a month ago
Related: US will overhaul childhood vaccine schedule to recommend fewer shots (33 points, 4 days ago, 11 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46504844
Unrelated: MHRA approves self replicating mRNA Covid-19 vaccine (10 points, 5 days ago, 6 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46500392
a month ago
This is directionally correct but methodologically flawed.
The US requires 5-10 more vaccines for children by 5 years old than Japan does. Japan also has a much more spaced out schedule over those 5 years.
Given that the American health machine is largely driven by pharmaceutical companies, it seems likely that there is some fat that can be trimmed. Did they trim it here? Who knows.
a month ago
Japan has a different medical system, different levels of adherence, different cultural hygiene standards, different exposure risk profiles for different pathogens.
Comparing the U.S. to Japan, or any other system for that matter, with a simple “well the vaccine schedule is different there” is simplistic and almost certainly not useful.
What is useful is to compare the U.S. with and without a certain vaccine or when delaying certain vaccines.
And we know how that plays out because all these vaccines have been added because of specific threats and actual diseases faced by Americans.
a month ago
Not sure "comparing A to B is 100% totally useless because A and B have some differences" is a good strategy?
22 days ago
Japan has a different medical system, different levels of adherence, different cultural hygiene standards, different exposure risk profiles for different pathogens.
I mean kind of? They have a booming tourist industry which seems to negate your hypothesis.
a month ago
Looks like they want to reduce population
a month ago
Vaccines are unpopular with many. I don’t see why the motives have to be more complicated than that.
But, I would say that trying a different approach that acknowledges how patients feel could help rebuild public trust in healthcare institutions. Taking a broader viewpoint, this could save lives.
a month ago
Infants have rights too. It's against the law for a "seatbelt skeptic" not to put their kid in a safety seat.
a month ago
As you increasingly mandate things that the public thinks are optional, eventually mandates in general start to look unimportant, and eventually you get less safety seat compliance.
If there are some illnesses we can handle with without universal vaccination, then including those vaccines as mandates means you’ll eventually get less compliance for high-priority vaccines too. This is what we’ve seen play out when the public distrusts medical authorities. We live in a democratic society and (not) listening goes both ways.
a month ago
Every disease can be treated without a vaccine. But treatments aren't 100%, and treatments come with their own risk. Taking medicine isn't risk-free, and certainly not necessarily less risky than vaccinations. So, even if you believe it's fine to just treat the disease instead of trying to prevent it, that doesn't mean you skip out on risk. You could have more, just from the medicines alone, not even considering the effects of the disease itself.
a month ago
There are vast trade-offs that are worth considering beyond what you’ve outlined. I encourage you to think more about this.
a month ago
Do you intend on elaborating on these, allegedly, "vast" tradeoffs?
It's a bit rich to be talking about tradeoffs when I'm the only one here addressing risk in an honest way.
It's not "free" to treat diseases. The risk of the treatment is something you have to weigh in, in addition to the risk of the disease itself.
a month ago
How many deaths are acceptable to say we can "handle" an illness?
Public health requires over 95% vaccination. There has never been a realistic path to that other than requiring students to be vaccinated to attend school. Without that requirement, even well meaning parents forget or may not make it a priority.
It's not fair for kids and others vulnerable in society to die because certain parents are ignorant.
a month ago
Are you prepared to jail people who don’t get covid vaccines? If not, then you understand that there are trade-offs and limitations to what public policies will actually be effective in the real world that actually exists.
Edit: added the following.
> Public health requires over 95% vaccination.
This statement, made without qualifiers, shows that you have more room to think about this. For example, we haven’t had anything like 95% immunizations for smallpox or tuberculosis for a long time, yet public health is no worse off for these reasons.
a month ago
Huh? As I mentioned, it has always been a requirement for students to get vaccinated to attend school. My point still holds that if not for this requirement then we'd be below the critical threshold, whether it's 95% or slightly less.
a month ago
So, let’s start from the idea that a certain vaccination compliance threshold is needed for each illness that we need to and have the ability to prevent.
And then let’s consider the reality that many parents—enough of them to matter—think there are too many vaccines, so compliance has been eroding.
This is the actual challenge: the medical recommendation might be solid, but a public policy doesn’t work unless people follow it.
Because eroded compliance threatens to undermine those critical thresholds, the public policy’s effectiveness is collapsing.
