If you are in the USA, do you trust the FDA or CDC regarding the C19 vaccine?

[Zarnon]

I have had two vaccines and two boosters.  I worked in a charity clinic as the medical director as my last job during the height of COVID.  When a volunteer doc wouldn't see a patient due to their unvaxxed status, I'd have to step in.  I also volunteer with the homeless.  My wife, who works in a medical office but with almost zero patient contact got COVID twice.   I've never had it. 

What's the fuss exactly with vaccines?   It's about the most natural process I can think of,  triggering your own body to ready itself for an infection as it does regularly.  If it didn't, you'd be dead pretty quickly.

I agree with the posters about this being politicized.  I've had silly conversations that I've never had to have before, with poorly-armed people and their 'research'.

As far as YouTube goes, here's a video from a guy with 3.4 million subscribers extolling the virtues of drinking your own piss:

https://youtu.be/F-CEukmbJ7E

YUM!!  Yes, there's good shit on the Internet, but more often than not, it's a cesspool. 

[scrappy]

What's the fuss exactly with vaccines?   It's about the most natural process I can think of,  triggering your own body to ready itself for an infection as it does regularly.  If it didn't, you'd be dead pretty quickly.

Okay doctor. The fuss for ME (and correct me where I'm wrong) is ....

Dead virus vaccines, live virus vaccines, viral vector vaccines, and mRNA vaccines.

I'd be perfectly happy to have had the option of a dead virus vaccine which, as I understand it, does exactly what you said, triggering your own body.

I have a BIG problem with mRNA. My understanding is that an mRNA vaccine PROGRAMS your own cells to produce the antigen and that that self-produced antigen THEN triggers your own immune response. I wrote operating systems for almost 40 years - COMPUTER programming. Even in computer programming, where it is possible to KNOW exactly what the code is doing, more than 99% of the 'programmers' fuck up. In most cases, nobody dies (though there were a number of plane crashes that were pretty damned suspicious). mRNA is PROTEIN programming. I don't believe 'we' know exactly how that program works. How much more likely is a fuck up? What might be the impact of an 'extra' or 'misplaced' nucleobase somewhere in the mRNA vaccine protein chain? How many YEARS does it take for a 'time bomb' like Lyme or syphilis to 'wake up' and fuck you up?

I got the Janssen vaccine twice, both times to make a gf happy.

[Zarnon]

So you will only use inactivated vaccine?

Cross off:     Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR combined vaccine), Rotavirus, Smallpox, Chickenpox, Yellow fever from your list.   And while alternatives to some live vaccines exist,  they are less effective.  Live vaccine use has been documented for decades.  What has actually happened with these that you're worried about?

You are correct the mRNA vaccine produces a specific protein.  It's the same type of protein that triggers the immune response in inactivated vaccines (which has been the protein coat, here it's a protein spike) your body reacts to. 

People confuse mRNA with DNA.  The mRNA does not have the same role. It is not changing anything.  It is degraded in less than 2 weeks. It does not enter the nucleus of the cell where our DNA is located, so it cannot change or influence our genes.  The mRNA stays local at the injection site.  Long term complication from like diseases Syphillus (bacterium) and Lyme disease (bacterium) are because they are untreated,  alive and actively replicating throughout the body.  It's fundamentally different.   Even live vaccines are attenuated, meaning they are extremely weakened and are not the same as an untreated infection.

This research has its origins since 1961.  What peer reviewed medical research have you read showing this process is dangerous or your assumptions about a program gone awry are correct?   Would you be against targeted immune therapy in cancer treatments derived from mRNA process instead of blasting the body with chemo and radiation? 

Getting the real infection is far worse than any documented (not VAERS crap) complications from the vaccine.   I have had patients and friends who have longstanding fatigue and SOB due to their COVID infection.    That's the risk I've seen and am worried about.   Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died unnecessarily due to vaccine misinformation.

Here's a nice video where a scientist addresses some of mRNA misconceptions that circulate on the internet:

https://www.indy100.com/viral/scientist-debunks-vaccine-misinformation-tiktok-b1901246

This cartoon from 1802 shows this fear far predates mRNA.  This cartoon highlights people fears at the time of their bodies being changed due to a vaccine ,  here being turned into cows (because of the origin of the vaccine).   



What truly baffles me is many of the same people who don't want 'untested' treatments are perfectly willing to follow self-proclaimed internet experts and take mega-doses of Ivermectin.   

