Those of us who’ve followed the antivaccine movement for a while have noticed that antivaccine activist Del Bigtree, producer of the antivaccine propaganda movie disguised as a documentary VAXXED, host of The Highwire video podcast, and founder of ICAN, an antivaccine organization dedicated to suing government public health departments and the CDC for various perceived infractions against “informed consent” regarding vaccines, has apparently been ill. He missed two weeks of The Highwire and failed to show up at a scheduled demonstration at Rutgers University against COVID-19 vaccine mandate. This week, he came back, and for the last 25 minutes or so of his nearly three hour long Highwire, he discussed his recent health problems. It’s a lot to unpack, but most curiously, he said that he needed a transfusion, but did not want blood from any donor who had been vaccinated against COVID-19. I learned yesterday that Bigtree almost bled to death from internal hemorrhoids, and it didn’t help that he delayed getting a needed transfusion until he could fly to Cancun for “unvaccinated blood.”
Let’s start with a video that Bigtree posted to Facebook a week ago containing this rather vague and curious update:
Although I didn’t blog about it at the time, I was alarmed to learn that Bigtree had required a transfusion. (As much as I despise antivaxxers like Bigtree, I do not wish illness, harm or death on any of them and am actually relieved that Bigtree is on the mend, even if it means that he’ll be able to spread more COVID-19 and antivaccine misinformation.) In the video, he did look a bit wan, but not particularly ill (although he didn’t look well either), and appeared to be in a hotel room. In any event, Bigtree said that he had sought medical care because he had first noted difficulty walking across the room and that his medical care involved “blood transfusions” and a “minor surgery.” He also hastened to add that it was not poison. (Who thought it was?) Then, he emphasized:
I also want to say that there was no wrongdoing or foul play. It wasn’t poison involved. It was not COVID-19. At least the major issue was not caused by that, and I don’t have cancer.
I found it rather odd how Bigtree phrased this, saying that it wasn’t COVID-19, at least not the major issue, which really made me wonder if he did, in fact, have COVID-19. The information in his video was sparse, and I did speculate a bit as to what might have happened, but there really wasn’t a lot to go on. COVID-19? A bone marrow issue? (Maybe the “minor surgical procedure” was a bone marrow biopsy.) I couldn’t tell and gave up. I never would have predicted what really had caused Bigtree’s anemia. His story is worth deconstructing in detail, because it shows a number of things, including how much into quackery Bigtree is in addition to his antivaccine beliefs and also allows me to deconstruct his apparent belief that “COVID-19 vaccinated blood” is somehow more dangerous than a transfusion with “unvaccinated blood.”
Yesterday, Bigtree was back . I must confess that I didn’t watch all of this episode of Highwire. I had heard from someone who did that Del addressed his recent health issue that had kept him from doing his show for two weeks, and therefore fast forwarded to around the 2:25 mark (yes, nearly two and a half hours in!), which is where Bigtree finally addressed his health—but only after one last rant about Anthony Fauci’s emails and how Twitter had “censored” him for his conspiracy mongering about them.
There were some…wild responses to his video on Twitter. As an aside, I can’t help but note this one:
My interpretation is that, if this were actually true, then Del Bigtree kills puppies to save himself and this woman’s friend had killed a cat in order to live, but that’s just me. What happened? Bigtree related that his one year old puppy had just “randomly died” while he was going through all this, which had led him to wonder whether he had been poisoned. Hearing about the death of Bigtree’s puppy, regardless of the cause of death, greatly saddens me because, as regular readers know, I love puppies. I offer Del Bigtree my condolences for the death of his puppy, regardless of the cause.
More concerning, though, are Tweets like this one:
Here we go with the misinformation about accepting transfusion of blood products from people vaccinated against COVID-19. I sense a new antivax talking point being born, one that could endanger the lives of countless people who might need a transfusion but will be reluctant to accept it because of Bigtree’s promoting the idea that transfused blood from the vaccinated is dangerous.
So what happened?
Bigtree began by relating the story of how, a few weeks ago, he had felt weak and lightheaded. He noted that, at the time, whenever he stood up and moved around, his heart would race and he experienced a burning sensation in his chest and difficulty breathing, particularly when he tried to walk up a flight of stairs. This story sounded to me to be classic for postural hypotension; i.e., low blood pressure when you stand up. Postural hypotension a very frequent symptom associated with significant anemia. Of course, it could also be due to other causes, but either anemia or hypovolemia (low blood volume) are two of the causes right up at the top of the differential diagnosis, as is heart disease. Bigtree, not entirely inappropriately, wondered if he had COVID-19, although that would not be near the top of the differential diagnosis for his symptoms. In any event, he called his wife, who, it turned out, was in the car doing errands, and, oddly enough, a friend of theirs who was an ER doc in Austin was with her. That ER doc told Bigtree to go straight to the emergency room, which is what I would have told anyone calling me with similar symptoms. Bigtree expressed his reluctance, because he “likes to stick to vitamins and natural health,” but ultimately went.
The workup didn’t find any abnormalities in his EKG or chest X-ray, but his hemoglobin (Hgb) level was 8.5 g/dL, which is definitely low, normal for a man being generally around 13-16 g/dL, depending on the normal range of the specific lab. His COVID-19 test was negative. The doctors recommended admission for a workup (which is what I would have recommended too), but Bigtree refused, which was foolish of him. Instead, he resumed his normal travel schedule. A couple of weeks later (the timeline isn’t quite clear to me), he was feeling worse, at which point he noted that he had tested negative for COVID-19 but “tested positive for some random coronavirus.” Del being Del, he wondered if the test had been a false negative and called up some doctor friends of his to get started on the ivermectin protocol. (Ivermectin doesn’t work against COVID-19 and is, in fact, the new hydroxychloroquine, which doesn’t work either.) Unsurprisingly, Bigtree didn’t feel any better. So he went to a cardiologist.
Then, two weeks ago yesterday, Bigtree felt really weak at work, and he got a call from his cardiologist, who told him that his Hgb was now 4.8 g/dL. This was getting into the life-threateningly low range, particularly given that his Hgb had fallen 3.7 g/dL in a matter of a couple of weeks. That is substantial ongoing blood loss! Unsurprisingly, his cardiologist told him, in essence, “Get thee hence to the emergency room! NOW!” Even then, Bigtree wanted to do his show, but his staff talked him out of it.
I’ll cut to the chase. It turns out that Bigtree had some fairly large hemorrhoids and they had been bleeding. Indeed, they had been bleeding so much that he had become very anemic. Unsurprisingly, he expressed amazement that bleeding hemorrhoids could endanger his life, but any general surgeon—and I am a board-certified general surgeon, even though I now specialize in breast surgery—could have told Bigtree that blood loss from hemorrhoids can be substantial. It thus turns out that the surgical procedures that Bigtree underwent included a colonoscopy and an unnamed procedure to stop the bleeding from the hemorrhoids. Whether it was rubber band ligation or formal hemorrhoidectomy, I don’t know. Bigtree didn’t say. It doesn’t really matter. His bleeding was stopped, and he’s on the mend. Apparently there were some other abnormalities, as well, maybe an ulcer, but the hemorrhoids appear to have been the main culprit in Bigtree’s blood loss.
Now here’s where the disinformation comes in.
Bigtree also related how, when he learned that he was so anemic as to need an urgent transfusion, taking a blood transfusion would go “against everything” he believes in with respect to what he does with his body, given his belief in “natural medicine.” I was not surprised to learn that, but what was odd and led Bigtree to promoting dangerous propaganda was that apparently his first thought after a dread of transfusion was this:
But, most importantly, I was thinking, “How the heck am I going to know whether or not the blood I’m getting that I need has been vaccinated or not?”
My first thought would have been: Get me to the hospital and get me that blood to save my life!
It’s Bigtree, though. Instead, he reached out to his ER doc friend again. (I’d really like to know who this doc is, given that he sounds like an utter quack, but such is life. All we know is that this doctor works in Austin somewhere.) His question was: Do they track whether donors have been vaccinated against COVID-19? The answer he received was that they do not.