We can stay the course and watch things collapse, determined that the experts are correct and that the general public cannot be helped, or we can update the policy to be more focused so that we achieve those critical thresholds for the most essential immunizations.
a month ago
So you're suggesting that in response to misinformation about provably beneficial safety standards, we should erode the standards.
That encourages even more misinformation, and further erosion of public safety.
a month ago
Ah yes, we’re back to the idea that the public cannot be helped. The answer is that the problem is a different, unsolvable one: presumably due to misinformation, members of the public have opinions that are too strongly held for them to follow policies.
24 days ago
> This is the actual challenge: the medical recommendation might be solid, but a public policy doesn’t work unless people follow it. ... presumably due to misinformation, members of the public have opinions that are too strongly held for them to follow policies.
Right before you posted this, RFK Jr stated that his objectively worse vaccine schedule was weakened so that skeptical people follow it. Whether you were aware of it or not, your arguments merely parroted exactly what he and other anti-vaxxers were heavily spreading on that day.
This is precisely how misinformation spreads, and how anti-vax "influencers" like RFK Jr have a large effect both on you and the public.
- To see how closely your arguments match RFK Jr's, see: https://www.instagram.com/p/DTbrH_zDvqw/
- To see that in actuality Republicans as a group (influenced by prominent anti-vaxxers) dropped from 91% to 78% belief (2016-2025) that vaccine benefits outweigh the risk, see this new Pew study: https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2025/11/18/how-do-americ...
a month ago
Vaccines eradicated some of the worst diseases humans had. If thousands of kids were paralyzed by polio vaccines would become very popular again.
a month ago
a month ago
The federal vaccine recommendation on polio vaccines is not changing.
a month ago
Why polio and not others?
a month ago
Please see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46566754
a month ago
I think the idea that changing stated recommendations based on the public opinion is a questionable strategy that can just backfire into more distrust and behavior that follows the "true" best practices even less as they look for the 'sensible position between extremes'[1].
There are a lot of examples from the response to COVID: frequent early mixed messages around the effectiveness of masks for preventing infection and transmission not based on the actual understanding of said effectiveness but in order to manage supply shortages, arguable overstatement about the one-time long-term effectiveness of the initial vaccines against infection and transmission and not just severity of disease, overemphasis on ineffective measures like hand hygiene or six-foot-distancing over effective measures like air cleaning and masking based on the perceived willingness of the public to follow them, reduction of the stated duration of contagiousness without evidence of such.
It's one thing if it's genuinely not known what the best practices are, but knowing and misleading can confuse people who are willing to follow them and can further alienate skeptics who may seek out charlatans promising them the "real, unfiltered truth".
a month ago
Expert opinions are pluralistic, not a monolith, so there’s a judgement call when a policy is written. There is a spectrum of importance when you consider medical interventions. A pluralistic society, including pluralistic opinions among experts, is the norm outside of 1984. It’s just reality.
Policymakers could prioritize more or fewer vaccines, and the reasons to prioritize any particular vaccine would be expected to change over the decades.
Why the CDC isn’t prioritizing more vaccines might be seen as reckless to some. I think it’s a huge mistake that there isn’t a strep vaccine and a universal mandate for that, but it’s clearly not been historically prioritized. Strep has been known for decades to cause mental health conditions in children.
On the other hand, some infections might be better handled by vaccinating around where cases show up, a capability that is possible only now that we have electronic medical records, better tests, the information era, etc. Just-in-time logistics is a huge success story of the modern world.
Opinions of experts are important: expertise requires that opinions should change as the realities do.
An expertise that’s required of a policymaker is to maintain the effectiveness of their institutions by translating expertise into policies that are actually listened to. We have serious warning signs that public trust in healthcare is disintegrating, and that the vaccination campaigns are failing. Policies that are more focused could play out better.
a month ago
Common Kennedy is THE person that worked very actively and hard to turn people against vaccines.
He wanted to make them unpopular, partially succeeded and now is trying to remove them.
a month ago
Maybe we should bring back leeches if we're just going to ignore medical science and instead just go with the feelings of a misinformed public.
a month ago
Do you want public advice that is followed (useful) or public advice that is ignored (not useful)?
