I wrote a book w/a chapter on COVID, trust, and institutions. This is pretty weak ‘Look what you made me do’ stuff. Antivax propaganda, influencers & politicians turned vaccines into identity markers. No mention of the explicit, deliberate strategy to undermine confidence in 💉. Tell the full story. - ThreadSky

noupside.bsky.social • 40 days ago

I wrote a book w/a chapter on COVID, trust, and institutions. This is pretty weak ‘Look what you made me do’ stuff.

Antivax propaganda, influencers & politicians turned vaccines into identity markers. No mention of the explicit, deliberate strategy to undermine confidence in 💉. Tell the full story.

Reposted from Sohrab Ahmari

Childhood vaccination rates are down, and that's terrible.

Public-health authorities have themselves to blame.

Karol Markowicz makes her UnHerd debut!

unherd.com/2025/01/how-...

Comments

texacan.bsky.social•40 days ago

My trust with respect to vaccines extends from my small pox vaccination to my RSV and all that have been in my life. Measles, mumps, chickenpox, flu, tetanus, covid, b-12, gel/steroid for my knees. At 75 and still trucking…..

texacan.bsky.social•36 days ago

Forgot about for polio sugar cubes. The entire town stood in line, and ate sugar cubes.

fandabbydosy.bsky.social•40 days ago

I never had the chicken pox vaccine. My sister and I had the rash and virus as children. Thought you'll be immune to it as an adult, but now more vulnerable to shingles

texacan.bsky.social•39 days ago

I forgot I have had the shingles vaccine also… probably others.

cosmicnexus.bsky.social•39 days ago

Reading "The Doctor Who Fooled the World" by Brian Deer should be part of school curriculums. It outlines in detail the debauchery of Andrew Wakefield, and how once he was shut down in UK he moved camp to USA and coopted people like RFK into his profit from misinfo campaigns.

lindapal.bsky.social•40 days ago

And thus people will die

mikefulk.bsky.social•40 days ago

Interesting contrast with what they posted on Xitter.

socrates444.bsky.social•40 days ago

I will never understand anti vaxers. They would rather take a chance family members will die or be crippled by polio. In the 1950s anti vaccination morons believed the polio vaccine would give them polio regardless how many times you told them it was a dead virus they were getting.

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

I understand them a lot. I see them in my practice all the time.

People intuit that "most people won't get the bad thing" in these instances. And so they weigh the risk of dying from COVID say with attending Sturgiss.

Only problem is, as Vegas shows us daily, people are BAD with probability.

philoof.bsky.social•40 days ago

He’s “just asking questions”

I’ll be blocking him now, I have no time for such nonsense.

nashroberts1.bsky.social•40 days ago

Here we go, the truth about the jab is coming out.
https://x.com/SageListener/status/1879144318579179609

copperbeardy.bsky.social•40 days ago

its a familiar story when you look back in history at other pandemics. This is a good book on the influenza Pandemic and the undermining of the treatments for it https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/847991.The_Great_Influenza

davidmanheim.alter.org.il•40 days ago

Identities on the modern populist right are largely formed by what they oppose, rather than what they believe. And the way that many scientists have recently strongly embraced policies, many unrelated to vaccines, and tied them together with the science, has been a large part of the polarization.

butlerofdogs.bsky.social•40 days ago

Scientists embrace policies based on facts. Would you have rather have scientists embrace right wing policies just for accomodation?

davidmanheim.alter.org.il•40 days ago

Facts don't impose policies. You may find it obvious that we should require childhood vaccines, say, but that's not a factual claim. (Even if opponents of the policy are making factually incorrect claims in support of their preferred policy, the facts do not imply the policy either way.)

butlerofdogs.bsky.social•40 days ago

That’s right. It only assumes you want to reduce child mortality.

jientho.bsky.social•40 days ago

A lot of people are seemingly incapable of imagining the depth of sadism we are about to experience from our government. “I won’t believe it until I see it.” Then how many child deaths will do it for you? 1950s polio level? 1916 flu level? Or do we need to get to 1300s black death level.

butlerofdogs.bsky.social•40 days ago

Just to be clear. Reducing child mortality is a matter of opinion to you?

davidmanheim.alter.org.il•40 days ago

"Reduce child mortality" isn't a policy. Polices involve tradeoffs between between things like mandated vaccinations and allowing people personal liberty to make medical decisions, or between keeping unvaccinated children out of public schools versus having them educated despite the risk.

noupside.bsky.social•40 days ago

Agreed. But this article is lazy thinking. And I haven’t seen any of the “covid contrarian” or anti-woke doctors with approved politics and large followings stand up to defend childhood vaccinations. They’re audience-captured now.

davidmanheim.alter.org.il•40 days ago

Completely agree!

