Buried in the recent blizzard of comments was an interesting question five days ago posed by Giovanni Tamburino about Kant’s philosophy. I am afraid I have been distracted lately, among other things by a bad fall I took on a cement pavement outside my building, but it is now a quiet Saturday (18 hours before we are due to be hit by an ice storm!) so this seems like the right time to respond. Here is what Mr. Tamburino asked:
“In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant on page 76 Kant
presents (us) an argument which is used against idealism, the argument is this:
''Changes are Real.'' To which Kant responds
''Now, changes are only possible in time, and therefore time must be something
real...Time, no doubt, is something real, that is, it is the real form of our
internal intuition...But if I could intuit myself or be intuited by another
being, without this condition of sensibility, then those very determinations
which we now represent to ourselves as changes, would present us to a knowledge
in which the representation of time, and consequently of change, would not
appear... Time is nothing but the form of our internal intuition. If we take
away from it the special condition of our sensibility, the conception of time
also vanishes, and it inheres not in the objects themselves but solely in the
subject which intuits them.''
I apologize for skipping some sections, but I do not understand whether Kant is
denying the existence of Time per se or denying that the conception of motion
exists without sensibility?
Also, Kant mentions as you had at the end of your 4th Lecture on the Critique
of Pure Reason the comparison of a rainbow and the raindrops therein. Kant
explains the rainbow as being empirically real and the phenomena which cause it
as perceptible due to our ''manifold of perceptions'. I understand this but I
am a wee bit confused with the terminology. Kant refers the rainbow as
transcendentally real but not absolutely real, correct?
And what does Kant mean by absolute and empirical reality in this sense? Is
transcendental reality the same as absolute reality?”
The passage from which Mr. Tamburino quotes is to be found
at the beginning of a subsection of a portion of the Transcendental Aesthetic
devoted to the discussion of time, specifically the section entitled “elucidation.If”
(A36 = B33 ff.) There are several complicated issues
interwoven in his question and I cannot here sort them all out but a few
remarks may be helpful.
First of all, a terminological clarification that is
absolutely necessary if one is to make any sense of what Kant is saying. Kant
has two very similar terms with quite different meanings and unfortunately he
is utterly careless in his use of them. The terms are “transcendent” and “transcendental.”
By “transcendent” Kant means “going beyond the limits of experience.” It is to
be contrasted with “immanent,” which is to say lying within the limits of
experience. By “transcendental” Kant means roughly what today philosophers
would call “epistemological,” which is to say “having to do with the
conditions, nature, and limits of knowledge.” It could I supposed be contrasted
with “metaphysical.”
It is Kant’s view that space and time are forms of the mind’s
sensibility, which means that they are not characteristics of things as they
are in themselves but only of things as they appear to us through the affection
of our sensibility. Thus, space and time are not transcendently real, they are
transcendently ideal. The statement that space and time are not transcendently
real is a transcendental statement, that is to say it is an epistemological
statement, a statement about the nature, conditions, and limits of human
knowledge.
But space and time are not nothing! They really are the
forms of the world as we experience it and hence, as it is very important Kant
to establish, they are the forms of the physical knowledge that Newton and
others have provided us about the world as we experience it.
All of this was new when Kant said it and it was easy enough
for readers to confuse what he was saying with something quite different,
namely skeptical doubts about the claims of physical science.
Science draws a distinction between things which are
empirically real and those which are empirically ideal. For example, because of
the refractive indices of water and air, a straight stick inserted at an angle
into a pond appears to bend at the point where it meets the water. This
appearance is an empirical illusion, as are mirages in the desert caused by the
effect of heat waves on light. Kant is
an empirical realist – he thinks the distinctions made by scientists or by
ordinary folks within experience between illusions and reality are well
grounded and correct. What he seeks to deny is the metaphysician’s claim that
space and time are characteristics of things as they exist in themselves, not
merely as they are experienced by us.
I hope that helps.
How does Kant’s view of the nature of time hold up against Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?
ReplyDeleteAs I understand the Theory of Relativity, space and time are real, and are dependent on the speed of light, not just phenomena which are dependent on our minds. One’s speed in relation to the speed of light ( which always remains constant) affects both space and time – the faster one moves, the slower time occurs, i.e., not just appears to occur, but actually occurs, hence the paradox of the twins, one of whom leaves Earth at a speed approaching the speed of light, and returns younger than the twin who stayed on Earth. Isn’t this contradictory to Kant’s concept of time?
A little internet digging revealed that Einstein was aware of the contradiction between his theories and Kant, and he repudiated Kant.
ReplyDeleteSee:
https://sites.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/significance_GR_geometry/Einstein_on_Kant.html
Should not philosophers who purport to favor science over non-science take this conflict into consideration?
A.A., this looks helpful, too:
ReplyDeleteSEP: Early Philosophical Interpretations of General Relativity (Sec. 3: Kantian and Neo-Kantian Interpretations)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/genrel-early/#KantNeoKantInte
It doesn't look hopeless for a contemporary defender of Kant, IMHO.
Dear another anonymous.
ReplyDeleteThe physical laws you plug into the equation ought to be irrelevant to Kant.
Spacetime is not real to Kant, he might say.
I'm not a Kant scholar, far from it.
The only thing about relativity is that it is so far removed from our experience
I think and this is a wild guess that you ought to read some Quine, and maybe Wittgenstein who are more up to date about the science and are post Kantian
It would be fun to invite Kant (with a translator) onto NPR and pose your question to him
Howie,
ReplyDeleteI have read both Quine and Wittgenstein. Not sure they wrote anything relevant to the intersection between Kant and Einstein.
By the way, astronomical observations have confirmed the validity of both Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity (dealing with time and space) and his General Theory of Relativity (dealing with the source of gravity).
Michael,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the link. I will read the article.
"Pride goeth before a fall" indeed. Hope you recover well Professor.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the 'pandemic' is still a scam. :)
One intermediary between Kant and Einstein might be the non-Euclidean geometries of Lobachevsky and Riemann. As I recall, Kant explains space as the form of the “outer” sense (vis a vis time as the form of the “inner” sense) and he understands space as the three-dimensional, Euclidean space necessary for Newton’s physics. I’ve long wondered whether Kant would have accepted the later formulations of non-Euclidean geometry. My general sense is that he would not have. The Kant scholars to whom I have posed this question have seemed uncertain and divided in their replies. Perhaps, Prof. Wolff, you could help clarify that one as well.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous @8:46 pm
ReplyDeleteI assume you think the Earth is flat and that the belief that it's round is a scam perpetrated by the scientific establishment.
^^^ Not at all, that would be crazy - sort of like believing the mainstream narrative on COVID!
ReplyDeleteYou (or maybe there's more than one of you here) keep saying it's a scam, but I don't recall your ever saying what, in your view, the correct account or narrative is. You might have linked to something or other, but for those not inclined to follow such links, is it possible to give
ReplyDeletethe gist of your view in a few sentences? If it's going to require 20 paragraphs and 3 comment boxes, don't bother. I have a feeling it might just require one sentence along the lines of "It's all an invention concocted by x for the purpose of y." (I'll let you say what you think x and y are.)
^It's funny how "mainstream" gets used as a pejorative, rather than understood as an antonym to "fringe," "marginal," "held in contempt by the overwhelming majority of credentialed experts." Like, "The Holocaust happened" is indeed mainstream history. But Anonymous has clearly made up his mind, and deemed himself competent to laugh off the verdict of 96% of the country's doctors, so...
ReplyDeleteBack to Kant! I might be way off here, but this part (the bolded bit may be a typo?) is giving me some trouble -
ReplyDeleteIt is Kant's view that space and time are forms of the mind's sensibility, which means that they are not characteristics of things as they are in themselves but only of things as they appear to us through the affection of our sensibility. Thus, space and time are not transcendently real, they are transcendently ideal. The statement that space and time are not transcendently real is a transcendental statement, that is to say it is an epistemological statement, a statement about the nature, conditions, and limits of human knowledge.
There are a few slogans and terminological distinctions that I find very helpful in capturing the gist of Kant. One of the most helpful for me (though it isn't pertinent here) is "Concepts without intuitions are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind." Another - and this is directly pertinent here - is the distinction between "transcendent" and "transcendental," as explained by Prof. Wolff. Another is the series of qualifications made in response to the accusation that Kant is an "idealist": Kant is, in certain respects, both a realist and an idealist - i.e., he is an empirical realist and transcendental idealist.
Now (unless I'm wrong!), except when Kant speaks a person of "faith" (having discovered the limits of Reason), he doesn't say anything about the transcendent, because he denies that we can have knowledge of the transcendent, meaning knowledge of what goes beyond the limits of experience. (I think for Kant the transcendent would include God, the Soul (of "rational psychology"), the World (of "rational cosmology"), and the thing-in-itself.)
So, I don't think Kant would say that space and time are transcendently ideal - he wouldn't claim any positive knowledge as to their ultimate, unconditional ("in-themselves") character - but he would say that space and time are transcendentally (as distinct from transcendently) ideal.
