CV19 - Cure worse than the disease? (Vol 13)

[Tuna]

Brave Fart said:

I take your point, but I fundamentally disagree that governments should behave in this way.
You are saying that governments cannot tell us the truth because, to coin a phrase: "You can't handle the truth!"
Well, I think we can, and I think treating citizens as children 1) perpetuates the problem, and 2) gives rise to conspiracy theories and "alternative" views that you complain about elsewhere.

Be honest, set out the issues, explain your policy, and trust the people. That's what I would like to see, but I'm not hopeful that will ever happen.

Note that I'm not saying they should lie, but that I don't believe they can be explicit about some issues.

Any competent government opposition would take a single concession to explicitly listing harm as a wide open goal - and suddenly your health policy is being politically destroyed and half the country is refusing to go along with it.

Unfortunately I think the current social media trend has to some extent complicated these discussions. We had two world wars that did untold human damage, but were predicated on governments convincing hundreds of thousands of people to willingly put down their lives en-masse for a wider good. I don't think you could make those same choices these days.

Unfortunately public health is about convincing enough of a population to do "the right thing" - and whilst I absolutely agree that many people can handle the truth, and we all deserve it, there isn't much evidence that you can maintain public control at the same time.

The interesting exception is China - there will surely be some interesting studies on how they appear to have controlled the virus. They have incredibly tight control over the information that their citizens receive, no significant opposition and a social sense of group responsibility that appears to make group decisions easier to enforce. The complete opposite of what we believe is "good" in the west, yet they (appear) to have done far better than us in controlling the virus.

Where does that leave our freedom, independence and "the truth"?

[Frik]

APontus said:

There has been a growing body of evidence around Ivermectin for some time, yet those (respected, definitely not nutty or anti vaccine) medical practitioners have been marginalised, banned from social media platforms and ignored by governments, regulators and the media. I note this week the Wall Street Journal is beginning to ask the same questions. Hopefully others will latch on.

It's all a conspiracy!

Or maybe there just aren't enough good studies that prove its effectiveness, although some are still ongoing.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/1...

[TheJimi]

TypeRTim said:

Tuna said:

Medicine isn't engineering. You can't "crank out" a fix.

They will absolutely be monitoring effects of just about every remedy out there on the market - the pharma industry is quite good at that, spotting when one medicine has an interesting side effect on another group (or in extreme cases, unexpected benefits - like Viagra).

But that sort of evidence takes months or even years to gather. It's a statistical nightmare, and when the progress of the disease in a single person can take months, it will naturally take multiples of that to test, prove, identify causes and symptoms.

On top of that, some things are just physically impossible to change. At the base level, the chemical reactions you're trying to alter may be sufficiently close to reactions your body depends on that you cannot disrupt them. The cure really would be worse than the disease. Or we just don't have the means to repair stuff that's broken.

You mean like crank out a vaccine for a 'novel coronavirus' which has never been seen before in humans, using delivery technology that has never been implemented in mass vaccination regimes in humans, less than 18 months after the initial outbreak? That kind of 'crank out a fix'

Edited by TypeRTim on Thursday 29th July 11:51

To be fair, a lot of the groundwork had already been done for these vaccines, so it that respect, this wasn't "cranked out" from scratch in 18 months.

[Venturist]

Frik said:

It's all a conspiracy!

Or maybe there just aren't enough good studies that prove its effectiveness, although some are still ongoing.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/1...

Except there’s certainly a healthy body of evidence to suggest it is effective:

https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/Full...

[monkfish1]

CellarDoor said:

TheJimi said:

Boringvolvodriver said:

.

This, however -

Boringvolvodriver said:

However, a lot of stuff doesn’t make sense to me about why governments across the world are acting like they are doing.

Is a position I've found myself in, quite frequently. The vast majority of the time, I can see the logic processes and rationale behind most of the decisions that have been made, even if I strongly disagree with them.

However, there are also more than a few aspects that really have me at a loss, and lead me to wonder what else is driving such decisions and ideas.

