Since I haven’t written about homeopathy in a while, I feel obligated to begin this post with my characterization of homeopathy, which is that it is The One Quackery To Rule Them All. Unsurprisingly, the last time I discussed homeopathy was when naturopaths were promoting its use to treat COVID-19—because of course they were, and, as I said at the time, quacks gonna quack and grifters gonna grift—but homeopathy has found its way into the public conversation yet again. The reason is that it was announced this week that Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has tested positive for COVID-19. That an NFL quarterback tested positive for the disease is not, in and of itself, big news. What is big news is this, reported on NFL.com:
The NFL’s hottest team will be without its most important player Sunday.
Aaron Rodgers tested positive for COVID-19 and is out for Green Bay’s showdown with the Kansas City Chiefs, NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported. Rodgers was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list and 2020 first-round pick Jordan Love will start in place of Rodgers.
Despite telling reporters in August he’d “been immunized,” Rodgers is not vaccinated against COVID-19, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport and NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo reported. Rodgers must spend a mandatory 10 days away from the team, according to the league’s COVID-19 protocol, ruling him out for the Packers’ Week 9 game against the Chiefs. The earliest Rodgers can rejoin the team is Nov. 13 — the day before their Week 10 matchup against the Seahawks.
Rodgers previously had sought and was denied an exemption from the NFL-NFL Players Association COVID-19 protocols based on his antibody levels this summer, which left his status as unvaccinated, NFL Media reported Wednesday.
Here’s the press conference in which Aaron Rodgers made his statement:
Or, if you don’t want to watch the brief video:
“You know, there’s a lot of conversation around it, around the league, and a lot of guys who have made statements and not made statements, owners who have made statements,” Rodgers said at the time. “There’s guys on the team that haven’t been vaccinated. I think it’s a personal decision. I’m not going to judge those guys. There are guys that’ve been vaccinated that have contracted COVID. It’s an interesting issue that I think we’re going to see played out the entire season.”
He later added: “I think I like to learn about everything that I’m doing, and there was a lot of research that even went into that. But like I said, there’s been people that have tested positive, and I think it’s only vaccinated people here. It’s going to be interesting to see how things work moving forward. Obviously there could be some issues with vaccinated people only testing every couple weeks and then non-vaccinated testing every day.”
As has been noted, Rodgers’ pointed use of the word “immunized” instead of just saying that he was vaccinated was a big “tell” that he hadn’t actually been vaccinated. Those of us who’ve paid attention to the antivaccine movement for a long time know that antivaxxers and quacks (like homeopaths) love to try to make a big distinction between being “immunized” versus being “vaccinated.” The CDC, for instance, while distinguishing between “immunization” as the process by which a person becomes protected against disease by vaccination, and “vaccination,” the act of introducing a specific vaccine to protect against a specific disease, it also notes that the terms are usually used more or less interchangeably. Quacks, on the other hand, like to distinguish between the two, representing their “preventative” (whatever it is) as “immunization,” to distinguish it from the “evils” (to them) of “vaccination” with actual vaccines. In the case of homeopathy, homeopaths will frequently refer to “homeopathic immunization,” claiming that their magic water will prevent whatever disease it’s targeted at.
Homeopathic immunizations, like all homeopathic remedies, are quackery. There are many good reasons why I refer to homeopathy as “The One Quackery To Rule Them All.” I like to recount how, when I first learned what homeopathy really is, I was gobsmacked. I also realize that homeopathy is a bigger thing in Europe than here in the US, where most people are blissfully unaware of the magical principles of homeopathy, such as the law of similars (i.e., “like cures like,” the principle that states that, in order to relieve a symptom, you should use an herb, medicine, or other compound that causes the symptom), the law of infinitesimals (which claims that diluting a remedy makes it stronger), and homeopathic “provings,” in which healthy people take the substances used in homeopathic remedies and then report their findings.
Although the law of similars is without basis in science, biology, or physiology, and homeopathic provings result in some truly hilariously ridiculous nonsense—homeopathic plutonium or even antimatter, anyone?—it is the law of infinitesimals that best illustrates the utter absurdity that is homeopathy. In brief, this law states that, to make a remedy stronger, you must dilute the remedy. In fairness, you must also shake (“succuss”) the remedy vigorously at every serial dilution step. Homeopaths will assure you most seriously that failure to succuss will render a homeopathic dilution useless, just a super dilution. It is the shaking during each serial dilution that is a critical part of the “potentization” that imbues the magic water with its magic. Famously, the inventor of homeopathy himself, Samuel Hahnemann, was said to have drummed the test tubes containing his homeopathic remedies on a Bible at each dilution. This absurdity can be truly appreciated when homeopaths take it their remedies and potentizations to a ridiculous extreme (which they often do).
And, wow, do homeopaths ever dilute their remedies! A typical homeopathic remedy is 30C, with “C” signifying a 100-fold dilution. So a 30 C homeopathic dilution is equal to thirty 100-fold dilutions or (10-2)30, or a 1060-fold dilution. Those of you with a chemistry background will notice right away that this is an incredibly large number compared to Avogadro’s number, which is ~6.022 x 1023 and is the number of molecules in a mole of a chemical. So, even if one starts with a mole of a substance (whose weight equals its molecular weight in grams), the resulting 30C dilution will dilute it over 1036-fold beyond the number of starting molecules. In other words, it’s incredibly unlikely that there will be a single molecule of starting substance left, other than potentially any that might “carry over” between serial dilutions sticking to the glassware. For comparison, a 200C dilution is a 10-400 dilution. For further comparison, the number of atoms in the known universe is only estimated to be on the order of 1080. Of course, if you really want to get ridiculous, look at the “M” in some homeopathic dilutions and consider that “M” is shorthand for 1,000C, making a 1M dilution a 10-2000 dilution and a 10M dilution even more amazingly ridiculous at a 10-20,000 dilution. We’re basically talking fantasy here.
As I usually do in posts about homeopathy, regardless of what this quackery is being used for, I’ll throw in this video clip from Richard Dawkins, because, say what you will about Dawkins these days, it nonetheless remains a great visual illustration of the utter ridiculousness of what Aaron Rodgers did:
I’ve looked and looked but been unable to find out exactly what sort of “homeopathic” remedy Rodgers foolishly used to “immunize” himself against COVID-19, but the most likely candidate is homeopathic nosodes, which I’ve discussed before. The reason is that homeopathic nosodes are the type of homeopathy that is most often represented as “homeopathic immunization” or a “vaccine.” Consistent with the Law of Similars and “like curing like,” homeopathic nosodes are usually prepared from a diseased person or animal, with the “disease essence” being the remedy or preventative for that disease. Sometimes, homeopathic nosodes can enter the realm of the truly dangerous. One example is how homeopaths once took blood or bodily fluids (or, more likely, claimed to have done so) from Ebola victims to make, in essence, nosodes agains Ebola, an incredibly dangerous thing to do, not just for the patient being possibly exposed to Ebola but for the homeopath stupid enough to handle actual bodily fluids from Ebola victims without proper training and, most likely, proper protection.
I could go on and on, but instead let’s see how the NFL reacted to Rodgers’ embrace of quackery:
Rodgers received homeopathic treatment from his personal doctor to raise his antibody levels and asked the NFLPA to review his status. The players’ union, the NFL-NFLPA jointly designated infectious disease consultant and the league agreed that Rodgers’ treatment did not provide any documented protection from the coronavirus.
Accordingly, Rodgers did not qualify for an exemption, and he remained subject to a variety of restrictions, including daily testing, mask-wearing and high-risk close contact protocol that would force him to isolate for five days based on interaction with a positive individual, even if he tested negative.
This is, of course, unsurprising, because there is no homeopathic remedy that can “raise your antibody levels.” That being said, the NFL has a scientifically unsupported set of standards itself:
If his antibody levels are high enough, Rodgers could be considered fully vaccinated with just one shot. The NFL-NFLPA regular-season COVID protocols allow for an individual to become fully vaccinated via “a quantitative antibody test (taken at the club facility and administered by BioReference Laboratory personnel after Aug. 26, 2021 and before the individual has received any dose of a COVID vaccine) demonstrating COVID total antibody levels (IgG, IgA, IgM) to the spike protein of 100 U/mL or greater, and a positive antibody test to the COVID IgG nucleocapsid protein, and 14 days have passed since the individual received one dose of any COVID vaccine (Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer or Moderna).”
In actuality, although there is a lot of work being done in this area, as yet there is no accepted correlate of immunity to COVID-19 in terms of antibody titers, as exists for a number of other diseases against which we vaccinate. Specifically, there is no “absolute correlate” (meaning a protective threshold) for antibody titers against COVID-19. Perhaps someday soon there will be (and having a reliable correlate of protection to determine who is and is protected against COVID-19 would be very useful from a public health standpoint), but there is as yet no such correlate.
