Re The COVID Vaccine: White Folks First…Please
Why I don’t trust anything coming from the government re medicine and medical treatment regarding black people:
The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male was a clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the United States Public Health Service.
The purpose of this study was to observe the natural history of untreated syphilis; the African American men in the study were only told they were receiving free health care from the Federal government of the United States.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
It takes years to develop an effective vaccine.
Trump boasts that his ‘Operation Warp Speed’ has resulted in the development of an effective COVID vaccine in a few months.
Given the history and who and what Trump is, I hope you don’t mind if I choose to let white folks go first…
Despite the fact that I’m in the COVID19 high risk cohort, I can wait…
Anyone who wishes to do so may get their COVID shot ahead of me.
I’ll get my shot after a while…
Thanks
11/30/2020 @ 9:42 am
OK.
I’m in a vaccine trial. Not for COVID, for Lyme Disease. My last visit will be in January. It has taken a lot longer than these COVID trials, but I don’t know what’s disease-specific. However, I know something about the process, and it’s quite meticulous.
You realize, I assume, that someone else somewhere is writing that they expect Black people to be vaccinated last in spite of high contagion rates.
11/30/2020 @ 10:24 am
@Koshersalaami;
“You realize, I assume, that someone else somewhere is writing that they expect Black people to be vaccinated last in spite of high contagion rates.”
I’m not speaking for black people, I’m speaking for myself…
This is what “meticulous” got for the black men involved in the Tuskegee Study which was very “disease specific”:
“The Public Health Service started the study in 1932 in collaboration with Tuskegee University (then the Tuskegee Institute), a historically black college in Alabama. Investigators enrolled in the study a total of 600 impoverished, African-American sharecroppers from Macon County, Alabama.[3] Of these men, 399 had latent syphilis, with a control group of 201 men who were not infected.[2] As an incentive for participation in the study, the men were promised free medical care, but were deceived by the PHS, who disguised placebos, ineffective methods, and diagnostic procedures as treatment.[4] The men who had syphilis were never informed of their diagnosis, despite the risk of infecting others, and the fact that the disease could lead to blindness, deafness, mental illness, heart disease, bone deterioration, collapse of the central nervous system, and death.[5][6][7][8] According to the CDC, the men were told that they were being treated for “bad blood,” a colloquialism that described various conditions such as syphilis, anemia and fatigue. “Bad blood”—specifically the collection of illnesses the term included—was a leading cause of death within the southern African-American community.[2] The men were initially told that the study was only going to last six months, but it was extended to 40 years.[2] After funding for treatment was lost, the study was continued without informing the men that they would never be treated. None of the infected men were treated with penicillin despite the fact that by 1947, the antibiotic had become the standard treatment for syphilis.[9]
Study clinicians could have chosen to treat all syphilitic subjects and close the study, or split off a control group for testing with penicillin. Instead, they continued the study without treating any participants; they withheld treatment and information about it from the subjects. In addition, scientists prevented participants from accessing syphilis treatment programs available to other residents in the area.[10] The study continued, under numerous Public Health Service supervisors, until 1972, when a leak to the press resulted in its termination on November 16 of that year.[11] The victims of the study, all African-American, included numerous men who died of syphilis, 40 wives who contracted the disease and 19 children born with congenital syphilis.[12]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
How ‘meticulous’ does the government need to be in order to secretly commit murder and human rights atrocities for a period of 40 years?
11/30/2020 @ 1:17 pm
Ok. This is a difficult one to unpack. Are you saying that vaccines just take longer to make than this particular group has taken, and therefore should not be trusted? If that is the case, the safety of them is not race specific.
Or, are you saying that the government is up to something akin to the Tuskegee syphilis experiment? That is a very different issue, in many ways. Now, I can’t say absolutely that government would not do such a thing, because they have, right? There is precedent. But, how is this situation different from that particular incident? Is there a reason to believe that it would be similar…or different?
Several things jump out immediately. First, several vaccines were produced outside of the US. Whatever racist motivation that might exist similar to Tuskegee would be considerably less likely given the broad participation in the creation of various models. Also, the global need for a vaccine for Covid, presumably would far outweigh the any racist motivation. People want and need a vaccine. Finally, the first step of producing a vaccine was China releasing the genetic code of the virus, which propelled a new approach to making a vaccine. They are focusing on RNA and building within each person’s body the ability to create a defense to the virus. This has not been done before for any vaccine. Again, much rides on this approach globally because this method can be used in successive epidemics.
What does that reasonably leave you? It may be a reasonable question regarding the vaccine’s safety. Not much answers that without people taking it. But if it is not that, and it is not some racist experimentation like Tuskegee (which I really think it isn’t), is it responsible to discourage others from taking the vaccine?
11/30/2020 @ 2:40 pm
@Bitey;
“…is it responsible to discourage others from taking the vaccine?”
Dr Jonas Salk worked on his vaccine for polio incessantly for two-and-a-half years.