The ability to have the public accept advice is a capability that has unquestionably eroded. However smart an expert may be, they aren’t helping anyone if people won’t listen when they speak.
a month ago
Public advice should be as complete and accurate as possible. If there's a recommendation that is unlikely to be followed, then that can be indicated along with the alternate next best suggestion. e.g. "COVID prevention is best with a complete Hazmat suit, but just a mask may provide some benefit"
The job of experts is mainly to provide information and the job of the public is to pay attention to relevant information. If the public decides to ignore advice (e.g. "no level of alcohol consumption is safe"), then that doesn't change what the advice should be.
a month ago
I appreciate the nuance you’re bringing to this topic.
The child vaccinations schedule is a step further than public advice due to its role in clinical practice and social expectation setting. Policymakers have a job that stands apart from that of both the medical experts and the general public, and the child vaccinations schedule is a policy document, not simply a medical one.
a month ago
In many developing countries folks don't get vaccinated either and a lot of them die. TB, Typhoid, Hepatitis and others are still major problems.
So with this approach, the US will be going the way of those developing countries.
Apart from the deaths, there will almost certainly be economic damage.
a month ago
Like Japan or Denmark, which closely align to the new schedule?
a month ago
Without the postpartum and early childcare of those countries.
Denmark doesn't do mandatory vaccines to the same degree as they catch early development of disease and treat it when it appears, consistently across the whole population.
The US has a case for mandatory multi childhood vacination as the data shows otherwise preventable childhood diseases will spread untreated and unchecked.
If you like Japan and Denmark and want the same - get onto improving the US health system for everybody regardless of employment status.
a month ago
A lot going on in your statement.
Postpartum, childcare is good but I doubt correlated much with vaccine need.
Denmark doesn’t do anything to “catch” disease early in regards to vaccines at least.
There’s data thing is too broad to even discuss really, there’s a whole ton of data and on the specific ones taken off recommendation the data I’ve seen looks not too controversial.
And US healthcare isn’t so bad as people want to make it out to be, we have easy access to vaccines, top tier hospitals, medicine, and low wait times. It’s expensive and overpriced, and unevenly distributed, but also better in many ways than anywhere else.
a month ago
> we have easy access to vaccines, top tier hospitals, medicine, and low wait times. It’s expensive and overpriced, and unevenly distributed, but also better in many ways than anywhere else.
Aside from being expensive, overpriced, and unevenly distributed you mean?
I'm happy with Australia, it's affordable, available to all through a hybrid scheme, mothers with new babies get regular checkups with or without private insurance, etc.
It's not perfect but it's better than anywhere else.*
* as unsubstantiated as your comment, however in this case supported by a higher national life expectancy
a month ago
We subsidize much of the research, tech, and drugs that Australia benefits from so you’re welcome. I think that tide is finally turning, thankfully.
Nothing I said is unsubstantiated, maybe you don’t care to substantiate it for yourself which is fine.
Australia has plenty of issues. Wait times for surgeries, specialists, hospital choice, dental/mental health, rural coverage, and cutting edge medicine is terrible compared to US.
But their biggest issue maybe how unbelievably pretentious they are about their mediocre healthcare, it’s incredible how many I’ve ran into who blindly talk trash on the US without even knowing the basic facts. Great at barely covering everyone so they can brag, mediocre at everything else.
The whole lifespan thing has almost nothing to do with healthcare.
In terms of healthcare I’d rather be in the US, very, very strongly. We are far better for anyone working a job above minimum wage. The amount of cutting edge medicine available is incredible, and a huge percent of best doctors and hospitals in the world.
a month ago
With your president actively threatening our sovereignty, because the PBS is an effective market leveller, I do not think I would rather be in the US. Our healthcare actually works, as opposed to being a tool to kill the poor.
a month ago
Really? This seems much stricter than you seem to be suggesting...
https://www.jpeds.or.jp/uploads/files/20240220_Immunization_...
a month ago
US moved from the most liberal when compared to all of Europe and Asia, to the more conservative end but not as conservative as Denmark, and close Japan. They’re similar.
a month ago
Japanese tend to be irrationally anti-vaccine
a month ago
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a month ago
100% agree with you on this. We have enough places for politics. This is meant to be hacker news.
a month ago
It is the sort of thing I don't mind reading about, but admittedly these easily politicized topics have poor commentary and so on. Have you considered lobste.rs?
a month ago
Gonna have to agree. This site has become way, way too political with next to zero moderation.
