If you could go back in time, would you still get the jab?

[Quweenie]

If you could go back in time, would you still get the Covid jab?

I don’t really care if you’re vaccinated or not, but I’m interested if people would go back and change their decision?

Thank you TortolaParadise. Unfortunately for many of those who reacted to the vaccines with less acute injuries (even if life changing as in my case), there has been a very long lag between having the vaccines and any investigations etc. It has taken some of us a long journey to even have our health issues recognised let alone treated. The yellow card system seems extremely patchy in its collating of the data so I do believe that there are more injuries than we know about sadly.

@HelpfulMonkey

I gave you a question to answer too:

Did you realise you were linking a politician from a far right extremist party?

Or

Were you unaware of her political
affiliations/need to check your sources?

In much the same way as if : a person had cancer and was persuaded to use a herbal remedy and ignore the advice of their doctor based on scant/discredited evidence promoted in a social media group.

It's not like that or backstreet surgery, you need to stop comparing people urging caution with this vaccine to people who promote insane things.

You make it sound like you have no diversity in your circles, like you actually believe a media portrayal of someone who see's the financial conflicts of interest between companies producing this medication, groups approving it, groups mandating it and outlets feeding us our information on it and the extreme manipulation for us to judge vaccine hesitancy and sometimes blatant coercion of people who do not want to take it.

I know people who didn't take any doses because of this, I know people who didn't take the vaccine because they have seen people have adverse (what I would call quite serious) reactions to theirs, I know people considering themselves low risk and so the benefits not outweighing the risks for them (that's actually the stance I took for my own child who has still evaded COVID as far as we know). I don't know anyone on the far right, that seems to be a general smear thrown around now about anyone who disagrees with you, I've heard it said that some pretty centrist and left leaning people are 'far right' about various things unrelated to this. People I know have a range of professions including in the health sector. The first person that I personally know who chose not to vaccinate her or her children was a cardiology nurse. I don't know anyone who pushed their will down my throat and asked me not to have a vaccine or anyone who made me feel judged for not vaccinating my child or not continuing with dose after dose after the first.

I understand that you are only interested in robust evidenced facts......... Until you are judging someone's character and assuming their beliefs on things completely unrelated to this one particular vaccine, even saying 'anti vaxxer' is an assumption. It's prejudice to know one single thing about someone and decide that you can assume the rest from there, that's why things like this and Brexit and identity politics can be so divisive and there's always a media with an agenda pushing for this division.

@MinkyGreen thank you for avoiding my question and answering it with a question, strange thing to do but anyway.

I was talking about someone who appeared to be doing something interesting, not that bothered about their background if they are revealing information which is relevant and I am sorry if you are allowing your personal bias to get in the way of facts.

Hope you answer my questions now.

I was talking about someone who appeared to be doing something interesting, not that bothered about their background if they are revealing information which is relevant and I am sorry if you are allowing your personal bias to get in the way of facts.

This is my stance too, why does everything have to have a fucking wing?

Why can't adults look at issues in isolation?

If some religious zealot on the extreme right said the earth is round then I don't need to abandon that belief because I'm pro choice and I'm on the fence about the whole God thing, I can say that on that I agree with them.

@MinkyGreen
I read the CMU paper and the graph represents their findings accurately. if you deem their original research to be flawed, that does not mean that the findings (which are accurately represented in the graph) are taken out of context. why do you find it threatening that many highly educated people abstained from this medical procedure? i understand from your posts that you consider yourself to be intellectually superior to others on this thread- why else would you bother correcting grammatical errors of someone who disagrees with you? if i were you, i'd double check my own grammar before patronisingly correcting others...

@itwasntmetho
@HelpfulMonkey

Ok - well that’s an incredibly ‘head in the sand’ response from both of you! Even though you are accusing me of being blinkered.

Of course you should check your sources. It’s vital to know the bias/political bias of your sources. They could very well be manipulating data to suit their political stance. As illustrated with the graph presented completely out of context by ‘unherd’ and taken from a study where the authors had actually put their findings into the correct context/explained the anomaly.

The whole point of consensus science is it the best way to eliminate bias. A paper is presented. It gets peer reviewed. That peer review is so vital because it’s only when a large number of scientists come together and agree : that any bias can be eliminated to the greatest possible degree.

A far right politician presenting findings out of context is going to have an EXTREME level of bias.

@MinkyGreen

Unherd is a very right wing publication - and yes, very right wing groups are against the vaccine. For survival of the fittest type reasons.

for example, "For survival of the fittest type reasons," is not a sentence. not only is your phrase improperly constructed, but also inane. perhaps you could include some robust, peer reviewed studies to support your claim? if you are unable to do so, i suppose the only conclusion to de drawn is that you are spreading misinformation.

@peppathe3rd

I’ve linked above what the authors of the study said about the anomaly. Do you need me to do it again?

@itwasntmetho well said.
Glad to see there are some people on here who aren't just desperate to shut down any debate without looking at the actual facts.

I was referring to your claim about survival of the fittest.

@MinkyGreen
i will ask again... why do you find it threatening that a proportion of the most highly educated people in society have opted out of this medical intervention? i, on the other hand, don't find it bothersome that many of the least educated have also abstained.

@peppathe3rd

I don’t. And I’ve already answered the question above with statements from the authors of the paper.

