Notice: I think the vaccine is a good bet if you are over 18 and haven't had COVID yet. For the recovered? No. For children? No. Is it long term effective? I don't know.
Did the ending of the placebo control group after 2 months, nearly 2 years early, raise permanent red flags? Yes. Is there a significant chance that the vaccine will apply selective pressure to the virus leading to an escape variant? It's an interesting topic, I recommend exploring some of the lit and the current trends with Delta.
Now, back to the news media. Pfizer and Moderna alone will bring in over $50B this year. The budget for every news organization in all of America amounts to $10B. CNN's budget is < $1B. Is it plausible that the vaccine industry is applying financial incentives to folks at CNN to promote max vaccination? Given CNN's writings about the vaccine, often clearly false, I would be shocked if this weren't the case. I suspect for CNN the max-vax money must be a gold rush.
Why in the hell would big Pharma pay any media to promote the vaccines? Most of the revenue is already booked from state actors, and they're literally selling the cure to a global pandemic. They don't need to juice demand - such a ploy could only hurt them. Frankly, continuation of the pandemic via poor adoption of the vaccine would increase future business in the form of boosters, etc.
> Why in the hell would big Pharma pay any media to promote the vaccines?
To make more money. Do you know there is clear and abundant data that giving the recovered the vaccine provides zero benefit? Not only theoretically, but empirically too, in all countries, across the vaccine trial data and real world data. But if 1/3 of Americans are recovered, that would drop vaccine sales by 33%. Even worse, it would make the vaccine look less effective, as by giving the vax to the recovered it juices the numbers so that a smaller % of people get COVID post vax. A 33% drop in vaccine sales would amount to tens of billions of dollars in lost profits. So a rational actor would easily spend more than $10B in PR costs to promote max-vax.
This is just how the publishing/media industry works. Even when industries aren't explicitly buying ads, they are paying PR firms to inconspicuously plant Op-Eds and nudge editorial. Not unique to Big Pharma or vaccines. Moderna or Pfizer themselves don't even have to be involved! Outside shareholders can indepdently pay for the PR dirty work.
What's interesting with vaccines is how blatant it is. Caused me to reevaluate the importance to abolishing copyrights, giving everyone the right to be a publisher, and removing the monopoly power of our current media. It's disgusting how true knowledge is stifled and lies are propped up. It's much harder to propagate lies when there are millions of capable publishers, not just 10.
From personal experience I have seen quite young fit and healthy person die of COVID. If you saw it first hand , you would know how quickly and dangerously this virus takes over . Having a vaccine with even a 50 percent chance is a no brainer to prevent the devastating damage this virus can cause in a very short time. And so is wearing masks.
I've seen plenty of the virus first hand. It's bad. ~5x worse than the flu, which everyone knows is awful. (Though of the 1,000+ people in my closest circle, 100x more life has been lost in the past 1.5yr from things other than COVID, despite well over ~100+ known contacts with it). If you haven't had it, looking at the numbers, I think the vaccine is a good bet, increasingly good as your age and/or weight increases.
But a vaccine provides 0 benefit (0 with a capital "Z"), if you've recovered. It's an absolute no brainer that this is the case. If your body wasn't capable of learning an immune resistance from actually having the virus, then vaccines wouldn't work. When public health figures claim that recovered should get vaccinated anyway, even though it goes against theory, empirical data, and clinical trial data, you have to question their credibility. Then you look at their dissolution of the placebo control group. Then you look at their decision to stop tracking breakthrough cases. None of this is acceptable. One must have high standards.
When you have an idea in engineering and you think it's amazing, you have to keep measuring and questioning that. If your data shows that it's not as amazing as you claim, the solution isn't to hide evidence, it's to keep going, keep measuring, and try harder.
The scientific literature supports your position, see [1][2]. In fact there is no benefit to vaccinating these individuals, at least nothing published in the literature yet (please share links if anyone has evidence otherwise).