The discovery and research phase is normally two-to-five years, according to the Wellcome Trust. In total, a vaccine can take more than 10 years to fully develop and costs up to $500 million, the UK charity says.
I’m not trying to discourage anyone from getting a shot.
I’m saying let the white folks go first and watch what happens…
I prefer not to be a guinea pig, just as I prefer not to be a scapegoat….
Keep in mind that it is the Trump administration that will issue emergency authorization to use the vaccines…
The Biden administration will have the logistical responsibility to distribute the medicine…
11/30/2020 @ 4:56 pm
@Koshersalaami;
“I’m in a vaccine trial.”
How much are you being paid?
Some vaccine trial participants are paid as much as $2,500.00…
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thousands-volunteer-for-covid-19-vaccine-study/
11/30/2020 @ 7:36 pm
And every one of them signs a (too) lengthy informed consent form. Every trial is overseen to some degree by an IRB – at least the initial design is. Annual HIPPA training. All outgrowths of Tuskegee.
I’ll be glad to go ahead of you, Ron.
11/30/2020 @ 8:02 pm
@JC;
“Every trial is overseen to some degree by an IRB – at least the initial design is. Annual HIPPA training. All outgrowths of Tuskegee.”
Another example of White folks directly benefiting from the intentionally inflicted suffering of Black folks…
Nothing new, it’s been going on in this country for 400 years…
“I’ll be glad to go ahead of you, Ron.”
Go ahead, be my guest..
Thanks…
11/30/2020 @ 11:01 pm
Understandable! By coincidence, Don Lemon is just interviewing a black guy who participated in the trials. Since the front-line and essential workers will be getting the vaccine first, I figure that gives some time for the rest of us to see how it goes. I think these things are a lot more ethical these days. Hopefully.
12/01/2020 @ 12:47 am
@Myriad;
“I think these things are a lot more ethical these days. Hopefully.”
“….Ethical discussions also surround the research and testing of vaccines, including discussions about vaccine development, and study design, population, and trial location.
To be licensed, vaccines go through many years of research, and must pass rigorous safety and efficacy standards.[1] The vaccine development and research process includes diverse experts many scientific and social disciplines, including public health, epidemiology, immunology, and statistics, and from pharmaceutical companies. These stakeholders may have conflicting priorities and motives, which contributes to various ethical discussions.[10]
Sometimes researchers disagree about whom to include in vaccine trials. To properly test a vaccine’s effectiveness, a clinical trial including a control group that does not get the test vaccine is usually necessary.[1] Failing to provide any adequate preventive option can be a difficult decision when the vaccine can potentially prevent a serious, untreatable, or fatal infection, however….”
https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/ethical-issues-and-vaccines
12/01/2020 @ 9:13 am
Ron,
I think the final total will be $750. When I was approached I was interested before I knew it paid. I thought a Lyme Disease vaccine was a good thing. I often (when COVID isn’t on) play with a musician who has it. I’ve got one last visit and I don’t think I get a shot on that one because there’s nothing scheduled to follow up on it.
Yes, a control group is necessary. I hope I’m not in it but I could be. I’ve asked them to inform me after the trial is over which group I was in. They’re not sure they can give me that information but they’re going to try to.
The danger from being in the control group is that you’re still vulnerable to catching the disease from whatever sources anyone catches it from. Catching the disease from the vaccine itself I don’t think is possible.
12/01/2020 @ 11:11 am
There are people who believe that the vaccines will contain some sort of micro-mini-chip that allows the government to track their every move. They believe it to be true because they saw it on their phone; the one with the GPS system.
12/02/2020 @ 1:54 pm
My Red ass isn’t up for getting it any time soon either despite knowing I’m high risk. Smallpox blankets REALLY happened and frankly 400 plus years of genocide at the hands *of the US Government* leads my red ass to say “OH HELL NO”.
12/02/2020 @ 5:40 pm
@MrsRaptor;
AMEN!!!
12/03/2020 @ 11:48 am
We, the world, are all in the same room. There is a ticking time bomb. That time bomb is the virus. The manner in which the time bomb is defused is by vaccination and continued distancing until the infection rate drops below a certain level. (I believe that level is 1%). As such, it would not benefit people of various races or whatever to let others remain infected, or become infected, or even for the vaccine to not work. It would cause the time bomb to explode on everyone. If, suddenly, the vaccine did not work on large groups of people, like an entire race, or there were other issues resulting from unethical practices, that would reduce the benefit to those form whom such unethical practices were not intended.
This is how it differs from syphilis trials or small pox blankets. If the logistics of the vaccine roll out fails, it will hurt everybody. We all breathe the same air.
12/04/2020 @ 9:24 am
Brutal Honesty here… Trust is something which is EARNED. Can you think of a single occasion in the last 500 years when European Colonizers have EARNED trust from Native Americans? Just ONE. I cannot think of a single occasion when the limited amounts of trust my ancestors gave to Colonizers was not misplaced and did not cause HARM to our people. Not one.