Moving on from that brief aside, though, I have…questions. First, who is this “doctor” who supposedly “immunized” Aaron Rodgers against COVID-19 using homeopathy? Was this person a real MD/DO or what this person a naturopath or homeopath? (I’d be willing to bet on the latter, although unfortunately there do exist actual licensed physicians who advocate and prescribe homeopathy.)
One might ask why someone like Rodgers would think that homeopathy is anything other than magic water, except when it’s “not very strong” and therefore not diluted enough to remove every last molecule of the starting remedy, in which case it is simply “natural remedies” still so dilute as to be incredibly unlikely to have a medicinal effect. Apparently, it’s his wife, who is apparently very much into “detoxification” quackery:
Shailene Woodley – star of teen dystopia Divergent and The Fault in Our Stars – has come out as a clay eater. The 22-year-old, who has previously out-Gooped Gwyneth Paltrow with her tales of foraging for stinging nettles and collecting water from fresh mountain streams, told talkshow host David Letterman that she ingests clay as part of a detoxification diet. “Clay binds to other materials in your body and helps your body excrete those materials that aren’t necessarily the best for you,” she said.
She went into more detail for blog Into The Gloss, explaining: “My friend started eating it and the next day she called me and said: ‘Dude, my shit smells like metal!’ She was really worried, but we did some research together and everything said that when you first start eating clay your bowel movements, pees and even you, yourself, will smell like metal.”
According to her, Bentonite clay and Mountain Rose Herbs clay are her clays of choice. She’s also into “oil pulling” and a wide variety of other quackery, including homeopathy. She’s even been quoted by Boiron, a large company manufacturing homeopathic remedies, saying that its products are “the only medicine I use!” and that she goes to Boiron “products for everything: menstrual cramps, toothaches, sore throats, and sinus relief, among other things.” So it’s certainly not entirely unreasonable to suspect that she might have been behind her husband’s embrace of homeopathy, which led to a pretty hilarious observation:
On the other hand, it is entirely possible—very probable, even—that part of the attraction between Rodgers and Woodley was that Rodgers is just as susceptible to medical nonsense as his wife (i.e., they had a shared interest in quackery), rather than his wife having influenced him to do something as stupid as trust homeopathy to protect him against COVID-19. Rodgers does, after all, apparently believe in chemtrails, and his Twitter bio includes a shot of him with the glowing “laser eyes” that signify belief in Bitcoin:
Then there was this recent Tweet:
I note that informally I’ve observed a pretty high correlation between being so into cryptocurrency that one portrays oneself with the glowing eyes signifying that belief and belief in other pseudoscience, antivaccine misinformation, woo, and other conspiracy theories. It’s also not as though elite athletes haven’t had a long history of being prone to belief in quackery. (Remember Michael Phelps using cupping at the 2016 Olympics?) Whatever the path was that led to Rodgers’ misguided trust in homeopathic quackery, I’m with Stephen Colbert (his comments on Rodgers are at around 6:12, in case the video doesn’t start where it’s supposed to), where he noted that his “Goop senses are tingling”:
Jimmy Kimmel also had some fun with Rodgers:
I must say that the air quotes added to the Rodgers clip shown by Kimmel were a very nice touch indeed. So was the fake Pfizer commercial, which was pretty funny.
This brings up the question of how the NFL and Green Bay Packers could have let Rodgers get away with his deception. Either the Packers and the league just took his word for it that he had been “immunized” and didn’t require him to show his vaccine card to prove that he had received a COVID-19 vaccine, or they knew that he wasn’t vaccinated and let him get away with flouting NFL COVID-19 protocols all these months because he’s big time MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
I can’t help but conclude by circling back to a pet peeve of mine, especially since it involves a sports analogy and we’re talking about Aaron Rodgers right now. Specifically, some Very Serious Doctors (one in particular) seem to think that homeopathy is so obviously silly, and therefore so incredibly easy to debunk, that combating it is the equivalent of LeBron James “dunking on a 7′ hoop.” Contrary to what a certain Very Serious Oncologist prone to going Godwin thinks, even though from a scientific standpoint homeopathy is indeed ridiculous, unscientific, and, when it comes to the higher dilution homeopathic remedies, physically impossible given that homeopathic precepts violate multiple laws of physics and chemistry, the problem of combatting quackery and antivaccine nonsense is anything but easy. The case of Aaron Rodgers helps to demonstrate how belief in even a “ridiculous” quackery like homeopathy is far more prevalent than many of my “reasonable” and “science-based” colleagues seem able to accept, and combatting it is a Herculean task.
In the meantime, the NFL should penalize Rodgers as harshly as its rules allow for having lied at a press conference about his vaccination status and flagrantly flouted its COVID-19 safety protocols since August. If Rodgers gets away with this and is subjected to just a fine that he can easily pay or some other “slap on the wrist,” it will just show that in the NFL celebrity and status trump health.
ADDENDUM: Not unexpectedly, Aaron Rodgers is showing his true colors this afternoon, and I happened to see it when I had some time to add a bit to the post:
Here’s the result of Aaron Rodgers’ “doing his own research.” I also call some BS on his claim that a league doctor ever claimed that no one vaccinated against COVID-19 can catch or spread COVID-19. If that’s true, the NFL definitely needs to fire that physician pronto, but, again, I call BS:
There you have it. Aaron Rodgers is antivaccine and antimask, two crappy tastes that taste crappy together and, unfortunately, frequently go together. Yes, he “did his own research,” because of course he did, and found several common antivax tropes, such as the claim that it might make him sterile and the antimask nonsense about “breathing your own CO2.” I guess it shows that being able to do well on Jeopardy! doesn’t mean that you’re actually a critical thinker.
143 replies on “Homeopathy vs. COVID-19: Aaron Rodgers edition”
Trying to debunk homeopathy here in the UK is made more difficult due to Prince Charles and the Queen both extolling its virtues. Sigh!
That guy in the video is a bare faced liar. “Are you vaccinated?” “Yes”
Debunking homeopathy in the UK is no more difficult here than anywhere else. It’s just that there are a small handful of monarch-worshippers who think that if Brenda and Brian are in favour of homeopathy then to be true-blue patriots they should be too. I expect that same mindset also makes them anti-democracy and pro-tax avoidance.
The irony is that it is the non partisan Royal Family that has has been a bulwark of UK democracy. It takes an allegedly democratically elected President with executive power to undermine it, Trump, Putin, Xi Jinping et al. I bet they are all into Homeopathy too.
And now he joins the 100’s of thousands of people who got the real vaccines but have since been infected with Covid
yahoo.com/lifestyle/85-percent-breakthrough-covid-cases-173904515.html
and the only reason that number isn’t higher is the CDC quit reporting breakthrough cases in August.
nytimes.com/interactive/2021/10/28/us/covid-breakthrough-cases.html
The difference, of course, is that the efficacy of homeopathy at preventing infection is zero percent (it is, after all, water), versus a high efficacy for the vaccines. No vaccine is perfect and works 100% of the time. Go away, antivaxxer.
Vaccines ain’t perfect so sacrificing goats in a satanic ritual works? Vaccines ain’t perfect so putting a stick of cinnamon up your bum works?
I’m sorry vaccines ain’t perfect William, I’m sure it’s a big disappointment to you after the faultless perfection that must be the rest of your life.
“And now he joins the 100’s of thousands of people who got the real vaccines but have since been infected with Covid”
In fact, the vaccines do reduce your risk of getting the infection and they also reduce your risk of transmitting the infection. And they also reduce the time that you are infectious. More importantly, they reduce your risk of severe illness, hospitalisation and death if you do get infected. And they reduce the amount of virus in the community thereby reducing the risk of variants emerging. No, they are not perfect but, at present 97% of hospitalisations and deaths from COVID-19 are in those who are not vaccinated.
“the only reason that number isn’t higher is the CDC quit reporting breakthrough cases in August”
That is incorrect. All breakthrough infections (infections in those who are vaccinated) are recorded. But they have stopped following-up the mild cases because their time is better spent following-up severe cases and time and personal are limited. But, to reiterate, these cases are still being recorded.
Brakes don’t always slow you enough to prevent accidents, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them though. If you do use them you will have fewer accidents and those you do have will be less serious.
So what you’re saying is that antivaxxers should cut their own brake lines and let nature take its course?
And before the dumbshits actually do it: I 100% respect their personal choice to drive at high speed into a concrete wall.
What I do not respect is their personal entitlement to drive at high speed into me.
@ has
As long as they do it on a bicycle, they may try to brake by putting their feet on the ground. I wouldn’t have a problem with that, as long as they avoid hitting other persons.
Of course, there arw studies about breakthrough infections.