If I wanted bad takes from Reddit, I'd visit Reddit....
a month ago
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a month ago
More of everyone will die. It's not just the anti-vax children, infants, eldery, chronic, or, the immunocompromised people who get it worse when herd immunity disappears. Vaccines are risk reducers, but it's not like they are perfect + the increased toll on the hospitals make more outbreaks bad for everyone.
It's one of the reasons the anti-vax movement never made any sense to me. Flat Earth is silly, but at least it's perfectly harmless, but anti-vax?
a month ago
You're applying technical info to a social problem.
Americans don't trust the medical system, MAGA Americans are likely to trust it less statistically due to who the opioid pandemic/over subscription issue hit (watching a potentially close family member go from productive to an addict that started on legally subscribed drugs is hard).
a month ago
> MAGA Americans are likely to trust it less statistically due to who the opioid pandemic/over subscription issue hit
Quite on brand to go from "personal responsibility" and "you can always avoid bad businesses" to directly blaming someone else when something actually ends up affecting them personally.
a month ago
Not to mention two giant problems with the entire scientific community:
1. It just sucks at communication. Many people have been misled because marketeers lied to them "it's scientifically proven!" while scientists did nothing to fix that, because they only cared about preserving communication channels between themselves. The mistrust in science is obvious if you take this into account.
2. At the end of the day, scientists are people who have their biases and weaknesses. There have been well-documented cases of the entire scientific community doing a massive fuckup. So when now a bunch of scientists come and say "trust us bro, this time it's legit" it's reasonable to be sceptical.
a month ago
The medical system that is infected by capitalism?
Patients must never become consumers.
a month ago
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a month ago
So why vaccines?
Why not lose your mind over arthritis medication? Throat lozenges? Lice shampoo? Heart burn treatment?
a month ago
None of those are generally made mandatory. It's a reasonable position to say the government shouldn't be able to compel you to put any particular drugs in your body, even if it would benefit the population at large.
The opposite position is also reasonable: the government should be able to compel you to take certain medical treatments in the name of improving public health. Reasonable people not blinded by ideology can accept both of those positions and handle individual cases on their merits. In the modern liberal world we've reached a consensus something like: measles vaccine OK, sterilising people with hereditary defects not OK. But people in other times and places settle on other compromises.
Note: I'm aware that this decision isn't about forcing anyone to have the vaccine, it's just "advice". But it's only one step removed from that. Public schools already withhold services from kids who don't have CDC-recommended vaccines, and we've seen various governments willing to go much further during the COVID-19 pandemic.
a month ago
a month ago
gsera's point was that the suspicious part was the business side of it not the government.
a month ago
Now that the original thread is flagged and hidden, we can discuss without fear.
In capitalism, the incentive of the manufactures to maintain product quality is that people won't buy the thing if it is bad, or does not appear to work.
This cannot be cheated. You cannot "bribe" a population.
But when government mandates a product, then it changes the equation greatly against the population. Manufacture is no longer incentivized to maintain quality. If the quality is not easy to identify then it becomes much more easy.
Now, they are outside capitalism. Now they can bribe the government, and enjoy perpetual sales.
So to answer your question, if it was not mandated, there would be no push against it. Such businesses will run out of business as capitalism run its course.
a month ago
That's not how it works.
Governments have regulatory powers. They can stipulate prices, control quality, etc and so forth. Companies can be fined for breaching regulation.
Ultimately, the government itself can even establish vaccine production to distribute among the population if necessary.
a month ago
> Governments have regulatory powers.
Which part of "bribe the government" didn't you understand, assuming you read my whole message?
> The government itself can even establish vaccine production to distribute among the population if necessary.
Right. Let that be done.
a month ago
> Which part of "bribe the government"
I read it.
I just interpreted as "government icky" rhetoric that is very common around here.
Corruption is a tool of any power structure. Gesturing vaguely towards it to invalidate any societal initiative is not an argument, it is just bad-faith whinging.
"Why build roads? The government can be bribed"
"Why trust the courts? The government can be bribed"
"Wefare? The government can be bribed"
a month ago
>is not an argument
Can you clarify which argument of mine are you referring to here?
a month ago
Not OP but I’d say that your argument sounds like the libertarian one whereby all government and all regulation is bad.
If that is your position, point me towards a place where libertarianism has worked.
a month ago
> if it was not mandated, there would be no push against it.
Do you really think that? You can’t think of any other health choice that has zealots protesting other people’s choices?
