One point I’ve long made about so-called “alternative” medicine is how many of its precepts are more religious than rational or scientific in nature. In particular, a huge part of alternative medicine relies on the concept that “contamination” (these days more frequently referred to as “toxins”) cause most, if not all, disease. Indeed, nearly five years ago, I was discussing how the various “detoxification” regimens that make up so much of alternative medicine (and, not coincidentally, the basis of many treatments for many conditions—like autism—that antivaxxers used to attribute to vaccines) have more in common with religious ritual purification rituals than they do with science or medicine. This concept of “purity” versus “contamination” (implied to be with evil) also has a lot to do with the idea that “natural immunity” to a disease (which in reality should be called post-infection immunity given that vaccine-induced immunity is natural) and has infected the discourse over COVID-19 vaccines, so much so that one of my go-to video clips when discussing this topic is of Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper from one of my favorite movies of all time, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb explaining how fluoridation is a Communist plot to “sap and impurify” the “precious bodily fluids” of real Americans, mainly because anti-fluoridation, antivaccine, and anti-GMO pseudoscience all tap into the alternative medicine fear of “contamination” as a cause of ill health and “purity of essence” (again, from Dr. Strangelove) as key to good health. Not coincidentally, concepts of “contamination” versus “purity” (or even “pureblood” or “purebloods”) are also behind the fear stoked by antivaxxers that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines “permanently alter” your DNA, thus contaminating and corrupting it with evil (the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein).
There is, however, another, darker, side to this concept of “contamination” or “corruption of ‘pureblood’” as a cause of illness and “purity” as an indication of health, and it’s a concept that’s been supercharged since the COVID-19 pandemic began. I realize that Mike Adams is always an easy target—some might argue that he’s too easy a target—but I often cite his website, Natural News, because it doesn’t say anything that other antivaxxers and quacks aren’t saying. Rather, it just takes what other antivaxxers are saying and cranks it up to 11, just like in This Is Spinal Tap.
The example comes from this article, Only PUREBLOODS will survive the vaccine / radiation holocaust being unleashed against humanity… the spike protein in vaccines causes genetic DISINTEGRATION:
Today’s podcast is a bombshell that needs to be understood by anyone hoping to survive the vaccine holocaust, because it’s really a “genetic bomb” against humanity.
The vaccine, by suppressing the natural DNA repair mechanism in the body — known as NHEJ, or Non-Homologous End Joining—makes people highly susceptible to devastating, cancerous mutations—even when exposed to very low levels of ionizing radiation such as sunlight exposure or mammography. With NHEJ suppressed by the spike protein, the body can no longer repair its damaged DNA, and cells mutate out of control, devastating the entire body and bringing about genetic disintegration of the organism.
The study documenting all this was published in the MDPI journal “Viruses” and was carried out by scientists at Stockholm University, Sweden:
I’ll discuss the cited study briefly in a moment. Suffice to say that, even if its in vitro cell culture findings were to pan out more generally, this study does not show anything of the sort and, in fact, is a rather crappy crappy study. I won’t explain why details here, but if you really want to know the gory details, you can read this deconstruction. (Since then, I’ve also realized that the authors of this study have no clue about how the immune system works.) It has, however, been embraced by antivaxxers to claim that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines cause cancer.
As I said, though, Adams is just turning up to 11 the conspiracy noise of antivaxxers dating back months during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is just an echo of longstanding concepts in the natural health and antivaccine movement of “purity” versus “corruption” and “contamination”. (Indeed, it’s a very ancient concept that’s long been used to trace royal lineages and “pure” bloodlines.) When I first saw this concept being applied to COVID-19 vaccination, it quite quickly reminded me of all manner of fascist ideas about “purebloods” and “racial purity”. Indeed, a few months ago, when mainstream media first took note, the concept of unvaccinated “purebloods” was appearing on social media, in particular on Tik Tok, invoking concepts from the Harry Potter novels and movies:
The term “pureblood” doesn’t exactly have the best connotations. But now unvaccinated people on TikTok are, er, trying to reclaim the term as a way to tout their “superiority” over their jabbed fellow citizens.
The phrase was popularized by J.K. Rowling’s villain Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series as a way to distinguish between those with “pure” wizard ancestry and everyone else, drawing parallels with the Nazi doctrine of the “master race.” As a concept, basically, it’s been used to justify some of the worst crimes against humanity in history.
The new “pureblood” trend seems to have gotten a big boost from conservative TikToker influencer Lyndsey Marie in a post shared last week replete with hashtags like #harrypotter, #pureblood, and #unvaccinated.
“From now on, I refuse to be referred to as ‘unvaccinated,’” she declared. “I want everyone to now call me Pureblood.”
Here’s an example:
When I first encountered antivaxxers using this term from the fictional universe of Harry Potter, I was somewhat amused—while still being simultaneously appalled—at how utterly unconcerned they seemed (and continue to seem) how by embracing the whole concept of “purebloods” versus “mudbloods“, a highly derogatory term in the Harry Potter universe for a Muggle-born wizard or witch (Muggle meaning a person born to nonmagical parents and possessing no magical abilities) or “half-bloods“, a term denoting wizards or witches with Muggle parents or relatives in their recent lineage (e.g., grandparents, etc.) was not-so-subtly echoing Nazi ideology. After all, it’s not as though it wasn’t incredibly clear in the Harry Potter novels and movies that the magical “pureblood”/”mudblood” dichotomy was a very obvious metaphor for Nazi ideas about racial “purity” and superiority, with the Muggles being viewed by Voldemort and his followers as inferiors who were “contaminating” the pure wizard race, complete with a horror on the part of Voldemort at the thought of magical people mating with Muggles and having children that was every bit as strong as the disgust that Nazis expressed at Jews mixing with “pure Aryans”. In brief, there’s a reason why it was the villains, not the heroes, in the Harry Potter universe who so proudly used the term “pureblood” versus the disdainful term “mudblood”.
