This year I decided that I would stop following politics and definitely stop watching the news. The whole thing is one endless Jerry Springer show. It seems that people enjoy all the endless drama. They love the endless gossip. That’s probably why the “fake” reality shows are still on the air. I no longer have television nor do I pay for cable TV. My goal is to live a happy, peaceful life. People are free to do what they like. If drama is their thing, more power to them.
And then the guy who now lives in the White House, the one who looks like everyone’s sweet old grandpa announced that if you want a job, you have to get vaccinated or get a weekly covid test. There goes my peace and quiet. I have lots of questions and it appears to me that I am the only one who does. At least openly anyway. All of my FaceBook friends (they really aren’t my friends. They really could care less about me) echo his words. I bet none of them ever took the time to research any vaccines, like how long it takes to create (testing, clinical trials, etc.) a vaccine to make sure it is safe. You can find the polio vaccine timeline here: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/salk-announces-polio-vaccine. I will tell you, it definitely took longer than 8 months.
Why does the information about this vaccine keep changing? At first, we were told the vaccines worked; then there were “breakthrough” cases from people vaccinated. We were told that a vaccinated person can still spread the virus, so wear a mask. Then they said don’t wear a mask. All the information comes from different sources who have different opinions. It’s like they do it on purpose. Information overload.
So let’s say I get vaccinated. I get a severe life-threatening reaction, like Epstein Barr. Who pays for my medical care? I asked my friend Google and got the following information from a vaccine lawyer’s website. “In 1986, Ronald Reagan signed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) into law, and this law created the VICP. The VICP protects the pharmaceutical company from liability related to vaccines. If someone suffers from a vaccine injury, they can’t bring a lawsuit against the manufacturer. Instead, they must make a claim to the government, and then, they may receive compensation through this program.” ( Don’t hold your breath.)
I found this information on the CNBC current website: 1. Under the PREP Act, companies like Pfizer and Moderna have total immunity from liability if something unintentionally goes wrong with their vaccines. 2. A little-known government program provides benefits to people who can prove they suffered serious injury from a vaccine. 3. That program rarely pays, covering just 29 claims over the last decade.
So let me get this straight. I have to get a vaccine that is not guaranteed to work and if I get seriously injured or croak I am SOL. This is reassuring.
Let’s continue… Are you aware that Johnson & Johnson has class-action lawsuits against them? Like right now? That sweet “family-owned” company knew for ten years that their baby powder caused cancer and continued selling it. This is the latest one filed in July 2021. “A lawsuit alleging that Johnson & Johnson marketed talcum-based baby powder to Black women amid concerns over the product and ovarian cancer risks was filed Tuesday on behalf of the National Council of Negro Women. Attorneys Ben Crump and Paul Napoli, who filed the suit, accused the company in a statement Tuesday of “specific marketing of talcum-based baby powder to Black women, despite links to ovarian cancers.” (source: USA Today) I feel so comforted knowing they are allowed to vaccinate people. How many people know about this lawsuit?
Did you read about the FDA approving an Alzheimer’s drug that does not work? “Three experts have now resigned from a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee after the agency approved an Alzheimer’s drug called Aduhelm against the wishes of nearly every member on the panel.” (source: NPR website). What? Why???
Did you know the FDA’s two top federal vaccine regulators are leaving?
“Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review, is scheduled to depart the FDA at the end of October. Phil Krause, the office’s deputy director, will retire in November. Neither FDA official has spoken publicly about their reasons for leaving, but there has been speculation that Gruber and Krause grew frustrated with an increasing lack of autonomy and encroachment by other agencies, particularly around booster shots.” (source: CNBC)
Scott Gottlieb, the FDA commissioner under former President Trump, said on CNBC Wednesday.“There’s a deep bench in that group, but I think this evidences some frustration that’s coursing through the agency particularly with CDC and the way CDC’s been encroaching on FDA’s regulatory affairs.” (source: CNBC)
Who will replace them? Will they be doing the bidding for the drug companies? Oh, and did you know the FDA is partially funded by the drug companies they regulate? How is this even legal?
