor methodology to defend failing positions.
History is also replete with examples of non-science forces driving conclusions based on various "motivations" - in the modern world it is funding, status and position often used to motivate, and in many kingdoms (past and present) it was (or is) "support what the king wants or die" either of which has been shown effective at over-riding sound principles and shutting down inquiry. In medicine in particular I have observed a lot of sloppy methods and mathematically unsupportable conclusions. My theory is that in part this is due to ethical constraints: you can't design valid comparative studies with human populations. We tend to frown upon those who have tried. And so compromises must be made, and compromise becomes lack of rigor (sloppy) which then becomes habit. Ever tried to explain statistics (I mean the real math) to an MD? You'll see what I mean ;-).
It is one thing to be sloppy out of habit and another to deny those that would be less sloppy and yet another to suppress actual inquiry. Or is it?
So is there a difference between 2020-22 and the dark ages? We see much the same pattern - what we now call "science" was termed "denial", "heresy" and so on. With some amusement I note the politically correct self-anointed intellectual academics will decry the suppression of what we now recognize as "science" while endorsing the same kind of labeling and suppression. I wasn't around during the onset of the dark ages but I can imagine it started much the same way - "your misinformation is causing panic and danger!".
Yes, I really enjoy thinking and conversing about such things! Thanks....
Yeah, what do they say in marketing? Half of every dollar spent on advertising is wasted; the problem is, you never know which half.
“I spent half my life savings on gambling, women and booze; the other half I wasted”...I believe from WC Fields
"I spent most of my money on loose women, fast cars and alcohol. The rest I wasted."
- George Best
"This is my best advice with the information available to me now".
And even that isn't necessarily true, because it requires an honest doctor with no agenda or ulterior motive (for example, protecting his license to practice in the face of despicable threats from medical boards).
I know this from personal experience, as I had an unsatisfying "conversation" with my doctor when I asked for a prescription for IVM that I wanted in my quiver in case I ever contracted the Chinese virus.
The total extent of his responsibility to me as MY physician was expressed thusly: The WHO doesn't recommend IVM; then, the CDC doesn't recommend IVM; then, the FDA doesn't recommend IVM. I pointed out to him that THEY'RE not my doctor; YOU are. Fell on deaf ears. (My side of the conversation was MUCH longer and more detailed than just that, and references were cited; his side was brief and dismissive.)
So no, in many cases it's NOT the "best advice with the information available to me now".
I've NEVER ONCE had somebody explain to me how IVM (or other treatment) is the business of anybody but me and my doctor.
Apparently to my doctor, I myself am not a party to my own healthcare. It's between him and a political alphabet agency.
One of his responses to my request included a listing of the potential side effects of IVM. I then listed all the potential side effects of a different particular drug, a list nastier than his, and then I pointed out that HE prescribed THAT drug for me (a topical ointment, not something ingested), so what's the problem with the lesser-side-effected (and 50+ years of proven safety, and the fact that our own government REQUIRES incoming refugees to take IVM) Ivermectin?
Radio silence after that.
I survived ICU and remdesivir. After release from the hospital, I had no energy. I raise livestock so I stock easily 1500 ml of IVM 1% injectable at all times. I spent time researching post COVID treatment protocol and found a five day IVM treatment. I can calculate dosage because of my livestock breeding experience so I took it orally in dark chocolate cashew milk (dairy allergy that causes asthma). My energy came roaring back. Need to do blood work outside the sickness industry because they refuse to follow up. Easy to buy the 1% injectable and there are weight charts by ml dosage out there. Tractor Supply sells it. Just tell them you raise goats or alpacas and you can score a bottle!
For anyone interested, the details about dosing with pony paste can be found here:
https://www.barnhardt.biz/ivermectin/
Once upon a time people using veterinarian meds out of desperation was touted as the principal reason for centralized health care and the ACA. In the last two years taking vet. meds has been the only options available because of centralized health care and the ACA
They are cracking down on feed stores that stock penicillin. Only big box stores will be able to carry it. AVMA is an evil group that works hand in glove with FDA/USDA to limit the OTC drugs available. The goal is to force us to buy from our veterinarian who charges a hefty fee to set foot on one’s farm. We won’t be willing to pay $85 for a farm visit so they can hand over a $6.99 bottle of penicillin. Big gun antibiotics are a different matter. Some are $300/100 ml bottle. Right now, the vet supply houses can supply most items. However, I expect them to start requiring an Rx from a vet. After all, the USDA hires the top large animal graduating vets and puts them at desks in DC pushing paper at starting salaries that are ten times what they make as a large animal vet. Employment at USDA surged by 40% over recent years. Take it from a 25 year veteran of livestock breeding whose prior position was making the mega trend calls for Wall Street firms and the buy side.
I did find a doc in VA via FLCCC (I think it was) who, among other things, did prescribe IVM.
Thanks for the tip!
So change to an integrative medicine doc.
Unfortunately integrative medicine docs are extremely expensive ...
My insurance won't cover complimentary or integrative medicine (or the docs) at least the ones in our area. I am probably not the only one.
I did change to a doc in Virginia, with whom I do tele-med visits and pay out of pocket (because insurance won't pay). She's the one who prescribed IVM for me.
I keep the other guy, nominally anyway, in case I need him in a way that the VA doc can't provide, since I'm a flight away from VA and can't get there quickly or easily.
I saw one of the doctors from FLCC is offering telemed for IVM. He wants around $350 for the consult. The IVM (at least around these parts) goes for about $100. Yes. It should cost about @20, but do you think the feds will investigate that gouging? No.