Native Americans are a mere ONE PERCENT of the US population. Further, we have SOME DNA which is completely unique in the world. Meaning it would not take MUCH to build a vaccine that simply “doesn’t work” on those with that unique DNA.
Now, am I so suspicious that I believe that HAS been done? No. I’m also not so trusting that I believe it has NOT been discussed. Millions of acres of land… trillions of dollars in resources that could be free for the taking if ONLY we Native Americans were REALLY extinct (and just so we are clear… schools in the US today are teaching that Native Americans are EXTINCT) and an easy path to eliminating us.
I NEED more than the assurances of people who I/my people have no reason to trust in the first place.
12/05/2020 @ 7:20 am
Ok, frankly, I can think of virtually infinite examples of occasions, or let’s say factors which you trust and use unreservedly. I am not being argumentative here for its own sake, but only to say that pragmatic concerns do come into context eventually.
On trust. We are using a language to communicate with one another that was brought by the colonizer. With no trust, neither of us would or could use it. We trust how it works, and that what we mean can be conveyed with it. My thoughts mean a great deal to me, and I think yours are to you as well. When we communicate, we agree to share a level of trust with one another’s ideas. It is a level of respect. The medium that we are using at present is of the colonizer.
And like the language itself, many of the things we use without examination involve trust. We trust grocery stores, traffic signals, weather reports, facial expressions, the list is virtually endless. Now, I agree, the list of things which have been used to oppress minority culture is long. I completely agree. I am only saying that, like a former science teacher once said, “we have more in common with a carrot than we do not.” Our task is to find those things and work to a mutually beneficial solution.
And as for DNA and its uniqueness, the structure of this vaccine uses RNA, not DNA. And it is the RNA of the virus, not the DNA of the human patients. This model will work with you and your DNA because it already is. You would not be susceptible to the virus if this approach would not work.
Now, all that said, I respect your decision as to what you wish to put into your own body. I get that. My only suggestion is that there is a different way of thinking of “your body”. In the context of contagion, your body is the entire population. Sometimes your body is limited to your flesh. Other times it extends to all humans. Contagion is one case where “the body” is all bodies.
12/05/2020 @ 11:57 am
Regarding the language thing: English is NOT my first language, Lakota is, and you have to understand that WHEN I learned to speak Lakota IT WAS ILLEGAL for me to learn it. IF the vast majority of people outside my house did not speak English as their primary/only language *I* would NEVER speak it, although because of the internet I would still type it. I don’t SPEAK much though – damaged voice box due to domestic violence – I use Native American Sign Language or ASL more than I do English – and Lakota a LOT more than English.
I need to also point out here that FORCED ASSIMILATION was a thing from the 1860’s until the 1960’s… our Native Languages were ILLEGAL to speak. PLEASE tell me WHERE in the United States ENGLISH has ever been made ILLEGAL to speak since I’ve never found a single incidence of it occurring. I’ve ALSO never seen a single instance of GENERATIONS of Colonizers locked up in literal prisons for the CRIME of having white skin OR having their children kidnapped across the board and being dragged off to residential boarding schools where EVERYTHING related to their culture was systematically STRIPPED from them. These things were NOT done out of the goodness of anyone’s heart. So NO, the use of English by Native Americans is NOT “evidence of trust”… it’s PROOF of SYSTEMIC RACISM.
By the way, I THINK in Lakota… and translate (some days STILL with a dictionary in hand so that my thoughts are not misconstrued – even after 48 years as of December 2nd) to English. For whatever reason I will NEVER think in English, perhaps because I find the language to be unwieldly and ugly.
YOU have far more trust than *I* ever will when it comes to your fellow man. As for having more in common with a carrot… I DO have more in common with a carrot than I do MOST people. I do not consider “humanity” to be a commonality given that a certain religion STILL, in 2020, teaches that I am NOT HUMAN to start with and the US Supreme Court STILL uses religious doctrine FROM that religion to justify the government abusing people who look like me.
A minimal amount of what you refer to as trust does exist… but the reality is there’s FAR MORE distrust than there will ever be ACTUAL trust when it comes to Colonizers. And, I have to admit, that distrust has GROWN massively over the last 4 years. Perhaps it will shrink in the next 4… perhaps not – depends entirely on the Colonizers and how THEY act.
Lastly, I already KNOW my doctor will NOT recommend the vaccine to me for a few years. He refuses to give me a rather long list of vaccines because I have a compromised immune system (Jewish father, Lakota mother) – the Covid vaccine may well be one that he recommends I never get. I’m good with that too.
12/05/2020 @ 4:58 pm
I merely said, you and I trust English because we are using it. I trust that you understand that.
12/04/2020 @ 11:20 am
@Bitey;
‘If the logistics of the vaccine roll out fails, it will hurt everybody.”
