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What is your support for doctor vaccination numbers? by tdiddy07
The entire medical community supports universal vaccination for any eligible person without a known risk factor. What is your support for the position that they are not in practice getting vaccinated at the same rate as their recommendations? You are hitting a lot of anti-vaxxer bingo cards, but I have never seen this one. So I'd like to see some reliable support for this.
A couple things to note below on the anti-vaxxer bingo.
1) Vaccines have always shielded manufacturer liability. This is a common anti-vaxxer argument from people who have no understanding of the law or of historical context. This is a rational legal policy decision that the government has made because the value of FDA-approved vaccines far outweighs possible risks. U.S. legal system generally does not hold a party liable for an unfortunate harm that they caused so long as they were acting reasonably and prudently. The law recognizes that vaccine manufacturers who do not misrepresent their data and get FDA approval have acted reasonably and prudently. Policymakers also recognize that there can always be unanticipated side effects, and its the FDA's job to drill down on this. If sued by someone with an unanticipated reaction, the manufacturer would win on the merits. The law simply shields manufacturers from wasteful suits. This is the regime in which vaccinations have been developed for over a hundred years. No one gave a shit about this when they were vaccinating their kids for MMR or chicken pox. I haven't encountered anyone who has voiced this objection who had any clue why this regime exists or how the legal system generally works.
2) Can you please direct me to what in the world you are talking about with the Pfizer study? I will admit that because I haven't seen anyone bring this up but you that I’m assuming either you have been given false information or do not understand the significance of whatever happened. But I am willing to engage it. I have some awareness that there was a study where those given the placebo opted out of the study when they became vaccine eligible.
But why are you concerned about the efficacy after one year? It'd be nice to have a study looking at that sure. But no one was anticipating immunity to last that long when this was happening, so it isn't exactly a red flag if it doesn't.
As to long-term risks. We don't know the long-term risks of COVID. The idea that not knowing the long-term risks of a vaccine is a good reason not to get vaccinated is not the action of someone acting rationally. That's the reaction of someone acting emotionally. The absence of good study data because everyone else got vaccinated is not a reason itself to be skeptical. It is a reflection that you started out skeptical and you're placing the burden on others to give you more data. Why? Do you place this burden on other FDA-approved treatments? When your doctor recommends or prescribes other medications, do you ask him his opinion about risks and trust him? Do you read primary sources of studies to analyze the risks? Do you think vaccines should be looked at differently? Why? Do you have reason to think vaccines are more likely other medication to show long-term adverse reactions that do not show up 6 months out?
3) Freedom of children's health care choice. Did you give your kids MMR or chicken pox vaccines? Do you make them stay home from school when they are ill? Do you make dentist appointments for them? Do you take them to the doctor when they're sick? Do you tell them to read medical studies before telling them to take a prescribed antibiotic? Do you encourage them to take flu shots? Come on. That's a bullshit argument. People who have never espoused the idea that everyone (especially kids) should have complete health care freedom are now opportunistically lifting this argument up. Of course we're not taking this argument seriously. It's not a serious argument. Are there some areas where we think there is freedom of choice? Of course. But we've consistently allowed health care decisions that affect the public to be met with rules that protect the public. This includes decisions prohibiting treatment, as well as decisions requiring treatment for infection disease.
4) A private actor like ND setting its policies does not take away others' freedom to make choices. ND is not a state actor, and no one has a right to attend a Notre Dame football game. You are also being dishonest in how you frame the question. Is anyone going to face consequences for not being masked? No? Then no one is being forced to wear masks. It's hard to take seriously a position that dishonestly frames the comparison.
5) Israel and the third world. I'm scratching my head at this one. I'm not aware that there's a major campaign to vaccination countries that already successfully vaccinated themselves. But how in the world does that have anything at all to do with ND or the United States. There are ample Americans who have not been vaccinated and policies can encourage this vaccination. From what I gather you're trying to graft the argument that our infection to death ratio has diminished in this context. I'm not sure why. Does the third world include Florida? They're dying at record numbers. I also would guess that America has more diabetic unvaccinated people than your pick of African nations until you get up to America's population. If I'm wrong, I'm happy to be corrected. But I'm pretty sure you haven't thoughtfully engaged this issue.
6) Because one population is low-risk, vaccination isn't necessary. This ignores basic vaccination principles. You have to eliminate vectors to protect people. Young people are prime vectors. Young people infect at risk people. I'm not at risk. But I got the vaccine to protect others. Because I'm not an asshole. Why should I feel sorry because a kid has to choose between vaccination and working or going to school? He had to do that for any number of diseases to get through school. This is not a novel concept. I will add that I'm not necessarily opposed to including recent proven recovered infection in various passport concepts, and I recognize that some who are recently infected may view vaccination as superfluous. When I got vaccinated, the prevailing expectation was that the vaccine would have broader protection across potential variants. I haven't seen anything to conclude that has changed. But I'm open to seeing it. However, some programs are reasonably concluding that the need to encourage vaccination in some places is so dire that that they are limiting their requirements to this.
Personally, I've gotten more emotional on the issue precisely because the vaccine skeptical have demonstrated an inability to articulate rational positions. Most of the vaccine skeptics I have engaged with bang the table on studies that, when you read them, do not say what they claim and that actually harm their position. This includes people who have posted in this thread. I try to calmly point this out. But after this happens over and over. It's frustrating trying to engage in important discussions with idiots who are not open to rational discourse.
Open debate is not being quashed. Shitty arguments are not being taken seriously. That's how free debate works. I see a lot of arguments in your post that do not stand up to reasoned scrutiny. They come across as someone looking for reasons to be contrarian. And the worse the reason is, the greater need to just slap a bunch of them down.