Coronavirus Thread: Boy, guys. I really just don't know. Best to keep tabs.
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@Crimsonorblue22 Details on deaths 8 and 9 are not yet public. Ages of the first 7 dead: 81, 60, 89, 92, 73, 63, 79.
What we are being told is mortality will be higher for the elderly and / or those with diabetes or cardiovascular diseases. Men are a bit more at risk than women. Children can have the virus and be contagious without symptoms. In infected areas children are not allowed to visit the elderly in retirement homes.
Sneeze / cough into your elbows. Don’t shake hands. Wash your hands thoroughly and often. Works for flu too.
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I have concerns over all the people who don’t have health care in the US. It opens up all kinds of risks… I agree.
Maybe this virus will expose this enough here to get the politicians to figure out a solution for all those uninsured. I certainly hope so.
But if this doesn’t turn out to be more deadly then common flu, I’m betting the public will see how this was handled very negatively. And I’m mostly talking about the press and the hype.
Then comes the extremely deadly virus… and no one will listen. Once you lose the trust of the public, the threat becomes a lot more real.
Look at how there are single cases of the virus now in almost every state. I bet all those people didn’t have contact with each other. There are probably 1000s of people in between.
It may sound strange… but at this point we should hope adequate tests come out and they discover millions of people have it. That would indicate an extremely low death rate, far below flu A and B. The real danger is if all the tests come out and few others have it, because the death rate will be high.
Cancelling everything in life, tanking the economy and stock market, will have a huge human life cost, too.
Most of the people I know that have taken the flu vaccines became sick. There isn’t a lot of faith in those vaccines, and they are formulated on a guess of which flu will prosper in the flu season and they often admit they were wrong.
What I wish we would do is stay calm and look for higher standards we can keep in place permanently to reduce all kinds of flu. Type A and B are deadly and have never received enough attention for their harm. I hope coronavirus brings us to our senses to go after a safer world from all flus.
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Most of the people I know, including family, always get the vaccine, I even got the pneumonia shot a few yrs back. I have a low resistance to pneumococcal infections. They guess wrong sometimes but it still lessens the side effects.
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Good explainer from the la times. https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-03-05/flu-killed-more-people-coronavirus-covid-19
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@drgnslayr While not for government-run healthcare I agree that something is wrong with our system. I think it is a combination of the insurance companies, as well doctors and hospitals double-charging. Have a good friend who knows a well-known doctor, she said that he admitted as much while saying that it is common practice. They overcharge, and then the insurance companies have to pay more - an endless cycle.
I live in a relatively small burg (I have private insurance, but usually use the VA), and here they actually make seniors and everyone else pay 20 dollars before they even get in to see their doctor.
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1 lady, under 50, confirmed in jo co
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@Crimsonorblue22 said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
1 lady, under 50, confirmed in jo co
Yep 1st case here in Ks just another case though how many did she spread this too before she knew about it - -wll you can expect more. - -I read NY has now declared a state of Emergency lso
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What this virus shows us is we can’t have people uninsured in this country. It creates a danger to all of us.
There are people who have had a coronavirus test and then billed several thousand dollars. You can’t put public health and safety in situations like that.
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When healthcare was made universally available and affordable my premium doubled and reduced the level of service I had be receiving (no longer offered). I fully understand why everyone isn’t insured. When the insurance companies thought they had everyone forced into buying their product they raised prices. I don’t want the government involved in my healthcare at all, they mess everything up.
As far as the numbers go I have healthcare and am not likely to get counted if infected, I have to be pretty near death to go to the doctors office outside of routine maintenance. The number of infected and survived is far higher that we will ever know, but we will hear about every death.
This is a new virus, new is scary. Unfortunately there is no way to quarantine it now, a month ago yes. Now it’s spread to too many areas/people to be contained. Instances of new infection in areas hit first are going down indicating it’s burning itself out. We are in the front end here, but within a few months it’ll be over and we have the summer on our side - less forced inside time we trade domes for open top stadiums. With any luck it won’t get as bad here as it did overseas just do to timing (it won’t be due to preparedness).
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@drgnslayr said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
What this virus shows us is we can’t have people uninsured in this country. It creates a danger to all of us.
There are people who have had a coronavirus test and then billed several thousand dollars. You can’t put public health and safety in situations like that.
Stories like that are why the government needs to stay the hell out of public health industry. Too many entities wanting a piece of the pie drives prices up for everyone.