I’ve alluded to antivaxxers proudly co-opting the term “pureblood” before, but I want to explore in a bit more detail how “natural health” and antivaccine ideology naturally lead to such a term. In this, I have to disagree with Alan Levinovitz, associate professor of religious studies at James Madison University and author of Natural: How Faith in Nature’s Goodness Leads to Harmful Fads, Unjust Laws, and Flawed Science, when he argued:
Troubled observers have variously tied this term to the Harry Potter franchise (in which purebloods are Wizards untainted by muggle ancestry) and the eugenic Nazi fantasies of pure Aryan blood. But both comparisons miss the mark. The meaning of the hashtag is inseparable from vaccine refusers’ strong preference for “natural immunity,” a seemingly innocuous term that is actually a centerpiece of anti-vaccination ideology and ought to be abandoned immediately.
While Levinovitz is correct that the use of the term “pureblood” by antivaxxers does reflect a strong preference in antivax ideology for “natural immunity” (as I agreed when I quoted him), it also reflects an inherent acceptance of the concept (that predates Nazi-ism) of “purity of essence” and “pure blood” that to antivaxxers indicate health (and superiority) that must not be “contaminated” with anything as awful (to antivaxxers) as a vaccine. Similarly, if that “pure blood” is somehow contaminated, then it must somehow be “purified” (i.e., “decontaminated” or “detoxified”—or ritually purified) in order for one to reclaim a “natural” state of health and superiority, just as those who have sinned must, in some religions, atone through rituals designed to “purify” them.
I’ll discuss a couple of examples.
“Detoxification” of vaccines
A couple of weeks ago, I saw a story making the rounds about how, with COVID-19 vaccine mandates spreading, leading some antivaxxers to make the choice to be vaccinated or lose their jobs, some are scrambling to “undo” their vaccinations through “detoxification” treatments:
In a TikTok video that has garnered hundreds of thousands of views, Dr. Carrie Madej outlined the ingredients for a bath she said will “detox the vaxx” for people who have given into Covid-19 vaccine mandates.
The ingredients in the bath are mostly not harmful, although the supposed benefits attached to them are entirely fictional. Baking soda and epsom salts, she falsely claims, will provide a “radiation detox” to remove radiation Madej falsely believes is activated by the vaccine. Bentonite clay will add a “major pull of poison,” she says, based on a mistaken idea in anti-vaccine communities that toxins can be removed from the body with certain therapies.
Then, she recommends adding in one cup of borax, a cleaning agent that’s been banned as a food additive by the Food and Drug Administration, to “take nanotechnologies out of you.”
In reality, in addition to being potentially harmful as a skin and eye irritant, a borax “detox bath” will not remove the effects of the Covid vaccine from your body.
I first discussed Dr. Carrie Madej before (almost a year ago, believe it or not). Even among COVID-19 contrarians, deniers, cranks, and antivaxxers, she stands out. She’s on record as not just saying that mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines will “permanently alter your DNA” but that they are, in fact transhumanism. You might recall that I also briefly discussed how transhumanism is social, scientific, and philosophical movement devoted to the idea that humans can be enhanced by technology, be it biological, computer-based, or physical. The idea is that such technologies would augment or increase human perception, physical abilities, intelligence, and cognition, and also radically improve human health and extend human life spans. Unsurprisingly, the movement’s adherents tend to be employed in technology, biotech, and academia, and there is a strong link between libertarianism and transhumanism. The ultimate outcome is thought to be the “singularity”, a time when computers become so advanced that artificial intelligence transcends human intelligence, potentially erasing the boundary between humanity and computers, even leading to the merging of humans and computers. I also pointed out how I’ve always looked a bit askance at transhumanism, because I have without a doubt encountered a lot of woo in the movement over the years.
Still, one can’t help but note a bit of disconnect here. If, as Madej claims, mRNA vaccines “alter your DNA” so much that they are “transhumanism” and can make you somehow different than human (to the point where she claimed that these vaccines could make one into a “genetically modified human”), then how on earth are a pleasant salt bath with Borax and consuming a bit of bentonite clay going to reverse that? If, as Madej was also claiming a year ago, mRNA vaccines actually insert tracking nanotechnology—which Madej has referred to as “branding”, as in “we’re all going to be branded” with this tech—into your bloodstream, a nice salt bath and consuming some clay are not going to get those pesky nanobots out of your bloodstream; that is, unless they can somehow leach them through the skin and lining of the gastrointestinal tract.
Of course, Borax baths and clay consumption are generally not likely to cause significant harm. The bath might be relaxing, and you’ll be clean afterwards, while the clay will just pass through your GI tract. Elsewhere, there are more potentially harmful suggestions, for instance at the website of an MD who also has an ND (and is therefore a naturopath), Valerie (Richey) Bazylewicz MD, ND of The Healthy Path clinic near Cincinnati. She has a post about “vaccine detoxification” that includes all the antivax tropes about vaccines containing “toxins” such as mercury (not in childhood vaccines for nearly 20 years), “aborted baby cells”, formaldehyde, antifreeze, alcohol (wait, you don’t drink wine or beer?), and more, warning, ominously:
All vaccines and covid shots contain many harmful substances such as mercury, thimerosal, aluminum, dangerous chemicals, polyethylene glycol and lipids (to help transport toxins into brain), etc. They are usually grown on cell lines from aborted fetal tissue. Also, animal cells contain species-specific virusesthat cause diseases in humans. The covid shots contain either manufactured mRNA (Pfizer and Moderna) or manufactured DNA with adenovirus (Johnson & Johnson, Astrazenica [sic]) that have never been studied in humans until now. Keep in mind that harmful components of vaccines can be removed with vaccination detoxification, but any changes to your DNA that may have occurred from the covid shot appear to be irreversible.
