Lifting Masks = Back to Getting Down With The Sickness

[XsjadoBlayde]

Midazolam is administered as part of palliative care (for anxiety / distress). It is true that it is not going to do wonders for lung function as it's a mild respiratory depressant. But it seems odd to pick on midazolam when the same palliative care guidelines include a much more effective respiratory depressant: opioids such as morphine.

One would hope Janet Menage, GP (retired), might have bothered to check that. However, one might also note that Janet Menage, GP (retired) also thinks 5G is dangerous and covid has been used by the government for totalitarian control.

Curious how all the vocal minority of exhibitionist conspiracy-theorist professionals share a distinctly overlapping set of unflattering, unprofessional traits. (Also them sauces be too weak to stretch as far as they're implying)

 

[AnxietyProne]

Here's a good little nugget for what I have to deal with.

Our football team's scheduled game got cancelled because the other side's school just shut down from the huge numbers of infections. So do we follow suit and postpone or just call the game? HELL NO. We actually try to drag in another school's team from another state to cram the stadium again!

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Here's a good little nugget for what I have to deal with.

Our football team's scheduled game got cancelled because the other side's school just shut down from the huge numbers of infections. So do we follow suit and postpone or just call the game? HELL NO. We actually try to drag in another school's team from another state to cram the stadium again!

I bet yer onna them bleedin' heart liberals who thinks that life is more important than sports!

 

[AnxietyProne]

I bet yer onna them bleedin' heart liberals who thinks that life is more important than sports!

If only that was said ironically...

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

A reminder that this misinformation isn't exclusive to just one side of the perceived political spectrum, and the ppl I personally know who've succumbed would have normally been identified as left-wing adjacent before the pandemic, now spout all manner of hysterical american right-wing reactionary talking points/conspiracies like barking zombies incapable of basic inhibition;

Not Getting Vaccinated to Own Your Fellow Libs

They’ve aligned themselves with forces they despise. But lefty anti-vaxxers don’t see the contradiction.

www.theatlantic.com

Conspiracy theorists who discount the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and other public-health mandates are often portrayed in the media as right-wing. That’s for good reason: a not-insignificant number of the most vocal conspiracists tie their ideology firmly to President Donald Trump and the right-wing MAGA movement he inspired. Videos of angry red-state demonstrators pushing back against school boards and other local authorities in public hearings, and repeating outlandish, baseless misinformation, have made the rounds in traditional media.

But in the hills of western Massachusetts and in neighboring regions of upstate New York, a traditionally left-leaning area, these theories also hold purchase. I grew up in the region and started my journalistic career there. I’ve been arguing with residents, many of whom are close friends, about vaccines for more than a decade. But despite my efforts, and the efforts of many others, a stubborn resistance to reality has set in here, and only deepened since the pandemic began. Late last month, Do We Need This?, a group of anti-vaxxers and vaccine-mandate opponents, held a “festival” in the region to raise money for their cause, suggesting a $20 donation for entry. They shared the proceeds with other national vaccine-skeptic groups, including NY Stands Up!, the Informed Consent Action Network, and Robert Kennedy Jr.’s Children’s Health Defense.

Anti-vaxxers in the Taconics-Berkshires region include local organic farmers, members of homeschooling and alternative-education communities, anti-war hippies, and the occasional alt-right conspiracist. The anti-vax faction here has its roots in the left-libertarian politics of the Back to the Land movement, which flooded the area with the disaffected urban upper-middle class in the 1970s and ’80s. That influx of hippies and students, most of whom came from New York City, brought with it a political belief in naturopathy and a mistrust of institutional authority.

Today, these crunchy anti-vaxxers are coalescing into a loose political group that is targeting COVID health measures and restrictions as indicative of governmental overreach and medical tyranny. They’re also, predictably, falling down far-right rabbit holes. For more science-minded people who have roots in the region, seeing old friends turn to outlandish, anti-science conspiracy theories can be disheartening, Melissa Pourpak, who grew up in the area and has a doctorate in genetics and molecular biology, told me. “It is shocking and saddening to me that such illogical statements are often heard in a place that used to be known for being a whole lot smarter than that,” Pourpak said. “Did all the progressives leave?”

The progressives didn’t all leave, of course. But some have found themselves drawn to ideas that the national media tend to associate with conservatives. Enid Futterman, a local journalist and Bernie Sanders supporter whom I know through Facebook, is one example. She told me she finds the idea that COVID is caused by 5G cellphone towers more believable than person-to-person transmission. “I’ve read both sides, and that’s what makes sense,” Futterman said. “I’m not saying I’m right; I’m just saying that’s what makes sense to me.”