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I heard on tv this am the cdc is reimbursing everyone for their tests.
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The California Insurance Commissioner ordered insurance companies to cover the cost of testing. Nationally, the president should be working with the states to do the same.
People need to understand that a death rate that is really high, like 30 to 60% for MERS and SARS, keeps the disease from rampaging very far–people get very sick, they are put in care, they die.
It drives me crazy when people focus on whether the death rate is higher or lower than flu. We know how flu spreads; decades of data demonstrates the flu’s infectiousness and incubation periods; there are vaccines that even if only 50% effective stiil protect fully half the recipients, and would be more effective if people would stop thinking intuition is better than science; there are antivirals to administer to reduce the severity even when contracted.
The COVID-19 virus is dangerous regardless of the overall fatality rate. The lethality is indeed highly skewed toward the elderly, but it is the lack of ability to identify it before showing symptoms that makes everything about it a game-changer from the flu. Best evidence (including from Europe, not just China) is that incubation could take up to 3 weeks, during which time little is known about how or when it can be spread to new people, all before becoming symptomatic.
For every person bravely saying that they don’t fear the virus and so they refuse to restrict their activities or change their habits, please remember the hundreds of people whom you may be in close contact with every week. You might not be afraid of getting infected, but consider this scenario: you catch it from an asymptomatic someone near you at Starbucks, who returned last week from California and whose kid caught it from a teacher who returned on Feb 21 from the Princess ship now off SF and taught for a week before getting symptoms. You spend the next week with no symptoms, and at some point you pass it on to a neighbor, who is a nurse at an assisted living facility, who manages to spread it to others there, including the food service workers who infect 50% of the residents. Public health officials go nuts as up to 25% of the infected residents die. And no one has a clue how it got there.
The point is that younger people have a responsibility to not disregard the huge danger to other people just because they may only get mildly ill. An infection rate of 2 to 3% still means literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of people will die if it spreads throughout the population.
Anyone who says we are close to a vaccine that can prevent the spread of this is lying. Anyone who says we are effectively controlling the spread is wrong. Anyone who says that it is no worse than the flu, and therefore should not be treated differently, is blind.
That does not mean society has to close down. It does mean we have to be very very careful. Remember that even with all we know about how norovirus gets spread (feces–sorry!) studies show between 1/3 to 1/2 of people using publicrestrooms don’t wash their hands. Being careful with hygiene can help, but not guarantee, to protect you from the idiots among us.
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@mayjay I went a full decade without catching a cold…then I had kids. I guess the safest rout is getting those suckers adopted off. Lol
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@mayjay said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
The California Insurance Commissioner ordered insurance companies to cover the cost of testing. Nationally, the president should be working with the states to do the same.
People need to understand that a death rate that is really high, like 30 to 60% for MERS and SARS, keeps the disease from rampaging very far–people get very sick, they are put in care, they die.
It drives me crazy when people focus on whether the death rate is higher or lower than flu. We know how flu spreads; decades of data demonstrates the flu’s infectiousness and incubation periods; there are vaccines that even if only 50% effective stiil protect fully half the recipients, and would be more effective if people would stop thinking intuition is better than science; there are antivirals to administer to reduce the severity even when contracted.
The COVID-19 virus is dangerous regardless of the overall fatality rate. The lethality is indeed highly skewed toward the elderly, but it is the lack of ability to identify it before showing symptoms that makes everything about it a game-changer from the flu. Best evidence (including from Europe, not just China) is that incubation could take up to 3 weeks, during which time little is known about how or when it can be spread to new people, all before becoming symptomatic.
For every person bravely saying that they don’t fear the virus and so they refuse to restrict their activities or change their habits, please remember the hundreds of people whom you may be in close contact with every week. You might not be afraid of getting infected, but consider this scenario: you catch it from an asymptomatic someone near you at Starbucks, who returned last week from California and whose kid caught it from a teacher who returned on Feb 21 from the Princess ship now off SF and taught for a week before getting symptoms. You spend the next week with no symptoms, and at some point you pass it on to a neighbor, who is a nurse at an assisted living facility, who manages to spread it to others there, including the food service workers who infect 50% of the residents. Public health officials go nuts as up to 25% of the infected residents die. And no one has a clue how it got there.
