Vaccine specialist Peter Hotez: scientists are ‘under attack for political gain
nature.com
nature.com
If you habitually lie to people in the pursuit of your own interest you've pissed away their goodwill, and you won't ever have it again. It's a case of sleeping around and playing surprised that your wife won't have you back.
> When I went into the more conservative, rural areas of east Texas, essentially everyone I talked to had lost a loved one because they refused a COVID-19 vaccine.
Tell me where the facts are in a statement like this, because I see a whole lot of political framing and appeals to emotion, and no facts.
> In the intensive-care unit, you saw some people deny COVID-19 existed, yet in their dying words feel remorse and advise their friends: ‘Don’t do what I did, get your COVID-19 immunization.’
The idea of a conservative person in rural east Texas saying anything like this is already somewhat questionable, but the wording Hotez chose for this li'l slice of drama is downright ludicrous.
This is word salad.
> Tell me where the facts are in a statement like this, because I see a whole lot of political framing and appeals to emotion, and no facts.
The statement you provided is an account of an experience. Unsure what you think you're proving or disproving, but vaccine data generally isn't represented in "A single person knows of it working or not"-style data.
Try reading it again, maybe twice or more, and figuring out what is meant.
No thanks, I suspect antivaxx propaganda like this would give me brain damage.
He also did not bring up the issue of synthetic polyclonal antibodies, they seem quite relevant to the health of those who lack antibodies, and the transfer of antibodies from those who had developed them through their own COVID exposure or vaccination to those in most need of the antibodies.
I guess he did not even mention or give much thought to other ways that people who need the antibodies could get them, because he's much more interested in promoting vaccines, and treating vaccines as though they are the only option, and those who were on their last breaths could not have had their lives saved through other medical interventions after symptoms developed.
Better vaccines (safer, more powerful)
A more informed public regarding vaccines
My view disagrees with that of Peter Hotez, as I think that science should be vigorously attacked, especially by trying to disprove all kinds of scientific things, while also trying to prove things that contradict science. I expect that after such attacks, science would be strengthened rather than destroyed though.
Depends on if you're talking about the activity or the institution.
Before covid, nobody would hav considered being against childhood vaccines to be a mainstream or intellectually tenable position. Now those vaccines get lumped in people's minds with the crappy covid vaccine that was forced on everybody.
At some point, assertions like "[COVID] vaccines are ineffective" need to be challenged (which? over what time frame? where's the data?) or they become "everybody knows ...".
"[COVID] vaccines are ineffective" is a fair assertion if the standard of something being 'effective' is preventing getting infected at all.
A better way to challenge the validity of that assertion is to make more effective COVID vaccines. In my view, bypassing the stage of creation of spike proteins and more directly getting the cells able to produce the relevant antibodies when needed would be a better vaccine, possibly more effective. It would also likely be safer (as the spike protein itself is dangerous, and the immune response to it can also be dangerous, by the sounds of it when the vaccine has not stayed localised in the arm but moved to the heart), so a vaccine that has solved that issue would do better when looked at in terms of a risk / reward ratio.
"[COVID] vaccines are effective [enough to be worth the risk of side-effects]" is something that would be better addressed through improving the vaccines themselves, possibly through improved public messaging, but I don't think as yet the data is there that supports that in an unequivocal way, and improved vaccines with greatly improved efficacy and safety which are then accurately described would be the best way to get the message accross.
Something can be ineffective compared to something else. Such as a COVID vaccine being ineffective compared to some expectations or representations of it.
When it comes to training, if someone wanted to argue against my position by questioning the credentials of my scientific education perhaps they could be persuasive.
If someone was more interested in taking part in medical research/sciences and also discussions of policy relating to them I could have quite constructive conversations I expect.