Whenever I come back from vacation, particularly when it’s been more than a week, I always wonder how to get my blogging juices flowing again and what to write about. Often I’ll choose a relatively simple topic, just to get things moving again. So when I sat down to write this post I was a bit conflicted. Perusing antivax social media while on vacation, I had noticed a theme bubbling up more and more. As usual, the most overblown, ridiculously off-base version of this theme came from Mike Adams who likened vaccine requirements for jobs, school, and various public events in which lots of people are present to segregation and Jim Crow in a post he entitled YOUR KIND aren’t welcome here: Unvaccinated people now treated worse than Blacks in the Jim Crow era as vaccine pushers turn to bigotry and segregation.
I’ve pointed out a number of times before how antivaxxers love to falsely cloak themselves in the mantle of being some sort of “oppressed” minority. Years ago, they liked to compare themselves to Jews under Hitler, as if vaccine mandates were the equivalent of the Holocaust, or a “slippery slope” that will lead to a Holocaust of the unvaccinated in which they are sent off to camps and gas chambers, or…something. Indeed, as I recently wrote, I’ve been intermittently seeing this particular antivaccine trope comparing vaccine mandates to the Holocaust going back almost as long as I’ve been blogging, although never as frequently as I’ve seen it in the last year and a half.
Then, of course, another favorite antivaccine trope has been to compare vaccine mandates to “slavery,” never mind the tone deafness of privileged, mostly affluent white parents comparing themselves to what Black people forcibly kidnapped and sold into slavery endured for hundreds of years of our history. Although I’ve seen such rhetoric going back years, including a particularly vile form in which antivaxxers liken vaccine mandates to human trafficking and sex slavery, it’s become especially prevalent since the COVID-19 pandemic, with celebrities such as Eric Clapton and Van Morrison invoking the image of “slavery” with respect to “lockdowns” and vaccine mandates and Naomi Wolf explicitly co-opting Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of chattel slavery in the US, for antivaccine, anti-“lockdown,” and antimask posturing. In any event, white antivaxxers have long been targeting Black and other minority populations with their conspiracy theories and misinformation, in effect trying to weaponize the understandable distrust that Blacks have of the medical profession given its history and abuses such as the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment, in which Blacks with syphilis were left intentionally untreated in order to study the natural history of the disease, and convert that distrust into antivaccine beliefs.
One of the most risible examples of antivaxxers claiming to be “oppressed” occurred around six months before the first lockdowns were ordered in the US, in the wake of. the passage of SB 276 in California, a law designed to tighten up school vaccine mandates by closing off one method by which antivaxxers had been getting their children excused from being vaccinated, namely fake medical exemptions. At the time, antivaxxers started declaring themselves the “new civil rights movement,” which they most assuredly are not. So as a combination of vaccine hesitancy in many parts of the country preventing the achievement of anything close to herd immunity and the much more highly transmissible delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, have upended what appeared to be the easy reopening of the US for business as usual, now antivaxxers are taking aim at vaccine requirements for employment and entry into various businesses. and so-called “vaccine passports.” To do that, they’re likening such requirements to segregation and Jim Crow.
Which brings me to Mike Adams. Yes, Mike Adams is an easy target, but, on the other hand, he says the quiet part that antivaxxers don’t want you to hear so out loud that you need earplugs to muffle it:
It is morally wrong to dehumanize and disrespect people because of the color of their skin, or for being gay, or for being physically disabled, and so on. In America, we build access ramps so that people in wheelchairs can have access to restaurants and public buildings. But now, thanks to the bigoted, racist, anti-freedom vaccine zealots, Black people who refuse to take part in the government’s vaccine medical experiment will be told, “You people aren’t welcome here.”
The appropriate question is: What do you mean, YOU PEOPLE?
I’ll take False Analogies for $1000, Alex. (Oh, wait. Alex Trebek is still dead, and Jeopardy! is on the verge of replacing him with a bland and misogynistic producer. But I digress.) It is, of course, wrong to disrespect, dehumanize, and discriminate against people based on their race, but guess what? Refusing to be vaccinated is a choice, unlike one’s race. Of course, Adams probably realizes that his analogy is a false one, hence his appeal to the “experimental vaccine” (it’s not, not anymore) and his not-so-subtle invocation of the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment.
Adams is not one for even “sort-of” subtlety for long. In particular, he aims his ire at Bill de Blasio, the Mayor of New York:
In New York City, Mayor de Blasio has just announced that restaurants, gymnasiums and soon grocery stores and public buildings will discriminate against the unvaccinated like a scene ripped right out of the Jim Crow era of racism and bigotry. The pharma-funded media is openly calling for unvaccinated people to be “shamed” and “shunned,” actually encouraging vaccinated people to dehumanize others who refuse to take the deadly jabs that are now linked to at least 20,595 deaths and 1.9 million injuries across the USA and the EU.
Um, no. The vaccine has not been shown to have caused anywhere that many deaths, if any, Adams’ implication otherwise notwithstanding. I’ve discussed this many times before, most recently here. Still, Adams is on a roll and decides to quote de Blasio, only changing the word “vaccinated” to “White” and the word “unvaccinated” to “Black,” resulting in:
Bill de Blasio: If you’re White, you’ll have the key, you can open the door. But if you’re Black, unfortunately, you won’t be able to participate in most things. That’s the point we’re trying to get across, it’s time people see Whiteness as literally necessary to living a good, and full, and healthy life. It will require Whiteness for workers and customers in indoor dining, in indoor fitness facilities, and indoor entertainment facilities. The ONLY way to patronize these establishments indoors will be if they’re White. The same in terms of work.
