Nuts, crims, and greedy billionaires out to blow up all of government because they don't understand it, privatize everything, and slash Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security while lying about the tax breaks they're going to get out of it.
> They may even go one step deeper and believe the vaccines aren't proven properly to know whether they work well enough.
They may even go further still and claim that the shot causes the flu—like RFK recently did with measles:
> Kennedy claimed the outbreak was likely caused by vaccines — contrary to evidence that showed low vaccination rates as the culprit. The false theory seems to stem from a misreading of a California Department of Public Health report that mentioned cases of a vaccine-induced rash, not vaccine-induced measles.
> The US declared that measles had been "eliminated" in 2000, but the country has seen outbreaks in recent years amid a rise in anti-vaccine sentiment. The last US measles death was in 2015, according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
It seems like the results will be somewhat predictable: the impact flu has every year is variable, with some years being incredibly bad and some being not that bad. Part of that is attributed to the vaccine rate, and how effective the vaccine is (this meeting is key to decision making about our expectations and how to make an effective vaccine), and part is simply random (based on too many correlated values, preventing good estimates of causation).
If this meeting is cancelled, we would expect the vaccine to be less effective and would see greater impact (simply because it wasn't tailored to the be the most likely effective vaccine), but due to all the variables I mentioned it could even appear that "things got better after we did this" (post hoc ergo propter hoc).
There is no steel man here, RFK just wants to demonstrate that his beliefs about viruses are true. We may or may not get enough unambiguous data to make conclusions about his beliefs in a year or two, but given the concomitant reduction in the effectiveness of the CDC due to Trump policies, and the sycophantic nature of the people being placed into leadership roles, we may simply never know because the data would not be collected, or the research not funded, or the publications retracted.
Or RFK could somehow be right and we see a huge magic increase in public health across the country (not seen in other countries that keep vaccination). I am not aware of very many scientists who believe this will happen.
I hope there's a slightly different timeline where people with hopelessness or depression have a place in nature to pursue purpose, community, diet, exercise, and meaningful labour. I think we all know in our gut that this would be of incredible benefit to most of these people. And I hope the public in this world are horrified by the idea that anyone could instead pump them full of addictive or unknown drugs and leave them to fester in their obesity, drug dependency, poverty, loneliness, emptiness and misery.
It's about encouraging the free market. Drug makers will naturally compete and it's up to the American public to reward the flu shot with the most efficacy, or in some cases, not take a shot at all and rely on natural immunization. This will spur competition and bring prices down.
That’s an interesting comment. I often see this repeated - that HN as a whole leans libertarian - but I don’t see it personally. Just as many people will jump in to point out that market failures are common for reasons of monopolistic behaviour, regulatory capture, etc, as will people regurgitating Reagan, Thatcher and Thiel.
Last I spoke to a nurse about this she explained something interesting to me - in selecting the next flu shot they actually watch the opposite hemisphere to predict most likely strain to vax.
So despite US shenanigans rest of world may still be OK
Both hemispheres do this if I'm not mistaken. They look to the other hemisphere's winter and expect that 6 month delay will still help predict what's coming.
Flu strains usually originate from Asia (usually China), where flu is more likely to jump from chicken to human. But that was in the past, it is completely possible that the USA could move backwards in health and become the new spot where flu jumps to humans (eg by not culling flocks where infections are found because of rising egg prices). Trump could do a lot of damage in four years, we might end up completely flipped from where were a decade ago by the end of it (China as the preeminent respected world power, the USA as a big nation of unvaxed people where bird flu jumps to humans, Fujian Type N flu is replaced with Tenesee type M flu)
This is a remarkably stupid decision. Flu vaccines are incredibly successful not just from a public health standpoint but also a business productivity standpoint.
I guess we're going to relearn this lesson the hard way. Especially with businesses also demanding people come back to the office to work.
A big part of the problem is a lot of people don't understand this. How often do you hear people say, "I got the flu vaccine and still got the flu".
