That's plausible, but it's not the whole picture. It may only partially explain some of the problem.

We have, in the wealthy west, millions of vaccine-hesistant and vaccine-denialist people.

I'm not just talking about poor or uneducated people, either.

I personally know wealthy, educated, analytical people who have bought into the fearmongering and propaganda. I was shocked to find how deeply skeptical they were. I was even more shocked to be linked to propaganda with hard-to-miss flaws, like the fact that the promoter is not talking on behalf of the AMA, but on behalf of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physic... ... and I'm not even in America.

I also know people who got a dose of vaccine, read propaganda, became skeptical and delayed their second dose for a long time.

It's not just the poor, the ignorant, or people we've betrayed. It's bigger than that. I don't think anyone fully understands it yet.

Watching the people around me has stirred in me many new questions.

>I personally know wealthy, educated, analytical people who have bought into the fearmongering and propaganda

Same, including medical professionals who fit this description.

It's clearly an emotional and tribal issue at this point. The animating factor of nearly all of this denialism is a narrative of distrust and outright animus for the "establishment" and the organizations that represent it.

Whenever you got an establishment claiming authority from authority you are going to get this response the only thing surprising is why supposedly competent and intelligent politicians and propagandists keeps getting caught out by this extremely rational behaviour.

The problem here is as that "The Science" is being claimed as a source of authority with the same blind reverence that the church used to claim God or "The Bible" rather then being presented in all it's messy and inconclusive glory.

I think this hits the nail on the head. That the academic space is not just dominated, but overtly hostile to right wingers probably worsens this. Why would they trust advice given by people who proclaim their hatred of them?

Please provide examples of “academia” proclaiming hatred of “right wingers”.

Gladly, as far as hostility goes. The "hatred" was a rhetorical flourish about the relationship between the left and the right, as drawn from their media presence, as well as the general trend on left-aligned circles across social media. A scan of twitter and reddit should be more than sufficient to see that, especially /r/hermancainaward.

I'm going to place a few cases here, but you're going to have to accept that there is a cherry-picking-esque effect here, there isn't really solid data on this, unfortunately, only surveys and general opinion. A decent chunk of my social circle are academics in the state though anecdotal as that is. I'm also going to try to contrast the clash of opinion on both sides.

>https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/health/jama-bauchner-race...

Dr Livingstone claims that medicine is not structurally racist, gets placed on administrative leave by journal.

While the endemicity of structural racism is generally accepted on the left, it's very much not so on the right, and in a sizable chunk of the center.

>https://www.sevendaysvt.com/OffMessage/archives/2021/03/16/u...

Professor Kindsvatter made a video about how he felt that the way "whiteness" was applied to him like "some kind of disease" was dehumanizing. This gets him an immediate attempt to get him to step down.

The concept of "whiteness" as a clear negative is pretty common in left and progressive aligned media. See [1], and imagine the fireball would be if "white" was replaced with "black". This definition of "whiteness" is certainly not the mainstay outside of said circles.

>https://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/georgetown-law-profes...

“I hate to say this. I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks, happens almost every semester." This results in David Batson's resignation and the firing of his colleague.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/02/magazine/classics-greece-...

>I do think that poor critical thinking skills, as exemplified in your rationalization here, do play a major role in how we got here though.

I love the way you prove my point by immediately going with a barely more civil version of "You're retarded". For the record, I'm both Vaccinated and, in a previous life, was a biomedical researcher, critically evaluating scientific literature was literally my job. I'm mostly on your side as far as policy goes, but Jesus Christ, with friends like you, who needs enemies.

I ask anyone here, if someone were to go to you, talk down to you and continuously declare their contempt for you and your kind. Then suddenly flip around and say that they mean the best for you and X policy is for your own good. What would your initial reaction be, assuming you have no idea about the ground truth.

So go on, insult them, demonize them and continue your tribal war. Then complain to your own tribe why the enemy tribe doesn't take your perfectly good advice at face value.