The question is about a vaccine that will be in use without the benefit of the observance or enforcement of standard ethical protocols for the development and distribution of vaccines.
It’s quite possible that they will be distributing a vaccine that not only isn’t effective, but something that has the potential of causing additional harm…
Does the thalidomide episode ring a bell for you?
Are you aware of the fact that Trump has a finger in the COVID vaccine financial pie?
As far as I’m concerned white folks should go first with my blessing…
I’ll wager that the vast majority of anti-vaxxers are Trump supporters…
They’re preparing for some kind of ‘pharmageddon’…
How ironic is that?
12/05/2020 @ 7:50 am
Thalidomide does ring a bell. My parents used to discuss it quite a bit when discussing wariness of new drugs, and FDA approvals, etc, much like you are here. Also, I am quite old enough to remember seeing many adults who were born as “thalidomide babies” in my youth. Sadly, they did not tend to live very long lives, and one does not see them as often anymore, but yes, I do remember them quite well.
So, I ask you the same thing. Do you remember thalidomide? Have you learned about it? Why do you raise it in this context? Do you understand that it simply does not fit in this context? Here is how.
Thalidomide was used as a sedative, and a treatment for nausea for pregnant women. The combination with pregnancy and the drug led to the babies that we have discussed. That situation is profoundly different from a vaccination. Chances are, you could take thalidomide now, and have no negative repercussions? Did you know that? As such, the thalidomide case does not help your argument. You will not become pregnant, and not suffer nausea from it, and produce a baby with under developed limbs. As it applies to you, this simply will not happen. Furthermore, did you know thalidomide is still used? That’s why I turned the questions round to, “are you familiar.” Today it is used as a treatment for patients with cancer and leprosy.
Part of the practice of prescribing medicine involves specific use. Thalidomide was used more broadly than it should have been. People used it as a general sleeping pill. That was part of my mom’s warning about it. As a result, she never used sleeping pills. As a result, I have never used sleeping pills. She may have lost sleep over the years, but figured it was worth the risk. All one was risking was a night of sleep. I agree with that. I am slow to use medications. I use carefully according to instructions. My own dad refused morphine when he was dying of cancer. Those are personal choices where the adverse effect lives and dies with the patient. Vaccination is different. Adverse effects of not being vaccinated go beyond patient one. In a pandemic the effects potentially go around the world. That said, I still respect a person’s choice regarding vaccination. To mandate it is a step too far in my opinion. But, understand it is not analogous to improper use of a sedative.
12/05/2020 @ 10:43 am
@Bitey;
“Thalidomide was used more broadly than it should have been.”
The ‘analogy’, as you put it, is not about Thalidomide v Vaccine. That’s somewhat of a false equivalency on its face…
The referenced comparison was about the failures of the ethical protocols in testing and subsequent use…
50 years after being introduced, thalidomide is no longer in use as a sedative, but as treatment for illnesses which are vastly different from insomnia…
My mother was a highly skilled and broadly educated, registered nurse.
Growing up I enjoyed the benefit of the care and counsel of a medical expert.
I don’t believe she would approve of, or have much faith in, Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed COVID19 Vaccine…
My mother was intensely antiracist…
The essence of this post is derived from counsel on the matter I would have received from my mother were she alive today. .
She would most likely agree that while vaccination is to be accepted as universally beneficial when done correctly, there’s too much to question and too much personal risk in rushing to accept a cure that could be worse than the disease…
However, you may choose to ‘trust’ the vaccine and queue up ASAP. It is your right and your option to do so…
I prefer to take a wait and see approach along with MrsRaptor…
We may come to the determination that the COVID19 vaccine is the best way to get through this world health crisis…But We won’t reach that conclusion at ‘warp speed’…
12/03/2020 @ 12:07 pm
Bitey’s comment from 12/03 at 11:48 a.m. is frightening and exact.
I think this virus could be in the incubation period for something far more devastating than the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs.
12/05/2020 @ 5:36 pm
It is interesting that you,Mrs Raptor, and you, Ron, were both addressed about a choice to use a vaccine for a highly contagious virus which has spawned a disease that is everywhere in the planet presently. And while I fully endorse your right to choose, lets be clear that your choice is entirely based upon your mistrust of someone, whether it be Donald Trump, or White people generally, or colonizers.
Interestingly, neither of you said anything about obligation to the greater good, the potential for good white people among us…etc. Again, I support your right to choose. But, if you become a virus spreader, how are you different from any of the examples you provided?
And as for “Operation Warp Speed”, the program has more to do with logistics than the science of developing the vaccine. Is it possible that something was missed and it might do some harm, of course, but that wont be race specific. The syphilis experimentation heavily implies that. Is it possible for Donald Trump or even the US government to do some racist thing? Of course it is. But, in this case, there would be no way to separate out the people you do not want to hurt from the people that you would, if that motivation existed. Logically, it does not hold together. To throw up endless historical examples of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ as your argument is akin to Trump’s legal team claiming fraud to the cameras, and admitting they have no fraud evidence in court. The logic simply is not there.