I’ve cut off contact with several other people from the area, with whom I once spoke at least semi-regularly, because of their views on vaccines. One former friend, who now lives in California, fully embraced the anti-vax narrative more than a year ago, after more than a decade of falling for ever more unbelievable, thinly sourced conspiracy theories. Today he posts on social media incessantly about “studies,” never peer-reviewed, that he contends prove his conspiracist beliefs correct. Other people I grew up with have drifted to the far-right, with anti-vax rhetoric a common thread to their ravings. Even one of my oldest friends is anti-vax, reasoning that the antibodies he got from contracting COVID-19 earlier this year will protect him better than a vaccine (I haven’t cut off contact with him).

It would, however, be a mistake to assume that anti-vaccine sentiment is now a left-wing idea. A mistrust of governmental authority mixed with a series of decades-old conspiracy theories about the dangers of modern society produced the core of the modern anti-vaccination movement, Eric Ward, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, told me. But perhaps the wider ideological appeal of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories shouldn’t come entirely as a surprise. Traditional left-wing concerns about corporate influence mesh well with anti-vax fears that the pharmaceutical industry pushed federal regulatory agencies to sign off on the COVID-19 vaccines before they were truly ready. Skepticism about the safety of genetically modified food can easily blend into worries about mRNA vaccines. And an affinity for naturopathy and organic produce isn’t too far removed from rejecting the industrialization of modern medicine in the form of a shot.

As opposition to vaccines becomes a more partisan issue, however, progressives who are vaccine-hesitant will face a decision. Do they remain on the left, even as the politics around the conspiracy theories they embrace lead them out of their ideological comfort zones? Or do they dispense with progressivism in favor of a view of the world that holds that public health is subordinate to personal choice? In the hills where I grew up, those caught in the middle are trying to avoid confronting the contradictions.

Futterman told me she sees no contradiction between her views on vaccines and public health and her lefty Democrat political positions, citing the “open-minded” approach of liberalism. When I asked her whether her politics could survive her rejection of vaccines—which a majority of progressive politicians and leaders have been vocally in favor of—she said that pigeonholing her ideology was an error.

“I don’t like those labels,” Futterman said. “I do support Bernie Sanders.” She didn’t see “any disconnect between” her support for progressive values and her embrace of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, she added. “I do see a disconnect between me and a lot of Democrats, which is sort of shocking, but true.”

 

[BrawlMan]

A reminder that this misinformation isn't exclusive to just one side of the perceived political spectrum, and the ppl I personally know who've succumbed would have normally been identified as left-wing adjacent before the pandemic, now spout all manner of hysterical american right-wing reactionary talking points/conspiracies like barking zombies incapable of basic inhibition;

Not Getting Vaccinated to Own Your Fellow Libs

They’ve aligned themselves with forces they despise. But lefty anti-vaxxers don’t see the contradiction.

www.theatlantic.com

They are no more than mindless idiots that can't think for themselves. They're share the same contempt I have for their fellow counterparts. Good to know, and thank you for the heads up.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Brain rot is good business

Michael Flynn Thinks They Might Be Putting the Covid Vaccine in Your Salad Dressing

But the conspiracy grift is a double-edged sword: One minute you’re calling out the devil for doing his work through condiments, the next you’re being called the devil himself

www.rollingstone.com

Michael Flynn is no longer a general, no longer the national security adviser, and no longer a credible figure in mainstream conservatism. This hasn’t stopped him from becoming one of the most powerful influencers among the nether regions of the MAGAverse. The Trump World hero has spent the bulk of the year spreading conspiracy theories at behind podiums at QAnon conferences, in front of evangelical church congregations, and on a never-ending stream of janky, grift-y internet shows and podcasts. It wouldn’t be hard to argue that he’s at or near the height of his popularity.

The world of disinformation grifters can be a ruthless one, though, as Flynn found out this week. One minute you’re calling out the devil for doing his work through condiments, the next you’re being called out as the devil yourself.

On Monday, Flynn appeared on “Thrivetime Show: Business School Without the B.S.,” a podcast clearly meant to drive business to host Clay Clark’s business coaching program, the ventures of affiliated snake oil salesmen, and Clark’s health-focused “Reawaken America” tour, featuring Flynn and other notable names. Mike Lindell, the pillow guy, for instance. Most of the tour’s upcoming dates are listed as sold out.

The interview with Flynn begins with a lot of talk about “waking up” to reality, followed by Clark claiming that PCR Covid tests are rigged, and that once you’re into the hospital doctors give you drugs developed by George Soros to kill you (one of the drugs he cites, Remdesevir, was administered to President Trump), all the while withholding “100-percent effective” treatments like hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin, also known as the horse paste that has caused a flood of calls to poison control from victims of Clark-type con men.