You made a bad argument and got called on it. That's as far as it goes. No need to be a victim. No need to double-down with more bad arguments. But, my apologies if I seemed unnecessarily harsh. I don't know you. I was referring to your argument; an argument that rationalizes malignant behavior and happens to be the crux of the problem.

You're more a victim of tribal thinking than you think. You talk almost purely in terms of "sides" and profess to be on my "side" because you agree with me on policy. So, you are surprised when I call out your poorly constructed argument, as if I should have just gone along. That's tribal thinking.

OTOH, you can agree with me on 99 out of 100 issues, but if your position on that one issue makes no sense to me then I'll tell you exactly that. That's not tribal thinking.

>You made a bad argument and got called on it. That's as far as it goes. No need to be a victim. No need to double-down with more bad arguments.

You don't even have a damn argument here. You've lobbed personal attack after personal attack without any backing. I'm going to quote paraphrase the zen of python here on this. Be explict. Tell me exactly which part of my argument you're dismantling, rather than yelling "YOUR ARGUMENT SUCKS" and declaring victory.

>You talk almost purely in terms of "sides"

Of course I do. That's how American political lines on this are drawn. Deny the existence of this all you want, but your covid debate is almost perfectly modeled by tribal politics.

So, give your counterargument to this point, not some spiel about how I'm a bad person, or some unsupported claim about how my argument is bad. Give a proper, good faith rebuttal

- Most people function with heuristic trust evaluation. That is to say, they gauge trustworthiness by some measure of the source.

- Generally, people who detest you are not going to give you advice that is in your best interest.

- Left aligned spaces are often, if not generally, against, if not outright hostile to any right-aligned individuals. You don't really need to look very hard for this, reddit front page popular posts will give you a fantastic slice

- Given that lefty spaces are so open with their disdain of the right, it is expected that right-aligned individuals do not trust left-aligned authorities.

Despite what a good chunk of the internet seems to believe, screaming at them about how they're horrible people and deserve to die is really really unlikely to change their mind. It is however a fantastic way of signaling to your the ingroup though.

Well, so much for any pretense that you're an objective, non-tribal commentator, amirite?

Obviously, there's a lot of hostility just beneath the surface. Unfortunately, you seem to have bought into exactly the right-wing persecution narrative I mentioned, which is designed to produce the emotional effect you're exhibiting here.

>reddit front page popular posts will give you a fantastic slice

To start detoxing, maybe stop taking Reddit comments as organic and consider the well-known manipulation of online spaces, meant to reinforce bad narratives.

I mean, you offering Reddit comments as proof of anything reveals just how susceptible you are to manipulation. It's bad. Really bad. Your reality is skewed.

>Tell me exactly which part of my argument you're dismantling

Thing is, I told you exactly what's wrong with your argument. Go back and read if you're really interested. I won't enter the infinite loop of re-explaining because every additional comment you make just piles on more bad logic--this, while your anger visibly increases. No coincidence there.

In general, you are regurgitating virtually every talking point you've been programmed to repeat, and even using the language of your programmers ("lefty", "signalling").

It's becoming a case study on exactly how the right has been manipulated, and especially how emotional and tribal vectors are used to circumvent intelligence and critical thinking; which is, of course, my assertion that started this subthread.

So, while I appreciate you offering yourself as a working demonstration of my point, I'm afraid I have no interest in continuing to participate in your demonstration. Fixing the damage here is well-above my pay grade, and I have no delusion otherwise.

Good luck.

I think enough people here thought otherwise, seeing that the previous comment is flagged.

> mean, you offering Reddit comments as proof of anything reveals just how susceptible you are to manipulation. It's bad. Really bad. Your reality is skewed.

For all the ills of social media, they're very much a reflection of their readers. It's easy to say bots bots bots, but I'd bet that the vast majority of those are very much real people. If you think reddit and twitter aren't major players in the public zeitgeist, I don't know what to say. The same applies to facebook.

It's also easy to say "I rebutted your argument" without actually doing so. That you didn't do so, despite all attempts to make it convenient (point by point logical chain), instead resorting to the standard non-answers and personal attacks.

If your best response to this is effectively "no u brainwashed", that says more about you than it does about me.