The point is that younger people have a responsibility to not disregard the huge danger to other people just because they may only get mildly ill. An infection rate of 2 to 3% still means literally hundreds of thousands or even millions of people will die if it spreads throughout the population.
Anyone who says we are close to a vaccine that can prevent the spread of this is lying. Anyone who says we are effectively controlling the spread is wrong. Anyone who says that it is no worse than the flu, and therefore should not be treated differently, is blind.
That does not mean society has to close down. It does mean we have to be very very careful. Remember that even with all we know about how norovirus gets spread (feces–sorry!) studies show between 1/3 to 1/2 of people using publicrestrooms don’t wash their hands. Being careful with hygiene can help, but not guarantee, to protect you from the idiots among us.
Well I am just in a position that I’m on medi-care. - -got a e-mail the other day saying that if a test was needed for me that it will be covered – nice to know
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@Crimsonorblue22 That is bad…
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@dylans said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
When healthcare was made universally available and affordable my premium doubled and reduced the level of service I had be receiving (no longer offered). I fully understand why everyone isn’t insured. When the insurance companies thought they had everyone forced into buying their product they raised prices. I don’t want the government involved in my healthcare at all, they mess everything up.
As far as the numbers go I have healthcare and am not likely to get counted if infected, I have to be pretty near death to go to the doctors office outside of routine maintenance. The number of infected and survived is far higher that we will ever know, but we will hear about every death.
This is a new virus, new is scary. Unfortunately there is no way to quarantine it now, a month ago yes. Now it’s spread to too many areas/people to be contained. Instances of new infection in areas hit first are going down indicating it’s burning itself out. We are in the front end here, but within a few months it’ll be over and we have the summer on our side - less forced inside time we trade domes for open top stadiums. With any luck it won’t get as bad here as it did overseas just do to timing (it won’t be due to preparedness).
I agree, a month ago yes. That is what I have been saying - our governments failed us, put markets over lives. As soon as the damn thing was announced all travel to and from China - including connecting destinations and fucking cruise ships - should have been banned.
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@dylans Oh man, kid colds are the worst! They go to daycare and later school - festering incubators - and build somewhat of a tolerance. Man, I used to catch horrible what I call daycare flu - all of those little snotty-nosed kids.
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Read of Wibw news - there is a KU student that is in self quarantine , she is a Junior and was doing Abroad Study in Northern Italy - -she is at her home and has been in Contact with KU. - Says she thinks nothing to worry about , saying this isn’t how she had it planned. was finally contacted and was told time to come home.
Sai she has been really diligent about like wiping the Airline seat - -washing her hands - -santizing and such . - - -not really worried just passing along - - not confirmed with virus or anything but they are just taking precautions - -hope she doesn’t come down with it anyways. - -their cases went up by over 1,400 in one day - -holy crap. – ROCK CHALK ALL DAY LONG BABY
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Hang onto your butts https://twitter.com/tracyalloway/status/1236824667014361088?s=21
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Some random facts updated as of this evening…
110/195 countries infected
109,974 Total Confirmed Cases
3,828 Deceased
542 known cases in US
22 deceased
40-70% projected to contract it
15% of US population is over 65
8 states have declared state of emergency
1/4 of population of Italy quarantined
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@StLJhawk said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
Some random facts updated as of this evening…
110/195 countries infected
109,974 Total Confirmed Cases
3,828 Deceased
542 known cases in US
22 deceased
40-70% projected to contract it
15% of US population is over 65
8 states have declared state of emergency
1/4 of population of Italy quarantined
Very uncool, to say the least…
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Some more stats:
ACTIVE CASES 44,914 Currently Infected Patients
38,935 (87%) in Mild Condition
5,979 (13%) Serious or Critical
CLOSED CASES 66,554 Cases which had an outcome
62,671 (94%) Recovered / Discharged
3,883 (6%) Deaths
By one study, it seems to be taking on average 14 days from known exposure to onset of symptoms, but serious cases then take a more severe turn in another few days. I cannot remember in detail, but IIRC recovery for these is taking 6 to 8 weeks on average, but this is all so new there hasn’t been many “6 to 8 week” periods yet.
It is the number of cases requiring hospitalization/respirators that sets it apart from the flu. Health experts are worried about the hospital system being overwhelmed if millions get infected, as seems likely.