12/06/2020 @ 12:13 am
There isn’t ANYONE who is a member of the general public who will be getting the vaccine for any reason other than self-preservation and it’s okay that people will line up to get it out of self-preservation. I DO have an issue with people claiming they are going to be getting it “for the greater good” when the REALITY is they’re getting it out of self-preservation BEFORE “the greater good”. The thing is, nobody is going to get it until HEALTH CARE WORKERS do. The other thing is that it mutates so quickly that a vaccine isn’t going to be effective for more than 6 months to a year. It’s a genie that cannot be put back in the bottle – no matter how badly we may want to.
I haven’t left MY HOUSE in more than TWO YEARS other than to go to the doctor’s office (but man I DO love Shipt) and I’ve worn a MASK when seeing doctors for more than TWENTY years because my immune system is compromised and doctor’s offices and hospitals are usually crawling with infectious diseases. My regular doc does house calls so IF someone comes to his office who is Covid Positive (heck he does house calls for his immune system compromised patients if someone comes into the office with strep throat) I’m one of the patients the office reschedules to a house call OR to a telemedicine appointment. My specialist, a hematologist, also does telemed appointments for me. In BOTH cases, their offices are fairly close and I’m not going to be interacting with other patients – not even sitting in the waiting room because NEITHER has me sitting in a waiting room *at all*.
I haven’t had a “random visitor” since I met the Morons (I mean Mormons) at my front door covered in blood with intestines in one hand and a knife in the other about 10 years ago. They certainly are NOT going to be showing up on my doorstep on a private road that is posted in the midst of a pandemic – and frankly if a random visitor DID show up I wouldn’t bother to answer the door.
Item last… We have FIVE HUNDRED YEARS of history on our side showing INTENTIONAL harm caused to people with OUR COLOR SKIN (red in my case, black in his) by the government. In the last 244 years there have been ZERO occasions when the government has done something which BENEFITS Native Americans without being SHAMED into doing it. Exactly ZERO. I, and a whole lot of others who look a LOT like me, don’t believe for a nanosecond that THIS TIME will be any different than any OTHER time since the US was formed. If you have EVIDENCE (verifiable) that THIS TIME will miraculously be the FIRST time in 244 years that the US government has NOT intentionally HARMED Native Americans I’ll be happy to read/see it. 244 years… I’m thinking there’s no miracle happening THIS time either given that our per capita infection rate due to Covid is higher than ANY other ethnic group in the US – and we’ve been isolating, wearing masks, etc… for MONTHS – while the US Government has been quietly closing the only hospitals Native Americans can LEGALLY go to for medical care. Seems to me if the US Government did not INTEND to KILL Native Americans “one way or another” they wouldn’t be closing our avenues to get MEDICAL ASSISTANCE during a pandemic. But maybe I’m just looking at it wrong… IF a group of people with the POWER to kill YOU had spent every day of the last 244 years KILLING people who “look like you” would YOU “give them the benefit of the doubt” when they started closing the ONLY hospitals you can go to BY LAW in the middle of a pandemic? IF You can answer “yes” to that question you have more faith in the “GOOD” of the US Government than *I* ever will.
12/06/2020 @ 12:22 am
Slight correction on my previous comment (since I cannot locate an “Edit” button/option): I said “I haven’t left MY HOUSE in more than TWO YEARS other than to go to the doctor’s office… but I did leave the house THREE times this year for elections – where I locked myself in my office to deal with those who were registering to vote on election day. Through THREE elections I saw a grand total of 11 people in the course of those three days. I was wearing a mask AND a face shield, they were wearing masks… we had absolutely NO “personal contact” directly without there being rubber gloves involved on my end and I took them off and sanitized literally *every* surface in my office when they left too.
I’m NOT a germophobe… I’m also not a trusting soul. And I’ve got NO desire to catch Covid when the ONLY hospital I can LEGALLY go to in these United States is more than 1000 miles away and was CLOSED by the US Government IN MARCH.
12/06/2020 @ 12:40 am
What keeps you legally out of hospitals?
12/07/2020 @ 4:05 pm
Kosh… According to US Law, Native Americans may only be seen in hospitals owned or operated by the Indian Health Service. BECAUSE my Tribe is in South Dakota my ‘service district’ is the Aberdeen service district – which encompasses about 7 or 8 states. The Aberdeen Service District is the ONLY place in the US I can LEGALLY receive routine medical care through the Indian Health Service (AKA, “IHS”). I suppose I COULD do what I have been doing for years to receive routine medical care in my doctor’s office (my regular doc HERE consults with my IHS doc in SD regarding my treatment and I see her just once a year) and pay for it myself BUT I shouldn’t HAVE to go through 1000 miles of red tape in order to receive medical care. My IHS card and Tribal ID SHOULD be sufficient in EVERY hospital in the nation that isn’t a private hospital – but nobody wants to CHANGE that for Native Americans. And so we continue to receive crappy medical care because the reality is that “average income” for Native Americans is about $7,000 a year and medical care on THAT little income when you have to cover the entire cost isn’t a priority.