“Does it shock you that the CDC protocols, General Flynn, are actually causing people with a soul who love America, doctors, to be accidentally euthanizing Americans at scale?” Clark asks eventually. “Does that shock you?”

“It doesn’t shock me,” Flynn replies, adding that even though the doctors may be accidentally euthanizing Americans with the Soros drugs, they’re also to blame because it’s incumbent upon them to understand what they’re giving people. “You can’t say you’re just following orders,” Flynn says. “It sounds like the Nazis.”

The discussion continues like this, conspiracy theory on top of conspiracy theory, one playing off of the other. It’s hard to overstate how far afield of reality, or even mainstream conspiracy-theory culture, the discussion ventures. At one point, Flynn suggests that the government could be secretly administering the vaccine through salad dressing, as Ron Filipkowski first pointed out on Twitter.

“Have you seen this?” Flynn asks.

“YES!!!” Clark yells.

The idea that “they” are putting vaccines in salad dressing likely trickled down from a recent story about how researchers at the University of California at Irvine are trying to develop a way to grow edible plants that contain the same medication active in the mRNA vaccines. Once a story like this finds its way into conspiracy-theory communities, it gets stripped for parts that can then be distorted to substantiate various fears about government mind control or whatever else, after which a game of telephone ensures that ends with your uncle eating his salad dry.

Your uncle is doing this because General Flynn and Clay Clark warned him about salad dressing while pressing the imperative to be “awake” to what’s really happening. The “devil,” as Clark’s wife put it during Flynn’s appearance, is out there trying to deceive people. “We need to go in with eyes wide open, saying, ‘Lord, let us not be deceived! Show us the truth!” she said. “Take the blinders off our eyes!'”

Clark followed his wife’s brief sermon by finishing a point he was making about how Senomyx, flavor additive in practically in many popular foods, contains human embryonic cells, a conspiracy theory that has long been debunked. “This is insane!” Flynn says.

It goes without saying that Flynn and his adherents are living in a make-believe world predicated on assembling your own reality from a buffet of deranged conspiracy theories. This world free of factual guardrails breeds a kind of fervency that figures like Clark are hoping will make them rich. The “Thrivetime Show” video stream features fixed black boxes advertising links to “protect your health” and “protect your wealth,” and the show notes to Monday’s episode include several more links advertising “100% Effective & Affordable COVID-19 Treatments & Therapies,” with a number of Covid patients and deaths affixed to each one of them. Is any of this true? It doesn’t matter. It’s the Wild West of information dissemination, and conspiracy-theory paranoia huckstering is the new Gold Rush.

The cultish fervency born out of the lack of any need for factual substantiation breeds a deep suspicion of anyone who isn’t hip to ideas like the government spiking your vinaigrette with a dose of mRNA. President Trump isn’t even above this skepticism. When he told a crowd of his most devoted fans in Alabama to get the vaccine last month, they started booing him. It isn’t hard to understand why after watching a few minutes of “Thrivetime Show,” one of an innumerable number of sources of Covid disinformation disaffected Americans are consuming, and trusting, as an antidote to mainstream media, which is controlled by George Soros, who, remember, wants to kill you.

Flynn isn’t beyond reproach, either. Pastor and conspiracy theorist Rick Wiles — who, too, has alleged that Covid vaccines are part of a “mass death campaign” — announced recently that he has turned on Flynn after Flynn referenced “those sevenfold rays” during a prayer at a Christian conference last week. Wiles called it a “New Age prayer” that was not made in the name of Jesus. “My advice to you is to separate from General Michael Flynn,” Wiles said. “I don’t care about politics, I care about your soul.”

Wiles used to be a fan. When Flynn was forced out of his positions as national security adviser in 2017, Wiles said it was only because Flynn knew the truth about Pizzagate, and that a cabal of “devil-worshiping, Luciferian, demon-possessed maniacs” was running the world. Just a few years later, as disinformation researcher Jim Stewartson pointed out, it’s Flynn whom Wiles is comparing to Satan, “the deceiver, the father of lies.”

“You are an absolute fool to continue supporting Michael Flynn,” Wiles says. “Who’s next? They’re being outed. But even as they’re being outed, people continue to follow them, because people love to be deceived. They love to be deceived.”

You got that right, Rick.

 

[Dalisclock]

I'm just gonna say, there's something deliciously ironic about MAGA talking about WAKE UP but also use WOKE as an insult.

 

[Agema]

Brain rot is good business

Seriously? Fucking seriously?

