The Ethical Principles of Public Health
dc.hillsdale.edu
dc.hillsdale.edu
Roger Severino, vice president of the Heritage Foundation.
He's a lawyer with no medical training. I guess his credentials for health is Trump appointed him as an HHS lawyer to undo what Severino called the "radical gender ideology" of Obama.
"Greenough, P. (1995). Intimidation, coercion and resistance in the final stages of the South Asian Smallpox Eradication Campaign, 1973–1975."
https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/0277-9536(95)00035-6
Assignment: As an exercise in arguing both sides of an issue with equal fervor, construct arguments in favor of coercive measures (for example, without such measures, eradication of smallpox would have failed) and against coercive measures (for example, they created a lasting resentment and distrust of medical experts which led to future problems in public health efforts).
Extra credit: set up two Twitter accounts which marshall the opposing arguments and have a flame war with yourself.
All the rest is commentary.
I think this is also good advice for engineering teams, companies, humans.
In what sense is it a lie? They are right there recommending it for you.
6. Medical interventions should not be forced or coerced upon a population, but rather should be voluntary and based on informed consent. Public health officials are advisors, not rule setters, and provide information and resources for individuals to make informed decisions.
7. Public health authorities must be honest and transparent, both with what is known and what is not known. Advice should be evidence-based and explained by data, and authorities must acknowledge errors or changes in evidence as soon as they are made aware of them.
8. Public health scientists and practitioners should avoid conflicts-of-interest, and any unavoidable conflicts-of-interest must be clearly stated.
9. In public health, open civilized debate is profoundly important. It is unacceptable for public health professionals to censor, silence or intimidate members of the public or other public health scientists or practitioners."
There is a many things we can do at home to reduce risk of covid. They get zero visibility. People have been programmed to see everything outside the narrative as quackery.
But it’s deeper than covid, it’s the general modus operandi of modern medicine.
8. Public health scientists and practitioners should avoid conflicts-of-interest, and any unavoidable conflicts-of-interest must be clearly stated.
"Hillsdale [College] is a conservative Christian institution with ties to the Trump administration. And the scholars behind the academy — Scott Atlas, Jay Bhattacharya, and Martin Kulldorff — are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures." (https://www.levernews.com/how-the-koch-network-hijacked-the-...)
This latest agitprop is a rehash of anti-mask The Great Barrington Declaration:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College#Academy_for_...
Salon's Matthew Rozsa's recap of that debacle:
https://www.salon.com/2020/11/19/this-doctor-is-popular-amon...
I just spot checked some of the signatories of these Ethical Principles. Rough. Here's two representative samples:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Bhattacharya#COVID-19_pand...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Malone
> ...are connected to right-wing dark money attacking public health measures
Including The Heritage Foundation, The Federalist Society.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsdale_College#Allan_P._Kir...
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I think it's fine to do retrospectives. What I used to call "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly". What works, what didn't, what would you change. A pandemic is a crisis. Of course mistakes will be made. Learn and do better next time.
Attachment to notions like "herd immunity" wrt to this coronavirus is just nutty. I'm just a noob, but my impression is that this coronavirus mutates so fast that herd immunity isn't likely.
I'm okay with comparing prevalence of mask wearing with outcomes. There are always tradeoffs. Learning from this experience will helps us better model public health responses for future pandemics.
Lastly, with today's charged discourse, I utterly dismiss any missive that does not encourage vaccination as partisan concern trolling, or worse.
You know, we could attack The Declaration Of Independence -- because we don't like any of its writers -- Thomas Jefferson? He owned slaves! John Adams? He was affiliated with that seditious Washington guy! Benjamin Franklin? He wore a stupid hat! <g>
We could attack The Constitution in the same way!
Steps:
1) Choose a random writer or signatory.
2) Find the one unvirtuous act (in a whole lifetime of more-or-less virtuous acts!) -- that the public is most aware of.
3) Use that act to frame that historical writer or signatory -- in the most unvirtuous light possible.
4) Now, because the writer or signatory is framed in this way, that creates (by implication) -- the idea that the document is "bad" in some way -- when in fact it is not!
In fact, we can do the same thing to all the great historic documents of all time -- for that matter!
The Constitution Of The United Kingdom, The Magna Carta, The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights -- the list goes on and on!
Just attack one or more authors -- and you're attacking the document!
Harry Potter? Harry Potter sucks because J.K. Rowling did some small unvirtuous act in her youth, and that makes the book bad!
Star Wars? Star Wars sucks because I heard that George Lucas stole a piece of candy when he was 12! <g>
Your Math Teacher told you that 2+2=4? Well, that's wrong because that Math Teacher is a bad person because of some small unvirtuous act they may have committed (it's alleged, not proven!) -- 50 or 60 years ago! (I think it involved not thanking a student for an apple, or something like that, at least that's the way it was reported to me by a newspaper who reported it from TV news article who reported it from another newspaper who reported it from a guy who claimed it to be true while buying some donuts in midtown Manhattan...)
