Last week, there was a story that, one would think, would be custom made for a heaping helping of not-so-Respectful Insolence. Unfortunately, life being life and with all the other affronts to science going on at the time, somehow I never got around to looking into the story, other than a brief mention in another post in my not-so-secret other blog. I must admit that it bothered me. Then a reader emailed me with information that adds background to the story and shows the harm prominent quacks, antimaskers, and antivaxxers can do behind the scenes, thus giving me an excuse to discuss the story, even if I’m over a week late doing it. I’m referring to the Centner Academy in Miami, which was in the news a lot a week and a half ago:
From the story the New York Times Tweeted by Del Bigtree:
A private school in the fashionable Design District of Miami sent its faculty and staff a letter last week about getting vaccinated against Covid-19. But unlike institutions that have encouraged and even facilitated vaccination for teachers, the school, Centner Academy, did the opposite: One of its co-founders, Leila Centner, informed employees “with a very heavy heart” that if they chose to get a shot, they would have to stay away from students.
Just wait, it gets worse. Much worse:
“Even among our own population, we have at least three women with menstrual cycles impacted after having spent time with a vaccinated person,” she wrote, repeating a false claim that vaccinated people can somehow pass the vaccine to others and thereby affect their reproductive systems. (They can do neither.) In the letter, Ms. Centner gave employees three options:Teachers who get the vaccine over the summer will not be allowed to return, the letter said, until clinical trials on the vaccine are completed, and then only “if a position is still available at that time” — effectively making teachers’ employment contingent on avoiding the vaccine.
- Inform the school if they had already been vaccinated, so they could be kept physically distanced from students;
- Let the school know if they get the vaccine before the end of the school year, “as we cannot allow recently vaccinated people to be near our students until more information is known”;
- Wait until the school year is over to get vaccinated.
And here is a followup that Centner posted to Instagram after the news stories about her first letter started garnering attention:
Ms. Centner does have a point about one thing. We do live in a bizarro world, but not for the reasons she thinks. It is indeed bizarre that wealthy antivaxxers can run a school in which they basically threaten their teachers with losing their jobs if they get vaccinated against a potentially deadly disease.
Leila Centner is promoting the antivaccine myth of “shedding”
Regular readers will know right away what Leila Centner was referring to: The antivaccine myth of “shedding.” It’s an old myth, now repurposed for COVID-19 vaccines, spread by antivax pediatrician Larry Palevsky. I deconstructed the myth in a highly “insolent” fashion, although there is a less “insolent” deconstruction as well. The Cliffs Notes version of this antivax trope is the claim that those vaccinated COVID-19 vaccines “shed” spike protein, the protein that gives coronaviruses their characteristic “crown” of “spikes” and facilitates the entry of the virus into the cell by binding to a receptor called ACE2.
Both mRNA-based vaccines (e.g., the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines) and adenovirus-based vaccines (e.g., the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines) enter cells and provide the template for them to synthesize spike protein. (The specific modifications of the coding sequences for spike protein produced varies somewhat according to the specific vaccine, but the details are not important to understand the basic concept of how these vaccines work.) Antivaxxers claim that the recently vaccinated can shed this protein, which then can make unvaccinated people who come into contact with the vaccinated sick and, in the case of women, mess up their menstrual periods or even cause miscarriages. Basically, it’s an attempt to “flip the script” and shift the onus of being contagious or a danger to others from the unvaccinated to the vaccinated. That the whole claim is utter BS matters not at all to antivaxxers, as the “shedding” narrative helps them view the vaccinated, not themselves, as the source of the problem that sickens people.
So the Centner Academy’s founders have basically bought into this nonsense completely, to the point of threatening teachers who had the temerity to be vaccinated against COVID-19 with the potential loss of their jobs, even if they wait until the school year is over to do so. Indeed, Leila Centner even doubled down when the news broke:
Ms. Centner directed questions about the matter to her publicist, who said in a statement that the school’s top priority throughout the pandemic has been to keep students safe. The statement repeated false claims that vaccinated people “may be transmitting something from their bodies” leading to adverse reproductive issues among women.
“We are not 100 percent sure the Covid injections are safe and there are too many unknown variables for us to feel comfortable at this current time,” the statement said.
The Centners were clearly echoing the classic denialist trope of the false appeal to the unknown as a reason not to do something, and it’s clear that Leila Center is deep into antivaccine pseudoscience.
The Centner Academy’s world of woo
If you want to see how deep into quackery, COVID-19 denial/minimization, antimask, and antivaccine pseudoscience and conspiracy theories she is, a quick perusal of Leila Centner’s Instagram feed shows it to be chock full of antivaccine and antimask memes and propaganda, for example:
Yes, this is a reposting of the myth that “shedding” of the spike protein from COVID-19 vaccines cause menstrual problems in women who come near those vaccinated against COVID-19.
And:
Yes, that’s Sayer Ji, husband of antivaxxer and all around quack Kelly Brogan and someone whom I’ve written about before. I’ll get back to this quackery power couple later in the post. These are far from the only quacks and grifters with whom the Centners consort, though:
Consistent with its leaders being steeped in woo, the Centner Academy promotes itself as a a “happiness school” focused on children’s mindfulness and emotional intelligence, and its website reveals a world of woo, as does this followup story in the NYT about what happened soon after Leila Centner took over the running of the school:
Ms. Centner once remarked that children should be kept away from windows, for fear of radiation from 5G cell towers, another baseless conspiracy theory. (The windows at the preschool now have electromagnetic frequency “shielding blockers,” Mr. Centner said in response to a question about the school’s 5G concerns.) The school opposed feeding children sugar and gluten, and required that students have different shoes for indoors and outdoors. Some parents said they thought such ideas odd but inoffensive — unlike what began to happen with the school’s response to the coronavirus.
A more recent article in the Miami Herald reveals the full depth of the quackery, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories behind the Centner Academy:
It began with the academy’s first open house when David and Leila Centner asked guests not just to wipe their feet but to swaddle the soles of their shoes in Saran wrap. And it continued with an impassioned pledge to mold students into “emotional ninjas,” and with the coverings over the windows to ward off potential radiation from 5G cell towers. (“No adverse health effect has been causally linked with exposure to wireless technologies,” according to the World Health Organization.) Then there were the non-disclosure agreements required of employees who wanted to quit or parents who wanted to withdraw their kids. And the efforts to persuade staff how to vote in the presidential election. And the invitation to anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to address the school community. And the constant exhortations against wearing masks.
Through it all, Leila Centner, who runs the school’s day-to-day operations, was omnipresent, and teachers feared she was watching them over an expansive camera system, one current and three former employees said.
It all sounds rather cult-like, doesn’t it? Indeed, if you read the news stories about the Centner Academy, one thing that will strike you right away is the fear, specifically the fear of teachers, current and former, as well as parents, to speak out. Few would go on the record. Several expressed fear of legal retaliation. (Remember the nondisclosure agreements?) Then there was this report about the parents and teachers:
They said they felt pressured into joining a WhatsApp group chat called “Knowledge is Key” where Centner shared conspiracy theory videos and social media links to bunk science, like a video by anti-vaccine advocate Rashid Buttar. (David Centner denied anyone was pressured to join the group.)
One teacher said Leila Centner told staffers to vote for Trump because “Biden wants to vaccinate everyone.”\
Rashid Buttar? Now that’s a blast from the past, the long past. I was writing about Rashid Buttar and his autism quackery very early in the history of this blog (as in 2005!). Does anyone remember Buttar’s butter, for instance? It was an ointment billed as a transdermal form of “chelation therapy,” a treatment common among autism quacks back in the day when the belief that mercury in the thimerosal preservative used in several childhood vaccines caused autism. (It does not, and thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines two decades ago.) Buttar, as you might recall, was (and still is) also very influential politically in North Carolina. When the North Carolina State Medical Baord tried to take away his medical license, he referred to its members as a “rabid dog” and got, in essence, a slap on the wrist. Indeed, he was instrumental in getting a law passed that prevented the state medical board from disciplining a physician for using non-traditional or experimental treatments unless it can prove they are ineffective or more harmful that prevailing treatments. He was (and is) a cancer quack, too, a very influential cancer quack. To be honest, I hadn’t thought much about Buttar recently, as he seemed to have faded into the background of all the other antivaxxers, quacks, and grifters (but I repeat myself), but apparently in the era of the pandemic he’s resurrected his career in grift.
But that’s not all. Leila Centner brought in other antivaxxers and quacks to discuss their antivaccine views and quackery:
In February, the Centners welcomed a special guest to speak to students: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the prominent antivaccine activist. (Mr. Kennedy was suspended from Instagram a few days later for promoting Covid-19 vaccine misinformation.) This month, the school hosted a Zoom talk with Dr. Lawrence Palevsky, a New York pediatrician frequently cited by anti-vaccination activists.
Dr. Palevsky, as you might recall, is an antivaccine pediatrician and a rising star in the antivaccine movement. He’s also one of the most prominent promoters of the whole “shedding” myth about COVID-19 vaccines, as I described last week. The connections go beyond just this, though:
The new documentary, Medical Racism: The New Apartheid, is co-produced by Children’s Health Defense (CHD), Centner Productions, Kevin Jenkins of the Urban Global Health Alliance, Rev. Tony Muhammed and author/historian Curtis Cost.
Directed by Academy Award nominee David Massey, the film chronicles the medical cartel’s long history of targeting minorities for unethical experiments, the acquiescence of regulatory agencies and medical ethicists, and the silence of physicians who allow these atrocities to continue.
Yes, you saw that correctly! David Centner’s company produced Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s new antivaccine propaganda movie that is cynically disguised as a documentary on medical racism. I haven’t watched the movie itself (I refuse to enrich RFK Jr and will wait until I find it streamed for free), but the trailer makes it very clear that this is a movie designed specifically to spread fear, uncertainty, doubt, and conspiracy theories regarding vaccines among Black people. In fact, David Centner himself served as executive producer for the movie:
And there was more:
“She was always talking about doctors that seemed fringey. And there were all these weird emails: Are masks really good for youth’s mental progress?” said Greg Tatar, the parent of a first-grader. “They screamed Republican, Trump, anti-COVID. All the weird news that you would see between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. on Fox.
And the school itself makes its antivaccine views a selling point that it brags about on its website:
While vaccine regulations were established to help protect all children, the unknown risks associated with vaccinations might have you seriously considering whether these regulations should be upheld. There is a popular sentiment in the United States that the excessive mandatory vaccines are potentially damaging to children’s health. In the past 20 years, U.S. statistics demonstrate that children are experiencing doubled rates of Attention Deficit Disorder and learning disabilities, doubled rates of asthma, tripled rates of diabetes, and a rise in autism in every U.S. state at the rate of 600 percent.
Yes, and we’ve also seen a massive rise in Internet, cell phone, and social media use during that time, too, not to mention childhood obesity. Funny how antivaxxers rarely, if ever, think to try to correlate those with the increases in prevalance of these health issues among children. To them, it’s always about the vaccines. Always. And:
Before we, as a Miami-based international school, mandate anything that could possibly harm your children, studies need to be conclusive as to whether vaccinations lead to various health disorders. Families and children should have medical freedom. Students should not be forced to endure these immunizations until there are more significant long-term studies and examinations of the various implications and side effects of these drugs.
Leaving aside the new COVID-19 vaccines, the vaccines in the current recommended childhood vaccination schedule have been extensively tested in clinical trials and epidemiological studies. The fact that the Centner Academy would make this part of its marketing tells me that there is no amount of evidence that would convince her that vaccines are safe. The above paragraph is straight-up antivaccine rhetoric of the sort I’ve been dealing with for two decades.
Many are the times I’ve received criticism for my longstanding antipathy towards so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM), now more commonly referred to as “integrative medicine,” that “integrates” pseudoscience and quackery with science-based medicine. A common thread in the pushback against criticism of CAM is a simple question, “What’s the harm?” Indeed, some of the parents, even those who were uncomfortable with many aspects of the Centner Academy, expressed a version of the same sort of viewpoint:
Despite Centner’s eccentricities, Tatar had been pleased with the education his son was getting, with chiropractors, mindfulness coaches and a personal chef preparing organic, gluten- and sugar-free meals. Yelling and time-outs were banned. The school prioritized emotional well-being, language immersion — in Mandarin, French, Spanish, Italian and German — and physical health and nutrition.
This is Greg Tatar, the same man who expressed concern about some of the “fringey doctors.” I’ll give him credit mainly for drawing a line in the sand when Leila Centner started using the antivaccine myth of “shedding” to prevent the teachers at her school from being vaccinated against the deadly disease causing a pandemic that’s killed millions, nearly 600K in the US alone. I have a hard time giving him a lot of credit for much else.
The point is that alternative medicine is very much associated with antivaccine views. I’ve written time and time and time again how, for instance, naturopathy, homeopathy, and chiropractic tend to be antivaccine to the core. Indeed, even the “respectable” form of alternative medicine, “integrative medicine,” in which modalities like naturopathy, homeopathy, chiropractic, and all manner of woo are “integrated” with conventional medicine are prone to tolerating antivaccine views, as was demonstrated at the Cleveland Clinic a few years ago. Basically, when you tolerate quackery, antivaccine views almost inevitably find their way in as well, even in “respectable” academic circles, no matter how much the academics who embrace “integrating” alternative medicine modalities into their practices try to deny it. The Centner Academy is just one more example of this phenomenon.
The quacks strike back to defend the letter
I’ll finish this post by relating a bit of what my reader told me, as this reader appears to have knowledge of the situation. (Don’t worry, I didn’t post anything here that I couldn’t verify independently.) Basically, the quack power couple of Sayer Ji and Kelly Brogan, whom I mentioned above, are very much supporters of the Centner Academy. I hadn’t been aware that the Ji-Brogan quackery duo lived in Miami, but it all makes sense now. (Where else would they live other than Florida, except maybe in Texas or California?) In any event, I’m guessing that these two are the main source of the disinformation that is flowing from Leila Centner to the faculty and students of her school and from David Centner through his movie with RFK Jr.
Indeed, Sayer Ji is strongly defending the Centner Academy on his website GreenMedInfo, with a panoply of antivaccine tropes, both “classics” and “classics” repurposed for COVID-19. For example, there’s the Nuremberg gambit:
Whereas the mainstream media and government health authorities have been dogmatically pushing the unequivocal narrative that the Covid-19 (and all) vaccines are “safe and effective” a priori, it is undeniable that the Covid-19 vaccines are presently only approved for distribution to the public under an Emergency Use Authorization, in lieu of proper clinical safety and efficacy trial data being available, and which are not estimated to be completed until April 2023 for the Pfizer vaccine.2
This makes Covid-19 vaccines, by definition, experimental, as Leila Centner has repeatedly offered as an explanation for her precautionary stance as to their unintended, adverse effects they may have to the health and well-being of her school staff, faculty, children and larger community.
Human medical experimentation, as defined by the Nuremberg code of medical ethics (1947), must not only be voluntary, but the participant needs to be fully informed of both the risks and benefits, in order to be able to give their full legal consent. Also, if the medical experimenter has reason to believe an intervention may cause harm, disability, or death he or she must suspend the experiment immediately.
No, this does not “by definition” make COVID-19 vaccines “experimental,” unless you mean by legal definition. Scientifically, they are no longer experimental, having been tested in phase 1, 2, and 3 studies involving tens of thousands of people and administered to nearly a quarter of a billion people in the US alone. Antivaxxers do so love to conflate legal concepts with scientific concepts in order to spread fear about vaccines, such as falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. Unsurprisingly, Ji also trots out VAERS reports, implying causation where none has bene shown. (Come to think of it, antivaxxers have been ramping up their pointing to VAERS so much lately that I think I might need to write an update to my post from February about the misuse of VAERS by antivaxxers to attack COVID-19 vaccines.)
Next up, Ji adds a wrinkle to the “shedding” claim, a new conspiracy theory recently promoted by antivaxxers. It’s a conspiracy theory based on a cherry picked and misunderstood (or lied about) passage in the the clinical protocol for the phase 3 trial of the Pfizer vaccine, specifically this passage:
8.3.5. Exposure During Pregnancy or Breastfeeding, and Occupational Exposure
Exposure to the study intervention under study during pregnancy or breastfeeding and occupational exposure are reportable to Pfizer Safety within 24 hours of investigator awareness.
8.3.5.1. Exposure During Pregnancy
An EDP occurs if:
- A female participant is found to be pregnant while receiving or after discontinuing study intervention.
- A male participant who is receiving or has discontinued study intervention exposes a female partner prior to or around the time of conception.
- A female is found to be pregnant while being exposed or having been exposed to study intervention due to environmental exposure. Below are examples of environmental exposure during pregnancy:
- A female family member or healthcare provider reports that she is pregnant after having been exposed to the study intervention by inhalation or skin contact.
- A male family member or healthcare provider who has been exposed to the study intervention by inhalation or skin contact then exposes his female partner prior to or around the time of conception.
About which Ji claims:
Clearly, the Pfizer mRNA vaccine protocol design reveals that concerns for how the vaccinated may adversely affect the health, and even reproductive outcomes, of the unvaccinated simply by being within physical proximity, are being taken extremely seriously by the manufacturer of the vaccine itself. In light of this, Leila Centner’s expressed concerns quoted at the beginning of this article are, in fact, backed by the most authoritative document we have on the experimental vaccine, and the nature of the human experiments being conducted on their behalf.
No. The protocol shows nothing of the sort, and Leila Centner’s expressed concerned are not backed by the “most authoritative document we have on the experimental vaccine.” I’m tempted at this point to ask why, then, we do not see similar passages in the clinical trial protocol for the Moderna, J&J, or other COVID-19 vaccines. You know that if such passages existed and could be misrepresented as supporting the claim that the vaccine developers were concerned about “shedding,” antivaxxers would be quitting them too.
Those who read clinical trial protocols all the time will recognize this as fairly standard verbiage found in many clinical trials of investigational agents. It must also be understood that the “study intervention” means the vaccine, not “shed” spike protein, as this convenient Twitter thread explains:
Dr. Vincent Iannelli also has a good explanation about how antivaxxers are misrepresenting this passage in the Pfizer clinical trial protocol.
