Vaccine skeptics actually think differently than other people:
In 2000, the measles virus was declared eliminated from the United States. Despite cases coming in from outside the country, there were few outbreaks because most people were vaccinated against measles. And then 2019 happened.
The U.S. saw 1,282 confirmed cases in 31 states -- the greatest number reported since 1992, with nearly three-fourths linked to recent outbreaks in New York, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most cases were among people who were not vaccinated against measles.
After events like this, many people express confusion about others' hesitancy or unwillingness to get vaccinated or to vaccinate their children, a concept called vaccine skepticism. As vaccine skepticism has become increasingly widespread, two researchers in the Texas Tech University Department of Psychological Sciences have suggested a possible explanation.
In an article published recently in the journal Vaccine, Mark LaCour and Tyler Davis suggest some people find vaccines risky because they overestimate the likelihood of negative events, particularly those that are rare.
The fact that these overestimations carry over through all kinds of negative events -- not just those related to vaccines -- suggests that people higher in vaccine skepticism actually may process information differently than people lower in vaccine skepticism, said Davis, an associate professor of experimental psychology and director of the Caprock FMRI Laboratory.
"We might have assumed that people who are high in vaccine skepticism would have overestimated the likelihood of negative vaccine-related events, but it is more surprising that this is true for negative, mortality-related events as a broader category," Davis said. "Here we saw an overestimation of rare events for things that don't have anything to do with vaccination. This suggests that there are basic cognitive or affective variables that influence vaccine skepticism."
[...] "Do some people encode scary stories -- for instance, hearing about a child that has a seizure after getting vaccinated -- more strongly than others and then consequently remember these anecdotes more easily?" he asked. "Do they instead have certain attitudes and search their memory harder for evidence to support this belief? Is it a bit of both? How can you counteract these processes?
"I'm excited that we're finding basic, cognitive factors that are linked with vaccine skepticism: It could end up being a way of reaching this diverse group."
Mark LaCour, Tyler Davis. Vaccine skepticism reflects basic cognitive differences in mortality-related event frequency estimation. Vaccine, 2020; DOI: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.02.052
(Score: 4, Interesting) by legont on Friday April 17 2020, @02:43AM
I had hepatitis B shots 5 years ago. It takes 3 shots over 6 months. Last fall my doctor who actually administered the shots himself run the antibody test and found none. He repeated the test at different lab - still none. We decided to do it again. I had two shots, but, given the environment, unlikely to have 3rd one.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @03:01AM (4 children)
This strikes me as over-protective parenting. Never allow a kid to do _anything_ risky at all and they'll never be able to properly assess risk.
I notice this all the time, especially in the newest generation. It manifests in other ways -- teens not going out to a social event because they're mortally afraid that if they don't study they won't have a future; teens afraid of having sex because they're completely convinced they'll either contract disease or get pregnant. The numbers are growing, not decreasing.
(Score: 2) by Aegis on Friday April 17 2020, @02:51PM (3 children)
I'd like to see some science, as opposed to anecdote, about this.
Because it sounds like the exact same criticism leveled at every younger generation in the history of humanity.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @03:46PM
There is something distinct going on here. It is snow plow parenting. My sister does it. I criticize her all the time for not letting her kids do anything without a form filled out in triplicate. She is absolutely mortified they will do/get 'something'.
I have noticed something else 'new' going on too. During this 'covid' thing. I am seeing *lots* of kids out. I had no idea some of these families even *had* kids. Something changed again.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by helel on Friday April 17 2020, @06:37PM (1 child)
Actually this looks like the opposite of the usual juvenoia. Generally people are concerned that "the kids these days" are too reckless, have too much sex, don't think about their future enough, and generally act like teenagers.
There dose indeed seem to be some evidence to support the position as well. [spiked-online.com]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday April 17 2020, @07:51PM
Wow, from complaining about the next generation going to Hell, to worrying that they're too restrained? The 40-Year-Old Virgin is nothing on them. What does a child have to do to gain approval? Or must they live without that, realizing it's not absolutely necessary?
I think it's a larger problem. It's the times. Every historic age presents a unique and sometimes unprecedented blend of challenges. Restraint seems like an awfully good idea for these times, with world population having soared far beyond any historic height, the Global Warming problem, and nuclear weapons. With that last factor, we must not and cannot resort to total war to bleed off overpopulation and give aggression an outlet.
A lot of wars were just that, a means to send troublesome, quarrelsome, stupid and violent people forth where they either end up dead or profoundly educated about the horrors of it. The usual process was to Instill in them fear and jingoism, exploiting the desperation they find themselves in perhaps through their own lack of foresight and planning, or perhaps through natural disaster for which the nation was not prepared and now is itself in desperate straits. Now, thanks to nuclear weapons, wars must be conducted with great restraint. Cold. Best not to have any at all. As solutions go, they were horrifyingly bad anyway. Good riddance.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @03:02AM (2 children)
If everyone else is vaccinated, they figure they don't have to and thereny avoid any possible side effects. Because they are special.