Again, how false can your false analogy be? But let’s see where Adams goes with this. It’s pretty much where you would expect:
Can you imagine the outcry if de Blasio declared that Blacks could not have jobs, or visit restaurants, or go to the gym because of who they were? It would be immediately decried as a policy rooted in hate and racism, and those attempting to carry out such policies would be criminally investigated by the DOJ.
But announce the same discrimination against unvaccinated people, and suddenly all the hate and bigotry is celebrated by the media, the government and Big Tech. Because hatred is endorsed by all those groups when it helps compel people to take Big Pharma’s depopulation shots. Never make the mistake of believing that this vaccine push is rooted in love or even a desire for public health. It’s all rooted in hatred, racism and raw bigotry.
Notice how Adams conflates allowing different privileges based on one’s COVID-19 vaccination status to segregation, discrimination, bigotry, and hate. Then he pivots to saying that the “war on the unvaccinated” is actually a “war on Blacks” because, well, I’ll let him explain it in his usual unhinged fashion:
In a nation where it would be abhorrent to deny someone access to a restaurant because they’re gay, trans, Black, female or physically disabled, we now see mayors literally encouraging discrimination based on vaccine status. This makes those government leaders bigots and racist, since Black Americans have the least percentage of vaccinated people (about 26%) versus other races. So the war against the unvaccinated is, not surprisingly, actually a war on Blacks, now being waged by the very same lunatics (like Dr. Leana Wen) who have been running the Planned Parenthood genocidal attack on Black babies for generations.
Unsurprisingly, it never occurs to Adams to ask why it might be that Blacks have the lowest vaccination rate. I also note that he doesn’t link to his source. According to KFF, for instance, it is true that less than 50% of Blacks and Hispanics have received a dose of COVID-19 vaccine:
The vaccination rate for Black people is less than 50% in 38 of 42 reporting states, including 7 states where less than a third of Black people have received one or more doses. Similarly, less than half of Hispanic people have received a COVID-19 vaccine dose in 32 of 40 reporting states, including 9 states where less than a third have received at least one dose. At least half of White people have received a COVID-19 vaccine dose in 17 of 42 states. The rate remains below 50% in the remaining 25 states but falls below a third in only one state, Idaho. At least half of Asian people have received one or more doses in most reporting states (33 of 39).
My guess is that Adams picked a figure of fully vaccinated people (both doses) in order to make it as low as possible. In any event, it is true that there is a vaccination gap between Whites and Blacks (and Hispanics), and that’s why states are working to reach the unvaccinated and close that gap. The answer to lagging vaccination rates among Blacks and Hispanics is not to paint efforts to protect people with vaccination requirements as somehow a racist war against them, but rather to work harder to get their vaccination rates up to that of Whites.
Of course, appeals to segregation and Jim Crow aren’t enough to Adams, which is why he quickly pivots to trying to portray the unvaccinated as having a “medical disability,” thus making “discrimination” against them the equivalent to discriminating against someone with a medical disability:
What’s even more disturbing in all this is the fact that many people have made a conscious choice to avoid vaccines because of previous vaccine injuries or allergic reactions. This means they have a medical disability that prohibits them from taking additional vaccines without risking serious adverse reactions or death. Yet in a society where it’s illegal to discriminate against people with physical disabilities, it’s now being openly encouraged to discriminate against those with medical disabilities.
It’s the equivalent of a restaurant owner in New York City tearing down the wheelchair ramps and posting a sign, “Handicapped not welcome here” … which would be abhorrent (and illegal).
Or imagine if a fitness gym set up shop in New York City and posted a sign, “No lesbians allowed.” They would be burned down by angry lesbians wielding Molotov cocktails, pitchforks and torches.
Notice the conflation of something that is a choice (not to be vaccinated) with personal characteristics that are not choices (to have a medical disability or to be gay—and, previously, to be Black). Then, of course, Adams is playing a very old antivaccine game, namely claiming that people who refuse vaccination because of dubious “medical reasons” that are not really science-based medical contraindications to being vaccinated are being “discriminated” against for a “medical condition.” (As an aside, I can’t help but note one condition that Adams conspicuously did not mention as an abhorrent reason to discriminate, being transgender. Perhaps it’s because he’s a raging transphobe.)
This trope goes way back, but most recently was a prominent feature of the antivax propaganda campaign against the aforementioned SB 276. The reason that SB 276 was even passed was because of a cottage industry that had developed in California in which quacks and antivax doctors (but I repeat myself) were selling letters claiming bogus “medical” exemptions to school vaccine mandates based on medical issues that are not science-based contraindications to vaccination. Indeed, five doctors wrote one third of the medical exemption letters in eight Bay Area school districts before the passage of SB 276.
Finally, to Adams, it’s all about the usual conspiracy theory of “control”:
Vaccine passports used in New York assign expiration dates to vaccine injections. Your “freedom” expires in one year, based on current vaccines, and with Moderna and Pfizer now pushing “booster” shots, those will likely expire in just a few months. Big Pharma is pushing for monthly spike protein injections, which means vaccine passport apps will have people on a short leash: Keep complying with the monthly bioweapons injections, or you’ll lose your freedom and plunge into the “unvaccinated” status, even if you’ve taken all the vaccines so far.
This means, incredibly, that even those who have taken all the hyped vaccines can very quickly find themselves categorized as “unvaccinated” and watch their “key to the city” privileges vanish.