She also repeats the false claim that COVID-19 vaccines are not, in fact, “real” vaccines but gene therapy:
Please note that the covid shots are not actually vaccines because they do not contain any covid virus as per the legal definition of vaccines. At this time, these shots are experimental for emergency use only; they are not FDA approved. Comirnaty was FDA approved, but it is not available anywhere. Thus, all covid shots available on the market now are not FDA approved; they are experimental and authorized for emergency use only.
All of the covid shots are designed to hijack your genetic machinery and even possibly change your DNA in order to produce spike proteins that cause the covid disease. In other words, they are turning you into a genetically modified organismor transhuman which produces the spike protein that actually gives you the disease that you think that you are preventing. And there is no shut off mechanism included in the shot.
I’ve discussed the false claim that mRNA- and adenovirus-based vaccines are not vaccines but “gene therapy” before, as well as the false claims that the available Pfizer vaccine is not the FDA-approved vaccine; that the vaccine gives you COVID; that tens of thousands have been killed by the vaccines; etc. It’s all nonsense, basically standard antivax talking points. But what is this “detox”?
So what is the “vaccine detox,” though? It’s really not very impressive and includes:
- Eat a “healthy organic diet”.
- Avoid “toxins”, which apparently include “fragrances (perfumes, beauty products, fabric softeners, cleaning products, room/car fresheners, etc), candles (beeswax candles are OK), automobile exhaust, unnecessary medications, and so much more”.
- Use supplements from a company called Research Nutritionals, including Cytoquel, TriFortify Glutathione, C-RLA (Liposomal C & R-Lipoic Acid) Vanilla Caramel, ToxinPul, and MycoPul.
Particularly odd:
Make a paste with one or two opened capsule(s) of MycoPul (see above) and oil (such as coconut oil or olive oil) and then generously apply to the injection site immediately after the injection and cover with a large bandage. Reapply about every 6-8 hours for the next 3 days.
MycoPul includes:
- Humic and Fulvic powder blend with trace minerals
- Activated Charcoal
- G-PUR® purified Zeolite (Clinoptilolite)
- Microchitosan
- Silica
Nope, there’s no evidence that any of this will work. As they say, once you’re vaccinated, you can’t “unring the bell,” so to speak. You’re vaccinated.
Unfortunately, again, none of this is new. It’s also not a coincidence that many of the treatments for “vaccine-induced autism” or any other condition falsely attributed to vaccines are represented as “detoxification”. They are basically purges, to purge the “evil humors” that antivaxers believe vaccines to be packed full of. It’s not for nothing that I’ve frequently described alternative medicine “detoxification” as being akin to ritual purification of the sort found in many different religions. Think of chelation therapy and all the “detoxification” treatments used by autism quacks as basically an effort to restore the purity of the child’s precious bodily fluids. It should thus not be surprising that COVID-19 treatments are no different.
Back in the day, I used to blog about quack treatments that fell under the rubric of what antivaxxers like to call “autism biomed”. Going back to the days before the pandemic when the main pseudoscientific unsupported claim made by antivaxxers was that childhood vaccines cause autism, there was a whole subset of quackery known as “autism biomed” that was based on “reversing” the effects of vaccines, specifically “vaccine-induced autism”. I’m not going to recount the abundant evidence that there is no detectable increase in autism risk associated with vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine, or with vaccine ingredients, such as the mercury in the thimerosal preservative that used to be in some childhood vaccines up until 20 years ago.
A major component of “autism biomed” involved “detoxification” of the “toxins”, be they mercury, formaldehyde (in some vaccines in tiny amounts), or whatever. For mercury, it involved chelation therapy, which was supposed to remove the mercury from vaccines and thereby reverse autism. For other “toxins”, there were all manner of “detoxification” protocols coupled with hormonal manipulations like the use of secretin. The results of “autism biomed” could at times be truly horrific, as exemplified by, for example, the case of Alex Spourdalakis. In reality, as I wrote 12 years ago, “autism biomed”, when you boil it all down, is uncontrolled and unethical experimentation on autistic children, complete with bogus medical tests practically guaranteed to demonstrate various forms of “toxicity” that are supposedly the “root cause” of autism.
Of course, these concepts are very much at the root of many varieties of alternative medicine as well.
“Purebloods”: Even more dangerous consequences
Part and parcel of the concept of “toxins” or “contamination” associated with COVID-19 vaccination is an antivaccine lie that I’ve been discussing for a long time, namely the idea that the “vaccinated” are so contaminated that they are a danger to others. In the past, it was the idea that those who had received attenuated live virus vaccines (like MMR) were shedding virus and giving measles to others. (The measles strain used in the MMR is much less dangerous than actual measles.) In the age of COVID-19, it’s the idea that, as Adams put it above, those who have received mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines are “spike protein factories” for whom the spike protein is a deadly toxin and is also shed from the vaccinated in an almost magical miasma-like manner to make others around them sick. Never mind that the amount of spike protein made due to these vaccines is tiny and mostly localized to the injection site, and the amount of spike protein getting into the bloodstream is so tiny that a new assay had to be developed to detect it.
This has led to a number of absurd beliefs about the “contamination” of the vaccinated among antivaxxers. One is kind of funny, namely the meme that went around that “unvaccinated” sperm is superior to the sperm of the vaccinated, to the point where antivaxxers think that their sperm will skyrocket in value after the pandemic.