aelkus.bsky.social•40 days ago

As time goes on it gets harder to avoid conclusion that backlash was overdetermined. The conservative world circa 2020 was never going to accept a robust response to COVID (for economic as much as cultural reasons) and Trump's inability to model good behavior or even support his own govt's response

aelkus.bsky.social•40 days ago

sealed the deal. Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of it was that the vaccine itself was the only achievement of his administration and he never openly took credit for it or stood behind it

aelkus.bsky.social•40 days ago

operation warp speed was the only good thing he ever did as president and he was more interested in stirring up resentment than promoting its results

davidmanheim.alter.org.il•40 days ago

Yeah. Frustratingly, the thing I was most excited about from his administration originally - reducing bureaucracy at the FDA and allowing more flexibility - was arguably the area where they failed the hardest - stopping testing, and failing to research what drugs worked. (We relied on UK's RECOVERY)

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

But OWS was crap. They directed a bunch of money at Astra-Zeneca, while privately investing in it.

It blew up in their face when Pfizer got to the finish line first.

They don't deserve praise. They deserve to be charged with insider trading and securities fraud.

fandabbydosy.bsky.social•40 days ago

I had all my childhood vaccines. Except for chicken pox because I had the virus as a child

fandabbydosy.bsky.social•40 days ago

They're going to start bringing back the iron lung

ambrosia1875.bsky.social•40 days ago

They will have to start manufacturing them again as the few ppl left who had to use those to stay alive have a hard time with finding ppl to service it and getting parts for repairs…

fandabbydosy.bsky.social•40 days ago

We can make them portable

ambrosia1875.bsky.social•39 days ago

Might not be a bad financial investment. Sadly.

fandabbydosy.bsky.social•39 days ago

Well, with modern technology, it can actually happen and would make it easy for those with polio. Like a backpack type thing

picklerick1138.bsky.social•40 days ago

Republicans need forced birth so they have enough children to kill with disease and school shootings.

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

The culture of life is so upside down.

When Texas Lt Gov Dan Patrick said he was "willing to die [of COVID] so his kids could have a good economy" our first reaction - shock and disgust - was the right one.

Now JD Vance says school shootings are unfortunate but the cost of freedom everyone shrugs.

picklerick1138.bsky.social•40 days ago

A shame Patrick didn't get his wish...

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

Of course, the problem is that Dan Patrick knew he was never putting himself at risk. Just his constituents who believed such a terrible lie.

picklerick1138.bsky.social•40 days ago

As a current texan, I hope the Abbott/Patrick karma is strong and swift...

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

Such BS. EM/Critical care physician here. All we've been doing is trying to save people's lives.

The very fact that by late 2022 you could predict someone's likelihood of dying from COVID based upon their political affiliation had ZERO to do with us.

Want health for everyone is not both sidesism

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

I read this back, and I kind of think there's a "now see what you made me do" to it. We are abused by right-wing media.

ferox965.bsky.social•40 days ago

So, the spreadnecks are allowing stuff like Polio to go on a reunion tour...

clueless-stranger.bsky.social•40 days ago

Vaccines in children down, a 9 year old gets a tattoo with ‘parents’ consent. Shows you which way society is going.

calcifiedpineal.bsky.social•40 days ago

Ideally these people will wipe themselves out in the next pandemic. We cannot coexist with them.

megidd.bsky.social•40 days ago

Wait until we have major pandemics on measles, polio etc. It will be handled by just like the Covid was by Trump poorly and millions will die.

fjordfnord.bsky.social•40 days ago

That vaccines were turned into identity marker is almost as much to blame on brainless advocates who grossly inflated Covid dangers to children, the roles of vaccines in cutting transmission and promoted them as a sign of altruistic love and virtue.

And, yes, I am vaccinated against Covid.

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

You're also spouting nonsense.

The vaccine was PIVOTAL in cutting transmission. We would have been happy with a 50% reduction rate. For the first strains it cut the rate upwards of 95%.

COVID mutates quickly, so we've had to release boosters frequently. That's just evolution in action.

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

As far as the dangers to children go, we lost about 1,600 children as of 2023.

Are you willing to tell those parents that it was worth the lives of their children for you to be able to go to a rock concert?

Not judging - just putting in context.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

Last I looked, children also have parents - and grandparents.

In my community a large number of extended families share a roof - and whatever viruses come into it.

Given that COVID was transmissible for 48 hours before symptoms began, it was common for kids to bring it home to grandparents.

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

We wanted children vaccinated for two main reasons:

1. The more vaccinated people, the harder for the illness to spread.
2. To protect vulnerable people in the same household.

larrydeluca.bsky.social•40 days ago

The one thing that your post makes abundantly clear is we didn't do a good enough job of educating people about PUBLIC HEALTH. Everyone understands individual health and risk, but public health is different.

Public health is concern not just for yourself, but for the people around you.

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