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The COVID-19 patient’s health was quickly deteriorating at a Michigan hospital, but he was having none of the doctor’s diagnosis.
Despite dangerously low oxygen levels, the unvaccinated man didn’t think he was that sick and got so irate over a hospital policy forbidding his wife from being at his bedside that he threatened to walk out of the building.
Dr. Matthew Trunsky says he didn’t hold back, telling the man: “You are welcome to leave, but you will be dead before you get to your car.’ ”
Such exchanges have become all too common for doctors facing COVID denial and misinformation that have made it exasperating to treat unvaccinated patients during the coronavirus surge driven by the highly contagious Delta variant.
How some doctors answer.
DR. CARL LAMBERT, CHICAGO
Nicki Minaj is wrong
Lambert hears lots of wild misinformation from his patients. Some comes from Bible interpretations, some from rapper Nicki Minaj.
Some is the stuff of Internet conspiracy theories. People cite falsehoods spread on social media, according to the Chicago physian, who says he’s had patients tell him microchips are embedded in vaccines as part of a ploy to take over people’s DNA.
“Impossible scientifically,” he tells them.
Some of what he hears, as bullet points:
- hears from patients saying the vaccine will weaken their immune systems. He responds: “Immunology 101: Vaccines help your immune system.”
- patients worried about damage to their testicles — a rumor he traced to a tweet from Minaj, who spread false information that the vaccine causes impotence. ‘That’s outlandish,’ ” says Lambert, who says he now has to do “a lot of just kind of counseling that I did not expect to have to do.”
- Some of the misinformation is delivered from the pulpit, he says. People have sent him sermons saying the vaccine is “ungodly, or there’s something in it that will mark you” — a reference to a verse in the Book of Revelation about the “mark of the beast” that some Christians cite as a reason for not getting vaccinated. “There’s a mixture of, like, almost fear,” Lambert says, “and saying, ‘Hey, if you do this, maybe you’re not as faithful as you should be as, say, a Christian.’ ”
- he’ll have patients just wanting to wait, uneasy with how quickly the vaccine was developed and suggesting that the pandemic will end on its own. He warns them: “Please do not try to wait out a pandemic. A pandemic will win.”
- Lambert says his job is “a lot of just dismantling what people have heard,” answering their questions and reassuring them that “vaccines work like this, just like when we were kids.”
DR. VINCENT SHAW, LOUISIANA:
‘Stop looking at Facebook’
Some of what he hears, as bullet points:
- patients tell Dr. Vincent Shaw they don’t want the COVID-19 vaccine because they don’t know what’s in it, he pulls up the ingredient list for a Twinkie. “Look at the back of the package,” Shaw, a family physician in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, says he tells them. “Tell me you can pronounce everything on the back of that package. I have a chemistry degree. I still don’t know what that is.”
- “They’re putting a tracker in, and it makes me magnetic.”
- “The patient couldn’t understand why they were given this for free because humanity, in and of itself, is not nice, and ‘people aren’t nice, and nobody would give anything away. So there’s no such thing as inherent good nature of man.’
- Some who get mild cases tell him they now have natural immunity and can’t be reinfected. “No, you’re not a Superman or Superwoman,” he tells them.
- He says one of the biggest issues is social media. Many patients say something they saw on Facebook made them decide against getting vaccinated.
There is more. More doctors. What they hear and how they respond.
Sadly, there is an endless stream of lies and misinformation online.
(minor edits after posting to reorganize block quotes)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @07:41PM (7 children)
Boy! I sure do remember the dark decades before Trump, where the drug companies and intelligence agencies and Bush's FEMA camps for terrorists were the most evil entities on the planet.
So can you tell us what changed?
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @10:06PM (6 children)
Republicans became stupider, angrier, and somehow even more bigoted. All because a black man became your President. Will no one consider the feelings of rightwing degenerates???/s
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @11:55PM
Indeed. I had really thought that maybe we had turned a corner in 2008, but, nope, we just saw the rightwing neanderthals come completely unglued. Looking back, I guess I should have known better. Of course, we will probably see a repeat when the first woman is elected President. Since that first woman may actually be a Black woman (i.e., Kamala Harris), I'm guessing the butthurt is going to be even stronger the next time around.
And I have considered the feelings of rightwing degenerates. I consider them totally nuts.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @05:13AM (3 children)
>> All because a black man became your President.
You grossly exaggerate the backlash towards Bill Clinton. There was widespread praise for his achievement of being elected as the first black president of the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @07:49PM (2 children)
That they considered Clinton the first black president really highlights the problem the GOP is desperate to hide. An open secret, but coming right out with it would alienate a good chunk of their base.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @09:04PM (1 child)
FTFY. Yes, it really is that bad. I think we have to finally come to terms with the fact that the GOP is now all but dead as a political party. I just hope we can find a viable alternative...and fast!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 08 2021, @03:33AM
Oh yes very true, but they don't do that because they would lose a big chunk. No need to shit on the group further in reply to a comment already calling out their shit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 08 2021, @04:45PM
No, actually the republicans are very astute. They commandeered all the formally "lefty" ideals and completely trashed them, for instance, legitimate civil rights struggles were morphed into *Social Justice Warriors* that want to kill the 1st Amendment. The "left" loves the CIA/NSA now because they say, "Russia did it". They even want to bulk up the IRS! The sabotage is almost complete. Good job republicans!