When your doctor works for a corporation and they tell him or her that no ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine will be prescribed (unless patient has rickets or RA), then your doctor will not be prescribing it. Ditto for the doc in the hospital. Unless your doctor has a private practice with no affiliation (because if he is affiliated w a hospital and prescribes it, goodbye privileges. And then find a pharmacy that will fill it (usually a compounder). It won't be your local, friendly Walgreens. Why? See above.
This is the problem with the whole idea of a multi-state board who can fire you for not doing things their way.
That is ONE of the problems.
LOL fair point!
Exactly. And a good model we can generalize. Why do multi-state or even state medical boards exist? To protect patients...so that was the promise. Concentrate power so as to "protect" - safety, security, and the common good. Once power is concentrated, it will be abused. And as I've said for decades, that is not a slippery slope, kids, it's a cliff. It may seem fine to step off, for a while it even feels "free", but it never ends well.
This is true. But the message of these "truth guidelines" is that even if you are one of those few docs who practices independently you will follow the approved doctrine or you will not "practice" at all. This is another one of the incremental stories that has been creeping for years but 2020 showed they need not creep, or be subtle or clever, anymore.
Yes, that does seem to be the way it is going. Quickly.
That is why I play my own doctor. I ordered it abroad and had it just in case. If I don't get it my dog takes it against heartworm.
Although the function of face masks as preventing spread, "protecting you and protecting me," was nothing but a lie from the start and will remain so no matter how often they repeat it. Yet doctors are some of the worst in perpetuating this unnecessary, harmful practice -- I just don't get it.
So putting a useless but harmless covering on your face is, in my opinion, no big deal. If it makes someone else feel better, why not. I'm like that. Besides, I'm told it improves my appearance :-). But...
Non-covid respiratory infections have exploded since masking became a thing. No mystery why: wearing the same mask for hours creates a lovely environment to grow bacteria (lots of research on this and one reason you docs are supposed to change your mask often in a clinical setting). Pretty easy to see what folks do is get a cloth mask, wear it day in and day out, maybe wash it once a week, and so viola, millions of needless yet sometimes life threatening respiratory infections.
I'm not anti-mask or advocating you stop wearing whatever affectation you find pleasing, for whatever reason. I find the cosmetic and emotional value sufficient. These days while traveling I get a box of 50 disposable masks so I can change them often. At home I carry a bottle of alcohol (not the good kind) to disinfect my stylish custom made face covering often (Vodka will work in a pinch, but not while you're driving!).
I thing people should know and choose for themselves. Apparently that makes me a right wing extremist insurrectionist republithug conspiracy theorist who is anti science. I suppose I can live with that :-)
It certainly is useless, but it definitely is *not* harmless, either to you as the wearer (which I suppose is ultimately your business) or to those around you. There is evidence it *increases* the spread of a virus and other pathogens and it is abundantly clear that it has a terrible, negative psychological effect on other people, arousing anxiety, making communication difficult (especially harmful to children and the elderly who often have trouble hearing), covering emotional clues , and generally rending the fabric of society. Making others who are clinging ignorantly to a magical talisman "feel better" is not doing them a favor either. It is enabling and perpetuating a mental illness or addiction, which is what mask wearing has become for many, and that is never a kindness.
So yes, of course, I am against forcing the wearing of masks on anyone, but I am also anti-mask and will continue to rail against the wearing of them (except obviously in the extremely limited and rare circumstances where they may be somewhat useful).
Some points for thought, definitely. Argues further for an informed choice. I am seeing the "common good" being harmed in many ways, some you mention I'd not realized. The point on enabling addiction is worth pondering. It is surely not a kindness. And I see it all the time: either because of false information that the mask somehow protects them, or a flawed belief they are helping the grater good, or just because it's a habit, the mask wearing continues - and see people alone in a car wearing masks. Had a professor of physics (really) try to convince me that the DoT/CDC mandate for truckers to wear masks WHILE ALONE IN THEIR TRUCKS made sense. That kind of loyalty induced brain death is worrying, for sure.
FWIW I don't see the need to stop other people from smoking tobacco (or anything else) when I'm not around. Your lungs, your choice. I mean, I even tolerate people who carry M1911a1s chambered in 9mm :-).
“ I don't see the need to stop other people from smoking tobacco (or anything else) when I'm not around.” I note that you add the caveat “when I’m not around”, indicating that harm to others limits their choice. And masks are extremely harmful to others, as I indicated. In addition to the things I mentioned, they establish an atmosphere of fear, not just of a trumped up “deadly virus” but of other people, saying that we are all dangerous bioweapons set to kill one another without warning, better avoided, and not to be trusted. They also, as an act of irrational compliance, send a signal legitimizing the totalitarian biofascists’ demands that we follow orders that are contrary to science, instinct and common sense. They are telling children that this is normal and helping to create a fearful, unthinking generation that will cement dystopia in place for decades at least. Wearing masks, unless alone in the desert or at home, is not simply a personal choice.
I do NOT suggest that "harm to others" justifies limiting their choice. In fact tobacco smoke doesn't bother me at all (and I've seen the "second had smoke" argument for what it is). Pot smoke does, so I choose not to be around people smoking pot. That is MY choice. Didn't mean to suggest I'd impose restrictions on others, beyond perhaps the restriction of not having me hanging out with you.
I agree that the "for the protection of others" should always be suspected (and usually based on a collection of false premises and faulty logic). It is the most popular claim of totalitarian fascists in modern history.
I think you raise a valid challenge to my "if it doesn't do harm". I was considering the harm to myself, which I feel I can manage with safe mask practices. The use of mask mandates as a political tool to deepen division and justify hate is definite harm. The characterization of scientific method as "disinformation" is definitely harming millions of people. I had not associated those harms with my choice to cover my face.
