The Batlord

You are extrapolating a lot. Like why the piss are you bringing up white supremacy? If you have family members you're arguing with on Facebook about this then don't take it out on me.

You're also extrapolating a lot from a study he randomly posted as if publishing a study means we have a new cure. You publish a study. Then it gets peer reviewed. Then you get more studies. Then more peer reviews. Then you get meta analysis of all the studies and then maybe you can talk about having a new thing.

As far as I know the analysis of the studies that has been done has said that ivermectin is not effective at treating covid. And several of the studies, including the big one that was done in Egypt that was the only thing worth hooting about, have been retracted for being dog****.

But if you'd like to take ivermectin cause you heard about it on Joe Rogan or Facebook then knock yourself out.

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jadis

I've seen "white supremacy" used as one of the (perfectly random, imo) cudgels against those who are critical of some aspect of the authorities' handling of the pandemic. I was trying say that the left, of which you seem broadly representative, could use a bit more of their customary suspicion toward the governing institutions, including medicine. But whatever.

I do like the idea that I'm someone who listens to Joe Rogan though. I sometimes wish I would, seems like a fun way of life, but I can't take more than 15 seconds of his voice. He sounds like some guy on the bus who would sit next to you to start a conversation about car insurance rates and crop dusters.

adidasss

So your field is humanities and you are not a leftie? Weird.

Also, since when is the liberal left suspicious of governing institutions? Weren't commies all about big government and nationalization and state run companies and the like and it's actually the libertarians who are the suspicious types?

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“Think of what a paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise.” - Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle.

Last.fm

jadis

Yes and no. Centralization and nationalization have indeed been central to most socialist* visions and projects, but there's usually the recognition that while the state is run by capitalists, its institutions are capitalist institutions and hence corrupt. It is more or less in this sense that Marx was hailed as one of the great "masters of suspicion" (alongside Freud and Nietzsche): he taught us to see social relations as defined by exploitation, domination, profit etc.

Once said institutions, the story goes, are liberated through revolution and become property of the people, then they are redeemed. But not yet.

Naturally, after the disasters in Eastern Europe and China, greater and greater portions of the left have abandoned the dream of a revolution that would overthrow capitalism and moved on to work on some localized projects while accepting the confines of the capitalist state.

The left after 2008, esp in the US, is a pretty weird creature though.

*In the US liberals and left overlap or are synonymous but in France for instance liberal means the pro-capital center-right. Historically, liberals and radicals are different groups with different goals.


Tbh I no longer know

Trollheart

And you've never heard of hypocrisy? Do as I say not as I do? Even Ron "Come on in Covid, you are welcome make yourself at home" De Santis is vaccinated! These people are happy to risk the health and lives of others, but when it comes to themselves, oh no: that's where they draw the line.
Contender for Response of the Year 2021!

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Guybrush

I think the rational approach at the moment is to understand that vaccines are not going to eradicate covid anytime soon and that there are more drugs that can and should be part of the solution.

There's a huge amount of studies going on to check various medications, as there should be. However, that is NOT a reason to skip vaccines.

The mRNa vaccine technology looks to me relatively safe, more so than the old way of making vaccines. Vaccines have the potential to lead to unwanted responses in the immune system, like a flu vaccine might lead to narcolepsis because part of the flu virus may be structurally similar to a protein involved in human sleep regulation. Training the body against that part of the virus may simultaneously train your body to attack itself in such a way that you develop narcolepsis. Side effects like these are typically rare, but sometimes still expected.

This new generation of mRNA vaccines don't use real viruses, instead focusing on mRNA codes for the very specific part of the virus that we want to train the immune system against (spike protein). For that reason, I expect them to be safer than older vaccine technologies.

TLDR; get your vaccine and then hope we can also find other ways to combat covid.

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Something Completely Different

The Batlord

It's part of the medical community trying to push ivermectin on people. It's not like it's an essential oil or something.

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jadis

I dunno, give me the old school, workmanlike, boring-yet-serviceable Russian vaccine over this newfangled demonic concoction. I really see myself reading a NYT piece on Pfizer in a couple of years and learning from like the 7th paragraph that it was prepared on the basis of Jeffrey Epstein's DNA.

The Batlord

From what I understand they're not even using a weakened version of the virus in these new vaccines so it's supposed to be even safer? I mean sure "Big Pharma" are some pieces of **** but you have to be just as paranoid about grifters during a pandemic peddling snake oil.

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Lisnaholic

Well, I'm guilty as charged as I haven't been dipping into any reports.

To me, the idea that invermectin can effectively treat covid symptoms is counter intuitive. Vaccines that are specifically designed to guard against an illness have been proved, historically as the best way to fight smallpox, polio, etc.
Why would a horse de-wormer work against a respiratory virus? In the past, who has treated their cold/flu/lung infection with something for (I presume) the bowels? No-one. And what countries or scientific institutes have committed to rolling out an ivermectin program? None, afaik. That's enough for me to trust the CDC (and their equivalents worldwide) to do the science, and their conclusion is that vaccines are the way to go.

Does Guybrush still have his memorable signature, "In the information age, ignorance is a choice." While that is true, one peril of the internet age is the idea that we should all of us be second-guessing every opinion issued from an expert or govmnt institution. From what I have seen of Rand Paul's floundering performances, many people seem to be forgetting this old adage: "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

This is surely from Conspiracy Theory 101 ? Undermine the other guy's argument by saying that he's being duped by "them" for commercial/political reasons.

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953