Us and them- the vaccine. So much pressure

[ToTheLetter01]

Before i begin, i am not an anti vaxxer. Me and my DS have had all our jabs and we also have annual flu jabs.
However i feel such hostility and pressure from people who have had their vaccine for me to have it. The reason i do not want it at this moment is just because its still in the experimental stage until 2023 and i would like to know more long term data.
This is my choice, its my body and everyone should have the choice. Choice to have the vaccine and choice to not. I do not shame nor ridicule anyone for having it or not.
However i have felt so much pressure from friends and others in the wider public, media, government.

I feel like the nation is becoming split between us and them. ( vaccinated and unvaccinated). With things becoming unfair for people. Eg. may be able to travel and not quarantine if had vaccines, care home workers may be forced to have the vaccine. Now i get the point of view of they have had it and may be more "safe". But how is the ok in a freedom and rights point of view. As i stated freedom to do what you want with your body.

I feel like this world is becoming some kind of dystopian world. I miss my old life, i took all the freedom for granted. Its true that you don't realise how good it was until it's gone.
I don't want people to be hostile to me because of my choice to wait for long term data on the vaccine. Half of me wants to lie to people i've had it so they will not be stand off towards me.

@JassyRadlett And yet many parents, would like this choice.
They have done their research and feel strongly about it.
Who are you to deny them?
When did we come to this position where there is only one state-sanctioned view on everything?
Please respect differing viewpoints.
We do not live in a communist dictatorship.
Yet.

@Badyboo Please make your point, whatever it is, without resorting to foul language.
Thank you.

you saying "he's more anti-vax than he says" is surely you acknowledging he's not an unbiased source?

Are you unbiased @speckledostrichegg? Are the sources you read and trust? Is anyone or anything unbiased? Is that possible?

Please make your point, whatever it is, without resorting to these kind of ad hominem attacks.

Just as an aside - I’d check the meaning of ad hominem. I’m not attacking him as a person - I am criticising the position he seeks to hold and convey, after evaluating his credibility to hold that position based on his prior actions and statements.

Given his previous actions and statements, I would very strongly argue that his credibility on this field is quite low.

We should not unthinkingly accept someone’s statements on a contentious issue without examining their previous record in related areas. That’s a cornerstone of critical thinking.

Oh no, afraid of a very mild swearword? Must be an antivaxxer side effect.

They have done their research and feel strongly about it.

Their research is wrong. They are wrong. People shouldn't shut up to spare their feelings.

It's as bad as the ones telling people who've had the vaccine they'll be dead in a year. Or when the Danish footballer collapsed of cardiac arrest, that he'd had the Pfizer (and he hadn't).

People should pack it in on both sides. I crapped myself about the vaccine, terrified of blood clots (with a history of, been on blood thinning injections and have rare stroke like migraines) so I put it off for ages because I didn't want the AZ.

I eventually got the Pfizer (luck of the draw) and am glad I did do it, but I have no right to start asking anyone at work or friends/family if they've had it or when they'll get it.

None of my business. Unless, they want to talk about it/ask opinions.

@Dustyboots

you saying "he's more anti-vax than he says" is surely you acknowledging he's not an unbiased source?

Are you unbiased @speckledostrichegg? Are the sources you read and trust? Is anyone or anything unbiased? Is that possible?

come on now @Dustyboots, this is ridiculous and you're just swerving away from your original points, which were spreading anti-vax misinformation which you weren't able to back up

in my scientific views, and my work as a scientist, yep I'm unbiased

There are scientists who views are backed by a robust body of evidence (i.e, multiple good quality evidence sources which arrive at the same answer and where the limitations/biases are clearly acknowledged), those I would "trust" if such a word is appropriate

@YarnOver

I can't have the vaccines. Any of them, for genuine medical reasons and I've been told by my Drs that I cannot. I have posted on here about it not too long ago as I feel absolutely terrible that I can't be vaccinated because if I don't, I'm risking other people.

People who don't have genuine reasons not to do it, are quite honestly just selfish. Because the people who actually cannot have it, those of us who would be actually risking our lives to do so, do need everyone around us to be vaccinated.

But you're too precious and selfish to do it so, thanks for that.

I agree. They don't seem to care about vulnerable people who can't be vaccinated.