It turns out not to be entirely true that they don’t ask about COVID-19 vaccination status. The Red Cross, at least, does just that. It even has a webpage entitled Can I donate after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine?, where it states:
The Red Cross is following FDA blood donation eligibility guidance for those who receive the COVID-19 vaccination. Deferral times for donations may vary depending on which brand of vaccine you received. If you’ve received a COVID-19 vaccine, you’ll need to provide the manufacturer name when you come to donate. In most cases, there is no deferral time for individuals who received a COVID-19 vaccine as long as they are symptom-free and feeling well at the time of donation.
- The following eligibility guidelines apply to each COVID-19 vaccine received, including boosters: There is no deferral time for eligible blood donors who are vaccinated with a non-replicating inactivated or RNA-based COVID-19 vaccine manufactured by AstraZeneca, Janssen/J&J, Moderna, Novavax, or Pfizer.
- Eligible blood donors who received a live attenuated COVID-19 vaccine or do not know what type of COVID-19 vaccine they received must wait two weeks before giving blood.
- If you have an appointment scheduled and need to change your donation date based on the above guidance, click here.
If you have further eligibility questions, please call 1-800-RED CROSS. Regardless, of the type of vaccine an individual receives, all donors must be symptom-free and feeling well at the time of donation. If an individual is experiencing any symptoms from the COVID-19 vaccine, the Red Cross asks that they postpone their donation until they are feeling better.
When you receive your COVID-19 vaccination, make sure you receive a handout with information about the vaccine, including the name of the manufacturer. It is encouraged to bring this information with you to your donation appointment.
It’s possible that the blood bank at the hospital where Bigtree was treated doesn’t ask its blood donors about their COVID-19 vaccination status, but I tend to doubt it, given that most blood banks practice in accordance with the Red Cross guidelines. Whatever the case, let’s just assume that the blood bank at Bigtree’s friend’s hospital does not ask.
I also can’t help but point out here that it’s recently been found that current screening guidelines for blood donors are sufficient and that transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, from blood transfusion is incredibly rare, meaning that transfusions under current guidelines remains safe. Specifically, one study found that the rate of trace SARS-CoV-2 positivity in donated blood is around 0.001%.
“Other studies have shown that in rare cases where a blood sample tested positive, transmission by blood transfusion has not occurred,” said Sonia Bakkour, Ph.D., a scientist at the Vitalant Research Institute and part of the research team that analyzed the blood. She is also a scientist at the Department of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. “Therefore, it appears safe to receive blood as a transfusion recipient and to keep donating blood, without fear of transmitting COVID-19 as long as current screenings are used.”
None of this mattered to Bigtree (if he even knew or cared about it), and he began calling some of the quack “functional medicine” doctors whom he knew to ask if they could get him “unvaccinated blood.” He found one in Cancun, described as a “cancer doctor with clinics in Tijuana and Cancun.” (This made me wonder if it was Dr. Antonio Jimenez of the Hope4Cancer Treatment Centers, who was featured in the cancer quackery propaganda film series The Truth About Cancer.) No surprise, his Mexican cancer quack friend told Bigtree that he could deliver. There was a problem, though. Bigtree’s Hgb was so low that it was considered very dangerous for him to get on a plane, even a private jet, and fly to Cancun. He asked relatives to donate but discovered that directed donations require about a week to process, which was far too long a time given how low his Hgb was.
Here’s where the story gets even weirder. According to Bigtree, he reached out to his ER doc friend and his wife (who is also an ER doc), and one of them called every donor of every unit in the blood bank at his hospital in order to find one unit of “unvaccinated blood.” As another aside, I can’t help but observe that, contrary to the false claims of antimaskers that asking them what their medical condition is that prevents them from wearing a mask is a “violation of HIPAA,” the health privacy law, this sounds potentially like a real HIPAA violation to me.
In any event, according to Bigtree, his doctor friend found one donor who had not been vaccinated and arranged for him to get a transfusion of the unit of packed red blood cells from that one dono. This bumped his Hgb up to 5.8 g/dL, high enough (but still plenty low) for him to travel. So he jetted off in a private jet to Cancun, paid for by his supporters, for his transfusion and then flew back to be admitted, worked up, and treated for his bleeding hemorrhoids.
Must be nice.
Bigtree also bragged about how people were telling him how, at a Hgb of 4.8 g/dL, they couldn’t believe that he was able to talk to them, attributing his resiliency to all the acupuncture and other quackery he had been undergoing to “keep his life force strong” while waiting for a transfusion. A Hgb of 4.8 is low, but not so low that I as a surgeon would be surprised that you could still speak coherently. A person without pulmonary or cardiac disease can live almost indefinitely with a Hgb of 4.8 g/dL. The problem at that level is that, if you have ongoing blood loss (which Bigtree clearly did), then all your reserves are gone. There’s nothing left and almost no room to go lower. Further blood loss could lead to rapid cardiovascular collapse and death. Basically, Bigtree was walking on—if you’ll excuse the phrase—a highwire. He’s fortunate that this “highwire act” didn’t lead to his demise.
Unfortunately, as a result of Bigtree’s report, there is now the growing narrative that transfusion with “vaccinated blood” is dangerous. For example:
In fairness, the fear mongering about “vaccinated blood” by COVID-19 conspiracy theorists and antivaxxers has been going on for at least a few months now. It’s a natural byproduct of the disinformation campaign that falsely claims that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein itself is horribly toxic and that those vaccinated against COVID-19 make so much spike protein that they “shed” it and endanger those around them. In fact, barely detectable amounts of the spike protein generated by the vaccines gets into the blood circulation—and then only transiently at levels barely above the level of detection of very sensitive tests—and there’s no evidence that the vaccinated shed spike protein.
Again, I’m relieved that Bigtree is on the mend, as I wish harm on no one. Unfortunately, however, Bigtree’s story and fear mongering about “vaccinated blood” on Highwire are going to endanger lives. I can very easily envision people who really, really need a transfusion either delaying receiving it and wasting the time of their doctors by demanding to know if their blood donors were vaccinated or by refusing transfusion altogether. Disinformation of the sort that Del Bigtree spreads can kill. After all, disinformation about donated blood being “contaminated” because the donor was vaccinated against COVID-19 came close to killing Bigtree himself.
135 replies on “Del Bigtree could have died because he refused transfusion from donors vaccinated against COVID-19”
Maybe somebody saw Del coming.
Where I worked, we didn’t even have the donors’ names. We didn’t have a donor program. Of this was the case in the hospital in question, I would say that it is definitely a HIPAA violation.
I can’t see the ER doc getting a blood bank tech or manager to give him access to any donor records, in the rare case of a hospital that has their own donor program. (most don’t because it’s a PITA)
And I know that Red Cross or United Blood Services would tell him to FOAD.
You have a bag ID number, the type and a few other bits of info, but going from there back to a donor you can talk to is not possible.
My guess … the ER doc LIED to Bigtree to get him to take a transfusion (which would have to be crossmatched before it was issued to anyone).
A couple of thoughts. First and foremost, this likely shows that although Mr. Bigtree is certainly not averse to make money of the misinformation he promotes, he’s also a true believer. That does not, of course, mean he’s not wiling to lie in the cause – I think we have good indications he is.
Second, there are some weird things in this story, that might be weird simply because I don’t have background.
A. If he saw the cardiologist a week before, how would the cardiologist know his HG at the point he called? Is there a way to remote monitor this for someone?
B. I can’t help but wonder if his friend lied to him and gave him just a unit of donated blood to save his life. As you are pointing out, getting information about the vaccine status of a donor and spreading it can be a HIPAA violation, and I’m not sure that’s more likely than a simple lie. Especially if it’s someone otherwise willing to lie about vaccines.
C. As you point out, this is potentially dangerous to others – like the family with the baby above. We can hope that hospitals in this situation will, at least for children, act to get court orders to overcome such baseless stipulations.
D. As a reminder to readers, even if there was a risk of infection from blood from someone with an active SARS-CoV-2 infection, the vaccine does not have live virus. There is no risk there whatsoever. This is nonsense. You say that, but I want to repeat it because, well, it’s so senseless.
Dorit, a couple of clarifications:
As regards A: recall that as his Hgb dropped Del described a burning in his chest even BEFORE he was seen in the ER. Del, because he is the smartest guy in the antivaccine room, doesn’t have or need a generalist (internist or family doctor). So, he focuses back on the chest symptom and sees a cardiologist. Do cardiologists normally see male patients that are known to have a very low Hgb and recent symptoms of orthostatic hypotension? Nope; no reasonable clinician would make that referral.