Bergwerk M, Gonen T, Lustig Y, Amit S, Lipsitch M, Cohen C, Mandelboim M, Levin EG, Rubin C, Indenbaum V, Tal I, Zavitan M, Zuckerman N, Bar-Chaim A, Kreiss Y, Regev-Yochay G. Covid-19 Breakthrough Infections in Vaccinated Health Care Workers. N Engl J Med. 2021 Oct 14;385(16):1474-1484. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2109072. Epub 2021 Jul 28. PMID: 34320281; PMCID: PMC8362591.
Among 1497 fully vaccinated health care workers for whom RT-PCR data were available, 39 SARS-CoV-2 breakthrough infections were documented.
CDC is not only health organisation around.
You could cite actual papers, lifestyle journos.
One of the biggest mistakes scientists have made is not making it clearer that COVID vaccines prevent severe illness, not transmission. I’ve seen even reasonable people question what the point of getting vaccinated was after they got a breakthrough infection.
Pretty sure science was clear that vaccination reduces death and ICU bed space. That’s the message since day 1. Where have you been? Still obvious that science knows more than a whiney celebrity or half-leg.
Scientists are not media specialists or are healthcare professionals. Other’s have more interest in promoting vaccination confusion without necessary proof and that is why some folks don’t get vaccinated and help themselves live a little better.
One of the more onerous problems is the false outrage that a COVID vaccine is somehow debilitating in any way. That has to be fixed.
Science doesn’t hire a PR firm to fill the airwaves with so much bizarre, unsubstantiated, obviously ruthless crap, to prevent people from keeping above ground. Live free or die. Here we are.
Except they DO prevent illness, just not perfectly. Reduce the chance of infection, and if infected, reduce the chance of transmitting to others, and the chance of severe illness, hospitalization, and death.
With his leap of faith into homeopathic “immunization”, Aaron Rodgers has surpassed Tom Brady as the First Quarterback of Health Quackery.
Brady has a long and sleazy history of promoting pseudomedicine, including his advice to drink excessive quantities of water, avoid fruits and “acidifying” foods and selling “immunity” vitamins and other supplements, leading to friction with Patriots’ staff when he was with the team. At least Brady is reportedly fully immunized, excuse me, vaccinated against Covid-19 – though maybe he should be specifically asked if he got an actual vaccine and not some type of homeopathic imitation vaccine, i.e. nosodes.
I wonder if there are any pro athletes who were involved with that naturopath in California who gave patients Covid-19 homeoprophylaxis pellets and sent them fake Moderna vaccination cards. She’s facing federal charges including wire fraud.
http://justice.gov/opa/pr/woman-arrested-fake-covid-19-immunization-and-vaccination-card-scheme
ArsTechnica had a pretty good article on Rodgers and his embarrassing homeopathic foray, although it stated that homeopathic treatments “generally provide little more than a placebo effect.” It should have said that homeopathic treatments “cannot provide anything more than a placebo effect, if that.”
In fairness, it’s not true that homeopathy can never have an actual effect beyond placebo. Remedies that are “weak” (i.e., the lower homeopathic dilutions) might still have a little bit of actual starting remedy in there. None of this means that they work (they’re still quite dilute), but, for example, it’s not entirely impossible for, say, a 6C remedy to have a physiologic effect.
A clarification, then: homeopathic nosodes cannot provide anything more than a placebo effect, given the statements of homeopaths themselves that the dilutions of “morbid matter” used in nosodes are so high that no such material remains in the final product.* For example, there’s the following from an “integrative vet” service, Phoenix Rising:
“Nosodes are similar to homeopathic remedies. They are made from the blood of a sick animal or human or from the secretions, excretions or lesions that are produced in a diseased animal. Nosodes are made by a series of dilutions from the above-mentioned materials until there is no physical material, only the energetic portion of it.”
A 6C nosode against TB or rabies might be a tough sell if customers thought they could contain even a minute inoculum of infectious agent.
And once in a while, “homeopathic” doesn’t mean “magic water,” it means “thist might be a real drug, but they haven’t been required to test it for efficacy or safety”:
1X Arnica gel is a “homeopathic” substance that is (supposed to prevent or reduce bruising) 1X means a single 1/10 dilution. Something labeled “1X gel 7%” contains 7% of 1/10 arnica, or 0.7% of the active ingredient. That’s about as much of the (presumably) active ingredient as the percentage of fluoride in my toothpaste, but since it’s sold as a 1X homeopathic dilution, it avoids the usual drug licensing requirements.
Most of the people buying homeopathic whatever don’t know what “homeopathic” means in the first place, so it probably doesn’t matter that there’s about as much arnica in that as there is fluoride in my toothpaste.
I can think of a few 100C homeopathic remedies that should help with their targeted ailment. I should really get into the business.
My 0.5 to 1 liter 100C hangover remedy should help. Take after drinking and when you wake up.
My 0.5 to 1 liter 100C work out recovery remedy taken during and after workouts is proven to help also.
At $20 per liter they are a steal.
Brady’s health “guru”, Alex Guerrero, was run out of CA for operating cancer cure scams — (and you know cancer scammers have to be really bad for the authorities to sit up and take notice of them) — and even under the auspices of TB12 was hawking a totally bogus “supplement” that supposedly prevented harm from concussions.
I was heartened to hear Brady got his COVID shots, though.
Rolling Stone Magazine described it as the Anti-vax bingo (https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/aaron-rodgers-fills-up-bingo-card-of-anti-vaxx-talking-points-in-single-interview-1253906/)
That’s a perfectly fine way to describe it!
Even for their own goals, allowing a player to openly lie with no penalty can come back to bite the NFL, and not enforcing their own COVID-19 rules could and should hurt them.
I wonder what a response Rodgers would have received if he was black. Same ‘open arms’ as Kyrie Irving?
Which “open arms” are those? The ones that tell him “no jab, no play” and that the consequence of his decision is that his career is trashed? We may disagree with Irving’s personal choice not to vaccinate, but it’s his choice to make and he is fully willing to accept the consequences. He didn’t lie, and he didn’t double-down when caught on his lie, as Rodgers did. Weak sauce of a false equivalence, you racist ass.
@has
The death of irony…
Hey, demand Rodgers be black to find out. Irving has not been welcomed to play in the NBA because of his vaccine status. Don’t think he ever lied like so many other anti-vaccine freaks. What open arms did Kyrie get?
Your stated assumption and argument be grossly wrong.
When did the anti-vaxx movement provide evidence to show significant issues with vaccine efficacy?
I’m waiting for the paid haters to provide something that shows vaccines are worse than better. Anytime would be cool.
@1000
Thanks for showing us what a literal reading of the comments looks like, and of my ‘assumption and argument’.
I like how Rodgers lied and is being martyred – because he lied, not because of his ‘principles’. Interesting that now that the Rodgers situation is in the news, it’s now okay to talk about Kyrie.
A homeopathic “remedy” for sale at a local health food store comes with a warning not to “overdose.” THAT was entertaining.
Bumper sticker I saw once “stop making stupid people famous.”
Orac did a short post a while ago about a homeopath’s challenge to Australian skeptic Peter Bowditch to take an “overdose” of 200C belladonna.
https://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2006/06/20/peter-bowditch-commits-homeopa-1
I have a feeling that he’s not the only one to have done something like that.
Eleven years ago a UK group staged a number of mass overdose events. They got quite good coverage, and I’m happy to give the homeopaths right to reply too.
The Parliamentary committee mentioned in the first article did recommend that homeopathy use be discontinued in the NHS, but the government declined to act both on that and on wider regulation. The Secretary of State for Health, who had first been in favour of homeopathy but then admitted he knew nothing about it in detail, later changed his mind and set about removing its use (which had been quite small anyway) from the NHS.
What a dick. His team mates ought to get together en mass and greet him in the shower with soap and socks and wash him with the soap and dry him with the socks.
Calling all socks: :Get this guy done real good.
‘Dude, my shit tastes like metal!’
In all fairness, that does happen. https://alicespringstomind.wordpress.com/2021/07/07/mrs-doubt-pfizer/
Dude, as such, I don’t have feet.
I weep for the bald Make a Wish kid “thanks to all the donations from people like you, I get to meet Aaron Rodgers”
Aaron Rodgers defending himself today on the Pat MacAfee sports talk show, saying he shouldn’t have to “acquiesce to a crazed group of individuals”*:
“I realize I’m in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now,” Rodgers said. “So before my final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket, I think I would like to set the record straight on so many of the blatant lies that are out there about myself.”
Rodgers claims he’s allergic to something (not identified) in the mRNA vaccines and couldn’t take the J&J shot because of risk of blood clots.
So there.
He made clear in the interview that he’s not an antivax “blatherer” but rather a “critical thinker” who “marches to a different drum” and believes in “body autonomy”, though if his only beef with the Covid-19 vaccines was medical contraindications, why would he bring up all that other stuff?