[scrappy]

FWIW, I'm 'okay' in general with 'live' virus vaccines. However, with how 'novel' and believed-to-be virulent Covid-19 is, for that one, I certainly would have  preferred a dead virus. I read (take it with a grain of salt) that India and China have dead virus Covid-19 vaccines. I don't know why they were not made available in the US.

And I recognize that Lyme and syphilis are bacterial. So apples to oranges with a virus. I was using them as examples of processes 'going on' in our bodies that take years or decades to play out.

[Zarnon]

It was a confusing example given bacteria live on their own.  They aren't an obligate intracellular parasite like viruses are.  But I get where you were going.

But even if you chose a virus that can cause longstanding issues (like hepatitis C) the scenario doesn't work.  You'd have to explain how mRNA encoded for a specific protein is going to replicate itself, then recreate an entire cellular apparatus.  Your examples require a complete organism.  It's like a PL/SQL block writing the entire program because a line of code was wrong.   The mRNA is transported out of the cell nucleus and performs its function in the cytoplasm, it is not the same as DNA/RNA,  it is messenger RNA.  It is nothing more than a printing press.   

Even if the code was wrong in the mRNA, that would usually make it non-functional (like mismatches, damage or mutations that occur regularly in the body) and the outcome being nothing happens.  I haven't done a ton of programming and I don't claim to be any kind of expert in this field (a year of Java back in the day) but when I made a mistake, it would throw an error and not work, not create some malignant outcome.  An error like this would have been detected early in the research process.

mRNA has advantages over older ways of making vaccines,  particularly with COVID.   COVID btw is not entirely new,  coronaviruses have been part of what we call 'the common cold'.  It is a novel strain of Coronavirus that is particularly virulent and lethal.  Our understanding of coronaviruses was instrumental in creating the vaccine.

There's been a lot of unfounded fear over new technologies forever, but now it's amplified by misinformation on social media. Vaccines (and not just COVID) have been a big target.  With the COVID vaccine, it's resulted in so many unnecessary deaths and complications.   You want to see horrible long term consequences regarding COVID, look to the disease itself.  Lots of documentation there.

[Begog]

You can't pay me to take that worthless vax. Argue all you want. Never did work. Herd immunity is what it took, and whether you got the jab or not, damn near all of us got it, most of us more than once. I Survived it twice before the vax was even available. 2nd and 3rd times were common cold. Haven't been sick since October '21. (knock on wood). My vaccinated friends seem to be sick a lot now. Just saying. My daughter's unvaxxed family is fine too. China's vax didn't work. Moderna should be sued, but the federal government is protecting them. You CAN'T sue big Pharma for the vaccine they made you take no matter WHAT it does to you. That's a problem.

[scrappy]

LOL because I wonder if this thread is going to be shut down for controversy. But I'll babble some more unless and until that happens.

Based on my previous post, it shouldn't surprise people that I'm with Begog on this one.

This

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-2-New-ICD-code-introduced-for-COVID-19-deaths.pdf

is still out there. Check the last bullet for the bolded CDC permission to report any death as COVID-19 as an assumption. That's permission from the federal government. Around the same time as this CDC alert, the Congress passed the CARES act which provided financial incentive to report a treatment as covid (section 3710). Permission and financial incentive as blessings from the federal government. I know that I don't trust the hospitals and medical practices in my community to not exploit this.

Yes, many people died of covid. But around September of 2020 I recall seeing a news report attributed to the CDC that only 5% of reported covid deaths were really covid. That news report quickly disappeared.

My own (two reported covid deaths that were almost certainly something else) and Begog's anecdotal and empirical reports are just that. But I really question whether there is experimental analysis of the 'pandemic' that has been subject to objective scrutiny.

Among other questions are why were the pharmaceuticals protected from covid vaccine related lawsuits.

[Zarnon]

So,  we're off the scenario where the mRNA could cause a lifetime infectious illness?  Ok,  cool by me. 

Onward... 

Check the last bullet for the bolded CDC permission to report any death as COVID-19 as an assumption.

If someone comes in and dies of ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, not to be confused  - as so many laypeople have - with the general term 'respiratory distress') and somehow escapes testing, there's not a lot of causes of that.  But not having COVID testing on people who die of this is extremely unlikely.  We ramped up massive COVID testing in the hospitals very quickly.