Are you talking about Richard Halvorsen @JassyRadlett?

What knowledge do you have of him?

I read his book and talked to him in person. He makes a lot of sense to me. He’s a trained doctor. Why should I not trust him? I thought all trained medics were to be trusted. He hasn’t been struck off.

Is there no variation in viewpoint allowed in medicine? If not, it does seem as though medical training is a form of indoctrination.

@JassyRadlett And yet many parents, would like this choice.

Yes, though critical thinking demands we try to understand why they would like that choice.

And it doesn’t alter the fact that he abs a commercial interest in the proven vacccine misinformation he continues (as recently as 2019) to champion.

Please respect differing viewpoints.

I respect others’ right to hold differing viewpoints, even if those viewpoints are demonstrably wrong or silly.

But not all opinions are created equal and they do not command equal respect, and no one should be expected to respect as fact an opinion that can be disproven.

in my scientific views, and my work as a scientist, yep I'm unbiased

You come across as extremely biased, and in fact closed minded, on here @speckledostrichegg

@Dustyboots

Are you talking about Richard Halvorsen *@JassyRadlett*?

What knowledge do you have of him?

I read his book and talked to him in person. He makes a lot of sense to me. He’s a trained doctor. Why should I not trust him? I thought all trained medics were to be trusted. He hasn’t been struck off.

Is there no variation in viewpoint allowed in medicine? If not, it does seem as though medical training is a form of indoctrination.

fgs

many posters have explained the issues with his views and the misinformation he's spreading. I gave you the example of his most recent claim that vaccines cause allergies when given under 6 months, and how there wasn't robust evidence to back this up.

this isn't "a variation in viewpoint", it's just misinformation

andrew wakefield was also a clinician, as are all the members of that american frontline group which are full of crap. It's clearly not a mutually exclusive.

@Dustyboots

in my scientific views, and my work as a scientist, yep I'm unbiased

You come across as extremely biased, and in fact closed minded, on here @speckledostrichegg

how so?

@JassyRadlett Yet you seek to undermine someone who holds differing views by suggesting they are promoting these views to make money.
You have absolutely no evidence for this.
It takes a huge amount of courage to deny the popular narrative, doing so is not the act of a charlatan.
Any medic speaking out will lose their livelihood, their reputation and their funding.
I applaud them for having the courage of their convictions.

Dr Halvorsen literally makes money from his views. Not even a controversial statement.

many posters have explained the issues with his views and the misinformation he's spreading

Why should I trust these posters who are equally biased more than a trained doctor? I don’t know who any of you are.

And you say he’s misinformed purely because his opinion doesn’t match your own.

Is there no variation in viewpoint allowed in medicine? If not, it does seem as though medical training is a form of indoctrination.

There is plenty of variation of viewpoint in medicine. But medicine is a science, not humanities, and as such where there are differing hypotheses, the responsible thing to do is test them and seek to prove them, and practice based on scientifically rigorous evidence.

The MMR/autism link has been as thoroughly debunked as anything has ever been in modern science. The amount of work and resources put into testing a hypothesis for which the initial evidence was proven to be fraudulent has been extraordinary.

So yes, he can continue to hold that viewpoint. But he should expect people to ask why he is championing a viewpoint with such overwhelming countervailing evidence, particularly when he has enjoyed commercial benefit from championing that viewpoint that is so curiously unsupported by objective evidence.

That’s how science works. People ask questions. They seek evidence to help them answer those questions. And they keep asking. And if the evidence consistently shows them that their first idea was wrong, they accept it and keep looking for the right answer.

@loulouljh

But the danger is not covid. That's the issue! The danger is people following like sheep, not having any independent thought, being intolerant of other people's views, being unable to debate without resorting to personal insults. The danger is also the fact we have now have incompetent dictatorship ruling this country with zero opposition. The danger is the fact we have screwed a whole generation of children. The danger is the huge backlogs with the NHS, the cancers going undetected. Those to me are the dangers. Not covid. That is small fry.

I would have more sympathy with your concern about people being unable to debate without resorting to personal insults if you had not just referred to large numbers of others as “sheep.”

You refer to Covid as small fry. I think that’s a fundamental misunderstanding. It is the cause of everything else you are concerned about. (well, Ok not the incompetent government - that’s on them)

The huge backlogs with the NHS and cancers going undetected? Yes, awful. It could be 5 or 10 years, maybe a generation to get back to where we were.