Oh, and Rodgers quoted MLK on refusing to obey unjust rules. Aaron won’t sit in the back of the bus, no sirree.
At least he didn’t compare himself to Jesus or his critics to Nazis. Yet.
*you know who you are.
He’s not among the crazed individuals?
“Go away, antivaxxer.” was that a quote from the Queen of Hearts/Alice in Wonderland.
or “Out, damned spot! Out!” from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
I would have to go with the Queen of Hearts as “The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. ‘Off with his head!’ she said..”
“homeopathy”…. but I would bet that most of the posters here take vitamins…. at what point is it homeopathy or good sense?
Just a question, the Biden administration has moved back the vaccine mandate to the 4th of January 2022, from its original mandate date, IF the vaccine is such a immediate critical health issue and we have enough vaccine doses to give everyone the shots and could preform the needed shots in 1-4 weeks, why not move up the vaccination mandate to say the 1st of December 2021? And why are there so many exemptions, undocumented migrants, congress and legislative branch, judicial branch, the big one vaccine makers?
NFL rules
If an unvaccinated person tests positive, the protocols from 2020 will remain in effect. The person will be isolated for a period of 10 days and will then be permitted to return to duty if asymptomatic.
Unvaccinated individuals will continue to be subject to a five-day quarantine period if they have close contact with an infected individual.
They don’t have to be vaccinated to play.
““homeopathy”…. but I would bet that most of the posters here take vitamins…. at what point is it homeopathy or good sense?”
Before you get up on your high horse, I suggest you look up exactly what homeopathy is. This statement, from your post, implies that you don’t understand the concepts at all.
“Just a question, the Biden administration”
Some Dinosaur wants your sons to be coal-dust smeared instead of a cool tat and a job integrating solar.
We all know you’re not asking these questions because you want to know the answer, but exceptions are actually very simple:
Biden’s vaccine mandate is operating through OSHA and the power the executive branch has to dictate to government contractors.
Therefore, anyone who is not subject to OSHA rules (like congress, or judges, or people without jobs or..) and is not employed by a government contractor, cannot be subjected to the mandate by the federal government.
Yes. The OSH act covers private employers, and the definition of employer expressly leaves out many of these: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/oshact/completeoshact
“The term “employer” means a person engaged in a business affecting commerce who has employees, but does not include the United States (not including the United States Postal Service) or any State or political subdivision of a State.”
In most states, this mean states and local employees won’t be covered either, but some states have “OSHA plans” that cover those employees. See the first question here. https://www.osha.gov/stateplans/faqs
It is also fairly routine to build in compliance time, and in this case, it has to be at least a month – likely more – because most of the vaccines available are two-dose and people need to get both doses to be fully vaccinated.
No conspiracy there. In fact, the ETS – emergency temporary standard – has clearly been carefully thought out. If anyone wants to look at the whole thing: https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2021-23643.pdf
I find your listing of ‘undocumented migrants’ to be telling…
Ho do you recommend that a mandate cover undocumented workers?
It’s not that hard — in fact, the current mandate does cover undocumented migrants. There’s no technical reason a business that hires illegal immigrants can’t also be charged with OSHA violations.
Congratulations, William. You started out stupid and then dumbed down from there.
““homeopathy”…. but I would bet that most of the posters here take vitamins…. at what point is it homeopathy or good sense?”
Well, we do know how to make our own:
Recipe for Nat Mur or Natrum Mur or Natrium Mur or Natrum muriaticum:
1) Take ½ teaspoon of sea salt and dissolve into 1 cup of distilled water in a bottle.
2) Shake well.
3) This is a 1C solution (ratio 1/100).
4) Take ½ teaspoon of the 1C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 1C solution.
5) Shake well.
6) This is a 2C solution (ratio 1/10000).
7) Take ½ teaspoon of the 2C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 2C solution.
8) Shake well.
9) This is a 3C solution (ratio 1/1000000).
10) Take ½ teaspoon of the 3C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 3C solution.
11) Shake well.
12) This is a 4C solution (ratio 1/100000000).
13) Take ½ teaspoon of the 4C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 4C solution.
14) Shake well.
15) This is a 5C solution (ratio 1/10000000000).
16) Take ½ teaspoon of the 5C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 5C solution.
17) Shake well.
18) This is a 6C solution (ratio 1/1000000000000).
19) Take ½ teaspoon of the 6C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 6C solution.
20) Shake well.
21) This is a 7C solution (ratio 1/100000000000000).
22) Take ½ teaspoon of the 7C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 7C solution.
23) Shake well.
24) This is an 8C solution (ratio 1/10000000000000000).
25) Take ½ teaspoon of the 8C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 8C solution.
26) Shake well.
27) This is a 9C solution (ratio 1/1000000000000000000).
28) Take ½ teaspoon of the 9C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 9C solution.
29) Shake well.
30) This is a 10C solution (ratio 1/100000000000000000000).
31) Take ½ teaspoon of the 10C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 10C solution.
32) Shake well.
33) This is a 11C solution (ratio 1/10000000000000000000000).
34) Take ½ teaspoon of the 11C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 11C solution.
35) Shake well.
36) This is a 12C solution (ratio 1/1000000000000000000000000).
37) Take ½ teaspoon of the 12C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 12C solution.
38) Shake well.
39) This is a 13C solution (ratio 1/100000000000000000000000000).
40) Take ½ teaspoon of the 13C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 13C solution.
41) Shake well.
42) This is a 14C solution (ratio 1/10000000000000000000000000000).
43) Take ½ teaspoon of the 14C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 14C solution.
44) Shake well.
45) This is a 15C solution (ratio 1/1000000000000000000000000000000).
46) Take ½ teaspoon of the 15C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 15C solution.
47) Shake well.
48) This is a 16C solution (ratio 1/100000000000000000000000000000000).
49) Take ½ teaspoon of the 16C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 16C solution.
50) Shake well.
51) This is a 17C solution (ratio 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000).
52) Take ½ teaspoon of the 17C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 17C solution.
53) Shake well.
54) This is an 18C solution (ratio 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000).
55) Take ½ teaspoon of the 18C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 18C solution.
56) Shake well.
57) This is a 19C solution (ratio 1/100000000000000000000000000000000000000).
58) Take ½ teaspoon of the 19C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 19C solution.
59) Shake well.
60) This is a 20C solution (ratio 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
61) Take ½ teaspoon of the 20C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 20C solution.
62) Shake well.
63) This is a 21C solution (ratio 1 in 10^42 or 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
64) Take ½ teaspoon of the 21C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 21C solution.
65) Shake well.
66) This is a 22C solution (ratio 1 in 10^44 or 1/100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
67) Take ½ teaspoon of the 22C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 22C solution.
68) Shake well.
69) This is a 23C solution (ratio 1 in 10^46 or 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
70) Take ½ teaspoon of the 23C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 23C solution.
71) Shake well.
72) This is a 24C solution (ratio 1 in 10^48 or 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
73) Take ½ teaspoon of the 24C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 24C solution.
74) Shake well.
75) This is a 25C solution (ratio 1 in 10^50 or 1/100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
76) Take ½ teaspoon of the 25C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 25C solution.
77) Shake well.
78) This is a 26C solution (ratio 1 in 10^52 or 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
79) Take ½ teaspoon of the 26C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 26C solution.
80) Shake well.
81) This is a 27C solution (ratio 1 in 10^54 or 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
(the zeros are running off of the page!)
82) Take ½ teaspoon of the 27C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 27C solution.
83) Shake well.
84) This is a 28C solution (ratio 1 in 10^56 or 1/100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
85) Take ½ teaspoon of the 28C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 28C solution.
86) Shake well.
87) This is a 29C solution (ratio 1 in 10^58 or 1/10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
88) Take ½ teaspoon of the 29C solution and put it a bottle with 1 cup of distilled water, throw out the 29C solution.
89) Shake well.
90) This is a 30C solution (ratio 1 in 10^60 or 1/1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000).
And then you are done! To make the pills, go to baking center of your grocery store and get some plain cake decorating sprinkles. You can try dropping some of the solution on the sprinkles, or just set the bottle next to the solution for it to absorb the energy (which is the typical method used for over the counter homeopathic remedies).
You can make up other remedies by knowing what the mother tincture is… For instance “Nux Vomica” (or Nux Vom) is from the Nux Vomica plant which contains the poison strychnine, Nux Sulph uses sulpher, and the stuff advertised on the radio for colds, Oscillococcinum is from duck bits.
You missed a step.
91) Throw out the 30C solution.
Worse than that. “Shake well” doesn’t cut it. It has to be succussed. It must be tapped against a firm padded surface a precise number of times. Gonna have to start from scratch I’m afraid.
