Is it ok to ask about the ramping up of vaccine side effects stories?

[SparklingJam]

I’m generally pro vaccines, but I’m starting to question the effects of the covid jab, and wonder if it’s possible to have a discussion about it. Apologies if this has been done to death, or isn’t an accepted topic.

I’ve been seeing more information about deaths of young men, how the vaccine isn’t very effective against covid, and hearing all about dreadful side effects, to the point where some people won’t have the jab because they “know” they’ll die.

I can fully accept that there are side effects, but the talk of increased deaths (apparently 1300 excess deaths per week, coupled with videos of supposed undertakers saying they are 50-100% busier now) is making me question things and worry.

Having said that, in my extended circle of friends, family and colleagues, I know many people who are mostly vaccinated, and apart from a day or 5 of feeling fluey they all have no side effects and haven’t died.
At the same time through the same extended group, I know a couple who have died of covid and several who still have long covid which has disabled them to varying degrees.

It would be logical to think that the excess deaths are a catch up to lock down and lack of hospital treatment, plus the current issues many have with seeing a gp or calling an ambulance, but I am assured by certain people that the excess deaths are solely due to the vaccine.

Do you think a bunch of posters from the US turned up on this thread overnight to post antivax stuff by coincidence?

Some things surely stretch credulity.

@noblegiraffe
I'm referring to this article

www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-62664537.amp

It just validates all those who were anti lockdown at the time and who didn't trust the government.
If we'd had open discussion, prepared for the trade offs and the government said that they've considered all angles and this is the best decision, there would be more public trust in how it was all handled.

Personally, I think we locked down at the right time and agreed when we didn't lockdown when there was public pressure saying we should.

It just validates all those who were anti lockdown at the time and who didn't trust the government.

That's exactly why he said it.

I think most people were relieved at the start of the pandemic when Boris Johnson said he would be listening to people who knew what they were talking about instead of listening to Boris Johnson who famously put himself in hospital by not paying attention to covid advice.

I watched the YouTube video about excess deaths. Not a single mention of vaccines? So why are you using it in an anti vacc thread?

TikTok videos as credible evidence?

Share something peer reviewed and published in the Lancet then I will consider it credible.

Until then I will leave you polishing you tinfoil.

Where is anyone accusing the non anti vaxxers of being paid or having nefarious ends? Unless you are implying this yourself?

Someone has literally already said their post would be deleted on Facebook...

@noblegiraffe my point is that distrust now ripples through to the vaccines, especially when discussion is shut down.
Those people assume they'll be validated soon in the same way.

Yes, it is OK to question it. We should be questioning. Tho most people are brainwashed in thinking it's not OK to question. And if you do you're considered an anti jabber.

That distrust isn't 'rippling through to the vaccines', that distrust has been deliberately aimed at the vaccines by organised groups whose discussion about how best to achieve that is available to read on the internet.

Groups who have been 'innocently' linked to on this thread.

That wasn't quite what I meant. I was referring to things like 'protective ring around care homes', kids don't get ill/spread it, do as I say but not as I do, downplaying role of airborne transmission above formite transmission etc

With regard to Rishi, he is playing to a particular audience. Govt would have had access to advisors across a range of disciplines, including economics. I do remember experts being told to get back in their box if they spoke out, as they weren't elected officials, so govt were quite quick to speak up when it suited them. The particular extreme minority view 'experts' (Great Barrington Declaration) advocating herd immunity were also met with by govt. Govt do/don't listen to experts when it suits them. Experts are there to advise, not to set policy. Experts should inform policy, govt sets policy.

So he was an anti vaccine grifter long before any evidence of increased heart attacks.

And yet Aseem Malhotra was so anti vaccine that he had the vaccines, believing he was protecting his patients.

• ok so long before the vaccines were on the horizon I started to look at how I could help myself, as anyone might, rather than feeling victim to circumstance.

Obesity and diabetes were recognised as two confounding factors so I looked at what the diabetes, obesity and heart disease experts that I could access were saying. Many of them were in agreement.

I could recognise my own blood sugar issues which were made more noticeable when I took up a new activity and found that following their dietry advice ironed out those dips in blood sugar and made a significant difference to my ability and stamina for that sport and energy levels on the whole.

Did we get any advice from the govt on supporting our health and immune system beyond 'wash your hands'
and stay away from your friends and loved ones?
I had developed many healthy coping mechanisms over the years and these were all at one removed. - the ability to spend time with friends, getting out into nature and so on.

• ministers were parroting that we could exercise once per day, which was never actually the law, but everyone seemed keen to have their one daily walk for no more than an hour and even worried about being reported if they exceeded that.

Instead we had lots of baking (and eating), being indoors, alcohol, takeaways, scary public service adverts on the TV. Stress is a massive compounding factor. It knocks our immune system and makes it harder to make healthy choices.

I note now that while covid is very much still around, the sanitising message has already taken a backseat in Germany where hot water is being stopped in public buildings to save fuel.
This is so contradictory to what we've had drummed into us.

So much of what we've been asked to do has been contradictory, counterintuitive and even counterproductive. It's understandable that people will have questions and draw their own conclusions.