According to the story above we don’t know exactly the timing of the second Hgb, but it is possible that the repeat test was ordered at the end of the elective appointment with the cardiologist. As Orac indicates, a Hgb of 4.8 would alarm both the lab obtaining the result and any clinician, which led to the phone call (we can reasonably speculate that info was relayed to Del very, very quickly).
As regards B: similar to you, I wondered if Del had some way to have screened the donor for the unit of blood he claims that he received in Austin, though I can’t see an easy way to do that. Coincidently, in Mexico historically the vast majority of blood is supplied by friends and family as need arises; only ~ 3% comes from donors (https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/more-voluntary-blood-donors-needed-in-mexico). Hypothetically, it would have been easier in Mexico to bring a donor he trusts with him because so few transfusions are from voluntary blood donors as compared with the US. As you correctly point out, he accepted several existential risks (death by exsanguination, flying with a very low Hgb, mid-flight medical emergency) to avoid something that did not put him at any increased transfusion risk. Ironically, he is more likely to get a transfusion related disease in a middle income country like Mexico than the high income country where he resides (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/blood-safety-and-availability).
Thank you, as a lay person neither was something I knew. This is really helpful.
I’m sure Orac and my fellow minions would agree: we are so grateful for your opinions!
It is impressive that you can do this and be a mom, a Professor of law, and maintain a pet dinosaur over at that other like-minded blog…
So I am sure that all of you are all knowing about this blood transfusion issue, just like they were back with the Ryan White case in the 80s when he contracted AIDS from non screened blood. It would appear you also would be all knowing about what would be best for my son, given you have his best interest in mind. Thanks for the clarity!
Taking care of his hemorrhoids might be a start, along with appropriate dietary modifications.
The HIV virus can replicate and can live in blood. The vaccines do not include a live virus or anything else that can replicate.
That is a meaningful difference.
“According to Bigtree, he reached out to his ER doc friend and his wife (who is also an ER doc), and one of them called every donor of every unit in the blood bank at his hospital in order to find one unit of “unvaccinated blood.”
In addition to massive privacy violations, such activity (if it actually occurred) would be incredibly unprofessional on the part of the ER docs, the blood bank staff plus any supervisory personnel involved. It sounds like a firing-level offense.
i have a hard time buying that this happened as related.
Agreed. It seems that he’s trying hard to convince his followers that it was a medical mystery when it was actually just a collection of poor judgment and avoidable errors by him.
As a blood donor, this is so annoying to me. Blood is thoroughly checked before it is given to a patient. At my last few donations, I had to answer a COVID questionnaire.
That antivaxxers fear the vaccinated more than COVID would be hilarious if the consequences weren’t so dire.
This falls right into the “purity of essence” bs common (forever) to both rightwingers and alt-health nuts. Naturally it’d take root and grow.
It also makes me think of the old racist practice of segregating “white” and “Black” blood.
Or the current stupid practice about gay men not being allowed to donate if they’re not celibate.
Gross and stupid and going to kill people.
You can sort of imagine a conversation between ER doctors which goes something like this:
“Wow, he’s going to die. He won’t take the transfusion.”
“Yeah, kinda crazy. Ok, go down to the blood bank, get him a unit of blood and tell him it’s unvaccinated.”
“Alright, it’ll save his life. He’ll never know. Lips zipped….”
I could totally see this. And: “It’ll seem more believable to him if we find only one unit”
But even that would appear to me to violate informed consent.
You just can’t make this stuff up… Or, if you did make it up, it would be kinda funny in a Weekly World News headline kinda way: “Antivaxer almost dies from hemorroids! Was he saved by heroic martyrdom of trans-dmensional puppy?”.
But it’s all real, and that’s disturbing, because just a few years ago Del and his ilk were fringe enough that you could find some humor in their antics. or at least not be scared-to-death by their kookiness. But now there’s so much more at stake and the wave of crazy is so much higher and heavier. And that’s the thing: there’s really only one wave now where before we could imagine there were a bunch of different smaller waves — somehow more comprehensible and more easy to imagine as manageable.
So, the major plot points of Del’s story are plum center in the RI wheelhouse: an alt-med celebrity who “likes to stick to vitamins and natural health,” ditches conventional medicine, runs off to a Mexican quack for treatment, is lucky to survive, and pitches more woo about his happy outcome. But the woo is now interwoven with far-right-wing politics, and a variety of other conspiracy theories thriving in that space, in ways that are mutually reinforcing and all but inseparable. Orac may want to remain nonpartisan, but reality has no obligation to comply. COVID pseudoscience is GQP politics. GQP politics is COVID pseudoscience. So, of course, the Twitter response to Del’s quest for “unvaccinated blood” goes to MTG’s invocation of “mask Nazis” forcing the unvaccinated “just a step away from having a yellow star sewn into all your clothing”. And of course Del only addressed his health after ranting about Tony Fauci’s emails in the same week that Tucker Carlson “used a handful of heavily redacted emails to argue that Fauci lied under oath, lied to the public and deserves criminal prosecution”(WaPo). Fauci, you see, is not only part of the insidious deep state that undermined Trump’s efforts to Make America Great Again, he’s also in cahoots with the Chi-Coms plot to use “gain of function” research to attack America.
Yup. Tech monopolies. Cancel culture. Fake news. Voter fraud. Stop the steal….
A recent poll found 23% of Republicans agree that “the government, media, and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation,” while 28% believe “there is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders,” and “things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” The pollster commented, “QAnon, if it were a religion… would be as big as all white evangelical Protestants, or all white mainline Protestants. So it lines up there with a major religious group.”
Now, disregard the global Satanic child trafficking for a moment, and justthink about the articulation between hospitals giving unknowing patients dangerous “vaccinated blood”, CDC scientists covering-up their roles in the development of bioweapons by the Chinese, “mask Nazis” ready to implement the equivalent of the yellow star, and ‘things are so far off track that true patriots will raise a violent storm that will sweep away the elites and save the country’.
It’s not just by the prospect of someone needing a transfusion refusing one that Del’s fear mongering endangers lives.
Again, we have an alt med thought leader who knows better than standard medical advisors and who nearly does himself in! ( see Gary Null vitamin D)
Del goes into extreme detail to justify his choices to his followers which only illustrates, to us, how clueless he truly is. If you feel weak, can’t walk and appear like death warmed over, most people would think that perhaps something major is wrong and not fly off to various events. and later, when weaker, refuse blood because it might be tainted with spike proteins from vaccines. This episode should cast a bright light on his judgment and (lack of) knowledge about general health issues and what constitutes an emergency.
I hope that this story makes the rounds of alt med : they can’t all be that mindless to still think him a worthwhile source.
Around these parts, we call that “Death eating a cracker.”
Je’s Christ. https://youtu.be/hLgJARNtBfQ?t=105
In any remake of Dr Strangelove Dell should play General Jack D Ripper.
Given his level of pugnacious stupidity, I see Del in the role of General Buck Turgidson.
It surprises me that it was Haemorrhoids causing the problem.
I thought he was a perfect arsehole.
That was pretty funny, but I was surprised for another reason. He almost exanguinated because of haemorrhoids but “blood in the toilet bowl” was not one of his symptoms. Perhaps the big tree was too shy to relate that symptom.
I haven’t had anything to do with medicine for a long time.
But unless he’s Haemophiliac, exuangination due to bleeding piles seems rather unlikely.
It’s not, though, if you have chronic bleeding that you ignore. Take it from a general surgeon. Granted, I haven’t banded or operated on hemorrhoids since residency, given that I specialized, but over the course of my five year general surgery residency I did see a few patients with a pretty darned low Hgb due to chronic bleeding from hemorrhoids.
It seems more plausible that he just really, really likes Chipotle.
https://youtu.be/e3sXDf4nt9o?t=1
Oh, come on! Take ‘Kyle’ to represent this whole thread and, I think, it is pretty hillariously accurate.
This breaks new ground in Conspicuous Consumption. Some shitweasel is so over-privileged that once his rejection of reality has made him unwell, he uses a private plane to fly to another country where he can obtain organic free-range blood.