"Space and time are transcendentally ideal" means what Prof. Wolff says: They "are forms of the mind's sensibility, which means that they are not characteristics of things as they are in themselves but only of things as they appear to us through the affection of our sensibility."
"Space and time are transcendently ideal" would mean (I think) that space and time have an existence as "ideal" (i.e. mental, mind-dependent, mind-related...) entities, even apart from human experience of them.
(I would say "apart from all experience of them," but I'm not sure if the resulting statement would be self-contradictory...? As it stands, it might bring to mind the position of Berkeley: that everything's ultimate reality consists in its being perceived by God. And Kant takes some pains to distinguish his philosophy from the idealism of Berkeley.)
When I was a graduate student in philosophy at the University of Michigan in the mid-sixties, I studied for my history pre-lim, with the greatly appreciated support of Professor Wolff's ""Kant's Theory of Mental Activity," on the assumption that there would be an essay topic on Kant's First Critique.
ReplyDeleteI turned out to be correct.... and, I fear, would not have passed that pre-lim without the assistance of that book.
But........Thankfully, the essay topic posed did not bear on Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic...so, I did not have to discuss Kant's utterly ridiculous claim that space and tie are not features of the real world, [however plausibly construed] but only of the sensible capacities of human [?] perceivers.
I have never been able to understand how in the world Kant could ever have claimed such thing, the implication being that if there had never been human [?] cognitive agents in the world, then there never could have been space and time.
Kant was a genius.... but the Aesthetic of the First Critique is....bonkers.
I thank ye Professor Wolff, and Mr. Michael, I understand more greatly what Kant is saying. For I had fallen to the illusion of Kant stating that Space and Time are none existent. But, in truth, Kant is simply stating they none existent without our sensibility. I believe I should not toil with the Transcendental Aesthetic much longer, lest I arrive at Transcendental Logic and read the latter as though it is a foreign language. Inanycase, it has been a great honour to have been lectured thus far by you Professor Wolff, it is a form of knowledge which is only held in comparison to the ancients, something quite far from current society, (I suppose that is what philosophy consists of). If I have any more questions which I should find myself arriven on the subject of metaphysics, I shall ask you. Good luck with the ice storm, and thank you!
ReplyDeleteBy Giovanni Tamburino.
https://youtu.be/4uDX3gBBS84
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteThe clip you link to, while moderately amusing, is offering a specious message. The message is that those of us who are vaccinated, since we are vaccinated, have noting to fear from those who refuse to be vaccinated. The unvaccianted are not putting those who are vaccinated in jeopardy. They are only risking getting infected themselves, which is their right.
The flaw in this “reasoning” is the following. As long as the unvaccinated remain unvaccinated, they are not only risking getting infected themselves. By risking getting infected, the are providing a host for the covid virus to continue to survive, and continue to mutate, into forms of the covid virus which could then threaten those of us who are vaccinated. The more mutations which occur, the more likely the virus will mutate into a from which is resistant to the vaccine, and which could therefore exterminate the entire world population.
So, as amusing as the video may seem to be, the unvaccinated do present a threat to the rest of us. And that is not at all amusing.
lol. keep drinking the kool-aid pal!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteYou are an ignorant jackass. I assume you dropped out of high-school and support Trump.
Post-script:
ReplyDeleteIn addition, when the unvaccinated become infected (not if, but when), they will beg for the nearby hospitals to treat them, thereby overwhelming the available medical services, taking beds which were scheduled to be used by those having waiting for elective surgeries, e.g., organ donations; cancer treatments; heart bypass surgeries; etc., putting their lives at risk. Reports are emerging of patients who have died because they were unable to have their elective surgery performed, because selfish and ignorant assholes like the guy in the video who have not been vaccinated were taking up the beds that were needed for vaccinated patients.
I think there's a fine line between a) wanting to understand Kant when he talks about space and time, and b) understanding ourselves when we want to clarify for ourselves what we actually mean when we ask "what is space and time?" I think it is really helpful to actually feel some uncertainty when asking "what is it?" and "how is it?" and then go to a) to understand Kant (or others) when they ask the same question and answer it in a certain way.
ReplyDeleteIf Facebook bans anti-vax propaganda, I don't see why Professor Wolff can't ban it here.
ReplyDeleteA close friend died of Covid before the vaccines arrived in Chile and this is no laughing matter. Vaccines save lives and as AA points out, allow hospitals to treat other serious illnesses.
Amen, S. Wallerstein....
ReplyDeletePlease, no more "Anonymous" on vaccine issues.
s. walerstein and David,
ReplyDeleteI sympathize with you inclination to ban such stupid comments from the blog. However, I believe this would be counter-productive. But for the video link, I would not have seen this defense offered by anti-vaxxers. And I have to admit, on its surface the argument presented in the video has a degree of persuasiveness. And there are readers of this blog who, based on some of the comments, either share the video’s point of view, or could be persuaded to share it. I believe it is better to provide a forum for such erroneous views, so that they can be rebutted, to allow those who read the blog who may be on the fence to read, and contemplate, the rebuttal.
On the other hand, someone who needs assistance to see through Anonymous's posts will in many cases be unreachable; and also, engaging someone in debate can lend them an undeserved appearance of credibility. And at least half of a troll's purpose is to get a rise out of people, in which case, it's generally best to ignore. (Though I don't always follow my own advice!)
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'm not sure there even is a ban option on this site; so far I've only seen some combination of manually deleted posts and verbal requests to f$#@ off. The Internet is a bottomless pit of such nonsense, so, I guess we can be thankful that the blog hasn't attracted even more of these characters.
Giovanni: Good luck with the Transcendental Logic! IMO, the "Dialectic" portion is, despite its length, much, much less of a challenge to get into than the earlier, "Analytic" portion. I'm not especially close to figuring it out myself, but I think it's helpful to keep in mind Kant's table of the logical forms of judgment, as a sort of guiding thread for much of the book, determining its structure.
I think a large part of Kant's idea in the Analytic is something like this: All of our experience as knowers consists of judgments, and every judgment is an act characterized in some way by the logical forms (which are laid out in the table). Corresponding to these logical forms are the "categories" (the pure concepts of the understanding). Next come the "principles"; the categories are involved in the principles comparably to the way in which terms are involved in propositions (or to the way in which words are involved in sentences). The principles have a comparable status to the most basic laws of nature; but their origin is our own cognitive activity.
Don't take this too seriously, of course - it's incomplete, it requires a lot of fleshing out, and it's just my effort as an amateur to gain some basic footing.
Ah, the 'liberal' champions of free speech show their fangs...how predictable.
ReplyDeleteIt used to be possible on the Blogger platform to limit comments to only those who themselves have Blogger accounts; and with that I assume it would be possible to ban individual commenters by their account. I don't know whether it is still possible to do those things. A major disadvantage of doing so would be that Prof Wolff would no longer receive comments posted using the Anonymous option by those who apparently do not have a Blogger account, such as Giovanni Tamburino.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think it is very disappointing to see readers here calling for censorship on subjects like vaccine mandates. (Although, at this point, after seeing so many say that they were not even going to bother looking at the Graeber and Wengrow material, maybe I shouldn't be surprised at some of the closed-mindedness here.) For posts that are obviously intended just to troll, the best approach other than deleting them or, when possible, blocking them is to just ignore them. Don't engage.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/r4sLuDHs0Jxn/
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteInteresting video, which raises legitimate concerns about the long-term effects of the covid vaccine. Thank you for providing it.
My non-scientific response is that the covid pandemic presented the world with a highly transmissible virus which was very debilitating, and in many cases was lethal. The focus was on an effort to develop a vaccine which would protect against the virus in the short term, and worry about the possible long-term effects later. There was not sufficient time to conduct animal tests. The current empirical data indicates that most of the people currently being admitted into hospitals with covid infections are unvaccinated, which supports the conclusion that the vaccine works. The alternative was to let hundreds of thousands of people die, and let natural immunity catch up and create herd immunity. That was a price which most of us were not willing to pay.
In response, watch the video link below.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2022/01/17/mom-1-year-old-covid-hospital-nr-vpx.cnn
"My non-scientific response is that the covid pandemic presented the world with a highly transmissible virus which was very debilitating, and in many cases was lethal. The focus was on an effort to develop a vaccine which would protect against the virus in the short term, and worry about the possible long-term effects later. There was not sufficient time to conduct animal tests. The current empirical data indicates that most of the people currently being admitted into hospitals with covid infections are unvaccinated, which supports the conclusion that the vaccine works. The alternative was to let hundreds of thousands of people die, and let natural immunity catch up and create herd immunity. That was a price which most of us were not willing to pay."
ReplyDeleteYes, I understand this perspective as well and I don't immediately discount it. My main point really is that people still need to be made aware, via the old and tested doctrine of informed consent, as to the risks they are taking with the vaccine, versus taking their chance with the virus. There should not be a one size fits all approach which fails to take into consideration one's individual risk profile - we can see clearly around the world that this approach is failing anyway. And compelling / coercing people to take vaccines, silencing doctors and other scientific detractors from the debate does nothing to help the situation.