These things are consequences of the strain the NHS was under trying to simultaneously care for all the people who were very sick with Covid AND limit the transmission of Covid (by reducing face to face contact, segregating patients, staff self-isolating).

These problems are NOT caused by lockdown - would have been far worse without lockdown, and far less severe had lockdown been introduced earlier. We may not now be facing a Delta-variant-fuelled third wave if the Government had acted quicker on travel restrictions and quarantine.

These problems are NOT caused by vaccines, or the pressure to have vaccines. Without vaccines, the social, economic and health damage would be far worse than they already are, because the virus would take several years to work its way through the population before it settled down to a low rumbling background level. On its way, it would cause hundreds of thousands of deaths and make millions of people chronically ill/disabled.

The more people get vaccinated and the quicker that happens, the sooner we will get to the low rumbling background level, aka “living with the virus” and the lower the level of death and disability it will take us to get there.

The fact that we have not one but several vaccines which are both highly (not 100%) effective and extremely (not totally) safe is nothing short of a miracle.

If, despite all the arguments in favour of getting vaccinated, you want to exercise your right not to, so be it. But it is unreasonable to expect that no-one is ever going to get a bit narked with you.

@Dustyboots

many posters have explained the issues with his views and the misinformation he's spreading

Why should I trust these posters who are equally biased more than a trained doctor? I don’t know who any of you are.

And you say he’s misinformed purely because his opinion doesn’t match your own.

no I really don't, he's misinformed because his views are not backed up by robust science

i even linked to the original source he used to make this claim, where the authors clearly state it shouldn't be used make causal inferences?

Halvorsen, Clanssen and Wakefield has been widely discredited by the medical community, simply because there is not evidence for the clais they make. This is beyond their affiliations, personal views or other controversies.

@speckledostrichegg so doctors you disagree with are “full of crap”... er, still not winning hearts and minds.

[quote Sadsiblingatsea]@youshouldbeplotting So you only think it worth listening to someone if they have lots of Twitter followers?
Then you must be hanging onto every word uttered by Piers Morgan, Christie Teigen and other such luminaries of compassion, sense and wisdom who have millions of them 🤪[/quote]
Nice straw man there sad sibling!

I have more followers than the good Dr H. I have zero influence. If people were buying into his ideas he would have far a bigger following than me.

Of course having zillions of Twitter followers doesn't equal being a fount of compassion, sense and wisdom. It does equal reach and influence though. Like it or not, SM is a powerful tool in the dissemination of ideas.

Ok just to bring things back to basics.

A GP friend of mine said vaccine refusers/ opted outers etc are accounted for. The 70% or whatever amount needs to be vaccinated takes this into account in order to achieve herd immunity.

So what’s the problem. It’s a very small number of people choosing not to have the vaccine.

[quote Sadsiblingatsea]@speckledostrichegg so doctors you disagree with are “full of crap”... er, still not winning hearts and minds.[/quote]
again, nice swerve but doesn't make any sense

The AFDs are full of crap, because they are full of crap, not because I disagree with their views

www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/90536

Yet you seek to undermine someone who holds differing views by suggesting they are promoting these views to make money.

Again, no. You need to work on how you précis people’s statements, because somehow you keep misrepresenting people. I’m sure it’s accidental.

I made no comment on his motive - that would be a statement of opinion, not fact.

I stated that he has a commercial interest in people believing those things. This is factually true. Whether his acts are based on that commercial interest, I don’t know. That would be speculation on my part.

As I set out above, something being in someone’s commercial interest doesn’t necessarily mean they will act on it. But when a commercial interest and a controversial of non-evidence-based information campaign align, it is prudent to consider the link as part of examining the credibility of the evidence - just as one would examine the credibility of their previous statements and actions.

Having done that, I don’t think he has much credibility, so won’t pay much attention or put much weight on what he says. You’ve reached a different position based on your own evaluation of the evidence, that’s absolutely your right and good for you.

The point is that you believing that he is a credible source doesn’t make him so or require others to give his opinion the same weight as you do; and in debates on the subject his credibility may be questioned if you’re promoting his viewpoints.

I hope that’s sufficiently clear on my position. Oh