 It's not just anyone.  You'd still have to fit the condition.  If someone bleeds out on the street and no specific cause is known, no one is going to routinely attribute that death to COVID.  The few cases that were trumpeted in Conservative media  as evidence of a fake COVID conspiracy were partial stories at best.  I bet one of your two cases was the Motorcycle Case,  blasted endlessly on Right Wing media as proof.  Hilarious.  It was someone who tested positive for COVID and was initially listed but was corrected and removed prior to breathless discovery by DeSantis and Co.  And even if someone made a mistake on a death cert, two freaking cases are hardly evidence of some massive conspiracy. We already account for that in a little thing called Statistical Error and two cases out of the entire US doesn't even reach that level.    There are plenty of countries reporting the same massive Excess Death Rates besides the USA.  How do you account for those?  What caused them if not COVID?  Are they part of the conspiracy too?

I've filled out plenty of death certificates.  They usually come to the PCP instead of the ED doc or hospitalist.  I can't think of one I filled out where I've put in COVID based on an assumption like that.

The 'they're counting every death as COVID!" is an oft repeated fallacy.  That has never been shown.   A similar misconception was that doctors were getting paid more to fill out  death certs from COVID.  100% false.

Among other questions are why were the pharmaceuticals protected from covid vaccine related lawsuits.

All vaccines have been shielded from lawsuits (hence VAERS) since 1986.  Not just COVID.   This was reaffirmed in a 6-2 SCOTUS decision in 2011.

Yes, many people died of covid. But around September of 2020 I recall seeing a news report attributed to the CDC that only 5% of reported covid deaths were really covid. .

'Many' is an understatement.  1,127,104 deaths in the USA alone. The total deaths only eclipsed by ischemic heart disease and stroke.  How many actual deaths from the COVID vaccine again?

That news report quickly disappeared

Gee, wonder why?  Maybe not because of some vast global apparatus silencing the Internet Truth Tellers (who seem as loud as ever) but because it was from the Journal of Unverified Bullshit and roundly laughed out of existence.    What evidence  did they present to convince you this 5% figure was true? Did you apply the same level of proof you ask of vaccine efficacy? If you can't remember or never checked,  I might suggest being a little more skeptical when the theoretical shoe is on the other foot. 

No offense, but it's insulting.  Like we have no morals, brains or ethics and are going to falsely report COVID deaths to make a buck. I can tell you as a PCP working on the front lines during COVID who filled out those death certificates there was never any instruction or incentive to fake COVID deaths.  Spoiler alert:  I make the same money off a COVID death cert as I do any other death certificate - $0. 

Dealing with COVID misinformation is like Conspiracy-Whack-A-Mole.   One is debunked and it's on to the next.   

I'm going to my mechanic today and tell him how to fix my car.  I've never done it before, but I watched a few YouTube videos exposing the Global Carburetor Cartel.  It's clear who's better informed.    So glad I retired!   

[scrappy]

In early July 2020, as part of my annual physical, I was tested for covid antibodies. No symptoms, igm positive, igg negative. My doctor's reaction was WTF. He had me wait four weeks and try again. Same results. At the same time a friend found a report online that a researcher testing the reliability of the tests found that NONE of them were valid. My doctor's reaction was to stop wasting time on invalid testing. So now I have a personal experience, anecdotal only of course, that the covid testing was bullshit at least in some cases. That is the base that I start with.

So,  we're off the scenario where the mRNA causes a lifetime infectious illness?  Ok,  cool by me. 

I'll respond with the same snarky sarcasm that you're applying. No, I never suggested that mRNA causes a lifetime infectious illness. The infectious examples I mentioned were to point out that dangerous medical conditions can lie dormant for decades. Sorry that confused you. My scenario is that faulty protein programming can produce proteins 'floating around' in the body that can produce cancer after years or decades. Gee whiz, seems like there are cancers that take that long before they kill you.

I've filled out plenty of death certificates.  They usually come to the PCP instead of the ED doc or hospitalist.  I can't think of one I filled out where I've put in COVID based on an assumption like that.

Good for you. I'll happily accept your personal assertion of integrity. However I have personal experience with crooked doctors (dentists too FWIW) and the NYS DoH and the insurance companies processing their claims doing nothing to punish the fraud (they did reverse the charges so I didn't end up paying for services not performed).

The 'they're counting every death as COVID!" is another oft repeated fallacy.  That has not been shown.