If as Moose says, in Mexico you can bring your own donors, he apparently had some from his wife ( a universal donor) and probably his doctor friend could supply three more which were ‘untainted’ or maybe he brought a few along with him.
Hinted from the way some of the twitterers respond, are woo-believers now seeking special blood as well as special foods,, etc to save themselves from the general contamination of living on earth?
-btw- this post is now visible on page 2 of Bing’s listing for De
Now page 1 on Del, Bing. Woo hoo.
Who the f uses Bing?
You seem to have forgotten that Mitzi already has this job.
Tear the beak off the duck and inside is Bing. Yahoo! also, I think. And yes, who the F uses that?
Ecosia seems ok for most of my use cases; DDG gives me IMDB results in Russian (though the link is to the english page) and I hate it so much.
@ Smut Clyde
“if we lie and tell these dopes that indeed, we vaccinees are shedding spike proteins and other unclean stuff everywhere, forever spoiling the air and ground around them, they will pack up and go away?”
I imagine them following the example of ‘…the so-called Funambulous Evangels, who, refusing to place their feet upon the ground, went about their tasks by tightrope. In a curt voice Lodermulch exposed the fallacies of this particular doctrine. “They reckon the age of the earth at twenty-nine eons, rather than the customary twenty-three. They stipulate that for every square ell of soil two and one quarter million men have died and laid down their dust, thus creating a dank and ubiquitous mantle of lich-mold, upon which it is sacrilege to walk”.’
It was at great personal risk. His plane could have encountered turbulence.
Is there any evidence any of this really happened other than Bigtree’s account with him in front of cameras but no pix/vids of him in any sort of hospital setting? Yes, I know this borders on tin-foil nutter thinking, but I don’t put anything past them. It’s all about the grift.
How can Bigtree be so sure there’s no foul play (this links to my first question)? He would if this was all faked. But look at Brandy Vaughan, one of the anti-vax leaders who died late last year at home after several year’s of abdominal/gall bladder pain for which she never went to ER and only saw quacks all the way up to even a few days before she died. Even with an autopsy that ruled out foul play, anti-vaxxers are still convinced Big Pharma/Med/Science concocted some diabolical plan to kill her.
Since we can only assume all this happened to Bigtree, I hope he gets blowback for not being a true believer in all the crap he preaches to the suckers he fleeces for his grift, because he caved and got medical help. Brandy Vaughan didn’t cave. She’s dead for it, too. Ironically most of her supporters who posted up about her death were beside themselves that she didn’t go to the ER/call 911. But there’s no pointing out to these loons that if science-based medicine is a scam than so is everything we do, including the ER. Reflective thinking is non-existent for anti-vaxxers.
The woo opinion-molders who succumb to the siren song of evidence-based medicine in critical situations find ways to salvage their reputations.
Del only survived because he got spike protein-free blood. Bill Sardi got through his M.I. because he was taking resveratrol pills (the medical care he received was seemingly inconsequential).
And if things don’t work out perfectly, it’s not due to disregarding physicians’ advice, it’s because their treatments and drugs ruined chances for the woo to be effective.
Agreed, totally.
Let’s see if this unsticks comments. It works sometimes
They have to perform (quasi-) intellectual gymnastics in order to save face:
according to Null (who needed professional help from his doctor enablers after ingesting 1000X the dose of vitamin D for weeks/ months and getting kidney damage)
“emergency medicine” is great but it’s terrible for chronic/ general care!
As if the information SBM uses to structure practice is neatly divisible into two parts!
However idiots like them believe that SBM does not include any lifestyle recommendations like diet, exercise and assiduously avoiding self care when you know nothing.
Bigtree addresses this sort of thing a bit in his segment. It was basically the old alt med trope about how “Western medicine” is good for acute problems and physical injuries, but not long term health and prevention. Of course Del’s alt med stylings didn’t stop his hemorrhoids from growing to a sufficiently large size that bleeding from them actually threatened his life.??♂️
In the alt-medicine world, one of their heroes resorting to medical treatment raises no questions. So long as the hero continues to rail against Big Pharme, they remain inside the canon.
Looking for consistency among conspiracy theorists is a mistake.
Thank you for posting this, Orac.
Reading about Bigtree’s quest for unvaccinated blood gave me the kick in the butt I needed to sign up to donate blood next week. I’m fully vaccinated, though, so he wouldn’t want my blood.
A blood transfusion?!!!??
Just think of all that foreign DNA that is, even now, being integrated into Dull’s genome!!!!!!
In a matter of a few weeks I expect we’ll see a new Dull…
Possibly a Black-Asian Female version of Dull (In acrylic platform hooker heels). There’s no telling which DNA will integrate and transmogrify Dull.
And don’t get me started on his not making sure none of his blood came from anyone ever bitten by a mosquito…
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The sad thing is he has doctor friends who, apparently, also believe this lunacy.
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When push comes to shove and it’s their azz on the line it is amazing how the alt-med kooks abandon their beliefs and principles and take all the evil conventional medical care they can get to cure their problems.
Why wasn’t he going online and asking his fans what he should do?
Why wasn’t he taking oil of oregano and turmeric and vit. D & C and colloidal silver and…
I’m sure his buddies – “doctor” Merde-ola and “doctor” Paul Thomas – could have given him some sound advice on what to take for his low Hgb.
Instead he flies off to a private clinic in Cancun for the transfusion, then accepts conventional surgery and, presumably, other conventional treatments at great expen$e… The exact opposite of what he’d recommend for his listeners if they were is the same boat.
Reminds me of DJT and his bout with COVID where he got the best of the best treatment by the best of the best experts using experimental treatments not available to the public… and then came out and proclaimed that all Americans could get the same care so there was no need to fear COVID infection…
These dangerous idiots live in Fantasy Land and will continue to kill innocents with their demented delusions.
We can all laugh at this but today a friend of mine had a small bruise on her face and when I asked about it she told me it was from acupuncture, which she had because of periodic “numbness” on that side of her face. I suggested this was a serious symptom and she should see a real doctor, possibly a neurologist. She replied that she HAD BEEN to the doctor about it and he said there was “nothing wrong”. Okay, I don’t know the details, but the result is that she felt ignored by the doc and now sees the acupuncturist instead and has no problem with the needling leaving a bruise on her face. She feels further validated because her insurance pays for the needling–how does one argue with that other than to say that quackery has spread far and wide? The other people present all piped up with anecdotes of “alternative healing” and I was completely shut down as one with “negative energy”.
I had postural hypotension once from a bleeding ulcer. I went into the ER, had the source determined, was treated and given a treatment plan to address the ulcer, and took the next day off to recover from the sedatives I was given before they shoved a camera down my throat. I did not nearly die, because I did not decide to ignore medical advice and run around while unwell. As far as Del goes, the only story is he nearly killed himself through his own arrogance, and his conspiracy theories may take others down with him.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I isn’t it a little strange that Bigtree must have lost at least a teacup full of blood every day for weeks on end, yet never noticed anything out of the ordinary in the bathroom? He appears to have neglected even the simplest and most natural ‘routine check’ for someone so obsessed with health …
I don’t know that he would have if it were anemia. Then again, I’ve reached an inadequately informed comment already here.
There are several man-product-centric equipments availible on the open market to manage that much blood; available at smoke shops and truck stops all across the nation. Apparently, dtruck drivers have a lot of asshole problems. Probably from sitting down all the time or, you know, the anal sex. Or covid — it can make you bleed from your ass if you stretch it enough.
He probably has a warm, pulsing bidet for those kind of heroic speed bumps. And he probably sits reverse-cowgirl so he doesn’t need to look at his Sir Harrington before he flushes (that’s just gross and he’s rich so why?) so I find it plausible he didn’t necessarily receive the tell-tale forshadowing visions of the Overlook Hotel otherwise required for stupid people to self-diagnose there might be something going on that needs a bit of hypocracy betrayment to fix.
Hoping not, but wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere right now there is a right wing state legislator furiously drafting a bill requiring blood banks to segregate blood based on coronavirus vaccination status, with the plea being “not every one who has chosen freedom over this experimental vaccine has the resources to charter a jet out of the US to get vaccine-free blood”. Bill to be plugged on ICAN, CHD, etc.