It’s easy to laugh at that idea, but less funny is the claim that vaccines will so contaminate our DNA that they will lead to mass death from cancer in the next few years. (Never mind that carcinogens, even potent ones, generally don’t result in cancer anywhere near that fast.) Even less funny is what happened to a rather famous antivaxxer in June, who basically could have died because he refused a transfusion with “vaccinated blood”. I’m referring to Del Bigtree, who in May was diagnosed with so much chronic blood loss from hemorrhoids that his hemoglobin (Hgb) level had fallen to 4.8 g/dL, a level that’s not life-threatening in and of itself if the blood loss was slow, but could easily become so with further blood loss. (In a male, normal is around 13-17 g/dL, depending on the lab, and a level of 4.8 g/dL leaves no room for error, so to speak, when it comes to further blood loss, even if subsequent blood loss is slow.) Bigtree was symptomatic, with lightheadedness and dizziness. Still, he refused a transfusion at first because he didn’t want any “vaccinated blood” (although he didn’t refuse a procedure to stop the bleeding). According to his story, he managed to get a sympathetic ER doctor to find a unit of “unvaccinated” blood, which he did accept, and then he flew to Mexico on a private jet paid for by his fans to get a transfusion at a quack cancer clinic in Mexico.
This concept has led to social media posts like this:
Regarding that last one, he might be right, but not in the way he thinks.
Even so, let’s circle back:
Again, it really is all about the “purity” and even being a “pureblood.” That concept is at the root of a lot of alternative medicine, became a major thread in antivaccine pseudoscience. You can see how it so easily meshes with concepts of racial and genetic purity and self-identifying as “purebloods” as well. Unfortunately, those very concepts are far more religious and ideological than scientific, and they have real world consequences. We just didn’t notice them so much before when “toxins”, “detoxification”, and “purity” were seemingly just the province of New Age gurus and alternative medicine. Now that it’s contributing to the claim that “natural immunity” is the only worthwhile immunity, that vaccines are hopelessly full of toxins (including genetic toxins), and fear of vaccines in the middle of a pandemic, we can’t ignore it any more.
76 replies on “Antivaccine “purebloods””
That Dr. Bazylewicz‘s set of claims is even more glaringly ridiculous than most antivaccine claims.
And I am wondering if the pure blood language is also a wink to their newish association with the alt-right.
Wonder no more. It’s either a appeal to the new base by using concepts they use on a daily basis, or trolling the sheeple.
Or both.
The rot was already in the main catechism of antivaxers, from the US or others. How often did they complain this past decade about all these hordes of dirty illegal foreigners getting a pass on mandatory vaccination (because of course, only Americans/[insert country of residence] have access to modern medicine and vaccines) or being the true source of nasty diseases?
How do you vaccinate sperm anyway?
With tiny, tiny needles, a nanojet injector or similar, a microscope, a pair of micro-waldos to hold the damn hyperactive gametes in place (aren’t there some drugs to paralyze the tail-whipping? A tiny dose of tetradotoxin, maybe?)
And lots of patience to treat a few hundred millions of cells per, err, patients.
Maybe inject some luciferase at the same time, to tell the already-vaccinated apart.
I’m aware of alties promoting purity and pure blood but sceptics should recognise that the concept has been around for a long time in a subtler, more disguised form.
They preach that natural health followers are fundamentally healthier, more pure and basically better than average people who consume toxins, GMOs, non-organic products, gluten, sugar, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, meat and dairy and are exposed to contamination from radiation, 5G. cell phones, chemicals in water, air and soils ( that food is grown in), medications, vaccines, beauty products, cleaning products and more esoteric poisons like mainstream news, the educational system especially universities, popular entertainment and the terror animals feel when being murdered for the meat that is later consumed.
Their purity and exclusivity allow them to feel superior to mere mortals and they can expect to be rewarded with extremely long life and freedom from chronic illness and serious infection. Therefore, they can advise, lecture and castigate perhaps 95% of the population who doesn’t follow their regime. One of the most adamant teaches that people who want to have a child should both start on their de-tox of all of the aforementioned evils a year before conception so at least the child will be pure ( although bad thoughts and trauma can linger on epigenetically for seven generations affecting mental health and personality).
If customers buy into this crap, they will always be primed for buying new products- supplements, food and “informational” material- because the process is endless: you may eat a perfect diet but walk across a street that has vehicles’ exhaust and cell phone towers and maybe a medical scoundrel with a fast draw with inject you with a vaccine when you’re not looking.
We know where an obsession with purity and pureblood leads. Three eyes, a hunch and the impression that adding two single digit numbers successfully makes you a genius.
Also subjugation of women and, yah know, racism.
“Purity” is a concept that should only ever be applied to chemical reagents.
Narc SOP. Superiority is rooted in identity, not achievement. It’s all performative, relying on their ability to stomp others down.
I did Anthropology in college. What you describe has always been with our species–long before the bible even, which is full of the clean and the unclean and all sorts of ablutions to mediate them. The Enlightenment has been our best shot at being otherwise, but it looks like we’re going to squander that opportunity.
I find myself torn between worrying about the world my great grandchildren are being born into, and being relieved that I won’t be around much longer to endure the mass stupidity that half of mankind is rushing to embrace.
If it’s any solace, 158 years ago Lincoln ended slavery in the US, 274 years ago the controlled blind trial was invented, 393 years ago the controversial idea that blood circulates was invented, 668 years ago the (highly treatable) Black Plague killed half the population of Europe, 806 years ago the Magna Carta solidified the idea of human rights…I’m running out of ideas, sorry.
One “like” is non enough! You succinct summary has become my mantra or “affirmation” as the New Agey’s would say.