Actually, those tactics will probably massively damage the response to any future health crisis that we may need to deal with, as many have now completely lost trust in these institutions and the authority figures that run them.
I agree with Anonymous @10:32.
ReplyDeleteAnother Anonymous: "There was not sufficient time to conduct animal tests."
ReplyDeleteThere was time to conduct animal tests in parallel with beginning the vaccination rollout. From the beginning there was no plan to scale up production to levels required to vaccinate everybody at once, so they knew it would take some months to get everyone who wanted it to be vaccinated.
Another Anonymous: "The focus was on an effort to develop a vaccine which would protect against the virus in the short term, and worry about the possible long-term effects later.... The alternative was to let hundreds of thousands of people die, and let natural immunity catch up and create herd immunity."
Two problems there. The first is that in the US and a few other countries, there has been a massive focus on an mRNA vaccine strategy. mRNA vaccination is a novel technology whose longterm effects we really know nothing about, especially when we are talking about vaccinating the entire population, including pregnant women and children. The mRNA approach was not the only option available, as we can see from the paths taken by countries such as China and Cuba, who have relied on more traditional vaccine development strategies, for which there is an established safety record. The US government and media trumpeted the short-term efficacy of the mRNA vaccines and dismissed questions about potential adverse effects.
The second is the decision ultimately to base the entire plan on vaccination, rather than on also aggressively using low-tech behavioral interventions (including use of masks, forced isolation and quarantine with extensive contact tracing) and on expanding access to medical care. While the Chinese were rapidly building new hospitals to handle COVID-19, the US was actually closing hospitals and cutting budgets for medical care.
So the choice was never just to get everyone vaccinated as quickly as possible and worry about the adverse effects later versus to let hundreds of thousands of people needlessly die.
https://unherd.com/thepost/israeli-vaccine-chief-we-have-made-mistakes/
ReplyDeleteI would also encourage people to ask themselves:
Why the push to dismiss natural immunity which is established for decades to be superior to any vaccine induced immunity? Why are we still largely not taking this into account when talking about mandates and prevention of the spread?
Why , after two years of this, do we have a massive surplus of mRNA vaccines, but still no widespread testing and tracing program in place? Why is there still no officially recommendation treatment protocol for covid other than, “oops, you should have gotten vaxxed”
Animal tests were done on previous versions of this mRNA tech - and they were not good.
ReplyDeleteI think it is quite evident, if you look into it, this biotech would have been dead in the water if not for pushing it through on an EUA because they had terrible results when testing on animals, and the tech never would have otherwise proceeded to human trials due to the safety concerns.
Anonymous and Eric,
ReplyDeleteOn the issue of allowing the development of natural immunities to retard the spread of the covid virus, with the aim of developing herd immunity, Sweden initially went this route. It did not work out well.
https://chicagopolicyreview.org/2021/12/14/swedens-unconventional-approach-to-covid-19-what-went-wrong/
I think time will tell, which immunity is most durable, effective, and preferable - should one be in a relatively low risk profile and consciously decide that infection may prove to be the best long-term strategy.. As this disease is not going away anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteStill, even if getting any kind of immunity ASAP in general is the better strategy - why not also just recognize natural immunity for those already infected when attempting to essentially mandate covid antibodies in order to participate in certain places or activities?
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteBecause it would be too difficult to monitor who has already contracted the virus and therefore has natural immunity. How would such an individual prove that status to a restaurant owner, theater owner, etc. The vaccine card is a standardized card which is easily recognizable. Standardizing a comparable card for those already infected would result in a proliferation of such cards.
Proof of a past positive test, or an antibody test presumably would suffice for that.
ReplyDeleteThere is already no standardization of the current vax card system. So I'm not sure what the big difference would be, if people would prefer to demonstrate immunity in other ways.
Among others (I haven't looked at them all, but there seems to be a pattern!), the claim that mRNA vaccines are potentially unsafe looks sketchy. Ask Google about it, and a quick peek at the top results (for me) seems to suggest a pretty strong expert consensus that they're safe and effective.
ReplyDeleteA lot of this for me basically comes down to epistemology-of-testimony type issues. Not being a scientist or medical person of any kind, I can't rebut Cyrille Cohen or whomever on their own terms; but I still need to decide who's "probably right" and "probably wrong," and can only do so from my very imperfect vantage point. (In general, I haven't seen much open, self-critical dialogue about this sort of fact, which surely applies to every individual in some sphere or another.)
Anyway, on the topic of vaccine safety and urgency: Sorry for the barrage of links (they're mainly there to create the impression that one can further verify my position if one wishes), but I'm more inclined to trust the AMA, AAFP, AAP, ACP, etc., etc., than I am inclined to believe this or that individual who's lately been highlighted on some obscure anti-vaccine (or vaccine-hesitant, or whatever) page - even if that individual is a doctor, which I obviously am not.
You can find credentialed, accomplished individuals to back just about any discreditable scientific/academic/political etc. opinion, whether it's this philosopher who supports Trump, this philosopher who's a 9/11 "Truther," this biochemist who defends Intelligent Design, this physicist who's a climate-change denier, etc., etc. I reject all these opinions with little hesitancy, though I'm sure their most knowledgeable supporters know more than I do; or at least, I would have zero confidence in my ability to outperform them in debate. That's a sort of uncomfortable thing to admit, but for me, it'd be vastly more uncomfortable to take such a stance in the face of what appears to be overwhelming expert consensus.
Though well short of expert status, I actually know a little bit about philosophy and how philosophers think, so I'm more comfortable having some unfashionable inclinations in that arena. But when it comes to science, history, and so on, I have no problem admitting I'm out of my element, and I find it most sensible to defer to "mainstream" (there's that word again) experts who seem aligned with the consensus of their peers. Not saying it isn't possible for the consensus opinion to be mistaken, of course, but it isn't clear to me when a person who can't really claim expertise would be on solid enough ground to reject it.
The narrative that mRNA vaccines are safe is mainstream here in Chile too. The Colegio Médico (the medical association) is quite leftwing; their president, Izkia Siches, recently resigned to form part of Gabriel Boric's newly elected leftwing government. They have supported vaccination as has Piñera's rightwing government: the issue has not become politicized here as it has been in the U.S.
ReplyDeleteThe first vaccines to arrive here, about a year ago, were the Chinese vaccines, Sinovac, and I received my first two doses of that vaccine as did most Chileans. However, we received Sinovac because it was the first available not because of any medical decision. As time went by, other vaccines arrived and my third dose was Astrazeneca, but some people got Pfizer as their third dose.
I just don't see why Chile's leftwing medical association would propagate a false narrative about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. They are not tools of the big drug companies and they support public healthcare for all.
I have seen mRNA vaccines questioned in certain Chilean online circles which promote the Russian sputnik vaccine and are are very pro-Putin. So the Putin-phobes here should take note of at least one source of the anti-mRNA vaccine narratives.
I wrote a relatively long comment but have decided not to post it. But I will post this shorter one.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what I take to be Michael's basic point, though I would phrase it perhaps a little differently. I think there is no way for someone without relevant expertise, even someone who has done a certain amount of reading/exploring about this, to reach independent conclusions with real confidence. One has to make judgments as best one can, based partly or largely on deciding whom to trust.
There is also no way for a non-expert to be *completely* certain about the status or veracity of particular claims. For example, one of the doctors on the panel that anonymous linked says the spike protein itself is a toxin. The site factcheck.org says that that's incorrect and quotes various people saying the claim is baseless. The person on the panel says that factcheck.org is funded by a group with ties to the vaccine. Factcheck.org says it's funded by a grant from the Robert Woods Johnson Foundation but that the foundation has no control over its editorial decisions. And so it goes.
mRNA vaccines are very new technology and should be subject to a higher burden of proving safety until we have data that says otherwise. I have less concern with traditional vaccine technology that has been used quite safely for decades
ReplyDeleteLFC, spike protein is toxic and you can confirm that yourself by searching the public medical journals and reading the articles - no “fact checker” shills required. It’s toxic if you get it from covid too.
Another example of why we should just be testing everyone for antibodies:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10760296211020833
Just another data point on these shots being increasingly risky when taken post covid infection.
Also, there are credentialed doctors and experts all over the world trying to raise the alarm on these issue - no shortage of expert witnesses to be found on that side of the debate. The only difference is the power and bias of the big tech censors and “fact checkers”. Look into the big “fact check” groups and who pays their bills if you want to take their interpretations as impartial and unbiased.
As for us “anti Vax” trolls, we truly have nothing to gain by cautioning skepticism and arguing for doing your due diligence. And “caveat emptor” indeed when they are trying to get you to line up for your 4th “booster” shot in less than one year.
The factchecker.org piece that I cd have linked but didn't quotes a guy at UT Austin who researched in this very area as saying that there's no evidence that the spike protein, at least in this context which is what matters, is toxic.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I looked at a NebraskaMedicine site, U of Nebraska I think, that made two pts that stayed w me. First, the spike protein that the mRNA vaccine induces the body to make only stays in the body for three weeks. Second, the spike protein that the vaccine induces the body to make acts differently than the spike protein when it's attached to the coronavirus. And at that point the piece got quite technical. I can link it at some pt when am on computer (am on phone rt now).