I have APPLIED multiple times to change my service district TO the service district that I LIVE in and HAVE lived in for most of the last 48 years BUT the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who must approve such a change, keeps saying “NO”. Making the nearest hospital to me that I can obtain medical care at, other than things like broken bones and needing stitches (in which case I MUST go to Midland to the IHS hospital there), in Rapid City, South Dakota. I’ll leave you to do the math to get the distance from there to Gaylord, Michigan.
12/06/2020 @ 7:55 pm
Raptor, I’m curious – is your doctor Indian?
12/07/2020 @ 4:14 pm
IHS doesn’t employ but about 10 Native American doctors… most of whom are working for IHS due to the debt forgiveness they receive through the Department of Education. My Regular doc HERE in Michigan is a Korean War Veteran who only sees about 500 patients total. He consults with my IHS physician in Rapid City SD regarding my medical care and I see her once a year in SD.
I have a genetic problem with my blood (Thanks Mom and Dad for giving me TWO copies of that blasted gene) plus I have avascular necrosis of the femoral head so me NOT having a local doctor isn’t SAFE for me so I pay my regular doctor out of pocket and he consults with my IHS doctor – who is also Caucasian. I don’t particularly LIKE her but she’s who they gave me so she’s who I am stuck with.
It makes my medical care a tad complicated BUT it’s what I have to do given that I live so far from my Service District (see my response to Kosh above) and have long term medical problems that require medical supervision and treatment.
Yes, we COULD move back to SD, and one day we likely will, but there are very few job options there for either of my husbands so we’re here until they are closer to retirement (I’m a couple years older than both) since neither one of them wants to fight with the headaches of dealing with the feds over starting a business ON the reservation.
12/06/2020 @ 6:40 am
Actually, in beating contagion, that is precisely why it is done. That is why the idea of wearing masks is having such resistance. People think of it as what it can do for them. The fact of the matter is, the measures in beating contagion involve protecting the person next to you…not you. The reciprocal case is what protects you. Another way to put it is, the vaccine is only so effective. I wont quibble over the percentage. However, if enough people are vaccinated, the goal is achieved. It is not achieved by whatever protection someone gets for themselves. It is about removing the contagion from the population. The sad thing is that our self absorbed culture doesn’t get that. The interesting thing is that the United States is having such a difficult time trying to understand the concept because Americans are so self absorbed.
And furthermore about the greater good, it is not always mutually exclusive to an individual’s well-being. Civilization is the grand argument in that case. Civilization is for the greater good. We do better in communities than we do alone. One of the drawbacks of large groups/civilization is contagion. Strategies for managing or defeating contagion differ from strategies attacking threats to individuals. Overlapping techniques are what most effectively defeat something like contagion, and bring the greater good in line with the individual’s well-being.
The more I think of ways to explain contagion, the harder it is to come up with examples. But, the way the virus spreads, and the significance of protection of the population versus the individual is like the difference between geometric progressions, arithmetic progressions, and no progression. No progression is simple enough. No contagion. Arithmetic progression allows for isolation, and waiting out the short course of the disease for it to be eliminated. Geometric progression is where you run into trouble. Isolation quickly becomes impossible due to population density. It is like high voltage power lines which run from everywhere to everywhere. The power transferred on the lines would kill all life, but it is isolated from populations by being over their heads and out of reach. (No progression). If the line were on the ground, it would be deadly for anyone in its proximity because touching it would be deadly. Touching it is analogous to touching poison ivy. It takes contact to make the pathogen work. Contagion would be like dropping the line into a pool of water. At that point, the water becomes the conductor, and the person need not touch the wire for it to be deadly. Water would do the trick.
With a contagion virus like Covid-19, it takes a set of lungs, AIR, and another set of lungs. Air is the conductor. If one set of lungs has the virus, all it takes is being sprayed into the air, and another body to contact it for it to spread. To break the chain, we have to separate the bodies from each other, or from the air. Reducing the existence of the virus reduces the rate of transmission, which is the greater good angle.
12/06/2020 @ 9:46 am
This is why vaccinations are often required for children to be allowed in school.
12/07/2020 @ 4:27 pm
I’m all for separating a whole lot of bodies from the air. I’m a misanthrope… I ADMIT I am a misanthrope. I do not LIKE most people. I get a mite “stabby” when I have to deal with people on a regular basis. I suppose we COULD call me a “hermitess” but that doesn’t quite fit due to the “wanting to stab people who annoy me to death” thing.
Humans fit the definition of an invasive species and IMHO a whole lot of us (like 3/4 of us) could stand to be wiped out.