There is so much corruption nowadays or maybe there always was and now they are more open about it. The Internet is a great source to find out information and at the same time a great way to sell FEAR.
We are told to help stop the spread of the virus, we need to wear a mask, even those who are vaccinated. I am all for wearing masks. But, I think drug companies are not satisfied with that, there is too much money to be made! There is not enough money selling masks, but drugs? Billions of dollars and there are zero risks on their part! And yes, I know a person can get tested weekly for covid instead of getting the shot, but who knows if grandpa in the White House will change his mind?
All this smells bad to me. I was born in Munich, Germany 1955. My mother saw what happened during Hitler’s regime. She told me stories that would make you sick and guess what, it all started by focusing on a group of people who became the scapegoat.
That’s my post but I don’t want to leave you on a negative note, so let me just say, “Have a nice day!”
You raise some valid questions — but some of them DO have valid answers.
The most important may be about whether the vaccine was adequately tested, compared to polio. Under the circumstances, where it was spreading faster than polio and completely novel — meaning that, unlike polio, we didn’t even know its symptoms and how they were caused, so we had no head start — time really was of the essence.
And so they skipped some steps! But the steps that they skipped were not ones that got in the way of rolling out the vaccine for adults — especially vulnerable adults — to use.
But while we didn’t have a head start from longtime understanding of what this particular coronavirus would do, we did have a head start when it came to coming up with a vaccine: forty years of research on HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Usually, vaccine approval would require answering all sorts of questions, including:
– Is it safe for adults over the near term?
– Is it safe for adults over the longer term?
– Is it safe for pregnant women?
– How effective is it at preventing various events such as infection, transmission, mild symptoms, serious symptoms, hospitalization, and death?
– What are the minimum effective and maximum safe doses, for 10%, 50%, 90% of the various populations who will take it — for the above sorts of events?
– Is it safe for children below age 18? What about below 13? What about below 7? What about down to ages 3 or 4? Is it appropriate for infants?
– How many shots (and in what doses) should one take? If more than one, how far apart should those doses be? What are the effects of noncompliance in the spacing or amount of those doses?
– How long, and with what requirements, can the vaccine be stored?
– How must, or may, the vaccine be administered?
– At what point do booster shots — and of what dosage and timing — become indicated?
– Does any of this vary among racial, age, gender, or other demographic groups?
I’m probably leaving some things out — and some of these may be merely desirable rather than necessary (even if the need for great urgency is not present) — but that’s a reasonable depiction of what legitimate scientific testing would involve for a vaccine to have full rather than provisional approval. But the important thing to note is that the essential things we needed to know were tested.
Obviously, some things cannot be tested for until time has passed. If a Covid vaccine causes your bean sprouts to pop out of your nose exactly two years after you take it, we wouldn’t know that at this stage because not enough time has passed. But our understanding of the theory of how Covid-19 acts upon the body has greatly improved since March 2020, when in some respects we were guessing (and often guessing wrong, such as the belief that transmission from touching physical objects was a major vector of transmission.) Our models can let us feel quite confident that there will be no nasal bean sprout eruptions because there’s no physiological basis for that to happen.
I’m less confident about the overall effect of Covid vaccines on neonates who have had some of the vaccine’s benefits passed on from their mothers through blood or breast milk — but they did test this before advising that it was safe for pregnant women to take and so far the theory saying that it would be non-detrimental has borne out. (Our newest grandson was born to our daughter this past summer and he can already bench press a tractor-trailer.)
The questions from my list about that haven’t been fully answered are also ones that didn’t need to be answered at the outset — and I think that there was a reasonable case to be made for waiting a few months from the initial rollout before getting the vaccine. But at this point, the best evidence for taking it is that so many people who have taken it are doing well — a small proportion of breakthrough infections that are far less debilitating than full-blown Covid-19, and few serious side effects (including nothing about testicles swelling as with the friend of a friend of Nikki Minaj) — whereas the dangers of Covid itself are proving to be substantial, especially when one factors in “Long Covid.”