They are selfish parasites.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @12:16PM
Not as selfish as passenger transport companies and open-borders activists. Why is anybody entering a country where Measles and TB are eliminated without being tested and/or quarantined? A ricin attack would kill less people than a serious outbreak caused by communal spread of pathogens like Measles, TB or SARS-CoV-2. Travel internationally and pay for your own tests and quarantine you selfish fucks!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @11:23PM
A parasite who wants to gamble their health and health of their children for your own convenience. Precisely what you vilify them for, and for precisely the same reason.
You are not the most important person in creation, for anyone but yourself, dear snowflake. Learn to live with that and learn to account for other people's existence.
Other people may be wrong, you too may be wrong (inconceivable, yes?), but you are not their owner. They are not on this planet on your sufferance. They owe you nothing. They care about themselves first, exactly as you do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Friday April 17 2020, @03:15AM (4 children)
Aren't they afraid of their child catching the illness and experiencing its horrible consequences [youtube.com]? And when they ask "How can you counteract these processes?" ... can't you encode the scary stories of what happens when you get the disease?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by https on Friday April 17 2020, @05:11AM (3 children)
Doing nothing is (to their deluded thinking) not an action taken - so there's no way for their brain to encode an association of action and risk.
That's my first guess as to why they're not afraid. Who knows. I don't understand it, and I sometimes fear that if I did I would be joining their ranks.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @11:48PM (2 children)
in this fearmongering world. Dumping more propaganda onto the public is not the answer, you just alienate rational people and push the irrational to more irrationality.
And when nearly everyone gets vaccinated from something and nearly no one gets sick as a consequence, then the risks from the vaccination start to dominate the risks from the sickness itself. If a sickness kills 1% and a vaccine 0.001%, and you vaccinated a million people against it so that only 100 got sick, you will have 1 person dead from the sickness and 10 from the vaccine. This is how probabilities work; they are not known for political correctness.
Read the "Historical events" part of this link for real-life examples:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4599698/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday April 18 2020, @12:27AM
I'm thinking the rational people would say, "Meh, not my favorite episode" and if video input could reliably push irrational people in *any* direction, you'd at least have *some* mechanism of steering their planning and behavior.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday April 18 2020, @05:05PM
Sure, but the fact remains that without the vaccine, the disease would kill 10,000.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @03:37AM (31 children)
"Lets come up with a new treatment that is specific for every possible virus that could cause disease" is not a workable solution. Instead come up with one or a few strategies by actually understanding how a virus causes illness.
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Friday April 17 2020, @03:49AM (25 children)
Vaccination has been a a workable solution for more than two hundred years now.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @04:02AM (13 children)
Take a look around you to see the great success of the vaccination strategy.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Immerman on Friday April 17 2020, @04:23AM (2 children)
You mean almost every child surviving to adulthood? It used to be that losing a child to some terrible illness was pretty common.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @04:08PM (1 child)
This is the real issue. I am a gen-Xer, my father is a boomer and lost his brother to a disease. Guess what, i got all my vaccines. But someone from my generation would only have seen chicken pox, i was still a part of the 'lets get them all together so they all get it, close school for a week, and get this over with' mindset for that. But millennials don't even have that. New parents no longer have any past experience to allow them to properly gauge risk of not getting vaccines.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday April 18 2020, @12:55AM
I've been seeing a meme going around - Darwin: "Relax, I've got this."
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday April 17 2020, @04:50AM
You got a better idea? Let's see a proof-of-concept demonstration then.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Kell on Friday April 17 2020, @04:54AM (4 children)
Absolutely. What we're seeing in the world today is the direct effect of lacking a vaccine for a singal illness.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Kell on Saturday April 18 2020, @01:24AM (3 children)
Disagree mod, really? We're stuck inside while the economy falters because of a pandemic; if we had a vaccine, we would not be. But you know, failing to recognise factual reality does seem to be a common aspect of anti-vaxxer mentality, so this is on-brand, I guess.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Saturday April 18 2020, @01:44AM
Someone disagreed with you because SoylentNews has it's very own anti-vaxx flat earthers.
Weird.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @02:55AM (1 child)
No, we're stuck inside, while the economy falters, because the government has ordered it so, in contrast to every seasonal pandemic that has struck us in living memory.
And if I had a million dollars, I wouldn't have to work. And we're not getting that vaccine any time soon.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Thursday April 23 2020, @11:48PM
Most seasonal pandemics do not cause fatalities on the order of what we are observing. It is the government's job to safeguard its populace - if they allowed people to roam around randomly during a potentially-lethal global pandemic there would be a host of other people (rightly) calling for their heads. He who pleases all pleases none, so just focus on pleasing the guy who is talking sense.
What constitutes "soon" to you when it comes to getting a vaccine? 12-18 months for a fast-tracked vaccine would be pretty phenomenal.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday April 17 2020, @09:16AM (2 children)
OK, I look around. I don't see a single case of Polio, thanks to Polio vaccination. I don't see a single case of smallpox, thanks to smallpox vaccination. I see many cases of Covid-19, due to lack ofCovid-19 vaccination.