Edited by TheJimi on Thursday 29th July 10:49

I'm an open minded person and have found it interesting to reflect on the past year. In hindsight, I find the entire situation quite concerning:

- illogical decisions and procrastination from governments in terms of containing a contagious virus.
- a lack of transparency from decision makers with lots of conflicting information, u-turns and scaremongering.
- large portions of the population following advice from authorities without any reservation and getting incensed by those that wish to discuss potential risks and alternatives.

The overall reaction doesn't bode well for the future.

Indeed.

There are so many things the government is doing or saying which dont bear even the briefest of logical scrutiny, that one can only wonder what exactly is going on and what the objective is.

Unlike tuna, i dont believe its all with the best of intentions.

[TypeRTim]

TheJimi said:

TypeRTim said:

Tuna said:

Medicine isn't engineering. You can't "crank out" a fix.

They will absolutely be monitoring effects of just about every remedy out there on the market - the pharma industry is quite good at that, spotting when one medicine has an interesting side effect on another group (or in extreme cases, unexpected benefits - like Viagra).

But that sort of evidence takes months or even years to gather. It's a statistical nightmare, and when the progress of the disease in a single person can take months, it will naturally take multiples of that to test, prove, identify causes and symptoms.

On top of that, some things are just physically impossible to change. At the base level, the chemical reactions you're trying to alter may be sufficiently close to reactions your body depends on that you cannot disrupt them. The cure really would be worse than the disease. Or we just don't have the means to repair stuff that's broken.

You mean like crank out a vaccine for a 'novel coronavirus' which has never been seen before in humans, using delivery technology that has never been implemented in mass vaccination regimes in humans, less than 18 months after the initial outbreak? That kind of 'crank out a fix'

Edited by TypeRTim on Thursday 29th July 11:51

To be fair, a lot of the groundwork had already been done for these vaccines, so it that respect, this wasn't "cranked out" from scratch in 18 months.

In the same vein, in Engineering many problems or hurdles have already been overcome in the past (hence the phrase 'no need to reinvent the wheel'). So nothing is really started from scratch there either. Merely pointing out that in actual fact, the vaccine response was very much like engineering and a product was 'cranked out' in record time.

[APontus]

Frik said:

It's all a conspiracy!

Or maybe there just aren't enough good studies that prove its effectiveness, although some are still ongoing.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/1...

Conspiracy is too strong a word. Sometimes an agenda is put in place and it takes a lot to divert from it. I'd rather ascribe much of what's gone on to incompetence and/or capacity ahead of malice. The sheer number of U-turns and miscommunications and changes in policy by all governments tells you it is not an organised situation at the moment.

[bodhi]

isaldiri said:

I don't think it's such a surprise either though. Flu antivirals like tamiflu aren't particularly effective for example. unlike bacterial infections, viral infections aren't easily dealt with without destroying lots of your own cells they are replicating in.

Most medication available tends to be for treatment of symptoms rather than for the viral infection causing said symptoms. It just seems to be a class of treatments that is very difficult typically to do cheaply and effectively.

P.S Pfizer announced revenue of $33b expected for the vaccines for the year, not profit. You seem to have it slightly in for them (not entirely unreasonably in many respects) but to be fair, they took a good financial bet to put a lot of their own cash into it initially so fair play for leveraging that success now too.

Edited by isaldiri on Thursday 29th July 11:46

I think it's fair to say I'm not Pfizer's biggest fan no - a combination of well timed press releases suggesting they can make more money out of the vaccine about the time that the AZ clotting issue was being discovered, and the fact that they are too close to the authorities in the US for comfort. Sort of like Boeing and the FAA, with various board members taking positions high up in the CDC. For instance the $33 billion figure was mentioned in a CNN article yesterday, along with their announcement about the effectiveness of the booster jab they had developed, and when you clicked on the backup link, it took you to Pfizer's Q2 Financial Report. At least link to a different study and try not to make it too obvious folks.