Now here’s where Ji actually interested me a little. He’s come up with yet one more scientifically nonsensical biological “mechanism” by which spike proteins can “shed”:
The third major substantiating factor behind identifying the potential harm the vaccinated may have on the unvaccinated concerns the discovery of so-called horizontal information transfer within biological systems mediated by extracellular vesicles (EVs), which include a virus-like phenomenon known as microvessicle shedding and/or exosome-mediated transfer of nucleic acids. This falls within the category of epigenetics, which the apologists and shills for the mRNA vaccines’ purported safety and efficacy conveniently ignore in order to make their claim that was debunked in 1970 with the discovery of the enzyme reverse transcriptase.
Ah, yes, exosomes. First germ theory denying antivaxxers falsely invoked them as a means of claiming that SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, doesn’t actually exist. (Exosomes were being mistaken for the virus, don’t you know?) Now Sayer Ji is claiming that exosomes are the means by which mRNA-based vaccines can either permanently alter your DNA by transferring nucleic acids from cell to cell or allow you to “shed” viral components:
For instance, it is theoretically feasible that a vaccine recipient’s cells expressing COVID-19 spike protein as a result of transfection with mRNA from a Covid-19 vaccine may secrete microvesicles containing components “originally alien to the cell, such as proteins and nucleic acids that are transiently or constitutively expressed via plasmid or viral vector. “7 These microvessicles, like viruses, and other extracellular vessicles known as exosomes, can be transmitted to other individuals (inter-individual transmission) through both normal or diseased physiological processes.8
Whenever a quack like Sayer Ji or Kelly Brogan cites an article, always go to the source. The first paper was published in 2013 and discusses exosomes in the context of parasite-host relationships. It is about parasites exchanging proteins and genetic materials with the cells of their hosts through exosomes, while the second paper reviews how exosomes can participate in infection through infected cells communicating with uninfected cells via exosomes. Let’s just say that the word “theoretical” in Ji’s article does one hell of a lot of heavy lifting here, as neither paper really supports the notion that spike protein made by recipient cells through COVID-19 vaccines can be extruded in exosomes that can find their way to other people. Remember what exosomes are! They’re nothing more than tiny lipid bilayers derived from cell membrane. They need an aqueous, buffered solution to continue to exist, just like cells. Here’s an example passage:
It is currently believed that exosomes can act as transmitters of pathogen-related molecules that help spread the infection in body microenvironments. Regarding bacteria, Staphylococcus aureus-derived exosomes have been reported to contain the bacterial pore forming molecule α-toxin, therefore delivering this bacterial virulence factor to distant cells (42).
See the word “microenvironment”? That means small areas within the organism that’s infected, nothing more. Even if mRNA-based vaccines did lead to exosomes transporting mRNA and/or spike protein outside of cells to fuse with other cells, that would not provide a mechanism for “shedding.” Seriously, either Sayer Ji needs a remedial course in basic cell and molecular biology, or he is intentionally deceiving, knowing that his audience will be very impressed by his science-y-sounding verbiage. (That is, after all, his shtick.) Take your pick.
It all jibes now, though. The reason that Leila Centner wrote that letter warning her staff about being vaccinated is because she has drunk deeply of the quackery, COVID-19 denial, and antimask and antivaccine pseudoscience promoted by Sayer Ji, Kelly Brogan, Larry Palevsky, RFK Jr., Christiana Northrup (whom I forgot to mention), and no doubt several others.
I will conclude with a bit of delicious irony from the Miami Herald story:
Mark Richard, an attorney who represents the United Teachers of Dade and United Faculty of Miami Dade College, said a policy that bars employees from taking the vaccine could violate the Americans with Disabilities Act, as it interferes with the right to get medical treatment, especially for employees who are at higher risk.
“It would be like a cancer patient not getting chemotherapy,” he said.
Remember a tactic by antimaskers last summer in which they claimed that they could not be forced to wear a mask in stores, restaurants, and other buildings open to the public because of a combination of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), which, or so they claimed, meant that business owners had to let them in without a mask, and HIPAA, the health privacy law, which (or so antivaxxers claimed) meant that business owners could not even ask antimaskers what their “supposed medical condition” was that precluded mask wearing? It was a trope based on an utter misunderstanding of the ADA, a law that states that “reasonable accommodations” need to be made, which most shopkeepers were doing anyway through providing, for example, curbside pickup. (Also, HIPAA only covers specific health care providing entities, such as clinics, doctors, pharmacies, medical device companies, etc., not restaurants and other non-healthcare-related businesses.) I just find it delicious that antimask antivaxxers might be “hoist with their own petard,” so to speak, through lawsuits based on the ADA.
My amusement aside about that one tidbit, I do remain alarmed at how easily utter conspiracy cranks can basically do what they want, as long as they are rich and politically connected. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly), the Centners are friends with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis:
Because of course they are. As the great Charles Pierce would say, “This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.”
164 replies on “The Centner Academy: A private school run by wealthy COVID-19 conspiracy theorists”
Ms. Centner was on the Highwire yesterday. I didn’t watch all or most, but the little I watched for this – she prided herself on not following public health guidance and not trying to protect the children from COVID. Interestingly, she doesn’t ask vaccinated parents to stay away, which suggests to me she may be more cynical than sincere in the expressed concern.
It looks like a publicity stunt to me, personally, but maybe it will have the few not-quite-gone teachers that work for her, if there are any, find a better workplace.
Also, Vaxopedia reviewed the Kennedy movie, if anyone wants that. https://www.google.com/amp/s/vaxopedia.org/2021/03/13/a-review-of-robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-medical-racism-film/amp/
So someone has finally created the Special Snowflake School that is anti-public health. I wonder if they care if the cafeteria staff practice good food safety when they prepare the “organic, gluten- and sugar-free meals.”
BWAHAHA ! The kettle calling the pot black ! Funny how mentally ill people accuse others of what is wrong with them !
I can’t see how the Centners have any legal right to know the vaccination status of their staff. If they claim they have that right, then someone needs to throw back at them that they are the same people who don’t even want schools to be allowed to list their overall vaccination rates because somehow that violates the privacy of anti-vaxxers (which reminds me of the joke: How do you know if someone is anti-vax? A: They’ll tell you).
That one is not actually a barrier, just like employers who impose a vaccine mandate can ask for the vaccination status. You’re right that it’s inconsistent with anti-vaccine opposition to employers doing this the other way (or other. Even employees that are not anti-vaccine may – reasonably – be nervous about sharing medical information with employer), but it’s legal.
Geez, that’s diabolical that the Centner school nurse could use access the Florida IIS registry to check staff members for COVID-19 vaccination and use that to terminate them…and Florida requires proof of ID to prove you are a resident (or seasonal resident) to get the vaccine, so unless someone wants to go through the hassle and legal risk of generating a fake ID, they can’t hide their vaccine status from Centner.
Which is why I’m unvaccinated.
Actually, I believe the employer has the right to inquire, but the employee is not obligated to offer that information.
Don’t forget that the rule of law (at least when society is not off the rails like it is now) is based on reasonableness.
You sure seem frightened. This was the longest blather and attempt to discredit and bully I’ve seen in awhile. The Centeners really are pathetic aren’t they? Too bad liberals love to sing the praises of righteous victims like George Floyd but discredit brilliant entrepreneurs with vision and the ability to think for themselves outside of the scared sheep culture you and the media would like to continue to foster in America.
If someone actually wanted to sue, btw, under hoist on their own petard, they could turn the antivaccine EUA argument – that EUA prohibits mandates – against this couple and make many of the same arguments against their prohibition. I doubt anyone will.
Look who made a reply to that Twitter thread by DelBigree:
https://twitter.com/noorchashm/status/1390106033771753476
If you go down further, it gets more amusing.
“99.8%” survival rate.
Every time I hear that number it gets higher. If they have any source at all other than Facebook, it’s usually followed by “in healthy people.” Which is pointless because you can get any number you like by ramping up your definition of healthy people. Co-factors don’t even mean someone is unhealthy. Being black is a co-factor, maybe because black people get poorer health care even when you take socioeconomic status into account.
Plus ignoring the high rate of lingering health issues in people it doesn’t kill. Because, you know, limited lung capacity is a walk in the park.
Medical racism is real. I highly suspect ORAC partakes, whether unconciously or not.
Here are the facts
Unconcious white supremacy kills BIPOCs
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32817561/
its called Unconcious Bias in general
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_bias_training
ORAC attacks genius BIPOCs like Bility, Mercola and Sayer Ji for fun, thus making STEM unsafe for BIPOCs, who are already underrepresented, when it should be a safe space, which then leads to more dead BIPOCs in the future acording to (1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-space
Take Sayer Yi and exosomes. actually Sayer Yi is looking in the right direction, though maybe wrong on some details since its cutting edge science.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/coronavirus/1612515689-reports-coronavirus-medicine-developed-in-israel-96-effective
As you can see exosome based antivirals are even more effective than vaccines. Its no coincidence Israel has no more Covid. ORAC should realize that “other ways of knowing” is just as valid as ” western science”.
Orac doesnt tell us mortality/morbidity data about his patients divided by race, to confirm that he is not racist, probably because “he doesnt see color”. Actually not seeing color is racist. He needs to check the race of his patients and when its BIPOC, take extra care. Only then he would be anti-racist.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Antiracist-Ibram-Kendi/dp/0525509283
No BLM banners or rainbow flags on his blog. Seriously?
Toxic culture emulated by his readers(Ill save this for later, its too big a topic) who copy ORACs style of attacking others for fun. Just know that men are not only the biggest perpetrators of toxic masculinity, but also its biggest victims. ORAC is a victim as well. In any case the current situation is dysfunctional.
P.S. Ivermectin is a miracle drug.
Poe?
If so, brilliantly done.
Billity says things that a high school physics student should find ridiculous, so much about him being a genius.
Your Israel link says absolutely nothing, try find a link that actually says something.
As for ivermectin, why somebody thinks antihelminth medication is effective against viruses. Perhaps you can show us a clinical trial with miraculous results ?
COVID deaths by race are here:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-race-ethnicity.html
It is not pretty, indeed.
I must be out of touch — who the f*ck is “Billity”?
I’m starting to think that Q actually suffers from White Saviour syndrome. Bility was the guy who proposed that Covid was caused by the Earth’s magnetic field. Apparently, saying that this is rubbish is racist.
No, no, the magnetic field is our protection. It needs to be stronger. Corona viruses come from corona mass ejections from the sun. I propose super giant Tesla coils located at the north and south geomagnetic poles to repel CME particles that slither into the troposphere by overwhelming the geomagnetic field within the auroral ovals. The recent upsurge in CME is the sun aggressively fighting back against the accelerating vaccine rollout.
@spectator
Its obvious medical science need to be decolononized. There is definately some Duning-Kruger effect present here, if you think im joking. Its not my opinion, its scientific consensus, I have references.
@Aarno, I thought you Germans learned something from history, obviously you didnt.
You cant spell Bilitys name correctly, like Tim, while you know what helminths are. How can you claim to be anti-racist? You are exercising power from unearned privileges to oppress BIPOCs with microaggressions, which is hate speech..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression
The pandemic of racism is a bigger threat than the pandemic of covid
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/01/867200259/protests-over-racism-versus-risk-of-covid-i-wouldn-t-weigh-these-crises-separate?
you should take a cue from this MD and take a moment to learn where you stand regarding your privileges.
https://twitter.com/paimadhu/status/1326602594052153344?s=20
Somehow ORAC has hours for his blog posts and you for comments, but none for learning about the science of racism and white supremacy. It doesnt add up. Youre not antiracism, and neither is ORAC
P.S. Ivermectin is very effective (pdf)
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FLCCC-Ivermectin-in-the-prophylaxis-and-treatment-of-COVID-19.pdf
notice that ORAC is unable to write anything negative about this miracle cure, despite being a shill. dug around and found this proof.
http://thesciencepost.com/big-pharma-hides-cure-for-cancer-again/
I should have expected his name is David, many unearned privileges come with it.
Instead, if you truly want to understand Bilitys pain, try naming your kid Adolph.
https://twitter.com/isabelzawtun/status/1344418319219236864?s=20
@Numberwang
Why do you assume Im white? Because I speak correct English? That is normalizing whiteness and perpetuates stereotypes.
Ivermectin doesn’t work. Just because I haven’t written a blog post about it doesn’t mean I “can’t.” It just means that I’m so bored by yet another “miracle drug” with no evidence for efficacy being promoted by hucksters and conspiracy theorists that I haven’t been able to motivate myself to go all “insolent” on it. In other words, be very careful what you wish for. I might get less bored.
@Q-ball A typo is not racism. Nor is the statement that Bility says things that any high school physics student should know false. I noticed that you did not mention any of them.
Leave me out of this, bald guy. Also, cool story, bro. Especially about the worms.
@Orac
Suits me just fine. I dont really care for ivermectin, Just checking if the topic of medical racism made you uncomfortable, looks like it did, you would rather talk about a boring topic like Ivermectine.
I actually recently warmed up to MRNA, seeing as its going to cure cancer and was invented by women. Why do you keep these facts secret, Orac? Makes me thinks racism isnt the only problem here, I have seen how your readers copy your style and treat Aelxa, poor woman. I cant imagine how you would treat others like LGBTQIA+, jews, transgenders, muslims, or the disabled.
https://www.thepaleomom.com/podcast-covid-19-mrna-vaccine/
I was thinking to myself and wondering why paleomom did a better job than you promoting the science. Obviously you dont collaborate for podcasts or write guest posts, your style is to attack because of internal toxic masculinity, so ofcourse other blogs wouldnt accept that. That must have lead to me not trusting your “science”. On the other hand, paleomom is about promoting science instead of attacking hardworking BIPOCs for fun. Shes simply a better scientist and communicator than you.
@Aarno
Thats not how racism works, its definately not okay to misspell Bilitys name. If you are so bad at spelling, Why can you spell helminth correctly though? Its so suspicious of both you and Tim.
https://medium.com/the-vocal/say-my-name-why-mispronouncing-and-joking-about-poc-names-is-racial-microaggression-76c2ce58f316
Secondly what Bility wrote is not important to make a case for racism by Orac, all that matters is that according to the wheel of privilege Orac is an oppressor, Bility is oppressed, and ORAC attacked Bility, therefore Orac is racist. Even if Bility wrote some random nonsense on purpose, Orac would still be racist for simply attacking Bility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_race_theory
ORAC has a blog read by thousands of scientists while Bility is a scientist and Orac uses his blog to attack BIPOC scientists, who are underrepresented in STEM. Bility has no blog to attack white scientists, why is that? Obviously Orac has enjoyed many structural advantages while growing up which allows him to spend much time on his blog, while Bility needs to learn things like how to protect himself from death by police, which costs time and energy. So he does not spare the effort to attack white scientists for fun. And even if he did an oppressed attacking oppressors would not be racist, because the oppressor has many advantages to protect itself.
By now reading this it should all make you very uncomfortable. Theres a good reason for that, you two are under the influence of whiteness. Im gonna post some more references below for you to learn.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culturally-speaking/202006/what-is-whiteness
It also explains why black pride is not racist, but white pride is.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/magazine/white-fragility-robin-diangelo.html
Your western science that you used to attack Bility is itself a product of an unfair broken system. So, you cannot use western science to attack “other ways of knowing”, its incoherent.
It makes sense that all of you are unaware, especially surgeons like ORAC. They think they are anti-racist, while being racist (Duning-Kruger). Orac, do you know what the American College of Surgeons is?
https://www.facs.org/publications/bulletin-brief/020221/pulse
In conclusion, do you all think black lives matter? Where is the banner? I still have unposted references, but the comment is already too long..
Poe.
@Q-ball I could spell helminth correctly, because I have read it quite often (all this COVID woo.) Not so Bility. As I said, real issue is does magnetic field cause COVID.
I did Google Scholar search for Moses T Bility. He has many well cited papers here
Q is Bility, right? Seems likely.
@ Q-Ball
“@Aarno, I thought you Germans learned something from history, obviously you didnt.”
You’re dumb. Syvänen seems much more Swedish than it seems to be German.
And the germans have learned a few things from history. They’re not murdering black kids French-African soldiers had with German women in the Rheinland anymore.
Go on. Keep lecturing me and us on racism. I’ll explain apartheid to you next. And how you deal with it:
@Aarno
Looks like youre victim blaming to me. that woman should not have wore a skirt so she wouldnt have been assaulted, this BIPOC family should not have moved to an area with KKK, so he wouldnt have had a burning cross, Bility should not do innovative research… because…etc…
The facts are the facts.
Orac and a bunch of other white male bloggers got together to attack a single BIPOC because he stepped out of line. Actual lynching is illegal, why is virtual lynching legal? Then ORACs minions attacked his name and culture.
So it does not matter at all what Bility did. What matters is the systemic racism and Bilitys newly acquired PTSD. Imagine his stress, a pandemic that kills more BIPOCs, many more death by cops, then a virtual lynch party.
There are different ways to disagree with scientific research. Why use a cannonball to attack a BIPOC? ORAC attacks racist multimillionaires on this blog (its good), but why lump Bility in with them? Hes a hardworking BIPOC without fallback family money like ORAC or millionaires if his career is damaged. Oracs bad day is if this wordpress bugs out, whats a bad day for Bility? He could have contacted Bility and become his lifelong friend instead of attacking him, then become an ally to BIPOCs everywhere. But why doesnt ORAC want to have BIPOC friends and be a hero I dont know.
This can cause a chilling effect on entrance of BIPOCs in STEM. Why bother to enter STEM, its hard work, for this? I have already shown that can cause more BIPOC death in hospitals.
Here is the effect on vaccination
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/esperanza-has-been-a-success-at-vaccinating-latinos-but-black-philadelphians-still-lag-behind/ar-BB1gyL86
Please wont you and others listen to the Lancet?