However, most people who say they have "the flu" are using the term colloquially and it is unlikely that they actually had influenza.
Further, as we saw with the COVID vaccines, people are incapable of understanding that vaccines don't create an impenetrable barrier. Instead it lowers risk of infection and increases likelihood of a milder case.
I got a really bad flu last year because I delayed my shots. At 48, it was nothing like I experienced when I was younger, just mucus filling my chest for a week, uncomfortable to breathe with a scratchy wheeze. I don’t mind getting the flu I got when I was younger, but I will get my vaccinations on time to avoid going through that again.
I get how flu vaccines become more important as you age, COVID also (lest you win a Herman Caine award). Younger people getting vaccinated also helps limit transmission to older people who are more likely to die from it, but doing so requires a bit more empathy than just pure self interest.
Well I guess once the Bird Flu jumps to Humans, which due to Trump's and Musk's Stupidity will happen, and next years flu arrival we will have another yet another Trump Caused pandemic.
To be fair, a fair share of pandemics, antibiotic resistance, and climate change common root cause is industrial meat agriculture. Ano-ochlo-kleptocrats are and will screw up the basis of organized civilization in America because they don't know anything about anything.
Readit News
This isn't entirely cynical, I do assume there are some pragmatists who might think this way.
They may even go one step deeper and believe the vaccines aren't proven properly to know whether they work well enough.
They may even go further still and claim that the shot causes the flu—like RFK recently did with measles:
> Kennedy claimed the outbreak was likely caused by vaccines — contrary to evidence that showed low vaccination rates as the culprit. The false theory seems to stem from a misreading of a California Department of Public Health report that mentioned cases of a vaccine-induced rash, not vaccine-induced measles.
* https://www.nbcnews.com/news/texas-measles-outbreak-anti-vac...
Measles used to not be a thing:
> The US declared that measles had been "eliminated" in 2000, but the country has seen outbreaks in recent years amid a rise in anti-vaccine sentiment. The last US measles death was in 2015, according to the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
* https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyderx4v8go
If this meeting is cancelled, we would expect the vaccine to be less effective and would see greater impact (simply because it wasn't tailored to the be the most likely effective vaccine), but due to all the variables I mentioned it could even appear that "things got better after we did this" (post hoc ergo propter hoc).
There is no steel man here, RFK just wants to demonstrate that his beliefs about viruses are true. We may or may not get enough unambiguous data to make conclusions about his beliefs in a year or two, but given the concomitant reduction in the effectiveness of the CDC due to Trump policies, and the sycophantic nature of the people being placed into leadership roles, we may simply never know because the data would not be collected, or the research not funded, or the publications retracted.
Or RFK could somehow be right and we see a huge magic increase in public health across the country (not seen in other countries that keep vaccination). I am not aware of very many scientists who believe this will happen.
Our current approach isn't working.
At least that's what this forum has taught me.
Without the effects known for months, it sounds a lot like gambling to me.
Whoops, gave away my political leanings.
So despite US shenanigans rest of world may still be OK
I guess we're going to relearn this lesson the hard way. Especially with businesses also demanding people come back to the office to work.
A big part of the problem is a lot of people don't understand this. How often do you hear people say, "I got the flu vaccine and still got the flu".
However, most people who say they have "the flu" are using the term colloquially and it is unlikely that they actually had influenza.
Further, as we saw with the COVID vaccines, people are incapable of understanding that vaccines don't create an impenetrable barrier. Instead it lowers risk of infection and increases likelihood of a milder case.
I get how flu vaccines become more important as you age, COVID also (lest you win a Herman Caine award). Younger people getting vaccinated also helps limit transmission to older people who are more likely to die from it, but doing so requires a bit more empathy than just pure self interest.
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And because like Trump and Musk, many (most?) of them truly believe they know more about everything than anyone else (more than even the experts).
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