12/06/2020 @ 12:33 am
Only self interest?
Up until recently, non n95 masks were considered useless in protecting the wearer when it comes to COVID. The entire reason given for wearing them was not to keep from getting COVID but from spreading it. For most of this pandemic, masks have primarily been a matter of civic/social responsibility rather than direct self-preservation. I don’t know what makes anyone sure that the same couldn’t possibly be true of vaccinations.
12/06/2020 @ 11:05 am
So many indents and non indents, I have no idea where to click reply. Some interesting comments here though, and a breath of fresh air not to talk about Trump. So very sick of Trump.
I totally get Ron and Raptor’s hesitation. It seems the vaccine roll out will be so trickly and slow, they’ll have time to see how it all goes. And god know we’ve all had plenty of practice staying home. What’s a few more months. Once that shot goes in the arm, it can’t be undone.
I will offer this though. When I was taking Tamoxifen for adjuvant cancer therapy, about three and half years in to a five year regimen, it was discovered that women in a stage three trial for five years of aromatase inhibitors had a 43% greater survival rate. They immediately stopped the trial to put the control group women on the aromatase inhibitors, and my oncologist gave me the hard sell to switch. Even for a year and a half, she felt it could be of benefit. So I switched.
The side effects were no joke and they continued unabated for the entire year and a half. Then, in my fifties, I got early onset osteoporosis, which they now know is a likely long term consequence of the drug. Would I do this again? You bet!! Here I am, still knocking on wood. The covid vaccine seems the same. Watch what happens with the early adopter daredevils and if results seem good and side effects are non life threatening, I’ll get in line.
Side comment about thalidomide. My mom took it for mild morning sickness with my sister. Her ob/gyn gave it to every pregnant patient routinely, like aspirin. My mom said later she didn’t feel as if she had a choice. All ob/gyn docs were men then, and seen as authority figures by their patients. I tend to view the routine use of thalidomide with pregnant women in a similar, albeit much less evil light to std experiments and infected blankets. Uninformed women were told to take a drug whether they wanted it or not. Although the drug had been studied for other maladies, no one had studied the effects on pregnant women, considered by the male medical establ;ishment as a comparatively less important sub-population. Although we’d like to think that would never happen today, it was the same when studying heart attacks and strokes using men as test subjects, or scaling the iPhone to the size of the average male hand.
Okey dokey, I have to get some work done today….so happy post Thanksgiving! It’s good to see everyone, and ain’t it grand that we have a new president? I’ve already reduced my daily news intake to every other day, and come the new year, am hoping for once or twice a week.
12/06/2020 @ 3:06 pm
Thus far, there are eight people in this discussion:
4, including myself, are of the wait and see persuasion;
2 are of the quick, fast, and in a hurry, ‘warp speed’ variety;
2 have made no comment on when they would get a COVID shot.
12/07/2020 @ 6:42 am
Ron, that’s not how I would break out the classifications. Frankly, I am not even sure what group you have placed me in. If I were to break them out, I’d do it differently.
The four that you call wait and see expressed reticence based upon previous and unrelated behavior by some group of people. For you, it is white people. For Raptor, I think it is also white people. For GH it is men. Given that those groups wont change any time soon in their essence, that’s not “wait and see”, it is something far less rational. Frankly, my view is wait and see. Once the FDA says a drug has been cleared for this specific purpose, I see no reason to avoid it. I’ve been getting in elevators which have been signed off by inspectors, whom I have never met, for my entire life. The potential exists that my luck will run out in an elevator someday, but it makes no reasonable sense to question the motives of the inspector based upon, “man’s inhumanity to man”…etc. I have flown on commercial airlines. I have eaten food grown and processed by hands that I have never seen. Aircraft fly over my house every day, several miles up, whose tiny parts must be Q/A’d by inspectors I never see. A single bolt the size of a fingernail could rattle loose and be deadly, but to dodge it every time I see or hear an aircraft would not be rational with the speed and complexity of modernity. I drove on streets divided by yellow lines which lack a hardened barrier to protect me from cases moving in the opposite direction. The person on the other side of the line could be impaired, or evil, but it would be ridiculous to question their views about race, or immigration, and decide whether or not to use the thoroughfare. Life just doesn’t have time for that, and the likelihood that that motivation will cause an accident is just not rational.
Again, I acknowledge that everyone has a right to decide for him or herself on such an issue, but I call bullshit on this theory in this particular way. Your theory of the assumption on the malevolence of the masses based upon some wave of history fails to do exactly that which you expect others to do for you. When you hear someone say, “it is your right”, you likely think, damn right it is. But, your theory removes the right of an individual from being malevolent in your theory/theories. You apply a determinism about white people/colonizers/men about anything for which you have uncertainty. It’s true that the efficacy of the various vaccines is limited. The data they provide states as much. But, to say that an additional limitation exists based upon something totally arbitrary is exactly as arbitrary and irrational as racism and misogyny. And the important thing is that the damage does not end there. It creates doubt about something important, a vaccine, for which you have zero evidence that doubt should exist.