I agree that people shd do their due diligence if they want to and I've said on this blog that I shd have done more of that myself.
That said, I'm simply not competent to evaluate the blizzard of scientific studies and their abstracts, some of which are not even grammatical. (I haven't looked at yr latest link.) A while ago I ran across a journal article that concerned me, based on the abstract and glancing through the text, and I sent it to an old friend of mine who is an MD. He read the article and his interpretation of what it was saying was considerably more benign than mine was.
So do your due diligence, if you feel so inclined, but there's a severe limit to what non-experts are able to do here, and at the end of the day most people will have to decide based on whom they trust.
Thanks, LFC. Well-stated. It's a challenge for me not to be weird and verbose in these discussions, haha. Hopefully my last post here...
ReplyDelete"Do your own research" is bad policy for a layperson, IMO. Russell remarked in one of his science-themed works, "Where experts disagree, it is rash for a layperson to have an opinion." It should be added that when experts don't disagree, but arrive at a common consensus, it's normally a little bizarre for a layperson to reject it.
Per that AMA link, 96 percent of US doctors are fully vaccinated, and (I forget how many, but) a number of the remaining 4 percent are planning to get vaccinated. Is 4 percent a terribly significant figure in this discussion, a sign of widespread disagreement, or might it instead bring to mind the old bit about Project Steve: Creationists think it's impressive that so many hundreds of scientists reject the theory of evolution, but the retort is that there are a comparable number (actually a much greater number) of scientists who accept the theory and have the first name Steve.
It also seems odd that people find it "obvious" that the large majority of doctors have impure motives, or badly impaired judgment due to personal interest and ideological commitment, etc. - and yet find it similarly "obvious" that they themselves are tolerably free of bias and interest. Hence the claim that "we have nothing to gain," which seems a bit psychologically naive to me. Generally speaking - and really, I figure this goes for just about any intellectual person, or anyone with a pet theory or soapbox issue - you (generic "you") want to be "right"; you're invested in the idea of yourself as a rational and independent thinker with the clarity and integrity to take an unpopular stance against intellectual bullies. You don't want to be duped, or full of shit. (And chances are, you don't want to lose your sense of good standing in a community of like-minded fellows.)
s. wallerstein: "I just don't see why Chile's leftwing medical association would propagate a false narrative about the safety and efficacy of vaccines. They are not tools of the big drug companies and they support public healthcare for all."
ReplyDeleteYou're right that it doesn't make sense that they would intentionally propagate false narratives. But I would assume that they are reading and being influenced by the same medical journals that physicians and medical researchers are reading in other countries, and they are often attending the same international medical and scientific conferences that non-Chileans are attending. So no matter how dedicated they may be to promoting public health and providing excellent care to their patients, they are not likely to be completely immune to messaging from major pharmaceutical manufacturers that could eventually prove detrimental to public health. Many of the studies of medicines and medical devices are directly funded by the manufacturers. Academic leaders who study these products typically have financial relationships with pharmaceutical companies and device manufacturers. They or their departments often receive funding from the companies to participate in drug development studies. In some cases they may hold personal investments in the companies, and/or may hold patents for new technologies. Many of the medical journals are supported by advertisements that pharmaceutical manufacturers pay to have placed in the journals.
I see that a group of Chilean doctors have even formed an organization dedicated to raising awareness about some of the challenges. If this weren't a problem for medicine in Chile, why would they need such an organization?
(I am not arguing against vaccines in general or in the case of COVID-19. I am challenging the calls for censorship of those who question establishment narratives.)
LFC: "the spike protein that the mRNA vaccine induces the body to make only stays in the body for three weeks"
ReplyDeleteMost vaccine products generally only stay in the body for a short time. Their job is to stimulate a durable immune response that will persist long after the vaccine itself is no longer in the body. In the vast majority of cases, the effects are beneficial. In theory, however, in some cases the long-lasting effects could be detrimental, with the vaccine triggering an autoimmune disease, for example.
New-onset autoimmune phenomena post-COVID-19 vaccination
Do COVID-19 RNA-based vaccines put at risk of immune-mediated diseases?
According to the manufacturer, the version of the spike protein that the mRNA vaccines are designed to produce is unlike anything in the body, so the body's immune system is supposed to attack the virus as a foreign protein without any risk of the immune system confusing viral protein/vaccine spike with the body's own tissue (in other words, there shouldn't be any risk of autoimmunity being triggered). But the history of medicine has shown that what's not supposed to happen sometimes does in fact happen.
Eric,
ReplyDeleteI take back my call asking Wolff to censor those who question mainstream discourse on vaccines.
I clicked on the link which you sent, thanks and I see that among their mesa directiva (directors) is Dr. Izkia Siches, whom I mention above. She was a student activist, a member of the Communist Party at that time, although no longer, then elected president of the Colegio Médico (Chilean Medical Association), was an important public voice during the pandemic standing up to rightwing president Piñera and his health minister, and recently resigned her position in the Medical Association to form part of newly elected leftwing president Gabriel Boric's team and inner circle. Rumors suggest that she may be named Interior Minister (the most important ministry), the first woman ever to occupy that position or to some other top cabinet post. I have never heard her question the mainstream narrative about vaccines although she is very clear in her opposition to for-profit medicine and has worked all her professional life full-time in a public hospital.
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteMy disagreement hasn't been with you personally. It has been with the wider movement favoring censorship that we are seeing in corporate media, on social media platforms, and in government (both on the left and on the right, in the US).
Is everyone here familiar with the history of thalidomide?
ReplyDeleteThalidomide is a drug developed in the 1950s that was widely used for a host of medical conditions, including colds, penumonia, and morning sickness. Animal studies suggested the drug was non-toxic, and it was thought to be harmless to humans. One of the distributors in the UK claimed in an advertisement that "Distaval can be given with complete safety to pregnant women and nursing mothers without adverse effect on mother or child." It was made available other-the-counter (no prescription needed).
However, it was not approved for use in the US because a pharmacologist at the FDA was not satisfied with the safety data provided by the manufacturer.
It took five years for a connection between use of thalidomide during pregnancy and birth defects to be clearly established. In that time, thousands of women had lost pregnancies due to the drug's toxicity and thousands of babies had been born with very severe birth defects.
https://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/objects-and-stories/medicine/thalidomide
The moral of this history is that a medical intervention that seems very safe in the short term, that is widely prescribed or recommended by doctors and medical experts, may prove to be very dangerous with longer observation.
More recent examples have involved the RotaShield rotavirus vaccine and Vioxx, painkiller that was supposed to cause fewer side effects than ibuprofen and similar antiinflammatory pain medicines.
Much more humility on COVID-19 is in order.
ReplyDeleteMany comments here in recent months seem to be operating under the assumption that people who have been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 cannot, if they get a "breakthrough" infection, transmit the virus to others. It would be understandable if you think this, because this is the message the media have been broadcasting and that many in government, including in public health agencies and the White House, have been conveying, unfortunately. It has also largely been the experience we have had with many other vaccinations with which most of us are familiar, such as for smallpox, chickenpox, and measles.
But SARS-CoV-2 is closer to cold virus or influenza virus than to those; and the currently available vaccines for COVID-19 are very "leaky." As we are already seeing, vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 does not confer longlasting immunity against infection, unlike with smallpox and those others.
Moreover, studies suggest that, at least with Delta [and possibly with Omicron], those who get a SARS-CoV-2 infection after being vaccinated have essentially the same chance of passing the virus on to close contacts as the unvaccinated do. In a large, prospective study in the UK: "We identified similar SAR [secondary attack rates] (25%) in household contacts exposed to fully vaccinated index cases as in those exposed to unvaccinated index cases (23%). This finding indicates that breakthrough infections in fully vaccinated people can efficiently transmit infection in the household setting." A Dutch study similarly found that the rate of infection of unvaccinated close contacts of those infected with SARS-CoV-2 was not statistically different between index cases who were vaccinated and those who were unvaccinated (see the bottom two panels in the figure under "Vaccine Effectiveness Against Transmission"). The same was true in a study from Singapore. The main benefit of these vaccines still is that they reduce the risk of severe infection, hospitalization, and death in those who are themselves vaccinated.
Additionally, we do not know what the longterm effects of giving booster after booster may be. There is some preliminary evidence from observations made before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic that suggests repetitive inoculation in a relatively short period of time may actually have an adverse effect on the immune system's ability to identify and fight a potential infection, contrary to long-held assumptions. Per NY Times: "repeatedly stimulating the body’s defenses can also lead to a phenomenon called 'immune exhaustion,' Dr. Pepper [an immunologist at the University of Washington in Seattle] said.
'There’s obviously some risk in continuously trying to ramp up an immune response,' she said. 'If we get into this cycle of boosting every six months, it’s possible that this could work against us.'"