The lesson in all this? Complying with medical tyranny will never bring you freedom. The only freedom comes from saying NO to the tyranny in the first place.
Yes, because keeping people protected from a deadly disease is exactly the same as tyranny. Adams schtick reminds me of this meme from a few years ago:
Again, I realize that Mike Adams and his likening vaccine requirements to “segregation” or “Jim Crow” are easy targets. However, remember this. There are a lot of antivaxxers out there who aren’t as—shall we say?—over-the-top with their analogies and invoke the very same sorts of appeals to vaccine requirements as “discrimination” or “segregation.” Whenever you see them, I think it’s helpful to see what Adams says, because all such antivaxxers are doing is taking Adams’ rhetoric and dialing it down to the point where it seems reasonable, at least superficially. However, when you strip away the camouflage, Mike Adams is what you’re left with.
83 replies on “Antivaxxers invoke segregation and Jim Crow to attack COVID-19 vaccination requirements”
Two points.
A. At least part of the gap is because of access issues, reflecting our general systemic injustice. We need to bring vaccines to the people. That’s not all of it, but it’s part.I doubt Mr. Adams would support, or has done anything, to promote better access to vaccines by these groups.
B. Aside from your point distinguishing choice-based distinctions from racial ones, remember that discrimination is treating like cases alike. The unvaccinated that want to eat in restaurant are not like the vaccinated; they are at higher risk of getting and spreading COVID. Just like those with a driver’s license are not the same as those without for the purpose of driving, and that’s not discrimination.
And yes, we need to close the vaccination gap. We can start by working on those access issues. They are, I think, a more easily reachable fruit than hesitancy, at least in the sense that we can do meaningful things about them.
Or more generally, a better and more equal access to everything</I< by these groups.
Given his survivalist schtick – prepare yourself for when those people from the big sinful cities will run amok in the countryside…
I would be more receptive to these arguments if I was more sure the people making them were against Jim Crow laws and the like.
I suspect some part of the appeal of these arguments is that the targeted people are likely to think you are segregating against the wrong people.
@Dorit Reiss
Should not be surprised that a fan of this blog would support redlining.
As Orac said, not to vaccinate is *choice”. There were (or are) no choices possible to avoid redlining.
As antivaxxers love to use tobacco as example, smoking bans are not considered discrimination. Tobacco smoking is actually less a choice, because it is addictive.
How is anything Dorit said in any way shape or form similar to denying a mortgage based on race?
Wait….advocating bringing the vaccine to those with compromised access to vaccines is “redlining”?
You really are not capable of reading and understanding anything. Dorit is advocating for outreach to people who are from disadvantaged communities that have not had fair access to healthcare, including vaccines. She wants to ensure that Black people and other communities that have been subjected to redlining will have full access to vaccines.
It’s funny, because the lag in the Black community is the one I hear people going “I get their distrust. It’s not like there isn’t precedent. But what’s the excuse for all the white people?”
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Everyone pushing vaccines refuses good knowledge some key facts and because you refuse to acknowledge and explain address these everyone is suspicious of you and your agenda.
1) why are the side effects produced by these vaccines both the prevalence and the severity dismissed as always worth the risk ? How does that make sense for anyone that is under the age of 45 and healthy it doesn’t and you know damn well it doesn’t
2) why is there no discussion of improving this vaccine for example streamlining into production the Novavax vaccine which has near minimal side effects?
3) why is the United States not tracking breakthrough infections? How many people are dying that had the vaccine how many people are in the hospital
4) and why are prophylactics cheap prophylactics not being utilized and I’ve been around for years?
5) why are side effects not being reported in the media.?
And most importantly above all why should anyone Trust big Pharma Corps after what they did to this country AND the globe with the Oxycontin epidemic?
The onus should be on all of you to make us trust this industry and this vaccine then and only then will the rest of us consider taking this experimental Jab.
I for one. Had Covid and there’s no way in hell I would ever destroy my natural immunity to take this experimental vaccine which no one has any idea what the long-term side effects are. Im a healthy middle-aged man who takes care of myself covid is real but it is nowhere near as dangerous as any of you are making it out to be you are insane and frankly on the same psychological level as Josef Mengele for ALL of you. W
who thinks that is OK to inject healthy people with an experimental vaccine …You ARE iclinically insane
yes, the vaccine will kill, or greatly shorten the life of anyone taking it. but also notice that very few Blacks are taking the vaccine. so when all you facist Krackers die off, only the Black Race will remain.
we win
Racist troll is racist.?
I needed that laugh today!!
A few things…
I was also away but was able to read/ hear Mikey and Gary and news on my phone. ( I never truly rest)
He often characterises large cities as criminal, filthy enclaves of chaos or being a ghost town ( “Everyone is moving out!”) . He comprehends little about NYC ( he mispronounces “Greenwich Village” ) and would probably love to know that de Blasio’s original name was Germanic ( he now uses his mother’s surname) so Sieg Heil! Wilhelm, you Nazi!
As usual anti-vaxxers liken themselves to victims of discrimination as if their situations were equivalent. Maybe it’s just me but my mother frequently spoke about
how the evils of segregation/ Apartheid was even before I started school so I wouldn’t automatically reject Black students/ adults . Mike should know better but he’s an anti-vaxxer and they tend to conflate issues, mix up things and accept worthless ideas. Similarly, Del ( @ high wire talk) was ranting about how Israel’s new PM is pushing vaccine segregation.
-btw= I have been in two liberal, well vaccinated places in the past week and no signs of FEMA camps and no one asked for my papers AT ALL. only ID for TSA.