You get anti-vax people wanting to avoid the vaccinated, removing masks from those wearing them, claiming not to hear the voice of people wearing masks.
a month ago
Because their manipulators only need a couple subjects for identity politics. If they sow too many seeds of doubt, the world becomes too complex again, while the goal is the opposite.
a month ago
A lot of people that will refuse to vaccinate their kids will gladly shoot up Ozempic every week or snort hardcore drugs.
It's pretty eye opening to me how inconsistent people can be with the right dose of propaganda.
RFK Jr for example, who shot up heroin for over 15 years and is probably at minimum doing some kind of steroids.
a month ago
It isn't particularly hard to understand - people should be allowed to make their own determination about what is good for their health, what isn't and what risk tolerance they are personally comfortable with. If that principle is embraced a whole heap of good things are fairly obvious - why there shouldn't be state-backed eugenics programs, why exercise is voluntary and it makes health policy a lot less charged. If the principle is thrown out then a lot of problematic policy becomes hard to reject.
I mean, look at what the vax-mandatory movement got - they enraged a bunch of people, helped secure Trump II, made vaccine scepticism a mainstream and popular position which arguably handed the US health department vaccine policy to anti-vaxers. Maybe avoiding authoritarian tactics and sticking to principle would have gotten them a better outcome? Hard to see how it could be worse, to be honest. They screwed up pretty badly.
a month ago
Aren't they optional in most cases? You can opt-out of vaxing your kids today right? They just won't be welcome in public schools. I guess the other common cohort is health care workers (which seems reasonable) per https://leadingage.org/workforce-vaccine-mandates-state-who-... More than 1 million people died in the US from the COVID pandemic so it seemed reasonable to work hard to get herd immunity but the backfire effect made that counter productive. Hindsight is 20/20 though.
a month ago
> More than 1 million people died in the US from the COVID pandemic so it seemed reasonable to work hard to get herd immunity but the backfire effect made that counter productive.
There is no herd immunity for COVID, because you can get it more than once. Vaccination only protects for a few months, and doesn't reduce spreading much. It's not a "sterilizing vaccine".
There are sterilizing vaccines for many childhood diseases. Measles, diphtheria, polio, etc. Can't get the disease at all if vaccinated. Those vaccines can almost eliminate a disease. With smallpox, this was taken past "almost" all the way to eradication. Here's a list of 14 almost forgotten diseases, eliminated by vaccination.[1] The current generation of parents has not seen most of them.
[1] https://www.healthychildren.org/English/safety-prevention/im...
a month ago
To me it seems needlessly cruel to relearn the lesson on a mountain of dead children.
a month ago
Google Joe Rogan Measles. This is the level of information that people are using to make these decisions, being fed to them by the LARGEST mainstream media source (Joe Rogan has the largest mainstream media audience).
a month ago
Yes, the right to spread avoidable infectious diseases obviously has priority. /s
a month ago
Have infectious diseases stopped spreading? And all this is happening in the shadows of COVID where the vaccines famously had no significant impact on the rate of the spread. The people claiming they would turned out to be part of the misinformation crowd.
We ran a natural experiment in Australia. Everyone got the vaccine, then everyone got COVID over the course of a month or two. The official numbers were high and aren't even accurate because there were too many cases to count, it got everywhere and the measurement kits ran out.
a month ago
> Have infectious diseases stopped spreading?
Thanks to vaccines? Yes. Multiple times in history.
Smallpox, polio, measles, mumps.
> vaccines famously had no significant impact on the rate of the spread.
That's quite a claim. I see you provided no sources.
As far as I remember, vaccines were the main reason things became safe enough to things to return to a sense of normalcy.
I mean, I am not from they US, so my actual response to this news is a vague shrug. I just hope the anti-vax bullshit is contained within US borders.
a month ago
Measles charts (US) [1] Line goes down to nearly zero and stays there.
Polio chart (US) [2] See the line go almost straight down to 0 after vaccine introduction and stay there.
Smallpox has been totally exterminated by vaccination.
Any questions?
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/measles-cases-and-death
[2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/prevalence-of-polio-rates...
a month ago
> That's quite a claim. I see you provided no sources.
Why do I need to source anything? Nobody credible ever claimed the vaccines would slow the spread, no evidence was ever provided that vaccines slow the spread and theory suggests they probably won't slow the spread. The people making things up in defiance of the obvious are the ones who need to start providing sources on this one.
