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Swine Flu, Round 2

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chuckleslord

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Ayn Rand thought as long and hard as she could about every decision.

She could've thought at maximum capacity (that's pretty high, in her case), and for about three days, about whether to have coffee or tea after lunch. (it would've taken her three days to die of thirst, while thinking) I doubt she did that.

Please think very hard about whether or not to take any vaccines.

I could think about it for months, and not come up with a decision as good as a doctor I trust will, in a matter of minutes. Unless you care to tell me something specific, that my doctor wouldn't know (so I can point it out to him, make sure he considers it), I can't say your advice is helpful.

What I'll do, instead of thinking, is give my doctor a quick call, to see if I should go get a shot or not. And then, I'll get it or not, without spending another second thinking about it. And I suspect Ayn Rand would do exactly the same, though I can't actually know.

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Fine Jake, let your doctor do the thinking for you, I don't want to get in an argument about it. Maybe just ask if he or she is going to take it and if not why not. Thousands of doctors and nurses around the world won't be taking it because they don't think it's safe.

I don't need to ask him, I trust him. And yes, the main purpose of the medical profession is to train doctors to make decisions for their patients. I shall take advantage of this, and allow my doctor to do the thinking for me.

If you think self medicating is better, then keep doing it, but please, stop trying to get others to follow your lead, because it is a stupid thing to do.

Edited by Jake_Ellison
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Fine Jake, let your doctor do the thinking for you, I don't want to get in an argument about it.

You say that like it's bad advice. Chances are that Jake's doctor went to medical school and paid big bucks to learn lots of things that Jake has not learned about medicine and health and such. That's why they make specialists you know, so that the lay person has someone the can consult with when they reach an area of knowledge beyond their training or education.

But by all means, ignore your doctor's advice next time you go for a visit... well, if you go to a doctor when you have a health concern. In fact, you would probably save yourself some time and money if you didn't go to the doctor at all. That compound fracture would probably heal itself in time anyway.

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Ayn Rand thought as long and hard as she could about every decision. Please think very hard about whether or not to take any vaccines.
This type of advice is meaningless in a thread like this. Obviously we should think about everything we do. However, when asked about some specific issue, advice like this is not really saying anything about the question at hand. The only honest implication is that you wish to warn people against this, while not offering specific reasons. So, it would have been more intellectually honest to come out and say: "I warn you against taking this vaccine", instead of saying something like "think hard" which has an out-of-context plausibility while not actually saying anything different. In other words: mean what you say, or people will write you off.
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Does anyone have any evidence there is anything wrong with this vaccine?
From what I can tell, the evidence is "guilt by association", since the vaccine against 1976 swine flu was associated with Guillain-Barré syndrome. The only rule I can discern is that if there is widespread fear of swine flu, then that causes widespread fear of flu vaccines. What I find annoying is that the "science" media mentions the 1976 problem without saying anything about what actually caused this association of GBS and vaccination. If they don't know, then why not just say "nobody knows why"? If they do know and can control for that factor, you'd think that they would actually say so.
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For those trying to stay healthy I can recommend vitamin D3, it's a great flu fighter. I am taking 2000 I/U a day. Also vitamin C or even better fresh fruit and vegetables.

2000 IU a day is not very much, unless you are eating lots of foods with Vitamin D in it or in the sun everyday. Under the commonly accepted school of thought, that's probably enough, but under the new school of thought that's emerging, you need and can take quite a bit more than that. I take 4000 IU per day and now that winter is setting in, I'm considering more since my sunshine time will be cut drastically.

More info:

http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2008/10/on-vitamin-d.shtml

http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2009/03/mor...vitamin-d.shtml (of particular interest is Dr. Wills comment left at this blog post that talks about getting tested and how much you should take)

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Hi K-Mac, I live in sunny Queensland so I get lots of sunlight. In a recent interview Arthur Neumann said sunlight wasn't as effective as it used to be for supplying vitamin D. So I'm not sure what to think about that issue.

To others, thanks for the criticism. I realise if I'm going to be part of this forum I need to be more intelectually rigorous. Let's look at what's actually in some versions of the vaccines that might be dangerous. Mercury, which according to the pharmaceutical companies is safe at the level used. Personally I just don't want any mercury in my body. Squalene, an adjuvant that some people claim caused Gulf War syndrome. Some swine flu vaccines contain squalene at levels higher than the vaccines given to soldiers in the war, according to Gary Null at the NYS assembly hearing on vaccines. Watch his speech on youtube, he knows a lot more about this than I do and he's passionately anti vaccine.