Seems that vaccination is a pretty good strategy, after all.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Saturday April 18 2020, @01:51AM
I work with a guy who contracted polio as a kid, in 1960's Holland, when the vaccine was not always available.
Idiot anti-vaxxers ought to have a discussion with him about the value of vaccinations. He won't go easy I can tell you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @08:15AM
If the pharma companies could be trusted to deliver safe products and not just maximize profits ....
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @02:24PM
You mean the world where people see these diseases as such a small threat that they don't want to risk giving their kid a shot?
I think I heard it put best, "Vaccines are a victim of their own success."
(Score: 1, Troll) by stormreaver on Friday April 17 2020, @01:28PM (10 children)
Most of our modern vaccines were introduced in the 1960's, which is after all of the diseases they were created to treat had already faded to modern levels. Vaccines rode the wave of better nutrition and sanitation, then claimed responsibility for the results.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @02:19PM
The Density is high in this one.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @04:34PM
> Vaccines rode the wave of better nutrition and sanitation, then claimed responsibility for the results.
The return of measles rode the wave of Goop. They did not take responsibility for the results.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday April 17 2020, @11:01PM (4 children)
You fool.
When Edward Jenner began vaccinating people with cow pox in 1796, small pox killed 20 - 30% of the people who contracted it.
(Score: 2) by Kell on Saturday April 18 2020, @01:28AM (3 children)
Which, when you consider that it was the new vaccine at the time when vaccines were new, given the comparative risks of dying from the disease being vaccinated against, that's a pretty acceptable trade-off. That's the thing that a lot of people don't get - even if a tiny fraction of people were injured as a result of a vaccine, as long as that number is lower than what would be expected from the disease itself it would still be the better and more ethical thing to do. Even if you can't eliminate all suffering, you should still do what you can to reduce it.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Saturday April 18 2020, @01:48AM (2 children)
Quite.
From what I understand, the anti-vaxxers talk a lot about "vaccine injury" but can't quite get their heads around the fact that when Andrew Wakefield came up with the "vaccine causes autism" trope he lied.
He also continues to lie about it and isn't a doctor anymore as a result.
Most anti-vaxxers are not arguing in good faith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @08:24AM (1 child)
Why do alot of recent (last 20 years) vaccines not have the accepted double blind studies to support them?
(Score: 2) by Kell on Sunday April 19 2020, @11:26PM
Vaccines do have clinical studies to support their effectiveness, but (contrary to popular perception) not all trials need be double blind. Firstly, we understand the principles behind which vaccines operate, especially for regularly recurring strain varieties, such as the flu. This is a matter of vaccine engineering rather than vaccine science. It would be a waste of scare resources to do randomised trials on something as mundanely understood as seasonal flu, whose variations are regularly recurring and to an extend predictable. Thus, the scientific proof standards for such vaccines are correspondingly lower; trials for many such vaccines are geared towards first proving the vaccine is safe, then secondly proving it is effective. As a matter of practical medical in the field, if it's safe and if it works, any additional placebo effect or positive cognitive bias on the part of the recipients is purely beneficial. Any negative effects will be quickly discovered through population infection statistics. As long as it works and helps more people than it hurts, great.
I am, myself, a robotics researcher with many highly-cited publications. You might be horrified to discover that we don't do double-blind trials in almost any of our work simply because what we do is exploratory engineering with clearly measurable outcomes. There is no risk of cognitive bias: it works or it doesn't. Similar case here. You most need double blind when the mechanism is unknown, where the outcome is highly uncertain, or where the effects are potentially ambiguous. This is partly why revolutionary new antibiotics and vaccines take forever, while something like a modified coronavirus vaccine could be pushed out the door relatively quickly. We already have trial vaccines we're confident will work; now we have to prove they are safe. But rest assured, when the first flu vaccines were still experimental science, such double blind trials were indeed carried out as part of their testing regimen.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 18 2020, @02:55AM (2 children)
There are several things to note. First, the decline in disease incident always follows widespread vaccination. There is no case where the infectious diseases dropped (often by two or three orders of magnitude) beforehand. Further, we can see this happening all the time in the developing world, parts of which are still adopting modern vaccination strategies, decades later.
And how, for a very glaring counterexample, does covid spread more rapidly in the US than in India, if nutrition and sanitation are so important?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @08:31AM (1 child)
In the US, many people have pretty poor health habits -- obesity, smoking, poor quality diet, etc.
I have seen no real look at health vs virus in this latest panedemic. How about vaping which
is popular only recently? We have all seen the person who will not quit smoking for any reason.
Should we get the tobacco companies and fast food companies to donate?
Oh yeah, the tobacco companies did a one time settlement years ago ....
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 18 2020, @11:41AM
Always an excuse, eh?
Certainly not in your post, eh?
(Score: 4, Funny) by DannyB on Friday April 17 2020, @02:14PM (4 children)
The real problem appears to be that nothing in the food chain selectively eats stupid people.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Immerman on Friday April 17 2020, @02:19PM
COVID is trying...