If you want to check the numbers; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Australia - we've got 22 million vaccinated people on a population of around 25 million in 2021. We see ~12 million confirmed COVID cases and in the immediate post-lockdown period the testing system crumbled under load. Do the math. An exponential process that everyone was exposed to was downgraded to ... still an exponentially growing process that everyone was exposed to. Maybe it spread the pandemic phase out to 2 months instead of 1 (based on my memory of watching the stats at the time).
The vaccine didn't cut down on the number of infections. It was strictly personal protection. Members of my family regularly get COVID.
a month ago
> We see ~12 million confirmed COVID cases
but only 5,025 and 19,265 deaths.
Vaccination slowed the spread of the primary varients and reduced the health impacts on those that tested positive for COVID by preloading the immune response.
a month ago
Yeah. That is a really good argument for recommending people get the vaccine. But it concedes any reason to start coercive medical treatments. The COVID vaccines were very much about personal protection. It circles back quite neatly to the idea that people should be allowed to make their own determination about what is good for their health, what isn't and what risk tolerance they are personally comfortable with.
The people arguing that collective action knows best once again blew their credibility with COVID, making up the theory about herd immunity was a big shot in the arm for the anti-vax movement. And as you can guess I'd rather side with the anti-vaxers, they're better friends than the authoritarians.
a month ago
> Why do I need to source anything? Nobody credible ever claimed the vaccines would slow the spread
How much polio or small pox have you seen?
a month ago
You are just lying here. Obviously lying, because I guess, that is the only way to support the regime you wamt to support
a month ago
> Why do I need to source anything?
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
I sourced my claims: smallpox, polio, measles, mumps.
You offered vibes instead of sources.
a month ago
> I sourced my claims: smallpox, polio, measles, mumps.
1. That isn't what sourcing a claim means. It means to provide sources for why your claims are true; or at least where you heard the claim first. Picking specific examples is helpful, but it isn't providing a source.
And despite those examples, I still catch an infections disease ... basically annually.
2. I suppose I assumed it was going to be made obvious by context, but I don't care about smallpox, polio, measles or mumps and I'm not talking about them. Nobody forced me to do anything in relation to them, nobody threatened my livelihood over them and I don't feel at any risk of being forbidden from leaving my house because of them. It is a good point but I didn't intend to talk about it - it stands alone as a point and beyond that I don't care. Since you bought it up more then once you get this paragraph. But if it is necessary to put up with measles to put the authoritarians in a box? So be it. The anti-vaxers are the lesser of two evils, they're minnows compared to the sharks who were showing their colours through COVID; we're lucky that episode only lasted long enough for the authoritarians to do terrible economic damage.
a month ago
> That isn't what sourcing a claim means
Absolutely is. Those are examples of serious, deadly, infectious plagues that were either eradicated or seriously contained by vaccines.
> but I don't care about smallpox, polio, measles or mumps and I'm not talking about them.
I know you don't care about evidence. You care about vibes. Vaccines are icky, governments are authoritarian, you want to live in your fairy-tale self-serving world and society be damned.
I was replying to you not under any fantasy that I would convince you otherwise. I understood pretty well from the outset what sort of rhetoric you were on about.
I replied so it was made clear for others what exactly is being discussed here.
> But if it is necessary to put up with measles
It is. I am extremely grateful that the advances in medicine in the past couple of centuries allowed me to live without having to worry about serious plagues such as measles.
Either way, you didn't disappoint me. Have a great weekend.
a month ago
It's also worth mentioning that some people seem to have a worriyingly short and/or selective memory. I mean, how could you ever trust your government on such matters after stuff like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_haemophilia_blood... ?
a month ago
No one is asking you to “believe the government”. We’re asking to believe the scientific literature and the non partisan experts who decide these recommendations.
Further, these recommendations are not new. They have a track record. You can look io the number of lives they’ve saved/reduced damage to.
The people who insist that we should throw out the expert advice based on openly available scientific research and literature in favor of one person’s feelings because he happens to hold a politically powerful position are the ones asking us to trust the government blindly. Actually, not blindly, but contrary to the evidence that our eyes see.
a month ago
I didn't write "belief" but "trust", which is a related but different thing. You'd be very naïve to think that the powers that be are automagically uninvolved in both the Scientific Truth^tm that trickles down to the layperson and the source research and studies (both due to funding, censorship and outright lies in some hot fields like sociology).
tl;dr: I'm ready to believe in the vaccine theory, not in the infrastructure; applied science doesn't live in a vacuum
a month ago
Just curious - it aligns closer to Denmark or Japan. Do you hold the same view of the regulations there?
a month ago
If generally lower vaccination rates only impacted the unvaccinated, most folks wouldn't really care. I wish that were the case.
