Is there NO END to Barry's ignorant inanity?? --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote: <snip> > Excellent article, Bob,
(Side note: You can tell how unhappy and angry Barry is at any given moment by how many words it takes before a post that starts out positive turns negative. In this case, it's three. Not a good day for Barry.) one that links (in my mind, > at least) what I was saying last week about the rush > to bring an untested flu vaccine to market and shoot > everybody up with it It won't be untested, of course. , and the gun nuts who store up > guns to "be prepared" for when the guvmint comes to > take their guns -- and their liberty -- away from > them. > > Both phenomena, IMO, are linked by two things -- > the first is FEAR, and the second is the rush to > Do Something to reinforce the delusion that one is > "in control," that one can *fight* one's FEAR if > one just has enough guns or enough vaccines. This makes zero sense where flu is concerned. An effective flu vaccine eliminates the fear of catching the flu, by definition. > Vaccines are great, when they have been thoroughly > tested. Given the level of FEAR and panic in the air > over H1N1, Actually there isn't any panic and very little fear. There's probably not *enough* fear. The government and the health agencies have said explicitly that what they're really concerned about is *complacency*. there is *simply no possibility* that the > tests on that vaccine are going to be thorough enough. Something Barry has absolutely zero qualifications to judge. > It is going to be rushed to market because 1) the > public wants it Actually it's the government and the health agencies that want it, because a bad flu outbreak would be extremely disruptive and damaging to the country, not to mention causing a lot of deaths. I already pointed out to Barry that a good 50 percent of people don't want the vaccine, but he's apparently managed to wipe that from his mind. , to help them believe that they are > somehow "in control" and that Bad Things can't happen > to them if they just Do Something. And maybe, hope- > fully, the vaccine will 1) work, and 2) not kill too > many people *as* it works. Reactions to vaccines are > *inevitable*; there was a story on HuffPost yesterday > about an American GI who was sent into a coma as a > result of getting a *smallpox* vaccination, fer > chrissakes. And that's a virus that has been around > for a long time. Who knows what the unforeseen reac- > tions are going to be to rushing an H1N1 vaccine to > market are going to be. The gross ignorance and utter absence of any kind of logic in the above are extraordinary. The soldier didn't have a bad reaction to the smallpox vaccine because it was untested. It's the same vaccine we've been using for *two centuries*. It's why smallpox has been virtually eradicated. *Any* vaccine has risks, no matter how thoroughly it's been tested. You don't withdraw a vaccine for a pandemic disease because a few people may be harmed by it. The soldier's reaction wasn't "unforeseen." We know a few people experience bad side effects (as the article noted). As I *also* pointed out to Barry, and as he *also* has managed to erase from his mind because it doesn't fit his thesis, we know a great deal about flu vaccines; they aren't that different from each other. We've been making them every year for decades. They're among the safest we have. The H1N1 flu is just another flavor of flu. The reason it's more of a problem than seasonal flu is that nobody (except maybe some older people) has antibodies against it. The vaccine will be just another flavor of flu vaccine, not some entirely new creation using pioneering methodology and novel ingredients. It doesn't *need* a whole lot of testing. The HuffPo story wasn't a jeremiad against untested vaccines in any case. It was about the soldier's problems getting compensation for his injuries from the vaccine. The story couldn't possibly be any more irrelevant. > But it's going to happen, because of humans' tendency > to think that if we just Do Something we'll be back > in control again, and Bad Things won't happen to us. In April, Barry was the very *embodiment* of this tendency. In order to be back in control again after reading scary stories in the media about the flu, he Did Something: he rushed out and stocked up on flu medication so that Bad Things wouldn't happen to him. It's an entirely sensible tendency to take steps to keep Bad Things from happening to you. Now it seems as though Barry is against the very concept of preventive medicine. Has he decided to give away his flu medication, I wonder? <snip> > The only trouble is, it's a fantasy. A *well-tested* > vaccine might kill all those Bad Guy H1N1 viruses and > save the day, but one rushed to market in a few weeks? Unbelievable. In the first place, it'll be *months*, not "a few weeks." In the second place, where on *earth* did Barry get the idea that testing the vaccine for a shorter period would make it less effective against the flu virus?? In the third place, if you take more time to test it, *there won't be any point in having it*. The whole *reason* for the vaccine is to reduce the spread of the virus. You have a simple choice: Get the vaccine out in time to restrict the spread of the flu and risk some negative side effects that don't show up in the initial testing, or have a serious nationwide outbreak in which a lot of people will die and the country will suffer a lot of harm. To make the vaccine available quickly is a tradeoff, a calculated risk. In the case of flu vaccine, it's pretty silly to be more AFRAID of vaccine side effects than of a bad flu outbreak. <snip> > So is this "link" I perceive in the mindset that is > rushing a vaccine to market and the gun nuts' clinging > to their penises a bit "stretched?" No, there's zero relationship between the two. Nothing to *be* stretched. > History has proven otherwise. Vaccines rushed to mar- > ket to assuage FEAR have proven to often create as many > problems as they solved. Actually this has happened very, VERY rarely. The only reason it can be said of the 1976 vaccine is that the flu pandemic it was designed for *never developed in the first place*, not because the side effects of the vaccine were widespread. (Something else I had previously pointed out to Barry.) In contrast, the current swine flu pandemic *has already developed*. It's a *fact*, not just a prediction. <snip> > I think that if Americans want to Do Something to > fight against what's really bothering them and making > them crazy, they have to "man up" and ADMIT what it is > that is really bothering them. They're AFRAID. In the first place, people aren't afraid ENOUGH. If they were, they'd be clamoring for the vaccine, and they would, of course, know perfectly well they wanted the vaccine *because* they were afraid. And there's excellent reason for concern in any case. It's entirely reasonable and rational to take preventive measures. Does Barry think people shouldn't wash their hands or cover their sneezes because to do so just gives them the illusion of control and lets them think that Bad Things won't happen to them? Trying > to act all "in control" by rolling out an untested > vaccine is in the same ballpark IMO as trying to act > all "macho" by posturing with penis substitutes. It's > "whistling in the dark," pretending that they aren't > afraid. But they are. Total bullshit where vaccines are concerned. Can't somebody take Barry aside and persuade him to stop humiliating himself by posting rants that deal with things he knows nothing about? Can't somebody talk him into letting them have a look at what he writes before he posts to see if it makes any *sense*?