167 years ago the handle of the Broad Street water pump in the City of Westminster was locked, ending that cholera outbreak, and confirming the role of drinking water as a disease vector. In its wake came the securing of the safety of drinking water and proper disposal of sewage everywhere that can afford to do it.
But, but…. WHAT ABOUT MY SCOBY? Are there rescue groups? It’s been lovingly nurtured in the toilet tank since it could walk!
Oh, and XMo’Vits has (sort of) chimed in similarly. For Stew Peters. Sounds like she’s really been hitting the Luckies, but all works in a Bennethian sort of way.
I doubt that the our ‘literal blood factory’ person is ‘donating’; therapeutic phlebotomy more likely – their blood would be disposed of…
Also, the path forward is clear, men – we must deny Orac our essence!
Now, if you’ll join me in a round of “All Hail Freedonia!”
My apologies to our host for taking this a bit sideways, but I am so fed up with comments infested by the omicron Greg I thought I’d try to get some input before he shows up:
In the paper claiming spike protein entry into the nuclei of cells, Figure 1 contains a few images that appear to be cells that are virtually 100% nucleus with that nucleus crammed full of DNA. There are fluorescent “circles” nearly touching. Those are either very unusual cells or something strange has happened to bring nuclei into such close proximity.
Does anyone have experience with these particular cells and methods? Do those images seem plausible?
An entire article based off a meme meant to trigger the same people who suggest the unvaccinated are unhealthy disease spreaders (science be damned), of which many insisted on non-gmo, organic, pesticide free, free range foods to promote health.
Image that.
Yes, it’s hard to imagine people trashing vaccination, a proven effective means of avoiding disease, while spending gobs of money on deceptively labeled “natural” foods that offer no health benefit.
The problem with free range, organic, blah blah blah is that they cannot be produced in the same quantity and reliability as your general mass produced chicken or pesticide protected grains. I’m all for spending a bit more because I can afford it. Not everybody can.
It always reminds me of log-burners. People say they they are great. They’ve picked up some branches on a dog walk or they’ve got a mate with some woodland on a farm. Free heat, cleaning up the environment. To which I reply. Great, as long as only a tiny fraction of people do this. Now, imagine every person in your country owns and uses one. How long do your forests last? How’s your air quality?
The idea doesn’t scale. People like Mike Adams have no idea of the consequences of everyone decided to move to the country and start growing their own. Hey Mike! It’s called subsistence farming. Look it up!
Mike has a lot of money: he owns a ranch and a few buildings where he mixes/ packages his products/ uses as warehouses outside of Austin. Well-to-do people have do boutique farms in the country where they possibly sell a few vegetables at famers’ markets but I doubt that many people are doing this without other sources of income yet the alties I follow advocate this as the future for most people. It is the wave of the future: people will live in intentional communities– green, off the grid- sharing expenses whilst pursuing artistic crafts and organic farming using barter instead of money.
You shouldn’t move TOO far from a large city though because you want to be able to truck your produce in for chic restaurants on a daily basis. Despite the fact that “farmland” 50 miles or so outside NYC or SF is rather expensive. Beyond your wildest dreams.
While we’re on the subject, what in Jeebus’ name is a ‘free-range’ egg?!
If your eggs are free-ranging, I doubt they’re still useful….
The problem with organic is that it is a list of rules based on old technology and emotional reaction. It doesn’t address the problems that gave rise to the movement in the first place, like factory farming, soil depletion, loss of farmland, and overuse of pesticides (except for the newer, safer synthetic pesticides). Modern organic makes all of those problems worse by building in inefficiencies.
As for free range, that isn’t necessarily more expensive, but it takes more land, more time, and more expertise, although less expensive food, less disease control, and less work. Factory farmed chickens are raised by poor people getting minimal margins and eating costs like mass deaths in hot weather. The big companies are literally farming out their chicken “pollution.”
Where I live, there are government cash incentives to move away from wood heating, because of the environmental problems it can cause with large-scale use.
https://www.climatechoices.act.gov.au/policy-programs/wood-heater-replacement-program (values in AUD, AUD1 ~ USD0.7)
@NumberWang:
You are working on the assumption that Mike Adams cares. He doesn’t. The only things Adams cares about are himself and his bank account. The man is a textbook con artist and psychopath, separating needy neurotics from their money in exchange for ego strokes. He doesn’t care if everyone else lives or dies, only in how much profit he can extract from them first.
To be clear: I do not blame Adams for gouging the rubes in the same way that I do not blame the great white shark for taking bites out of surfers. They are both animals acting on simple instinct, without empathy or remorse, in direct pursuit of personal survival.
No, I blame all the marks for feeding the monster. The reason Adams is selling lies all the way down is because that is the Product all those turd-brains want. And they are falling over themselves to purchase it. The final irony (assuming the first great world food war doesn’t quickly terminate in nuclear holocaust) is that “organic” will become completely moot in a couple hundred more years anyway, as all but the wealthy end up living on algae and insect protein as the only things that will still grow on this blasted rock.
Predators like Adams will always be the 3% (or whatever the population is willing to tolerate before something gives out). That is just nature doing what nature does; green and red in tooth and claw. It’s the 30% who gleefully chum those waters that urgently need tossed in, for they are the ones who will tip the boat from under us all.
Today’s case in point: Activist Trump judge decrees that Republican voters shall have the unfettered right to endanger and abuse vulnerable patients and everyone else, ’cos fcuk y’all:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/12/judge-blocks-biden-vaccine-rule-citing-liberty-interests-of-the-unvaccinated
Welcome to the founding decade of the real New World Order, where every fricking call is coming from inside the house while the prey remains blissfully unconcerned.
—
“Every robber or oppressor in history has wrapped himself in a cloak of patriotism or religion, or both.” – Eugene V. Debs
“Predators like Adams will always be the 3%”
He needs to be careful. If his dire predictions ever came true, he may find that advertising a fancy ranch with a load of survival gear and food isn’t a good idea.