I did not include the tapped against a leather bound bible bit because then no one would believe me! I had a relative who was sure homeopathy works, and insisted it was not “western medicine.” So for Christmas I found a copy of Hahnemann’s “Organon” in a used book store, printed up the “recipe” and slipped in the pages where he described the process.
but I would bet that most of the posters here take vitamins….
You’d probably be wrong–vitamins are recommend by…NO STANDARD MEDICAL ADVISORY AUTHORITY, with the exception of those prescribed for a bona fide deficiency as determined by standard laboratory tests.
But I’m pretty sure you’ve done “your own research” on that too.
I take vitamin D, on the advice of my doctor after a blood test. And I used to take a multivitamin+iron, because that was the easiest way to get enough iron that I could safely donate blood. .
And that has as much to do with homeopathy as it does with the price of tea in China.
ACOG used to recommend that all women of childbearing age take prenatals regardless of pregnancy plans or contraception. That may have changed but it is still common practice to recommend. Besides-they’re great for your hair!
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the businesses affected asked for more time.
I almost have sympathy for the clay eaters, horse pasters, and goopers, but I haven’t really done the research required to be 100% sure it isn’t total crap. I can live with .01% uncertainty though. Poor guy looks haggard from being hunted as a witch and all that. Sounds more like the NFL is going to have first crack at him which I believe is his employer and not the woke mob. Just not a big fan of whiney dishonesty and trope a dope. Can only hope he fades into the background and shuns politics. My guess, he goes into business selling clay rectal eggs for better bodily autonomy.
Rodgers probably knows about immunology as the nerds commenting here know about football. But he and the rest of the league played through an entire season in 2020 without a vaccine. Nobody died. And I’m sure he’ll recover just fine.
It’s promising that you acknowledge that the people here know immunology. It’s a shame that you understand so little, and fail to understand that you don’t understand.
This article compiled a lengthy list of current and former athletes and other figures from the world of sports who died of Covid-19 and related complications.
https://www.outlookindia.com/website/story/sports-news-covid-19-complete-list-of-sports-deaths-due-to-coronavirus-pandemic/349879
That doesn’t include people who were severely ill and/or suffered long-term complications of Covid-19, like Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez who was out for 2020 with myocarditis due to the virus.
I suppose we shouldn’t care about those who died of Covid-19. They mostly were older people who had it coming.
Pretty clear by Rodgers’ responses show he doesn’t know anything about immunology. Did you talk to him? Why do you say he has some special knowledge in immunology? I’m 7 foot 2 and an excellent QB — the woke mob made me quit. I also make 27% returns on investment.
Professionals have disgust when he professes AND claims he knows something about COVID-19. I know football pretty good as a fine upstanding American. It became a weird and corrupt business. Every day there is a mew exposure by so many who work for the simpleness of that sport.
You are just so incorrect it’s laughable. Laughing now.
Aaron Rodgers doesn’t have skills/knowledge/credentials to tell anyone about immunology or what a vaccine does.
Think punishment is in order by NFL for this kind of deceitfulness.
I don’t think that Rodgers and Woodley are married — though he did identify her as his fiance. Can you imagine that if they do get married, they would probably serve guests with clay rather than wedding cake?
It’s always fun when something Orac discusses shows up in the mainstream news!
Lately the intellectual sinkholes I survey have featured “alternatives” to vaccination like supplements, herbs and a vegan diet ( PRN), “treatments” like Ivermecton, in both pill and paste form, like those Mikey took when exposed to a person with Covid (NN), reports of dire vaccine “injuries” ( Del, Katie Wright) and other generic handwringing ( AoA).
However, RFKjr’s worldwide shutdown failed to materialise on Wednesday : I checked news outlets US, UK, EU – in fact, the Q folk who gathered to witness his dead cousin’s reanimination in Dallas had a much better showing despite John’s absence. ( We’ll see if planned protests happen Monday-Thursday). He has an anti-Fauci book out now.
Aids denialists, Gary Null and Celia Farber, are re-iterating Fauci’s many “crimes” concerning meds for hiv/aids, which they opposed as dangerous- they were on to his “evil” in 1989. A senator, Rand Paul, continues his accusations as well.
The only positive result of this endless Fauci-slamming is that English speakers will learn an important rule of Italian pronunciation.
Surprisingly, I don’t see as much shrieking about the US approval of Covid vaccines for children as I had anticipated. I imagine, it’s coming.
JFK missed his appointment .. shocking!! I am in awe (and humor) of willful ignorance. Wonder if the Q’s walk across highways with the same assurance.
Fauci = Good America.
My Covid vaccination makes me feel good as a human being.
dont blame his fiance….Aaron’s dad is a chiropractor in Chico CA (a few of my in laws are his “patients”). so he has been steeped in woo from birth
I didn’t blame her; note what I wrote.. I didn’t know that. It makes sense, though.
Woodley, though, is very much into woo. That much is undeniable.
They share a common world view and have less to argue about.
I sometimes wonder if people like them who achieve success/ renown at a young age- athletes, actors, singers, business leaders- feel that their brilliance spreads across other areas of (in)expertise. With athletes in particular, they maintain a regime of exercise, diet and training that does affect their health across the board most of the time: Rodgers probably has great CV health so he might mistakenly believe that he has insight into general health although I doubt that he ever studied appropriate material.
Two of the woo-meisters I survey endlessly proclaim their athletic prowess because they want to convince followers that they have an understanding that actual professionals lack : it also includes a sneaky sort of shaming as they insult people who are overweight, scolding obese people and blaming them for their health issues. This reflects the altie mythology that people can greatly control health outcomes by “living right, eating right, exercising correctly and thinking the right thoughts”. It reveals their fears of helplessness and overestimation of control over events.
Again I will ask my question……
“Just a question, the Biden administration has moved back the vaccine mandate to the 4th of January 2022, from its original mandate date, IF the vaccine is such a immediate critical health issue and we have enough vaccine doses to give everyone the shots and could preform the needed shots in 1-4 weeks, why not move up the vaccination mandate to say the 1st of December 2021?”
The original mandate was 5 November 2021. That was enough time (after it was posted) for everyone to get at least 1 shot and most to get 2. If the Covid shot is so necessary and a real public health issue that it REQUIRES a mandate, why would they put it off till after Christmas 8 weeks away. That implies that the shot is not a real health issue but a political issue.
And the 5th Circuit Court in a 3 to nothing vote cited “grave statutory and constitutional issues,” they stayed the mandate.
A. The mandate required employers to put in place programs and report. That step one, and that can take time. Then you need time for people to vaccinate. Four weeks is very reasonable to let people do it. It does not show lack of need. It shows pragmatic acknowledgement that putting a big program like this into place can take time.
B. If there is anywhere the mandate may have been stayed, it’s in the 5th circuit. It’s not clear yet if it will remain stayed – they asked for government response by Monday – nor is it clear if there will then be an en banc, or the effect elsewhere.
It’s also not clear if this was a political decision or not. I would want to see what the court actually does and says before making assumptions on this.
The mandate can certainly be challenged in some ways, but there is a danger of political effects here, too.
Dorit I am not trying to be argumentative but being realistic.
the mandate is 8 weeks away. Not 4 (Narad made me write that)
Any “IT” person could add a few lines of code to employees records to indicate vaccination status and generate a report and update status. If there is an issue it would be in the collection and reporting of the status to the government (who would collect the data, violations of HIPPA or are the records to be collected to remain with the company or sent to a government agency and individual states privacy laws). You know as well as anyone, the federal government, first does not act/respond this fast and second doesn’t have the capacity to receive or process the information. OSHA only has about 1,500 inspectors for the whole US. The company I work for has about 500 employees and I have been at this company for 10 years and we have not had an OSHA inspection in those 10 years, You really believe that 1,500 OSHA inspectors could be trained to implement the mandate in under 6 months to a year and inspect the over 500,000 companies with over 100 employees in the US ?
I never said/implied that the court decision was political.The decision to implement the mandate is what looks political based on item 2 as it is not about immediate public health.
William, you are being disingenuous again. Maybe if you used that 2lbs of cauliflower in your skull to think, you might realize one of the biggest reasons there is an OSHA mandate.
The companies want it.
I’m not saying that all companies want a mandate, but most large companies have been struggling with how to get their employees vaccinated without making the employees angry and threatening lawsuits.
From a company’s perspective the options are:
Employees don’t get vaccinated, get sick, and some of them die. Which certainly has already lowered productivity and has cost the companies a lot of time and money to replace the dead ones. They don’t want this to continue.
Issue their own vaccine mandate. Generally, the companies are out of few hours of work if the employee gets the vaccine on company time. At worst the company may lose a couple of days work if someone has a bad reaction. But employees who are dismissed for not getting a free vaccine might sue for wrongful dismissal. Which the employee might win if they are part of a collective bargaining agreement (but the employee would likely lose if they are at-will). Again, it’s a lot of money spent for activities which will not help the bottom line.