There's also the need to consider that as we pour all of these resources into boosting large numbers of Americans who are not themselves at high risk of severe COVID-19, we continue to leave vulnerable a very substantial proportion of people in the rest of the world who are at elevated risk of COVID-19 complications. Is that moral? And is it pragmatic, considering that viruses like SARS-CoV-2 do not respect borders?
I received this mail from the Progressive International, a group headed by people like Chomsky and Naomi Klein, about how the U.S. is blocking their efforts to send money to Cuba to produce the Cuban Covid vaccine for international distribution. Really.
ReplyDeleteDear friends:
We write with alarming news: The Dutch multinational bank ING has blocked all donations to the Progressive International delegation to support the internationalism of vaccines in Cuba, submitting to the illegal US embargo. And it seems others are following suit.
This is scandalous. The year 2022 began with a record number of new Covid-19 cases, the highest since the pandemic began two years ago. Its impact has been very uneven. While European states administer booster shots, most people in the world's poorest countries have yet to receive a single dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.
In the face of vaccine apartheid, Cuba has emerged as a powerful engine of internationalism, promising to share its vaccines with the world. That is why the Progressive International sends a delegation to Havana to help vaccinate the world.
Eric
ReplyDeleteI don't have to time click on your links rt now and I haven't even gotten around to putting up the link to the NebraskaMedicine site I mentioned.
But for the record I'm not saying that "what's not supposed to happen" never happens. I'm reasonably sure that occasionally it may, or does happen. (I myself did not have the standard, if I can use that word, experience w the vaccine, but I'm not planning to say anything more about my own experience bc I think any one person's experience is prob of only marginal relevance to this discussion.)
I agree w yr point about the unequal distribution of global resources in this connection.
I'll leave it at that for now.
P.s. I just looked at the abstract of that Chen article in Immunology that you linked.
ReplyDeleteIt talks about autoimmune phenomena following vaccination, says that factors x y and z might be contributing, and then there's a sentence that says in effect that whether the links are coincidental or causal "remains to be elucidated." That abstract is a good example of why, as a layperson, it's difficult to sort this out. And the abstract also contains a sentence saying the authors aren't denying the benefits of vaccination in preventing severe disease and death.
As for that other link, the long letter to the editor, I find that it's about three-fourths incomprehensible on a quick run-through. The concluding paragraph is clear enough, though. (When it comes to the natural sciences in general, my education is, how shall I put this, deficient, but it strikes me that someone needs a really solid background in the details of how the immune system functions and malfunctions, plus a bunch of other stuff, to understand that letter, and I don't have that.) I think I may understand the basic underlying point at a very primitive level, but that's not the same thing.
ReplyDeleteHere's the link to the Nebraska site:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/where-mrna-vaccines-and-spike-proteins-go#:~:text=The%20Infectious%20Disease%20Society%20of,made%20by%20the%20body
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.10712
ReplyDeleteThe Moderna shot in particular is now officially recommended against by health authorities in both Europe and Japan, for young men, as the cardiovascular side effects are so pronounced compared to other shots. And we have to keep in mind we are now dealing with about one year or less of data and have only begun to see the tip of the iceberg, especially as booster after booster shot gets rolled out with the Israelis serving as the clinical trial.
Eric,
ReplyDeleteBy criticizing the program to administer booster shots as not moral, because it reduces the quantity of vaccine available to poorer nations, thereby putting their population at risk, aren't you conceding that, despite the risks posed by the vaccines, it is better, overall, to be vaccinated rather than unvaccinated?
Maybe the important point there is access to vaccinations as an ethical position, rather than needing any kind of medical or scientific conclusion as to the vaccines' merits.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteBut if there are legitimate concerns about the safety and future adverse health effects of the virus vaccine, then it cannot be unethical to limit the access of the availability of the vaccine to other countries. If Eric's concerns are valid, then it would in fact be unethical to provide access to the vaccine.
AA,
ReplyDelete"If Eric's concerns are valid, then it would in fact be unethical to provide access to the vaccine."
No, that doesn't follow at all. Eric is pointing out through those links (at least the ones I looked at) that, in a very smallish minority of cases, vaccination can produce undesirable effects. So on any kind of fairly straightforward utilitarian calculus, if it's going to save thousands of lives in country X while also leading to undesirable consequences (life-altering perhaps but not nec. life-threatening) for a relatively small number of people, the overall benefits cd reasonably be judged to outweigh the costs.
Another Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteHow is it a concession if I never argued that it is better to be unvaccinated than vaccinated?
The issue is whether it is ethical to force people to be vaccinated, or to receive serial boosters, against their will. The secondary questions on the hoarding of vaccines by the haves at the expense of the have-nots are provoked by claims, stated plainly or implied, that requiring everyone in the wealthy countries to receive boosters is the best way to handle the pandemic even if doing so will result in deaths of millions of people in poorer countries whose lives could have been saved; and that those in the establishment who are calling for vaccine mandates know what they are doing (ie, they aren't just winging it and hoping for the best).
The Moderna shot in particular is now officially recommended against by health authorities in both Europe and Japan, for young men, as the cardiovascular side effects are so pronounced compared to other shots.
ReplyDeleteWell, my roommate and I are young-ish men, in a couple different elevated risk categories, and we're both fully vaccinated with Moderna. And we're quarantining (for the second time, actually) due to a COVID situation in the family. We're currently asymptomatic and waiting to get tested in a few days.
I am confident that our vaccines will reduce our risk of developing severe symptoms, requiring hospitalization, and/or dying. Getting vaccinated was probably the right move!
I failed to find the "official, authoritative" recommendations against Moderna - maybe someone could point me in the right direction, because everyone I turned up who acknowledged the (rather small, like a few dozen cases out of a million or so?) risk of cardiovascular complications was, nevertheless, emphatically in favor of the vaccines. (And please do so in plain English; to echo LFC, I don't find the specialist journal pieces all that helpful.)
I do apologize for all my impatience and unpleasantness. I'll try to assume people's issues with the vaccine are ultimately coming from a good place. I think my family and I will be all right - wish us luck if you're inclined. ;)
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI hope that you'll be fine. Here's to your good health....(with my afternoon tea)!
Ditto what s.w. said.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteJapan apparently still allows male teens and young adults to receive the Moderna vaccine, but advises that they be notified of the possibly higher risk of myocarditis so that they can make an informed choice.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1813/
Some countries in the EU have recommended against Moderna for those under 30.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/11/10/germany-france-restrict-modernas-covid-vaccine-for-under-30s-over-rare-heart-risk-despite-surging-cases/?sh=3d9411512a8a
For the record, Anonymous and I are not necessarily arguing the same thing.
I am concerned about vaccine mandates, and about the overall response to the pandemic in countries like the US, where preservation of the wealthy's capital is the top priority, as opposed to, say, in China.
My comments should not be taken as any kind of recommendation for any individual's personal situation, other than that I believe each person should be able to make a voluntary choice for him- or herself after being fully informed.
Okay. Bad job with the Googling on my part - I hadn't emphasized the age requirement.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the well-wishes, guys.
That is a lot of information above to read and digest. What is the bottom line?
ReplyDeleteThe main beef that Anonymous and Eric have, as I understand it, is that criticism and scorning of those who refuse to be vaccinated is unfair and fails to take into consideration both their liberty interest in controlling what is injected into their bodies and the uncertainties about the long-term possible adverse health risks which the covid vaccines may cause.
What, then, does a cost/benefit analysis yield>
On pro-vaccination side is the fact that the current empirical evidence indicates that among those who are currently being hospitalized with covid infections, the vast number of them are unvaccinated, and also account for the majority of those who are dying from the infection. That is strong empirical evidence that the various vaccines are working.
As against this the anti-vaccination supporters point out that the pharmaceutical industry is not disclosing the ingredients of the vaccines; it is suspected that some of those ingredients may have adverse health effects down the road; and there is evidence suggesting, but not conclusively proving, that one of the vaccines has adverse health effects on young males. This is all speculation.
So, on the one hand we have documented evidence that the vaccines, overall, are effective at preventing individuals who have been vaccinated from contracting covid. In addition, the covid pandemic is presenting us with an immediate, here and now threat to the health of millions of people, the vast majority of whom, based on the current empirical evidence, would benefit from being vaccinated, weighed against the speculative possibility that the vaccines may have serious adverse health effects in the future. Given these considerations, the balance sheet weighs decidedly in favor of being vaccinated. The thalidomide example is not apposite, because the medication’s primary use was to relieve the effects of morning sickness in pregnant women, not preventing the lethal effects of an illness, and therefore the risks of adverse health effects outweighed the benefit of using the medication.
In addition, during the time period that one refuses to be vaccinated, unless and until an individual actually contracts the illness and develops anti-bodies against it, the individual is providing a host for the virus to mutate into variations against which the current vaccines are ineffective. (I have not seen any comment invalidating this concern.) Moreover, while those who are unvaccinated are being treated in a hospital, they are taking up a bed which deprives another person who has been vaccinated and needs to have surgery done, requiring that the surgery, which is often for very serious medical conditions, be postponed, often with lethal consequences for the surgery patient. Moreover, while many of those who are not vaccinated and need to be hospitalized will come out of the hospital with a stronger immune system which can resist a reinfection, many of them will die in the hospital.