It’s really hard to find organic chicken at Costco.
starskeptic: They’re not from factory farms.
Strawman.
You don’t have to be unhealthy to be a disease spreader.
Also, tautology. Until you are infected, you are healthy.
That we “suggest” is that unvaccinated people are more likely to become unhealthy and disease spreaders.
And the proportion of unvaccinated people in ICU wards do support our “suggestion”.
Indeed.
Oh. You were not speaking about your science-free opinions.
If 100% of the people are vaccinated, 100% of the people in the ICU will be vaccinated.
You have to at least look at that before you ignore the reams of other evidence that vaccines are effective.
That effect can be seen from this data from the Australian state of New South Wales where close to half the cases are in people who are fully vaccinated:
“In the past week, 434 (30.1%) of all cases were fully vaccinated, representing 45.6% of all 952 cases who were eligible for vaccination (aged 12 years and over). In comparison, 88.7% of the NSW population aged 12 and over are fully vaccinated (had completed their recommended vaccine schedule by 6 November)”
COVID-19 weekly surveillance reports for New South Wales, week ending 20 Nov 2021, notes following Table 4.
However, 54.4% of the cases came from the 11.3% of the population who were not fully vaccinated.
https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/covid-19/Documents/covid-19-surveillance-report-20211120.pdf
Ha, Ha, Ha.
Oh wait, that wasn’t satire?
Only one meme? Where have you been for the last 2 years?
You might want to hang on to your squid by-products.
Hi Orac
I wonder if you have come accross this Marik character before:
https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/95939
(and linked retraction in Sagepub)
You will see that he claimed a 75% reduction in Covid death rate for his Ivermectin nostrum. As the the retraction points out, the 75% figure was due to a profoundly elementary arithmetical error.
How the hell do clowns like Marik ever get qualified as MDs inthe first place?
That’s funny, the Australian Red Cross blood donation service (Lifeblood) is happy to take blood from people who’ve had a COVID vaccine, any time from 3 days after being vaccinated.
https://www.lifeblood.com.au/blood/eligibility/COVID-19-vaccine
They also accept blood from unvaccinated donors, but encourage donors to be vaccinated:
(same link)
As for the putative future value of unvaccinated people’s blood: in Australia, Lifeblood doesn’t pay you for blood donation. At all. Vaccinated or unvaccinated. After a donation, you do get offered some biscuits and rehydration in the form of water, tea, coffee, fruit juice or a milk shake. I don’t expect that they’ll offer more of them to unvaccinated donors.
On a more practical level, close to 90% of the Australian population of an age eligible to donate blood are vaccinated already (and the numbers are still going up). Refusing to accept their blood without really strong medical evidence of the necessity to do it is really not practicable.
It seems unlikely to me that any country’s blood donation service would refuse to take blood from COVID-vaccinated donors, especially in countries where the vaccination rates in the eligible age groups is high.
In the US blood (and blood products) are one of the few bodily materials that you are allowed to sell (you can’t legally sell a kidney).
Now, most whole blood is a straight donation, but plasma is sold for money (and if you’re selling your plasma you’re generally not in a good place financially).
For work I regularly purchase a blood product that donors are (relatively) well-paid for. But I’m pretty sure most of them are still doing it at least partially from an altruistic place.
When I get that blood product it tells me that it’s been tested for the big three bloodborne pathogens (HIV, HBV and HCV), if the donor is a smoker, and if the donor takes medication (but only some providers tell me what medication). I get some basic demographics (age, gender, sometimes race, sometimes height/weight or BMI).
But what I don’t ever get is any kind of vaccination status. For anything. It doesn’t seem to be part of the intake form. So I don’t know how these “unvaccinated blood” folks think that anyone is keeping track of this stuff.
Then I wonder if these “unvaccinated blood” people are similarly up in arms over other vaccines in the blood supply as well. Would they refuse my blood because I’ve been vaccinated for smallpox? (Joke’s on them, I’m such a bad draw that I can’t donate.) Would they refuse the blood of someone who’d had the anthrax vaccine? Or yellow fever, or BCG or JEV? Or is it more likely that they have literally never thought about this before?
The Australian Red Cross blood service does not pay for donations of whole blood, plasma or platelets. I’ve donated both whole blood and plasma. Your point about the problems associated with selling your own blood products is one of the reasons why I think that a donor system is preferable, if it can be sustained.
I’m old enough to have had a smallpox vaccine, and I lived in Papua New Guinea when I was young, so I’ve also had BCG. I haven’t had vaccinations for measles of chicken pox, so that would put the anti-vaxxers into a bit of a quandary. I’m “vax-free” for measles and chicken pox, with the much-touted “natural immunity” for them, but they’d have to balance that off with my DPT, polio, smallpox, pneumococcal, influenza and COVID vaccinations, and numerous tetanus boosters.
Just as well for them that I’m on anticoagulants and can’t donate, and anything I’ve donated has long since been used or disposed of, so I won’t present that problem to them. 😉
I’m also the grateful recipient of 2 units of whole blood during surgery 20 years ago.
@JustaTech: “So I don’t know how these “unvaccinated blood” folks think that anyone is keeping track of this stuff.”
If you’re looking for consistency, forget it. It’s ALL performative; just virtue signalling for fuckheads.
It’s the same here in NZ – a 24-hour stand-down after receiving the Pfizer vaccine (Astra-Zeneca has just become available here as well) – obviously longer if you have some discomfort post-vax. And no-one’s paid to donate; we just get a drink & a cookie (plus things like pens, t-shirts, vacuum cups when we hit milestone numbers of donations).