Let's ponder the argument. Is my choice to cover my face the trigger? I see your point that it might support fear. But ultimately, is it not your choice to believe in false gods and political propaganda while ignoring the actual science? Is it not a choice to comply, irrationally and absolutely, even when your own faculties are capable of seeing the flaws and warning signs? Where is the edge of that cliff?
I can tell you that putting control of educating our children soley in the hands of governments is way over that line - it is the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. And that's real long term harm to all of humanity. That's why billions of people are willing to abandon not only their freedoms but condemn all of us to totalitarian rule in some irrational belief it is for our own good. That's how I see it, at least - generations educated by the state just happen to be loyal and submissive to the state. By design.
FWIW when I'm with folks who are bothered by tobacco smoke, I may politely ask someone to not smoke around us. I have never had a tobacco smoker be an ass**** when asked politely. Not once has a polite request been met with anything other than "sure, no problem". That's my personal experience. Of course I'm considerate too - if I walk into a smoke filled bar or nightclub (the do still exist), I'm not going to ask the people already there to stop, as that make me the ass**** and I do attempt to avoid being a jerk (I said attempt... ;-). Pot smokers are an entirely different experience....
They’re for the first time finding microplastics in lungs. Guess what masks are made of. An epidemiologist who is also an MD warned me to wear those things as infrequently as possible because decades old studies have shown that mask fibers are inhaled ans get stuck in lungs.
Asbestosis-like illnesses to follow?
At least it might mean masks are banned and outlawed!
Succinctly put.
Your wearing your mask is no big deal. Forcing everyone else to wear the useless things just to show allegiance or something, is a big deal. I loathe the political statement they make and, yes, you are somewhat anti-science or at least ignorant of science.
Exactly - that was my point if not clear - for ME to decide that I'll cover my face if only because it makes others more comfortable is a choice I have made, not one I'd impose on anyone else. Though some of the responses have me reconsidering the actual harm being done. I had not thought of my courtesy as enabling harmful fears and addiction in others, nor supporting the abdication of personal responsibility (that is the last thing I want to enable).
But there are a lot of polypropylenes (sp?) in those disposable masks. What could they be doing to our lungs as we breathe them in?
Like many things, eating plants in moderation is OK. Just remember as you stare at that plate full of tasty greens, that is what real food eats :-).
https://youtu.be/7tScAyNaRdQ
"They're Made Out of Meat"
I'm "borrowing" your statement for the evil Book of Face to annoy some normals. thanks! 😎
Normals? That is a frightening thought.
Your correction of #2 is itself wrong. The "study" that demonstrated this was so bad it's used in the teaching of statistics as an example of what not to do.
I believe there have been so many holes poked in that study that virtually no conclusion has much validity. Thank you for bring this up; I wasn’t sure where to address it.
It's not what we don't know that gets us in trouble.
It's what we know for sure that just ain't so. ~ Mark Twain ~
I think now it’s more than half of what they teach is bullshit.
Please: Excrement of the male bovine. Be scientific.
If I look back on what we learned in school 50 years back, it seems to amount more th 90 %
The moment you claim "this science is settled" - it stops being science.
Regarding estrogen replacement - I am not religious but when I see that I as a woman was "designed" to end up with way lower estrogen production around age 45-55, I think "gee, there's probably a really good reason for that". Don't fool with mother nature. I think the same about statins. Our liver makes tons of cholesterol. Maybe there's a damn good reason for it.
I am not sure what you are talking about... Just listen to Yuval Horrory:
"Humans are hackable animals"
"We are going to replace the design with an intelligent design... not from a God above the clouds but from the Microsoft and IBM clouds"...
So bow down to your new Gods from the WEF!
They don't necessarily like things that actually work either. One of my EE profs said he had a prof who told him transistors we're a fad
In Ceausescu's Romania, we had the communist party telling us what was true and what was not; we are getting there!
Because who "owns" the truth if not politicians?
re #1...research the carnivore diet
Laughing at Rachel here. A few weeks ago a guy In our industrial neighborhood was chest banging to me that he was *proud* that he was triple vaxxed. I asked him if he took the flu vaccine every season. He says “ hell no!”. Ok I’m doubting his intelligence at this point. Yesterday he walks up the alley all masked up , low energy body language. He stops 15 feet away. “ I have COVID” he says. I want to laugh, but I humor him a little bit. I said, “ I thought you were vaxxed?…. so the vaccine doesn’t work?”. Then he got angry with me, “ of course you can get it if you vaxxed!” Ok. I asked what the symptoms were. “ like a bad cold” he replied. “ but I took got some Tamiflu and it helped.”
WTFing bloody hell! I’m going insane surrounded by STUPID people!!!!
Like when the triple-jabbed still die from COVID: "It would have been so much worse if they weren't vaccinated." It's surreal and the reason why we're probably doomed.
You're not doomed, they are. Misery loves company.
And The Company loves misery.
I have two of those in my life; they will NOT get flu shots, but one is vaxxed and boosted and will probably get #4 because she's a caregiver and is afraid that if she doesn't get vaxxed, she will end up killing her elderly Mom. The other one-- who is not as intelligent-- got the J & J, got Omicron, and does not want to get another shot. It was the 24/7 death drumbeat from the MSM for a year. They're all terrified of dying.
Yup. I'm an atheist but I've never feared death. Never feared total annihilation of my existence either. As I think Mark Twain said, (paraphrase) I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it didn't trouble me one bit.
I do fear living a medicalized life, and more so one enforced against my will in which all bodily autonomy and right to informed consent are stripped from me, rendering me little more than humanoid livestock to be worked, examined, treated, or experimented on at the will of and for the monetary benefit of others.