Data updated several times a day for every country here (fascinating to read the timeline, too!):
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A few random questions…
Assuming the projections for a 40-70% infection rate are correct, lets forget about the death rate from the virus itself and think about what happens when half the population gets a bad case of the flu in a relatively short period of time.
If you’re in an accident or fall down the stairs, how long will it be before the police, fire dept or ambulance responds? Who will be available to treat you at the hospital? Who will deliver the medicine and supplies to the hospital?
When a storm causes massive power outages, how long will it take to get the lines fixed?
Who is going to deliver, stock, sell and prepare the food and supplies we need every day?
I think we’re in for a rough couple of months.
And I wouldn’t hold my breath about the tournament, which totally sucks because our chances to win it are so darn good.
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@StLJhawk So buy some face masks and loot the country while it’s on the crapper!
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@StLJhawk said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
A few random questions…
Assuming the projections for a 40-70% infection rate are correct, lets forget about the death rate from the virus itself and think about what happens when half the population gets a bad case of the flu in a relatively short period of time.
If you’re in an accident or fall down the stairs, how long will it be before the police, fire dept or ambulance responds? Who will be available to treat you at the hospital? Who will deliver the medicine and supplies to the hospital?
When a storm causes massive power outages, how long will it take to get the lines fixed?
Who is going to deliver, stock, sell and prepare the food and supplies we need every day?
I think we’re in for a rough couple of months.
And I wouldn’t hold my breath about the tournament, which totally sucks because our chances to win it are so darn good.
Sounds like the chances are becoming stronger day by day about the Tourney being played in empty arena’s, - Read where the NCAA already has a plan in place just for that if it comes down to it
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Well that would be one strategy I guess. Another would be to prepare for a rough couple of months as best you can.
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No doubt it’s the governments plan to save social security. Those suckers just keep clinging to life. Sheesh
Probably better not riot - it looks like over 80% of people will have only mild symptoms. Gonna have to come up with better retirement plan.
I should’ve bought up masks, then I could hand them out so the sick suckers don’t cough on me. Unfortunately they aren’t going to do much other than serve as a reminder to not touch your face. I did see where a creative Asian fellow was using thong underwear for a mask. Lol colorful and 3 for $6.
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I heard that too. But regardless, a chunk of players are going to be sick with the flu come April. Wouldn’t it suck if the champs were whatever team had the healthiest roster?
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@StLJhawk said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
Well that would be one strategy I guess. Another would be to prepare for a rough couple of months as best you can.
This isn’t directed at anyone in specific - Are many poorly prepared and living week to week paycheck to paycheck? This is a serious question. Is that why the nationwide panic? I live as I always have - prepared for about anything. Keep a years worth of beef in the freezer, a months worth of perishables on hand, several months of freezer meals and non-perishable products, vehicles are all full of fuel. Always be ready…I guess it’s the old Boy Scout in me.
Why are we still allowed to have mass gatherings? Seems like an easy policy to stop the spread of the virus. Request the stoppage of crowds of over 100 people until things calm down. Maybe delay the ncaa tournament so all those travelers don’t grab a little COVID-19 souvenir to take home with them. You won’t see me at a ballgame until next season, not worth the risk.
Or is it just the fear of the unknown menace as it advances across the globe now threatening our very doorstep?
The best thing to come of this is the economy grinding to a halt in China. - look at the air pollution maps. It only took a couple weeks of shutdowns to vastly improve air quality in China - their real number one killer.
I’ll admit I sure as hell don’t like what’s going on, has me nervous for my grandparents and elderly friends. The only way I can see making it much worse is panicking. Or perhaps if the Saudis devalued the oil market destroying the tax base for many of the rural communities that are already strapped for cash making medical funding harder to come by…
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Interesting read. I follow your logic of expressing mass danger because of the weakness of the virus (not showing up for a long time, or no symptoms while spreading).
Might it actually help most people to get it and help build their resistance to other bugs?
The real risk is elderly and those with medical conditions. Might it be wiser (especially at this point) to quarantine care homes and parts of medical facilities versus trying to quarantine the general public where it is widely spread?
What do we know about common treatments, like black elderberry, blueberries and vitamin C? Perhaps we widely spread healthy preventative and treatment nourishment to heavily reduce the death rate in elderly and others.
What I do know… is our current reaction is going to bring huge death and suffering because of economic downfall. Throwing us into a recession or depression isn’t the answer. We can act like staying home and washing hands is going to make this go away and that is just nonsense!