There are plenty of papers linking far right extremism with vaccine hesitancy. But of course you’d know this as you have such a broad outlook.

“Consistent with prior data, we found that far-right supporters were almost twice as likely to be vaccine-hesitant than the overall population in December 2020, before vaccines became available. However, with a successful vaccine roll out, this difference shrank, reaching non-significance by September 2021. From October 2021, however, vaccine hesitancy rebounded among this group at a time when the leadership of the far-right promoted a ‘freedom of choice’ discourse common among anti-vax supporters. By the latest month analysed (January 2022), far-right voters had returned to being twice as likely to be vaccine-hesitant and 7 percentage points less likely to be vaccinated than the general population”

@MinkyGreen @HelpfulMonkey @itwasntmetho

A far right politician presenting findings out of context is going to have an EXTREME level of bias.

Your critique of their responses is not valid. i believe the point attempting to be made is - facts and truth stand alone. just because a person with, what i deem to be unfortunate, right wing political leanings presents something, those facts are not immediately debunked because of their personal beliefs. the beauty of true science is that "beliefs" play no part in its process. political beliefs cannot sway facts.

@HelpfulMonkey

How can something be an ‘actual fact’ when it’s cherry picked from a paper, presented with no context or acknowledgement of the authors explanation for the anomaly. The authors of the paper didn’t say what you are saying at all - and I think they are in the best position to analyse the findings of a study they conducted. Not you.

@MinkyGreen That's interesting, no one I know who is 'vaccine hesitant' is right wing in any way. Shame that you are connecting the two things.

Hope you find time to answer my questions too.

@peppathe3rd

I actually agree with you there! The beauty of science is that political beliefs should not sway findings!

Which is what consensus science attempts to do.

The problem is that you have an extreme right wing politician presenting something that is against consensus science. It’s vital that you are aware of her bias - because she could very well be manipulating science to fit her ideology.

@HelpfulMonkey

Ok, well I’m very pleased to hear that!

Look - all I really want to say are you aware of your sources. I don’t know you from anyone - so if you link a far right controversial politician, I DO think it’s really important to be aware of that - and their potential bias.

As I said to another poster : I do think we ultimately want the same thing - a free and healthy society.

I’m not completely against alternative thought processes, but those thought processes need to then be backed by the most robust evidence possible - and peer reviewed - before they are considered the safest course of action for global public health.

@MinkyGreen Thank you.
I am very aware of the possibility of bias etc but facts are always facts.

Would be great if you have a second to answer my questions, sorry if you have answered before but I am curious as to how you know so much about this topic and spend so much time on here defending particular issues, sorry if that's nosey, it would just be great to have some context or background on why you perceive yourself to be an authority in this area

May be someone could post a continuation thread as this is nearly full. I think the vaccine lasts about 4 months www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-long-does-the-covid-vaccine-last#vaccine-types which is probably about the same for someone who had covid as I did in July 2022. So the Uk decided what I wanted from early 2020 to let it run riot in the young (those of my children who had it had their 3rd jab in Jan 2021 and not offered one since). So this seems to have been about whether the UK took the right decision around early 2021 to let it run riot in younger people (may be because the strain by then was less bad) compared with my choice - not incurring the furlough etc debt hurting young people for a generation and letting it run rampant come what may in March 2020.

@HelpfulMonkey

At the start of the pandemic, someone extremely close to me was diagnosed with bowel cancer. I was the primary carer, so resigned from my job and supported. It was the experience I had with the hospital which was overwhelmed with Covid patients. This has probably prompted my interest.

I do have a science degree, as do several members of my family. So I hear a lot of scientific conversations. This has also shaped my thinking.

I don’t think I’m authority at all - but I respect consensus science. All I’m doing is stating guidelines and quoting from the studies that support those guidelines.

Why do you support what consensus science would consider to be ‘anti-science’?

@MinkyGreen I don't 'support' anything, I just think this is an interesting area with lots of crazy stuff going on and hugely polarised opinions.
It's a big event that effects us all so it's important to know about what the truth is.

Thanks for the info - it seems your personal experience has shaped your views as it would anyone, hope you are still able to see the bigger picture.

@HelpfulMonkey

Ok. Favour alternative thinking??

I applaud creative thinking and the ability to think differently. Certainly in artistic subjects.

But in science? It’s different. In medicine you have to go with the safest option. So : at this point in time, the majority of scientists think ‘xyz’ is the safest option. This process is fluid. So yes, alternative thought processes are important. They help to improve things for the future.
IF an alternative thought process starts to carry weight : it will gather more and more evidence, backing and then - consensus thought will change.
But if that alternative viewpoint is wrong/highly controversial - and you’ve already advised/persuaded many others to follow that viewpoint - and without sufficient backing - that could be dangerous.

It should also be free from bias which means a broad, wide, global consensus opinion is more likely to safe than a niche opinion or an opinion from a politician with an agenda.

The same people who complained about Pfizer funding of sources needing to have
political biases of sources explained to them.

"But they're just facts "

Couldn't make it up.

@MinkyGreen I don't favour any 'thinking', just interested in facts.

@sunglassesonthetable nice to see you again, shame you have woken up and decided to start on the insults again, perhaps you might like to let this one go, there is more to life that trying to be rude to people online.