[FRIAM] The case for and the case against Covid vaccinations

Thu Jun 17 01:45:51 EDT 2021

Alternative measures like Remdesivir or Hydroxychloroquine? To me this sounds a bit like (Russian) disinformation which was spread so often by Mr. Trump.-J.
-------- Original message --------From: Pieter Steenekamp <pieters at randcontrols.co.za> Date: 6/17/21  05:09  (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The case for and the case against Covid vaccinations Thanks for the honest comments gentlemen. In general I am in full agreement with the gist of what you all say. You say there are conspiracy theories out there that can be debunked - you mentioned a couple - I fully agree with that. You also say that if all else are the same, it's probably better to take the vaccine compared to not taking it. I fully agree with that too.After reading your comments I reread my wording carefully and I admit, the message I wanted to convey is not all that clear. Let me restate my main message in an effort to clarify it:The main point I wish to make is that, based on the available evidence, with doing nothing else, it is better to take the vaccine compared to not taking it. But this does not imply that the vaccine is totally harmless. There are good arguments for the case that the actual harm of the vaccine, although it's much smaller than the harm of getting the virus infection, is not insignificant. The next point is that there is evidence of alternative measures against the virus that are in total better than getting vaccinated. I'm not repeating the motivations for reaching this conclusion, it's in the body of my original message and specifically explained well in the references I gave.   Whilst I agree with the specific detailed points you made, I fail to see how any of your points address my main point as summarized above.PieterOn Wed, 16 Jun 2021 at 23:17, Jochen Fromm <jofr at cas-group.net> wrote:From all I know the health risk of getting no Covid vaccination is far bigger than getting a Covid vaccination, especially for older people. And most of us are no longer 20, right? I feel I that I have aged 10 years in the last year alone.The Internet tends to amplify rare side effects. If you search on social media for a rare side effect that occurs in 1 of 10 million cases then chances are high that you will find this one case where a person has in fact experienced that rare side effect. You will find it not because it is so frequent but because the search algorithms are so good that they find rare edge cases. -J.-------- Original message --------From: Pieter Steenekamp <pieters at randcontrols.co.za> Date: 6/16/21  12:17  (GMT+01:00) To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com> Subject: [FRIAM] The case for and the case against Covid vaccinations Just a disclaimer - this is about Covid vaccines and not vaccinations in general. Vaccinations against viral infections are absolutely great and have saved many lives the last half-century or so. And in addition to the conventional vaccination technology, the mRNA vaccination technology can make significant further progress against viral infections in that it might be possible in future to roll vaccines out very soon after a harmful virus is first detected. I personally am very excited about the potential benefits of mRNA technology.There are exceptions though, and there are voices arguing that the Covid vaccines (all of them) could have serious potential long term health risks. Especially worrisome for girls and women planning to have kids in future because some of the risks are specifically associated with ovaries. In this post I present such a case.Covid is a nasty virus, but it seems like there is a glimmer of hope. After Trump initiated Operation Warp Speed in May 2020, the private partners responded well with the gift of billions of dollars to develop vaccines against Covid and they did what they are supposed to do - making money for their shareholders. Under Biden the initial roll-out of the vaccine was a bit wobbly, but after a while it got going and the US is now well under way to get vaccinated and just maybe Covid will, if not eradicated at least manageable. There were mixed experiences in other countries, for example it's understandable that with all their bureaucracy Europe initially fumbled a bit and under Boris Johnson the UK quickly got their act together and the vaccination roll-out happened relatively fast there. It hurts me to talk about South Africa.So, it's a no-brainer that we should all just get vaccinated because that's the way to win this battle against Covid. But it seems like some humans are just plain upstream and difficult and there are many conspiracy theories with outlandish messages that the vaccines are for some or other reason evil. Fortunately governments of the world are working with Big Tech to sensor all these false narratives. If someone posts something on social media that is conducive to people not taking the vaccine, surely it's in society's interest to censor those messages? This is after all the natural way things are supposed to work, like the Catholic church who owned the truth acted against Galileo Galilei. It's just that in that case Galilei happened to get it right, but today's scientists obviously own the truth, it's science after all, so it's perfectly honourable to censor false narrative today. Right?I, for one, don't buy it that the narratives that go against the scientific consensu should be censored. The problem with that is it creates a culture of groupthink; those voices that are against the narratives get to be silenced. We humans have evolved a trait where hormones are secreted when we think people like us, we then feel good, and vice versa ; so if you say something that you think people will  like, you tend to feel good. Welcome to the world of Dale Carnegie, How To Make Friends and Influence People. IMO we must recognize this human trait and support structures where the voices of contrarians are both welcomed and listened to. Okay, let's get back to Covid. I think there is a valid case to be made against vaccination and it should be given a fair hearing. I want now to first make a case for and then a case against Covid vaccinations.The Case For Covid VaccinationTo make the case for Covid Vaccinations is really simple and I can't believe that there are people so stupid that they don't get it, just study the evidence. Where Covid vaccines have been rolled out, the new Covid cases and especially the Covid deaths have dropped significantly. Sure, there are rare cases of serious side effects, but in total the statistics on the results are very clear; Covid vaccines are very effective and the risks are very small. I really don't think it's required to give references, just google it for yourself and you'll find tons of published references. It's a slam dunk case.Sure there are wankers distributing conspiracy theories against the vaccines, but they have been debunked so thoroughly that any reasonable person must reject them. We just have one potential problem, enough people must be vaccinated for Covid to be eradicated and it seems like there are just too many conspiracy theories going around. Fortunately the governments of the world seem to have their act together and are working with big tech to censor those conspiracy theories and it seems to work. Let's all work together on this one, if you find someone going against the narrative, just cancel him (surely it can't be a "her"). It's in society's best interest, not?The Case Against Covid VaccinationEinstein apparently said one must make everything as simple as possible but not too simple. Maybe the case for Covid vaccines are too simple and if you delve a bit deeper there might be a good case against vaccines? I think so and will present that case here. I will go deeper into it, but in summary it goes as follows:* Covid is a nasty virus, but so is the Covid vaccine protein.