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30536-2/fulltext
Do you want ORACs blog to be the only place where structural racism is not taken seriously? The nail that sticks out?
I have alrdy posted ACS and AMA thoughts on this.
@F68.10
Why am I expected to know the difference between German and Swedish, do you know the difference between a Kenyan and an Ethiopian? Why do our keyboards have the alphabet, when more than 50% of the world speaks non-alphabetic languages??
Please wont you listen to the president?
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/28/biden-calls-white-supremacy-terrorism-speech-congress/4884034001/
You dont want to be a terrorist do you?
Check out the benefits of diversity in STEM here
https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.01507
Know that love is more powerful than hate. We should love our family and neighbours alike.
Lets decolonize math together. You want to be a hero, correct?
@ Q-Ball
“Looks like youre victim blaming to me. that woman should not have wore a skirt so she wouldnt have been assaulted, this BIPOC family should not have moved to an area with KKK, so he wouldnt have had a burning cross, Bility should not do innovative research… because…etc… The facts are the facts.”
The fact is that you’re calling black people BIPOC. Now, OK, you’re heels deep in this racism debate. Keep in mind that black people do not necessarily appreciate the BIPOC label. Greg Clarke resigned after having called some black persons a “coloured footballers”. BIPOC is just as ridiculous a word. Black people are black. There is nothing wrong with calling black people black. Calling them coloured is a bit more problematic as it’s a racial category that had administrative discriminatory value. As is BIPOC. Black is way clearer, and black people own that word. On the other hand, in South Africa, there are people who are legitimately called couloured and own it as a category. The most racially diverse population on the planet, as a matter of fact.
“Orac and a bunch of other white male bloggers got together to attack a single BIPOC because he stepped out of line.”
Bullshit.
“Actual lynching is illegal, why is virtual lynching legal?”
Because that’s called debate. Debate in the era of Internet, in a world full of idiots and cranks that need to be called out. Because truth matters. Truth matters much more than your ridiculous guerrila that twists words in order not to deal with facts.
“So it does not matter at all what Bility did.”
Oh ? Now people want a free pass ? Won’t happen.
“What matters is the systemic racism and Bilitys newly acquired PTSD. Imagine his stress, a pandemic that kills more BIPOCs, many more death by cops, then a virtual lynch party.”
You’ve clearly never been abused, pal. You wouldn’t be speaking like this.
“But why doesnt ORAC want to have BIPOC friends and be a hero I dont know.”
He’s already doing way enough to earn his place in paradise. If it exists.
“This can cause a chilling effect on entrance of BIPOCs in STEM.”
Bullshit.
“Why bother to enter STEM, its hard work, for this?”
Because it’s worth it.
“We now call upon our colleagues, particularly influencers in high-income countries, to meaningfully engage with critical race theory, a transdisciplinary intellectual movement to understand and disrupt systemic racism.”
Look. The world is big. There is much to do. 2 billion people do not have access to clean water. Human trafficking still exists. Slavery still exists. The first step before solving thes issues is to get people to think a bit more straight than they usually do. And that includes you, pal.
“Do you want ORACs blog to be the only place where structural racism is not taken seriously? The nail that sticks out?”
Well start dealing with things that matter very sternly:
And support the erasure of Sudan’s debt as they try to move towards democracy as they attempt to secularise their state by stripping Shariah law out of it legal foundations.
Get down to real real real business. And stop whining.
BTW: I hate preachers.
@ Q-Ball
“Why am I expected to know the difference between German and Swedish, do you know the difference between a Kenyan and an Ethiopian?”
First of all because you played the nazi gambit on a Swede. That’s lame. Utterly lame. Utterly, utterly, utterly lame.
And as a matter of fact I do: I do know the difference between Kenyan, Ethiopian, Tanzanian, Chichewas in Malawi, Tswana people, north Sotho, south Sotho, Xhosa, Zulu, I’m fairly well aware of the namibian genocide, still know Lesotho’s national anthem by heart, and for a white guy I can do the click in the Qongqothwane song fairly well…
It’s not quite my culture, but it very obviously is more mine than yours. The clicks are less vocal in Sesotho than in the Xhosa language, though…
“Why do our keyboards have the alphabet, when more than 50% of the world speaks non-alphabetic languages??”
Because the world has been negotiating its writing system since it came into existence a few millenia ago. And it’s still evolving. Why do you ask stupid questions ??
“Please wont you listen to the president?”
He’s not my president. He’s just man with two balls and a arse hole, like anyone else.
“You dont want to be a terrorist do you?”
I already have official documents stating that I’m a terrorist. Thank you, pal: I do not need your help. I doing fairly good on my own on this front.
“Check out the benefits of diversity in STEM here”
Dumb ass. I grew up in Africa…
“Know that love is more powerful than hate.”
Nope. Love is a manipulative tool used by people like you to cower other people into shame. Won’t work on me.
“We should love our family and neighbours alike.”
I hate everyone. And I’m proud of it.
“Lets decolonize math together. You want to be a hero, correct?”
Nope. Do not want to be a hero. But I’m a mathematician. There’s no need to “decolonize” maths. As a matter of fact, dealing with a lot of early 20th century maths happens to require German, and documents are still not translated in English. Lots of worthwile work in Russian or Polish that still are not translated. Or documents in French. But there is a need, say, in Lesotho, to find words in their own language so that they get a way to own the scientific concepts better than they do now. But that kind of real work has nothing to do with the kind of “decolonial” nonsense you’re pushing on issues you absolutely do not understand.
That kind of feel-goodism you’re pushing is inane. You’re antagonizing people. For nothing. Crawl back under your rock.
@Q-ball Bility was “attacked” because he said that COVID 19 is caused by magnetic fields. How many times I must repeat this ?
@F68.10
Why are you so angry and fragile?
You dont fool me. First you tell me to go away, then you follow me around trying to get my attention, its obvious youre like a kid trying to find a good role model.
But Im telling you, The guys on this blog are no good, theyre strangers, not your buddies, you need to talk to real friends/family in the real world.
You need to stop copying the toxic masculinity around here and you need to stop oppressing me, Bility and Doshi.
You need to grow up and stop pretending youre a terrorist. it does not improve your social status or make you look cool.
But I do think you have some issues, the first step is to get in touch with your feelings. I suggest finding the nearest cry closet,
which is a recent innovation that should help you alot.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/university-of-utah-cry-closet-lets-students-just-let-it-all-out-during-finals/
The second step is to find a therapist that is well versed in social justice, I suspect your current one is not very good
https://counseling-csj.org/
Here is some science you can read up on to see why
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/j.2161-1939.2009.tb00076.x
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29217847/
Third, I will dismantle your arguments.
First of, debate, nope you cant use it, a professor would know
https://twitter.com/ProfSunnySingh/status/1309077604838842371?s=20
Note that I post many scientific references everytime I make a comment, yet the responses I get often lack any sources.
Wheres the debate? Theres just oppression and attack on me, because Im nonwhite. Nobody ever tries to engage with the science on racism I post,
by posting science that disproves it, because it cannot be refuted, and they know Im right.
about math
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs42330-020-00080-z
https://www.academia.edu/38626567/The_Soft_Bigotry_of_Low_Expectations_And_Its_Role_in_Maintaining_White_Supremacy_through_Mathematics_Education
CMI(Critical Math Inquiry) challenges systems of power and oppression, such as white supremacy, that exist in and operate through mathematics education
https://equitablemath.org/
Why arent you working together with an oppressed mathematician? Like a woman or minority? Holism > reductionism. When everybody is a reductionist, the low hanging fruit is holism,
and reductionism becomes slim pickings.
@ Q-Ball
“Why are you so angry and fragile?”
Angry ? Because I feel like it against people like you. “Fragile” ? I do not see what you mean. I’m sick if that’s what you want to know. And annoyed by you.
“You dont fool me. First you tell me to go away, then you follow me around trying to get my attention, its obvious youre like a kid trying to find a good role model.”
I’m not fooling you: I’m opposing your nonsense. Like I did with Aelxa, Greg, and other people on other blogs.
“But Im telling you, The guys on this blog are no good, theyre strangers, not your buddies, you need to talk to real friends/family in the real world.”
No. 100% No. Do not want friends. And do not care about family. Mind your own business, preacher.
“You need to stop copying the toxic masculinity around here and you need to stop oppressing me, Bility and Doshi.”
Oppressing you ? Give me a break.
“You need to grow up and stop pretending youre a terrorist. it does not improve your social status or make you look cool.”
That’s what is in my records. I do not care if it makes me look “cool”.
“But I do think you have some issues, the first step is to get in touch with your feelings.”
Oh ! You’re playing Nurse Ratched, now ? Group Therapy ?
“I suggest finding the nearest cry closet, which is a recent innovation that should help you alot.”
Get lost.
“The second step is to find a therapist that is well versed in social justice, I suspect your current one is not very good.”
I’ll ask mommy…
“Third, I will dismantle your arguments.”
I’m impatient.
“First of, debate, nope you cant use it, a professor would know Because debate is an imperialist capitalist white supremacist cis heteropatriarchal technique”
Did I ever tell you I worked in the hedge fund industry with the cis-white gnomes of Zürich ?
“…that transforms a potential exchange of knowledge into a tool of exclusion & oppression.”
Ah !! Oppression… how much dough did I pour into vulture funds ?
“Note that I post many scientific references everytime I make a comment, yet the responses I get often lack any sources.”
You can’t defend these sources. You do not defend them.
“Wheres the debate? Theres just oppression and attack on me, because Im nonwhite.”
There’s just the display of your ignorance and sleazy snivelling personality, and I honestly do not even believe you’re non-white. You sound like a white idiot that is instrumentalising this recent Internet nonsense about critical race theory to stir up controversy and hatred.
“Nobody ever tries to engage with the science on racism I post, by posting science that disproves it, because it cannot be refuted, and they know Im right.”
I have no vested interest in proving racism does not exist. I lived in South Africa, dumb ass…
“CMI(Critical Math Inquiry) challenges systems of power and oppression, such as white supremacy, that exist in and operate through mathematics education”
Oh yeah… Grothendieck was “oppressed” as a jewish apatride after WW2. Jean Leray was oppressed when he invented sheaf theory in his german POW camp. So much oppresssssssion !
Bullshit.
“Independent practice is valued over teamwork or collaboration.
Why arent you working together with an oppressed mathematician? Like a woman or minority?”
Because I’m very busy trying to extract an object-free axiomatics for Grothendieck topologies in terms of ordering on sieves in object-free categories with weak associativity axioms. And I have no time for your nonsense.
@ F68.10:
“I am opposing your nonsense”
which you do spectacularly well!
Thanks for saying what your work is- believe it or not- I actually have a slight, minuscule, extremely tiny amount of understanding of what it is! I took a university course that surveyed mathematics in general ( later, LOTS and LOTS of statistics) so I’m not a mathematician but I appreciate the field’s significance.TO EVERYTHING ELSE THERE IS!.
I’ve often speculated that many people who follow anti-vax/ woo seem to have a paucity of mathematical background..
In 2017 “The Doctors Wolfson” tried to start a school just like this in Phoenix. Thankfully they hadn’t grifted enough $$$ from their “Paleo Cardiology” practice to start it with their own funds (or they were too cheap to put their own skin in the game), so they tried and failed spectaculary to crowd fund it on Indiegogo, raising just $175 of their $1,000,000 goal.
Seeing the damage Centner Academy is doing, I am very grateful the Wolfsons failed. There’s no shortage of anti-vaxxers in Phoenix, but they didn’t reach critical mass like Miami.
The only critical mass the Centners needed to start their Academy was cash in their bank account. They bought an existing school – already stocked with kids, teachers and parents – and turned it over to Leila’s narcissistic obsessions…
The screenplay wasn’t very good. Except for the creepy twins and the cat. And the jars full of kids, teachers, and parents; suitabilaty of soup status is unclear. It doesn’t really smell at all but it’s pretty turpid. I mean It is pretty thick. I’d put miss Tarrant on a biscuit, but that is just me.
Well, that takes care of where “ageofreason” got it from.
Oh Boy ! I do love this letter !
Unfortunately, yes, this is democracy and proof that education is not run by the state.
Granted, it goes too far.
Schools ideally should be neither religious nor state-run, and least of all run by conspiracy theorists.
In a saner society they would not have a license to run a school. It reminds me of jokes about fundamentalist education. For biology, they study the story of Noah’s Ark (instead of evolution). Mr. Ji, referenced in the article, has written that viruses don’t exist. In the 21st century! This is equivalent to believing in flat Earth.
Assuming arguendo that these teachers are at-will employees, I wonder whether the public policy exception would allow for wrongful-termination lawsuits.
As the US seems to be rounding the corner with Covid (NYT), anti-vaxxers sound more and more desperate.
My friend had a lot of stories about working in a private school for kids with emotional problems near there that are similarly shocking. She had special ed/ speech correction degrees etc, no one else did.
The Herald noted that the Centner Academy started as a pre-school in the 2019-2020 school year. But the Centners wanted K-12, so they just bought out the existing Metropolitan internal School of Miami, changed the name, upped the tuition and instituted Leila Centner’s plans and policies. So it’s only been in operation under Centner for a year, with a student body mostly inherited from the previous owner/operators. The Herald doesn’t say how wooey the school may have been before the Centner’s took over — whether, e.g. it had the gluten-free meals and resident chiropractor — but apparently Leila Centner’ made enough changes to make a fair number of returning parents and staff pretty upset. The Herald quotes one father: “She turned the school we all loved into her own conspiracy theory platform.”
Apparently, the Centners got themselves into the private school biz because Leila Centner wanted her own children to be educated just so, and no existing schools came close to meeting her, uhh, ‘standards’.
What kind of f-ed up society do we have when wealthy and powerful kooks like Leila Centner can just buy a whole school to spread their kook to their kids?
Painful position for these parents, children, and the staff that isn’t part of her vision. I hope some of the wealthy parents can get together and open their own establishment with the reasonable teachers.
Isn’t that the point though? Wealthy parents, picking their own teachers? Slanting the new establishment to fit their own ideals? Just because we might like those ideals doesn’t make it any better. A terrorist is just a freedom fighter from the opposite viewpoint.
I know that it may be trite but her dress is pretty awful despite its high price tag.
More money than taste?
“The sprawling aerie has been extensively renovated and custom decorated to suit the Centner’s unique style.”
Aren’t they one bathroom short?
That’s not a “unique style”, that’s just boring and expensive. “Unique style” is something like Dr Phil’s kid’s house that went up on the market a few years ago (bonkers, but consistently bonkers).
Nothing about that house (including the art) says “people live here”. I’ve been to hotels with more style.
If you’re spending that kind of money your furnishings should be custom, not something I saw in Ashely Home Furnishing three years ago. Heck, IKEA has more style.
I shudder to think of what the art classes are like at that school.
Those couches do not look comfortable in the slightest. You’d think as much money as they have they could afford furniture you actually want to sit on.
I only now looked at the virtual tour. It’s exactly like a larger version of my late father’s timeshare (except for the craps table).
@ EVERYBODY QUICK QUESTION
Do they also emphasize creation science (a contradiction in terms), downplay evolution???
It wouldn’t surprise me!
Yes. Sea Lamphryes are a horrible thing that God Allowed Satan to contrive so as to let he himself demonstrate his evilness.
— We can make beans into peas..
— Oh, Benson. Dear Benson, you are so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence..
Given the many connections of the Centners to anti-vaxxers, as well as the school’s short existence, consideration should be given to its creation as a deliberate experiment by anti-vaxxers (like how Paul Thomas started his own pediatric practice so he could unethically conduct vaccine trials on children).
I checked out the Centner web pages when they first made news in April and there’s been a change. On their “Our Vaccine Policy” page (https://centneracademy.com/our-vaccine-policy) they now have a blue link button near the bottom called “Our Vaccine Plan” which links to the abysmal MDPI paper by Paul Thomas and Lyons-Weiler falsely claiming that unvaccinated children are healthier than vaccinated.
It’s the middle of a pandemic and it still feels like anti-vaxxers are coordinating better than us.
@ Dr Chris:
Because it’s easier to coordinate made-up nonsense and fanciful talking points that simplify reality to fit your bent rather than understanding complicated research and data.- they tell anti-vaxxers exactly what they want to hear so they repeat it.
However I DO detect desperation creeping into their rants/ “educational material” as the rate of vaccination increases and cases/ deaths go down. There are strikingly effective graphs available if you google ‘Covid graphs global states’ that neatly illustrate how well particular places are doing since vaccination began this winter. In a few, cases sharply decrease as vaccination rates increase; startlingly diverse regional differences are seen in rates of vaccination, positivity, Rt, illness and death.
.
Yet anti-vaxxers/ trolls won’t learn from data so there you go!
I suppose it must be the wonderful sunny climate killing viruses in Israel, California, Massachusetts NY, the UK. Right..
http://smbc-comics.com/comic/history-2
Just substitute science for history and assume that anti-vaxxers stopped at panel one.
Weekend fun: there’s been a disturbance in the Force – or at least, in the energy field surrounding an integrative health journal.
Global Advances in Health and Medicine has retracted a paper on “energy medicine” by Christina Ross, who’s affiliated with the Wake Forest Center for Integrative Medicine.
There’s an amusing account of the affair on Edzard Ernst’s blog (see the link in the Retraction Watch article).
Also noteworthy is the response to the retraction from Dr. Ross, who according to an online profile is a “Board Certified Polarity Practitioner (BCPP)*, Registered Polarity Educator (RPE), and Certified Energy Medicine Practitioner (CEMP)…She has also authored a book on Energy Medicine titled, Etiology: How to Detect Disease in your Energy Field Before it Manifests in your Body, and a book chapter titled, “Energy Medicine” for the book Alternative Medicine.” She rather huffily explains that she was reluctant to submit her paper in the first place because she questioned whether the journal would understand “highly technical” material, and that despite the retraction, her paper has been downloaded a bunch of times and that (unspecified) schools are using it in their curriculum.
http://retractionwatch.com/2021/05/05/paper-on-energy-medicine-retracted-after-reader-complaints/
*for those interested in enhancing their holistic health care credentials (attn. Dr. Hickie), polarity therapy training leads to degrees at three levels of expertise. The coursework is quite extensive, encompassing among other things chakra system practice, five and six-pointed stars, and of course detoxification and natural cleansing.