Yeah — I am hearing the whispers: ‘I wonder what Greg thinks of Del refusing vaccinated blood?’ To be honest, in some ways I sympathize with Del. I could see myself also wondering whether it would be safe to have vaccinated blood in me. Nevermind that it might transform me into a heartless shill, and I might find myself slamming innocent parents of vaccine injured kids on some ‘compromised’ blog. Still, I must concede that it was irresponsible for Del not to put his health first. Besides — he is a hero in our antivaxx community, and losing him would’ve been a big blow. Just my two cents.
I call a quarum. This guy has talking points to:
https://youtu.be/NQ-8IuUkJJc?t=40
“and losing him would’ve been a big blow.”
Orly? He’s buggered off.
Seems about right. Worshipping publicity hungry media types makes more sense in the AV world than bothering to learn anything.
soiled diaper clean up, aisle 2.
I mean, I’m not allow’d to leak the document but it might can be found under “Sars-CoV2 Causes Re-Trumplicans Loose Their Shit” And by that, I mean that re-trumplicans that volunteered to be injected with it to show that it was no big deal lost their shit. A new study was procreated that looked at how pojectile shitting might alter R naught.
Covid-19 repercussions of the day story: Jon Rahm, leading The Memorial golf tournament after 3 rounds by 6 strokes, had to drop out due to testing positive (he is asymptomatic). He had been in a contact tracing protocol due to a contact with a Covid19 positive individual.
Interesting comment from a PGA tour official via The Golf Channel:
“It’s unknown if Rahm is fully vaccinated, but if he were, Levinson explained that he would not be subject to contact tracing unless he developed symptoms. According to the Tour, Rahm was asymptomatic.”
So, unvaccinated? Had 1 of 2 shots? Not revealed thus far.
Bottom line is that he’s lost out on a good chance at the winner’s purse of $1.7 million.
There’s a story on Fox News’ website today about “Stanford epidemiologist” Jay Bhattacharya blasting Dr. Fauci and saying his credibility is shot.
Near as I can tell, Bhattacharya’s field of expertise is health economics and outcomes, not epidemiology (his PhD is in economics). Regardless of whether his sweeping conclusions about Fauci are valid (which they are not in my opinion), Fox’s characterization of his credential seem just a wee bit inflated.*
*Based on the heading in the story, I thought at first they were referring to South Dakota governor Kristi Noem as a Stanford epidemiologist. Noem, another vehement Fauci critic, does not appear hugely qualified to vent about epidemiology, boasting only a B.A. in political science from South Dakota State University. She was however named South Dakota Snow Queen earlier in her career, so she’s obviously got credibility when it comes to the pandemic.
Among his other plague-promotional accomplishments. Jay Bhattacharya informed the Indian govt that India had already reached herd immunity so they could stop bothering with social-distance advice. Also, vaccines were REALLY REALLY BAD.
https://theprint.in/opinion/majority-indians-have-natural-immunity-vaccinating-entire-population-can-cause-great-harm/582174/
A million Indians died in the subsequent 2nd wave of COVID. And Bhattacharya is concerned about the credibility of other people?!
Most of the responsibility for the unimaginable death-toll in India naturally lies with the incompetent venal morons who govern the country for following Bhattacharya’s advice, rather than with Bhattacharya for merely providing it. But some of the blame is his.
Before that, he was ginning up a series of faked-data “COVID is fine” studies, ready-made for the Fox pukefunnel. And now he thinks that Fauci has lost credibility.
There’s way too many really bad physician/scientist COVID-19 glory grabbers at Stanford. I know some of the faculty protested a while back. They need to do something more now.
I hope his colleagues ask him from time to time, whether he’s proud to have helped kill a million people.
Fauci engineered the virus at Chapel Hill, gave it to the bat lady, anticipated trump being retarded, and totally cached out with book deals.
So much death. Those damned Italians! Damn them all to hell! They used space lasers to manipulate the voting machines to. That bastard Fauchi and his Itallian cohorts, they will pay. They. Will. Pay.
Del’s High Wire revelation occurred on Thursday ( although his fans knew about his illness earlier through broadcasts), because I regularly scan the internet for alt med/ anti-vax news, I can report that none of the anti-vaxxers/ alties I survey has a single story about Del being sick, getting better or returning to misinform people,
Not one.
Orac is the only one. ( And something minor on Reddit).
So followers who may take him seriously are either unaware of how he got himself into such a dangerous position through his lack of understanding and common sense or those who know ( over 13 K watched his broadcast on the twitter platform I used) are shutting up because it’s embarrassing that’s he’s so stupid..
HOWEVER anti-vaxxers present a lot of “information” about Dr Fauci’s** e-mails, clips/ stories of Rand Paul, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Tucker Carlson.
I wonder why?
** I am mildly surprised that none of his critics have yet translated his surname from Italian and turned it into a meme.
I’ve gotta admit, I’m very surprised at how little coverage Bigtree’s revelation has had. You’d think that the headline titles would write themselves and that The Daily Beast, Salon.com, and all the other sites that like to do stories about the antivaccine movement with blaring, sometimes clickbaity, headlines would have been all over this. (Obviously I didn’t do a good enough job, because this post thus far has only gotten maybe 25% more traffic than the average Orac post, and my Tweets about it have only had around 100 retweets, which is hardly “going viral.”)
I’m rather surprised that “Del” seems to be short for “Delores.”
Obligatory:
CCDH has a new article about earnings/ followers/ de-platforming and anti-vax leaders including Del.
I’m embarrassed that I can’t recognize at least half of these characters, but what’s bugging me the most is the identity of the guy who looks like Lurch from the Addams Family (TV version) wearing glasses.
Look, man; You gotta get out of that state. Or, for the love of god, get your $3 Nordvpn, run it through the reverse proxy, never ever visit 1337x.to to grab the apple tv series Mosquito Coast, and have a fantastic life.
Center for Cancer Data Harmonization?
Charing Cross Dunces Hospital?
Oh, the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
Nevermind.
I’m probably wrong about DDG. I just found out that it takes a cookie to get it out of second grade teacher mode.
That explains alot.
I’m stupid. Fear not, If I just wait a few weeks to decades then there will be reasons to hate them for real and I’ll shout “Zuck off Duck! And your little favicon to!” thus unbesmirching and restoring my face.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo#Traffic
This is the first I’ve heard of this but I don’t follow Del anyway. Not that I could if I wanted to because FB censors notifications from antivaxxers.
I don’t want blood from a vaccinated person either & I won’t even be unmasked around vaccinated people. The Red Cross is definitely tracking vaxxed vs unvaxxed blood products, because they won’t use the platelets from a recently vaccinated person. I don’t see why it would be such a big deal for that to be an option. Blood supply is labeled for other exposures, such as cytomegalovirus & nobody has screamed HIPAA over that.
A. I have twice donated platelets since getting my vaccine. Since they let you track your donation, the donation was, in fact, put into use. I’m not sure what made you think otherwise.
B. Thank you for demonstrating that you are, clearly, antivaccine, since you occasionally try to pretend otherwise.
C. As someone who tracks antivaccine activists on Facebook, they’re there.
@ Dorit,
My mistake; it’s plasma … that is intended for use as convalescent plasma.https://www.redcrossblood.org/local-homepage/news/article/covid-19-vaccination-guide-blood-donation.html
As for the rest: I am antivaccine. Vaccines killed my daughter & disabled my son. Deltoid muscles are not designed to be an antibody factory for the entire body; the muscle’s immune cells respond to tissue trauma, inflammation & bacteria that bypass the skin. The atypical immune response caused by using them & bypassing the mucosal immune system, is provoking immune-mediated disorders.
Jenner probably had it right the first time by at least using skin tissue as the portal for inoculation, as it closer resembles the mucosal tissue than muscular tissue does. I think vaccine science has been stunted since the 1986 Act that left little motivation for improvement & vaccines today are little better than an abomination. Sometimes I have nightmares that I am vaccinated & I wake up feeling violated. Have I made myself clear? I am antivaccine. 😉
A. Your daughter died from SIDS (maybe connected to a decision to stop her oxygen). Vaccines do not cause that. https://www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccines-and-other-conditions/vaccines-sudden-infant-death-syndrome-sids
B. Your son is autistic. Vaccines don’t cause autism. https://www.nationalacademies.org/based-on-science/vaccines-do-not-cause-autism
C. Thank you for clarifying that you are extremely antivaccine.
To remind you, you initially pretended otherwise.
