mousethatroared
Joined 1 year ago
Joined 1 year ago
Flu, not so easy (and an ongoing topic of research)
What's unbelievable? That someone with a graduate degree in engineering who sends their kid to private school has a circle of friends that includes medical doctors and other researchers? Or that there are medical professionals that aren't insufferable authoritarians?
- Regulatory structure. Why can't I sue a vaccine manufacturer? Limit awards, if you necessary, but if I cant sue I cant get discovery.
- Effectiveness. The flu vaccine's effectiveness is statistical artifact. See healthy vaccine bias
- Historical effectiveness. I had a civil engineer smugly point out that his profession had ended more diseases than biology. So I looked it up. Civil engineering did more to end communicable diseases than vaccines.
- General dishonesty of the medical profession. I don't expect my Advil to be 100% safe; I don't expect my vaccine to be either. I dont expect my medical health officers to lie about it though (see mRNA and the long dismissed myocarditis risk)
You literally feel the push of the sharp needle cutting through your bone. Slowly. methodically. Half a millimeter by half millimeter every time the practitioner puts her weight on the needle.
Then, as they aspirate the marrow, you feel as if your balls are being sucked into your hips.
Then, despite the pain, I volunteered to sign up as a bone marrow donor.
Please, call me an idiot if you must, but don't explain away my distrust of vaccines with cowardice.
I call BS.
Until there was compelling evidence that antidepressants cause suicidal ideation it's safe to say it doesn't
Until there was compelling evidence that contaminated water causes cholera it's safe to say it doesn't
Until there was compelling evidence that dirty hands cause maternal death it's safe to say it doesn't
Until there was compelling evidence that lack of sunlight causes neo-natal jaundice it's safe to say it doesn't
These examples span centuries, including the 21st, that were vigorously rejected by experts
The beauty of HN is that when someone doesnt know, or is wrong, we don't assume bad intent, but explain with good intentions at heart.
It's literally in the rules
After all, off in a democracy an expert expects to be paid by taxpayers to make decisions that affect the taxpayer the expert should be, at the very least, be able to explain himself in an intelligible manner.
Thats the bare minimum of expectations. I also expect the taxpayer funded expert to provided full access to his data, notes and analysis software.
Im considered an expert in thermodynamics, materials science and E&M. The people that pay me routinely don't understand what I'm working on, but they expect me to explain myself.