That energy field curriculum is obviously bogus (or at least, no fun…) since it doesn’t include Wilhelm Reich and Orgone. Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO explained that the band’s red terraced plastic hats were, in fact, orgone reflectors:
Mr Orac, the name of your articles are very misleading. I don’t think you show the people who you don’t agree with any respect at all.
I note you haven’t pointed out to what, specifically, is misleading. The content of the post seems to me to support the title very well. What about it do you think is inaccurate?
“I don’t think you show the people who you don’t agree with any respect at all.”
I show some people all kinds of things they don’t agree with for $40 a pop. And they are all like,
— that’s all you got?
— yep, i’m done.
— My butt hurts..
I think I might have gave him AIDS.
He did say that the Centners were deserving of not-so-respectful insolence, so there ‘s nothing misleading about how the article approaches their antivax nonsense.
Aside from tone policing, do you have any factual refutations of what’s stated in the article?
It is not possible to overstate the idiocy of Sayer Ji (I did not realize that he’s married to Kelly Brogan, by the way). I remember that one Greenmedinfo post which promoted the thesis that wheat must be extremely dangerous to health because it is known to contain 10000 proteins.
In other news..
The Bulletin, Oregon Live, Sacramento Bee
High school students waiting for their Covid vaccines in Bend were harassed by a group of anti-vaxxers. Kids there can decide for themselves to be vaccinated at age 15 and they weren’t exactly thrilled with the interference; neither was a minister when the protestors used her church’s parking lot ..
The Bulletin article notes that at least one protestor was open carrying. Because that shows such concern and care for students….
https://gen.medium.com/inside-kelly-brogans-covid-denying-vax-resistant-conspiracy-machine-28342e6369b1
Fascinating article about Brogan’s journey to kooksville about COVID. The discussion about her abandoning clients when things don’t go so well is very illuminating.
Brogan was always anti-vaccine, so there should be limited surprise about her latching on to COVID-19 conspiracies.
I had known from previous times that she blamed her patients for not getting well on her psych medicine detox, but the extent of her victim blaming is apparent in this article. Her patients who look like failing are simply ejected from being her patients.
I had also realised Sayer Ji had moved into QAnon conspiracies. It is an interesting space for him to be hanging out with all those far-right white supremicists. THat is what crank magnetism does for you.
Right. Brogan was involved with Fearless Parent, a blog/ PRN internet radio show, initiated by Louise Kup ( fka Kuo Habakus) and Alison MacNeil, which was totally anti-vax, natural health and anti- meds of all sorts. She then worked with Paltrow on GOOP.
Ji has also been around S. Florida but on the other coast **.. I’m not sure when they got together as a couple but I found it entertaining when I first read about it.
Made for each other.. and profiteering.
Both of their websites offer monthly subscriptions/ memberships that start out at low rates and graduate to much higher amounts or more complex programming.
Brogan invokes a mental health model which eliminates meds, toxins and various malign influences that reminds me a lot of Null’s health retreats- total control of diet, exercise, yoga and eliminating the influence of the corrupt world from entering your precious psyche or soul
Thinking about it, isn’t all alt med/ woo about keeping the outside world from interfering with the true pathways of wisdom provided by the designated guru? Keeping reality out helps strengthen their fantasy systems, be they self originating or explicitly taught.
** Narad found a story about his driving under the influence with a child in the car!,.
The best part is that his first name is actually Douglas.
That should be Louise KUO
“Narad found a story about his driving under the influence with a child in the car!”
I guess that’s not awkward since “Ji” is the subject of the footnote.
Dad drove under the infuence of a child in the car. I seem to recall he could become a particularly aggravated, frightening child-holic; he just could not stop driving us places no matter how he said he tried.
One time, he shouted, “don’t make me pull this car over!” several times but he didn’t pull the car over. He just drove on making bestial grunts, sounding like he had a breathing problem, suddenly swirving and sliding down a weird road for no reason, yelling at the siren we always hear every week anyways. I was afraid and he wouldn’t tell me where we were going and making me carsick and quiet by letting the car surge and drag the rest of the way. It’s like he couldn’t keep his foot still and he knows I have Ménière’s syndrome and he loves me. I think he was showing the early symptoms of late onset Robin Williams. He slammed on the brakes (my stupid sister hit her head), he gets out, doesn’t even turn the key off, grabs both our little arms and just drags us half off the ground — he’s heading to that well! he’s real mad now — It has a big yellow triangle on it.. he’s going to sacrifice us to God!
I have this mystical, inexplicable, and intricate knowledge of ’68 General Motors model trunk latches, hinges, speaker, tire iron, and tail light wires.
Perhaps, after all, there just might be “other ways of knowing things”.
https://youtu.be/cuTVDNnR3AE?t=2566
from Brogan’s website:
“.. root cause of most modern ills, We are living a lifestyle- diet, stress, movement and sunlight deficiencies, toxin exposure and pharmaceuticals- that is incompatible with what our genome has evolved over millions of years, to expect”
…and all of these malign influences have forced us to endure more and more years of life, rather than die young and leave a good looking corpse.
So tragic!
@ Denice Walter
And yet Brogan ignores that our life-expectancy has increased significantly. However, I agree that “lifestyle- diet, stress, movement and sunlight deficiencies, toxin exposure and [some] pharmaceuticals” do contribute to poor health. Leading a healthy life-style is NOT incompatible with getting vaccines. Regardless of how healthy we are, our immune system takes up to 10 days to recognize and counter an invader, time enough to suffer and even die.
I’m still wondering if they teach Creation Science at the Centner Academy??? ?
@ TBruce
@ Joel:
She labels the section I quoted as “Paleo” ..
as if people living in the Paleolithic era led stress-free, safe, peaceful, toxin-free lives. Probably scrambling to forage/ hunt enough to survive frequently, dealing with harsh weather conditions, hostile people and animals, environmental dangers from poisonous plants/ water, landslides, fires, floods. as well as infections, disease, injuries. .It is instructive to read what types of magical protection these humans sought ( Campbell)
Many of the alties I survey maintain a fantasy based view about the past whether it be the late 19th-early 20th century or back in the mists of time that somehow leaves out many of the concerns I raised. Also Brogan- who should know better- leaves out the fact that advancements in culture affect how a person reacts to the world. If I live in a house, I won’t live in terror of rain storms, cold, heat, lightning, wild animals etc. If I shop in a store, I don’t have to worry about drought killing the local vegetables or animals I eat. Not to mention the effects of literacy on thought** and lifestyle.
** although I do read trolls here and sometimes doubt my statement
Thinking back on life my family experienced in the late 19th-early 20th century:
My maternal grandmother was orphaned and spent time in a sanatorium for Tb. Her first husband died in a mining accident.
My father lost 3 siblings in childhood, one as an infant and two from status asthmaticus. He also lost his biological father as a child from an aneurysmal hemorrhage. He also spent a year in a sanatorium because of Tb.
Yeah, those were the good old days.
But the last one is still standing.
@ Denice Walter
Yep; but if she is right about diet, then they were great healthy meals for Sabertooth Tigers, etc.?
Update
I have to laugh at that picture of a “shed uterine lining” – dude, that’s a sun dried tomato.
It’s like they’re not even trying.
Then what in hell is in their spaghetti sauce?
Is pine needle tea the answer to Covid vaccine shedding/ transmission? Mike Adams NN
I like websites that scream about how the pandemic is a hoax, while breathlessly touting oodles of miracle cures for Covid-19.
If there’s nothing to it, why bother treating it at all?
I saw the headline elsewhere, but haven’t read the article.
It is one of the few times in all my following of anti-science nonsense I have been left with just one phrase to say: WTF.
As there is no replicable virus in any of the vaccines (except it seems in the Sputnik vaccine), there is no virus to shed. You can’t shed a vaccine, because there is too little injected to allow any of it to come out again. There is no need for anyone to protect themselves against shedding of COVID-19 vaccines.
Even if there were, what exactly would pine needle tea do? It is basically a source of Vitamin C, possibly a bit of Vitamin A and and a lot of pine flavours. How are any of these going to protect you from something that is apparently shedding from people around you? You would need a face mask for that.
DIY pine needle tea is not a good idea unless you are trained at differentiating the various species of pine. Many pine species have a number of very toxic compounds in their needles. I suppose these could protect you from COVID-19 vaccine shedding, by making you dead.
I am highly allergic to pine needles (I have to wear long sleeves to mow the lawn because the neighbors’ pine trees have branches that cross the property line) – I can’t even contemplate what drinking pine needle tea would be like. Gin is bad enough.
Good news for teachers at that benighted school. Pfizer is applying for full approval of the vaccine, now that that the 6 month follow-up trials are completed. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/05/07/994839927/pfizer-seeks-full-fda-approval-for-covid-19-vaccine
It’s not clear how long it will take (they plan to submit the data as it is finalized, rather than as a single lump, to facilitate a faster approval process), but a late June approval is not out of the pale.
I guess the New York Times is a conspiracy theory newspaper now.
“A Misleading C.D.C. Number”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/11/briefing/outdoor-covid-transmission-cdc-number.html
For those who don’t have a Times subscription and prefer not to get slimed by going over to Fox News, here’s a link to the story. In brief, the CDC has been criticized for being overcautious about the risks of outdoor Covid-19 transmission while relying on flawed data.
https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-exaggerating-risk-outdoor-covid-135958591.html
I’m not sure how one jumps from that to “Conspiracy!!!!&!($)!, but America’s Frontline Wackos apparently are managing.
When President Trump questioned the authenticity of the CDC’s numbers he was called a conspiracy nut.
When the New York Times questions the CDC numbers it is just reporting facts and not a conspiracy article.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2020/09/18/can-we-trust-the-cdc-and-fda-any-more/
The study in the article that cited tracing 0.1% of cases to outdoor transmission also stated that in 20% of cases, the cause could not be determined. That’s kind of a large amount of uncertainty.
One of the other studies linked to in the article said the chances of indoor transmission are 19 times greater than outdoors, not 1,000 times. Which could be sloppy writing if the author got his studies mixed up.
The piece is more opinion than fact, imo.
I mean, am I going to leave active aerasolized spke protein mingling about if I’m vaccinated and just happen to find meself peeing on the wall outside Finny’s?
People don’t tend to pee on walls when indoors so that is a factor they may have left out. Especially if it is foggy.
It’s not too hard to observes that when an air contaminant is introduced indoors, it builds up until it reaches an equilibrium. Outdoors, it must get from source to you in sufficient concentration to cause harm before it is diluted in the vastness of outdoor air.
Quantifying that effect would require time effort instruments and perhaps volunteers, but concluding that the effect exists and is probably rather large is not difficult.
I don’t know about you calculator but mine says that 10% is 1,000 times bigger than .01%
@ Sophie Amsden
So, you crawled out from under your rock. Yep, the CDC is probably being overly cautious, so what? If people continue to wear masks out of doors, not a big deal. I always wear a mask when standing in line at Costco, also maintaining physical distancing.
You look for every flaw, at the same time, ignoring all the positives because you don’t want to believe that Covid is all that serious or that vaccines are beneficial.
I should also point out that the CDC was underfunded prior to Trump and he cut their funding even more. Despite problems, mainly due to underfunding and Trump, the CDC is still the premier public health organization in the World and if it ceased to exist, all of our lives would be at greater danger.
And legitimate criticism is not in any way a conspiracy. There is a difference. I suggest you find online a classic paper from 1964: Richard Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Available at: https://occourses.weebly.com/uploads/6/1/5/1/6151956/hofstadter_theparanoidstyle.pdf
Oh, and if one or more of the new variants of COVID really are much more transmissible and virulent ending some mask use may backfire.
[…] protein (or something else) and thereby endanger the unvaccinated around them. The long version is here; the short version is just to say that, as usual when it comes to vaccines, Ms. Taylor is the […]
Update?
@ EVERYONE
Prohias writes: “I don’t know about you calculator but mine says that 10% is 1,000 times bigger than .01%.”
Notice he ignores most of what EmJay writes: “The study in the article that cited tracing 0.1% of cases to outdoor transmission also stated that in 20% of cases, the cause could not be determined. That’s kind of a large amount of uncertainty. . . One of the other studies linked to in the article said the chances of indoor transmission are 19 times greater than outdoors, not 1,000 times. Which could be sloppy writing if the author got his studies mixed up”
So, I went to each of the links from Leonhardt’s New York Times article.
Leonhardt writes: “In one study, 95 of 10,926 worldwide instances of transmission are classified as outdoors; all 95 are from Singapore construction sites. In another study, four of 103 instances are classified as outdoors; again, all four are from Singapore construction sites.”
The first article states: “However, in part due to the limits in surveillance capacities in many settings, the gathering of information such as cluster sizes and attack rates is limited in several ways: inherent recall bias, biased media reporting and missing data . . . The settings collated here are biased due to the nature of our general search for SARS-CoV-2 transmission described above. Although based on a systematic review of published peer-reviewed literature, many of the reports included came from media articles where relevant epidemiological quantities were not always reported, resulting in many missing data.(Leclerk, 2020).”
The second article states: “Five identified studies found a low proportion of reported global SARS-CoV-2 infections occurred outdoors (<10%) and the odds of indoor transmission was very high compared to outdoors (18.7 times; 95% confidence interval, 6.0–57.9). Five studies described influenza transmission outdoors and 2 adenovirus transmission outdoors. There was high heterogeneity in study quality and individual definitions of outdoor settings, which limited our ability to draw conclusions about outdoor transmission risks. In general, factors such as duration and frequency of personal contact, lack of personal protective equipment, and occasional indoor gathering during a largely outdoor experience were associated with outdoor reports of infection (Bulfone, 2021).”
Notice the study says outdoor infections <10% and indoors 18.7 times outdoors, not 1,000 times! ! !
Bulfone also refers to the Leclerk article: “The 1 outdoor setting was at multiple construction sites in Singapore, where 4 outbreaks occurred. Leclerc’s updated results by August 12, from non-peer reviewed sources, additionally revealed one transmission occurred while jogging in Codogno, Italy, and twenty cases in an outdoor park in Münster, Germany . . . [And]: “Five other studies included in Table 3 describe outdoor transmission of influenza or influenza-like viruses . . .The studies with direct comparison of SARS-CoV-2 location of transmission reported dramatically lower propor- tions occurring outdoors. The exact determinants of outdoor transmission that can be gleaned from this review are limited, the cases of outdoor transmission of SARS-CoV-2 we identified were affected by the duration of exposure, frequency of exposure, density of gathering, whether masks were used [my emphasis], and were confounded by the possibility of indoor transmission. . . These results suggest that moving activities to outdoor settings may reduce infections and ultimately save lives. However, it is important to note that infections are possible outdoors and the advantage may be overtaken by relaxed mitigation efforts [my emphasis]. (Bulfone, 2021).”
So the Bulfone article referred to by Leonhardt included mitigation efforts which include, duh, masks.
Leonhardt states: “A study from Ireland, which seems to have been more precise about the definition of outdoors, put the share of such transmission at 0.1 percent.”
The Irish article also states: “In addition 20 per cent of all cases in the State result from community transmission where the source of the infection is not known . . . A study of 1,245 cases in China found only three people were infected outdoors and they were in conversation without masks. According to a review by the University of California of five global studies of transmission, the chances of getting Covid-19 in an indoor setting is 19 times greater than outdoors (McGreevy, 2021)”.
Notice that the Irish article mentions 20 percent where sources unknown, exactly what Emjay wrote and Prohias ignored! ! !
Leonhardt states: “A study of 7,324 cases from China found a single instance of outdoor transmission, involving a conversation between two people.”
But the article he links to states: “Our study does not rule out outdoor transmission of the virus. However, among our 7324 identified cases in China with sufficient descriptions, only one outdoor outbreak involving two cases occurred in a village in Shangqiu, Henan. A 27‐year‐old man had a conversation outdoors with an individual who had returned from Wuhan on January 25 and had symptom onset on February 1. This outbreak involved only two cases. The second salient feature of the 318 identified outbreaks is the relatively small number of outbreaks that involved 10 or more cases. The largest outbreak occurred in a Tianjin shopping mall and involved 21 cases, although Wu et al5 reported 25 cases (Quin, 2020).”
So the article doesn’t rule out outdoor transmission and a large outbreak in a shopping mall. Doesn’t mention if mall indoors or outdoors; but my guess is outdoors.
So, Leonhard ignored all the caveats in the articles about deficient data, ignored some of the cases mentioned, etc. Not a conspiracy as Sophie would have it; but certainly a biased take.
However, just to be clear, I have been following the pandemic closely and prior to the Leonhardt article already read several criticizing the CDC’s continuous call for outdoor mask wearing (Florko, 2021; Parker-Pope, 2021; Tufekci, 2021). As I explained earlier, even in the beginning of the Pandemic when I walked my dog a mile twice daily, 5 am and 8 pm, I have NOT worn a mask, simply if anyone out at those times, I go up someone’s driveway or cross the street, maintaining probably minimum of 15 feet physical distancing; but, though I have had both shots of Moderna Covid vaccine, even if not required, while waiting in line at Costco, etc. I wear a mask and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Quite simply, I err on the cautious side and don’t consider mask wearing to be a major sacrifice.
And just to make clear, Prohias comment is typical of those who maintain a bias, see only what they choose to see, and don’t bother to actually conduct a thorough investigation. In any case, thanks to Leonhardt I now have more articles on indoor vs outdoor Covid transmission in a folder.
I
Reference List
Bulfone TC et al. (2021 Feb 15). Outdoor Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and Other Respiratory Viruses: A Systematic Review. The Journal of Infectious Diseases; 223(4): 550-561.
Epperly DE et al. (2020 Dec 10 medRxiv). COVID-19 Aerosolized Viral Loads, Environment, Ventilation, Masks, Exposure Time, Severity, And Immune Response: A Pragmatic Guide Of Estimates.