Oh, how could I forget? Mr de Blasio is married to a Black woman and has two biracial kids so I’m sure he’s totally unaware of discrimination ( eye roll). Mikey will have more trouble labeling the next mayor as a racist since he is Black but I’m sure he’ll find a way!
When the current (acting) mayor of Boston objected to vaccine mandates because “you’d be excluding forty percent of East Boston,” she was talking about who has ready access to vaccines (at times they can actually go get them, and maybe someone to handle childcare if they need to recover from side effects. Also, while I disagree with her I’m more sympathetic to “what about the poor and working class Black people?” from the first Black mayor of Boston than I am from yet another rich white guy, even if Adams didn’t have a long history of dishonest analogies.
The acting Boston mayor, Kim Janey actually compared mandating Covid-19 vaccination for restaurant patrons to slavery and Trump demanding to see Obama’s birth certificate (she walked it back later after the damage was done). This from a purported black leader.
As for minority access, from today’s Boston Globe:
“Federally funded community health centers have administered nearly 14 million doses of coronavirus vaccines, including about 9 million doses to minority patients, the Biden administration is set to announce Monday.”
It’s not like no one has been working on improvements in access to vaccines.
Unreasoning fear and suspicion of government and health practitioners is a plague that infects across racial liines.
My FQHC is generally packed, especially OB/GYN. I’m not so sure about pointing over and over to Tuskegee is the way to approach the subject, though, because that evades the present. I haven’t gone through all three of the items there, but it might be worth a look-see.
@ Dangerous Bacon
“Unreasoning fear and suspicion of government and health practitioners is a plague that infects across racial liines.”
Sure. Now please explain to me why I have “unreasoning fear and suspicion” of health practitioners ?? Perhaps because I’m fed up of having been regularly locked up and hunted like a beast in the cold at night by oh-so-loving medical practitioners ? Nah… that can’t be. That would be paranoia… or fact. You tell me.
@ F68.10
I’m not DB, but I would say, based on what you’ve said in the past, you don’t have an “unreasoning” fear, you have a very reasonable, well explained, and earned fear and mistrust of health care providers.
I would say that fear is often unreasoning, but that doesn’t mean it’s unearned or unreasonable. When you are afraid, it is harder to apply reason (because brains are like that). So the only way to get to reason is to move out of fear by earning trust. And by the person/people who have been hurt being willing and able to try trusting, which is going to be pretty hard for a lot of people.
F68.10, I hope that some day you find someone worthy of your trust, but in the meantime, I hope you stay safe and well.
@ JustaTech
“When you are afraid, it is harder to apply reason (because brains are like that).”
To my understanding and experience, it’s not only a matter of cognitive bias or brains going berserk. It sure puts a massive load of stress that is hardly bearable. But the “interesting thing” is that it shifts one’s point of view, and, as much as one may argue that it twists morality or various understanding of probabilistic interpretation of possible outcomes and shatters in-grained notions of what is ethically permissible or not, it also confronts you with dilemmas that are “intellectually interesting” in their own right. I thought a lot about rather deep issues pertaining to morality and pragmatism among other things. When I finally fell into learned helplessness (before coming to this blog), the hate was still there, but I noticed I finally understood many topics in analytic philosophy better than I ever did or could have before. The price to pay for that is way too high, though, but rationality is not something that just disappears. Nonetheless, the mental pressure of conflicting informations may well fry one’s mind: refusing to give up intellectually is the worst mental torture in these situations. But there is no other satisfactory way out than not giving up intellectually. The downside is that not giving up intellectually may well mean giving up on one’s “hopes” or “life impulse”. That’s how I’d describe learned helplessness.
As to “trust”, it’s a more complicated topic. My dominant feeling is not mistrust nowadays but steel irony and disgust. I now want to puke two or three times a day when confronted with some specific thoughts. (But can’t). I also cannot stand the most minor stress anymore, which makes me sweat like hell and makes my legs wobble uncontrollably.
I just hope Joel and sadmar are well. Haven’t seen them around recently.
“When I finally fell into learned helplessness”
Well, if this doesn’t help you fall back out then it is still a fun ride anyways {mix with an MAOI such as passiflora}. I figure you can google Google Scholar all by yourself still.
https://html.duckduckgo.com/html?q=learned%20helplessness%20%2Bhydroxyzine
Adams knows that the Russian bots support him in email
He is playing to the core self-image of the anti vaccine community. It is also the core self-image of many groups who are manipulated by others:
“You are the brave soldiers in the fight for Truth(tm). You suffer so much for being the special people you are.”
It helps to throw in how they are all free thinkers and individuals, unlike the sheeple who oppress them. But theirs’ is the kingdom of the future, where their gifts and their sacrifices will be recognized. And woe be to the wicked, you will see them cast into the fires of damnation.
There is an article about this by Chauncey DeVega at Salon. It’s about the core narcissism and the appeal of being the hero of your own fantasy narrative.
Gorski defends policies that target minorities.
Not surprised at all.
Better to pretend that everything is all equitable and so forth from the comfort of your mom’s basement, Dave? I’d be happy to strand you at Harold’s #35 and let you sort it out. If you ask nicely, I’ll give you a watermelon first.
I bet you jumped the queue to get your shots. Did you have to cross a state line to get your booster?
Minorities are not targeted enough, actually. More targeted healthcare for minoorties would be useful.
Ironically, minorities have since forever been scapegoated as carriers of disease. These people lack all self-awareness.