I don't personally believe this, but I know some people who claim that Robert Malone who invented mRNA is saying that the mRNA vaccines are more likely to create worse mutations of the disease. It seems more intuitive that getting vaccinated is the best way to prevent mutations but I'm curious if there is a good response to people who do have these concerns about the mRNA vaccines.

Leaky vaccines in general can create worse mutations of the disease, not specific to mRNA vaccines. See Marek’s disease:

> The first Marek's disease vaccine was introduced in 1970. The disease would cause mild paralysis, with the only identifiable lesions being in neural tissue. Mortality of chickens infected with Marek's disease was quite low. Current strains of Marek virus, decades after the first vaccine was introduced, cause lymphoma formation throughout the chicken's body and mortality rates have reached 100% in unvaccinated chickens. The Marek's disease vaccine is a "leaky vaccine", which means that only the symptoms of the disease are prevented.

To echo the other poster - I read a bit about Malone the other day. He definitely helped the tech along at some point, but he has no claim to sole creation of or invention of the mRNA vaccines. He's one of a cast of hundreds or thousands.

Looks like no one answered your question here. Just tried to shoot your messenger. Was hoping for something more substantial.

the fact that this guy claims he invented mRNA gives a strong clue to both his reliability and his reasoning ability.

He doesn't, that's a misquote by the OP. If you look at most citations of such, they talk about his involvement in mRNA tech.

However, that's also a long process that involves many people, as most modern scientific endeavors are. He might have played a role, but he certainly didn't single-handedly invent the field.

Robert Malone advanced mRNA research and technology, but no one "invented" mRNA. mRNA is a naturally-occurring biological molecule and a key component of protein synthesis.

Is the propaganda really that good? Or did they want to be skeptical to begin with?

They have been perfecting their message for years in the background. I've watched it start as a very left wing thing, then they discovered that the "freedom" message really resonated with the right wing libertarians about 10 years ago. They have been spreading in that crowd since.

Make no mistake, they don't care about you or right/left wing. It might be right wing this time around, but only because they are still looking for a message that will appeal to the left wing as strongly.

The biggest spreaders seem to have a supplement store. Follow the money often works very well.

Most people believe insane things of some form and all of us are usually inconsistent in some way.

It might have tighter correlations with economic and education status, but that’s not all of it.

Whatever skill allows some to see the signal through the noise while others descend down rabbit holes that lead to delusion is hard to teach.

The best community I’ve found that works towards it is the less wrong rationality community, but none of us are immune from cognitive bias or motivated reasoning. It’s all about recognizing it and trying to correct for it in order to struggle closer to the truth.

Even so, I worry most people continually exposed to false ideas will eventually get infected by them - even if you have really good tools, it’s hard.

I think it's not a function of quality, but of time and volume; if you hear something enough, you might–if only fleetingly–find yourself asking "what if they're right?", because it's not like it's just one crazy guy, it's a lot of voices.

>> …it’s a lot of voices.

A looooot of voices.

https://thevaultproject.org/ron-johnson-holds-expert-panel-o...

>Watching the people around me has stirred in me many new questions.

Have you ever considered they might have a point? More and more data is coming out, like https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/circ.144.suppl_1.107..., in the highest-impact cardiology journal, showing that the mRNA vaccines are not particularly "safe" by any reasonable interpretation of the word.

This isn't a peer reviewed study, it's a submitted abstract. The sole name on the paper is someone who sells psudoscience plant-based debunked theories that the majority of our health issues come from lectins. He "authors papers" for Gwyneth Paltrow's weird publications. The guy sells supplements based on his scaremongering research to fringe-groups who like the idea of plant-based medicine, I don't trust his opinion or his bias with data in any non-peer reviewed studies. If there's something to this wait for a real research group to come out and say it - if there's a chance of world-changing science that will happen (would have already happened).

>The sole name on the paper is someone who sells psudoscience plant-based debunked theories that the majority of our health issues come from lectins

A professional cardiologist with decades of experience who now runs his own cardiology practice. Do you feel you're more qualified to assess his qualifications than the editors of Circulation just because you read a wikipedia article?