Another personal experience/anecdote. My mom went into a nursing home at age 93. She was already ''at death's door'', skeletal, almost non-verbal, and confined to a wheelchair. She 'hung on' for another 5 months. 'Coincidentally', one week before she died, she was 'reported' to have had a positive covid test result. Her death certificate lists dementia as CoD. But it also includes covid listed as 'another condition'. Was she counted to pump the numbers? Who knows? How much more of that type of LIEING goes on and pumps the numbers?

   A similar misconception was that doctors were getting paid more to fill out  death certs from COVID.  That's not the way it works. 

Given section 3710 of the CARES act, how are doctors NOT 'getting paid more to fill out death certs from COVID'? I was a CPC for 4 years (just let the certification lapse this year because I'm retiring). That is EXACTLY the way it works.

That news report quickly disappeared

Gee, wonder why?  Maybe not because of some vast global apparatus silencing the Truth Tellers but because it was from the Journal of Unverified Bullshit and roundly laughed out of existence.    What evidence  did they present to convince you this 5% figure was true? It must have been pretty strong given you require that high bar from vaccines.  If you can't remember or never checked,  I might suggest being a little more skeptical when the theoretical shoe is on the other foot.

Of maybe 'laughed out of existence' (or suppressed by not being reported) is the 'lefty media' (NYT, WP, CNN, TV news, etc.) The 'righty media' (NYP, Fox, talk radio, etc) sings a different song. 

No offense, but it's insulting.  Like we have no morals or ethics and are going to falsely report COVID deaths to make a buck. I can tell you as a PCP working on the front lines during COVID who filled out those death certificates there was never any instruction or incentive to fake COVID deaths.

No offense intended.  Good for you that you have integrity. I hope you are not so naive to be surprised that plenty of 'health care providers', particularly here in the New York Feminist Socialist Republic, don't have that level of integrity and will 'game the system' to the limit of what they can get away with. Also, I don't know if CMS determines YOUR reimbursement for the Procedures you perform. But, with the singular exception of ONE good doctor near me who hasn't been able to take new patients or claim through insurance for years (doesn't even take Medicare at last report), everyone else does.

[Zarnon]

In early July 2020, as part of my annual physical, I was tested for covid antibodies. No symptoms, igm positive, igg negative.

That's a weird test for a routine physical, particularly to the level of an antibody test.  That's not common at all.  Why didn't your doc start with a screening test?   What guideline was he following?  What was the clinical rationale? That makes no sense.

Are you sure that wasn't the other way around (IgM neg and IgG pos)?  Regardless,  most cases of COVID are asymptomatic.  No invalidation there.

I'll respond with the same snarky sarcasm that you're applying. No, I never suggested that mRNA causes a lifetime infectious illness.

Sorry you took it like that. And yeah,  you did.  You used two chronic bacterial infections as your initial example regarding mRNA vaccine 'what ifs'.  I was responding to your scenario.  It was biochemically impossible from the jump even if you'd chosen a virus so it was hard to respond to it seriously.  Not the first time.  I'm sorry if that bled through in my comment, I was not trying to provoke you. 

Good for you. I'll happily accept your personal assertion of integrity.

I have a squeaky-clean 23 year record of continuous practice without a malpractice, ethical or complaint otherwise.  All my licenses are intact.  I'm retiring because I have  enough dough and am thoroughly sick of the heartless profit-first, patient-last US medical system. I still love the science of medicine and medical practice.  I have already made contact and visited Mercy HDF in Bangkok and will be volunteering within a month of arriving to Thailand, which is something I've done locally and internationally my entire career.

I'm proud of my record and why I practice.   It's why I chose primary care to begin with.   Sometimes that's all I had but it was enough.  So I'm good no matter what you believe.  But don't take my word for it.  Show me the proof supporting your assertion.  There is nothing supporting massive COVID fraud from unscrupulous docs.  What's our payoff?  I already stated our reimbursement for a death cert is 0.00.

Another personal experience/anecdote. My mom went into a nursing home at age 93. She was already ''at death's door'', skeletal, almost non-verbal, and confined to a wheelchair. She 'hung on' for another 5 months. 'Coincidentally', one week before she died, she was 'reported' to have had a positive covid test result. Her death certificate lists dementia as CoD. But it also includes covid listed as 'another condition'.

You are supposed to list any other associated conditions.  They routinely test nursing home patients because of their high risk.  If someone (staff or patient) completely unrelated to your mother tested positive, they'll all get a test.

You can still get and spread COVID no matter what state your health is.  It has no bearing on why they did the test.  Are you implying this 'coincidence' was proof of some larger plot?  Confused.