@Matt G
Ironically you’re defending classic case of redlining.
Indeed, you do.
Sure thing, Billy Madison. I’ve seen more intelligent fortune cookies.
Don’t you still have a sentence to “explain”? Dumbf*ck chickenshit.
“Classic case?”
I really don’t think you understand the words coming out of your mouth….
Five’ll get you ten that Dave
licked“liked” his own comment.I put down 50-50 the first time, but toss that. Either Dave is “liking” each and every one of his own posts or contriving for the same.
Just make the appropriate substitutions in “Elvis Is Everywhere.”
Learned a new word today, Davy?
In the United States, redlining is the systematic denial of various services to residents of specific, often racially associated, neighborhoods or communities, either explicitly or through the selective raising of prices. (Wikipedia)
Too bad. You learned it wrong.
You beat me to it. He’s so proud of it that he’s deployed it twice just here.
So that is why Marcelos and his brother could not swim. I thought they just didn’t like me.
Sometimes you wonder if some of the commentators read the article – especially when they repeat the same tropes. And then they twist people’s words to fit their agendas in such a nasty way.
Any sensible person who disagreed would say exactly why, not just accuse others in the same manner as Mike is alleged to do in the article.
I can see when someone meant a new para rather than an ambiguous full stop. Give people the benefit of the doubt or ask if they meant what they wrote, rather than the full on accusations.
But then I’m a nice sensible person. I would never accuse someone on the basis of an ambiguously punctuated paragraph.
Not sensible enough to eschew tone-trolling, it seems.
“Refusing to be vaccinated is a choice, unlike one’s race.”
I really do not like this kind of rhetoric on choice, cloaking within it pre-conceptions on free will.
But… when it comes to anti-vaxx nonsense, well, have a go with it.
I do not like pretending medicine gives people any choice, however. It is a discipline that explicitly does not care in the least about giving people choices, clocking that lack of choice between the choice between Brutality Anytime Anyhow, and Comply Freely. When you say Yes, they understand No. When you say No, they understand Yes.
So yeah, I do tend to find this argument bogus. Anyhow, the major objection I have against anti-vaxxers is that they deny the right of the collective to, at least once in a while, make a choice. They are anti-collective-choice to the most despicable extent.
Over on this side of the pond, when possible I’m always given a choice between more aggressive treatment and “watchful waiting.” Just as one example, I remember being referred to the orthopods for numbness in the fourth and fifth digits of my dominant hand. With the residents in the room, the attending (faculty) made a great show of holding up my arm and proclaiming, “You can pluck this nerve like a bowstring!”
Once they had shuffled off, I asked whether the ulnar nerve really had to be repositioned. His response was that he had the same problem in medical school and just wrapped a small pillow around his elbow at night and babied the thing.
Whether this was good pedagogy is one thing, but it is broadly representative of my experience.
@ Narad
I do not claim that they are nazis, Narad, mind you.
I’m just saying that when you are not suffering and “someone close to you” say you are suffering, there’s no way to convince a doctor that you are not suffering. You have no clue what you are being held up for in the first place, anyway… The less you suffer (because you do not) the more you are viewed with suspicion and held up against your will. Until they get a chance to misinterpret something and then just jump on it repeatedly.
Medical hubris.
Vaccines are an entirely different topic: the statistics are clearer than clear. I can assert that the science I’ve read rightfully falls within the category of science. What I have read in my records, however, if that is science, then anything may fly, conspiracy theories included… But I just hate people hiding behind buzzwords to vindicate their ideology, and I positively do not like doctors vilifying the word “science” by equating it with mindless compliance and baseless accusations taken as facts because it comes from “someone close to you”. I positively hate their blame games and violence when they are being confronted. I positively hate their “do not kill” mantra when they’d be better off killing me than believing they are helping me.
Again, the situation is different for vaccines. But I honestly had to see for myself the antivaxxers’ dumber-than-dumb rhetoric (thanks Greg !) for that to offset the lower-than-low opinion I had of medical practitioners. (And I will likely never change on that: I’m better off sick as hell and suffering of my own “free will” than in their claws. I’ll choose death over medical care any time.)
Nah, choices and decisions do not imply free will. Computers make decisions. Hell, computer programs even have what they call “decision trees”. But your experience of the medical system must be different from mine. Sometimes there are too many choices, or choices you haven’t the background knowledge to successfully negotiate. A good doctor will help you negotiate these choices, or leave it to you if the choices aren’t differentially weighted. Then, of course, it’s more like a flip of the coin.
@ BillyJoe
“A good doctor will help you negotiate these choices, or leave it to you if the choices aren’t differentially weighted.”
I guess your doctor is not your mom, then…
It is not exactly a game of “animals” anymore. Markov chains aside. https://github.com/nick1au/Animal-Guessing-Game
Hmmm … those electrolyte drops entice some credibility to that incessant barking for attention! Amazes me that people who are so wrong about facts garner the strength they do, but suppose there is no choice but to keep the writing as scandalous and emotional as possible. Yea, Jim Crow — just like it. I’m happy it is easy to detect lunatics and or charlatans.
Was conversing about COVID at work and listened to arguments claiming COVID was basically fake because one person knew people that told him hospitals were empty. It did make me do a quick read on how hospitals get paid for treating COVID as though such was a bad or unusual thing. Most of the stuff claimed was standard nonsense, but odd one person had authority and responsibility toward people in a real way. Perhaps just playing devil’s advocate but not really sure.