> Is there a significant chance that the vaccine will apply selective pressure to the virus leading to an escape variant? It's an interesting topic, I recommend exploring some of the lit and the current trends with Delta
Here are some great resources to learn about this topic [3][4][5][6][7][8]. If you're new to this topic try starting with [6]. Otherwise [3] is an accessible paper to jump into. [8] gives you an idea how this could play out, with evidence from chickens.
> Is it plausible that the vaccine industry is applying financial incentives to folks at [BIG MEDIA] to promote max vaccination?
I have no peer-reviewed references for this (yet), but to those reading please share if you do!
Thanks for the citation. Here is a link to the paper cited in the article you've referenced [1]. It does not make claims that are in disagreement with my previous citations.
Quotes from [1]:
- "The notable evolution of neutralizing breadth after infection with SARS-CoV-2 and the robust enhancement of serologic responses and B cell memory achieved with mRNA vaccination SUGGESTS that convalescent individuals who are vaccinated should enjoy high levels of protection against emerging variants without a need to modify existing vaccines."
- "No statistical methods were used to predetermine sample size. The experiments were not randomized and the investigators were not blinded to allocation during experiments and outcome assessment."
In summary [1] shows that "Vaccination increases all components of the humoral response" [1]. This is well established in the literature, and not really up for debate.
However, the mistake you're making is jumping to the conclusion that higher neutralizing titre levels (or antibodies, anti-RBD IgG, etc) are inherently more beneficial. This has not been demonstrated in the literature yet, and it's extremely difficult to determine at what level someone is "protected enough".
Here's a direct quote from the article you linked to, supporting this fact:
- "At the moment, the quantity and vigour of a person’s neutralizing antibodies are the best markers for assessing whether that person is protected from infection and illness — although scientists are still working to confirm that antibody levels can serve as a realistic stand-in for immune protection."
> Your first two citations merely suggest
The evidence provided by [2] goes well beyond "mere suggestion", with statistically significant findings and N = 52,238.
Quote from [2]:
- "The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection remained almost zero among previously infected unvaccinated subjects, previously infected subjects who were vaccinated, and previously uninfected subjects who were vaccinated"
Agree. Follow the money. Is anyone really shocked at this point? I've heard that Dr. Fauci is a partial owner on some patents, and that somehow this isn't a conflict of interest. And CNN has already demonstrated that it's woefully compromised. (They need to fire Chris Cuomo, like three months ago..)
Fauci isn't an inventor or owner of any COVID vaccine patents.
Even if Fauci was an inventor on them, his patents would be owned by the Federal Government. By Federal Law, inventors of government patents are entitled to a maximum royalty of $150k/year.
> Why take the time to argue a point that's easily disproven?
>> I've heard that Dr. Fauci is a partial owner on some patents
> Fauci isn't an inventor or owner of any COVID vaccine patents.
Why take the time to argue a tiny subpoint of my point, by erecting a strawman and linking to a fact checker that is political by its very nature..
Which spends the first half of the page attempting to discredit the supposed author of the point, and then, hilariously, admits that, in fact, Fauci is listed as inventor of at least four patents, even if possibly unrelated to COVID-19 vaccines etc, and the so-called fact checker even said they actually reached out to NIAID for comment on those patents and never heard back.
You know that all US parents are published, after approximately 1 year, in publicly searchable databases, right? I’m sure NIAID had better things to do… like fighting a pandemic.
The real question is why you are so afraid of the vaccine, so as to promote FUD? Or is it just displaced fear from a virus demonstrating that you’re not quite as in charge of your life as you thought?
Did the ending of the placebo control group after 2 months, nearly 2 years early, raise permanent red flags? Yes. Is there a significant chance that the vaccine will apply selective pressure to the virus leading to an escape variant? It's an interesting topic, I recommend exploring some of the lit and the current trends with Delta.
Now, back to the news media. Pfizer and Moderna alone will bring in over $50B this year. The budget for every news organization in all of America amounts to $10B. CNN's budget is < $1B. Is it plausible that the vaccine industry is applying financial incentives to folks at CNN to promote max vaccination? Given CNN's writings about the vaccine, often clearly false, I would be shocked if this weren't the case. I suspect for CNN the max-vax money must be a gold rush.