Given section 3710 of the CARES act, how are doctors NOT 'getting paid more to fill out death certs from COVID'? I was a CPC for 4 years (just let the certification lapse this year because I'm retiring). That is EXACTLY the way it works.

Incorrect.  The CARES act applies to the DRG diagnosis code and the reimbursement for hospital care and while you are living. They bundle higher total reimbursement under that code because COVID is more medically intensive. This is no different than any DRG code (so a heart attack with a bypass is bundled higher than one without).  The hospital takes all of that.  It has nothing to do with the death certificate I fill out in my office.  The death certificate (like almost all my paperwork) is unreimbursed patient care.  CPCs don't fill out death certificates or charge sheet,   I do.  So no,  that's not how it works.  Prove me wrong.  Show me the code that I get paid under and RVUs generated for a death certificate and then the different code for a COVID death certificate with the higher RVUs associated with that. 

I hope you are not so naive to be surprised that plenty of 'health care providers', particularly here in the New York Feminist Socialist Republic,

I think I'm done here.  There's no convincing you otherwise.  I didn't work in a vacuum.  I'm a 23 year board certified internist and I've worked directly with docs and know their ethics, been face to face with patients, read their chart notes, been in case conferences,  filled out the charge sheets you work from.  I was the medical director at my last job.  You know who I never did any of that?  Our coders.

 I definitely know the science better than most, it's clear.  I'm not naive.  I know problems exist with the medical system and I'm far from it's proponent. If the problem with death certs is as widespread as you claim, there's no evidence. It's as fake as Voter Fraud.   But you have not proven any of your fears and relied instead on jumping to the next endlessly recycled anti-vax sentiments in your Gish Gallop. I've asked you for  evidence.  The onus is on the one who makes the claims.   

This is why I gave up on vaccine advice on social media.  It's a lost cause. It's just my opinion instead of a practicing physician who actually trained in the work, gets regularly tested on it and lives the reality they're theorizing about.

[Begog]

I see someone struck a nerve. Doctors should look in the mirror and ask 'WHY has public trust in doctors suddenly dropped so precipitously?"
ANSWER: Government overreach. Politicized medicine. Marxist control.

Like the masks they made us wear, it was all about control and largely useless. As I was passing them out, and making employees wear them, I read on the box where it  specifically stated:
"This mask does NOT stop the transmission of viruses such as Covid-19."
And now they want me to ENFORCE it??? Are you kidding me? Wearing masks in an industrial environment is a nightmare. No one wants to do it, or be the one enforcing it. I actually got punished for not enforcing it. Me of all people got caught by the wrong guy maskless. Then the learners in my training center weren't wearing them either. It got ugly.
 

[Zarnon]

Of course you struck a nerve.  Medical professionals are sick of dealing with internet pseudo-science conspiracy theories.  It's so annoyingly incorrect. It's like people do zero actual research or fact checking.  The degree of swaggering ignorance in lieu of actual education is astonishing.  Guilty as charged!

Funny how these people run to the hospital when their Ivermectin fails them.  Then their families blame the hospitals when it was  their ignorance that caused a loved one to die a preventable death.

And so it goes...

[scrappy]

Zarnon, hopefully you are not surprised that the 'evidence' you challenge 'doubters' like me to produce is not available to 'outsiders'. Bureaucracies like, in this case, the CDC, the NIH, the FDC, and CMS keep the evidence 'close'. And 'insiders' have great financial and job security incentives to protect the secrets. A whistleblower, like Edward Snowden, is either forced to flee the country, arrested, or 'disappeared'. I was an insider at a couple of NY state government agencies and a county agency. I left in order to not have to continue doing things that I thought were immoral ('only following orders' as the Nazi bureaucrats of the Third Reich famously apologized). Fortunately I had other financial and job security options so I had that freedom. I was never an insider at the relevant federal agencies. So, no, I can't produce the evidence of the false assertions of research conclusions or the efficacy of the several covid vaccines nor on the classification of diagnoses or deaths as covid or 'not covid'. Nevertheless, the mere existences of CDC Alert #2 and most sections of the CARES act, and their 'coincidental' appearance within weeks of each other is sufficient evidence (smoke where there's fire) for me. I assume we will continue to disagree. I will also continue to avoid another covid 'jab' unless another gf uses my refusal as a cock blocker.

[Ceej]

Ok this is getting out of hand. Thread temporarily  locked.