Florko N (2021 May 11). CDC’s slow, cautious messaging on Covid-19 seems out of step with the moment, public health experts say. http://www.statnews.com
Fouda B et al. (2021 Apr). Identifying SARS-CoV2 transmission cluster category: An analysis of country government database. Journal of Infection and Public Health: 14(4): 461-467.
Leclerc QJ (2020 Jun 5). What settings have been linked to SARS-CoV-2 transmission clusters? Wellcome Open Research; 5: 83.
Leonhardt D (2021 May 11). A Misleading C.D.C. Number. The New York Times.
McGreevy R (2021 Apr 5). Outdoor transmission accounts for 0.1% of State’s Covid-19 cases. The Irish Times.
Parker-Pope T (2021 May 6). Do We Still Need to Keep Wearing Masks Outdoors? The New York Times.
Qian H (2021). Indoor transmission of SARS-CoV-2. Indoor Air; 31(3): 639-645.
Tufekci Z (2021 Apr 28). The CDC Is Still Repeating Its Mistakes: The agency’s new guidelines are too timid and too complicated. The Atlantic.
Thank you, Joel. You answered Prohias’s comment much better and much more comprehensively than I could.
@ Tony
You write: “When President Trump questioned the authenticity of the CDC’s numbers he was called a conspiracy nut. When the New York Times questions the CDC numbers it is just reporting facts and not a conspiracy article.”
First and foremost, it was Trump that played the conspiracy card time and time again. And he didn’t just challenge one set of CDC numbers, he put a damper on their making public statements, put one of his lackies in charge of vetting CDC statements, and did all this because Trump saw the pandemic not as a phenomenon of nature; but as a challenge to his rule. Everything was about Trump.
Leonhardt’s article in the New York Times, as I explain above in detail, may be poorly done, maybe even to gain headlines, maybe not; but certainly no indication of a conspiracy. As I explained above, funding to the CDC has been cut several times. They are short of personnel; yet have immense responsibilities. In addition, when finally released to public, I have read many of the CDC researchers studies and they are excellent; but unfortunately, the CDC has political overlords. Even Trump’s choice of Redford as Director was not based on who would have been the best choice. Trump’s insane belief in his genius intuition vs scientific reality. In any case, if you dare, read what I wrote above.
And the CDC and public health are often the stepchild of our health care system. Out of sight, out of mind. No major epidemics or pandemics and we defund, expecting them to still be able to do their jobs. Yet, it is public health that is most responsible for our health, e.g., safe water, safe food, monitoring disease outbreaks both abroad and at home. Out of sight, out of mind. Shortsighted stupidity of politicians and many in public. And many politicians in the pockets of big business and Wall Street.
If you have access to PBS, watch “Plastic Wars” and if you have access to Netflix, watch “Seaspiracy”. How our plastic industry is literally destroying the planet. Diatoms and phytoplankton in our oceans are responsible for 80% of oxygen and they are dying from plastic. And they have found plastic in babies. No one knows what long term consequences this will have; but, of course, short term profits for industry and on and on it goes.
Joel interesting information. But the NYT article was about the CDC and their misleading claims of less than 10% spread rate when all the studies you cite show a less than 1% to a .003% outdoor spread rate (well I guess .003% is less than 10%). I mean seriously 2 cases out of 7,324. And just because you catch Covid doesn’t mean you are going to die from it. Covid has a 98-99% chance of recovery, which means your chances of death from out door contact is almost non existence.
“However, among our 7324 identified cases in China with sufficient descriptions, only one outdoor outbreak involving two cases occurred in a village in Shangqiu, Henan.”
How many other things the CDC has told us are flat out wrong, remember when everyone was Lysol, bleach and hand sanitizing anything including food products only to be told that we didn’t need to do that, how many people got sick or died because of ingesting sanitizing agents.
Or cancer screenings that didn’t happen……
Or the plastic pollution from all the masks worn……
The list goes on, in a few years as studies are published we are going to find just how foolish we were.
No.
@ Sophie Amsden
You really are a dishonest person. I read carefully the New York Times article and went to every link he used and gave direct quotes from them. He based his criticism of the CDC on what he interpreted those articles to be saying and I showed that his interpretation was wrong. How dishonest and stupid are you??? And you focus on death; but as I’ve written in other comments, even asymptomatic kids are being found with vascular damage. So, quite possible that many kids could have problems that are not noticeable at present. And if we hadn’t finally lock downed, used masks, and practiced physical distancing, the current deaths of almost 600,00 would probably been closer to 2 million and if Trump had actually listened to scientific advise we could have both prevented many of the deaths and the some of the lockdowns. In nations that practiced using masks, physical distancing, regular accurate testing and tracing, few deaths and little economic disruption compared to U.S. And that advice came from CDC.
I explained that if one gets hold of the actual reports of CDC researchers, that they are often excellent; but they have been short of funds for some time and during Trump’s Presidency they were mistreated and his choice of CDC Director was NOT a good one. And they are subject to politicians.
The difference between me and you is that I understand that science sometimes gets it wrong, perhaps, 1 time in a 100, so I don’t rely on just one scientific report; but often find 10 or more studies and science eventually is self-correcting. On the other hand, people like you with NO understanding of science may get it right 1 in a 1,000 times; but without being able to explain how you came to this and at the same time refuse to admit all the times you were wrong.
There is an excellent recent book that I’m sure you would never consider reading; but many public libraries have it and it discusses mistakes that have been made in science; but why science is still the best we have: Naomi Oreskes (2019). “Why Trust Science?” Princeton University Press.
You write: “The list goes on, in a few years as studies are published we are going to find just how foolish we were.”
If you mean by “we” yourself, yep, you are foolish and, yep, just as a broken clock gets the time right twice daily, maybe you will be proved right on one thing; but the difference is that a broken clock can be repaired while someone like you, someone with no understanding of science, highly unlikely you will change. I would be willing to bet if future research shows far more damage by COVID and/or new variants lead to a surge, perhaps not in deaths; but in serious health problems, you won’t change at all, won’t admit you were wrong.
I agree that the careless discarding of masks does cause a problem, not just plastic pollution; but strangling animals, etc. So, the broken clock got the time right.
If you are really interested in problems of plastic pollution, PBS has a great documentary called Plastic Wars and Netflix another good one called Seaspiracy.
If you consider yourself to be even slightly open-minded, I suggest you check if your library has the book or can get it from interlibrary loan or even purchase a used copy on amazon.com. But, of course, you aren’t open-minded.
“How dishonest and stupid are you???
I’m sure you would never consider reading
you are foolish
But, of course, you aren’t open-minded”
You must be a real joy for your wife and kids to be around.
“The difference between me and you is that I understand that science sometimes gets it wrong, perhaps, 1 time in a 100”
The editor of the Lancet would disagree with you estimate the 1 time in 100 science gets it wrong, he claims perhaps half may simply be untrue and he is the editor of the Lancet
https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(15)60696-1.pdf
And the advice from CDC, Fauci and WHO.
https://twitter.com/WHOWPRO/status/1243171683067777024
or Fauci telling everyone they shouldn’t wear a face mask.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/05/12/flashback_march_2020_fauci_says_theres_no_reason_to_be_walking_around_with_a_mask.html#!
[…] his usual dark fever dreams of worldwide genocide), a posh and trendy Miami private school try to ban vaccinated staff from their campus, a bizarre freakout over “vaccine shedding” and “self-spreading” that has […]
@ Sophie Amsden
You write: “How many other things the CDC has told us are flat out wrong, remember when everyone was Lysol, bleach and hand sanitizing anything including food products only to be told that we didn’t need to do that, how many people got sick or died because of ingesting sanitizing agents.”
First, CDC NEVER told, promoted, encouraged people to ingest sanitizing agents. You are confusing CDC with antivaxxers and other unscientific types posting on various websites. As for using lysol, bleach, etc. when one not certain of how an infection is transmitted, maybe only via air; but maybe not, this is NOT just CDC but standard practice. Better to err on side of caution. Now, with research the probability of being infected with COVID via inanimate objects is close to zero, though not zero. Why? Because if, for instance, someone with COVID coughs, touches a door knob and someone else touches within seconds the same doorknob, then rubs eyes or puts hand to mouth very small very very small; but not zero possibility they could get COVID; but such situations are so rare that really not worth sanitizing. However, I do wash carefully fruits and vegetables before eating.
So, typical of you, looking for any way to attack CDC and public health because you are such an expert???
Just as you repeated what was said in New York Times article, ignoring that I went to every link in the article, carefully read them and wrote how his article wasn’t accurate, not a conspiracy, just not accurate. Actually similar to how you read things, see what you want to see. So, you ignored what I wrote. Very Very Very dishonest of you! ! !
Well when the CDC looses CNN and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, you’ve lost the argument
Gupta stated, “It pains me to say this, but I see where she’s coming from — Sen. Collins — on this. I think for a long time, the concern was the CDC was providing guidance at the beginning of the pandemic that was not scientifically based. And as a result, we didn’t do things that we should have done in this country that could have greatly mitigated what has happened here. And now I think it’s almost a little bit of the reverse problem. The science is not necessarily being followed to the same extent. And as a result, we’re probably doing things that we don’t need to be doing. So, in the end, the CDC needs to be just a science-based organization. What does the science say? You don’t need to wear a mask outside. It’s just one of these things that, again, we’ve known this for some time.”
Mirrors, honeybunch, mirrors.
Strangely, this quote has not appeared in any CNN transcript that I can find, although it’s oozing all over the alt-right crankosphere. Any broadcast details, Sophie?
CNN is hardly a fountain of truth. You mean political position is weakened
You could start with this paper:
Mingming Liang, Liang Gao, Ce Cheng, Qin Zhou, John Patrick Uy, Kurt Heiner, Chenyu Sun,
Efficacy of face mask in preventing respiratory virus transmission: A systematic review and meta-analysis,
Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease,
Volume 36, 2020,101751,
ISSN 1477-8939,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2020.101751.
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1477893920302301
@ Sophie Amsden
You write: “Well when the CDC looses CNN and Dr. Sanjay Gupta, you’ve lost the argument.”
Then you go on to quote Sanjay: ” think for a long time, the concern was the CDC was providing guidance at the beginning of the pandemic that was not scientifically based. And as a result, we didn’t do things that we should have done in this country that could have greatly mitigated what has happened here. And now I think it’s almost a little bit of the reverse problem. The science is not necessarily being followed to the same extent. And as a result, we’re probably doing things that we don’t need to be doing. So, in the end, the CDC needs to be just a science-based organization. What does the science say? You don’t need to wear a mask outside. It’s just one of these things that, again, we’ve known this for some time.”
So, you totally avoid that you cited the New York Times article after I had shown just how misguided it was. And I guess you are too stupid to really understand what Gupta said. First, he says CDC was right in the beginning and should have been listened to, not what you have claimed. Then he says “we’re probably doing things that we don’t need to be doing.” Probably??? Do you understand the word? As I’ve written several times, while it may be safe without a mask outdoors, though not if standing in line or in close continuous contact as in a large group in someones backyard, I go with erring on the side of caution. However, to make a big deal over such a trivial thing as mask wearing, compared to what the CDC has done overall during the pandemic is just one more example of how you look for every minor flaw because you, in your infinite understanding of science, reject anything that disagrees with you. Wow!
And you ignore what I wrote that sanitizing things was the right thing to do in the beginning before more was known about how the Covid virus is and isn’t transmitted. You just keep looking for things to support your position, not admitting previous mistakes, and twisting new things to conform to what you choose to believe.
And the quote doesn’t clearly state CDC has LOST Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Wow! I have good friends that during many years we have disagreed on minor things, didn’t end our friendship. You are beyond just being stupid. You are stupid on steroids.
@ Sophie Amsden
You also ignore that some areas in nation who lifted mitigation against CDC recommendations experience surges of deaths and hospitalizations; but you apparently aren’t up-to-date.
CBS News (2021 Mar 9) stated: “Fully vaccinated people, according to the CDC, can do the following:
“Visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without masks or physical distancing;
Visit with unvaccinated people from a single household who are at low risk for severe COVID-19 disease indoors without wearing masks or physical distancing; and
Skip quarantine and testing guidelines following a known exposure, if they’re asymptomatic.
The CDC still says those who are vaccinated should wear a face covering in public, and it still discourages non-essential travel. It also says that, for now, vaccinated people should continue to avoid medium- and large-sized gatherings, and they should use prevention measures like masks and distancing when around unvaccinated people from multiple households. The CDC also still recommends getting tested if COVID-19 symptoms present themselves.”
And CDC (2021 May 13):
“Fully vaccinated people can:
Resume activities without wearing masks or physically distancing, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance”
And I did find one recent interview with Dr. Guptay where he strongly emphasized the safety of the Covid vaccines and their effectiveness. I guess you missed that one. So, you find one quote, albeit not certain accurate, of Dr. Guptay that you agree with; but I’m sure you would strongly disagree with his position on the Covid vaccines. Typical of you. You are the “expert” and so anyone who agrees with you is right; but disagrees with you is wrong. STUPID STUPID STUPID
And as NARAD, who often is much better at finding things than I am, wrote, he couldn’t find the said quote on any legitimate website. I found the quote, period.
And, again, as I already wrote, the quote makes clear that overall the CDC has been right on in its recommendations and that we “probably” don’t need to wear a mask; but, again, wearing a mask is not a major infringement on someone’s personal liberty and not a major discomfort. And the quote, if it turns out to be valid, doesn’t indicate in any way, shape, or form that CDC has lost Dr. Guptay.
I’m not an acronym, I promise. Where did you find it? Perhaps the “Sen. Collins” line threw me off (nobody says “Sen.” out loud, so it would have to be written).
@ Narad
I found the quote on several websites; but couldn’t find any video. One of the websites was: https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/553181-sanjay-gupta-agrees-with-sen-susan-collins
Another was Fox News; but again, nowhere could I find Gupta actually speaking.
Joel
“STUPID STUPID STUPID
You are beyond just being stupid. You are stupid on steroids.”
Your wife and kids must be terrified by your conformation to you “rightness”.
can you please show your work in the surge in deaths that lifted restriction like Texas or Florida vs New York or New Jersey that didn’t
and people did ingest sanitizing agents because everyone was spraying bleach, Lysol and hand sanitizer over EVERYTHING.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/06/the-cdc-should-have-updated-its-surface-cleaning-guidelines-much-sooner-dr-ashish-jha-says.html
And the Chinese showed that the Covid was spread via aerosol transmission and not surface transmission in June 2020
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32543176/
@ Sophie Amsden
You write: “And the Chinese showed that the Covid was spread via aerosol transmission and not surface transmission in June 2020.”
Again, you really are stupid. That it was found to spread by aerosol transmission didn’t eliminate that it could be also caught from a fomite (an inanimate object). Other infectious diseases that are mainly transmitted via aerosol can be transmitted by fomites. Just one more example of your stupid need to see things in black and white, either or. Just one paper: Stephanie A. Boone and Charles P. Gerba (2007). Significance of Fomites in the Spread of Respiratory and Enteric Viral Disease. Applied and Environmental Microbiology; 73: 1687-1696.
So, exactly as I explained that until good data found Covid not likely to be spread from fomites it was a standard precaution used for any infectious disease. But, of course, genius that you are, you knew long before the data came in. SIcko!
And the cases that were in the news regarding bleach, etc were about people who literally drank it or injected it. Prior to the pandemic people have been spraying Lysol and bleach for decades and as for hand sanitizers, they have been used for decades. Stupid Stupid Stupid. And the article you link to that plain soap and water best doesn’t change the fact that you blamed CDC for people drinking and injecting when they NEVER NEVER NEVER called in any way for such. It was blogs and social media. You just NEVER admit when you are wrong.
Oh, by the way, I went to Susan Collin’s website and guess what? She based her position on CDC and maskes mainly on the same New York Times articles that I showed just how weak, misleading it was. The same article that you refuse to accept what I say.
You write: “Your wife and kids must be terrified by your conformation to you “rightness”.”
You are the one since your first posted comments that when I have shown them to be wrong just ignore. You are the one who finds info that confirms your bias, a bias with no indication you have ever studied infectious diseases, immunology, epidemiology, etc; but always post as if you are absolutely certain you are right. My “rightness” is based on 40 years of study and experience and starting January 2020 I began finding, downloading, and reading lots on COVID; but also on corona viruses in general. I’ve probably read fairly carefully up to 1,000 papers and skimmed a number of others. You find a newspaper article, a claimed interview with Sanjay Gupta, even misread it, and you ignore that I did find an interview with him where he stated extremely clearly a strong belief in both Covid vaccines effectiveness and its safety. And on and on it goes.
I’m too tired to go through my files; but Texas Headline story:
Associated Press (2021 Apr 18). Rolling average shows coronavirus cases increasing in Texas.
In any case, thanks for continuing to prove just how stupid you are.
What new SCIENCE can the CDC point to, that they were able to change their advisement to “no mask” or is that secret science?
I want the peer reviewed published research, not just opinions.
@ Sophie Amsden
You write: “What new SCIENCE can the CDC point to, that they were able to change their advisement to “no mask” or is that secret science? I want the peer reviewed published research, not just opinions.
You just keep getting dummer and dummer. If you read what I wrote, the new guidelines mainly allow those fully vaccinated to not need to wear masks outdoors, except if in crowds, etc. I could give an entire list of peer-reviewed papers that show just how effective the vaccines are and also, little to no viral shedding from those vaccinated. So, obvious why CDC has new guidelines on mask wearing. How dense are you???
Even if i gave a dozen peer-reviewed articles, you want to believe the CDC is incompetent, so you will ignore or come up with something else.
And you ignore that even the quote from Gupta made clear that the CDC was mostly right in the beginning, something you don’t believe.
You are a real SICKO!
Again WHAT PEER REVIEWED, PUBLISHED SCIENCE caused the CDC to change their minds on wearing masks from just last week when the head of the CDC told her child that he would have to wear his mask to summer camp.
How hard was that question?