The balance sheet therefore weighs in favor of being vaccinated. It still seems to me to be legitimate and justifiable to criticize those who continue to refuse to be vaccinated because they continue to put the rest of us at risk, including children under the age of 5 who cannot get vaccinated.
"...will come out of the hospital with a stronger immune system which can resist a reinfection..."
ReplyDeleteOr not. Saw a story today about a folk singer in an European nation who sought immunity through infection and was dead in a few days. Save for anchorites there is no liberty interest over injections for infectious diseases any more then driving drunk or carelessly discharging a firearm.
A few days ago a relative in her mid-nineties fell and wound up with a a broken bone that required surgery and a concussion. UCSF Medical Center wanted to discharge her yesterday. When her niece came to pick her up, she couldn't get out of the wheel chair, even with help. Took the doctor readmitting her. Also took five hours to get a bed. The Bay Area is heavily vaccinated but the hospitals still have problems, so no liberty interest.
Too much is made out of injections anyway. No one was injecting lead in kids but with leaded gasoline and paint, breathing and ingestion was sufficient to get blood lead levels up. Dito lots of things.
Another reason for universal vaccination is that some viruses (including Covid don't always present with symptoms but are still infectious. When I was a kid mumps was a common childhood disease but I never seemed to get it. When I was in my thirties I was exposed to mumps and went to the doctor and mentioned I had never had mumps. Turns out the anti-body test was positive so I had had mumps earlier and didn't know it.
It's more then legitimate to criticize those who refuse to get vaccinated. There should be real penalties.
aaall,
ReplyDeleteUnbelievable! We agree!
Somebody has been drinking the bigpharma kool aid evidently.
ReplyDeleteThis history lesson may offer some useful perspective:
https://rumble.com/vsehws-1976-swine-flu-fraud-cbs-60-minutes.html
The history of the swine flu vaccine does raise legitimate concerns.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would want to know the following statistics”
1. How many people contracted the swine flu and were seriously ill or died.
2. Of those, how many were vaccinated.
3. Of those, how many were not vaccinated.
4. What percentage of those who were vaccinated had adverse health effects as serious as the neurological Guillain-Barre’ syndrome.
At the current time, the empirical data for the covid vaccine indicates that the answers for the above questions are:
1. Very high, in the hundreds of thousands.
2. Very low.
3. Very high.
4. Very low with respect to any kind of adverse health effects
The above data do not replicate the swine flu vaccine history, and therefore still supports being vaccinated.
Another Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI disagree with several of the points in your cost/benefit analysis, but rather than get into a back and forth on that, let me ask the broader question:
Are you arguing simply in support of an individual choosing to be vaccinated? Or are you, like aaall apparently, and I presume most readers here, arguing in favor of government-ordered mandatory vaccination?
If the latter, what penalties do you support for not being vaccinated?
Fines? (how high?) Exclusion from entertainment venues (restaurants? theaters? beaches? parks?)? Exclusion from schools? Exclusion from public libraries? Exclusion from grocery stores and pharmacies? Exclusion from all private businesses? Denial of access to mass transportation services (taxi, bus, rail, air)? Loss of employment? Denial of government payments (eg, social security, unemployment insurance, medical benefits)? Denial of other government services (passport issuance, ability to vote, issuance of licenses [marriage, driver, business])? Denial of medical care? Separation from one's children? Confinement to one's home? Confinement to a sanatorium? Deportation, for those who are not citizens? Imprisonment? Imprisonment with hard labor?
How long should the exclusions and periods of confinement apply? Just until the end of the pandemic, or for a longer period? Permanently?
Do you support these penalties for all who are not vaccinated, or should there be exemptions, such as based on a history of previous infection with the virus or based on religious beliefs?
Eric, you might google "Mary Mallon" and read:
ReplyDeletehttps://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayText.xhtml?lawCode=HSC&division=105.&title=&part=5.&chapter=1.&article=
Note that Anon has to go back 46 years. Smallpox inoculation wasn't without its risks but refusal often led to fines and loss of employment.
Sanctions should meet the risk to the public. Tetanus and measles have different profiles. Covid is at or exceeds the measles end of the infectious spectrum. Given that a case of measles usually gives lifetime immunity while a covid infection seems not to would call for serious sanctions (some of the examples you list are merely punitive, bear no relationship to public health and are red herrings designed to distract). Public transportation seems obvious as do entertainment and recreational venues. I'd add shopping and dining, of course.
Save for anchorites, there is no claim for religious exemption that passes muster. Try using that claim for human sacrifice. Building a place of worship doesn't exempt one from building and safety codes and zoning laws.
BTW, plague and rabies are still endemic in parts of the U.S. You probably live in a bubble, some of us don't.
aaall,
ReplyDeleteWrt Mary Mallon, she was actively spreading a potentially lethal disease in her capacity as a cook. The current discussion is about mandating vaccination for all people, not just for people who are currently infected or for people whose jobs place them at high risk of spreading SARS-CoV-2 to others who are most vulnerable to serious complications of COVID-19. Now that we understand the epidemiology and transmission of typhoid and have very effective treatments for it, someone like Mallon would not need to be locked away. She could be prohibited from working as a cook so long as she remained potentially infectious.
I'm not sure what point you are making in your citation of public health statutes regarding tuberculosis.
I'm also not sure what your point is about plague and rabies. Endemic plague in the US is eminently treatable with widely available antibiotics if treatment is started early in the course of the disease. Rabies is not transmitted from person to person.
It's also worth remembering that just because something is legal does not mean that it is ideal or right.
For the record, I have not argued for "government-ordered mandatory vaccination."
ReplyDeleteI thought it was obvious but the point was that serious threats to public health in the past have been met with rather serious measures. In the case of TB, folks who refuse to follow treatment protocols are still subject to being detained.
ReplyDeleteYour point on Covid is incoherent. Selective immunization simply isn't going to work with a virus that is highly transmissible, that readily mutates, and has high rates of hospitalization for unvaccinated folks who contract it. That "long covid" seems to be a thing about which we currently know very little adds to the situation.
We are, in a sense, where we were with typhoid and other infectious diseases back in the day and where we currently are with TB in terms of state involvement. It is also where we would (will?) be with diseases like polio and smallpox if the ridiculous posturing towards Covid vaccination extrapolates to vaccination in general.
Rabies in always a factor where I live - a skunk family lives under my home and assorted rodents, raccoons, bats, foxes, bears, bobcats, deer, and cougars are neighbors. One of the few humans to survive rabies lives a few miles away. Hence the state requires canine and encourages feline vaccination. Yet another pesky state imposition on our freedums.
"For the record, I have not argued for "government-ordered mandatory vaccination."
ReplyDeleteI have for those who wish to live a regular life. If one doesn't wish to be employed as well as have access all sorts of venues and services, one can do as one wishes.
Shortly after the mRNA vaccines were introduced, there was an article, in WaPo if I recall correctly, about a doctor who had a severe allergic reaction to the first shot. He had a food allergy to shellfish and the vaccine, for whatever reason, triggered a similar reaction. Obviously he wouldn't have gotten the second dose. To bar him or anyone else in that situation from employment bc they're not fully vaccinated and therefore fall afoul of a mandate is absurd. (The CDC itself says that anyone who had a severe allergic reaction to the first dose should not get the second.)
ReplyDeleteI know someone who got the first dose, had a somewhat weird viral infection (sore throat etc.) a week later, and a few weeks after that developed a constellation of symptoms. Though causation was unclear, that person decided not to get the second dose. To impose a mandate of the sort that wd bar that person from entering, say, a grocery store, assuming they haven't tested positive recently, bc they're not fully vaccinated just strikes me as unfair. People don't control how their bodies react to vaccines, and bodies react in different ways.
p.s. Note that the Biden administration's mandate to employers with more than 100 workers, now stayed as it goes through the courts, wasn't a mandatory vaccination mandate. It was vaccination or weekly testing.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons to have a serious mandate as well as a variety of vaccines and research/development on post infection treatments is there will inevitably be a small number of individuals who, for medical reasons, will not be able to be vaccinated. Also, since the age cohorts for getting vaccinated are stepped, the more completely each qualified cohort gets vaccinated, the better the protection for those who don't yet qualify. I didn't qualify my statement because I assumed that the above was common knowledge and also the reason why one has to wait for a few minutes after receiving the shot to see if there is any reaction. Also there is the remote possibility of a variety of serious reactions to any vaccine.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I have had three Moderna shots as well as a flu shot and my third one was a full dose. After the first shot I had a sore arm for a few days. After the second I had a similar reaction to the person you know with their second shot. I still got the third shot and I only had a sore arm for a couple of days.
Protecting folks like your first example is why we need serious mandates.
"... wasn't a mandatory vaccination mandate."
ReplyDeleteShould have been for all employers. We also need top to bottom judicial reform to deal with the Federalist stooges that Bush and Trump appointed.
aaall: "some of the examples you list are merely punitive, bear no relationship to public health and are red herrings designed to distract"
ReplyDeleteWhich ones?