Health and preservation starts within each human body and we have a responsibility to ourselves to take care of ourselves.
I’m not afraid of this bug in the least, but I fear contracting it and giving it to my 87 yr old dad!
This is going to spread all through America. I have little doubt. I just wonder if the death statistics outperform influenza A and B. I’m not saying it is a contest… I think we should have always treated all influenza with more attention and prevention.
Last… concerning vaccines… why is it necessary to formulate vaccines with very toxic materials? I’m not a general proponent for vaccines because they use chemicals and compounds like mercury and formaldehyde, which are known toxins that weaken the immune system while the vaccine targets protection for one infection. Hate to be a whistleblower… but the CDC just lost a major court case and had to expose the mountain of studies they have claiming to disprove a connection between autism and vaccines. They did not show this mountain of studies and presented very little material relating to the subject at all. We need reassurances. More people are taking an active role in their health and hiding info from the public is extremely harmful.
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Umm, can you point me to that reference about the CDC losing the court case? My son has autism and I’ve done a LOT of research and found absolutely no link between vaccines and the disease and I think it’s very dangerous and irresponsible to suggest otherwise unless all that earlier research is somehow proven wrong.
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There’s a case in, yes Mizzou, where the daughter I believe has a confirmed case. The rest of the family was to stay home for 14 days. The dad decides to take the other daughter to a school function. Ewww!
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@Crimsonorblue22
we can’t fix stupid.
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Jesus. There is no link between vaccines and autism. The original study was fraught with awful and avoidable errors and the doctor lost his medical license for incompetence and fraud.
There’s no study that specifically evaluates the claim “no link between vaccines in autism” because you can’t exactly run an RCT with the MMR vaccine or something similar. That would defeat the entire purpose of the vaccination. The group that filed the lawsuit is essentially asking for studies that would’ve violated about every IRB rule on the planet and never could actually be performed. The best approach we have are case control, which is imperfect. This takes about 3 minutes of googling to figure out. Top result was a meta-analysis with over 1 million subjects and found absolutely zero association between vaccinations and autism. Spreading bullshit rumors and pseudo-science is very bad during a public health event.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X14006367?via%3Dihub
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Vaccinate your children.
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Yes and thank you!!
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Two problems with Corona virus as I see them right now, with the info we have.
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Seems to be much more highly contagious than the regular flu. The initial spread was so fast that the spread alone was alarming.
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The death rate for those over the age of 60 is very high. Yeah, people get the flu every year, and people die from the flu every year. But its not like people over 80 have a 1 in 7 chance of dying from the flu if they get it each year, which is what Corona virus is currently at here in the U.S. according to available numbers.
The fact that it is highly contagious, and also unusually fatal for those over a certain age is what got my attention. This isn’t pneumonia or the flu for those over 60 or so. It’s unusually dangerous, which is strange and also very concerning.
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Well at least I feel they handled the docking of the Cruise ship in Oakland today pretty well. !st peope of were the 21 confirmed cases they came off 1st and taken to hospitals , then the remaining passengers are to come off and will be put in quarinteed for two weeks , and the Crusise ship staff will remain at seas for their two week period to see if they catch virus. - -Bout all you can do. Had about a 10 acre section roped/fenced off when passengers departed /docked. -Would say about they can do at this point.
Heard that Italy is shutting completely down. Entire Nation now - -nobody in – nobody out. - -THATS SERIOUS FOR SURE
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So I was talking to a customer of mine (older man who just had kidney surgery a week ago) when he mentioned an old hired hand of his stopped in; hadn’t seen him in 16 years. He had been living in Nebraska, but the last few years has been living north of Seattle in Washington. He felt bad that his wife and kids were too sick to make the trip… ugg
️ Common sense would go a long way.
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I remain open minded. I followed along with the doctors on my dad until they almost killed him. I found a wellness doctor and we figured out what meds we could pull him off and he is doing well today, very stable 87 yr old.
I’m not an anti vaxxer. I also don’t just follow the herd.
My biggest concern… why no double-blind studies? It’s the gold standard used for all new pharma medications. Why not for vaccinations?
Most vaccines were formulated in the 60s. How much technology do we use today that is stuck in the 60s? At that time they were not focused on many of the chemicals used. I have little doubt that they could come up with much safer formulas today, also more effective. But that costs a fortune to retest. Our kids’ health evidently isn’t worth the expense.