Plenty of deliberate misinformation out there at a much more gentle volume. Still 100% wrong when taking some time to look at sources and reality but I say let em crash. They knew what they were getting into when they got on the plane!
Good news, US DoD will be mandating vaccinations and apparently FDA will upgrade COVID vaccine certification soon.
This does not in anyway affect the mandate for wearing clothes in public.
Just one point of view, here, but I work in and out of three hospitals on a regular basis. COVID is a scourge. No rational person wants a COVID case to come in. We have to isolate them in the ER-every person who goes in has to don and doff PPE every time. We have to take them immediately, even if they’re stone-cold stable, so they don’t cough all over the waiting area. That means there might not be a room for your grandmother who rolls in with serious troke symptoms. We have to place them on monitoring-that eats staff. They have to go to a special ward or to the unit-that eats a lot of staff, PPE, housekeeping, yada, yada. It’s a massive pain and it is very resource-intensive. That’s just for your run-of-the-mill covider; someone like a 50 y/o with COPD coming in with poor oxygenation. If they are really sick? We have to go much further. I have my issues with administration and billing but no one wants a covid patient rolling in; and they sure has heck are not getting “rich” off of them…quite the opposite…
Sounds exhausting as numerous descriptions from the front lines show and the basic limits of treating so many patients is apparent. For me, there’s this insinuation that COVID is over-diagnosed because there is money specifically assigned for those patients (COVID is fake). Sounds like the priority is to identify COVID patients, which is now simple, and isolate them quickly so they don’t spread the germs. I can’t imagine a concerted effort to commit fraud for an extra buck. I’m sure there are systems set up to detect that based on standard protocols not being followed. It seems also that anyone entering an emergency room would get a COVID test because the ramifications of spread to others even though they came in for a broken leg or something. Sometimes they also have COVID. Wouldn’t be the first diagnosis for it — it is a pandemic after all.
I’m finding at this point the spread of misinformation is deliberate and meant to weaken government intervention (IMHO). Doesn’t matter the cause, there is now a group of folks who support poorly functioning government. Just happens that COVID provides an excellent example of why you have government intervention and personal choice will take second place — then last, as freedom doesn’t prevent you from dying. Not even sure what point would be made getting intubated, withering, and dying.
Hats off to health care workers who treat the purposely sick as well as those who are stuck in the various cracks. Vaccination works and it is free … which is particularly galling to those supporting dysfunctional government.
I’m trying real hard to be compassionate but more so reasonable.
Mikey’s latest post proclaims that Covid vaccines have killed more people than the atomic bombing at Hiroshima: he doesn’t trust official numbers because VAERS reports vastly underestimate deaths- perhaps the real figure is 100 times more. In addition, the US will inject ‘spike protein killer shots’ into 2 million service members so at least 25% will die.
What I don’t comprehend is that Mike, like Gary and other disaster porn creators, keeps making ludicrous predictions like this and leaves his posts/ broadcasts available for viewing at his sites, and yet, followers never seem to call him or the others on their ridiculous projections. I’ve heard that the economy will collapse many times and NEVER recover, that gold will hit 3000, that violent gangs will overtake all large cities and that real estate prices will plummet in NY and SF … but none of this has happened.
Maybe Mercola was on to something when he decided to deleted all his posts after 48 hours.?
Is this the equivalent of “yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,” just as he runs out the emergency exit or more like defecating in a swimming pool and letting his corprophilic followers spread it around?
Numerous NN predictions remain up on the site; at least one article got deleted, as it supposedly didn’t “align” with the new “scientific” mission of the site.
As a prognosticator, Mike Adams ranks somewhere behind Nostradamus in both specificity and accuracy, as when he predicts we’ll see either a stock market boom or bust. Contrary to past predictions, we haven’t seen a military attack on North Korea, TSA street checkpoints, a massive “GMO contamination” crisis and many other events based on dire NN warnings. For instance:
“The world won’t come to an end on December 21, 2012, but certain elements of current human civilization may certainly* be coming to a close around that time. The global money system, in particular, is headed for a total collapse. Many elements of the environment are at a breaking point (such as the chemical pollution of the oceans). The chemical burden on the citizens of the world is reaching a critical mass they may culminate in a population collapse. I don’t put any special significance on the date of December 21, but I do believe many things are headed toward collapse (and rebirth) over the next several years.”
“Verdict: Guess we’ll have to wait to find out, huh?”
Not just yet, Mikey, but we’ll sure have to stock up on colloidal silver and all the other useless and overpriced glop that NN sells.
*”may certainly” leaves a nice out when you’re wrong. 😀
It’s too bad we don’t have a VAERS for logging deaths that occurred after people avoided proper medical care on the horrendously bad advice of NN and similar sites.
I suspect that the totals would dwarf the numbers of deaths that occurred at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
Denice:
In the USA alone, COVID-19 has killed nearly ten times more people than the combined death toll of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
prl- more like USA 6x more Covid deaths than total from atomic bombings
Gentlemen:
At NN and PRN, there are often predictions of stock market crashes that never recover, gang warfare in cities, police state actions and the total collapse of EVERYTHING!
Usually, they insist that followers take their money out of banks, the market and other investments and sell their homes in order to move to the country where freedom lovers live freely. You can become an organic farmer or learn crafts and simple, useful trades ( rather than attend universities or work in an office) , return to more traditional roles and occupations. Learn how to dry fruit and can vegetables. Shoot animals ( Adams only) Barter with other farmers.