As to Gupta’s past endorsement of vaccines that makes his accusations against the CDC even stronger
As to your assertion that Texas cases are rising
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/texas
vs
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/new-jersey
or
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/new-york
“You are the one who finds info that confirms your bias,” you are the one who refused to go to first hand sources but cite an article by the NYT from a month ago, that singled out Texas but ignored that most of the country had a spike in cases about the same time.
@ Sophie Amsden
You write: “Again WHAT PEER REVIEWED, PUBLISHED SCIENCE caused the CDC to change their minds on wearing masks from just last week when the head of the CDC told her child that he would have to wear his mask to summer camp.
How hard was that question?”
I really don’t give a shit what the head of the CDC told her child, what I care about is the official CDC position. And you ABSOLUTE MORON, I gave the reason, quite simply the overwhelming evidence of the effectiveness of the vaccines. Or maybe you are really TOO STUPID to notice that the new guidelines specifically mention those VACCINATED! And, yes, the CDC took its time as the evidence of the effectiveness of the vaccines could have been used earlier; but, as you continue to ignore, wearing a mask is such a trivial action that erring on the side of caution isn’t a big deal.
Did you also notice the total doses of vaccine administered in Texas?; but my remark was when a number of States either prematurely let up on mitigation measures or, and this is something in your immense stupidity you won’t understand, even if measures officially in place, maybe not followed. Near my hometown, despite lockdown measures, one cities mayor made clear they wouldn’t be enforced and they had highest local incidence of COVID cases.
I am quite aware of the websites you linked to.
So, let’s just summarize:
You were wrong about using the New York Times article on masks. It ignored a number of instances included in the references it referred to where outdoor transmission did occur; albeit less than indoor; but still a clear risk. And, as opposed to your immense stupidship, I have and have read 15 papers on masks just related to COVID and several dozen more on other infectious diseases.
You were wrong about use of sanitation measures. As I clearly explained, just because a disease is airborne, doesn’t mean no other means of transmission, e.g., fomites. Some viruses can stay on, for instance, door handles for hours, some die off within literally maybe a couple of minutes. And you were wrong to blame CDC for people drinking and injecting sanitation products. Plus, yep, soap and water work quite well; but nothing wrong for overall use, bleach. Most people just don’t use it properly. I wipe counters and use in toilet; but leave for at least 15 minutes, then wipe off or flush. Basically, you appear incapable of understanding that the world isn’t black and white, that there can be more than two variables involved.
You misread, probably purposely, a quote from Sanjay Gupta. Nowhere did he state that CDC lost his respect and, in fact, contrary to your position, he stated quite clearly that CDC had been right in beginning; but, again, even if this quote was valid, questioning how soon we ended using masks, so what? And you gave NO link to an actual TV show where he said it. Websites lie all the time; but if the lie confirms what you choose to believe, well, then . . . And you ignore that I found an actual interview with Gupta where he strongly endorsed the effectiveness and safety of COVID vaccines.
As for surges after ending mitigation too soon. As I explained above, it is difficult to actually measure because a number of areas where mitigation measures were mandated did NOT follow them, literally sheriffs and police chiefs publicly stated they would NOT enforce them. Despite this, there is evidence that last year, e.g., summer 2020 that ending too soon did result in spikes. Just look at your own link for Texas, check out July 1. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/us/texas
And Texas is seeing a slight increase; but as I wrote, they now have a high vaccination rate. You ignore this. You only see what you want to see. And you ignore, in your continued immense stupidity, the new variants that so far vaccines protect against; but for those not vaccinated the risk may be increasing. Again, my goal is to protect people from unnecessary suffering, hospitalizations, long term problems, and death, so simple measures like wearing a mask not a big deal. If you are right, by accident, OK; but if you are wrong, people will suffer unnecessarily; but I’m sure you could care less, that is, until it strikes someone who you care about or even yourself.
And, though NOT peer-reviewed studies, neither are the State stats you gave (historically usually accurate; but have been cases where official data wasn’t), here is an article with graphs on results of early letting up of mitigation last summer:
Ivana Kottasová (2020 Jul 3). The US, Brazil and others lifted lockdowns early. These charts show just how deadly that decision was. CNN Health.
And you wrote: “Your wife and kids must be terrified by your conformation to you “rightness”.”
I have a car mechanic that I go to now 20 years. I wouldn’t dare tell him how to fix my car, even though my dad was an excellent mechanic and I helped him with car repairs and other home repairs as a kid. My dad had a degree in Aeronautical Engineering from 1930s and after Pearl Harbor, became stationed at U.S. Naval base Pearl Harbor and supervised crews repairing and maintaining fighter planes, so he really knew mechanics, electricity, etc. As I’ve written, if someone gave me several plans for building a bridge I wouldn’t dare choose one as I’ve NEVER studied structural engineering, etc. And though I had two years of undergraduate German and French, I would defer to someone with a degree in the languages when it came to translating something important. And on and on it goes. But, yep, I have over 40 years education, etc. including numerous courses in research methods, statistics, epidemiology, philosophy of science (including epistemology, how we know), audited courses in immunology and microbiology and have read several undergraduate textbooks and literally hundreds of papers. So, what you call “rightness,” I call “expertise,” and, yet I still defer to what others with greater expertise, e.g. Michael Osterholm, Paul Offit, Peter Hotez, etc write, though, I follow the old adage: Trust but Verify, that is, if not something completely clear, I do my own search.
But you continue without any indication you understand even the basics of infectious disease. Are you a Trump supporter? After all, he rejected science because he considers himself an “intuitive genius”, not needing even the most minimal study of any of the related disciplines.
I suggested above a book that you should read, actually two books:
Lauren Sompayrac. “How the Immune System Works (6th Edition)
Naomi Oreskes (2019). Why Trust Science? {she gives a number of examples where at first science was wrong; but explains how it is self-correcting and how in most cases it is right, as opposed to people like you who just think you are right. As opposed to your confirmation bias, what you consider my confirmation bias is built on a solid platform of understanding the science and also the history of infectious diseases and reading far more than a couple of confirming articles.
In other words, YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT. I can’t be polite when dealing with people who choose to believe, without any underlying understanding of science or, particularly, infectious diseases; but can find on the internet confirmation. Tell me, do you believe in QAnon??? Again, are you a Trump supporter?
@joel
This is not the way to treat a lady, Joel! Ive noticed you do the same thing to other women recently. Toxic masculinity seems indeed infectious, as it reminded me of the behavior of “He who must not be named”. Biden fell victim to it too, when he told the guy to shut up. I even fell victim to it before, but its the wrong way. We should have more empathy for ppl who may or may not have been scammed.
T***p is indeed a genius scammer(better censor offensive words next time).
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/09/29/the-new-york-times-confirms-trump-is-a-genius-422837
Name calling women has different effects compared to namecalling men, because they already suffer alot more harassment in general, so you cannot use the same behavior you use on other white males, or you will inflict psychological harm because women already feel very unsafe.
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/01/13/the-state-of-online-harassment/
Actually the same applies to BIPOCs, as Ive been trying to explain to Aarno.
In any case Joel wanted to ask you a serious question about what you said before. You said before mrna passed phase 3 so its safe and linked to this. Now I noticed the following sentences.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7787219/
If that is the case, then doesnt that mean we dont have information on side effects occurring 1+ year from Oct 2020? Why are you not worried about any unforeseen side effects happening 1-10 years from now? You seem so sure its gonna be fine, but I dont know where that surety comes from? could you explain?
@Sophie
checkout paleomom I already posted the link above. I think you need to hear it from a woman.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33976179/
anti-cancer vaccines are very close. And we will have women to thank for it.
I would add that the CDC decision is primarily a tactical and pragmatic decision rather than one predicated on rock solid scientific evidence. That is, there is now a strong record that the Covid-19 vaccines work very well in the real world (effectiveness) as well as under the somewhat controlled conditions of the trials (efficacy). Also, we still need more evidence but there are multiple sources indicating that they are also very good at blocking viral infections and hence at blocking the spread of the virus. And this is demonstrated by the decline from a peak 4 weeks ago that followed a loosening of the restrictions that had been needed to bring the huge surge in cases from November to January under control.
A more scientifically based choice might have been to wait until we were clearly at or close to herd immunity. But many states were already loosening restrictions without dire national consequences. And this choice allowed the CDC to give a positive if somewhat confusing reward to those who had accepted their chance to get vaccinated and perhaps encourage some of the hesitant to joint them.
Also the pending vaccination of middle and high school age children will help us continue to improve our protection.
Also, the way Sophie poses her question is a blend of moving the goalposts with the Nirvana fallacy. We have shown that masks work to limit the spread of this disease (although it’s difficult to maintain that indefinitely and the disease eventually breaks through). We have shown that the vaccines are very safe and very good at protecting from disease, hospitalization and death. And we have shown that the vaccines protect against infection.
But she wants the one definitive published study that proves all of that in one fell swoop. (Her own personal Nirvana ???)
TTFN
You’ve got the order backwards.
‘ABSOLUTE MORON
TOO STUPID
YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT’
You sure know how to make an argument, as I said I feel sorry for your wife and kids.
Again as you claim you’re are big into research and read everything.
In the 1-2 weeks since the CDC guidance was given that you should wear a mask outdoors (and of course indoors) what has actually changed and what peer reviewed SCIENCE was used to now say we don’t need masks.
As of the 1 st of May 103 million people had been vaccinated, as of yesterday 117 million people (in the US). and you are telling me the based on 14 million people the CDC changed their position almost 180 degrees. please cite those references.
I don’t want to read your opinion, I don’t want to read about books on vaccines, I want to know why the CDC in the course of under 2 weeks changed their minds.
and just an fyi Texas only has a 31% vaccination rate compared to the national average of 38%
It’s unfortunate that secession isn’t constitutionally permitted.
@ Sophie
You write: “In the 1-2 weeks since the CDC guidance was given that you should wear a mask outdoors (and of course indoors) what has actually changed and what peer reviewed SCIENCE was used to now say we don’t need masks. . . As of the 1st of May 103 million people had been vaccinated, as of yesterday 117 million people (in the US). and you are telling me the based on 14 million people the CDC changed their position almost 180 degrees. please cite those references. . . and just an fyi Texas only has a 31% vaccination rate compared to the national average of 38%”
You are stupid beyond measure. I’ve explained that the new guidelines are based on how effective the vaccine is in combination with the less risk of infection with outdoors. Since it only applies to those vaccinated, doesn’t matter that Texas has lower rates. You really are STUPID. And I will continue to state so since you continue to display so. And I’ve explained that, yep, they took their time. It wasn’t an abrupt about face, not just two weeks; but a decision based on an accumulation of evidence, e.g., especially studies both in U.S. and abroad on vaccine effectiveness, that had been discussed and finally implemented. As I explained, better safe than sorry. YOU STUPID STUPID MORON. As I explained, since wearing a mask is not a major invasion of people’s personal freedom, CDC took their time. It wasn’t an about face; and you continue to ignore that I clearly refuted several other claims you made, just stick with one. By the way, how about revealing whatever education and profession you have. Maybe, given just how certain you are about public health, maybe you should contact the White House and insist you replace the current CDC Director. I’m sure when you explain just how much more you understand pandemics and public health that they will jump at the chance. Below is the latest study on vaccine effectiveness and I won’t give you a list, since I’m sure you could care less.
Below, from NPR, is what CDC director said:
CDC says that yes, this decision was based on the current state of the pandemic in the U.S., along with evidence that vaccines are extremely effective in the real world. “That science, in conjunction with all of the epidemiologic data that we have, really says now is the moment,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told NPR Thursday.
Walensky notes that the number of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the United States have declined significantly in recent weeks. That suggests that, because of vaccination — and because some people are immune because of previous infection with the coronavirus — the pandemic is gradually coming under control.
Walensky has also cited several recent studies of health care workers as evidence that vaccines provide excellent protection against disease. One CDC study published Friday found that, across 33 sites, vaccinated health care personnel were much less likely to get sick with COVID-19 than those who were unvaccinated.
Again your immense stupidness, the decision was based on an accumulation of studies of the vaccine effectiveness, the number already exposed in the population, more studies on risk out-of-doors, etc. And again, given how little it is to wear a mask, better to err on the side of caution.
Here is one of the latest papers Walensky cited:
Pilishvili T et al. (2021 May 14). Interim Estimates of Vaccine Effectiveness of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 Vaccines Among Health Care Personnel — 33 U.S. Sites, January–March 2021 – MMWR
You write: “ABSOLUTE MORON
TOO STUPID
YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT’
You sure know how to make an argument, as I said I feel sorry for your wife and kids.”
And I explained that my first replies to you were factual and you completely ignored and I explained how I would NEVER attempt to tell people with other areas of expertise how to do their jobs; but you, without any indication you have any understanding of the science that underlies the pandemic, you who ignores when, for instance, I clearly refute the New York Times article, you who ignore when I pointed out that even if a virus is found to be transmitted by air, it can also still be transmitted by fomites, there is no other way to describe you that you are a genuine ASSHOLE. And actually people who know me often seek my advice on medical matters. And I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of people monitoring this website find my comments valuable.
And for people who are open-minded, there are several reasons the U.S. has one of the highest deaths from COVID, etc
1. Historically Americans and their politicians react to health emergencies, then after a period, instead of preparing, just basically forget
2. Over the past several decades both Federal Funding and State funding to public health has dropped
3. President George Bush created the National Strategic Stockpile, a dozen huge acre large warehouses with N-95 masks, face shield, PPE, oxygen, antibiotics, antivirals, even portable hospital and beds; but when funding ended and President Obama requested funding the Republican, who said they would not agree with Obama, refused, then President Trump was told and he also refused. Those warehouses would have been a godsend for the first crucial months of the pandemic.
4. Trump put people in positions, not based on their qualifications; but support of him and his personal whim. Dr. Robert Redford should NOT have been the choice for CDC director.
5. When early in January CDC and others warned about possible pandemic, told Trump, he ignored it.
6. As pandemic broke out in U.S. Trump downplayed it and sidelined public health experts.
7. Under Trump the CDC, FDA, and others were basically gagged.
8. Trump refused to implement national policy; but left it to states which is MAIN reason we have such confusion. Pandemics don’t recognize borders, so we needed one policy backed by the President
9. Though Warp Speed was the one positive Trump did, most people don’t know that much of the funding came from monies previously earmarked to help hospitals during the crisis, rather than from, for instance, his wall.
10. And the U.S. has people who assert rights without any sense of responsibilities/community. As I wrote in a previous comment, even where mitigation was implemented, in a number of communities police, etc refused to enforce.
So, Sophie is upset about a decision on masks, ignoring also that the CDC was mainly right in beginning of pandemic and if they had not been gagged and listened to by Trump most experts believe the death number would have been much much lower and lockdowns fewer. Other nations implemented mask wearing, physical distancing, testing and contact tracing (even with contact tracing we have had too few carrying it out). and on and on it goes; but Sophie wants to focus on masks. What an absolute callous ASSHOLE!
@ Sophie Amsden, etc
A couple more points to my list:
According to several studies, 70% or more of Americans don’t understand the basics of science or critical thinking.
Back to Trump. He took a problem nation and accelerated its polarization.
The lucky number: the CDC, dependent on ones political, and knowledge or lack thereof of science. position, no matter what they do, will be damned if they do and damned if they don’t.
And Sophie also ignore that when I said awhile back a too soon lifting of mitigation measures led to a surge in cases and deaths, the graph of Texas clearly showed this last July and I added another article with graphs from other states, all showing surge after lifting of lockdowns. That is what she does, claim something, when shown wrong, just ignores.
In today’s paper:
“On Friday, two of the nation’s medical societies — the American Society of
Transplantation and the American Academy of Pediatrics — expressed concern that the
CDC’s decision was premature, coming only days after regulators cleared a vaccine for 12-to 15-year-olds and while so many are still unprotected.”
And: ““The guidance shifts all the burden onto individuals to be ‘on their honor’ and choose the appropriate actions when deciding whether to wear a mask,” said Lisa Maragakis, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “There is no way to know who is vaccinated and who is not in most scenarios. The likely result is that almost no one will wear a mask.” The risk for people who have not yet been vaccinated, including millions of adolescents and children, “is going to dramatically increase as the rest of the population abruptly drops masking,” Maragakis added.”
So, did the CDC delay their new guidelines more than necessary? Depends on ones position. Children, though few dying, found with vascular changes, people with transplants on immunosuppressants at risk. And given the overall dishonesty or lack of community responsibility of many Americans, Maragakis is probably right that unvaccinated will also stop wearing masks.
Well, though fully vaccinated, at 74, I will continue to wear a mask when in line at Costco and Trader Joe’s and inside the stores and anywhere else where in close contact with others, doing my best to maintain physical distancing.
AND THE CDC’S JUSTIFICATION:
“The CDC defended its guidance. Officials pointed to a study released Friday of nearly
2,000 health care workers across 25 states that showed the two mRNA vaccines reduced
the risk of COVID-19 by 94 percent.
“This report provided the most compelling information to date that coronavirus vaccines
were performing as expected in the real world,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said.
“This study, added to the many studies that preceded it, was pivotal to CDC changing its
recommendations for those who are fully vaccinated.”
Two other studies were key: A March report in Nature Medicine showed substantially
reduced viral loads among Israelis infected with the coronavirus after their first dose of
the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Lower viral load is thought to impede transmission of the
virus, which would suggest vaccinated people do not spread the virus as easily. And a May 6 JAMA study found that a second Pfizer dose protected against even asymptomatic
infections among fully vaccinated health care workers.”
If one accepts this, then, as I wrote, an accumulation of studies with one more informed the decision; but, again, it probably could have been made a few weeks earlier or, given some of the objections, including that many unvaccinated will stop wearing masks and that wearing a mask is NOT a major burden, maybe it could have been delayed more.
Oh, Sophie, I suggest you begin sending e-mais to CDC, White House, write a letter to your local newspaper asking how CDC employees spouses and children feel about their “rightness.” Everyone in my close circle feels quite good about mine! ! !