Sadly the antivaxxers like to turn up on NZ Blood Service social media posts, making all sorts of stupid claims about how vaccinated donors are endangering the blood supply for others.
About a decade ago, I ran into a company that would pay up to $2000 cash a month** for donations from people with certain autoimmune markers — for use in diagnostics, I think. In addition to the cash, it was all expenses paid. When I contacted them, the conversation was (roughly) “Raynaud’s? Ya Sure Ya Betcha!”
Unfortunately, the nearest outpost was in Indianapolis, and the logistics were just awful, so my ANA, anti-Ro, and anti-La stayed home with the cats.
** It was $100 per visit with no cooling-off time that I recall, so perhaps more.
Dr. Joe Schwacz has a piece up at the McGill University Office for Science and Society. I quote:
“When it comes to Dr. Madej, I see two possibilities. Either the tungsten from the filament in her mental lightbulb has evaporated, or she is knowingly peddling balderdash. In either case, her views about COVID-19 vaccines are a menace to society.”
I wonder if Madej is aware that there is a lot of aluminum in bentonite.
This probably needs to be staved off for a little bit longer. We don’t much care for you guys. Also, you are behind the curve of the 8-ball by about 5 years. So, snap to it or live forever against your will.
Something I like to do is monitor websites that publish anti-lockdown material just to see what they are saying and was profoundly surprised to see the UK based contrarian website ‘Spiked’ which has run any number of ‘anti -lockdown’ articles publish an article going after anti-vaxxers who are apparently spreading the idea that COVID-19 is causing sports stars to have heart attacks, I suppose is shows that a broken clock can be right twice a day…
The article in question entitled “Covid vaccines are safe – even for footballers” is linked below.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2021/12/01/covid-vaccines-are-safe-even-for-footballers/
I mistyped in my last post. The line “… the idea that COVID-19 is causing sports stars to have heart attacks…”, should read “… the idea that COVID-19 vaccination is causing sports stars to have heart attacks…”
In other anti-vax news…
Anti-vaxxers usually decry studies done by pharmaceutical companies as well as results showing any disturbing side effects BUT both AoA and Safe Minds are heralding a new study by a company that advocates psilocybin for depression because people with ASDs can have depression. ( Compass Pathways). Psilocybin affects levels of serotonin in the PFC and the microbiome ( which true believers insist is EVERYTHING!!! because the second mind in the GI tract etc.) HOWEVER serious adverse events ( suicidal ideation, self-harm) were reported by 12 ( of 231) Ss.
Is it because psilocybin is natural?
“…the microbiome ( which true believers insist is EVERYTHING!!! because the second mind in the GI tract etc.)”
Does the “second mind in the GI tract” describe having their heads inserted deeply into their posteriors?
Psychedelics are having a moment. People took them seriously as a treatment until the war on drugs. I find the data questionable at best because psychedelics cannot be blinded, and the putative method of action in interference with whatever part of the brain it is that gives us our sense of self. (“I am the universe! My ego is dead!”)
Psilocybin is the drug of choice because it’s kind of legal and you can grow it in your cow barn. It’s a terrible choice though, as there are many plants that produce variations of it and it’s entirely unstandardized. There’s all sorts of ketamine in the quasi-legal world, and there’s LSD, which is so illegal that no one is even trying.
Ketamine has been studied quite a bit, but it seems to only last a few weeks, and no one is into the idea of maintenance IV infusions. Then there’s esketamine, which you legally can’t take home with you and for which you are forced to sit in the doctor’s office for two hours. At least no needles are involved.
Hi Denice,
Who knows where anti-vaxxers get their ideas but do you have a link to the idiots or even better the study? It may not be a quack study.
I was just listening to an interesting interview with Prof. David Nutt who is apparently justifiably famous for his drug research and also slightly infamous for being fired by the British Gov’t for among other things saying that alcohol was more socially damaging than most proscribed drugs.
He suggests that his group’s research indicates that psilocybin may be a very potent drug for treating depression. He also points out that getting funding for researching psychedelics from major granting bodies, he mentions the British Gov’t and the Welcome Trust, is virtually impossible.
I suspect he could care less about it being “natural.
Psychedelics: “The WORST Censorship of Research in History!” – Drug Science & Policy with David Nutt
I read about this on Age of Autism ) today) which linked to Safe Minds which linked to STAT which linked to COMPASS for details.
The actual study is about depression.
Thanks Denice,
I see the COMPASS PATH report is a press release on what looks like a Phase II study with limited time outcomes. From what Nutt said, I am not all that sangine about long term effects for a lot of the patients but it looks worth more research but not necessarily a “drug” yet.
Alternet is doing a good job of tracking the “pureblood” gurus (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/29/1958574/-Anti-vaxx-Chronicles-He-was-too-tough-and-macho-and-pureblooded-to-worry-about-COVID?detail=emaildkre). One of their leaders just died from Covid. Big surprise. This is a pretty good site for tracking who dies of Covid after claiming the usual crap about how it doesn’t really exist/is a conspiracy blah blah.
Oops. Sorry. Wrong site. This is obviously Daily Kos.
I’m looking forward to Orac’s take on Dr. Oz announcing his entry into the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race. He’s touting his medical expertise in these troubled pandemic times.
The illustrious background of Dr. Oz includes a statement that our astrological signs are predictors of our health. Oz is a Gemini, and here’s what today’s AstroTwins’ horoscope for Gemini says:
“Your career path has been a bit unclear since June 25, when confusing Neptune turned retrograde in your professional sector. Thankfully, the ethereal planet ends its backspin today, finally correcting course and bringing some much needed balance to your life. Take stock of everything on your plate, then get serious about prioritizing. Do certain items need to be placed on the back burner? Don’t be shy about expressing your viewpoint to the powers that be. People have been overstepping your boundaries for long enough! Have you been struggling to land a stable gig? This starmap gives a cosmic boost to any job-hunting efforts. Update that resume!”