“I have twice donated platelets since getting my vaccine.”
^^She’s the spreader, yo.
Christine still likes to pretend she isn’t anti-vaccine from time to time, but for the decade she has been commenting on this blog, her comments have always cohabited with the anti-vaccine part of the Venn diagram.
@christine:
Fortunately the US isn’t the only country in the world, and not all pharmaceutical companies are based (or even operate) in the US, so you must still have confidence in the vaccines developed and manufactured elsewhere — some of which are sold into the US. And if those vaccines have been doctored (pardon the pun) to meet the abominational quality you expect, you’ll be able to point to the evidence of reduced effectiveness and greater harm caused inside US borders, right?
Ah, who am I kidding?! You’ll find a way to deny that you forgot the rest of the world exists, because it’s always the vaccines and you’re a true believer. Pathetic.
@Christine Kincaid, When you have a wound, mucosal immune system is not involved. Immune system works anyway.
Mucosal immunity depends on IgA. Immune system produces this, too. Check class switching.
The Red Cross is definitely tracking vaxxed vs unvaxxed blood products, because they won’t use the platelets from a recently vaccinated person
And I am Marie of Roumania.
I don’t want blood from a vaccinated person
If you prefer to decline medical treatment in case blood came from an inferior impure Untermensch, no-one here is going to try to change your mind.
@ Smut Clyde,
Plasma, not platelets; I was wrong. Plasma intended for use as convalescent plasma.
Not sure I would be capable of declining with a Hgb of 3.7 but if I was hovering around a 6-7; I would wait.
But I want to fill her willing vescicle with..blood..and other stuff. I feel almost a ‘cumpulstion’ to do so and I think It cruel for you people to so naturally laugh it off and cut it short. How dare you. She is a human with human feelings, needs, yearnings (I think). And I really want to fuchia her rae and who are you to stand in owr way the bearutiful cupling of two perfect things?
@Christine, Well, I’ll give you credit for admitting you were wrong. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen you manage that, instead of hiding behind “I misspoke” or “being confused.” Congrats on that progress.
christine kincaid drooled, “The Red Cross is definitely tracking vaxxed vs unvaxxed blood products, because they won’t use the platelets from a recently vaccinated person.”
.
You need to keep up with which anti-vaccine disinfo you are going to be spreading before hitting that “Poast” [sic] button.
Always check to make sure it hasn’t already been debunked and shown to be nothing more than evil lies from some fellow anti-vax kook.
In this case this anti-vax hoax designed to stop blood donations from COVID vaccinated donors was rapidly shown to be a pack of lies:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/25/fact-check-vaccinated-people-can-donate-plasma-red-cross/5233118001/
“Fact check: COVID-19 vaccine recipients can donate plasma with the American Red Cross
The claim: Red Cross says people vaccinated against COVID-19 cannot donate plasma
A lack of blood drives amid the coronavirus pandemic has caused a blood plasma shortage across the country, but some have taken to social media to claim those vaccinated against COVID-19 are not eligible to donate.
The claim follows similar posts that surfaced in the beginning of May, which falsely claimed the Japanese Red Cross Society stopped accepting blood donations from vaccinated individuals.
“The American Red Cross says you cannot donate Blood Plasma if you’ve had the vaccine, because the vaccine wipes out the body’s natural antibodies,” reads a May 22 Facebook post with about 3,000 shares.
Accompanying the text is a screengrab of a purported news broadcast with the title: “Red Cross needs blood donors but those vaccinated cannot donate plasma.”
…
Fact check:Federal law does not prevent states, businesses, employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccines
…But vaccination status doesn’t impact anyone’s eligibility to donate plasma, and it also doesn’t harm the immune system, the American Red Cross and experts say.“
.
The other lies and non “facts” spewed in the social media anti-vax “Red Cross” posts are also debunked in this article.
.
Spewing dangerous and debunked anti-vaccine lies on social media seems to be the main method for the pro-disease anti-vax death cult to promote its lethal agenda.
Congratulations on your participation.
It is worth pointing out that is because they have nothing else but lies. We see it over and over again.
Red Cross Australia says that people may donate blood from one week after a COVID-19 vaccine administered in Australia (Pfizer or AstraZeneca are used here), and to call them to check if the COVID vaccine was done outside Australia.
@ Kincaid:
Giving plasma requires a different set up than donating blood for the blood bank.
I think they want you to wait 2 weeks after vaccination before you can donate plasma, but I think that is only for the non-mRNA vaccines.
What counts is you get it wrong in that they aren’t tracking whether the plasma comes from vaccinated or unvaccinated. They. Aren’t. Tracking. This. After two weeeks (or whatever it currently is) they don’t care, BECAUSE IT DOESN’T MATTER, except to anti-vax doofuses.
Also, blood is tested for a variety of infections/indications of infections but that is done after collection. You are asked screening questions in advance to decrease as much as possible a priori the chance that the blood collected has a contagion that could hurt the recipient. With regards to testing for CMV, not all blood is tested for CMV, but rather only what is needed when blood that is from a CMV donor needs to be assured. (https://www.redcrossblood.org/biomedical-services/blood-diagnostic-testing/blood-testing.html)
Do the anti vaccine nut cases imagine that the vaccine level drops after a while and therefore blood from vaccinated people should be pure after a while? At a certain point, most of the eligible blood donors will have been vaccinated many months ago — at this moment, the US has administered right about 300 million doses with the doubly injected population approaching half that number. By next year, it shouldn’t matter at all, even to the crazies, unless they believe that this particular vaccine confers some permanent toxicity.
Umm No. According to the anti-vaxxers, their bodily purity is compromised for ever.
Unless of course, they at some point declare that all vaccines are dangerous, at which point they magically become pure again.
Surely some anti-vax scammer is working on the “ultimate” detox against COVID-19 vaccines, to restore your purity for only $99.99 a month x 12 months.
I wouldn’t put it past one of the scammers to monetize this. My guess is Mike Adams will take the challenge on.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/nursing-home-staff-vaccinations-lag-covid-19-outbreaks/story?id=78085139
Seriously, this is the kind of thing you can point to and say, “Yes, he really is that stupid.”
Darwin Award nomination (in the category honourable mention)?
I’ve said it before, but I’ll do it again: “Social Darwinism” is repugnant as far as I’m concerned.
Anti-vaxxers – who may also be Covid deniers and/ or anti-maskers ( or not- there is variety in their beliefs) now face a conundrum:
if they believe that the vaccinated population are the TRUE danger to health because they shed spike proteins, do they now need to switch and advocate masks for self-protection from vaccines’ influence?
Or if a portion of them believed that Covid is not much to worry about, do they now think that artificial spike proteins get amped up during their interaction with people’s immune systems prior to being shed, becoming deadly?
Or if masks don’t work for protection against the virus, how might they now control those unruly, unnaturally generated spikes?
Maybe if more people get vaccinated, anti-vaxxers will stand out in public because of their masks ( including the vaunted, bird-like plague ones) or the 12** foot long poles they carry to ward off the vaccinated.
They may decide to just stay away entirely and start their own colonies.
If only.
** can’t be too careful.
“now face a conundrum”
Hardly. They have mastery of cognitive dissonance.
@ Denice,
No, antivaxxers won’t be wearing masks to ‘protect’ themselves from the vaccinated. They didn’t wear them to protect themselves from covid either. I mean, I’m an antivaxxer but I’ve been wearing masks indoors since January 2020. I’m the only one I know, though.
I’m wearing a mask still to protect myself from covid & others in case I’d happen to asymptomatic. I’m also wearing a mask to protect myself from the vaccinated, although I have a feeling that’s a lost cause. I don’t think vaccinated people are actually exhaling something contagious that I might inhale … It’s something else.
I only have theories, nothing I want to put on the table about how the vaccinated could be a threat to me but something isn’t right.
No, antivaxxers won’t be wearing masks to ‘protect’ themselves from the vaccinated.