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Friday April 17 2020, @02:42PM (2 children)
If there was the human race would be gone. Some people may be more stupid than others, but we are all stupid in our own way.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 17 2020, @06:17PM
Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stupider.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday April 18 2020, @01:01AM
You could get a book or maybe a movie out of a supervillain plan like that. Independence Day 3 -- The Stupid Bomb.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @04:03AM (11 children)
They’ve been indoctrinated, often self-indoctrinated, as easily as watching YouTube . You watched a slightly skeptical video about vaccines... and what does YouTube suggest for you... a lot of similar stuff and down the rabbit whole they go.
A full half are afraid of thimerosal. remove that and they should take it? But Don’t count on it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @04:21AM
Rabbit hole entrance here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPzu61M9UN4 [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Friday April 17 2020, @05:19AM (9 children)
Anti-vaccers could be a symptom of falling trust in our leaders and institutions. It could also be influenced by our low-trust society. Diversity is necessarily our strength.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @06:02AM
The only cure is another dose of snake oil. I only hope there are insurance salesmen licking their lips at this news.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @07:45AM
Just look at those Flat Earthers...
Same for the 9/11 bunch, there are lots of stuff that's suspicious about the official version and explanation of the events, but some can even think the buildings were taken down by micronukes!
Just because some lake smells fishy doesn't mean you go drink from a septic tank.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday April 17 2020, @12:57PM (3 children)
Absolutely: if you thought your doctor was incompetent and uncaring and only got his job through giving his boss lots of money, would you want him to operate on you?
Or diagnose your illness?
Or prescribe for you?
And can this 'expert' guarantee you won't die or become disabled by the vaccine?
Dogs...they couldn't even get it right with Covid-19: "It's airborne, but don't bother wearing a mask."....yeah: I'll listen to stupid...right...
How many people here trust YOUR government is doing things in YOUR best interest?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @04:38PM (1 child)
So many questions. You sound very intelligent.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday April 17 2020, @11:10PM
So much trolling. You sound very psychotic.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Sunday April 19 2020, @12:52PM
Doctors get bonuses and payoffs for prescriptions written. There are websites where they arrange to fuck pharmaceutical reps in exchange for prescriptions written.
Our leaders regularly do things not in the citizens' best interests. I don't think a list here is necessary or we'll just squabble over the items on it.
Low-trust. Falling respect and confidence.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday April 17 2020, @06:20PM (1 child)
It is NOT just failing trust. I have a lack of trust in leaders and institutions. Others have lack of trust, yet we don't embrace flat-earth and anti-vax and conspiracy theories.
It is really just stupidity. Maybe combined with lack of trust. But the essential ingredient here is three parts of stupidity to one part of failing trust.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @12:03AM
Ignorance is NOT bliss.
While a description of symptoms from a medical textbook may seriously scare a child, it will surely teach one healthy respect for the thing so described.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2020, @12:41AM
"Diversity is necessarily our strength."
How very true, quite progressive of you.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @05:12AM (5 children)
When did "thinks differently" become newspeak for "fucking idiots"? Anti-vaxxeers, nazis, Trump supporters? They don't "think differently"! They just don't think! Because they are stupid.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @10:43AM
>>When did "thinks differently" become newspeak for "fucking idiots"?
Shortly after Apple adopted it as their catchphrase?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 17 2020, @11:09AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @04:40PM (1 child)
Bold assertion. Presidential. Needs citation.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday April 17 2020, @04:54PM
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @03:56PM
It is a way to create groups of people to disdain. That gives the 24news cycle something to whinge on about. Without conflict you get no news. If there is nothing serious going on make something happen. Nothing creates more strife than a we vs they fight.
Take for example 'net neutrality'. One company figured out they can double charge people (Time Warner now spectrum, btw). The rest thought that was a nifty idea to make stacks o cash. The data providers screamed bloody murder (the ones who were going to have to pay for it). That quickly turned into a 'rights' issue and how the ISP were going to censor everyone. The D's and R's changed positions at least 3 times usually opposite ones depending on who was filling the trough of 'campaign contributions'. With the Ds eventually landing on the sides of the data providers and the Rs landing on the side of the ISPs. But it made for a very nice 'we vs they' fight. The ISPs basically backed off as their real customers basically said they would walk if they could if they did that. Not a good look. The data providers ironcley turned into the ones who want to censor the internet because 'she didnt win'. Another nice 'we vs they' fight'.
Want to see how you are manipulated? Watch to see who is benefiting. Watch to see who is setting up the fight. South Park did a great episode on this. It is called tweek vs craig.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 17 2020, @07:15AM
So... develop a vaccine to cure them of overestimation of rare events then.