If we could just eat the vaccine, why the fuck wouldn't we be taking it as a pill instead of a with syringe? What is wrong with these people?

Is that prick Flynn really that insane, and if so who let him get to be a general?

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Seriously? Fucking seriously?

If we could just eat the vaccine, why the fuck wouldn't we be taking it as a pill instead of a with syringe? What is wrong with these people?

Is that prick Flynn really that insane, and if so who let him get to be a general?

Because they need to inject the microchip, duh.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

Brain rot is good business

Michael Flynn Thinks They Might Be Putting the Covid Vaccine in Your Salad Dressing

But the conspiracy grift is a double-edged sword: One minute you’re calling out the devil for doing his work through condiments, the next you’re being called the devil himself

www.rollingstone.com

Wow, what a load of garbage he's peddling. You can't just eat the vaccine; the 5G microchips can't survive stomach acid! That's why they have to be injected, so that they can directly attach to your soul and wirelessly transmit it out of your body to Satan's doorstep!

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Brain rot is good business

Michael Flynn Thinks They Might Be Putting the Covid Vaccine in Your Salad Dressing

But the conspiracy grift is a double-edged sword: One minute you’re calling out the devil for doing his work through condiments, the next you’re being called the devil himself

www.rollingstone.com

If we were to sneak the vaccine to republicans in food we definitely wouldn't choose a salad.

 

[Dalisclock]

If we were to sneak the vaccine to republicans in food we definitely wouldn't choose a salad.

That's why we've been putting it in the ivermectin.....I mean, we would if we were doing that but we're not.

*Whistles*

Wow, what a load of garbage he's peddling. You can't just eat the vaccine; the 5G microchips can't survive stomach acid! That's why they have to be injected, so that they can directly attach to your soul and wirelessly transmit it out of your body to Satan's doorstep!

As someone who works in the Semiconductor industry, I'm gonna say that's bullshit. The Chips that attach to your soul won't be ready for another 6 months.

It's really hard to put the little pentagrams on them, because the chips are so small.

 

[Kwak]

Wow, what a load of garbage he's peddling. You can't just eat the vaccine; the 5G microchips can't survive stomach acid! That's why they have to be injected, so that they can directly attach to your soul and wirelessly transmit it out of your body to Satan's doorstep!

That's why we've been putting it in the ivermectin.....I mean, we would if we were doing that but we're not.

*Whistles*



As someone who works in the Semiconductor industry, I'm gonna say that's bullshit. The Chips that attach to your soul won't be ready for another 6 months.

It's really hard to put the little pentagrams on them, because the chips are so small.

But guys, if you aren't gently and patiently explaining to him how he's wrong instead of just making fun of absurd beliefs then you're literally causing them to believe this stuff and are monsters.

 

[bluegate]

But guys, if you aren't gently and patiently explaining to him how he's wrong instead of just making fun of absurd beliefs then you're literally causing them to believe this stuff and are monsters.

Oh, yeah, you're right, these delusional fucks wanted to be treated as adults.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Seriously? Fucking seriously?

If we could just eat the vaccine, why the fuck wouldn't we be taking it as a pill instead of a with syringe? What is wrong with these people?

Is that prick Flynn really that insane, and if so who let him get to be a general?

Am fairly desensitised to it by now, as Flynn and the others are always rattling off this kind of nonsense wherever he travels. Though he usually sticks to the key buzzwords to keep the crowd going while throwing in the extra turd cherry like this one to keep his "digital soldiers" (his term btw) busy and fired up.

When it comes to sanity, while there may very well be problems under his calcified dino noggin, there's recent undercover footage of him at an event speaking rally claiming to the crowd that his family, specifically his kids caught covid. But then they recovered within days...to which he then asks the audience 'do they know how?' Before they answer he shouts "by taking ivermectin!" And the crowd goes wild cheering. So I feel pretty confident in calling him a duplicitous conman as well as deranged, unlike a lot of the loyal followers who do not tend to claim the same sort of red flag miracles. He's purely in it for himself.

Also it's a classic grifter trick to start talking about your kids, as for some reason people trust what crap you got to say more when they think you managed to get an unfortunate woman pregnant a while ago and she just hasn't found a way of escaping yet.

 

[Agema]

Also it's a classic grifter trick to start talking about your kids, as for some reason people trust what crap you got to say more when they think you managed to get an unfortunate woman pregnant a while ago and she just hasn't found a way of escaping yet.