* There are nasty side effects to the Covid vaccine. Because the nasty spiked vaccine protein does not, like most other vaccines, stay in the upper arm area where it is applied, it goes to the rest of the body and especially alarming to the ovaries of woman and bone marrow, with potential serious long term risks involved  * There are safe and drugs available that are as good in preventing Covid infections than vaccination, but important, without the long term health risks.  * Humans are only human. When it's in the interest of a group of humans, they will, on average, be biased towards those actions that benefit themselves. With all the tax-payers money around and the possibility to get research grants working on expensive medical solutions, it benefits those in the medical research sectors to favor expensive solutions over cheap ones. For Big Pharma, it goes without saying, they will obviously move the world to get taxpayers money to develop expensive drugs. For politicians, they get to be the heroes in the minds of voters if they sponsored effective solutions and obviously to get financial (all above board of course) campaign and other support from big pharma does not hurt either. I'm not saying those involved in promoting expensive solutions are evil or crooked, they probably are all good people, but I think we must all recognize that the system is such that there are ample opportunities for the outcome not to be 100% aligned with the interest of the normal people.  All this is dependent on two crucial questions:Is it valid to say there are long term health risks in taking the vaccines?Is it valid to say that there are cheap alternatives to vaccines that are as effective as vaccines without the risks?If any of these questions is false, the argument against Covid vaccinations fall flat.Let me address these two questions1 Are there long term health risks associated with Covid vaccines?Please note this argument is only valid for Covid vaccines, not for vaccines against viral infections in generalIn an interview in a podcast ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_NNTVJzqtY, from 2:22 to 2:28 ) dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of mRNA vaccination technology and a current vaccination consultant, there are reasons to be concerned about the long term risks to especially the ovaries of human and bone marrow of everyone.Maybe you're not concerned, but if the inventor of mRNA technology ( https://www.rwmalonemd.com/ ) and whose current bread is to a reasonable amount buttered by consulting on vaccination technology warns against Covid vaccines, it certainly makes me worried. His current advice goes headlong against his financial and career interests. He recommends against Covid vaccination because of potential long term health benefits and because there are lower-risk alternatives with similar benefits available.2  Are there cheap alternatives to vaccines that are as effective as vaccines without the risks?a) It is reported in https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/is-ivermectin-the-new-penicillin/article_b6b7afd8-bd77-11eb-8259-af11e3c83aea.html that "Cases in Delhi, where Ivermectin was begun on April 20, dropped from 28,395 to just 2,260 on May 22. This represents an astounding 92% drop. Likewise, cases in Uttar Pradesh have dropped from 37,944 on April 24 to 5,964 on May 22 - a decline of 84%.b) The second argument that I present is indirect evidence.The businessman Steve Kirsch has researched the space and is convinced that both NIH and WHO are wrong about not recommending cheap alternative remedies. Now, I hear you laugh, it's just ridiculous to take a lay person's word against science. The clincher is -  he is offering $2m of his own money to be proven wrong on this. Why is his $2m not claimed? Does this say something?  I quote from his website (https://trialsitenews.com/if-you-can-prove-that-the-nih-and-who-got-their-treatment-guidelines-right-you-could-win-2m):"This is the second in a series of articles arguing that obeisance to constrictive evidence-based medicine (EBM) treatment protocols in a pandemic is causing an unnecessary loss of hundreds of thousands of lives.In my previous article, I showed that the current NIH and WHO treatment guidelines for fluvoxamine and ivermectin don’t fit the evidence at all. A FOR recommendation for both these drugs is a near-perfect fit to all the data.In this article, I will make it clear to everyone that their recommendations are so indefensible that no qualifying enabler (see list below) will be able to come forward to support these recommendations even if I offer a million dollar incentive for them to do so.Any drug protocol used for treating COVID early must fall into one of three categories:helpful,neutral,or harmful.I claim that there has been abundant evidence on the table for at least the past 7 months, all in plain sight, that both fluvoxamine and ivermectin when given early at an effective dose are helpful because a HELPFUL hypothesis is a near perfect fit to all the evidence and that the other two alternatives, neutral or harmful, don’t fit the evidence at all.To win the $1M prize, all you have to do is to provide a convincing argument that the NIH or WHO NEUTRAL and AGAINST recommendations on fluvoxamine or ivermectin (existing on May 21, 2021 when I am making this offer) are:more likely to fit the evidence than recommendations FOR these drugs, ormore likely to save more lives than recommending FOR these drugs.Either method of proof is fine: fit the facts or superior cost-benefit. You have two completely independent ways to win each prize. What could be easier?"Maybe for you it does not have much weight, but for me if a person feels so strongly about something that he offers two $1m prices to provide convincing evidence to prove him wrong, and the money is not claimed, it does say something very loud and clear. Especially in the light of humans being humans and it's in the relevant Covid vaccine role players' interest to ignore cheap remedies.The end
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