@ Q-Ball
You write: “This is not the way to treat a lady, Joel! Ive noticed you do the same thing to other women recently.”
I am writing in response to stupid comments and I have called out both men and women. This is a science blog, not a social media. And I have good friends who are professionals and would tell you that I treat them when it comes to knowledge as equals. Sophie continues to ignore what I write. I could care less what her gender is. She is a MORON
You write: “If that is the case, then doesnt that mean we dont have information on side effects occurring 1+ year from Oct 2020? Why are you not worried about any unforeseen side effects happening 1-10 years from now? You seem so sure its gonna be fine, but I dont know where that surety comes from? could you explain?”
First, we had three months of data before first vaccines given to public. Second, volunteers have been continuously monitored, now for up to nine months. Third, if you understood the immune system, understood vaccines, there has NEVER been any indication or reason one would suspect side effects even past six months. The mRNA used breaks down after a few hours, so it only produces a limited quantity of S-Spike Proteins and the S-Spike proteins are not the complete ones found on the virus. As I’ve written before, like cutting a finger off to fingerprint it, the cut version of the S-spike protein can’t do anything, can’t even attach to cell receptors because it lacks part of the S-spike protein structure. All it can do is allow antibodies to fingerprint it.
And if we required 10 year follow-ups on vaccines and other medicines, we would live in a world with lots of unnecessary suffering.
Anymore STUPID questions. I assume you are a male? So, based on your current comment and previously one, you are as much a moron as Sophie! No gender discrimination on my part. I respond to commenters, nothing more nothing less. But MORON Sophie brings up wives and children. Just one more example of how she can’t directly deal with what I actually write.
@ Q-Ball
One more thing. Despite no scientific reason, if we had required a 10-year follow-up for the current COVID vaccines before using them, the number of dead in the U.S. and around the world would be exponential and the continued need for lockdowns and other mitigation measures would literally have destroyed the lives of countless more.
Joel, he’s trolling. Well, in terms of comedic value, but trolling all the same.
@Joel
I understand that we need to balance risks and benefits of new inventions. I just wonder is this approx 1-year tracked=safe what happens in normal times? If its just a new vaccine using tech that been tried and tested many times it certainly can make sense. But since its still a novel delivery mechanism, like the first transplant or the first statin, personally id expect more caution with novel tech in normal times. Is there generally no extra caution applied to novel tech, other than a 1-year tracking time?
@Joel, Narad, Tim, Orac, Aarno, Numberwang et al.
Iwanted to write below section to Aarno first, but I realized Joel you have way more internalized toxic whiteness
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3b4k79/toxic-whiteness-everyday-feminism-sandra-kim-interview
It appears to me all you here still dont understand medical sexism or racism. But dont take it from me, take it from the American Medical Association
https://www.ama-assn.org/about/leadership/ama-s-strategic-plan-embed-racial-justice-and-advance-health-equity
Calling women morons and BIPOCs bad scientists just because you do that to white males as well is not anti-racist. Its actually racist and sexist and perpetuates structural racism and sexism. Ask yourself this: will my behaviour discourage women and BIPOCs from entering STEM? Then its racist and sexist.
STEM is not only for pale, stale males. Dont discourage BIPOC and women by attacking them.
And ORAC please stop objectifying and exploiting Bility’s black body and labor for your own entertainment, like your white ancestors did to many other BIPOCs. I hope you apologize to him and remove your post…Look here for inspiration on potential actions you can take.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/apr/9/american-medical-association-journal-editor-out-af/
As Ive said before, its not my opinion, its scientific consensus. We must help the marginalized. I have posted many references (because you just have to exploit my nonwhite labor compiling them, somehow we cant expect white ppl to learn about racism and sexism on your own time), READ THEM!
@Q-Ball Why you cannot understand a simple thing: Bility is called ridiculous because he says that COVID is caused by magnetic fields. It has nothing to do with his race.
@ Q-Ball
“Calling women morons and BIPOCs bad scientists just because you do that to white males as well is not anti-racist. Its actually racist and sexist and perpetuates structural racism and sexism.”
I’m kind of getting tired of this kind of shit you’re spewing around.
“I realized Joel you have way more internalized toxic whiteness.”
I’m a lekgowa, as white as the white pure snow of the Swiss Alps. (Or as white as high-grade Mexican base cocaïne. Depending on your criterion of what “purity” means, y’a know).
And I couldn’t care less about your nonsensical talk of “internalized toxic whiteness” where it doesn’t apply.
Va te faire cuire un œuf. Voetsek !
Interesting that the CDC used a study that was not yet published before it changed its mind. ( I know they had it in their possession of the study on the 12 of april, 1 full month ago.
Again what new information that was obtained in the last two weeks did the CDC base their 180 on masks. I don’t need to know the history of the CDC or its funding or the fact that they didn’t hire you. All I want to know is what changed in 13 days from wear a mask every where even out doors to no need to wear a mask?
It also interesting to notice that almost 50% of the employees of CDC, NIAID, and FDA are refusing to get vaccinated. Fauci, Marks and Walliski testified to that.
@ Sophie Amsden
You write: “Interesting that the CDC used a study that was not yet published before it changed its mind. ( I know they had it in their possession of the study on the 12 of april, 1 full month ago All I want to know is what changed in 13 days from wear a mask every where even out doors to no need to wear a mask?”
Thanks once again for proving how dishonest you are. As I’ve written they began to review it, along with other studies. However, as I’ve stated many times, no hurry necessary for mask wearing as NOT a major issue. AND only those fully vaccinated have “no need to wear mask”. You continue to ignore “only those fully vaccinated”. You are incredibly dishonest. And, as I explained and you continue to ignore, it was based on a cumulation of studies on the efficacy of vaccines both in U.S. and abroad, especially in Israel.
And you continue to ignore that even the Texas State website you gave gave what I originally wrote, namely, that as States ended too soon lockdowns, a surge occurred. I pointed to July on the graph you presented. And according to a recent article, Texas has had another surge: Mark Stucka (2020 Apr 12). COVID-19 cases surge 27% in Texas. Times Record News. AND Brian Lopez (2021 Apr 20). Texas didn’t see a COVID surge after opening and ending its mask mandate. Here’s why. Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
“A mix of vaccinations, continued mask wearing, people already having immunity and the weather warming up has slowed down the spread, said Diana Cervantes, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at UNT Health Science Center. . . .Vinny Taneja, Tarrant County’s Public Health Director, agrees with Cervantes. On Tuesday, he was worried about the uptick in the virus’ spread. As of Friday, every infected person was transmitting the virus to at least one other person, meaning the spread was increasing. . .Cervantes believes, in general, most people have taken the virus seriously and not ditched safety measures. If anything, lifting the mask mandate made people want to be safer. On March 10, people didn’t immediately take off the masks and go back to pre-pandemic times, Cervantes said. Most large businesses like Walmart, Target, Kroger, HEB and others are still requiring mask and other coronavirus protocols. . . Moore said 80% of his customers come in wearing masks. Most of his employees are vaccinated and they are required to wear masks. Everyone he asks says they’ve been vaccinated and it gives him ease.”
So, most in Texas still wearing masks and those not, indications virus spreading. Preceded by a brief surge.
You write: “It also interesting to notice that almost 50% of the employees of CDC, NIAID, and FDA are refusing to get vaccinated. Fauci, Marks and Walliski testified to that.”
I actually watched Fauci testimony before Senate hearing. Boring; but NO such mention. And the other three. No mention of refusal, just a GUESS at how many already vaccinated. And Marks said, probably some vaccinated outside of facility..
One more example of how you leap to conclusions based on evidence not presented. Until there is an actual survey of employees on their vaccination status and their attitudes, concluding they refuse is just plain BULL SHIT.
There is a great documentary on PBS that you should watch; but I’m sure you won’t: Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer: Episode 1: Vaccines.
You keep focusing on the most trivial of issues, masks and continue to avoid admitting how wrong you have been on so many other things, which I listed above.
As I wrote: YOU ARE FULL OF SHIT
And I wonder what your spouse and children think of someone who NEVER admits being wrong??? And acts as if they have perfect knowledge???
And are you ashamed of your level of education and profession??? If not, why not tell us?
This is actually amusing to some extent, interacting with someone suffering from Dunning-Kruger, someone who keeps making a bigger and bigger ASS of themselves.
@ Sophie Amsden
And based on what I cited above: “On Friday, two of the nation’s medical societies — the American Society of Transplantation and the American Academy of Pediatrics — expressed concern that the CDC’s decision was premature, coming only days after regulators cleared a vaccine for 12-to 15-year-olds and while so many are still unprotected.”
And: ““The guidance shifts all the burden onto individuals to be ‘on their honor’ and choose the appropriate actions when deciding whether to wear a mask,” said Lisa Maragakis, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “There is no way to know who is vaccinated and who is not in most scenarios. The likely result is that almost no one will wear a mask.” The risk for people who have not yet been vaccinated, including millions of adolescents and children, “is going to dramatically increase as the rest of the population abruptly drops masking,” Maragakis added.”
So, based on my impression of you, you will stop using a mask wherever allowed and if others also do that it will create clusters where, especially if one of the newer more transmissible variants appear, of surges, leading to suffering, hospitalizations, long Covid, vascular damage, and deaths, and not just among the dishonest who haven’t been vaccinated and lie; but potentially harming those who either couldn’t be vaccinated, e.g., being treated for cancer (includes children), some autoimmune diseases, or were vaccinated but experienced a weaker immune response. These people have a right to go shopping, go to parks, etc. and even if they wear masks, which provide some protection, if you or others are asymptomatic with one of the more transmissible variants, they could be infected. And I realize you could care less.
So, I’ve now come to the conclusion that the CDC’s new guidelines were a mistake, until much higher levels of vaccinations and/or those who have survived COVID (including asymptomatic cases that have had blood tests), trusting a public with people like you, was a mistake. In other words, they didn’t take too long to decide on the new guidelines; but should have thought them through even more. But, though you rejected what I wrote about CDC, they are, unfortunately, subject to political pressure.
Oh, I assume that NIAID, CDC, FDA will survey their employees to find what percentage actually vaccinated. As I wrote, when asked at Senate hearings, their directors actually had no idea, just guessed at numbers. I would be willing to bet that the actual percentage much higher than 50% with few outright refusers and that as the age goes up the percentage goes up. After all, they have employees in their early 20s who only became eligible a short while ago. We’ll see.
So, just how proud is your family of your “uprightness?”
And again are you ashamed of your level of education and profession??? If not, why not tell us?
@ Joel writes, “So, based on my impression of you, you will stop using a mask wherever allowed” Awwwwwwww! Hell yes! Please keep wearing yours. Keep your face hidden. Please. Cover your eyes with goggles while you’re at it.
@ Sophie writes referring to Joel, “as I said I feel sorry for your wife and kids.” Don’t waste time feeling sorry for non-existent people. Joel, as far as I can tell, has never been married and is childless. However, he has a dog that gives him unconditional love. Feel sorry for the dog.
Now about gain of function studies: https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/who-we-are/nih-director/statements/nih-lifts-funding-pause-gain-function-research
Which haven’t been mentioned in these comments.
@ cuckoo4cocopuffs
You write: “@ Sophie writes referring to Joel, “as I said I feel sorry for your wife and kids.” Don’t waste time feeling sorry for non-existent people. Joel, as far as I can tell, has never been married and is childless. However, he has a dog that gives him unconditional love. Feel sorry for the dog.”
Yep, I have NEVER been married. As I wrote in a previous set of exchanges: “Have NEVER married, though actually several women proposed to me, frightening? Groucho Marx once said he would never join a club that would have a member like him; well, I would NEVER marry a woman crazy enough to want to marry me?.”
And I am still friends with many of them. Some unfortunately have passed away. However, when younger I often babysat free for fellow students and later colleagues, many single mothers. I love kids, probably in way grandparents do, can focus on them for periods of time. And, yep, I have a dog that I got from a rescue group. A shelter found him wandering the streets and because he had a mild skin condition was going to euthanize him. Since I had been traumatized by having to euthanize my previous dog, put him on table, stroked his head, and talk to him while vet put needle in, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t adopting a dog with cancer or something that would end up losing him in a short time. So we took him to a vet who said he was perfectly healthy; but had a skin condition that would need medication, so I shouldn’t adopt him. The dog’s foster parent was livid; but I told her to give the dog a bath and bring him to me and I got a new vet. Did some research, found that hypoallergenic foods often all needed for dog skin condition and sometimes Omega-3 fish capsules, so I started him on both. Skin condition cleared up in three weeks. But I would have paid for medication; but it would have probably shortened his life. First night he slept with me; but when he got into bed, sat up, thanked me for adopting him, then said: “I want you to understand that this is now my house and as long as you understand this, we’ll get along fine.”? Sometimes I would love to trade places with him, spoiled with unconditional love, though he also deserves it.
I walk him a mile twice daily. Play in backyard with frisby and ball. He is an Australian Shepherd, known as velcro dogs. Literally, he follows me around, lays by me when I’m on computer, up on sofa beside me when reading. Yep, feel sorry for him. What a stupid statement. He has been with me 11 1/2 years now and is around 13 1/2; but I’ve a great vet and his breed can live to 17 or even 18. I don’t know what I will do when he goes. I have always loved animals; but this one is special.
As for Sophie’s saying: “feel sorry for wife and kids”; really just plain stupid. Since she has been incapable of giving valid responses to my comments, obsesses about how decision was made on masks, etc. just an irrelevant attempt to divert attention. And, as I pointed out, I don’t tread in other areas of expertise, e.g., auto mechanic, foreign languages, bridge design; yet Sophie, with NO indication she understands even the most basics of immunology, infectious diseases, epidemiology, etc. makes comments that sound like she is absolutely certain she is right and when pointed out, not even close, she NEVER admits being wrong. Anyone who knows me, knows that I am always open to refutation; but it has to make sense and be based on solid reasoning, e.g., research, not citing newspaper articles, blogs, and, maybe one or two outliers. Historically, for every time an outlier has been right, they have been wrong thousands of times. And again Sophie doesn’t indicate she even has the basic skills to evaluate such, just believes what confirms her ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY.
As for gain-of-function, why change subject. This has been covered umpteen times in various exchanges on this blog, and I downloaded years ago the link you gave and have on my computer in a folder 10 articles.
I guess “cuckoo” fits you perfectly. You should try to hook up with Sophie. I’m sure you will get along find.
@cuckoo4cocobuffs:
From your link:
“Today, the National Institutes of Health announced that it is lifting a funding pause dating back to October 2014 on gain-of-function (GOF) experiments involving influenza, SARS, and MERS viruses. ”
You notice date:October 14. So NIH did not fund any GOF studies when pandemic were starting.
Sophie
Don’t try to reason with Joel he is a single 75+ year old man who has never been married and has no kids ( thus no one to soften his arguments or increase his ability to see an opposing point of view over the years). In his own self reflection he admitted, he has not done much in his life and he has self quarantined/isolated himself from the rest of the world for the past year. This self imposed confinement has probably degraded his mental (much the same a prisoner who is locked in solitary confinement) abilities and increase his sadness, bitterness and now regrets some of his decisions and chooses to take out these issues on this website on those who might even slightly disagree with him.
Judging by your past posts I have a feeling that you might work for a government agency and don’t want to reveal too much information, I would bet that you and others were against lifting the mask mandate, because you keep repeating this question, what science was relieved in the last one to two weeks that changed the CDC mind, and you probably believe (or know) that the decision was a political decision and not based on new science or information, but that is speculation on my part.
As to Joel, do what most of us do and that is scroll past his posts.
“Never try to reason with a pig,
It will just waste your time
and annoy the pig.
∗splorf∗
The Board of Tea Appeals?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_Importation_Act_of_1897#Board_of_Tea_Appeals
I was thinking more along the lines of the Ministry of Silly Walks.
@ Charles Bronski
“Don’t try to reason with Joel he is a single 75+ year old man who has never been married and has no kids ( thus no one to soften his arguments or increase his ability to see an opposing point of view over the years).”
That’s called a man who has never experienced slavery.
More seriously: that’s inane to attack someone on that basis.
I’d nonetheless advise Joel to take it a bit more easy as I do sometimes worry about his arterial pressure. But, honestly, I do experience that spasm of pleasure when he finally lashes onto someone out of sheer contempt.
I’d advise him to practice the following exercise, though: weaving insults and contempt in such a way as to elicit a “Well, Thank you !” from the person you insult. That’s my Gold Standard for insults: being thanked for communicating your contempt.
You of course find a deep throat reveling a deep state plot. Arguing with that is indeed impossible, you should acquire some common sense instead.
@ Charles Bronski
You write: “In his own self reflection he admitted, he has not done much in his life and he has self quarantined/isolated himself from the rest of the world for the past year. This self imposed confinement has probably degraded his mental (much the same a prisoner who is locked in solitary confinement) abilities and increase his sadness, bitterness and now regrets some of his decisions and chooses to take out these issues on this website on those who might even slightly disagree with him”
Actually I am 74 and though have been sheltering-in-place, keep in touch with several friends by phone and a number of others by e-mail. And I readily admit that I didn’t have much of a career, traveled extensively, lived in five different countries, have PhD and four Masters degrees, was on faculty of medical school for several years, and just love reading, attending seminars, discussing current events, especially pandemic with colleagues on phone or by e-mail.