It reminds me of that quote from Billy Madison...
(You know, the one that begins with "Congratulations Mr. Madison"... and ends with... "Everyone in the room is now dumber..." <g>)
Anyway, interested parties may wish to read the following:
Alain de Botton: The News – a User’s Manual
https://www.alisonmorgan.co.uk/Books/De%20Botton%202014.pdf
Although -- maybe it is true that Benjamin Franklin did wear a funny hat? <g>
Basically, there's a balance between avoiding coercion and holding people accountable for the externalities of irresponsible behavior. A reasonable tradeoff to me seems to be that people do not have to take precautions like vaccination and masking but if so they can be restricted from public society.
Part of the social contract is the responsible use of that coercive power to actually provide social benefit. Capricious misuse of power is not aligned with the social contract.
So, for example, it would be unethical to coerce vaccination when vaccination does not stop the spread. It also would be unethical to coerce vaccination against a rapidly evolving pathogen when the vaccine is at least 2 variants behind and shows little if any efficacy against current variants. It also would be unethical to have lockdowns for a respiratory virus when there are no RCTs that demonstrate lockdowns stop the spread of such a virus. It would also be unethical to enforce cloth masking when the RCTs demonstrate negative effectiveness of cloth masking for respiratory viruses (more people get sick). All of these are massive violations of the social contract specifically because they would never have been effective. And even if you excuse the first few months under the guise of "We didn't know" the data rolled in very quickly on all those items but the policies remained.
So yes, the social contract might mean I have to be quarantined under certain conditions. But you don't get to toss whatever bullshit you want under the social contract.
In most cases it is better for the powerful to not take everything from the weak. You want to incentivize them to create more for your to control/take, but never let them keep enough to challenge you.
An actual "social contract" would imply consent and the option to opt-out. But I will literally be thrown in a cage with rapists and murderers if I opt-out. That is the opposite of consent. What you call the social contract is nothing but top-down violent coercion.
We could try embracing individual freedom. At least that won't be a fantasy.
If there's no philosophical/moral ground, then why does it matter whether or not something is a fantasy?
Secondly - the governance structure you have now, does not care about your freedoms. I think I can make a strong case that what we have is domination of everyone by the worst of us. We are being herded into some sort of techno-dystopia, and no one in the governance structure is doing anything apart from waving things through.
Thirdly - morality is real. At family gatherings you do not need the strong arm of the law. The strong arm of the law causes the events that put people in fear, so that it has a valid pretext to step in and assumes control - with people's blessing (as they are ignorant of the true circumstances).
What you have is a large scale protection racket. And you are arguing for it. You have a lack of imagination regards alternative (free) ways to live, and are likely highly indoctrinated into the system you are trying to defend, possibly receiving some of the breadcrumbs.
What I'm not understanding is what you are advocating. Are you saying that society should be structured around an absolute morality provided by a religion? Are you advocating some sort of neo-tribalism where society is built around extended family groups? Do you believe in anarchic utopianism where there would be no crime if there was no government?
IMO, you are advocating for the existing system, which creates the terror events, fear, etc and indoctrinates the populace to their way of thinking. This is plainly immoral - we have a society based in widely-believed lies. You can dispute my characterisation - but, if you were to research 'news', history, science, etc more deeply, I think you would find that the explanations are merely expedient devices to get you 'bought in'. The aim is to get the turkeys to vote for Christmas - or more specifically - to vote for their servitude. If you get people to go believe in whatever fresh disempowering horror has been created, despite the lack of any personal evidence, you are able to move them towards greater dependence on external governance. You are supporting enslavement.
The opposite to this, is autonomous, self-guided individuals that don't need external governance. I know what I want to do and don't want guidance. Note this is NOT an allowed option. I don't want to pay protection money (taxes) to others, especially when they use that money against me.
Ask yourself, is it acceptable that I live freely? With the ability to self-govern myself, defend myself against attacks on my freedom - eg against police levying fines, requesting licensing, etc - in order to interact in society? You'd think so.. but what we actually have is slavery that wants to call itself 'freedom'.
What I am advocating is 'anything but slavery', even covert slavery. This is easily achieved IMO, by the application of a simple moral principle - the golden rule - "do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated". If someone acts against you, you are free to take responsibility and respond as you see fit.
So, I think you have an idea that 'without the social contract, we would be run by the mafia' while failing to realise that you are already run by the very worst mafia! They are invisible to you. And, worse than that, you are parroting the nonsense beliefs they have taught you at school, fully accepting the slave mentality that they would have all their slaves proclaim, and proclaiming it to others.