Let OSHA issue the mandate, and take the heat. At that point the companies can tell employees that they don’t have a choice. “Get the vaccine, or we will start looking to replace you.” And it’s not the company’s fault, but the government’s.
The most cost-effective option here for companies is to let OSHA issue the mandate.
I know that, although they won’t publicly come out and say it, a lot of large companies are heaving a huge sigh of relief that OSHA will be putting a mandate in place.
The delays are much more likely to be related to the big companies who are in these discussions with OSHA and government officials. The OSHA mandate is to either get vaccinated or get tested regularly. A lot of work has to be done to put regular testing in place, including finding places to perform the testing and negotiating and signing the contracts. Some testing clinics may even need to hire more people, So a delay in the mandate is not unexpected.
Will there be some fraud? Sure. No one expects OSHA to be checking every company for compliance. But most of the big companies will comply, because they already want a vaccine mandate. A vaccine mandate is currently the lowest cost improvement they can make to help their bottom line. They just don’t want to announce it publicly because of the bad press it will generate.
And note: this comment focused on the bottom line, the economic health of the nation that so many people claim to concerned about. The companies know what will help them be more profitable, to restore their economic health. They want their employees vaccinated. But the know-nothings, who regurgitate ignorant political talking-points as if they were sacred truths, appear to be more concerned with winning political battles than keeping citizens healthy and companies profitable.
HIPAA
[…] Homeopathy vs. COVID-19: Aaron Rodgers edition […]
So masks make you inhale harmful levels of CO2 (and, apparently, “C2O” as well). Masks are so dangerous that operating room staff are constantly dropping dead all over the sidewalk, and have been for about a century. No OR nurse of technician lives past 40, no surgeon past 50. Then there are the people who mask up when they are doing things like grinding or sawing minerals, ceramics, and whatnot. They think they are protecting themselves from harmful dust when they are actually getting poisoned by C20.
I’m glad it has been finally exposed. It makes me proud to see how great it makes America again, nearly as much as seeing a lynch mob storm the US Capitol looking for the Vice President.
“(Rodgers’ fiancee)’s even been quoted by Boiron, a large company manufacturing homeopathic remedies, saying that its products are “the only medicine I use!” and that she goes to Boiron “products for everything”.
How does that square with the report that she “makes her own medicines rather than consulting a doctor”?
http://meaww.com/shailene-woodley-health-scare-alternative-lifestyle-eat-clay-make-medicine-spring-water
It must be difficult to find time for an acting and activist career, while running up into the mountains to collect pure spring water, getting an all-over tan and formulating your own drugs.
It doesn’t have to take much time. All she has to do is run up the mountain trails on a warm sunny day just wearing training shoes, and perhaps have a quick in the spring while filling her water bottles. Formulating her own drugs in this instance is little more than pulling it out of her a**, which is especially convenient while dressed in nature’s own clothing. For clay, she can scrape it out of the shoe treads after the run. Multitasking!
On one hand, I’m inclined to cut Shallene Woodley some slack on the magic-water-woo due to her activism on environmental issues, climate change, and other stuff that just matters a whole lot more than placebo theater and weirdo Hollywood health fads. (Yeah, eating clay seems outre, but given the junk I’ve been known to dine on, I can’t be too self-righteous about diet stuff…)
On the other hand, the old Boiron endorsement (it’s from 2012) makes me wonder why she was left out of the trials for a new Jeopardy host along with her squeeze Aaron and Mayim “more scam power, please’ Bialik.
And now he’s claiming he caught COVID from somebody who was vaccinated and shedding.
The complete and utter nitwit.
As a professional athlete he always puts in a 110% effort. Maybe 120% in this case.
So on a medical nerd site the following quote was posted…
“What a dick. His team mates ought to get together en mass and greet him in the shower with soap and socks and wash him with the soap and dry him with the socks.”
Rodgers most likely endangered only himself, but this site is completely silent on Henry Ruggs who was driving in excess of 150 MPH with twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system and ACTUALLY kills someone else.
Rodgers made a personal decision and now is following league rules, Which has different rules if you are vaccinated, you can play 48 hours after your last negative test, but if you are not vaccinated you can’t play for 10 days after your last negative test, please explain the medical logic of that, that virus is pretty sneaky it can hide for 8 days in the un-vaccinated but if you are vaccinated it knows to leave in 48 hours.
This is the same league that mandated that if you (players and coaches) were on the sidelines you had to wear a face mask, UNLESS THEY WERE WEARING A HELMET. That was some pretty big viruses that a football helmet face shield/mask would stop it.
Sometime in the future we or our offspring are going look back at this time, in much the same way that we look back on the middle ages medical practices or Salem witch trials.
Great whataboutism, Charles.
‘Medical nerd site’ – you make it sound so negative.
I’m sure some time in the future we are going to look back at the damage cased by Covid-19 and wonder why people didn’t take it seriously. Maybe we will say that professional athletes (and Joe Rogen) shouldn’t be sources of medical advice (besides maybe John Frank or Daniel Doornink ), just like I would listen to many MDs about playing in the NFL (besides maybe Dr. Rolle or Dr. Duvernay-Tardif)…
David: Duvernay-Tardif’s story tickles me pink. A Québecer, a doctor, and a Super Bowl winner!
“Rodgers most likely endangered only himself”
Bullshit. Maybe the others are vaxxed but can still get it and not know it and spread it. Limit replication is the end game and ya’ll ain’t got it writ in the book yet.
It does seem if all the huffing and puffing might build up in the helment before head-butting impact expels the whole load into each other’s faces. So, try as they might, they didn’t manage to kill each other. Yet. Would I miss them? Less if it would get my Partitioner General to watch less of it.
Yeah, that’s a serious WTF. Baseball requires poor social distancing. And these guys are surrounded by fans. At least a distanced and outdoor park is relatively safe.
@Charles: 1. I suspect you’ll find “coriolis” a sock of a known troll, and not representative of the skeptics here. 2. This is a medical blog, and Rodgers’ misbehavior directly relates to medicine (and pseudomedicine). Ruggs’ behavior does not (unless his abberant action is due to chronic brain trauma; however, that is not the subject on discussion here either). Therefore your pathetic tu quoques do not fly.
Someone who claims to have been vaccinated against COVID, then turns out not to be, is recklessly endangering other people when he contracts the disease and risks spreading it to others because he is not following the correct protocol for the unvaccinated. As for someone who weasel-wording his claim of being “immunized” just as he did, it means he knows exactly what he’s doing and why he’s doing it too—which is why he fully earns every ounce of opprobrium now being served to him by critics.
Is anyone defending Ruggs’s “right” to drive while wasted and kill someone? No. Is anyone defending Rodgers’ right to lie and manipulate and potentially kill too? Lots.
If you want to ask a genuinely useful question, ask why ~70 million Americans have to be such utter shitbags and take such enormous malignant delight in parading it.
Otherwise piss off.
It’s a medical site…? Why would it say anything?
Predicting future ? I would think preventing disease would stay
“this site is completely silent on Henry Ruggs”
Charles is completely silent on that decaying Yemeni tanker that could sink or blow up, killing thousands and causing environmental disaster. Shameful.
Isn’t coriolis just another incarnation of Tim? Same diarrheic blather and juvenile delight in naughty words.
@DB: Well done, you win your shiny dollar. (Now, if only I had a dollar to give you.)
:Isn’t coriolis just another incarnation of Tim?
Ooh, come on. I’ve done nothing but shat easter eggs everywhere I posted. Perhaps, some of you should do your own research? Op codes, girl. Op codes.
Maybe you guys should do your own research sometime in your own time
has
to your point about this being a medical blog, (do you really come to this site or any other internet site for medical information?) I will leave the answer with a frequent poster to this site.
Vicki
says:
June 20, 2021 at 1:19 pm
For the thousandth time, if you don’t like what Orac posts, you don’t have to read it. He isn’t running a science news site, and never claimed to be.
Rogers made a personal medical decision much the same as millions of people make everyday that effect/affect just as many people and endanger the lives of those around them.
Please point out who Rogers killed or who got sick from Rogers. The vaccine was suppose to do what (and what many poster her claim it does) is to prevent the virus from spreading or make the illness less sever. But people who have had the vaccine can still get the virus, can still spread it (unknowingly) and can still die from it.
As to your 70 million Americans just a few adjustments to your description of ‘shitbags” need to be made.
30 million of those are under the age of 14 thus have only been able to get a child sized version in the last week or so, I have never heard of children referred to a ‘shitbags’.
We probably won’t know who got sick from Rodgers, if indeed anyone did. The R0 is now right around one, so it’s much better. Thanks to vaccination, obviously.