Remember, you're allowed to bring up your kids whenever it benefits you, but no-one's allowed to attack you through them.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Getting someone out of deficiency is quite a specific circumstance, though, isn't it? Think about a reservoir. The reservoir needs (let's say) 1500mm of rain a year to maintain water levels. But if there is a period of drought where the rain is much below that for several years, it will therefore be best to have a lot more than 1500mm rain in a year to replenish it.

According to an article, 3/4s of Americans are vitamin d deficient.

By "cloth mask" it means basic material akin to clothing. Surgical mask means just those cheap (usually blue) things, not something heavier duty like an N95. The study found that surgical masks made a significant difference to community spread, and cloth masks non-significant; this does not necessarily mean cloth masks don't do anything. There was also a study analysing the effectiveness of these masks at filtering out relevant particles - the surgical mask filtered 76% and the cloth mask 37%. So obviously, this suggests cloth masks are better than nothing, but fall well short of more specialised gear and may struggle to make difference.

A key element of this paper is that adherence to masks in the study averaged only 42% (up from 13%). One might wonder at what 80% adherence could manage - even with cloth masks.

So yes, you are as usual ignorant.

Lol, the study showed cloth masks did nothing. Where's the PROOF that they do anything in the real world? All those lab studies are pointless because they are about coughs and sneezes and people don't cough/sneeze on people to begin with. Also, no masks helped people under 50 regardless of cloth or surgical. Older people most likely just distanced more because they don't need to be as much a part of society (working) as younger people obviously.

You have already had it explained to you how you are misunderstanding and misusing studies to make this point.

Nope, you don't understand how nobody thinks the virus spreads outside. Where's some super spreader event that took place outside? Where's all these covid infections at from packed football games? All the data we have says outside spread is extremely rare. You literally have to worry more about getting hit by a car when outside than getting covid. WHERE'S THE DATA?

I have already told you - at least twice - that the study you are talking about there was not using mortality as a primary outcome measure and in fact did its thing pretty well. A paper is not bullshit because you don't understand what it is doing and why.

I might remind you that this was a paper I picked because you directed me towards it. Just to refresh, you were claiming that HCQ worked in early treatment and pointed me to that godawful fraudulent website hcqmeta.com. I then selected that as one of the studies from that website that was dishonestly portrayed as showing HCQ having a useful effect when in fact the study suggests otherwise (they also abused the metrics of what the paper did to make their point). This is useful to point out, because it demonstrates how you have formed your beliefs on poor research, misunderstanding and general inadequacy. When this inadequacy has been pointed out to you, instead you have thrown an ego tantrum.

I did understand the paper and nobody claimed HCQ would reduce viral load so the study was bullshit because that was never even claimed nor the reason why it might help against covid. The study proved something nobody cared about to begin with. The study also showed the HCQ arm had less hospitalizations, which was the claim or others and what I said.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Again, the situation has been explained to you several times.

You yourself have (with support from Pierre Kory) argued that in a crisis, we just need to do what we can, and this applies to remdesivir too. However, unlike HCQ and IVM, remdesivir was not approved for anything, so could not even be prescribed at all outside a trial, not even off label. So, off the back of weak data, it was approved just in case it would help. But pretty much no-one uses remdesivir for covid, because it pretty much doesn't work. Likewise, no-one should be using HCQ and IVM either, because they don't seem to work either.

So there is not the inconsistency you claim there is. And anyway, what you are really trying to do here is sneak a demand for IVM in through the backdoor with whataboutism.

And what I said many times is that doctors, including infectious disease doctors, are not getting their prescriptions for IVM prescribed. Everyone can get remdesivir in the hospital but try to give them IVM and all shit breaks loose. That was my point.

 

[Avnger]

And what I said many times is that doctors, including infectious disease doctors, are not getting their prescriptions for IVM prescribed. Everyone can get remdesivir in the hospital but try to give them IVM and all shit breaks loose. That was my point.

Because (and say it with me):

IVERMECTIN IS NOT A TREATMENT OR PROPHYLACTIC FOR COVID-19! ​

Even the BigPharma(tm) company that would make yacht-loads of cash from its use as one has officially stated this.

• No scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies;
• No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and;
• A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.

Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19

Using the Drug ivermectin to treat COVID-19 can be dangerous and even lethal. The FDA has not approved the drug for that purpose.

www.fda.gov

HAN Archive - 00449 | Health Alert Network (HAN)

Health Alert Network (HAN). Provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

emergency.cdc.gov

Merck Statement on Ivermectin use During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Merck.com

KENILWORTH, N.J., Feb. 4, 2021 – Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today affirmed its position regarding use of ivermectin during the COVID-19 pandemic. Company scientists continue to carefully examine the findings of all available and emerging studies of...

www.merck.com