And don’t forget to delete the most embarrassing parts.
I’m sure that Orac and regulars have seen it but-
Justice Barrett on abortion bans today ( Politico):
” It’s an infringement on bodily autonomy, which we have in other contexts like vaccines.”
So much more but I just can’t…
@Denice: No surprise. That’s the titular Right’s SOP: Start with their predetermined conclusion and work backwards from there. To around 1860, for those that are counting.
The USA is now on the fast-track to a one-party police state, the culmination of a 60-year plan, as the moderate majority sits on its ass like gently simmering frogs. Airstrip One isn’t far behind either.
Del Bigtree almost bled to death from hemorrhoids? I guess when you’re that big an asshole, there’s that much more room for hemorrhoids.
Denice, I really wouldn’t bring up vaccination and abortions in the same thread.
You know “my body, my choice” (that was an argument in the supreme court case today), not to mention that 1 out of every 2 people that go in for an abortion die.
I wonder if fully vaccinated LeBron James is going to watch Aaron Rodgers play football during his recovery and did the other 34 fully vaccinated on his team as well, who got covid. At least Aaron Rodgers can win some football games after getting Covid while “Big Ben” can’t win one.
wgntv.com/news/lebron-james-tests-positive-for-covid-19-misses-tuesday-game-report/
We have countries and states that have 70% or higher vaccination rates which have covid hospitalization and cases as high as 692 per million people(Germany) and low vaccination countries (India) and states have very low hospitalization and cases 6 per million people. and the death rate as well …….
ourworldindata.org/covid-cases
Dr. Fauci is science so if you question him you are questioning science.
“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
— Richard Feynman
You got the numbers swapped — it’s like autism.
Well, I suppose that is correct in the eyes of anti-abortion activists, because they consider the unborn child as a seperate person.
But if the unborn child dies, because the mother wasn’t vaccinated, it is different.
^ Oh, silly me, I forgot to ask Kay West for the attestation that goes with the attempt to argue by aphorism.
I’m too tired for hysterical laughing, though.
@Kay West: Awww, your echolalia is adorable. Alas, it is the only part of you which is. So go cram your confounders where the sun don’t shine, because you’re fooling nobody here but yourself (to paraphrase Feynman also).
So we can’t question the science. But its probably all those unvaccinated that are dying.
“The higher the vaccination rate, the higher the excess mortality”
skirsch.com/covid/GermanAnalysis.pdf
but at least they allow you to question their science.
“Further explanations are by no means excluded. Some of these may also be supported by figures and should be further investigated. We are very grateful for suggestions of this kind.”
That has been the case throughout this pandemic.
Steve Kirsch is an electrical engineer. It is of little surprise that his pronouncements on epidemiology are completely wrong.
You would get more value reading the opinions of people who have expertise in this area.
@Kay West (quoting Kirsch): “Further explanations are by no means excluded.”
https://www.google.com/search?q=kirsch+debunk
You’re welcome, shitbird.
“Higher vaccination rate higher excess mortality” From Singapore, a vaccination state:
https://www.moh.gov.sg/
This site site shoes, too, that it is unvaccinated that are dying. But falling. This is heard immunity.
Infection rate is going down, so there is less COVID transmission
Germany is considering mandaoty vaccination:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/24/germany-considers-a-full-covid-lockdown-and-mandatory-vaccines.html
So they are not doubting vaccine science.
On the other hand, at least we know that Kay is happy with a power-point presentation as scientific evidence.
Given that I don’t know anyone who’s died or been severely injured by vaccination, I have to propose that Mr Skirsch is the common denominator in his surrounding vaccine reign of death. Maybe they just don’t want to talk to him any more.
So, what’s a better idea for holiday celebration – a Covid virion Xmas ornament, or this t-shirt?
https://www.cafepress.com/mf/126470093/wuhan-institute-of-virology-cl_tshirt?productId=744303360
I picked up a pretty big laser cut wood Covid virion ornament (with some but not all the variants attached) at the craft fair yesterday. (Full masked, vaccination card required for entry.)
Last year I didn’t get a Covid ornament because it felt too sad. Now it’s more “eh, why not?”.
[…] it was part of zeolite quackery (apparently Zeolite contains fulvic acid) and another time as part of a “detox” regimen for COVID-19 […]
Holy cow man. It’s a joke. We don’t think we’re magic, or really identify with Aryan supremacy. Lmao… a joke, man.
Something you muggles can’t understand
Oh, we understand jokes. One thing we understand is that your choice of “jokes” say a lot about you. Also, guess what? I’ve found a lot of examples of this “pureblood” nonsense that sure as hell don’t look like jokes.
Of course, racists and other bigots always retreat to the “We were only joking” defense when called out for their bigotry.
[…] the actual truth of what Bigtree did, risking his life because he believed the antivaccine “pureblood” […]
[…] year one antivaccine meme that was widely recognized as explicitly fascist was that of the “pureblood,” antivaxxers who bragged about the “purity” of their blood because they were not […]
[…] the fascist antivax claim that vaccines somehow “pollute” the blood, making the unvaccinated “purebloods“. Unsurprisingly, it’s exactly the paper Rose cited. The first paper, it turns out, is […]
[…] the ability to use magic. I suppose that I should be relieved she didn’t use the term “mudblood” instead, although it would have totally fit with German New Medicine if she […]
[…] or bodily “purity,” which has even led antivaxxers to portray themselves as “purebloods.” To this, Tucker Carlson has added toxic masculinity and fascist imagery of manly masculine […]