If I don't at the very least own my body, I truly own nothing.
But needless to say, I never feared covid enough to join the cult.
Ditto all you said. I will die first!!!
PROOF CANADIANS ARE BRAINWASHED IDIOTS...sorry Canada but I had to post.....https://www.bitchute.com/video/RYDogc1blfFK/
Happy Saturday chuckle, everyone!!!!!!!!!!!
Geeeez.... Here's some cyanide. It will bring you happiness and enlightment (on the other side).
I'd ask him if he was aware of what several studies are showing and evidenced with higher hospitalizations and deaths amongst the vaccinated, and would he be willing to look it over. Then forward him to any credible sites that show how to boost his immune system so that it will attack the vaccine and flush it from the body.
Justin, I have always hated indifference as a coping mechanism for people and things that made no sense to me. The word “whatever “ seemed lazy to me. The last 2 1/2 years have changed that. I have realized that I only have so much energy available to give against my self imposed social contract. In my senior years I have been forced to adapt the so called only “so many f$&ks to give” concept.
This particular guy will get none of my time. Zero.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1uobO9VNi14
I really don't like the use of the F word, but that was funny.
Holy sh.....that was awesome!!!!!!!! Thanks for sharing..... :)
I totally get it, Buzz. I have family members who have labeled me as "that guy", akin to a John the Baptist crazy person, crying out from the wilderness of conspiracy-land, and they're trying to have me fitted for a camel hair suit. :-)
I still keep trying... until they ask me to stop, or they're hostile. I keep looking for simple and clear charts that can help convey information.
I admit, I'm not as diligent as I was even a few months ago in collecting info about the vaccines, feeling like more and more people are getting it and telling their trusted relations. But that might be wishful thinking on my part. Many of the sources I've seen in the past have been deleted, and I'm grateful I have some copies still.
We need to continue to persuade if possible, because people need to know they're not alone. Hopefully we can convince them that they too can have courage to stand up against the current of fake news and deliberate misinformation. We need more people to stand up and resist against the doubling down that the govt is trying in order to try to silence us.
But ask them questions. Let them ponder and look into it. They won't listen if we tell them. But if we direct their gaze through our questions, they will learn/accept on their own.
They may thank us later.
I have always been the “crazy” one in my family. funny thing though, many of them are becoming crazy like me
All good advice. To which I'll add one observation of human behavior: There is a gulf a mile wide between what a person SAYS they will do and what they ACTUALLY do.
Every time I read or hear that someone has covid, I know they were injected! :-D
Wouldn't it be nice if these politicians decided to become sane overnight?!
We still have mandates....they only recently revoked the one for education workers in NSW because they were so short-staffed!! Even though they SAID they'd revoke all these other ones as well eg 'Vaccination of health care workers', they have not. I for one am not surprised because I know that politicians are permanent LIARS and generally EVIL people. So I just ignore their requests and do my own thing. I mean ha, nothing's really changed there: that's me in a nutshell!! :-D
Public health orders in NSW: https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/information/covid19-legislation
Public health orders in Victoria: https://www.health.vic.gov.au/covid-19/pandemic-order-register (basically, if you're a worker, just mask up & jab up or you don't have a job, but if you're a customer? That's fine, you don't need a mask or to be jabbed! So in other words, if you have enough money to NOT need to work, you are somewhat free. But if you are like most people who need to work to live, then you can suffer...).
And all the other states are pretty well just as bad.
This thing is far from over. Why would megalomaniacs just give up their power? Who cares about science? Who cares about people dying? Who cares about fraud? Just stay in power! At all costs!!!!
Meh...
The pass is well gone in NSW, as it is in Victoria. But I'm sure once the Federal election is well and truly over (it happens this weekend) the state govts will sink their claws in some more. I fully expect them to demand people line up for boosters #3 & #4 before the end of the year (or they won't keep their jobs...) as well as bringing back QR code check-ins and vaccine passes again. They'll just make up some horrid scariant (again...) and people will fall for it (again...). See, this is what happens when you live on Prisoner Island, PolarNinja!!! :-D
Sure, lots of people don't like this insanity, but I wonder, with so people having convict ancestry, possibly it's easier for them to kowtow to the madness; who knows. Anyway, the stats (and general talk with others...) show 90% of people in OZ are absolute twits who have been injected with poison. There's no hope for us here, really, there's not. Maybe an asteroid strike might happen....after all, we can't hope for earthquakes or volcanoes blowing their top in Australia! Or maybe we just have to wait for injected people to get sick and/or die. But given how hardy some people are, that could actually take a while in many cases...
Ha ha re covid & that 'last man standing'... ;-) Too true, that!
Being in health care, this is a critically important piece of writing. Few outside of health care, realize that their trusted physicians, ARNPs, nurses, pharmacists were required to be "on message" irrespective of how erroneous, at the risk of immediate and permanent suspension of license. Older health care professionals simply walked away. Younger professionals with significant educational debt, mortgages, families faced a choice of immediate penury (if the license is permanently suspended on grounds of dishonesty, moral turpitude - which were the enabling statutes by which the licenses were taken, any other employer in another field would assume a serious felony). And, if the CDC were tracking tweets/etc of our congressmen and senators, one can be sure that state health boards were tracking doctors and others. Meryl Nass is an exemplar of this situation - a la Russian tactics, her health board not only suspended her license but is also requiring a comprehensive psychiatric evaluation from one of their own (You're not only a de facto felon, but also crazy). Furthermore, health care providers and all related associates were in many states required to be vaccinated in order to continue to hold their licenses. But to this day we do not know how many CDC, FDA, NAID staff were vaccinated! Nor were any key players in this dictatorial tragedy required to do so to hold their positions.
