Re; Covid and conspiracy theories

Even with a background in medical settings I cannot claim expertise about the subject of Covid, the effectiveness of vaccines, the advice of medical experts, etc.

All I can say is I lost my best friend as some of you remember well over a year ago. Please read these various and sundry posts with a heavy dose of discernment, question everything you read, and mostly use your own common sense. Being safe and following current best medical practice when you recognize it is probably best.

The life you save just might be your own. Stay happy. Stay well.

Top | Newest First | Oldest First

bookerdana · M

Its the only disease that was weaponized,politically...yet when vaccinations for common childhood diseases drop below a certain percentage mumps measles even polio have reappeared

View 4 more replies »

Grateful4you · M

@bookerdana Exactly right. I'm just glad I had a responsible dad, and mom to a lessor degree.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@bookerdana A very good point, and I have not seen or thought of any convincing explanation for the rise of such nasty, strident "political" campaigns against any attempt to control any other disease. Much of that reaction was probably though simple fear and common inability to understand both [i]hazard[/i] and [i]risk[/i] (not synonymous), but I can't help wondering if there are deeper motives in favour of this new-to-us disease.

Even though vaccines, and the concept of "lock-downs" and quarantines are hardly new. The latter word is from the Italian attempt to resist the spread of the Black Death some centuries ago; by doing just as we know the term nowadays.

(The Black Death was Bubonic Plague - the disease itself is now rare and although it can kill very rapidly, it is curable if caught in time; but it still attacks people occasionally. Originally it was transmitted by fleas and lice carried on rats and people themselves; but modern standards of health and hygiene have largely dealt with that.)

As for me: yes, vaccinated against polio, tetanus, diptheria and tubercolosis; in later life against influenza (annually) and now Covid-19. I can remember the terrifying prospect of polio, leading in serious cases to permanent paralysis.

Roundandroundwego · 61-69

@bookerdana AIDS was used to make sex something else, and we had just gotten it back again....

ElwoodBlues · M

I saw thalidomide mentioned, and many anti-vaxxers cite thalidomide as a reason for refusing Covid vaccines. I'll repost here what I've posted about thalidomide in the US. Anti-vaxxers often tell just part of the thalidomide story.

Thalidomide was undergoing an UNREGULATED corporate clinical trial in the US in 1961, conducted by the Richardson-Merrell corporation. An FDA regulator named Frances Kelsey saw the application from Richardson-Merrell, studied the drug's effects in Germany, and halted the US trial.

https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/us-regulatory-response-thalidomide-1950-2000
[quote]In July 1962, Kefauver alerted the press of thalidomide's teratogenic effects to revive his bill, which he later claimed was losing momentum in Congress. Many public figures expressed shock and outrage when they learned that during thalidomide's period of pending approval, Richardson-Merrell had already distributed greater than 2.5 million thalidomide tablets to over 1,200 physicians, who in turn gave them to approximately 20,000 patients in clinical trials. At least 207 of these patients were pregnant at the time of taking thalidomide seventeen of whom later reported having deformed infants.

From these events, the public scrutinized the FDA's policies and methods for drugs. The thalidomide tragedy, as many call it, galvanized Congress into passing the 1962 Kefauver-Harris Amendments to the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, hereafter called the 1962 Amendments. The 1962 Amendments went into effect on 7 February 1963 and required that for any sponsor of a drug, usually a company, that planned to investigate that drug clinically, that sponsor had to provide the FDA with a detailed outline of the study.[/quote]

Thalidomide in the US was [b][i]halted[/i][/b] by government regulators and resulted in much tougher regulation of the drug industry worldwide. Thalidomide is a [b][i]total success story[/i][/b] for US government regulation of drugs. Don't let folks mislead you with just a part of the thalidomide story; get all the facts.

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@ElwoodBlues It was not a vaccine either, but even that simple fact would not worry the anti-vaccine campaigners.

I believe Thalidomide was thought suitable for suppressing nausea and sickness in pregnancy.

It is still used, as is its Lenalidomide relative, to treat multiple myeloma; but as we might expect of a cancer treatment, these are powerful medicines used only under very careful control as they have potential, serious side-effects including so tragically as we know, major foetal damage.

[My source: a medicines directory, written for doctors and pharmacologists, but given me by a friend in the profession when I was going through various treatments! I have refrained from further details above because I am not a doctor or pharmacist, and do not know the subject deeply.]

Roundandroundwego · 61-69

If we want public health, we'll fund it.
Or not. Nobody can fight the owners.

Add a comment...