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@justanotherfan said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
The fact that it is highly contagious, and also unusually fatal for those over a certain age is what got my attention. This isn’t pneumonia or the flu for those over 60 or so. It’s unusually dangerous, which is strange and also very concerning.
Pneumonia and influenza are extremely dangerous for the elderly and for those with a compromised immune system.
It’s unknown what the death rate is compared to other influenza because of inadequate testing, more than likely non-testing on symptoms because of the belief it is another flu, and the fact that a high % of those with the virus show no symptoms so are never tested and included in the statistics.
It does appear to have some symptoms acting a bit different from other known influenza. Those exact symptoms are still being evaluated because of the newness of this virus (at least the newness of the discovery).
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@drgnslayr said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
I remain open minded. I followed along with the doctors on my dad until they almost killed him. I found a wellness doctor and we figured out what meds we could pull him off and he is doing well today, very stable 87 yr old.
I’m not an anti vaxxer. I also don’t just follow the herd.
My biggest concern… why no double-blind studies? It’s the gold standard used for all new pharma medications. Why not for vaccinations?
Most vaccines were formulated in the 60s. How much technology do we use today that is stuck in the 60s? At that time they were not focused on many of the chemicals used. I have little doubt that they could come up with much safer formulas today, also more effective. But that costs a fortune to retest. Our kids’ health evidently isn’t worth the expense.
Vaccines don’t cause autism. There isn’t a single rigorous study that shows that result. The only rigorous studies we have on the topic explicitly find NO LINK. This isn’t difficult or that complicated. Like I said above, doing RCT’s on vaccines we’ve already established as safe would violate every ethics standard we have as researchers.
I’m in education policy, and I couldn’t do a double blind study on assigning kids to not learn math and see how they develop. That would be child abuse. Same principle here. You can’t randomize kids to not get vaccines when there’s a substantial risk to both them and society.
Technically, it’s the principle of clinical equipoise. With new drugs, we have no clinical evidence the new drug works at scale in humans, so we can do RCT’s since both treatment and control groups are in equipoise. In the case of vaccines, we’re deliberately exposing both the research subjects and society to risks we KNOW we can mitigate to almost zero, so we don’t have equipoise. It’s not about money, it’s about fidelity to the scientific method and ethics.
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Most of these vaccines have been around for decades. It wouldn’t be too difficult to form double-blind studies giving a reasonable level of confidence based just on those who refuse vaccination comparing with those who do.
The CDC had a perfect opportunity to shoot the anti vaxxers in the head by showing their mountain of studies and they didn’t do it because those studies must not exist. They have also had to deal with a whistleblower employee stating they rigged some of their stats. Seems like they would love to end all of this controversy.
I’m skeptical because I watched the system kill my mother… almost kill my dad… and turned my star athlete cousin into a drug addict by prescribing him on extended use of opioids.
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@drgnslayr said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
Most of these vaccines have been around for decades. It wouldn’t be too difficult to form double-blind studies giving a reasonable level of confidence based just on those who refuse vaccination comparing with those who do.
The CDC had a perfect opportunity to shoot the anti vaxxers in the head by showing their mountain of studies and they didn’t do it because those studies must not exist. They have also had to deal with a whistleblower employee stating they rigged some of their stats. Seems like they would love to end all of this controversy.
That’s not a valid research design since it’s wrought with selection bias. I don’t know what the CDC’s case is exactly but check out my post above. They even maintain a page full of evidence vaccines are safe: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/research/publications/index.html
We know with absurd degrees of confidence vaccines don’t cause autism. The study that opened the door to that line of thinking was obviously fraudulent. The study was retracted and the PI lost his medical license for publishing indefensible garbage.
The burden of proof is on people that have a causal claim to show one. If there is one, show it. I gave you an observational study with over 1 million subjects and found ZERO effects. Disprove it or trust the medical consensus. It’s not groupthink, it’s sound science.
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I’m with you and I question Wakefield’s work on this.
And you are right that there could be selection bias. But that could be countered by increasing the study size. These studies are performed every single day in all areas of science. That’s why I mentioned confidence level.
Why wouldn’t the CDC reference that study in their court case? There are thousands of studies that are not well accepted by the science world. I think Wakefield would fall in that category.