If possible, administer it in early childhood.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Touché) by PocketSizeSUn on Friday April 17 2020, @07:21AM (1 child)
My recollection is that "Think Different" always was pc 'new speak' for mentally retarded.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday April 17 2020, @06:25PM
That is why Apple adopted it in their advertising ages ago. Their customers didn't get the reference. Apple now makes a new face shield [dezeen.com] for coronavirus. I'm sure Apple hoards of Apple customers will be camping out for days outside the Apple stores eagerly anticipating buying one to protect them from becoming infected.
What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @07:40AM (2 children)
I'm very supportive for vaccines that are effective for many years or even decades. Vaccines like Hep B, measles, etc.
But I'm skeptical about stuff like flu vaccines that are expensive and only effective for some strains and only for a year or even a few months ( https://www.consumerreports.org/flu-vaccine/is-it-too-soon-to-get-the-flu-vaccine/ [consumerreports.org] ).
I suspect in countries where malnutrition is common, zinc + multivitamin supplementation (maybe with an adjusted zinc:copper ratio) could save more lives than flu vaccines for the same amount of money and resources spent. Zinc helps vs many viral diseases but is contraindicated for a few[1]. And also probably improve overall health.
As for safety I think vaccines that are going to be near compulsory and administered to billions of non-sick people should be required to be a lot safer than treatments/drugs that are only applied to people who are already sick enough that they're resorting to the treatments/drugs. More so if they are going to be administered every year and not just once every decade.
Note: zinc is NOT a cure - you'd likely still get the disease but you won't feel as sick and for as long. My mom used to get sick often (colds or whatever) and take about a month to recover (which means that she's often sick for many months in a year). After finally convincing her to take some zinc supplements, she might still get sick once in a while to be noticeable, but it's a lot milder and it's not for a month (maybe not much longer than a week).
[1] Pluses:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3394849/ [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2874106/ [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2973827/ [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3845954/ [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6202777/ [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2866616/ [nih.gov]
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131111091136.htm [sciencedaily.com]
Minuses:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5101143/ [nih.gov]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29533126 [nih.gov]
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/08/190805153720.htm [sciencedaily.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @08:14AM (1 child)
"It's a bird! It's a plane! It's ZINC man! He's everywhere, he's everywhere!!!!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @04:43PM
Don't forget MEGA doses of Vit. C.
*Now available as sugary drink!
(Score: 2, Redundant) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 17 2020, @09:09AM (12 children)
We love everyone, unless they disagree with us!!
Want a crazy alternative view? The world we live in is a germ warfare combat zone. Mankind has learned to manipulate a lot of things to tip the war in his favor. Today, mankind's population is at the highest level ever.
Hmmm - what happens to any creature on this earth, when it gets to be overpopulated? Disease, starvation, and predation, usually. So, what's with mankind? Well, there's not much predation. Starvation is limited to a few local areas around the globe. Disease. Hmmmm. What's with this covid19 thing? Welcome to the combat zone, people.
We have been breeding people with poor immune systems for quite a long while now. We save infants and children with all sorts of conditions, so that they may grow up and breed. Mother Nature says "This one is unfit, let it die" and we answer "OH NO! They're all precious and we will save this one!"
I half-way think Covid is Mother Nature's "Fuck you humans" moment.
And, the problem with our population? A new disease was spread around the world in just a number of days. What did it take? 60 days? Certainly not 90 days.
Maybe if we weren't vaxxing for every disease we can imagine, the covid would have faced a tougher challenge. There may well be fewer people on earth, but the people would be tougher.
That's just some food for thought, people. Call it racist, call it whatever you will. Just think about it. Maybe, ultimately, vaccinations make us a poorer people. I know that livestock breeders don't preserve the weakest stock to breed. Animals with undesirable traits are culled out of the breeding stock. Only the best, and the strongest are permitted to breed.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Farkus888 on Friday April 17 2020, @11:03AM (2 children)
Fitness, in the evolution sense, isn't just a fitness, in the athlete sense, problem. New tools that help the species could be developed by quadriplegics, see Hawking as an example. Humanity outcompeted so well because we have distributed knowledge and problem solving. Every human we keep alive and educate adds another node to the cluster. We aren't damaging our evolutionary fitness by saving the sick, we are simply shifting it from direct physical fitness to tool and knowledge based. Since our distributed and shared problem solving is so unique, it arguably makes us more human.
(Score: 2) by quixote on Tuesday April 21 2020, @02:56AM (1 child)
Evolutionary biologist here. Fitness in the evolution sense has nothing to do with athletic fitness. It refers to the likelihood an organism will be able to reproduce and that those offspring can also reproduce.
In vertebrates, being able to move around well could contribute to evolutionary fitness. In plants, not so much. In amoebae? Probably yes again, but who knows what goes into being an athletic amoeba? Ability to build out the cytoskeleton very rapidly, perhaps.
So, to go back to the main point, what makes humans "fit" evolutionarily is whatever allows us to multiply the most. Two factors I see: social organization, which gets back to that trust issue since without a basic level of trust the society falls apart. (Bruce Schneier has written excellent pieces on that.) And technology. Everything from being able to weave rope and make pots up to guns, planes, and computers. None of those rely on athleticism at all.
(Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Thursday April 23 2020, @12:23PM
I mean it isn't nothing, sometimes someone had to run down prey or outrun a predator. I just called out that aspect because I was replying to someone with a common very shallow view of evolution. I personally agree that cooperation and technology are the biggest keys to human evolutionary fitness these days. People with that common misunderstanding are also usually anti cooperation, which makes sense. It also means that they are most hurting our species. I usually try to clear things up whenever I can. It would make one more node in the cluster so to speak to get them cooperating.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by gtomorrow on Friday April 17 2020, @01:47PM (6 children)
Again with this ultimately dangerous line of thinking? It's just getting sooooooooooooooo stale.
tl;dr version: You first, my dear Runaway.
gtomorrow's usual verbose version: Where do you draw that line, my friend? Who gets to draw that line? Especially in a unprecedented case such as in these strange and worrying times.
When the Coronavirus first hit the UK, the geniuses there said "herd immunity" which isn't wrong only in a mental-exercise theoretical sense. Purely mathematically-speaking the logic speaks for itself. But we're not talking about numbers or vague concepts here. We're talking your parents, your family and friends, your co-workers. In a poetic-justice type of way, the Head Twit of the Britischers was soon after infected with COVID-19 and spent serious time in the ICU. Who knows how many people he directly infected beforehand? Now I know it's not nice to wish harm on others but...it's almost O. Henry.
So, Runaway, while I'm watching military trucks on the news carrying literally hundreds of bodies through the streets to be cremated because all funerals have been temporarily suspended...pick 10-20% of your family and friends to develop "herd immunity". Go ahead...we're all waiting.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 17 2020, @02:43PM (3 children)
Ahhhhh, I'm not God, so I don't get to pick and choose. Not even among my own family do I get to pick and choose.
These kids didn't get to choose, either - https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3837131/Rare-group-children-IMMUNE-AIDS-scientists-reveal-researchers-claim-cusp-cure-HIV.html [dailymail.co.uk]
My point is, life is harsh, and sometimes you just have to be tough to survive. Breeding weakness into the species isn't going to make life any easier, is it?
I expect that like AIDS, we'll see adaptations to this covid19. Not immediately, but eventually. It's even possible that those who don't get the adaptations won't survive. Reality says, we won't all survive contact with the disease. Maybe that includes me not surviving, who knows?
But, I just gave food for thought here. You can think about it, or not, it's entirely up to you.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by gtomorrow on Friday April 17 2020, @06:47PM (2 children)
Ah, no, Mr Runaway. You started it. Now you're gonna finish it...instead of, like your account name, run away. All of a sudden you're not god, eh?
Go ahead...choose.
I'm so tired of hearing these thought exercises from certain empathy-impaired replicants that infest this site and elsewhere. Yeah, thanks for the tip that life is harsh. What would I do without you and your trite pearls of wisdom?
I'm still waiting...choose.
Food for thought, my ass. Try and remember this moment the next time you feel flippant with potentially ~200,000 lives...hell, for when you're flippant with 1.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 17 2020, @07:49PM (1 child)
Choose? I get a choice? I get to be God? Fine, I'm going first, and all the rest of my family stays behind and works for another twenty or thirty years. They say only the good die young, well, dammit IT'S MY TURN!! I'm as good as any of my bro's who checked out decades ago!
And, seeing that you don't like thought exercises, I suppose you don't read a helluva lot of science fiction. You should think about turning in your nerd card.
(Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Saturday April 18 2020, @08:57AM
Just as I suspected. Run away. Sidestep any implication of your mental (midget) calisthenics...and thus any responsibility.
Personally, I love thought-exercises, science-fiction or otherwise (although I'm at a loss to explain your non sequitur regarding). I just happen to have a pretty good grasp on the difference between theory and practice...and spouting my mouth off in public. Bonus points for me for not once citing Godwin's law in this conversation that was just begging for it from the get-go.
In summation, as originally stated in my first tl:dr rebuttal (which you, by way of your so-eloquent retort above, seem to agree): You first.
And I never had a nerd card...nerd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @02:59PM (1 child)
Arguments to your loved ones rarely make for good public policy. I know no one personally who tested positive for Covid-19 let alone is being treated, yet I know hundreds who, along with their families, live in uncertainty where their next meal is coming from.
You're not going to get a vaccine that is safe to force on people. Looking at SARS-1, not for many years, if at all. So herd immunity combined with supportive treatment, along with anybody feeling at risk to voluntarily seclude themselves, are the only sensible actions.
Johnson spending time in the ICU was an example what is done for your betters. He wasn't even on a ventilator, so I would be interested in just how he was intensively cared for. I'll also bet money that they blocked off the other beds in the ward to not let him be together with filthy citizens.
If funerals have been suspended, that is due to government action. Theoretically, you're supposed to have a voice and they are supposed to be limited to the least intrusion in your lives. It is not the virus that is destroying our lives, it is government.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by gtomorrow on Friday April 17 2020, @06:30PM
You, sir, win the Idiot of The Day Award! Congratulations! (Sorry, Runaway...it was close though.)