I’m also wearing a mask to protect myself from the vaccinated</>
Christine routinely lies and contradicts herself, but this is a new record. So much for her making progress.
I am sure we all eagerly await the results of your investigations. I would like to point out that trained, professional and experienced experts were able to confirm the blood clot problem with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in fairly short order (https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=blod+clot+risk+for+Johnson+and+Johnson+vaccine&ia=web) and determine that it was about 1 in 250,000, based on my calculation of about thirty cases after seven million doses (0.000004286). Many of your ilk claim a multitude of “injuries” from vaccines, most notably, but not exclusively, autism, which has a rate of about 1 in 60 people (0.0167). It is amazing how unobservant and stupid these experts have been for twenty years to not discover an effect that is over four orders of magnitude greater than that of the J&J vaccine. Never mind, though. Pursue your theories, but keep buying those lottery tickets.
I think the fear I see these people speaking about are the spiked proteins that are in vaccinated blood. The unvaccinated seem fearful this will be harmful.
@ JB
What they don’t understand is that the vaccine doesn’t create THE spike protein; but only a part of it. Imagine cutting off someone’s finger to take to a lab for finger prints. Essentially harmless; but could bend at joints and finger nail could scratch someone. So, remove the nail and use on the first joint of the finger. HARMLESS. So is the spike protein created by the vaccines. In addition, since they have no source of nutrient, besides being attacked by our immune systems, they naturally deteriote rapidly.
However, at least for a segment of the unvaccinated, explaining the above will have NO effect; but they will fall back on a paranoid conspiracy theory, one that is almost impossible to counteract because in trying to counteract it one becomes, in the antivaccinaationist minds, part of the conspiracy.
@ Christine Kincaid
You write: “I don’t want blood from a vaccinated person either & I won’t even be unmasked around vaccinated people. The Red Cross is definitely tracking vaxxed vs unvaxxed blood products, because they won’t use the platelets from a recently vaccinated person. I don’t see why it would be such a big deal for that to be an option. Blood supply is labeled for other exposures, such as cytomegalovirus & nobody has screamed HIPAA over that.”
For once you got one thing right. The current CDC mask guidelines clearly state that a mask not needed if BOTH people vaccinated. Why? Simple because some vaccinated people shed small amounts of the virus. If both vaccinated then the risk is minimal, may in rare cases be infected; but chance of serious infection almost non-existent. So keep wearing your mask. Yep, blood screened for viruses because, especially cytomegalovirus can be deadly for premature infants; but they now label such blood and use it for all others. They don’t screen for antibodies to various diseases, otherwise, following your irrationality, we would have to basically cease all transfusions.
You write: “As for the rest: I am antivaccine. Vaccines killed my daughter & disabled my son. Deltoid muscles are not designed to be an antibody factory for the entire body; the muscle’s immune cells respond to tissue trauma, inflammation & bacteria that bypass the skin. The atypical immune response caused by using them & bypassing the mucosal immune system, is provoking immune-mediated disorders. . . I think vaccine science has been stunted since the 1986 Act that left little motivation for improvement & vaccines today are little better than an abomination. Sometimes I have nightmares that I am vaccinated & I wake up feeling violated. Have I made myself clear? I am antivaccine.”
As Reality wrote, the Red Cross is NOT excluding vaccinated persons; but does encourage those vaccinated to donate plasma to be used for hospitalized Covid patients. The goal of the vaccines is to elicit specific antibodies for the Covid S-Spike protein and guess what, several studies have found much higher levels of the specific antibodies in vaccinated people than in those who actually were infected with Covid-19. In fact, I was in the Moderna Covid vaccine clinical trials and after I received both vaccines, waited two weeks for antibody build-up and began donating convalescent plasma every four weeks instead of whole blood every eight weeks. And according to the Blood Bank my titers for Covid antibodies was HIGH. Your explanation of muscle immune cells is BONKERS. Yep, IgA predominate on the epithelial surfaces; but muscles are pack full of blood vessels which have IgG antibodies. In any case, the research and my own experience contradicts your explanation. Or, perhaps, you think we should stop using convalescent plasma. Why not? Why care about others.
As for “Vaccines killed my daughter & disabled my son.” Your twins were born extremely premature with extremely low birthweight. In addition, quite some time ago you mentioned in one or more comments that you suffer from one or more genetic disorders that you may have passed on. As I wrote quite some time ago, the risk for severe disability and/or SIDS for such infants is better than 50%. While I don’t completely reject the possibility that a vaccine may have caused what happened, I don’t automatically accept it. I’ve asked you before if you could even consider a remote possibility that it wasn’t the vaccine and your response was you were ABSOLUTELY certain. Well, unless you claim to be some sort of G-d, claiming ABSOLUTE certainty removes you from any rational dialogue. But even if research concluded that the vaccine did cause your infants problems, given their rare problems, your absolute rejection of vaccines for all children, ignoring the extensive history of vaccine-preventable diseases and the incredible amount of research carried out on vaccines clearly displays an immense irrationality, even a contempt for the well-being of other children. I just typed in to PubMed “Vaccine Safety”, 25,074 results, of course, not all original studies, some editorials, some reviews; but many original studies.
As for the 1986 Act leaving any motivation to improve vaccines, no matter how many times it is explained to you, you ignore how the act works and its purpose. Because childhood vaccines are mandated, various governments negotiate prices that allow reasonable; but not excessive profits. Since there is NOTHING, even common foods, that is 100% safe, even if a vaccine literally saves 100s of thousands of hospitalizations, and thousands of lives and disabilities, if even one child is allegedly harmed, juries tend to sympathize with parents, think pharmaceutical companies greedy (which they often are) and award enormous sums, sums that can cancel ALL profits and worse. So, prior to the ACT, many pharmaceutical companies simply stopped manufacturing vaccines, simply low profit margin vs high risk. The ACT was to maintain a supply of vaccines, not to benefit companies; but companies supply the funds for the Vaccine Court.
So, the 1986 Act does protect companies as long as they produce vaccines exactly as approved by the FDA, based on extensive research. Given that nothing is 100% safe, the 1986 Act offers generous compensation to families whose child may have been vaccine-injured. However, if it is found the pharmaceutical company deviated from the approved production process, they can be sued. And if parents not satisfied with Vaccine Court, they can sue the companies; but most lawyers won’t take the case. The Vaccine Court literally reimburses lawyers with generous hourly rates, so a number of law firms are willing to take on weak cases.
As an example, imagine a state’s engineers and architects design a bridge to be built and put it out for bids for companies to build the bridge. If the bridge were to collapse, should the company be libel? NO! Not if they followed the plan to the letter. However, if the company cut corners, e.g., used cheap steel, too few rivets, etc. then, yep, libel. Vaccines are based on FDA requirements and reviews and, as opposed to a bridge collapsing, only rare cases of serious adverse events.
And, despite what you choose to believe, there is ongoing research to improve vaccines. Probably not all vaccines because the benefits to risk ratio for some are so incredibly high that better to invest in developing new vaccines. Flu vaccine is one that there is ongoing research to improve. In fact, Phase 1 studies are beginning for a flu vaccine that may only require one shot for many years, that is, that will protect against mutations, etc.
So, once again Christine you display your dishonest irrationality. Dishonest because you refuse to even consider a remote possibility that you are wrong and because you ignore overwhelming evidence that you are wrong. And your really foolish discussion of the immune system and muscles.
@ Joel,
You saying that you don’t completely reject the possibility that a vaccine may have caused my daughter’s death, makes me feel bad that I may have sounded as if I were God in saying that I am absolutely certain that a vaccine did.
I’m not God & I am not all knowing.
I think I am right though. About her death & the deaths of the majority of babies dead from SIDS. I wish pre & post vaccination cytokine profile studies would be done. I wish epidemiology studies would be done using genotypes. You’re right; I am not God. I just have this sinking feeling that I am right.
@ Christine Kincaid
Well, after several comments by me you finally admit you aren’t G-d and thus can’t be certain. So, how do you explain studies finding SIDS in infants not recently vaccinated? However, you still fail to admit that even if it turns out the vaccine caused SIDS, that your infant was a rare case, extremely low birthweight, extremely premature, and may have inherited a genetic disorder from you, so why are you against vaccines in general? Have you absolutely NO idea of the suffering, hospitalizations, permanent disabilities, and deaths that vaccines have prevented. Have you NO idea of the over 25,000 published vaccine safety papers?