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What I find annoying is that the "science" media mentions the 1976 problem without saying anything about what actually caused this association of GBS and vaccination. If they don't know, then why not just say "nobody knows why"? If they do know and can control for that factor, you'd think that they would actually say so.

You make such an excellent point. I admit that I was pretty young during that Swine Flu period. I remember my mom, a nurse, and grandma had talks about it, but other than that I only remember they hype and Johnny Carson making jokes about it.

Back on point, why hasn't any actual journalist taken this up? Or am I just missing them? There must be some rational explaination even if it is "nobody knows".

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  • 1 month later...

One thing I haven't seen addressed in this thread is the fact about how overblown this thing is in the media. I don't know how it is in the US, but over here in Croatia the media, as well as the government, are spreading panic for some reason. As far as I can see, H1N1 is no more dangerous than seasonal flu, so why all the fuss? If I understand it correctly, the H1N1 strain isn't even new. The mortality rate of H1N1 is the same as that of a seasonal flu.

Any comments on their reaction? Thanks.

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Personally, it seems like it is another crisis to generate more power in individual governments if not a global government.

I visit hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies each day that I work, and there seems to be "excitement", but this isn't a melt down. I don't have the vaccination myself. I personally don't know anyone that has ever got the virus. Heard about a friend of someone I know, but that's it. I can't confirm that they had a culture done that says they had H1N1 either versus some other virus on top of that.

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Personally, it seems like it is another crisis to generate more power in individual governments if not a global government.

I visit hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies each day that I work, and there seems to be "excitement", but this isn't a melt down. I don't have the vaccination myself. I personally don't know anyone that has ever got the virus. Heard about a friend of someone I know, but that's it. I can't confirm that they had a culture done that says they had H1N1 either versus some other virus on top of that.

I had it. It sucked but I certainly never felt at any point like I was about to die. Taking Tamiflu I felt like a human being again after about three days. I still have some lingering tiredness but that could just be the weather/my back pain.

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Personally, it seems like it is another crisis to generate more power in individual governments if not a global government.
I think it is deeper than politics; I think it is based in epistemology. It comes from a loss of perspective when thinking about these types of issues. It requires conscious conceptual control to not be swayed by news of the moment, and some people simply have not mastered doing so. Also, at the level of conscious ideology, a fair number of people have an unwarranted distrust of modern science and man's ability to deal with things like this. This makes them more prone to worrying about things like this. Journalists then play to this audience.

(Aside: In so many different contexts, I am struck by myopic thinking that makes me wonder at the extent to which some human beings can drop back into the thinking styles of non-reasoning animals/children.)

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Also, at the level of conscious ideology, a fair number of people have an unwarranted distrust of modern science and man's ability to deal with things like this. This makes them more prone to worrying about things like this. Journalists then play to this audience.

I would go further in that I have have a warrented distrust of government intervention. Right from the start, this has not been handled in a manner of protection for individual citizens. And this has been a continuation of their new order. Lines for those that want the vaccine and shortages.

It's governments intervention into science that concerns me.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Swain flu is one of the major disease which is very harmful to the people and if people are not going to take precaution due to the primary stage then it spread Fast in human body after that there is no any anti vaccination is available till now.

In swain flu H1N1 virus is the main which is performing in this disease.Till November month 16,328 cases are noted and among them 600 was dead.It will also decreased your immune system.

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Swain flu is one of the major disease which is very harmful to the people and if people are not going to take precaution due to the primary stage then it spread Fast in human body after that there is no any anti vaccination is available till now.

In swain flu H1N1 virus is the main which is performing in this disease.Till November month 16,328 cases are noted and among them 600 was dead.It will also decreased your immune system.

Wow. It would be a lot easier to understand your points if you paid just a little bit of attention to grammar and spelling.

Based on what I think you might be trying to say, I wonder how swine flu compares with the regular flu virus in terms of fatalities and hospitalizations. My general sense (supported by no empirical data whatsoever) is that the whole H1N1 scare turned out to be far less than everyone expected. Let’s face it, the media and the government did a pretty good job of hyping up H1N1 and they did the same thing with Asian Bird Flu a couple of years ago. These kinds of scare tactics don't exactly lead to increased trust in our elected officials.

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