Flame ON!
Really? Hundreds?! You know these hundreds of people personally?! Y'know, 'cos I want a verified list. Even if you reach 99, I'm gonna count 'em. Do you watch them starve, oh anonymous coward with disposable cash, a computer/smartphone and an internet connection, from your balcony...like watching television...or an ant farm?
Your betters, maybe.
But lastly, and this clinched it...
Abggg...aggg...this is so insanely stupid, I hardly can find the words to reply! It borders on surrealism/absurdism. Do you not have the minimum idea of how even the common cold is spread throughout a population? Are you implying that funerals (among other activities) have been suspended, not for damage control but purely for populace control or a coordinated show of power...or maybe some other half-baked, intelligent-design, flat-earth conspiracy theory?
Congratulations...idiot. I realize, thanks to the global quarantines and lockdowns, we all have time to kill, but please...next time, just please refrain. Throw scraps from your balcony to your hundreds of non-infected, starving friends instead.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday April 17 2020, @02:31PM
>I half-way think Covid is Mother Nature's "Fuck you humans" moment.
Nah, at worse it's a gentle reminder of reality. If it swept through the population like wildfire, infecting everyone, and killing maybe 10% or so (since hospitals would be severely overloaded)... it would only undo a few years of population growth.
>Maybe if we weren't vaxxing for every disease we can imagine, the covid would have faced a tougher challenge. There may well be fewer people on earth, but the people would be tougher.
Probably not - vaccines are like boot-camp for your immune system. They don't do anything against the disease directly, they just offer a training ground so you can figure out how to fight before the real battle begins. And since the "learning" is mostly just randomly trying the various weapons in your genetic arsenal to see what works against this particular disease, killing off everyone who doesn't have the right weapons for Disease A doesn't really have much effect on your chances of surviving Disease B, unless it happens to only be vulnerable to the same weapons.
(Score: 2) by Aegis on Friday April 17 2020, @02:56PM
We love everyone, unless their ignorant actions cause others harm!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Friday April 17 2020, @09:22AM (8 children)
Since the term “sceptics” is increasingly used for people who are not at all sceptic, but outright reject the scientific consensus (which is the polar opposite of being sceptic), and there's no sign that this usage can be successfully fought, we need to find a new term for true sceptics, so that they are not lumped together with those lunatics. Any ideas?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday April 17 2020, @11:29AM
While you're at it find a new term for "conspiracy theory".
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @03:57PM (2 children)
>but outright reject the scientific consensus (which is the polar opposite of being sceptic
Rejecting scientific consensus is one, of the many, parts of the scientific process. Please do not misuse other terms in an attempt to say that some other term is being misused. Thanks.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday April 17 2020, @05:32PM (1 child)
No. Doubting scientific consensus is. Rejecting is not. Note that overthrowing scientific consensus based on empirical data is not an instant process either, as also the new empirical data will at first be doubted. The new empirical evidence will cast doubt on the scientific consensus, but the scientific consensus will also cast doubt on the evidence, and there will be a process of trying to evaluate and replicate the evidence, as well as evaluating possible explanations of the evidence, and if the evidence is valid, eventually there will be a new consensus. But if everything goes according to the scientific method, at no point in the process the scientific consensus will be actively denied. There will be a phase where the old consensus is dissolved and the new one forms.
Note also that not all scientists are sceptics. I was describing what a sceptic does, which is not necessarily what every scientist does.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @04:34PM
>But if everything goes according to the scientific method
Right.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday April 17 2020, @04:07PM
How about "monimism", named after Monimus [wikipedia.org], a skeptical Cynic? It has the bonuses of being hard for people to pronounce and spell, easily confused with minimism and monomial expressions.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 17 2020, @04:51PM (1 child)
While that generous use of "skeptic" is going on here, your proposed solution (make yet more terms) would be abused. Let's suppose for the stake of argument, that we decide on "smartics" for people who are skeptics in the genuine sense, and "dumbtics" for people who outright reject the scientific consensus. Out of the gate, people are going to abuse these phrases in the obvious ways with my side always being the smartics and your side, the wrong-thinking side, being the dumbtics. It doesn't actually solve anything because the people abusing the present terms will in turn abuse the new terms.
Reminds me of a common reaction to blatant lawbreaking is to make more laws. But if I'm already blatantly ignoring laws, then what's going to keep me from blatantly ignoring more laws?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @07:24PM
I knew it! Khallow is a global warming dumbtic!! (And, oh, BTW, "smartic" is the new SJW, after the failure of NPC.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2020, @12:13AM
it doesn't get respect from those who don't get paid.
The public is not so ignorant as to not know how grants system works.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Muad'Dave on Friday April 17 2020, @11:52AM (1 child)
It would be funny if the 'cure' for vaccine skepticism were itself a vaccine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @05:08PM
Some people just prefer to send their kids to the University of Life. If you thought education was expensive, you wait til you see the cost of being ignorant!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bot on Friday April 17 2020, @02:01PM (7 children)
The "think different" guys are those who acritically accept this kind of articles without raising the BS meter to the max.