I do get that it's not as simple as just pointing to a disease and saying "Develop a pill for that", however I'm struggling to see how it is that much more complex than developing a vaccine for a novel virus, and we've had about 7 or 8 companies develop those. Tamiflu wasn't great I'll grant you, but neither were the flu vaccines compared to what we have for COVID.

It just seems strange to me in the last 18 months of throwing all the money under the sun at a problem, we haven't at least found something which will take the edge off the symptoms. My go to cold remedy, Nurofen Cold and Flu doesn't kill the bug in the slightest, but it does make the experience less unpleasant. Granted it was useless when I had SARS2 a while ago, but Anadin Extra wasn't, and meant I could at least sleep.

The of course you have the fact that as soon as someone identifies a possible treatment (such as those we don't mention), there seems to be a queue of scientists waiting to say that it doesn't work. I just find it a bit odd that we've put a lot of eggs in one basket, that's all.

[anonymous-user]

Good posts from Tuna there I thought.

[jagnet]

Frik said:

It's all a conspiracy!

Or maybe there just aren't enough good studies that prove its effectiveness, although some are still ongoing.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/1...

The fact that 18 months on that "there aren't any good studies" is telling in itself.

Reminds me of the vit D fiasco - there were no downsides to trying it; it's cheap; it's a known requirement for a healthy immune system and a known fact that vit D levels in the UK are poor, especially coming out of winter; Hancock lied about it having been tried and failing; Hancock eventually issued small doses to care home residents "for healthy bones", knowing that the doses were too small to make a noticeable difference to immune response. Since then, nothing as far as I can tell.

Vit D was never going to be a cure, but my goodness could it ever have done a good job of helping to keep people out of hospital. Instead, months into the crisis, it was a requirement that nothing short of fully completed double blind studies would be enough to warrant trying to up the population's vit D levels. A requirement noticeably missing from the never before tried lockdowns when they were imposed.

I wouldn't call it a conspiracy, just good old fashioned moral corruption from those with vested interests.

[Alucidnation]

Boringvolvodriver said:

77th Brigade said:

A few things seem obvious:

- There is a nasty virus.
- We have to deal with nasty virus.
- Normal planning for dealing with nasty virus is badly affected by:

--- Incompetence.
--- Politics.
--- Very large vested interests trying to take advantage of the situation either financially, politically or societally.

I believe that we're in a world of st of our own making.

I will add

—- a population, large numbers of which, don’t appear to have the ability to think critically and would on the face of it are easily led (or brainwashed perhaps?)
——a MSM and journalists who don’t appear to be able to do their job

Brainwashed? Ffs.

I think you’ll find that a large numbers have thought critically and are happy with their decision.

You only have to look at the massive take up of the vaccine.

[Boringvolvodriver]

Alucidnation said:

Boringvolvodriver said:

77th Brigade said:

A few things seem obvious:

- There is a nasty virus.
- We have to deal with nasty virus.
- Normal planning for dealing with nasty virus is badly affected by:

--- Incompetence.
--- Politics.
--- Very large vested interests trying to take advantage of the situation either financially, politically or societally.

I believe that we're in a world of st of our own making.

I will add

—- a population, large numbers of which, don’t appear to have the ability to think critically and would on the face of it are easily led (or brainwashed perhaps?)
——a MSM and journalists who don’t appear to be able to do their job

Brainwashed? Ffs.

I think you’ll find that a large numbers have thought critically and are happy with their decision.

You only have to look at the massive take up of the vaccine.

I did say perhaps! And I wasn’t talking about the vaccine either.

Maybe have a read of Laura Dodsworth book and see what some of the psychologists have said about the tactics used.

Btw - have people thought critically about the vaccine or just followed the herd?

[monkfish1]

jagnet said:

Frik said:

It's all a conspiracy!

Or maybe there just aren't enough good studies that prove its effectiveness, although some are still ongoing.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/1...

The fact that 18 months on that "there aren't any good studies" is telling in itself.

Reminds me of the vit D fiasco - there were no downsides to trying it; it's cheap; it's a known requirement for a healthy immune system and a known fact that vit D levels in the UK are poor, especially coming out of winter; Hancock lied about it having been tried and failing; Hancock eventually issued small doses to care home residents "for healthy bones", knowing that the doses were too small to make a noticeable difference to immune response. Since then, nothing as far as I can tell.