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday October 06 2021, @07:43PM (1 child)
The anti-vaxxers are very wrong, but Big Pharma has given us all ample reason to distrust them. Oxycontin. Hormone Replacement Therapy. The massive price hikes on Daraprim and EpiPens. Doctors, too. They do put patients very high on their list, but not quite as high as money. They are vulnerable to Big Pharma's tricks and bribes.
American health care is a mess, costing twice as much for half the results. There is no other sector that bills in as high, opaque and deliberately confusing and wearying way as medicine in America.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @01:12PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @08:41PM (3 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @09:05PM (2 children)
The death rate is too low outside of the extremely elderly. It won't change anything. Resources won't be repurposed, despite your death fantasies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @10:00PM
Oooh, Debbie Dumbass is here everybody!
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @01:17PM
Triage has hit Alaska. Doctor had 1 bed, 3 patients. The one most likely to survive got the bed. So far one of the other ones who needed a bed and didn't get has died at home. Expect more of this.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 06 2021, @10:11PM (2 children)
Doctor Who Deals With COVID Denial
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Wednesday October 06 2021, @10:26PM
Intubation, or sonic screwdriver?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Wednesday October 06 2021, @10:30PM
I hope it's the 3rd Doctor... he can reverse the polarity of the moron-flow.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mrpg on Thursday October 07 2021, @03:46AM (6 children)
Incredible. I understand fear but some of these people are way beyond repair.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @05:23AM (5 children)
With as many times as I've heard that they didn't get the vaccine because they don't know what is in it, you'd think more than one would have asked what is in the various bags or syringes the nurses are loading into their drip by now.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @01:22PM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @02:57PM (3 children)
Need to put an "Intel Inside" sticker on the drip bag.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday October 07 2021, @09:55PM (1 child)
Just don't let them know about the chips in the ivermectin and we're good!
Bill and Melinda Gates Fund Global Ivermectin & Fluvoxamine Clinical Trial Targeting COVID-19: Together COVID-19 Trial [trialsitenews.com]
To advance understanding of pharmacology of ivermectin and to enhance treatment of malaria [gatesfoundation.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 10 2021, @01:57AM
We put microchips in their Preparation H.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 08 2021, @04:31AM
Intel is too expensive, we use AMD. Oops! /joke
(Score: 3, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday October 07 2021, @03:10PM (11 children)
Why are you questioning the CDC, but not questioning Nicki Minaj?
This is why cons work. They say the right things so they're believed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @06:06PM (3 children)
Because somebody turned it into a political organization over the gun thing, something about public health. For this and many other things, the CDC can't be trusted anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @09:09PM (2 children)
If you really can't see how that whole "gun thing" is a public health issue then I'm afraid it is your judgement that can't be trusted anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 07 2021, @10:05PM
*sigh* Another limousine "liberal" that can't read... I am mocking the prohibition against the CDC, which turned it it into the president's mouthpiece. They say what they are told to say. Credibility has vanished
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 08 2021, @01:12AM
I bet you can't see that either.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday October 07 2021, @06:52PM (6 children)
A look at who is still not vaccinated against COVID [yahoo.com]
It's about politics. That simple.
I cites another survey in an earlier journal article. The conclusion is simple. Democrats get vaccinated in significantly larger numbers than Republicans.
Another obvious thing is that older people are more likely to get vaccinated than young people.
If a minstrel has musical instruments attached to his bicycle, can it be called a minstrel cycle?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 08 2021, @12:56AM (5 children)
White 60% 64%
You sure about those numbers?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 08 2021, @01:07AM
Let v = the number of vaxed, n = the number of unvaxed.
0.6v are white, 0.64n are white.
0.12v are black, 0.14n are black.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 08 2021, @01:07AM (3 children)
They are pretty close to the other surveys taken at the same time. Maybe the problem is that you need to learn how to read subpopulation charts.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 08 2021, @03:28PM
So about 99% of people have an age, about 90% have an ethnicity, and about 70% have political beliefs.
But the real question about it all is cause and effect. Are they anti-V because they are republicans (50% of them anyway) or are they republicans because they were anti-V and were ostracized from the Democrats. (except for the 30% that are anti-V democrats)
The real truth is that there is some correlation, but DannyB continually tries to politicize vaccination because he thinks it is an easy attack on the hated republicans. He is just a bigot. He doesn't see people, he only sees the group they 'belong' to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 10 2021, @02:00AM (1 child)
The problem is you don't know how to present data clearly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 10 2021, @02:22AM
I didn't write it, so thanks for the suggestion? Maybe you need to learn how to do your own research. In addition to the suggestion about learning the standard ways to present subpopulation data, maybe learned how to determine who authored something by finding original sources would help too.