The real tragedy of this in concert with other health care dictatorial policies, is the literally tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths that occurred owing to withholding of virtually any medical intervention, save remdesivir and vents, neither with any reasonable research based track record of efficacy regarding this virus. In addition to all of those who died or were permanently disabled by adverse vaccine events, another topic that is disallowed by by CDC, FDA, FSMB.
I was a patient in the Soviet system, my family doctors in it. We could rely on no-one. The one benefit was it was so decrepit that docs had wide latitude. My uncle treated autoimmune disease with fasting and cabbage (our most abundantly reliable veggie) to reduce inflammation. Now the west is catching on. You’re right about the Soviet-style repression here. It’s very scary
I am in Canada. My docand I have a pretty good arrangement. He tells me when he is toeing the party line to recommend something. Then we both smile knowingly...and I tell him what will actually happen.
I just wrote about this in my comment. The medical industry can't be trusted about anything, particularly when it comes to chronic disease like CVD, Alzheimer's, cancer and T2D.
And what about those doctors who refused to be vaccinated but then offered forged vaccine cards b/c the institutions couldn't afford to lose them.
Boom! Goes the El Gato dynamite.
Where I live life is completely normal except for two pockets of insanity. One is Costco and the other is church. Half the people I see at my Costco are masked. It is not required to mask at Costco. It is not required to mask anywhere in the county. Literally no one in my suburb community masks But wearing a mask to Costco is a popular fashion choice.
At church it is the kids who mask. I understand the brainwashing that created this despicable habit. I do not understand the absence of pushback to teach "You do not need to do this!"
Our society is greatly corrupted by charlatans and cowards. Thank God for cats with attitude!
In Puerto Rico, virtually everyone still wears masks, at least in stores. Over the past week I've been in 2 grocery stores and 1 Costco. In the groceries, I saw maybe 2 other people without masks. Maybe 2. Certainly not more. In Costco maybe 5, at most. So what's that, 98%, plus or minus, idiots or scaredy-cats who 2+ years in STILL don't know the truth about masks??!!
It's so frustrating. I am often the only one without a mask in shops here in PR. My experience in the Costco of Bayamón is that a few more people are without masks than in other places. Sometimes as many as half the employees are face-pamper free. The one in Carolina, though, was heavily masked when I went. I was a week in Florida, and it was so refreshing to see faces for a change.
The Bayamon one (across from Rio Bayamon Golf Course) is the one I go to. That's where I think I saw 5 others without masks about a week ago (next time I'll need to pay more attention to the employees; it'll be soon, 'cuz I'm almost out of peanut butter). But the SuperMax on 199 in Guaynabo and the Econo across from Pep Boys? No more than 2 others, and that may still be generous.
In fact, I remember as I walked toward the SuperMax on 199 after having been away for the entire month of April, I noticed that literally EVERYONE else walking toward the store or walking out of the store was masked. Everyone. I then wondered, "Does SuperMax have its own mask mandate??" I thought I was going to be denied entrance.
That's how pervasive, and how disappointing and infuriating, this has become.
Maybe the Costco in Bayamón has had a relapse. Sorry to hear. It was a bit of a semi-oasis for a while. The SuperMax stores have indeed been awful every one.
What is wrong with people?
I noticed something when I was in Florida about my listening comprehension. A butcher (maskless) was chatting away about something. I didn't catch the half of what he said. I'm thinking that I've gotten so used to giving up on understanding what the masked are saying ("Mrfff mrffff mrffff"), that I have gotten in the habit of not listening to people. I haven't decided whether it is a blessing or a curse yet.
About 6 months ago I walked into the Bayamon store and I wasn't wearing my mask. The guy checking membership cards didn't say a thing. It wasn't until I was all the way back at the refrigerated produce section that a woman came up to me and told me to put my mask on.
It wasn't readily evident, so I asked her whether she worked there. I thought she might've been a Karen, and I was prepared to ignore her. But she said she was, so I asked to see her employee credential (it wasn't in view). She showed me.
But at least the guy at the entrance let me in unmasked. And I got all the way in before someone confronted me. So that was something.
Good for you.
NYC still has its "Mask Up" campaign in full force including announcements on the subways between stops. What's super interesting is the wide range of numbers masked by different train line and time of day.
You can see like 90% masked in midtown trains almost anytime but it drops to like 35% in Brooklyn except for hipster enclaves. Pretty funny to watch nearly all the masked faces exit the train at the same few stops. We humans are peculiar creatures, eh?
Just scored a job in one of the richer local communities. The number coming in, children and all in those dog snout monstrosities is far more than in the more mid to lower class towns I frequent. At least they have to wear the damn things rather than me. I turned down another job prior when it became apparent we had to mask 'for clients' whether they masked or not. The class ramifications of masks are something that needs to be addressed.
Masks are popular with a certain subset of the population for reasons having nothing to do with public health, as videos from a Philadelphia gas station this past week show.
Ok, Downton Abbey fans, one of the surprising moments to me was the moment when *someone* was dying (I don’t know - maybe you haven’t seen it and still want to?) and a character declares, how can that be? It’s the 20th, for crying out loud! Or something to that effect. As in, everyone thinks they’re so evolved that they KNOW. We should be immortal by now, right??
A lethal dose of aluminum is safe for babies, right? As long as you don’t inject their brains. It’s totally fine. It doesn’t travel anywhere else in the body. Right???
My father-in-law was a microbiologist in a lab in CA for decades. He recently retired. He said to me very recently, the secret is, we really KNOW NOTHING.