Vit D was never going to be a cure, but my goodness could it ever have done a good job of helping to keep people out of hospital. Instead, months into the crisis, it was a requirement that nothing short of fully completed double blind studies would be enough to warrant trying to up the population's vit D levels. A requirement noticeably missing from the never before tried lockdowns when they were imposed.

I wouldn't call it a conspiracy, just good old fashioned moral corruption from those with vested interests.

Dont worry. RR and tuna will justify it somehow.

[Brave Fart]

Tuna said:

<again, bit of an edit, apologies>
Unfortunately public health is about convincing enough of a population to do "the right thing" - and whilst I absolutely agree that many people can handle the truth, and we all deserve it, there isn't much evidence that you can maintain public control at the same time.

The interesting exception is China - there will surely be some interesting studies on how they appear to have controlled the virus. They have incredibly tight control over the information that their citizens receive, no significant opposition and a social sense of group responsibility that appears to make group decisions easier to enforce. The complete opposite of what we believe is "good" in the west, yet they (appear) to have done far better than us in controlling the virus.

Where does that leave our freedom, independence and "the truth"?

It's interesting that you address public control in one paragraph, and China in the next. Our government has acted on advice from SAGE SPI-B to try and control its own citizens, with limited success. China's approach is completely unacceptable to me given how benign the virus is for most people. I don't believe any numbers that China declares regarding its outcomes in any event.

Freedom, independence and the truth, as you put it, are casualties of this virus as much as anything else. I believe our government have acted very badly indeed throughout - and are still doing (vaccine passports for example). However, China elevates bad behaviour by the state to a whole new level. One that is scary and unacceptable.

[grumbledoak]

jagnet said:

I wouldn't call it a conspiracy, just good old fashioned moral corruption from those with vested interests.

Nothing has been allowed to succeed if it would risk the EUA for the vaccines.

[anonymous-user]

monkfish1 said:

Dont worry. RR and tuna will justify it somehow.

Its only an added bonus watching you wriggle.

[GMT13]

RE the question of why the potential use of some of the other drugs like Ivermectin have been suppressed..

The contract that Pfizer has with individual countries was leaked on twitter the other day.

This clause indicates that even if an alternative drug is found the contract with Pfizer cannot be voided.

|https://thumbsnap.com/32wzkNEK[/url]

Another slightly unsettling clause here,

|https://thumbsnap.com/qD69tbcz[/url]



https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/141965300281899...

[Boringvolvodriver]

Roman Rhodes said:

monkfish1 said:

Dont worry. RR and tuna will justify it somehow.

Its only an added bonus watching you wriggle.

Come on then, justify what Hancock said and did regarding Vit D as being acceptable

[Uggers]

Boringvolvodriver said:

Tuna - I would prefer it if governments were Frank and truthful with what they told us rather than treat us like they have done.

I accept that the situation was constantly changing although it wouldn’t hurt to treat us like adults and maybe , just maybe, when they have got it wrong, apologize rather than try to cover it up with lies.

They initially started well in my eyes.

They stated it was a virus that mainly affects the elderly. That we have an aged and unhealthy general population. We will have people die from this virus and we need to prepare ourselves for this.

I appreciated the frankness.

It was then 3 weeks to flatten the curve, and the rest has been a blur of inexplicable rules and restrictions ever since. All I can gather from the confusion and mixed messages is that 'the science' doesn't really have a clue what's going on. The 'puzzlement' at the drop in cases as an example.

The vaccine passports coming in after 'freedom day' and having one of the most successful vaccine rollouts in history, just sums up what a complete and utter clusterfk the whole situation has been.

[anonymous-user]

GMT13 said:

RE the question of why the potential use of some of the other drugs like Ivermectin have been suppressed.

Heads up, ivermectin fanbois.

https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/1...

TL;DR: studies produce naff all evidence that it does anything.