Scientific studies (in general) have lost credibility over the past 40 years since so much of it is not performed by academic institutions who are unbiased. Today, most studies have a commercial client who is paying for a specific result through commercial organizations posing as real science. So much of grant-based science has dried up as the government has pulled budget dollars away from real science while lifting the bar for what is considered “acceptable science”. It can cost $1 billion to bring a new med on the market. That limits the players to just a handful and they can’t afford to invest in unbiased studies.
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@drgnslayr said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
I’m with you and I question Wakefield’s work on this.
And you are right that there could be selection bias. But that could be countered by increasing the study size. These studies are performed every single day in all areas of science. That’s why I mentioned confidence level.
Why wouldn’t the CDC reference that study in their court case? There are thousands of studies that are not well accepted by the science world. I think Wakefield would fall in that category.
Selection Bias doesn’t go away with additional sample size. In fact, it gets worse (for math reasons I won’t get into). Like I said, we can’t do them because A) we know vaccines are very effective and
there’s no compelling argument to expose FEWER people to them since we know as vaccination rates go down, more people get sick and die. Would violate all the rules of ethics we all subscribe to as professional researchers.We can get away with it in other trials because most diseases aren’t contagious and there’s a much smaller impact on society. For example, if we’re testing an intervention for heart disease, it’s not contagious and benefits are questionable. In this case, vaccines are almost exclusively for communicable diseases and have a big societal impact. Exposing society to measles for a RCT to test MMR is highly unethical (again, equipoise).
I bet they just ignored the case because frankly they have better things to do than fight a case with almost no policy implications from a group of cranks.
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Who would benefit by spending millions and millions to perform an acceptable study proving vaccines have a causal relationship with autism?
Pharma? nope
Parents? yes
Parents can’t afford to run an acceptable study. Our gov can do it, but we don’t have the resources to blow in science any longer.
I’m not totally disagreeing with you. I’m just “questioning authority” and those making billions off of this. I question if they have our interest at heart more than making big cash. Those same players sure didn’t stick up for us while they pushed through Congress the application of opioids, saying they were safe to administer beyond a short term use. We see what happened there! And they knew the addictive behavior beyond extremely short use. But on vaccines, they are angels… hmmmm…
I’m an old-timer who had kids late in life. My kids are not vaccinated yet. I continue to sit on the fence. But what do I risk? A few bumps and a fever? We don’t live in Africa where measles can be a death risk. It’s been ages since someone died in America from measles… in a country of 300+ million.
When I was a kid we had measles parties. That’s how I was “vaccinated.” Kids were put with other kids who had measles so they could get it over with in their youth. Worked for me. Also… it was believed that childhood diseases are there for a purpose; to build immune system.
My kids go to a pediatrician who is a definite believer in vaccination. He told me he wasn’t about to argue with me because my kids are (by far) the healthiest kids in his practice (and he has a huge practice).
My kids have not been sick this entire school year while all their friends at school have been sick 3 - 6 times this year!
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@drgnslayr said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
Who would benefit by spending millions and millions to perform an acceptable study proving vaccines have a causal relationship with autism?
Pharma? nope
Parents? yes
Parents can’t afford to run an acceptable study. Our gov can do it, but we don’t have the resources to blow in science any longer.
I’m not totally disagreeing with you. I’m just “questioning authority” and those making billions off of this. I question if they have our interest at heart more than making big cash. Those same players sure didn’t stick up for us while they pushed through Congress the application of opioids, saying they were safe to administer beyond a short term use. We see what happened there! But on vaccines, they are angels… hmmmm…
That’s a red herring. First, we’ve already done the heavy lifting on vaccine science and found zilch in terms of risk.
Second, Pharma isn’t doing this work. It’s people like me at public universities. Zero dollars go in my pocket when I get a government grant. I spend it all on the study, and that’s what almost all of us do (or else it’s fraud).
Third, parents don’t have the technical know how to do the study. I’m even trained in these methods (PhD candidate at UNC) and wouldn’t feel good about doing a vaccine study. Health just isn’t my thing. I could run an experiment on curriculum, but not vaccines.
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I do respect your posts on this and am considering your point of view.
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@drgnslayr said in Boy guys I really just don't know best to keep tabs:
I do respect your posts on this and am considering your point of view.
Please do! I’m not saying you’re a kook or anything like that, you seem like the type to look at things critically, which is good!
It’s an easy topic to get overwhelmed with conflicting information and takes a certain degree of know how to really figure out and filter the wheat from the chaff.