But sure, let’s pretend we do and squash open debate and innovation. It’s just people’s lives we’re dealing with. (It’s why some of us have exhausted the medical system and have turned to, say, homeopathy for help. And surprise, surprise, the homeopath is the only one to make some headway on complicated issues. As if humans have been around for millennia and not brand new creatures as of the year 2000.)
My uncle, a surgeon, a couple of years before his death at 90 years old: “Out pharmacology is so advanced and our understanding of health and disease so minuscule that I can more readily poison my patients than help them.”
And he had stopped practicing more than a decade before his death a decade ago. Imagine the situation now! The only thing to do is avoid disease and avoid them and their prescriptions when you come down with something.
[SPOILER ALERT] Yeah, that was a sad scene. Lady Sybil dying in childbirth, IINM. She didn't need to die, but the doctor's complete and absolute hubris is really what killed her.
And 100 years later (yes, I know, DA is fictional), doctors' hubris is still killing people.
Haha - I know, but still. The story of Philip Semmelweiss still blows my mind. How he knew what was causing puerperal fever in new mothers (as in, caused by the doctor) and was totally scorned for the VERY IDEA that doctors could be causing harm. How many mothers died? Infants left without mothers and families left destabilized because doctors literally thought they could do no wrong?
I was once in the position to train doctors. It breaks down that 30% truly have a calling. 65% or so are doing it for the paycheck and lifestyle. The other 5 percent or so are effing narcissists and psychopaths. Make of that what one will.
The Bad Cat strikes again!! Love you!
Another inspiring entry by EGM - "HAHAHA...NO!" my new philosophy....
There's some bad kitty litter that needs cleaned out in the public health field. Here in Michigan all kinds of medical professionals will have to complete "implicit bias training" in order to stay licensed. Acknowledge your white privilege or you can't treat patients! Take a vax or you are fired! What is next? This is such a slippery slope we are going down at breakneck speed. I couldn't have more disdain for the public health and regulatory officials.
Public health appears to be the ultimate refuse for useful idiots and sociopathics needing to dominate. This morning I met an old friend whose daughter works in county public health. She had told him that he wasn’t allowed to get near me, my unvaxxed wife or unvaxxed grandchildren. Truly a sick fool. I could care less if she didn’t have some form of authority within the public health system. We are going the way of East Germany. And having visited that country from Hell, it wasn’t communist. It was pure, unadulterated fascism.
The entire medical establishment has now defined itself as a religious organization devoted to witchcraft. Don’t trust them.
And money.
I have to admit I sardonically chuckle a bit over the people who think the COVID response was terrible but then go ahead and pop a statin because they think LDL causes heart disease. As was stated above, you need to be highly suspicious of doctors. These people are simply legal drug pushers for pharma, an industry that has no intention of actually curing people because people who are healthy would kill profits.
After COVID is there any doubt that almost all doctors simply do what they're told - "Push this drug or else you'll be fired and lose your license". And they even fool themselves into believing the crap so they can still tell themselves they're the good guy who just wants to help people. Yeah... no.
If you want to head down the rabbit hole a ways take a gander at this book by a favorite doctor of mine (a guy who actually thinks for himself and has the balls to talk about it) about heart disease. Everything you think you know is a lie.
https://www.amazon.com/Clot-Thickens-enduring-mystery-disease/dp/1907797769/ref=sr_1_1?crid=U6XRI4FTRIDD&keywords=the+clot+thickens+malcolm+kendrick&qid=1652543335&sprefix=the+clot+thickens%2Caps%2C281&sr=8-1
Thanks for the recommendation. All of Dr. Kendrick's books look interesting.
While I have yet to act upon it, I'm now past 60 and in relatively good health. That said, I've been on a statin for two years and just started high blood pressure med this year. I should read up about them.
In defense of the medical profession, I haven't lost ALL confidence. While I admit I haven't researched it, I suspect that statins and hypertension meds have their place. Being careful has its place. However, it's probably just as wrong to be afraid of ALL medicine as it would be to have blind faith in anything the doctor tells you. The truth is likely somewhere in between.
One thing I often advocate: take generics where possible. I'm routinely prescribed them. There are at least two benefits: it saves the patient money. And perhaps more importantly, these are drugs that have been in use a very long time. They are off patent. That means nobody is making a lot of money off them, which naturally reduces the chance of greed swamping sound medical advice. Such a drug's side effect profile will also be well-known, or at least potentially so, since it's been in use for years, if not decades.
Compare and contrast with all the dubious products pushed for Covid-19. High profits, exempt for all liability, what's not to like? (at least from the pusher's viewpoint).
Read the book. I think you will be surprised at just how poor the science is behind cholesterol lowering. Most people (and doctors) think that heart disease is LDL clogging the interior of arteries, nothing could be further from the truth. Most people do not want to do the research for themselves, they just want to trust their doctor. I can't stress just how bad a strategy this is.
Look at it this way - we have drugs that are terrific at lowering LDL (statins, PCSK9 inhibitors) but heart disease is still the number 1 killer of Americans. How can that be if LDL is the cause of heart disease? And why do you think PCSK9 inhibitors were created when statins do a terrific job of lowering cholesterol? I'd bet it's because statins are now off patent.
Here’s a question. Take any Country - how many people have to be vaccinated to prevent one CoVid death, at what cost, at what risk? The USA FDA value of a statistical life is $7.9 million, so if vaccinating a population costs more than the value of lives saved, particularly if the lives saved are 82 year old with comorbidity and will expire within 12 months anyway.
Those who emote about ‘even one life saved’, and ‘you can’t talk about money when Human life is involved’ should consider we need money to do things, including medical care. The money we spend on ‘even one life saved’ isn’t available to spend on saving other lives.