The sad part is that the overall participation or lack of it impacts everyone, including the vaccinated, those with health problems and so on.
a month ago
a month ago
Everyone will be affected.
a month ago
How long before Americans have to go through mandatory testing at the airports of their destinations?
a month ago
Those kids are not responsible for their parents’ defects.
a month ago
a month ago
Why not? It's not like they want elections. Either the MAGA voters or the MAGA king
a month ago
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a month ago
No, they don't. Ask any health official. We just had a high schooler die of meningitis 3 months ago, this kid was a star student, everybody loved him. 3 days later, DEAD. Why? Because his parents had "thought it best" to not give him the 2-shot meningitis vaccine. Vaccines are safe and proven. We in pharma, you know the actual people doing the medicine, spend billions to test them against giant cohorts to ensure safety and efficacy. Some rando on the internet feels they know better? Sit down please, you do not. Go get a medical degree ... you do not have the expertise to be credible on this, and neither does RFK.
a month ago
My parents are both surgeons. You're right in that I don't trust some rando on the Internet (that would be you, this time) over them.
a month ago
I'm happy you have surgeons to consult. But surgery has nothing to do with pharmacology. That's like asking a cardiologist about your cancer. The specialization of therapeutic area, let alone profession, is intense.
a month ago
We'll find out the hard way. I'm pretty public about our process so if my choices lead to adverse consequences I won't hide it: https://wiki.roshangeorge.dev/w/Pregnancy
22 days ago
Well I wish you great success, and very much hope you have a healthy baby!
a month ago
This comment is not 100% open and shut correct. But it is the correct 95% starting point and only worth deviating from after a significant amount of diligent work. If one doesn't understand this, then one simply has not yet appreciated how much work it takes to form even a single informed opinion.
Also, wasn't revisiting the overall advice in the context of smaller ethnic and gender subgroups one of the things that many researchers were doing before the angry mob overran and burnt down our institutions?
a month ago
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a month ago
Is she in daycare? Does she hang out with daycare kiddos? How social are the grandparents, are they up to date on the vaccines?
Covid has an estimated R of ~1.1 this winter. Meaning that the current vaccination rates of the population in the US are not adequate to stop the spread. Everyone has a part to play in that spreading.
Current strains do not seem to be as 'bad' as they were in 2020, but that can change at any time, and is dependent on the individuals.
Look, our family lost 4 people to Covid, all of them above 60 years old. I miss them still. I miss my Grandmother in law, her voice, her humor, and even a little bit, her dementia (strange!). I miss my uncle, I miss his singing the 12 days of Christmas around the piano, his slight Geordie brogue, his passion for electronics. I wasn't that close to the other people, but their loss affects the family a lot still. All those memories, those empty seats at tables. Sorry, here, I'm just still going through things here even 4-5 years later.
a month ago
>and their children are doing mostly well
This study involves American children, but a pubmed study from mid 2025 suggests that ~15% of children are now suffering from Long COVID, which would make it the most common chronic health problem in children[1]
a month ago
https://www.cdc.gov/hepatitis-surveillance-2023/hepatitis-b/...
Whites had highest hepatitithis B rate 2013-2020 at which point blacks "won" again. Every since, it is blacks first, whites seconds, asians, hispanics, native americans third.
The assumption that whites have lower Hep B rates is wrong.
a month ago
That’s for Asian Americans, though. The wording for “extended family” probably includes older Taiwanese and Indians in their country of origin.
a month ago
OP specifically framed this in racial terms. He picked whites as a group with low hep B rates. Not americand nor white americans
OP just simply assumed the white majority must have low hep B rates.
a month ago
No, I definitely intended to reference our foreign family. I was hoping that was clear enough from my saying "Indian" instead of Indian-American and saying "extended family" instead of us but anyway now I've clarified it.
a month ago
Imagine all the lives saved from fewer immune stimulants.
a month ago
Imagining isn’t the way to do this. There is hard data on the harm vaccines cause and the benefit provided. That’s the point of the scientific organisations US taxes fund.
Abandoning a scientific approach and using whatever this administration is doing is what was voted for I guess.