I’ll address other issues in other comments: one topic at a time!
On Pfizer/Moderna/etc. liability: I’m generally not a fan of liability shields, but in this case it makes sense. These drug companies are not trying to develop a new drug for profit on their own volition: they are essentially doing work for hire at the behest of the federal government — and it only makes sense that the federal government be the one to take on the liability. Otherwise, literally no one would come forward to do this research and manufacturing for fear of being ripped apart in litigation. The government has the role of inspecting and approving the vaccines for safety — and you may recall Dr. Fauci getting in Pfizer’s face earlier this year after they had failed to provide demanded documentation — and that should provide some comfort. But the main reason that Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson (less so Moderna, but still some) want to not kill people is that they have their reputations — applied to a long list of other consumer and medical products — to protect. Pfizer gets this right and it becomes a hero (which of course has its own problems that I’ll skip for now); Pfizer gets it wrong, and it could tank even without liability shields.
*Vaccines? Which one? How many vaccines are there in the world and which one is rated highest? Which vaccine will not require a “Booster”? Which vaccine makes sense for those with Compromised Immune Systems? Which Vaccine will not have side effects for those with heredity illness issues? How does the vaccine affect someone with different
ethnic backgrounds?
Oh, forget it….just take a shot…..right. Who is going to figure all this out anyway?
“Oh, forget it. Just get Covid instead.” That’s what you sound like.
You’re choosing between two potentially unknown threats. But what we know about the vaccine so far is quite good. And what we know about the virus is quite horrifying.
*Dr. D., when President Xi gets his booster shot with the Chinese version of their Covid Vaccine we will reassess our options!
Why worry about the Chinese version? The US/European versions are proving to be a lot better than the Chinese and Russian ones. Much better (and more transparent) information on them is out there, too!
I will just let this video speak for itself: https://youtu.be/nF4yVDt6RBw
This pdf doc supports everything Dr. Christina Parks testified: file:///C:/Users/ingeb/Downloads/CommitteeDoc.pdf
Addressing Dr. Christina Parks’s Claims
https://www.deplatformdisease.com/blog/8n1jrpo8moi20b4lzoi0fkpfr3udgc
https://www.healthandsciencefacts.com/post/dr-christina-parks-viral-rant-on-tdap-and-covid-19-vaccines
FYI: “Christina Parks, a science teacher for Christian homeschool organizations based in Grand Rapids …. Parks has a post-doctoral degree in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Michigan. She edited high school biology textbooks before deciding to pursue a career in education rather than research. One of the classes Parks teaches is advertised as a “Christ-centered college-prep biology course.
In an interview, Parks promoted ivermectin, a drug used to treat parasites, as a preventative treatment. The FDA has warned people not to use ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19, and the drug’s manufacturer found “no scientific basis” for its use as a therapeutic.”
https://www.mlive.com/politics/2021/05/michigan-activists-boost-experts-to-justify-anti-vaccine-stance-health-officials-say-their-science-doesnt-hold-up.html
Hmmm … kind of a sketchy bio.
Just what is “Christ-centered biology”? Sounds like a lot of picking and choosing to me … never a good idea for a ‘scientist’ and definitely not someone people should be taking medical advice from.
“Christ-centered biology” is an amalgamation of two fairly contradictory concepts. To believe in Christ means believing in miracles – the suspension of natural laws which biology precludes.
Biology is not what “precludes the suspension of natural laws.” That’s the job of physics.
*OK Dr. D.,
Let us know what you know about the differences between Bacteria and Virus Infections…
Generally, antibacterials (which have good track record) do not work on viruses and antivirals (much less good pf a track record) do not work on bacteria.
Would you like to narrow your question a bit? Asking me to tell you all I know about something is generally not a good idea. If you do, there will be a test.