Now, I’ve listened to them since at least 2008 and 2000 ( respectively) and none of these events have come to pass. There is no mass exodus from cities, in fact, places like NYC and SF have become even more expensive to live in because people want to be there. ( I’ve quoted present day home prices of living and dead family members here). and the market continues to climb. SF doesn’t look like the ghost town/ Mad Max-ville they describe.
Yet people still listen to them and buy their ( crappy) products.
-btw- outside of NYC, there is the phenomenon of boutique farming : affluent people move to the countryside and raise herbs, organic vegetables or llamas and live off of their savings.
He’s definitely a few sticks short of a full Jenga tower. He can’t even evaluate how much space and natural resources would be required to have everyone living a self-sufficient rural life. I suspect he has his own plans for population reduction.
” In any event, it is true that there is a vaccination gap between Whites and Blacks (and Hispanics), and that’s why states are working to reach the unvaccinated and close that gap.”
“Reaching them”? What’s stopped them from being “reached” until now? Are they underground or on a mountain top? No roads or infrastructure? In a big stone fort? Or by “reaching them”, do you mean “convincing them”. Benevolently showing them the error of their ways … Because they need you for that right? They need you provax to show them how to “be more like white people” , lol.
“The answer to lagging vaccination rates among Blacks and Hispanics is not to paint efforts to protect people with vaccination requirements as somehow a racist war against them, but rather to work harder to get their vaccination rates up to that of Whites.”
Maybe Black PEOPLE & Hispanic PEOPLE (at least you didn’t say ‘Latinix”) don’t WANT to get their vaccination rates up to that of White people. Those that wanted the vaccine, have been vaccinated, because they are just as capable at accessing a vaccine as anybody else.
There’s no way around it. The vaccination requirements WILL marginalize more black people than white people. They seem to not want the vaccine as much as white people do.
OK, Karen
“What’s stopped them from being “reached” until now?”
It might help if some stupid govenors would not sign some stupid legislation that bans the hospital outreach in school cafeterias, stops community outreach (gov’ment goons beating down your door to stick ya) and then goes “UwU, it’s the unvaccinated folks letting us down.k”
P.S. Nobody gives a shit about the Whites.
Vaccine hesitancy map is here:
https://data.cdc.gov/stories/s/Vaccine-Hesitancy-for-COVID-19/cnd2-a6zw
You will notice that most hesitant states .are in mountain west.
All people could be misinformed, too. You yourself believe that vaccines cause all diseases known to man, after all.
Dear G-d are you a dumbshit, Kincaid. The only thing I can think of that is worse here than regular pedantry is misspelled, out-of-the-blue, irrelevant, passive-aggressive pedantry that doesn’t even have a rational basis.
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, self-concern about immigration status might have an effect on vaccine uptake in this population? Not being able to take time off to get vaccinated and maybe the day after the second dose? Crappy public transportation?
Orac, if I may weigh in here again, I think your argument fails because some ‘choices’ can be considered inalienable rights. Freedom of Religion is an example. I would also think that the right not to be physically or medically abused is also a choice covered under inalienable rights. And, yes, forced vaccination, and coercion counts as such, can also be seen as medical abuse. Of course, you guys always counter that forced vaccination is not medical abuse because vaccination is a ‘good thing’. For me, that argument always amounts to saying that it’s fair to medically violate people because it’s good for them and society.
On the other hand, you seem to think that it’s fair for you to spread disease unnecessarily to other people. So. What? Your freedom is more important?
Yes, whether you are unvaccinated, or vaccinated with an ineffective vaccine that won’t prevent infection or transmission, we are largely free to live our lives and exercise our inalienable rights — and even if there are certain negative ramifications with exercising that freedom.
Prove the vaccine is in ineffective and won’t prevent spread. Cite sources.
Honestly, this is getting old. I’m sitting here with seven patients with severe cases on the unit and every one is unvaccinated. Yesterday in clinic I had my very first breakthrough case in a vaccinated 90-something who would have died six months ago without the vaccine. She has a headache and a cough and is already feeling better.
Stop talking bs. Stop it here, stop it on Facebook, stop it everywhere. You’re unwell and you seem to fetishize death since you want it so badly for others. You are being an active part of the problem. Stop it.
some ‘choices’ can be considered inalienable rights. Freedom of Religion is an example.
Therefore if I am a devotee of Quetzalcoatl there is no problem with me holding a few human sacrifices in the back yard as long as I keep the noise down?
Bear in mind that Canada, from which Gerg hails, actually criminalizes libel, making his latest cry for attention rather ironic.
Also playing the race card in protesting Covid-19 vaccine requirements is the writer of an op-ed in the Wall St. Journal, Ray Prisament.
Ray is filled with angst at the thought that NYC will be shut off to his teenaged kids visiting from the suburbs.
“Under (DeBlasio’s) vaccine-passport mandate, we must immediately submit to the vaccination of our son and 15-year-old daughter, or they will be treated as second-class citizens in New York City. They will be prohibited from entering restaurants and movie theaters, attending most indoor events or, in de Blasio’s words, generally living “a good and full and healthy life.” (They may continue to live a good and full and healthy life across the county line in our suburban village, not to mention everywhere else in the U.S.)”
“Meanwhile for families with vaccine-eligible teens—who in New York and most other states need parental consent to get vaccinated—the ethical and practical land mines are enormous.”
“Can you imagine a group of high schoolers heading out together to a nearby diner after a year of Zoom classes and isolation, only to realize that two of their friends aren’t allowed in because their parents have vaccine safety concerns? Does the whole group cancel its plans, or split from their unvaccinated friends? Does it matter that, statistically, the abandoned friends are far more likely to be black?”