So, finally you admit to one thing; but still ignore everything else I wrote, including your bogus claim that muscle not good for vaccinations. I left out another crucial part of immune system that exists literally almost everywhere, including muscles, dendritic cells that gobble up anything foreign, including S-spike proteins, transport to lymph nodes, and present to B-cells and T-cells.
@Joel, Have you absolutely NO idea of the suffering, hospitalizations, permanent disabilities, and deaths that vaccines have prevented.
She doesn’t care. She’s made it infinitely clear that the only disabilities she thinks are valid to care about are those caused by vaccines. She’s a nasty, selfish person who resents that she’s not praised day and night for how haaaard her life is.
@christinekinkaid
I’m so deeply sorry for your loss. Please do not pay any attention to the negative rude comments directed to you. Everyone should have the right to express their thoughts without receiving condescending and offensive responses. What kind of society do we live in where we cannot freely question things? Whether vaccinated blood is safe to donate is a good question to ask! Will vaccinated blood cause adverse affects to the unvaccinated, especially to those allergic to the vaccine properties? Where is the data that proves that it will not? Where is the data that proves the spike protein will not infect the blood receiver? They don’t have any. They only have ‘theories’. ‘Theories’ are not sound evidence. The ‘theory’ that the spike protein remains near the injection site has been proven wrong. Recent autopsies have discovered that the spike protein reproduces and collects all over the body, in mass numbers. So I ask again, where is the safety data that proves these safety reports?
@Lilian – I can’t believe these “experts” proclaim or actually think an injected material will just obediently stay in that area! Fools.
I hope to read Joel’s comment.
Lest we forget, this is the same guy who is selling bricks to antivaxxers to pave a walkway on his property. https://twitter.com/thereal_truther/status/1327315569297682432
@ Terrie, your comment: No, antivaxxers won’t be wearing masks to ‘protect’ themselves from the vaccinated.
I’m also wearing a mask to protect myself from the vaccinated</>
Christine routinely lies and contradicts herself, but this is a new record. So much for her making progress”
Terrie, I’ve been a pro-mask antivaxxer from the start. In fact. I’ve been masking since before you provaxxers were. I’m not contradicting myself; my behavior as an antivaxxer is not aligned with the other antivaxxers as a group.
@Christine, you have it reversed. I’m saying your claim that antivaxxers won’t be masking is bogus. You could say “some” or even “most” but you implied all and then immediately claimed you were masking. It’s like saying “Apples are red. This apple is green.”
@ Terrie
As much as I find Christine despicable in her war against vaccines in general, she is probably telling the truth regarding masks. I remember way back she posted a comment claiming that when she first heard about the oncoming pandemic he rushed out and bought a supply of masks. Whether true or false, can’t know; but she has been consistent in claiming she wears masks.
However, as I often state, even a broken clock gets the time right twice daily, so even Christine may once in a blue moon say something sane.
But no comment from her about her bogus claim about vaccines and muscles, etc.
@ Joel, re; But no comment from her about her bogus claim about vaccines and muscles, etc.”
I’m working on it. It’s important. The vaccines are creating an immune response which bypasses what the route of typical exposure-infection would be, which is in the mucosal immune system. I think this is an important component for all adverse reactions to all vaccines, not just the covid vaccine.
@ Christine Kincaid
Nope, you aren’t working on it. You want to believe that serious adverse reactions to vaccines are frequent when they are rare. And you really don’t understand the immune system. Do you understand what a parenteral wound is? There are dendritic cells just about everywhere. Your claim that vaccines in muscles don’t evoke a normal immune reactions is just plain bonkers. Nope, you aren’t trying to understand, you are trying to force the subject to fit your bias. You are tiresome, very tiresome.
I will briefly explain one more time. Nothing in life is without risk; but one has to look at benefits vs risk. If one really studies the history of vaccine-preventable diseases, then the benefits of vaccines in preventing suffering, hospitalizations, disabilities, and death vs the rare serious adverse events is a no-brainer for anyone with an open mind, which, of course, leaves you out.
@Christine Kincaid Mucosa and skin both have MALT (mucosa associated lymphoid tissue). It is normal lymphoid tissue, where B and T cells meet pathogens. Lymph nodes have same purpose. So there is no bypassing here.
IgA is secreted antibody type. Because of class switching, it is produced where IgG is produced. No bypassing here either.
Being flooded with toxic spike proteins isn’t the only bad thing that happens when you’re vaccinated against Covid-19.
What about the horror of having metallic objects fly through the air and stick to your body?
Sherri Tenpenny, addressing Ohio lawmakers: “I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures all over the internet of people who have had these shots and now they’re magnetized. They can put a key on their forehead. It sticks. They can put spoons and forks all over them and they can stick, because now we think that there’s a metal piece to that.”
“There’s been people who have long suspected that there’s been some sort of an interface, ‘yet to be defined’ interface, between what’s being injected in these shots and all of the 5G towers.”
http://nbc4i.com/news/local-news/anti-vaxxer-tells-ohio-lawmakers-covid-19-vaccine-can-leave-people-magnetized-interfaced-with-5g-towers/
I tested this out in the kitchen, leaning into the cutlery drawer. Nothing happened, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I stick to the refrigerator door and have to be pried off by paramedics. 🙁
In the face of all this anti-vaxx lunacy it’s important that we all stick together.
David Pakman gave his response here and you can catch a few key clips of her speech.
You only have to watch the first seven minutes before he cuts to a commercial.
I think he’s wrong to equate a DO like Tenpenny with a chiropractor but he’s forthright and generally correct in condemning her foolishness.
You need to stop talking about this. Right now. k? I’m not kidding.
@ Christine Kincaid
As you wrote: “I’m working on it. It’s important. The vaccines are creating an immune response which bypasses what the route of typical exposure-infection would be, which is in the mucosal immune system. I think this is an important component for all adverse reactions to all vaccines, not just the covid vaccine.”
So, according to you, the typical route of exposure-infection is the mucosal immune system. So, I guess if you step on a nail, no worry, not a risk for infection? Or if you or one of your children fall and scrape a knee, exposing underlying tissue, again, no worry, not a risk of infection? Neither involves mucosal tissues. Either you really don’t understand even the basics of infection or, as I wrote, you twist, distort, and lie to squeeze things into your rigid unscientific bias!
I didn’t know where to put this.
A Judge has dismissed a lawsuit by antivaxx nurses against a hospital that required all its staff to be vaccinated.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2021/06/12/vaccine-mandate-houston-hospital-upheld-judge-who-dismissed-employee-lawsuit/7672997002/
There’s another similar suit in the works–possibly the same one–that has also been dismissed but which everyone involved is loudly stating will eventually reach the US Supreme Court. Rotsa ruck with that. These people are nothing if not tenacious.
Plus….I thought that under US federal law any employer or public agency can require workers to follow mandated public health measures and also require compliance for those having transactions with the workforce under many if not most circumstances.
Special accommodations are required for disabled workers under the Americans with Disabilities Act even if other employees don’t like them. Works both ways: if you don’t like the vaccine mandate (or ADA accommodations for someone else) at your workplace, too bad.
Why was this suit by health workers allowed to progress in the first place?! Three guesses where the money came from.
At this point I’ve been tracking at least six lawsuits based on the EUA status. Besides the Texas ones – which they say they’re appealing to the Fifth Circuit – another one (Neve, a sheriff deputy in South Carolina) was voluntarily withdrawn. The others are still open.
Keeping an eye.
[…] of this is nicely and amusingly reported by David Gorski (aka […]
This story is 100 percent false.
So you’re saying that Del Bigtree lied about his trip to Mexico for a transfusion of “unvaccinated blood”? I got every bit of this from what he said on the episode of his Highwire show referenced in this post.
[…] funny is what happened to a rather famous antivaxxer in June, who basically could have died because he refused a transfusion with “vaccinated blood.” I’m referring to Del Bigtree, who in May was diagnosed with so much […]
[…] is what happened to a rather famous antivaxxer in June, who basically could have died because he refused a transfusion with “vaccinated blood”. I’m referring to Del Bigtree, who in May was diagnosed with so much […]