COVID tends to spread through superspreader events though, with clusters starting with one careless act, like singing all over your church. I’m getting the impression that’s he’s selfish and stupid enough to go there.
If you want real harm, find a cancer patient who’s been delaying treatment because of COVID, or a nurse who retired because they can’t take it any longer.
“I have never heard of children referred to a ‘shitbags’.”
Oh my. You really have had a sheltered upbringing. I realise that it’s not an applicable term when referring to vaccination status under the age of 14, but kids behave like total shitbags to each other and their parents all the time.
Amusing, although unsurprising, to see how Kay West scurries behind children as her meat shield.
Still, I feel I should owe her a clarification: The number of Americans who are utter shitbags is not precisely 70 million, but 74,216,154 as of last November which may have reduced a bit since. No under-18s involved (although a good percentage of those will have been raised to be abusive dirt too).
Number Wang- although agreeing with your general sentiment about possible kids behaviour it is somewhat of an exaggeration to say ‘kids behave like total shitbags to each other and their parents ALL ( my emphasis) the time .Having taught secondary school kids ( ages 11 to 18) for 37 years ( UK) I can say that there are , or were , many wonderfully behaved kids among a sprinkling or minority of those shitheads to whom you refer.
“(do you really come to this site or any other internet site for medical information?) ”
Yes.
Examples are Medscape (general medical/research info and physician-related news), my state medical board site for local/regional info (and to see what docs have been disciplined recently), various CME sites (there are quite a few free courses and seminars available to anyone, as well as the subscription variety), RI, Vaxopedia, Skeptical Raptor, the CDC and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for vaccine-related info, Science-Based Medicine for coverage of health quackery, controversial medical issues and vaccination, STAT News, nature.com, Retraction Watch and similar general info sites (STAT has a good current article about an M.D. whose company is marketing a questionable test for chronic fatigue syndrome), the Genetic Literacy Project for coverage of research into and applications of genetic modification technology, and many different quality news sites for the lowdown on Covid mavericks/martyrs and many other personalities.
Sneering at “internet sites” and “blogs” as automatically being disqualified from being accurate and useful on medical subjects is a typical tactic among those who are unable or unwilling to challenge the facts and accurate analysis they often present.
Of course, if one’s Internet frame of reference is mostly comprised of Mercola, Natural News, Alex Jones and the like, a certain amount of sneering about quality is understandable.
Obligatory UpToDate plug haha
A quick calculation is in order. I believe that the unvaccinated population in the USA is about 100 million. Accepting your number of children under 14 as correct, that leaves 70 million Americans who could be vaccinated but are not. So yeah, 70 million shitbags.
You can’t stop the coming flooding with us, you can’t get the cat to use us, too much detoxification to use as fertilizer; what busnis are we of y’alls?
#shtbgs_414
@Kay: “Please point out who Rogers killed or who got sick from Rogers.”
Cute. By your reasoning, no-one is responsible for the 700K dead Americans because it’s impossible to trace the exact infection routes by which those 700K caught it. Meanwhile, out here in the real world where we have epidemiology, we can point to a particular sub-population and say “It’s your fault collectively”. But then, all you narcs never can count beyond One, so I don’t expect you to understand how any of this works.
“The vaccine was suppose to do what (and what many poster her claim it does) is to prevent the virus from spreading”
That’s two lies, a nirvana fallacy, and a word salad. Impressive. Most impressive.
Also, it’s vaccines, plural, you dolt.
Sure, 100% sterilizing immunity would be wonderful to have, but we’ll settle for whatever transmission reduction we can get for now. And, touch wood, as more and better vaccines are developed to combat newer strains such as Delta, the numbers will improve further.
“or make the illness less sever.”
Which they do in the great majority of breakthrough cases. Here’s what the CDC says:
So you can cram your “vaccines aren’t perfect, therefore they’re useless” where the sun don’t shine and the rest of your expertise clearly emanates from. ’Cos until you whiny disease perverts step up and do better (or admit you got nothing and STFU), you’re as much use as tits on a bull; and full of it too.
“you’re as much use as tits on a bull”
go on…
Fuck off, Tim.
Wang
did your mom or dad refer to you as a “shit bag”, if they did it would explain you social dysfunction or maybe your dad took showers with you when you were a teenager.
DB
“Sneering at “internet sites” and “blogs” as automatically being disqualified from being accurate and useful on medical subjects is a typical tactic among those who are unable or unwilling to challenge the facts and accurate analysis they often present.”
So is it ok, to you, to challenge the blogs or internet sites, that offer medical advise, as I believe that what this site does?
Let us know how your next self surgery turns out, or just for fun tell your doctor about your symptoms, you know to be Guillaine Barr syndrome like gavin newsome’s wife posted on twitter, then deleted after he got his ‘booster’.
TBruse
Odd that a racist like you would leave out the 15 million undocumented workers in the US who are not required to get a vaccine, along with people who can not or should not be vaccinated because of medical issues (chemo etc,) from receiving ANY vaccine.
There must be lots of ‘shitbags’ in society.
The hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance and lack of self awareness displayed on this site, is to say the least, a sad commentary on modern education
Does Time-Life #2 in a series count because I found one in a burned out house once. There were daemons and clive barker,. And guts and other stoff that reminded me of fluffing and healing and my momma.
Fuck off, Tim.
@Tony: Was there a point somewhere within your vapors attack? Help us us out.
Hahahahaha. Aren’t you cute? Nice gotcha. I admit that I’m not up on COVID vaccination policy regarding undocumented immigrants. After all, I don’t live in the USA.
Well, about 74 million of you voted for Trump in 2020. So yeah, shitbags.
Hah! Tony, the joke’s on you. My dad left when I was 10 and I’ve sadly had to shower alone all these years.
A good percentage of my patient panel is undocumented. Their employers have been requiring them to get vaccinated for months…long before there was a “Mandate.” Most were lining up, anyway, because they can’t afford to lose even a single day of work. Try again. The “Mandate Bad” crowd are wealthy whites who have nothing to lose and want to make a spectacle of themselves like children not getting their way at Toys R Us.
“So is it ok, to you, to challenge the blogs or internet sites, that offer medical advise, as I believe that what this site does?”
To respond to what I think you’re asking incoherently, bad medical advice can and should be challenged, no matter where it arises. The sites that consist of >99.99% pseudoscience, quackery and inane conspiracy theories are best dealt with by first addressing and demolishing their nonsense, and then by noting how utterly unreliable they are. The mistake dim bulbs like you make is to attack the source while ignoring the facts.
There was a Guillaine Barr in my high school class. But she was sort of stuck-up, and instead I had a crush on Dee Dee Friedman.
wow. I did not know that.
That is kind of embarrasing, on my many parts.
Dr Bacon:
alties not only provide bad advice but also libel/ slander writers of sites that disseminate SB information. No one should consult the internet to tell them what to do medically but good sites can inform them enough about reality so they can then talk to medical professionals las informed adults.
Some of those I survey single out people like Orac, SBM writers, governmental informers as being the culprits in their Through-the-Looking-Glass world. They especially loathe Wikipedia because it can quickly provide SBM to readers. They disparage its usage because its contributors are anonymous and therefore not experts unlike themselves!
However, as every college ( and hopefully every secondary school) student knows, your sources are everything and they should be identified and quoted precisely. If you had to write about visual perception, the Italian Renaissance or tectonic plates, it’s NOT your opinion or your particular slant on the topic that matters but what you found after a thorough search- it’s what is consensus, not fringe, wishes or speculation. Haven’t the alties who often claim various degrees and doctorates learn this by age 12? I know that I did.
Alties who preach their own take on reality depend upon followers’ weak library research skills and built up reliance upon their own self-professed expertise and superiority to standard education: they may laud encyclopaedias but don’t seem to use them. The followers perhaps share a similar personality trait as their leaders: they are above the common herd, they are outsiders and rebels, far ahead of the curve, new Galilei….
and totally lost.
Speaking of Covid vaccine injuries, or Rodgers not wanting to suffer one, where is Gov Newsom?
PS: Aarno, I might be multitasking, but answer the damn question!
https://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=AwrE1xGvp4ph0OcA4Uc5ByI5;_ylu=Y29sbwNiZjEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj/RV=2/RE=1636505648/RO=10/RU=https%3a%2f%2fwww.nationalreview.com%2fthe-morning-jolt%2fthe-curious-case-of-the-missing-governor%2f/RK=2/RS=cc_uyUfLxKzP.XBhZBF3uyEvv94-
On social media, and planning to appear at a conference today.
https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom/status/1458080611831267336
Anti-vaccine activists like to make up things and then blame them on vaccines.
K, I am sure that the ‘antivaxxers’ will be looking for any ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ lapses.
Not saying he was vaccine injured, but the disapearance does sound strange. Lots of strange things about the story. Can’t believe he actually took the shot. Didn’t his staffers quiz him that saline was the way to go in front of the cameras? Strange!