You fail to take into account unvaccinated people using up hospital space resulting in too little space for responsible members of society.
For background, if it matters to you, I believe the vaccine saved many thousands of lives of elderly people. It probably did not save the lives of any meaningful number of young healthy people because those people were statistically not at risk of covid. So I believe the vaccine was safe enough and effective enough to use, particularly for the elderly and people with certain co-morbidities. Lack of risk stratification is ANOTHER violation of the social contract.
The criminally sinister thing about vaccine mandates is that the people at risk of severe covid were already lined up out the door to get a vaccine. You didn't have to mandate it for anyone, much less the people who were at practically no risk of covid since it would not stop the spread.
Also, hospitals were full of people who got covid, had mild or no symptoms, and went to the hospital anyways because the news terrified them.
None of these comments deny the fact that a terribly unfortunate number of people died from Covid.
The very first vaccines came out in July 2021, but were not widely available. Omicron was here by November.
If you have this low a bar to holding people accountable for negative externalities, no one would be allowed outside.
I guess it depends on what system of ethics one goes by. If one believes that you should NEVER force someone to do something against their will and accept the losses as unfortunate but preferable to life under "oppression" this might be defended as ethical. I think that from a principle of least harm, forcing people to get vaccines is not too difficult to justify, however.
Inoculation with vaccinia virus is highly effective for the prevention of smallpox infection, but it is associated with several known side effects that range from mild and self-limited to severe and life-threatening.
(2003) "Smallpox Vaccine: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly"
http://www.clinmedres.org/content/1/2/87.short
The Covid vaccines are uniformly non-sterilizing, i.e. breakthrough cases are common, even apparently the norm (this may be due to rapid evolution of new virus strains relative to older clinical trials) and the side effects seem to be relatively poorly characterized (heart issues with young adults? fact or fiction?). Hence, glowing stories like this Nov 2020 report on the Moderna vaccine might need some reconsideration:
https://www.science.org/content/article/absolutely-remarkabl...
One could argue, at this point, that a Covid vaccination is really only net beneficial to the elderly, obese and immunocompromised (comparable arguments have been made for the influenza vaccine). One could also argue that for-profit pharmaceutical corporations (who have refused to release patent rights to other manufacturers, which would drive down costs) have large conflicts of interest relative to their desire to maximize profits by pushing vaccination on those for whom it serves no beneficial purpose.
They are laid out as a matter of principle, valid even assuming, say a 90% fatal disease and a 90% effective vaccine with only minor side-effects.
If the person gets to choose, then there's a natural counterbalance against things that are harmful to the person but good for society. Only an idiot would turn down a vaccine that has a 90% chance of saving their life.
If society gets to choose, then forcibly sterilizing poor single mothers/disabled people /those of poor breeding/etc might be on the table again. (It's a health intervention that is bad for the individual but also leads to a healthier next generation)
Forcible vaccination is bad, but I think it's hard to start from freedom of association and then argue that a vaccinated majority can't choose to exclude unvaccinated people from things. This is society choosing, but the consequence isn't forced vaccination, it's telling the unvaccinated "good luck, stay away from here".
Maybe, maybe not
"The Incidence and Effect of Adverse Events Due to COVID-19 Vaccines on Breakthrough Infections: Decentralized Observational Study With Underrepresented Groups"
Does it not depend on the vaccine?
What if instead we had a therapeutic which shortened an individuals infectious period, would you also feel comfortable forcing that?
What if the disease in question disproportionately affected group A but not group B, would you also feel comfortable forcing that vaccine upon group B?
2. 'Work for 40 years in the same job, be responsible for allocation of resources received from pharmaceutical companies, never retire!' - also Fauci.
I think by now most of us know that in the most recent pandemic, the public has been repeatedly deceived if not straightup lied to regarding efficacy and side-effects of the vaccines as well as the origin of the virus, and public individuals shamed and silenced for stating things that half a year later became mainstream news, over and over again.
Whereas in the US you have immediate resistance from these Christian fundamentalists (Hillsdale is Christian fundamentalist). Over one million Americans are dead of Covid, lots of people have long Covid, and anecdotally hospitals were full and all hospital patients saw delays in care, so I am sure people who could not get cancer treatments died due to these nuts.
w/covid
Millions of excess deaths happened, deaths that would not have happened without COVID infections. I had otherwise perfectly healthy friends and family either die or be stuck with long term conditions from it.
There’s value in debating the best measures taken to handle the pandemic, there’s none whatsoever in denying it was even a thing.
For instance if someone has severe hypertension and then has a heart attack both are usually listed but the heart attack is the cause of death.
I don’t see any need to debunk it further because the claim is patent nonsense and I’m surprised to see anyone still repeating it after all this time.
There are at least a million Americans, and many more globally, who are dead when they otherwise would not have been. Denying this is insanity.