Currently there are 6.4 million people on the NHS waiting list in the UK, the backlog from keeping hospitals empty to ‘save’ CoVid victims and staff self-isolating to ‘save lives’. A significant proportion of that 6.4 million will die because we know many of them are cancer cases.
Emote that.
Currently CoVid vaccination reported, confirmed deaths UK exceed 2 000 and rising. These are young, healthy individuals. That is a cost of about $16 billion - to save what? There is then a difficult to calculate additional cost of non-fatal injury requiring medical treatment, loss of time from work or long term disability.
It is estimated that adverse drug reactions are under reported by a factor of ten.
So the real cost of CoVid vaccine (that don’t work anyway) is enormous… and rising.
And if the indirect long term effects discussed here are elsewhere turn out to be real, the bill will be incalculable.
I realise talking about vaccine death and injury is disinformation, antivaxxer talk, and must be stopped.
Triage is a dirty word nowadays, as is the "Fatman and trolley"-question. Students simply can't handle the level of abstract thought needed to first choose an answer and then analyse both the answer in detail, following the logic to see where it leads, and take a third person look at their own emotional responses and reactions.
It's not that they balk at the horror of a 'Sophie's choice', it's that they simply can't. They lack the intelligence, moral fortitude and humble humility before inevitable situations necessary to make such decisions, even in theory or exercises.
Instead, they deflect, rationalise, become hysteric or angered, or take refuge in buzz word salad as magic formulae to ward off "evil".
People with such limited intellects can ever only be followers as they have been conditioned with a virtually physical slave reflex.
You touch on important topics: ethics, the need to make hard decisions and (alas) to recognize that not all problems can be solved; they can (at best) be managed. Some situations are a Hobson's Choice, damned if you do, damned if you don't. In other words, no clear alternative. But the real sin is that many difficult issues that DO have optimal (not to say ideal!) solutions are not addressed simply because of social, political or other opposition to solving them.
Oh yes, and that a lot of our cherished democratic, moral and religious ideals are bullshit; or to be more fair perhaps, a lot of them quickly break down in extreme circumstances. Many moralists assert that the same morals, ethics and standards should apply in all times in all places. As a counter-argument, I would ask them if they would really demand that in a foxhole in combat as compared to a Sunday afternoon picnic in the park? I'd say not.
To borrow the analogy from the famous essay "Lifeboat Ethics" (short and highly recommended), most of our institutions in the West seem to honestly believe that all comers are welcome and equally entitled to be rescued and given a place on the lifeboat. The very idea that seating is limited and that trying to please everybody will kill everybody, is anathema and the mere mention of it is harshly punished. At least as applied to medicine, we may be approaching a point where the individual will figuratively be better off floating alone in his life vest or even treading water.
There are no solutions, just trade-offs.
Older generations had to struggle and strive for a better life, so had to make choices, some difficult and do things you didn’t like but had to. For example, your first job might be a real pig, low paid, but you did it because it was ‘a start’ while you gained experience and found something better. In those times there was no welfare and you were expected to work, not ponce off your parents… well, they wouldn’t let you nor could they afford to anyway. Nowadays, nobody must struggle or strive, or do a job they don’t like the State will provide or your nice middle class parents will.
I think you also describe critical analysis and this has to be taught - not as a subject per se but children early on have to learn to think about things, get more information, ask questions, make comparisons, comprehend and interpret what they see/hear. When I learnt English, essay writing was called ‘comprehension’, where we were given a poem, passage from a play, newspaper article or a picture and we had to write an essay about it. What the meaning was, the nuances or if pictorial what we thought was happening in the scene both from what we saw and could imagine. I recall we would be given the first line of a poem, then had to write a story based on that. As I understand it, that kind of teaching went out of fashion in the 1970s. Children no longer need to use their imagination, all they need to know and think is told them - don’t question, don’t dissent. Be obedient to the one source of ‘truth’. You can see how a ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ will fit right in with today’s generation.
As you note this kind of insanity is a longstanding history in medicine. What is different is that this "misinformation board" is overtly saying what has been somewhat well understood about medical boards: stay in line or there will be consequences to your ability to "practice".
And it's called "practice" for a reason, right?
Lat night we had dinner at a restaurant. I ordered a salad with my meal, as I often do (yes I know that is stuff is what food eats). When it arrived I scanned the table for a shaker of salt but none was to be found. So I had to ask for salt. "Oh we don't put out salt because it is bad for you" but being a friendly restaurant the brought be some anyway. This "it's bad for you" is a perfect example of not only medical organizations getting it wrong, but how difficult it is to kill the myths once adopted by the AMA. Anyone who cares to research the topic finds quickly that the AMA guideline for "low sodium" began with a story (and I mean story, not study) in the NEJM reprinted by the AMA which cited a study which claimed to find a correlation between reduced salt and reducing hypertension. Dig only one level into it, as in read the cited study, and you find the story gets it all wrong: the study, which observed dozens (!) of patients with a very specific type of hypertensive pathology found that lowering sodium "correlated" with a reduction in hypertension while it found this insignificant as it did nothing to address the underlying pathology of which hypertension was a symptom. Dig a bit further and you realize the "correlations" was in fact invalid, mathematically, as there were no controls. Subsequent studies that included larger samples and control groups subsequently found no correlation, even in that very specific population. Did NEJM or AMA change the recommendations based on the actual science? Not yet...almost 5 decades after.
In those 5 decades volumes of studies have shown the dangers of low-sodium diets. Blanket "recommendations" can be like that. Especially when based on flawed understanding of the source material. As a non-medical professional who knows how to read a scientific paper (and do the math that medical researchers seem unable to do so often), I am not a credible source for what is "right" but I can with some confidence point out the flaws in the math and inconsistencies in the logic.