I hope anyone who is interested in these topics will listen to this 3-minute clip (the speakers are Eric Osgood MD and Qualia Redux):
@ 29:49-34:30
Youtube - This Is Revolution Podcast - The Savagery of the US Healthcare System
"Which ones?"
ReplyDelete"Denial of government payments (eg, social security, unemployment insurance, medical benefits)? Denial of other government services (passport issuance, ability to vote, issuance of licenses [marriage, driver, business])? Denial of medical care? Separation from one's children? Confinement to one's home? Confinement to a sanatorium? Deportation, for those who are not citizens? Imprisonment? Imprisonment with hard labor?"
BTW, as to "Confinement to a sanatorium?"
The law already allows this for with TB who refuse to take their meds. Given the ability of this virus to mutate, the development of strains that require serious quarantine protocols is possible - or folks could just get vaccinated.
OK, our healthcare system is screwed up but that is somewhat orthogonal to the current problem of hospitals being jammed up with unvaccinated people. If everyone who could get vaccinated actually got vaccinated, we would have a screwed up healthcare system with bed space and sufficient meds.
While we don't want to start screwing around with underwriting, I see no problem with vaccination status as an element in triage.
Eric,
ReplyDeleteThe examples which Dr. Osgood offered were inapplicable to the Covid situation. Suppose the crimes which the criminals he treats were for some strange reason contagious – a rapist, murderer, etc., who circulated among the public transmitted their propensity to rape or murder to others s/he came in contact with. I do not think he would be so quick to argue that they still deserve medical care to enable them to continue to transmit their propensity for crime.
Another Anonymous @9:17am,
ReplyDeleteThank Heaven you are not a doctor.
aaall: "some of the examples you list are merely punitive, bear no relationship to public health and are red herrings designed to distract"
ReplyDeleteFired for Being Unvaccinated? You Probably Won’t Get Benefits
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/personal-finance/vaccine-mandate-unemployment-eligibility/
New York State Assemblyman Patrick Burke (D-Buffalo) is proposing legislation that would give health insurance companies the option to deny coverage for any COVID-related treatments.... 'We need to do everything we can to incentivize people to get vaccinated,' says Burke. 'If folks are demanding their freedom, they have the freedom to not get vaccinated, to increase the likelihood of spreading a very dangerous disease, then I don't know if the insurance pool and the rest of us should be covering for their very, very bad decisions that are already hurting us in a different way.'
https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/assemblyman-pat-burke-proposing-bill-to-allow-insurance-to-deny-covid-treatment-coverage-for-unvaccinated
On Aug. 10, Cook County Judge James Shapiro barred Rebecca Firlit, the mother of an 11-year-old boy, from seeing her son. Firlit’s attorney, Annette Fernholz, said her client and the ex-husband have been divorced for seven years and sharing custody. Fernholz said the issue was not raised by her ex-husband. Rather, the judge asked Firlit if she was vaccinated during a child support hearing via Zoom, and when she said no, the judge stripped her of all parenting time with her son until she gets vaccinated.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2021/8/29/22647262/judge-rules-pilsen-mom-custody-covid-19-vaccination
Philosopher Noam Chomsky argued that those who remain unvaccinated should be segregated, saying that obtaining food after they had "the decency to remove themselves from the community" was "their problem."
https://news.yahoo.com/noam-chomsky-unvaccinated-remove-themselves-171900487.html
Judges in other states have granted lesser sentences to defendants who opt to get vaccines, or mandated the vaccine as a condition of release from prison for some inmates....
Two judges in Ohio have also ordered that some people receive the vaccine as a condition of their probation.... In New York, judges in the Bronx and Manhattan have ordered defendants to get a vaccine as part of their rehabilitation and as a condition for seeking bail, respectively.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/30/chicago-vaccine-custody-rebecca-firlit/
Chomsky!!!! Wow!!!
ReplyDeleteWell, he's 92 and the slightest flu infection could kill him.
I'm 75, I vaguely remember the Asian flu and the Hong Kong flu and I didn't pay the slightest attention to either of them because I was young and neither of them was likely to do me much harm. Now I'm terrified of Omnicron, haven't left my apartment for almost 2 years without a mask and detest everyone, almost all of them younger than I am, who mob the streets and sidewalks without masks.
Which all goes to show you that our "rational" opinions even in geniuses like Chomsky are generally based on our gut emotional reactions and/or our self-interest. I've never claimed to be as rational as Chomsky and I'm happy to see that he is human, all too human.
aaall: "In the case of TB, folks who refuse to follow treatment protocols are still subject to being detained.... We are, in a sense, where we were with typhoid and other infectious diseases back in the day and where we currently are with TB in terms of state involvement."
ReplyDeleteThe state has been granted the power to confine a patient with tuberculosis who refuses treatment to their home or a sanitarium. There are circumstances under which the state may order treatment of tuberculosis against a patient's will, but those involve quite extraordinary circumstances.
But here's the crucial point:
These provisions for quarantine or involuntary treatment apply only to *patients* who have been diagnosed with tuberculosis. You are calling for a medical procedure to be forced on people who are perfectly healthy against their will. In the case of healthy young children, because the risk of severe COVID is so extremely low for them, you would be subjecting them to an involuntary medical procedure almost entirely for the benefit of others.
So no, tuberculosis does not provide a useful comparison.
aaall: "Rabies in always a factor where I live - a skunk family lives under my home and assorted rodents, raccoons, bats, foxes, bears, bobcats, deer, and cougars are neighbors. One of the few humans to survive rabies lives a few miles away. Hence the state requires canine and encourages feline vaccination. Yet another pesky state imposition on our freedums."
No one expects animals to give informed consent before undergoing medical procedures. Requirements for dogs and cats to be vaccinated against rabies are not relevant to this discussion.
Another Anonymous: "In addition, when the unvaccinated become infected (not if, but when), they will beg for the nearby hospitals to treat them, thereby overwhelming the available medical services, taking beds which were scheduled to be used by those having waiting for elective surgeries, e.g., organ donations; cancer treatments; heart bypass surgeries; etc., putting their lives at risk. Reports are emerging of patients who have died because they were unable to have their elective surgery performed, because selfish and ignorant assholes like the guy in the video who have not been vaccinated were taking up the beds that were needed for vaccinated patients."
ReplyDeleteAn influenza A strain known as H3N2 is making people so ill in California that thousands have shown up in recent weeks at hospitals struggling to fight the infection.... The huge numbers of sick people are also straining hospital staff who are confronting what could become California’s worst flu season in a decade. Hospitals across the state are sending away ambulances, flying in nurses from out of state and not letting children visit their loved ones for fear they’ll spread the flu. Others are canceling surgeries and erecting tents in their parking lots so they can triage the hordes of flu patients.
Jan 16, 2018
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-flu-demand-20180116-htmlstory.html
Flu killed and hospitalized more people in the United States last winter than any seasonal influenza in decades, according to new data released Thursday. It’s the most detailed picture of the devastating reach of the respiratory virus, which sickened millions of people as overwhelmed hospitals pitched tents to treat patients.... There were record-breaking levels of illness and hospitalization rates. The flu killed 180 children last season. Only the 2009 swine flu pandemic, which killed 358 children, was worse, in the 14 years since health authorities began tracking child deaths from flu.... Despite last year’s dreadful season, overall vaccination coverage remained flat; as in previous years, less than half of the U.S. population was vaccinated.
Sep 27, 2018
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/last-years-flu-broke-records-for-deaths-and-illnesses-new-cdc-numbers-show/2018/09/26/97cb43fc-c0ed-11e8-90c9-23f963eea204_story.html
"No one expects animals to give informed consent before undergoing medical procedures. Requirements for dogs and cats to be vaccinated against rabies are not relevant to this discussion."
ReplyDeleteI assumed you lived in the United States and were aware of our attitudes, customs and mores. "My" followed by all sorts of things, animate and inanimate, followed by the assertion of some deeply felt inherent right or privilege is common amongst most of us.
Once again you miss the public health analogy.
"Chomsky says..."
One of the more obnoxious tactics on the right is to find someone on the left who says something stupid and generalize from there. I don't agree with Chomsky,who is speaking for himself and very few, if any, others.
"You are calling for a medical procedure to be forced on people who are perfectly healthy against their will. In the case of healthy young children, because the risk of severe COVID is so extremely low for them, you would be subjecting them to an involuntary medical procedure almost entirely for the benefit of others."
That is an excellent summary of the principles behind public health measures like vaccination. As I pointed out above, I seem to have had a subclinical mumps infection. It's entirely possible given my age that I (and others in these parts) had a subclinical polio infection as a child. It's estimated that 95% to 99% of polio case are subclinical and many if not most of the rest are non-paralytic. Still we vaccinate for polio, MMR, etc.
All medical procedures on children are more or less involuntary because children. Not sure of you point there.