"Vaccine skeptics" -> frames the dissenters in one broad category that does not represent them at all. Personally, I don't object to VACCINATION, I may object to THIS vaccine administered to THIS young kid under THESE circumstances.
You still don't see the problem? let's try again.
- Hey you, eat this mystery food coming from an industry that routinely kills people and retires cures to sell treatments and...
- No wai
- What, are you against NUTRITION?
THIS is what is article is doing in the first two words of the summary. Need to go on?
elephant in the room #1 vaccine industry is not a charity org. When vaccination will return to be a basic form of emergency service like firefighting and police in proper republics, then we can discuss it without bias.
little elephant in the room #2 immunization against measles is the easiest thing ever, and when it was the only method to fight it, the measles virus did not wildly mutate like the proponents of the "y'all need to get vaxxed else deadly mutations" theory posit.
So, since vaccines are safestest thing ever and work against the dangerous measles, just get vaccinated and let others pay for their different choice. Else, if you think you are the policeman of the world, be sure to ram into any car that is overtaking you cruising at speed limits, because he is endangering himself and society just like antivaxxers. LOL
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday April 17 2020, @02:38PM (3 children)
>When vaccination will return to be a basic form of emergency service like firefighting and police in proper republics, then we can discuss it without bias.
How is that supposed to work? By the time you're sick, vaccines don't do much if any good.
>"y'all need to get vaxxed else deadly mutations"
Ah, I see, you've been listening to idiots knocking down straw-man arguments like they matter.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 17 2020, @04:48PM (2 children)
How is police supposed to work? By the time you're attacked, police don't do much if any good.
> straw-man arguments
no I have been confronted with those argument and i replied exactly as I did in parent post.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday April 17 2020, @05:07PM (1 child)
Police reduce the number of criminals, and increase the risks associated with crime. They don't protect the individual, but they do protect society.
Viruses don't care about risk, and vaccines don't attack them directly. For bacterial diseases, antibiotics act like police, killing invaders alongside your immune system.
Vaccines though don't do jack against the disease themselves - instead they're an education for your immune system, so it can learn how to fight the disease before it encounters the real thing. If you don't know how to fight before the real battle begins, it's already to late for classes to help.
>no I have been confronted with those argument
Perhaps you have - plenty of idiots on all sides. There might have even been a real argument in there way back when, before idiots played telephone with it until it was mangled beyond relevance.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday April 17 2020, @08:13PM
What I meant is that police does also monitoring other than punishment. Monitoring helps prevention. Sure the virus doesn't care and the vaccine doesn't cure. The details of monitoring prevention and fight against viruses are irrelevant. Either you agree that such a fight should be done at state not private, for profit, level or you provide a reason why the current system is OK.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @02:57PM (1 child)
Right, because those people that refuse vaccines pose no danger to others. Unless you count those that cannot be vaccinated because they are too young, or they are immunocompromised, or they are allergic the those vaccines...
We tend to frown on the person waving a machete around in the public square, why should these people be any different?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 17 2020, @04:44PM
>or they are immunocompromised
yeah so the immunocopromised is safe once all illnesses we can vax for are dealt with, right? no, they need to watch out for countless others. Which means they have to stay insulated anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 19 2020, @07:24PM
I agree. The doctors have started their own problem. They just state the party line....it's safe. They've had multiple problems with vaccines over the years, but ALWAYS QUOTE THE PARTY LINE.....it's safe.
It's NOT completely safe. Though the problems are RARE, their ARE PROBLEMS. Here's some REAL ADVICE:
-Problems are RARE, but REAL!
-DON'T take the LIVE polio vaccine. The only cases in US are FROM THE VACCINE. The CDC blinded docs have mostly wised up and stopped giving the live version, but there are places. I had to fight for quite a while (decades ago) to get the dead vaccine. The dangers of the live vax was known DECADES AGO!
-Whooping cough is the only real (likely) danger to a baby. I'd still give the vaccine after 9-12 months and isolate the baby as much as possible.
-MOST vaccines can be given at 2 years old. They do this in other countries (like Japan). Toddlers immune system is much better developed.
-Mercury is gone, BUT IT WAS IN THERE AT ONE TIME. YES MORONS, they did use it! Look up thiomersal if your interested
-DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. Unfortunately it is very hard with raging battle between VAX ALWAYS BAD people and ITS SAFE sheeples.
Yes I'm yelling, since I get so mad at all these CLUELESS IDIOTS quoting the party line...it's safe. What a bunch of STUPID SHEEPLES!
I don't know who is STUPIDER, the Never Vax people, or some of the SHEEPLES on this thread. Yes I know stupider is not a real word, get over it.
If you do one thing, DON'T BLINDLY believe the CDC and at least DELAY giving the vaccines to your kids (BUT do give them). Give them ONE AT A TIME and spaced out so you can watch for reactions, but the doctors will WHINE about having to order "special" versions. Japan seems to give out better medical advice.