Cite the source first, I want to read the whole paper, not your quote mining results
Gov Newsom is dead, just like that Tennessee nurse who “fainted” after getting her Covid-19 shot.
The thousands (millions?) of dead bodies of vaccine victims are stacked up like cordwood in a refrigerated storage facility in West Lebanon, NH, while mannikins stand in for them on social media and in public appearances.
https://www.msh.org/sites/default/files/ffield_image_cropped/node/story/img_3230_web825px_1.jpg
Wake up, sheeple!
Well, I just got my booster ( Moderna after J&J) a few hours ago, so I am possibly dead too.
Congratulations!
Here, the kids got their first dose today!!!
Mr. 6 has since done finger art and Mr. 11 a new level in geometry dash. They said it almost didn’t hurt, either.
Kaiser had little prizes for each.
And much happiness was felt at the idea that they are helping poke COVID-19 in the eye.
I’m glad to hear that!
It’s such a stark contrast to mothers I read who discuss their children’s fear of vaccines or who begin proselytising on their own in primary/ secondary school.
🙂
And there is much rejoicing.
Spike proteins should be activating your reptilian brain centers any time now.
It’ll be interesting to see what manifests first – fight, flight or an appetite for raw eggs and fish.
Well, I do occasionally eat salmon or mackerel roe with sushi, so nothing new here.
In summer I eat a herring several days a week and those are raw, but well, I’m Dutch, so we love that. I suppose we are mostly reptilians then.
Not red one’s I presume?
TBruce
You are a racist .
Right now 62% of the US population is vaccinated. Of those 62%, whites make up 60% and blacks make up 11%.
kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-by-race-ethnicity/
Whites are only 57% of the US population while Blacks make up 16% of the US population. So whites are more vaccinated then blacks. And you think those blacks voted for Trump and you just called millions of blacks ‘shitbags’. And your chances of getting Covid from an un-vaccinated black are better then getting it from an un-vaccinated white.
WTF are you talking about? What a strange person you are.
Kay, did you not make it through the first two paragraphs of your source? In any event, as it correctly notes, the adult Black population is just over 12% of the population, vs. 11% uptake.
TBruce, do I have to have ‘big bird’ (the same ‘big bird’ that didn’t get a ‘brid flu’ vaccine) explain it to you?
If you see two people 1 black and 1 white the chances are the white person is vaccinated.
and by calling the un-vaccinated ‘shitbags’, you have just labeled 86% of blacks ‘shitbags’ while only 40% of whites are ‘shitbags’, That makes you a racist
He is referring to the unvaccinated by choice as ‘shitbags’, not the ones who haven’t or can’t be vaccinated but want to be.
In addition, it doesn’t matter which groups have a greater percentage of unvaccinated by choice. The unvaccinated by choice ARE shitbags.
As a South African, I am VERY familiar with the use of the race card to discredit others. Yours is right up there with the lamest.
You seem to have a problem with numbers,so I will argue no further, except to say that i may indeed be a racist, although I try my best not to be one.
You, however, are a fool. Try not to be one.
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-by-race-ethnicity/
….and there we go again. The Big Bird reference tells me exactly what is blaring on your TV all day long. Turn off the box and think for yourself-this is getting embarrassing.
In related anti-vax news….
Whilst doing other work, I was fortunate enough to overhear a lawyer explain about why Jacobson vs Massachusetts is NOT appropriate for support of vaccine mandates: Dershowitz is totally RONG! This highly reasoned argument was presented by none other than Kent Heckenlively, lawyer and science teacher ( on today’s Gary Null Show, PRN.fm, 30 minutes in- to end. visible in a few hours). Yes. Kent fills the audience in about why the case wasn’t about mandates, it was about fines and rather small ones at that! Heckenlively, the author of ten books, informs us about how US eugenics fits into the corrupt history of vaccination and relates to Nazism , the Ivy League and the culling of mankind. People who support vaccine mandates are the ” spiritual heirs of the eugenicists of the 1930s and 40s..:
I’m no legal scholar but it’s interesting to see how his mind works.
Jacobson cited school mandates to support its reasoning. Here is the quote.
“the principle of vaccination as a means to prevent the spread of smallpox has been enforced in many States by statutes making the vaccination of children a condition of their right to enter or remain in public schools. Blue v. Beach, 155 Indiana 121; Morris v. City of Columbus, 102
Georgia 792; State v. Hay, 126 N.Car. 999; Abeel v. Clark, 84 California 226; Bissell v. Davidson, 65 Connecticut 18; Hazen v. Strong, 2 Vermont 427; Duffield v. Williamsport School District, 162 Pa.St. 476.
The latest case upon the subject of which we are aware is Viemeister v. White, President &c., decided very recently by the Court of Appeals of New York, and the opinion in which has not yet appeared in the regular reports. That case involved the validity of a statute excluding from the public schools all children who had not been vaccinated. One contention was that the statute and the regulation adopted in exercise of its provisions was inconsistent with the rights, privileges and liberties of the citizen. The contention was overruled…”
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/197/11/
The long list of cases are cases in which states upheld school vaccines mandates.
I teach Jacobson every year in public health law. I read the full case so many times.
Here’s hoping Dorit Reiss is willing to plead our case, when we’re all hauled before the International Vaccine Crimes Tribunal (a.k.a. Nuremberg II), Right Honorable Justices Kent Heckenlively, Mary Holland and Thomas Renz presiding.
https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/images/sites/files/article_images/gettyimages-578324766_fmt.jpg?sfvrsn=231c6d6c_2
Caution to everyone who has animals: I’ve seen this infiltration of quackery into veterinary medicine, too (I used to run a small animal sanctuary and have lived with many other species for 60+ years). I was DUMPED by a practice a couple of years when a DVM–a DVM!–announced that she was a “certified homeopath” (whatever that nonsense is)–and would prescribe some godawful concoction for my elderly cat who had spinal arthritis as well as some kind of herbal nonsense. When I challenged the practice manager on how a credentialed veterinarian could be peddling this, she said we were “not a good fit” and essentially invited me to take a hike. There’s a so-called holistic veterinary support facility here that is probably raking it in with reiki, herbal supplements, and who knows what else. Veterinarians are not the most ethical bunch as a whole and many are in it solely for the $$. I’m really distressed by their apparent embrace of quackery, so be careful. I can’t begin to understand why someone who earned a legitimate DVM would be peddling homeopathy, but the same is happening with physicians. Caution!!!
I posted in another thread about a large multi-facility veterinary oncology practice, whose woo for pets includes homeopathy, chiropractic and Therapeutic Touch.
Sorry, correction to my post…..Further suggestions for those who have animals: Please ask about whether your vet is affiliated with so-called “alternative care providers.” That’s often a clue that they are making serious bank off people who are dealing with chronic and possibly untreatable veterinary problems with untested, unproven, and ineffective methods. I have vast experience of this. Same as it ever was–that these grifters gonna grift, as Orac keeps telling us. Veterinarians have stumbled on this lucrative source of income from vulnerable animal owners. They’re not all terrible people, but I’ve met enough unethical veterinarians to urge everyone who has animals they care about to be sure there’s not an advocacy of scientifically unsound treatments in the suggestions they propose. Vulnerable people suspend rational judgment if they even understand what trusted authorities tell them. That’s especially true of children and pets. Hope this is not offensive to anyone. These quackos can really prey on you. Be careful. These quackos can be very subtle. I learned that the hard way.
I hate this as well. I do voluntary work for an organisation that provides services for people who go on vacation and need their cats (or other animals that can stay at home (so no dogs), but for instance rabbits, chickens and ducks (yes, I’ve taken care of all of those)) to be taken care of. So I take care of those animals and get a small fee for it. The organisation, I have to be a member of, publishes a magazine and I’ve also seen some articles from some vet, who seems to be into some quackery. I can’t say I like this.
Part of the reason we left on vet practice was that they were starting to offer a lot of quacky nonsense (and convinced me that the non-anesthetic dental cleaning was as good as the anesthetized, which isn’t true in cats!). The other reason was that one of the vets was the biggest wet noodle I’ve ever met.
She accused me, repeatedly, of planning to put my cat down if my cat ever got sick. Like, blubbered at me that I would just give up on my cat (who I had brought in for a checkup, it was very clear I was an involved pet owner!).
Oh, and they never offered us the other evidence-based treatment for our cat’s weight problem – low carb dry food. They just kept calling us liars about feeding her the very expensive prescription diet food (that we bought from them).
Our new vets are much more straightforward (and appreciate when I say “I’m in a medical-adjacent field, please use technical terms”).
Suicide is no laughing matter**. Well, for me at least. Otherwise, it kind of was. I am a bad role model.
**I laughed my fucking soacs off.
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