The reason for vaccinating children for covid is that:
1. Long Covid seems to be possible.
2. They can infect others including those who can't be vaccinated.
3. Allowing the existence of a large vector pool in which the virus can thrive and mutate seems unwise.
Then there's this:
"We come, then, to inquire whether any right given or secured by the Constitution is invaded by the statute as interpreted by the state court. The defendant insists that his liberty is invaded when the state subjects him to fine or imprisonment for neglecting or refusing to submit to vaccination; that a compulsory vaccination law is unreasonable, arbitrary, and oppressive, and, therefore, hostile to the inherent right of every freeman to care for his own body and health in such way as to him seems best; and that the execution of such a law against one who objects to vaccination, no matter for what reason, is nothing short of an assault upon his person. But the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States to every person within its jurisdiction does not import an absolute right in each person to be, at all times and in all circumstances, wholly freed from restraint. There are manifold restraints to which every person is necessarily subject for the common good. On any other basis organized society could not exist with safety to its members. Society based on the rule that each one is a law unto himself would soon be confronted with disorder and anarchy. Real liberty for all could not exist under the operation of a principle which recognizes the right of each individual person to use his own, whether in respect of his person or his property, regardless of the injury that may be done to others...We now decide only that the statute covers the present case, and that nothing clearly appears that would justify this court in holding it to be unconstitutional and inoperative in its application to the plaintiff in error...The judgment of the court below must be affirmed...It is so ordered."
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/197/11
s.w., Covid isn't just another flu virus.
aaall,
ReplyDeleteI didn't claim that Covid is just another flu virus. I said that someone Chomsky's age can die from the slighest flu infection.
I can understand that he's even more frightened by Covid.
Still, I don't believe that the non-vaccinated should be segregated. Rather, there should be more incentives to be vaccinated. For example, Chilean system: masks are obligatory in supermarkets, pharmacies, malls, public transportation, etc. Not always entirely enforced. There is something called "pase de movilidad", which means that you've been vaccinated and is a code on your phone. You need it to eat inside a restaurant (not on the terrace, we're in summer now by the way), to go to the theater or movies, to go to a gym, etc.
That is, without being vaccinated you have access to "necessary" spaces: everyone, vaccinated or not, needs to shop for food or for medication and to use public transportation and has a right to do so, but not everyone needs to eat inside a restaurant or to go to the theater. Something along those lines seems wiser to me.
As I said previously, neither mask wearing nor vaccination has been politicized in Chile.
There's no big right-left divide on the issue.
s.w. the problem in the U.S. is that mask refusers and vaccine refusers are two mostly overlapping circles and given the multiple jurisdictions masking rules are hard to enforce.
ReplyDeleteAccess to public transportation isn't a right and, given the often unavoidable closeness, a text book case for restrictions. Food and medication can be delivered - something many do now. I see no reason to not inconvenience folks who have little or no concern for their health or the health of others.
Needing elective surgery but being unable to obtain it because the unvaccinated have jammed up the hospitals seem a little more inconvenient then having to walk, bike, or order deliveries. Ditto having a traffic accident, heart attack, or acute appendicitis and having to go to a hospital full of vaccine deniers.
My blue, rural coastal county has masking with universal cooperation. Others not so much. I'll take your point on the flu but as I didn't consider it either but I always kept my tetanus shots up to date.
Perhaps of interest:
ReplyDeletehttps://jabberwocking.com/come-on-folks-get-boosted/
I'd say that in Chile vaccine refusers and mask refusers do not tend to be the same population.
ReplyDeleteI just saw in Chilean media that a guy without a mask in a supermarket hit a guard who asked him to use a mask and then pulled a gun on him. Given that almost no one has a gun permit in Chile, that guy must be a hoodlum and a stupid one since supermarkets have cameras everywhere and the cops will arrest him before he gets out of the supermarket parking lot if he has a car or before he's run 200 meters out the door if he doesn't have one. Another mask refuser stabbed a security guard in a similar situation. Probably both of them drunk or stoned and the lowest level of lumpen.
On the other hand, the vaccine refusers seem to have theoretical or philosophical or pseudo-scientific justification. I know one who wears masks and is very scrupulous about social distancing.
In most states, failure to pay child support will result in losing your driver’s license. I believe this would be an appropriate penalty for those who refuse to be vaccinated.
ReplyDeleteaaall: "That is an excellent summary of the principles behind public health measures like vaccination.... It's estimated that 95% to 99% of polio case are subclinical and many if not most of the rest are non-paralytic. Still we vaccinate for polio, MMR, etc."
ReplyDeleteFor most of those diseases, young children historically were at fairly high risk relative to other age groups; and the vaccines conferred extremely longlasting immunity, often providing protection that lasted well into adulthood. So there was a direct benefit to the children themselves in being vaccinated for those diseases. With COVID, that's not really the case.
aaall: "All medical procedures on children are more or less involuntary because children."
I think most people would say that, while companion animals should never be treated cruelly or caused to suffer just for the amusement of humans, our ethical obligations to human beings, including children, are much higher than to dogs and cats. The bar to justify forcing an unwanted medical procedure on any human is much higher than on an animal.
aaall: "Long Covid seems to be possible."
And if it exists, it also seems to be rare.
Besides which, there are also reports of long COVID-like symptoms arising in some people after vaccination, raising the possibility that the vaccines might also rarely cause those symptoms.
aaall: "They can infect others including those who can't be vaccinated."
Which further highlights the role for measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing. And as noted above, the vaccines are leaky. Even people who have been vaccinated are getting the virus and passing it on to others. They are far less likely to require hospitalization or to die from the infection themselves, but they are still liable to pass the virus to others and potentially to contribute to the reservoir of hosts, albeit at a reduced rate.
aaall: "Needing elective surgery but being unable to obtain it because the unvaccinated have jammed up the hospitals seem a little more inconvenient then having to walk, bike, or order deliveries. Ditto having a traffic accident, heart attack, or acute appendicitis and having to go to a hospital full of vaccine deniers."
ReplyDeleteWhich is why we made the annual influenza vaccine mandatory.
aaall: "[S]ome of the examples you list are merely punitive, bear no relationship to public health and are red herrings designed to distract....
ReplyDeleteOne of the more obnoxious tactics on the right is to find someone on the left who says something stupid and generalize from there. I don't agree with Chomsky,who is speaking for himself and very few, if any, others."
Poll of Americans this month:
- 60% of Dems would favor a government policy requiring unvaccinateds to be confined to their homes at all times except for emergencies
- 50% of Dems said government should be able to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question COVID-19 vaccines on social or other media
- 45% of Dems would support government forcing unvaccinateds to be confined to internment camps [although the pollsters phrased it as "designated facilities or locations"]
- 30% of Dems would support temporarily removing parents' custody of children if the parents refuse the vaccine
And a survey of 1,500 Canadians found:
- 54% said they don't have any sympathy for unvaccinateds who become seriously ill or die from COVID-19
- 61% would support making unvaccinateds pay the full cost of medical treatment out of pocket
- 61% would support making them pay up to an additional $150/month in their taxes
- 37% would support denying them access to any publicly funded hospital
- 33% would support refusing to renew their driver's license
- 27% would support putting them in jail for up to 5 days
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a17333eb0786935ac112523/t/61e77919672c5a0fc0148e8b/1642559771161/Unvaccinated+Factum+19+02+22.pdf
Just a brief factual comment re the above: long Covid unquestionably exists, and it isn't particularly rare. I'm not saying that has any implications for the broader discussion, but I do think one shd try to state the facts as accurately as possible.
ReplyDeleteEric, Only a few children were at risk of paralytic polio. Over 99% of the cases were asymptomatic to mild. The problem for the system is that a very small percentage of a very large number is still a large number relevant to resources.
ReplyDeleteRasmussen is a Republican oriented outfit and the Heartland Institute is a right wing think tank funded by folks like the Bradleys, Scaifs, and the Waltons so maybe a grain of salt. Also, 51% of Blacks, 60% of Hispanics, and 59% other [I assume mostly Asian] favor taking children from their parents??? 84% of Republicans suddenly have a problem with forcible family separation? Really! Also I don't agree with the items so the poll besides being dubious is irrelevant.
Re; Long Covid. Besides LFC's comment, I would assume that if an extremely low risk of LC from vaccination is a thing, then it hardly seems unreasonable to assume that a Covid infection would also result in LC plus all the other risks of infection, so that seems awash given the probability of infection.
There is no comparison between influenza and Covid in terms of both hospitalization and ICU need. In fact and infection hospitalization from flu dropped significantly because of the Covid isolation measures.
"Which further highlights the role for measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing."
Very good but how would you deal with the scofflaws? No mask, no entry? Fines?
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/100-questions-they-dont-want-to-answer?r=o7iqo&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
ReplyDeleteA course in logic would answer most of those questions. Steve isn't the first really smart guy with real achievements to go down a rabbit hole. Long ago I knew a guy with an engineering degree from UCB who decided the Truth is Out There, ditto for an otherwise very good MD I know.
ReplyDeleteDude, don't take the Red Pill.
Keep getting boosted aall, and keep drinking the kool-aid - you're gonna get COVID anyway. Double, triple masked, or whatever.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD6zw509v6Q