How can you trust a professional organization such as the AMA, or state run medical boards, who continue to endorse "Body Mass Index" as a metric of health? The average athlete is "overweight" by BMI and a really healthy athlete is "obese" by there metric. I challenge those MDs who believe in this metric to walk up to an NFL player and tell them "you are obese". It makes no sense but that's what the "guideline" tells them.
You are so right about incrementalism. It is extremely powerful. What changed in 2020 was the size of the increments. 2021 abolished any pretense of subtle. I have for decades warned people that "reasonable restrictions" does not lead to a slippery slope: that is a cliff and once you step off it all feels fine until the last second when you hit bottom.
Spot on. What about all the warnings about "fat" that led to the low-fat food explosion (i.e. foods laced with sucrose). The correlation between fat in the diet and heart disease was the obsession of one pathologist who made up the data. As a real doctor seeing real people, I neither trust nor follow most guidelines. Medicine as a trusted profession is DEAD.
Initially ineptitude seemed like a reasonable explanation at the beginning of all this but it has become increasingly impossible to believe that now (unless incompetence can morph into something more sinister). I also think that for many normies, for lack of a better word, the 'pandemic' is over as they've been 'allowed' to resume somewhat of a normal existence . The problem is that they're not watching the slow viral creep of authoritarianism closely enough. The continued actions of these 'authorities' leaves little doubt of that in my estimation.
'Authority' is not synonymous with wisdom, knowledge or ethics. It's simply become a self-ascribed label fortyrants.
I'm not religious but they can all go to hell.
No, no. Hell no. This is not the way. We cannot live free like this. We are at war. They have unleashed a bioweapon upon us. We have not asked for this. And we cannot stand for it. The time to stand is now!
Are there practical examples of resistance that someone can share? It seems whatever we're doing is not enough because this evil is marching on and growing. Voting has been corrupted. Protesting can be hijacked. Petitions feel especially weak. How do we wrest the power away from the wicked?
I have labored and sacrificed for more than a dozen years on behalf of my severely disabled vaccine injured son, stood tall on my soapbox for over a decade, fought for political change for years, brought legal challenges, and did my "duty" to vote. So please understand that my question is a sincere one, looking for practical answers about what we can do together, collectively. I'm not looking for pontificating replies.
OK, I suggest you read this - print it out, read it, think about it, read it again - https://historyofsocialwork.org/1946_Alinsky/1971%20-%20Saul%20Alinsky%20-%20Rules%20for%20Radicals%20-%20OCR.pdf Same case for this - https://seasonedcitizenprepper.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Art-of-War-PDF-1.pdf - think of analogous situations. That's enough for a good start. The idea is to raise the costs - of whatever kind - for your opponent so they can no longer continue their actions.
"The general sentiment of mankind is that a man who will not fight for himself, when he has the means of doing so, is not worth being fought for by others, and this sentiment is just. For a man who does not value freedom for himself will never value it for others, or put himself to any inconvenience to gain it for others. Such a man, the world says, may lie down until he has sense enough to stand up. It is useless and cruel to put a man on his legs, if the next moment his head is to be brought against a curbstone.
A man of that type will never lay the world under any obligation to him, but will be a moral pauper, a drag on the wheels of society, and if he too be identified with a peculiar variety of the race he will entail disgrace upon his race as well as upon himself. The world in which we live is very accommodating to all sorts of people. It will cooperate with them in any measure which they propose; it will help those who earnestly help themselves, and will hinder those who hinder themselves. It is very polite, and never offers its services unasked. Its favors to individuals are measured by an unerring principle in this—viz., respect those who respect themselves, and despise those who despise themselves. It is not within the power of unaided human nature to persevere in pitying a people who are insensible to their own wrongs and indifferent to the attainment of their own rights. The poet was as true to common sense as to poetry when he said,
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow. ...
This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others."https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress/
Why are so many seemingly so downtrodden, then, when so much has been granted to them? To be sure, some victory was won by struggle, but (I would argue) the lion's share of their gains were by voluntary concession of the rulers who made good faith attempts to right previous moral wrongs. Yet by many measures, these people are worse off today on average than they were during the days of their claimed "oppression." Who, then, is the enemy today? Who now bashes the head against the curbstone when the old oppressor left the field long ago?
Could it be that, as someone mentioned above, that people do not value, or at least under-value, that which was given to them, as opposed to something they had to strive for, to at least earn, even if not necessarily physically fight to attain? Taking things for granted is a universal human failing.
Well, now you can sit anywhere you like on the bus and all the Confederate statues have been removed from the park. But as the bus rumbles down potholed streets, past decrepit tenements, block after block of shuttered or burnt-out businesses, vacant lots and crowds of rough-looking men idling on street corners, ask yourself "Are we really better off today than our grandparents or great-grandparents were in the bad old days?"
Clearly, the above examples dealt with the history of race relations. In my opinion, the issues raised have far broader applicability: the need for individual responsibility as well as (alas) the limitations upon what can actually be achieved.
Excellent! As applicable today as it was when first penned.
The four boxes of liberty.
"the greatest risk here is that we’ve become so acculturated to these endless assaults on our rights, reason, and sanity that they barely even register anymore."
True for many but those who do notice are acutely aware and growing in numbers as jab disasters mount and quality of life for most of the planet goes from bad to worse or free fall. In the end truth has a simplicity that resonates with reality and viral nature of its own, fingers crossed we're approaching a tipping point for greater good over profiteers.
“From your lips to God’s ears…..”