Don’t get on that elevator because I saw the repairman, and he is white. That is not good reasoning. Choosing not to is your business. Suggesting that others do the same is just plain wrong.
12/07/2020 @ 4:42 pm
And casually DISMISSING genocide (which you have done several times) is racist. You have a great life. I want nothing to do with someone who casually dismisses the commission of genocide occurring TODAY as “someone being fearful” or whatever.
12/07/2020 @ 6:19 pm
Casually dismissing genocide? Who did that?
12/07/2020 @ 7:16 am
Oh, and, by the way, calling one category as of the “warp speed variety” is more than mildly filthy. It implies a number of things, and rather sloppily. Primarily it implies agreement or acceptance of Donald Trump and his leadership. That’s bullshit, and you know it. Secondly, it implies that “Warp Speed”, as a program was involved with the development and efficacy of the vaccines. It wasn’t. Warp Speed will only play a part in the logistics, but not the production. Warp Speed tried to be involved with development, but failed. Vaccines were developed outside of Warp Speed’s influence. I am repeating myself, but I suspect that you don’t read these answers, or check your premises before making some of your claims. Warp Speed will touch on where the locations of storage will be, and when and to whom the vaccine is distributed, etc. It has no bearing on the makeup of the vaccines whatsoever. If you are going to categorize or accuse someone of being “of the warp speed variety”, at least understand what you are accusing.
12/06/2020 @ 6:09 pm
Art W. ‘Gimme Shelter’ Stone’s concerted quip about another shoe dropping is plausible. Hell this is the same ‘human’ species that brought in the sheep-dung anthrax post 09/11/01. Perhaps we’ll never know if John Wilkes Booth acted alone and so forth. Yet (I wouldn’t know what to wear to a white party at this juncture) earlier on this first day of the rest of our lives CNN profiled an at home litmus wherein Mr./Ms. Postperson delivers paper wafers which apparently turn red or blue if Corvid Nineteen somehow has invaded the person. All along my wish upon a star has been for a capsule vaccine. However the process truncates as empiricism dictates the venous (OW-whoa-whoa-OW) hypo spike with lines around the tic-tock block. Now, sturdy masks and what? 1,000 Years of Solitude? I recollect that Swine Flu had similar apprehensions. Conspiratorial tangents in this bifurcated notion of a nation are always there. Say it ain’t so. I can hardly picture the third world as is with this horrifically panicked pandemic. VGF did her Doctors Without Borders contribution in Port Au Prince. When I mention the experience she tears up. Hey we’ll get through this. Mad as hell distant drums and the whole shot.
We’ll prevail.
Praise the Lord and pass the vaccine!
!Really!
12/07/2020 @ 4:55 pm
By the way, the US will only be getting enough for 50 million people… at least between now and June & we may not get more even then. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/12/07/world/covid-19-coronavirus#trump-administration-officials-passed-when-pfizer-offered-in-late-summer-to-sell-the-us-more-vaccine-doses
12/07/2020 @ 5:40 pm
There are many unknowns in play, with the virus itself, as well as with the drugs and vaccines. My friend’s son and daughter-in-law are pharmacists. I jokingly asked her if he got to move to the front of the line, and she said that they are taking the wait and see approach. These are people with degrees in pharmacology, who will be administering the vaccine to others, yet are unsure about taking it themselves.
If human compassion should be our driving motivator, compassion also means respect for people and their various concerns and experiences.Trump’s supporters will be, by far, the most difficult to convince to be vaccinated. If they won’t even wear a mask to protect one another, good luck giving them an injection.
Something else that seems an important consideration. Four years of Trump et. al. have rendered us vulnerable and utterly lacking in trust. Republicans did some of the ugliest cruelest things, things we never could have imagined in 2016. Every day the news brought some awful new scandal or terrible Trumpian tidbit. We’ve been demonized by the minority in power. We’re skittery for good reason. Trump has said he won’t send vaccine to NY, to punish the radical left governor, Andrew Cuomo. I live in a blue city in a blue state. Logic says that he’d enjoy punishing me too. Biden is inheriting a traumatized 51% percent of the country and it will take patience to bring us back.
12/07/2020 @ 6:29 pm
Now that is what I call self interest. I applaud your condor, though. It takes a lot to, as a human, call humans an “invasive species” that should be exterminated…and then accuse someone else of casually dismissing genocide. There is a certain ironic genius in that.
12/07/2020 @ 7:16 pm
Mrs. Raptor
Could you please point out where someone advocated genocide? I’m surprised I missed that. Thank you.
12/11/2020 @ 1:11 pm
Just read on twitter that Fauci said to “my AA brothers & sisters” that the vaccine being offered had been developed by a black woman – just passing it on. (Europeans will be getting a vaccine developed by Turkish immigrants.)