>psudoscience plant-based debunked theories

He has published papers demonstrating health improvements in patients after treatment, which is more than can be said of most supplements. The absence of large RCTs for something does not mean it's been "debunked".

> If there's something to this wait for a real research group to come out and say it - if there's a chance of world-changing science that will happen (would have already happened).

You understand doctors have been fired for questioning the safety of coronavirus vaccines? You understand that publically-funded research groups risk having their funding withdrawn if they question the safety of the coronavirus vaccine?

Yeah, I'm sorry, this is the classic pseudoscience narrative. Somehow everyone else is wrong because of <insert conspiracy here> except this one guy who somehow figured out the truth.

Trust the experts... No not those experts

I read criticisms about him in a few other places too. Either way - if there’s something huge to be found here it’ll be found my many teams

Yep, whenever you see something that "just questions the medical science" getting heavily promoted, follow the money. You'll very likely eventually find the link to the sale of food supplements, essential oils, Homeopathy, Crystal Healing, cleansing and detox, or other "alternative medicines".

You should probably read the "Expression of Concern" that the AHA has already attached to that abstract (it's a link under the title); namely the part that says "...there is no data in the abstract regarding myocardial T-cell infiltration, there are no statistical analyses for significance provided, and the author is not clear that only anecdotal data was used." (They also mention the typographical errors, but I didn't put that at the forefront because that may be a formatting issue and not the researcher's fault.)

Also, and this is something I'm not clear on, but is this just an abstract? It doesn't seem like there's an associated paper or any data beyond what's mentioned there.

There's a few other issues, too; like, for example, they don't compare mRNA vaccine recipients to people who have recovered from COVID-19 (one would expect that a test that measures inflammation would see increased inflammation in both populations); or that, frankly, the PULS test the publishing doctor developed doesn't seem to explain how it turns a set of arbitrary biological markers into a score that correlates to risk of heart issues.

I would, at best, say that this abstract could be used to establish a hypothesis for a future study. On its own, it tells me basically nothing.

>Also, and this is something I'm not clear on, but is this just an abstract? It doesn't seem like there's an associated paper or any data beyond what's mentioned there.

It's from a report presented at the American Heart Association (AHA) Scientific Sessions 2021; https://www.thecardiologyadvisor.com/home/topics/acs/acute-c... . Presumably the actual paper is upcoming.

>"...there is no data in the abstract regarding myocardial T-cell infiltration, there are no statistical analyses for significance provided, and the author is not clear that only anecdotal data was used."

Presumably deeper analysis will be presented in the actual paper. The author claims the data is from 566 people at a preventative cardiology practice, so unless the PULS measurements have an incredibly high degree of variance, it'd be quite unlikely to see such a large increase in the underlying factors measured purely by chance when there are 500+ samples.

>they don't compare mRNA vaccine recipients to people who have recovered from COVID-19

This would be useful for comparing the relative safety of the mRNA vaccines vs getting covid. Such comparison is however not necessary to assess the safety of mRNA vaccines; an mRNA vaccine does not become safe just because covid is more dangerous. The absolute, not relative, risk is important to know as even if the risk of covid is greater, the chance of getting covid is not 100%. And with regular boosters, one might be exposed to the risk of the mRNA vaccine more often than one is exposed to the risk of covid.

> the PULS test the publishing doctor developed doesn't seem to explain how it turns a set of arbitrary biological markers into a score that correlates to risk of heart issues

https://pulstest.com/articles/analytical-performance the PULS test "measures the most clinically-significant protein biomarkers that measure the body's immune system response to arterial injury". There's peer-reviewed research demonstrating its effectiveness: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23530883/.