As for regretting decisions. Really only one. I was happily living in Sweden, almost 10 years, lots of friends, good job prospects, and a girlfriend who loved me, we lived together. But my maternal grandfather died because of our for-profit medical system. I won’t go into details; except a for-profit hospital’s regular heart surgeon was unavailable so they used one who had already lost privileges from two other hospitals. They couldn’t keep him under observation for a few days until their regular surgeon was available. Profit as soon as possible. So, I finished my doctorate and returned to the States. Got three year post-doc from National Institutes of Health. Couldn’t be in my hometown; but from Sweden long distance calls were $1 per minute and from any part of U.S. 20 minutes for $1. And standby flights got me home in less than 5 hours, quite inexpensive, from Sweden very expensive and 12 to 13 hours. So, I was able to spend a lot of time with my parents and maternal grandmother. Finally, moved home to take care of my mother when she was diagnosed with cancer. Didn’t want to move again, only masters levels positions in my hometown, so retired. Oh, girlfriend in Sweden, she came several times trying to get back together; but I didn’t want her to be in U.S. We are still in touch, still friends, she lives in Canada. So many reasons I was happier in Sweden, including a quality, though bureaucratic health care system, designed for people not for profit, so I returned to States because of one of the many reasons I didn’t like this nation; but I did get further education, met lots of quality good people; but watched this nation go from bad to worse. Four percent of world’s population, almost 25% incarcerated, including for–profit prisons. One of highest murder rates, including mass murders, and death by cop in world. Murder of an estimated 20 million people in Third World, not to defend free world; but to further interests of corporations; but lying to American public about reasons. We are responsible, among other things, for ISIS! ! !
As I look back, I could have taken a couple of months following my doctorate to visit with family, then got job, earned enough money to easily afford long distance calls, and visited twice yearly. Swedes get five weeks paid vacation every year and, depending on employer, usually two weeks at Christmas and six weeks paid vacation after age 50. And can by law take emergency leave when family member sick, so when my grandmother, then father, were dying, could have gone home to be with them final few weeks. And, instead of taking care of my mother for well over a year, since she was capable first 8 months and had lots of friends, could have taken leave from job to care for her last six months of her life. So, yep, I have one regret. Sweden doesn’t have death penalty, has health care system designed for people, not profit, has far less violent police force, and even today with increase violence has around 1/5th per capita murder rate. And Gothenburg had great bicycle paths, well-maintained, could bicycle almost year round, except when ice on roads. I bicycled in rain, snow, etc. Could bicycle almost anywhere without being in traffic. I hate owning a car and needing it. They also had a great public transportation system, buses, electric street cars, etc. Lots of parks, forests to wander in, etc.
And really shows just how STUPID you are to claim Sophie was someone ” who might even slightly disagree with” me. Slightly disagree? She cites mainly newspapers, blogs, etc., attacking CDC, against vaccines without any inclination she understands immunology, infectious diseases, epidemiology, etc. A slight disagreement? Yep, if we followed her thinking, we would definitely eventually reach natural herd immunity. Of course, the number dead would more than likely be 2 million or more, many more with long COVID, and vascular damage, and on and on it goes. And the blow to our economy would have been much greater. And not once when I pointed out a flaw in her reasoning did she admit it.
And nowhere in your comment did you point out one mistake in my arguments and then explain what was wrong with it. Typical. Attack person without any indication you understand anything.
As for her working for government, even if true, she could still give her education; but she doesn’t. And guessing who she works for is just one more foolish aspect of your comment.
@ Charles Bronski
You write: “As to Joel, do what most of us do and that is scroll past his posts.
“Never try to reason with a pig,
It will just waste your time
and annoy the pig.”
Yep, thanks, just proof you belong to those incapable of actually addressing issues. And what delusions of grandeur, “what most of us do”, really, you know most of the people who follow this blog? Typical of you, Sophie, and others, incapable of actually addressing actual issues; but certain of yourselves. And when you write: “Don’t try to reason with Joel.” That is the entire point, neither you nor her try to reason with me. You both ignore what I write, she just keeps on, despite my showing she is wrong and you don’t even deal with any of the issues, just attack me. Wow!
As for calling me a pig, I’ll take that as a compliment. You do know, oops you don’t know much, that pigs are one of the most intelligent animals, more intelligent than dogs and people think they are dirty; but actually in wild quite clean and devoted to family and chlldren.
However, given who you are, I assume you were trying to insult me.
My WAG was correct…
Oh the ultimate “Love Story” that was never told.
He sent away the woman who he wished to share his life with because of America’s health care system. How terrible is that, it should be made into a movie…
My guess is she ran so fast that she approached the speed of light to get back to Sweden. You probably kept fantasizing about your blond hair blue eyed high school teachers it cheeped her out.
25% of the US population is in jail, well since we only have 1.5 million in jail now, we will have to find 75 million people to put into those jail cells.
Police killings in the US less than 900 people were killed by police in 2020. Sweden police killed 9.7 person per 100,000 the US kills 28.
Who was the president when ISIS was formed?
The US doesn’t even break the top 20 in the murder rate with 6 per 100,000, if you are looking for a better murder rate go to China with .6 per 100,000.
So if you don’t like the US and love Sweden why not move back as you are done with your education and you can ride the coal powered street cars, oh I forgot they didn’t lock down and didn’t have a mask mandate. Your shelter in place means you were happy to put others in harms way to keep YOU safe, how sick is that.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/police-killings-by-country
so yes I was correct about you bitterness and loneliness and need to strike out at anyone or everyone who disagrees with you.
I am sorry for you but I am even more sorry for your dog.
@ Charles Bronski
“So if you don’t like the US and love Sweden why not move back”
I’ve got a better idea… Why don’t you just decide to leave this earthly plane ? Your presence is polluting my cognitive space and humanity’s collective cognition.
The goal of dealing with jerks like you is indeed to show other people that, aside from grandstanding and rhetorics, you have nothing of value to bring to the table. And that bringing valuable ideas to the table is indeed worthwhile. Which you’re not.
There’s indeed little point dealing with you apart from that. Apart from showing you merely are a loudmouth. And a worthless one at that.
Do yourself a favor: leave this world.
@ F86.10
Do you really wish him on some other innocent planet? ?
And if he somehow left, there are so many more like him, wouldn’t even be noticeable. Oh well
@ Joel
“Do you really wish him on some other innocent planet? ? And if he somehow left, there are so many more like him, wouldn’t even be noticeable. Oh well”
I believe “leave this earthly plane” is an adequate response to “go back to your country”.
People never cease to amaze me as to how dense they are. There are so many like him, granted. But that endless pool of opportunity to quench my sadism somehow satisfies me: the internet has become such a place of gruesome intellectual squalor that a thorough cleaning brigade would be most welcome.
Perhaps he would like to colonise Mars, perhaps together with some likeminded people.
@Charles
Why must you be such a MORON? (note, its okay what I did here because charles is not oppressed)
Dont you know that criticizing Obama is one of the worst kinds of white supremacy? He is arguably the greatest BIPOC that ever lived !!! Altho maybe in third place if we take in account historical BIPOCs (like Jesus and Julius Caesar). And stop being such an asshole to Joel. Hes helping me alot explaining the side effects and he is right about how amazing Obama is.
@Joel
So you cannot exclude any longterm side-effects of mrna? because we only monitor for 1 year?
For example, If ppl turn into zombies after death, thats not known right now, right?
P.S. Have you checked your dog for (hidden) racism?
https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article-abstract/doi/10.1093/hwj/dbaa003/5734672
“Dont you know that criticizing Obama is one of the worst kinds of white supremacy?”
Why? Because he ain’t black? He’s Bush with a tan? Baby Doc’s baby? His mom smoked pot and was subsequently subjugated by the negro races and gave birth to a lib? He did Grumpy Cat in Golden-child face? Talk about putting the BI in BIPoC.
Fine. I confess. I have a picture of Archie Bunker on my nightstand and Alex Keaton beer coozies. I have a 1lb Robert E. Lee commemorative knife complete with embossed, raised the bad flag like what was on the Dukes of Hazzard car lying around in here somewhere.
I guess I am a bigot. I’m too long in the nut sack to give a rat’s ass about Critical Race Theory or to feel guilty about not doing so or dropping my stereotypical view save on a case by case basis. And I feel really bad about that. /not really So, fuck you, I’m sorry. /s
@Q-ball Half life of mRNA is very short:
Youn H, Chung JK. Modified mRNA as an alternative to plasmid DNA (pDNA) for transcript replacement and vaccination therapy. Expert Opin Biol Ther. 2015;15(9):1337-48. doi: 10.1517/14712598.2015.1057563. Epub 2015 Jun 30. PMID: 26125492; PMCID: PMC4696419.
Citation:
“However, transfection efficiency of mRNA has been greatly improved and the half-life of mRNA has been dramatically increased, ranging from a few minutes to several hours by chemical modifications, ”
Several hours is not long time.
@ Charles Bronski
You write: “25% of the US population is in jail, well since we only have 1.5 million in jail now, we will have to find 75 million people to put into those jail cells.”
But I wrote “Four percent of world’s population, almost 25% incarcerated, including for–profit prisons.”
I think it obvious to anyone with half a brain that I was referring to 25% incarcerated of all incarcerated in world, after all, I did mention world’s population.
You write: “Police killings in the US less than 900 people were killed by police in 2020. Sweden police killed 9.7 person per 100,000 the US kills 28.”
According to Wikipedia. List of killings by law enforcement officers by country: 2019
Sweden: 1 rate per 10 million people: 1
U.S.: 1,146 rate per 10 million people: 34.8
According to World Population Review. Police Killing by Country: 2020
Sweden: 6 rate per 10 million: 6
U.S.: 933 rate per 10 million: 28.4
I found several other website with similar data, so where did you get your data???
You write: “The US doesn’t even break the top 20 in the murder rate with 6 per 100,000, if you are looking for a better murder rate go to China with .6 per 100,000.”
According to World Population Review, which is what you linked to:
Sweden 1.08 per 100,000
U.S. 5.35 per 100,000
So, your stats for U.S. OK; but I was comparing to Sweden, why bring up China. Are you that stupid??? And I don’t care about ranking U.S. with Third World Nations, just modern industrialized technological advanced nations and we rank at the top in muders.
You write: “Who was the president when ISIS was formed?”
According to CNN, it began in 2004; but took the name ISIS in 2013. So, it formed under President George W. Bush; but changed its name under Obama. The bottom line is that the U.S. illegal invasion of Iraq led to ISIS, doesn’t matter what name it called itself. Just how stupid are you? Saddam Hussein was evil; but not in league with Al Qaeda. Actually Al Qaeda had a fatwa on Hussein and UN Weapons Inspectors found NO evidence of chemical or nuclear weapons in Iraq, so we went to war because Bush and his cronies manufactured a reason. Since it wasn’t a defensive war, it was a war crime. And we blew up civilian electric power stations, water treatment plants, and hospitals, also a war crime, both under President George W. Bush.
Reference: Jason Henna (2016 Aug 13). Here’s how ISIS was really founded. CNN.
You write: “Oh the ultimate “Love Story” that was never told. He sent away the woman who he wished to share his life with because of America’s health care system. How terrible is that, it should be made into a movie…My guess is she ran so fast that she approached the speed of light to get back to Sweden. You probably kept fantasizing about your blond hair blue eyed high school teachers it cheeped her out.”
First, she wasn’t Swedish. Students from other European nations are allowed to take summer jobs in each other’s nations, so I met her when she was in Sweden. Not blond haired blue eye, brown hair, brown eyes and not a high school teacher. And she lives and is now a citizen in Canada and I just recently phoned her to wish her a happy 65th birthday. And it wasn’t just the American health care system, that was only one example. It was the violence, the need to own a car, etc. Where she lives in Canada, she manages quite well using buses, doesn’t own a car. And I knew I would be conflicted living back in the U.S. and that would NOT have been good for her. You are so sick that you twist everything someone says and then interject your own sick fantasies. And I have had many women as good friends, still do, keep in touch by e-mail and phone; but I do prefer to live alone with a dog and my books, so what?
You write: “So if you don’t like the US and love Sweden why not move back as you are done with your education and you can ride the coal powered street cars, oh I forgot they didn’t lock down and didn’t have a mask mandate. Your shelter in place means you were happy to put others in harms way to keep YOU safe, how sick is that.”
Nope, they don’t have street cars that are coal powered. What fantasy world do you live in? In fact, half of energy in Sweden comes from green renewables and they are working to 100%, some hydroelectric power, and three nuclear power plants that they intend eventually to decommission.
Reference: Energy Use in Sweden.
As for returning, after being gone so many years I lost my permanent residency papers and maybe they would renew them; but those who would have supported my application, including the former Chancellor of the University of Gothenburg are deceased, plus I really don’t have the funds to move and wouldn’t want to leave about 4,000 books behind. I’m just too old to move now and, as I still have a few good friends here that I will be getting together with for lunch, etc. I do OK.
No, they didn’t implement a lockdown, resulting in a much higher death rate than the other Scandinavian nations; but still lower than the U.S. However, some of the things they did (WIkipedia. COVID-19 Pandemic in Sweden):
“The Public Health Agency issued recommendations to: if possible, work from home; avoid unnecessary travel within the country; engage in social distancing; and for people above 70 to stay at home, as much as possible. Those with even minimal symptoms that could be caused by COVID-19 are recommended to stay home. The karensdag, or initial day without paid sick-leave, has been removed by the government and the length of time one can stay home with pay without a doctor’s note has been raised from 7 to 21 days.” They also carried out much more extensive testing and follow-up than we did, etc.
As for: “Your shelter in place means you were happy to put others in harms way to keep YOU safe, how sick is that.”
I guess I must be part of a large contingent of sick people since many businesses had people working from home and the government recommended we shelter-in-place. How did I put others in harms way? At 74, should I be working in a supermarket, perhaps, working the fields of a farm, etc. You just get STUPIDER AND STUPIDER.
And finally, you write: “So yes I was correct about you bitterness and loneliness and need to strike out at anyone or everyone who disagrees with you. I am sorry for you but I am even more sorry for your dog.”
As I wrote, I keep in touch with friends by e-mail and phone, so I’m not isolated and how in hell can you feel sorry for a dog who was scheduled to be euthanized, who I nursed back to health, who I walk a mile twice daily, play in back yard with, pet him often, feed him expensive hypoallergenic foods, and have a great vet? Are you totally INSANE? And, yes, he is great company, spoiled rotten.
As for “striking out at anyone and everyone”, since you haven’t once addressed anything I actually wrote, the points I made, you are just deflecting attention from them. I backed my points with references, etc. If you mean by “striking out” refuting bogus claims, showing not based on actually researching an issue, misunderstanding, misinterpreting things, etc. then your position is that people like Sophie and yourself should NEVER be challenged. In other words, except for getting one stat right above, you live in a world of illogic, stupidity, and fantasy.
And too some extent I am bitter. I value life, all life, and seeing how many Americans have died unnecessarily because of our political system and especially President Trump, it grieves me greatly. And that so many stupid people refuse vaccinations, resulting in further unnecessary suffering, hospitalization, and deaths, based on non-existent understanding of immunology, infectious diseases, epidemiology, etc. it just tears at my heart. Life is short enough without stupidity leading to it being even shorter.
You really are DELUSIONAL! ! !
@ EVERYBODY
Throughout the pandemic numerous authorities have speculated that COVID deaths were undercounted, e.g., dying at home from heart attack, so no labs done. Well, a recent report by a well-respected Center at University of Washington, based on an excellent methodology (I carefully read the methods section) has confirmed this. According to the report, the number of COVID deaths so far Globally is 6.9 million, double the official report and in the U.S. more than 905,000, about 50% higher. than the official number If one speculates based on what we know, probably in U.S. another 100-200,000 suffering long COVID, and many more who experienced asymptomatic cases with vascular damage that may lead to future health problems. So, anyone downplaying the seriousness of COVID, e.g., compared to flu, though even with the previous statistics obvious, are really NUTS, living in a world of fantasy.
References:
University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (2021 May 6). News Release: COVID-19 has caused 6.9 million deaths globally, more than double what official reports show. Both available at: http://www.healthdata.org
University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (2021 May 13). Estimation of total mortality due to COVID-19.
@ EVERYBODY
By law, over 30 years old, every vaccine provider is required to give you a Vaccine Information Statement for each and every vaccine you or your child receives. In addition, many health providers requirement recipients or their guardians to sign that they have read the VIS and understood them. Of course, probably all providers don’t follow the law and many recipients don’t bother to read them. However, they are proof that the CDC goes out of its way to inform vaccine recipients about vaccines, including potential serious adverse events AND clear information how to contact VAERS.
You can find ALL current Vaccine Information Statements at:
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/eua/index.html
Included are VIS for each and every current Covid Vaccine. Below is an example:
Moderna Covid Vaccine
https://www.modernatx.com/covid19vaccine-eua/eua-fact-sheet-recipients.pdf
WHAT ARE THE RISKS OF THE MODERNA COVID-19 VACCINE?
There is a remote chance that the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine could cause a severe allergic reaction. A severe allergic reaction would usually occur within a few minutes to one hour after getting a dose of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine. For this reason, your vaccination provider may ask you to stay at the place where you received your vaccine for monitoring after vaccination. Signs of a severe allergic reaction can include:
• Difficulty breathing
• Swelling of your face and throat
• A fast heartbeat
• A bad rash all over your body
Dizziness and weakness
Side effects that have been reported in a clinical trial with the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine include:
• Injection site reactions: pain, tenderness and swelling of the lymph nodes in the same arm of the injection, swelling (hardness), and redness
• General side effects: fatigue, headache, muscle pain, joint pain, chills, nausea and vomiting, and fever
Side effects that have been reported during post-authorization use of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine include:
• Severe allergic reactions
These may not be all the possible side effects of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine. Serious and unexpected side effects may occur. The Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine is still being studied in clinical trials.
WHAT SHOULD I DO ABOUT SIDE EFFECTS?
If you experience a severe allergic reaction, call 9-1-1, or go to the nearest hospital.
Call the vaccination provider or your healthcare provider if you have any side effects that bother you or do not go away.
Report vaccine side effects to FDA/CDC Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS). The VAERS toll-free number is 1-800-822-7967 or report online to https://vaers.hhs.gov/reportevent.html. Please include “Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine EUA” in the first line of box #18 of the report form.
In addition, you can report side effects to ModernaTX, Inc. at 1-866-MODERNA (1-866-663- 3762).
You may also be given an option to enroll in v-safe. V-safe is a new voluntary smartphone-based tool that uses text messaging and web surveys to check in with people who have been vaccinated to identify potential side effects after COVID-19 vaccination. V-safe asks questions that help CDC monitor the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.