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Comment by phlipski | Hacker News Reader

If I was "skeptical" about something like say the covid vaccine - then I'd go and do some research. And do you know what the research (in this case) would turn up? That the covid vaccines are indeed SAFE AND EFFECTIVE. But you know what most of these "vaccine skeptical" people are NOT doing? They're NOT doing any research to resolve their skepticism. So spare me this vaccine skepticism argument.

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Oh, I think they are doing what they think is "research", but they don't know the difference between anecdotal evidence and scientific evidence.

They hear about one pop star's cousin [1] in another country that had swollen testicles after his shot and that's someone that not only they can relate to, but even trust more that official sources because, hey, why would that star lie about it. While many are convinced that the government and health care industry in general has an ulterior motive.

It's a combination of disinformation and lack of critical thinking skills. I spent 2 hours on the phone with my brother one night, pointing out why his "sources" were not really authoritative sources - if you can't find the source of their data, don't trust it, "I know a guy who..." is not a "source". Not sure if that's what swayed him, but he got his first vaccination 2 weeks later. And it's a good thing he got it, he and his wife just recovered from COVID which they think their daughter brought home.

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/anthony-fauci-nicki-minaj-cov...

How's this for some scientific evidence: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.30.21262866v... . Or https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v.... Or https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34384810/.

When I said, "Listen to the experts and believe the science", I should have stipulated, "Not those experts and not that science"

In fact, strike that. Only listen to the experts and believe in 'the science' when it aligns with my totally altruistic motives. No other incentives or motives exist. I am completely honest and have nothing to hide, but questioning my agenda is strictly out of bounds.

I believe this sarcasm is truly important in understanding this. There is very much an "appeal to authority" conundrum going on. Solid studies that deviate at all from what the US media and the Biden Administration are discredited.

This extends to policies and prescriptions that have been in place for months or a year in other countries and working to positive effect, i.e. Ivermectin use in numerous countries to assist in fighting COVID (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8248252/) or for instance most of Europe not locking down schools and requiring masks.

This information leads some to believe that a bias or, at worst, an agenda is applied to the science, discarding studies that don't fit the narrative of "the science."

There are several deaths formally acknowledged due to Myocarditis to otherwise seemingly healthy people after taking the vaccine. This is not disinformation.

That's the problem with anecdotal evidence, I have no idea how to make a statistically valid comparison of "several deaths" with the risk of death if no one is vaccinated. But I trust that the CDC and FDA did make that comparison and are still measuring and monitoring.

Hm, a thought - in a world where we are only in immediate contact with less than 200 people, an event happening to someone you know about carries meaningful information about the statistical likelihood of that event. We probably developed some heuristics based on that. Now we have a global telecommunications network which means that any strange event gets broadcast everywhere - this must surely break those heuristics, artificially inflating the perceived probability of rare events. There's also "celebrities", who feel like close acquaintances to millions of people. A single rare event happening to a celebrity gets amplified hugely.

The CDC that: Says go ahead and give refugees Ivermectin and they're cool come on in lul https://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/guidelines/overse...

Gives preferential treatment to certain companies that continuously fuck people over (hint: it's corruption): https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=2zoSSHx9QtA

Or that caves to teacher unions (I don't even...) https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cdc-tightened-masking-guide...

And the FDA? They still actually push the food pyramid. It's a total clown show over there.

Is there a for real reason to trust these government agencies at all at this point?

To save others a click: CDC says to give ivermectin to kill intestinal parasites (with an exception due to risk to people who might be carrying loa loa). Not horse paste to treat a virus.

> because, hey, why would that star lie about it

Why would a gov official lie about it? It’s way more plausible that the gov official is lying to control the masses than some pop star.

Can you tell me what the long term effects of the COVID vaccine are? I’ve done a lot of research on that specifically but the time seems to have not passed yet.

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