I'm a bit baffled by these new "debates". Are many of us actually covered by vaccines at the moment anyway? No one in my household has had a booster since November 2021 - 9 months ago. We've all had covid at least once, twice or three times each since the start of the pandemic, including a sweep through of all of us this summer that was like a mild cold for all.

I agree completely that the elderly, exposed (frontline staff) and vulnerable should be vaccinated, as with the flu, but honestly, what is the point for the rest of us when it's now an endemic, mild illness for the majority?

What other life saving drugs do you think we should be questioning?

It’s not really contradictory, it’s just moving with the science. That advice was reasonable at the start but we know that direct contact is not the main way covid is spread. Washing your hands is far less useful than ventilating rooms and public buildings.

washing hands might reduce the risk slightly but even in that case water temp is not important. It makes no difference whether you wash your hands in warm or cold water. It’s the soap that’s important.

I love the way Dr. Malhotra's (own) website describes him as "one of the most influential cardiologists in Britain". I mean, what league table did they draw that conclusion from?

he’s also a “top nhs consultant working at ROC private clinic”

how does that work?

And the censorship from top professionals is sickening

there is no censorship. You write up your research, you submit for publication where it is sent for review by several of your peers. If the research appears sound, it is published.

if your methods or methodology are a bit shaky, you either do further work to corroborate, or you go down the ranks of journal prestige until you find someone to take it.

if you’re outside the research field you may put equal importance on something published in the British journal of Cancer as you do on homeopathy weekly. It is not the same.

i knew someone fairly high profile, who died suddenly in their 20’s. professional athlete. All social media has drawn the conclusion it’s vaccine related - it most certainly wasn’t.

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize. - Voltaire

Gina Ford?

I agree completely that the elderly, exposed (frontline staff) and vulnerable should be vaccinated, as with the flu, but honestly, what is the point for the rest of us when it's now an endemic, mild illness for the majority?

because vaccines are what’s keeping it an endemic, mild illness for the majority.

it’s not an individual issue, it’s a population issue. Some people will only need one vaccine to be fully covered, some will take two, some will temporarily seroconvert and need a booster. It is far less invasive and cost effective to vaccinate everyone, there’s no easy way to tell which one you’ll be.

if we stop with the vaccine programme and enough people lose their immunity, we’re back at the point where people are getting seriously ill and all the ventilators are taken.

the issue with people “educating themselves” is usually they don’t have the scientific background to critically interpret science data. It’s not enough to understand the principle, you need to look at whether the methodology is sound, the stats have been applied correctly, whether results have been normalised- whether the principle has been further investigated by other researchers. It is not as simple as “this paper says x”…

i'M JuSt AsKiNg qUeStiOnS

In principle, someone can be highly influential or even the most influential in the world by enabling their peers to look at them and deciding not to emulate them.

I think adult education is fabulous, the number of people who can scratch the surface, become constitutional law experts, international trade experts, virologists, epidemiologists, brain control by wifi experts, chip in a vaccine leading to brain control experts (don't know what the proper name for the last two specialisms is though expect in the future they will be named once they become settled academic fields) all by watching a few of the right videos and being willing to scratch the surface and temporarily set aside the constraints of epistemology. Funny enough, when a couple I know have have strokes or heart attacks, mainstream medicine and big pharma suddenly seems to stop being the enemy.

I think adult education is fabulous, the number of people who can scratch the surface, become experts

none of these people put their money where there mouth is and actually join the field they’re interested in either.

not one of these people have said, you know what, I want to help prove the hypothesis, I’m off to join dr malhotra’s lab and write a PhD on the inefficacy of the covid vaccine and evidence based harm.

funnily enough no one working in the field has done it either- it’s all through the medium of YouTube and twitter. Wonder why…

@Reallyreallyborednow funny that. Always some more important and new field to scratch the surface, presumably? I found some of the promoting alternative medications during COVID showed some interesting psychology too. It seemed to involve using something provided 'they'/Big Pharma didn't want you to know about using that particular medication in a non-approved way. But without the evidence base that eventually showed, for example Dexamethasone, worked as a treatment in some circumstances.

Someone compared it to rocket science.

Do you not think rocket science is rather different to the average person? The average person with average education is not being asked to inject rocket science into their own arm. I had my three jabs because I decided on balance I'd rather try and minimise potential Covid damage. I don't think I'll have another at the moment.

It's all very well sneering at people's stupidity and lack of education on the internet. But this conveniently ignores the utter breakdown of trust which has been allowed to happen between the Haves (and it seems as though science and education is being included in the Haves) and the Have Nots. And then of course there is Partygate and endless endless similar scandals in which those at the top stand on lecterns and tell the public what is best for them along with veiled threats of withdrawing privileges if they don't comply, while doing exactly as they please behind closed doors.

Remember Gove and his "people in this country have had enough of experts"? They can't have it both ways.

Do none of the sneerers think these things might be connected?

They might be connected in terms of thought patterns in the UK

But they're not connected to the actual vaccinations, for which the evidence is international