"The original studies for the PULS Cardiac Test were initiated at Stanford University and Kaiser Permanente. Researchers analyzed gene expression profiles in the lesions of mouse models of ACS (mice do not form hard plaque) . Over 250 candidate proteins were identified in mice lesions and many of them were shown to be conserved in humans by analysis of soft lesions during CABG. The number of biomarker candidates was narrowed from 50 to 9 pathways during additional studies. Various permutations of these biomarkers with existing biomarkers like LP-PLA2 and hsCRP, and global risk factors were tested by 3 software systems (Akaike, Bayesian, and Drop-inDeviance) to predict a 5 year risk of ACS. This process resulted in all three systems identifying the same 9 biomarkers and 4 global risk factors (age, sex, diabetic status, and family history). These biomarkers and global risk factors were then incorporated into a benchmark algorithm format with performance superior to gold standard measures of risk such as Framingham, Reynolds, etc. The resulting algorithm yielded a clinical net reclassification index of 43% (this index penalizes an algorithm for falsely up-classifying and down-classifying patients; values above 10% when compared to Framingham are considered good). The algorithm (PULS) was then independently validated by the NIH NHLBI group in MESA which confirmed the findings. These clinical trials were all longitudinal outcome-based studies."

What I wonder with this (and other warnings about vaccine safety)

mRNA vaccines have been administered to millions of people around the world. A sizable percentage had the first shot six months ago or longer.

The effects the author is warning against also occur supposedly with high probability and across age groups and sex. (He makes no mentions about pre-existing conditions, which would probably be important: usually, you visit a cardiologist for a reason)

If there was actually an increased risk of e.g. ACS, shouldn't we have seen a significant increase in actual ACS cases among vaccinated by now? Wouldn't this have been detected during the clinical trials?

I don't read that as them not being safe. They're trying to explain why there's an increase in some symptoms, symptoms we already know about, post vaccine.

Sadly I can't dig too much into that paper because the page is being really buggy.

But having had three shots now and no symptoms I've stopped really caring much to hear any fear mongering. I'm a lot more concerned by new variants.

I'm in the opposite bucket regarding symptoms unfortunately. First shot gave somewhat unusual symptoms which were brushed off. Only after the left side of my face went numb after shot two did they consider allergic reaction.

The side effects of the vaccines, while generally not that severe, are very real. Discounting them just because you were lucky isn't the best way to go about it imo.

I'm not looking forward to the mandatory booster.

I'm not discounting the side effects, I'm saying they're very rare and don't personally impact me so I don't spend a lot of time harping on research.

Steven Gundry sells food supplements, you easily mislead imbecile.

And catching Covid is safe? Funny how you won't hear about the cardiac issues that Covid causes from the fringe crowd

But I'll add one thing, it's not only ignorance, it's straight up spite and sadism from the anti-vax crowd

Because they will take any BS and try to run it as far as they can with it. Including a 2001 paper like the one it was posted yesterday

Catching covid is definitely not safe if you’re in that tiny minority that is strongly affected, mostly because the NIH advice for the infected is currently ‘Wait until it gets bad enough to go to the hospital’.

The "tiny minority" includes obese people, which are which % of Americans again?

Though I agree that recommendation to wait is not great.

That's mostly a reflection of available hospital capacity though.

> I also know people who got a dose of vaccine, read propaganda, became skeptical and delayed their second dose for a long time.

Ironically, if only they were lucky enough to not get infected meanwhile and managed to eventually change their mind, that may actually turn out for the better since additional vaccine doses seem to produce stronger antibody response when delayed.

I would be surprised if this is the reason. The South African anti-vax arguments I've read were very similar to the anti-vax arguments I hear here.

None of them argued the vaccines they're receiving are an experimental vaccines, or that the vaccines are a trick. They seem to mostly seem to have concerns about the actual vaccines similar to western anti-vaxxers.

> They seem to mostly seem to have concerns about the actual vaccines similar to western anti-vaxxers.

You mean the western anti-vaxxers who say it is an experimental vaccine tricking the world into steralizing itself?

This argument is refuted by 1) no widespread evidence of Africans themselves making such claims about their reluctance to vaccinate; 2) widespread evidence of Africans making the same conspiracy claims as those being made in other countries not sharing Africa's history; and 3) widespread evidence that the claims of both Africans and non-Africans originate from the same sources of disinformation on social media.

Pakistan had a history of vaccine hesitancy before the CIA's fake vaccination campaign was revealed.