“https://www.wsj.com/articles/de-blasio-teenagers-vaccine-passport-covid-19-coronavirus-new-york-nyc-11628539456?mod=opinion_major_pos4
I sobbed as I read this. 🙁
The municipality next to mine has a speed limit of 20 mph on all roads, except for a couple major ones. Those same roads, once they cross the line into my municipality have a speed limit of 30. Shall I lament how my rights are being trampled by the neighboring town?
So one Ray Prisament wants to both risk exposing his kids to a deadly disease that he could protect them from, and also to make sure his kids hate him from keeping them from having fun with their friends?
Something tells me that his kids will hold that grudge.
Another Twitter gem from James Lyons-Weiler:
He fulminates against a Michigan Board of Education ruling that local school districts can mandate mask-wearing, saying that the BOE can’t OK the practice of medicine by school boards.
You see, wearing a mask is a “medical procedure” according to L-W. By that impeccable logic, teachers can be prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license, if they cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough.
@Greg Supreme Court does not agree with you:
https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1824/jacobson-v-massachusetts
It upheld a state’s mandatory compulsory smallpox vaccination law.
Speaking about transmission, there is this case:
Haas EJ, Angulo FJ, McLaughlin JM, Anis E, Singer SR, Khan F, Brooks N, Smaja M, Mircus G, Pan K, Southern J, Swerdlow DL, Jodar L, Levy Y, Alroy-Preis S. Impact and effectiveness of mRNA BNT162b2 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations, and deaths following a nationwide vaccination campaign in Israel: an observational study using national surveillance data. Lancet. 2021 May 15;397(10287):1819-1829. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00947-8. Epub 2021 May 5. Erratum in: Lancet. 2021 Jul 17;398(10296):212. PMID: 33964222; PMCID: PMC8099315.
“Adjusted estimates of vaccine effectiveness at 7 days or longer after the second dose were 95·3% (95% CI 94·9-95·7; incidence rate 91·5 per 100 000 person-days in unvaccinated vs 3·1 per 100 000 person-days in fully vaccinated individuals) against SARS-CoV-2 infection, 91·5% (90·7-92·2; 40·9 vs 1·8 per 100 000 person-days) against asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection, 97·0% (96·7-97·2; 32·5 vs 0·8 per 100 000 person-days) against symptomatic COVID-19, 97·2% (96·8-97·5; 4·6 vs 0·3 per 100 000 person-days) against COVID-19-related hospitalisation, 97·5% (97·1-97·8; 2·7 vs 0·2 per 100 000 person-days) against severe or critical COVID-19-related hospitalisation, and 96·7% (96·0-97·3; 0·6 vs 0·1 per 100 000 person-days) against COVID-19-related death.”
Against asymptomic COVID 19, efficiency was 91.5. If you do not have an asymptomic COVID, you cannot unknowingly transmit it.
Bear in mind that Gerg has demonstrated in excruciating detail that he doesn’t understand “person-[time]” anything.
https://m.facebook.com/provaccineshills/photos/a.961808747203554/4409219839129077/?type=3&source=48
This bit of “hu?” comes with a dark pattern asking one to log in as if that would fix it. Hu? I am temporarily binning you in the bad human block. Sorry, eh?
I had COVID19 back in Nov 2020. I still have the olfactory hallucinations to prove it.
By all accounts my natural immunity is better than that acquired through vaccination. At least as good.
Sadly, this fact does not fit with the narrative – and I have been informed by many highly qualified supermarket security guards that my immunity counts for jack shit.
Thanks to experiences like this – I have absolutely zero intention of getting the COVID19 vaccine, so as to expose myself to the maximum amount of brain-dead authoritarianism possible.
Mask wearing and required vaccinations are the best thing that has ever happened to these normally insignificant security staff.
I’ll also dis-comply with any “sick until proven healthy” technocratic interventions – like having to prove I have actually had COVID19, to some bureaucratic little cretin.
My contribution to evidence based medicine:
IF YOU HAVE SURVIVED A DISEASE WITH MINIMAL REPERCUSSIONS – YOU DON’T NEED A VACCINATION FOR THE SAME DISEASE, AFTER THE FACT.
Fight me. 😉
@ Cthulhu
Have your antibody titers checked, just in case. Immunity to coronaviruses, whether acquired naturally or from a vaccine, may decrease over time.
It’s that a colleague of mine, who got infected last year, is doing now, before deciding if he needs the vaccine.
He is likely to go get vaccinated, anyway. Just one dose, not two, that should be enough.
@Athaic
I will selflessly donate my shot of vaccine to unvaccinated individual, less fortunate than myself.
There’s no point wasting a perfectly good shot on me – when I would apparently extract very little benefit.
I’m also determined to lock horns (and tentacles) at every available opportunity with any figure of authority who tries to push the narrative that my naturally acquired immunity is somehow inferior to that obtained from vaccination.
We can all bitch about anti-vaxxers and their laughable “magnetic moon bat jizz” theories, but the medical nerds need to remember that concealment of the facts about immunity post-infection (lying by omission) – is still lying.
And will be called out.
By me.
[…] to slavery (even likening pre-pandemic laws on vaccine mandates to the Fugitive Slave Act), rape, segregation and Jim Crow, human trafficking and sex slavery, and child grooming. To further their message as victims, […]
[…] likening pre-pandemic laws on vaccine mandates to the Fugitive Slave Act), rape, segregation and Jim Crow, human trafficking and sex slavery, and child grooming. To further their message as […]