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One Physician's Opinion regarding Covid


Zeb

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7 minutes ago, virgo lady said:

Directly copied from the Rules section of this board:   (added proof of why this post, in addition to being false, has no place here and should be removed)

Topics are to focus on Lakeside/Guadalajara area. There is a Mexico section for the rest of Mexico. Please use it.

All are welcome here to ask questions, get answers, agree or disagree in a civil manner on things about Mexico and Lakeside living. But this is not the place to make personal comments against those you don't agree with or because you don't happen to like their opinion or topic. It is easy enought to ignore a post or topic you don't agree with. That is the appropriate action and if you think the post or topic violates this code of conduct, please bring it to the attention of anyone on the moderating team. It will be dealt with.

This topic is a direct discussion of the efficacy of these vaccines for people including those here who are getting them or considering them.

It is very germane.  Is the problem you don't like some of the viewpoints being expressed?  If so, simply ignore the thread instead of trying to cancel it.

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2 hours ago, Zeb said:

the function of  vaccine is to  prevent a disease from occuring

The intent of a vaccine is to prevent a disease, yes, of course that is the goal.     

The function of a vaccine is to stimulate an immune response in the body.     We are not all equal, it is not a digital 1 or 0 thing, more like snowflakes in that literally every person can have a different type and amount of response.     Nothing wrong or different about that from any vaccine.      And all the vaccines approved to date (and several that are about to be) all have been shown to do the job, very well.      That is the bottom line.    

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4 minutes ago, Go Solar said:

The intent of a vaccine is to prevent a disease, yes, of course that is the goal.     

The function of a vaccine is to stimulate an immune response in the body.     We are not all equal, it is not a digital 1 or 0 thing, more like snowflakes in that literally every person can have a different type and amount of response.     Nothing wrong or different about that from any vaccine.      And all the vaccines approved to date (and several that are about to be) all have been shown to do the job, very well.      That is the bottom line.    

And thus far the serious adverse reaction rate appears low and in line with other vaccines. 

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13 minutes ago, gringohombre said:

As far as I am concerned the debate about if you should get the vaccine is over.

Perhaps for most but what of the small percentage of people who contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS)? It's an autoimmune reaction that is rare and occurs for no known reason at this time. If you search GBS and the vaccine you'll see contradictory articles with most pointing to no occurrences during the vaccine trials. I got it 20 years ago and let me tell you it was no walk in the park. No matter what they say this vaccine is still experimental with only guesses about long term effects.

This of course is a conundrum. Take the vaccine and risk GBS or take a pass and risk Covid? The answer will probably become clearer as time passes but for now I think I'll sit on the sidelines.

Even Dr Fauci said no in December but it's likely he's changed his mind by now.

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2 minutes ago, John Shrall said:

Perhaps for most but what of the small percentage of people who contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS)? It's an autoimmune reaction that is rare and occurs for no known reason at this time. If you search GBS and the vaccine you'll see contradictory articles with most pointing to no occurrences during the vaccine trials. I got it 20 years ago and let me tell you it was no walk in the park. No matter what they say this vaccine is still experimental with only guesses about long term effects.

This of course is a conundrum. Take the vaccine and risk GBS or take a pass and risk Covid? The answer will probably become clearer as time passes but for now I think I'll sit on the sidelines.

Even Dr Fauci said no in December but it's likely he's changed his mind by now.

OK...and if you go out for a walk you could be hit by a truck...so do you stay huddled in your house? All indications are that the the results are ALMOST 100% positive. Good enough for me...but hey, this is a free country. And as far as Dr. Fauci is concerned...don't make me laugh!!!

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2 minutes ago, gringohombre said:

OK...and if you go out for a walk you could be hit by a truck...so do you stay huddled in your house? All indications are that the the results are ALMOST 100% positive. Good enough for me...but hey, this is a free country. And as far as Dr. Fauci is concerned...don't make me laugh!!!

Yes, no, great for you and yes everyone has a choice. You missed the biting sarcasm. Sorry.

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29 minutes ago, John Shrall said:

Yes, no, great for you and yes everyone has a choice. You missed the biting sarcasm. Sorry.

As far as Dr. Fauchi is concerned, no I did not miss the sarcasm, and I think my response indicates that!!! Was there more sarcasm? Maybe there should be a emoji (or whatever that is called) applied to indicate that!!!

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3 hours ago, Mainecoons said:

This topic is a direct discussion of the efficacy of these vaccines for people including those here who are getting them or considering them.

It is very germane.  Is the problem you don't like some of the viewpoints being expressed?  If so, simply ignore the thread instead of trying to cancel it.

Yes!

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4 hours ago, gringohombre said:

Just google this guy and you will see that he is just another nut-job in the blabosphere of what is called SOCIAL MEDIA !!!

I put into the search bar "Who is Dr. Steven Hotze M.D." and here is the first entry:

Steven Hotze (born in 1949 or 1950) is a talk-radio host, physician, and Republican activist in Texas. He is an anti-LGBT rights activist, and has filed lawsuits to strike down COVID-19-related public health measures and invalidate ballots cast in the 2020 US election.

Well. He is obviously active in many areas and that is general information about him.  Just because you may not  agree with his other activism does not mean he is not medically competent.  I am sure many other doctors also are involved in some form of activism.

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24 minutes ago, Zeb said:

Well. He is obviously active in many areas and that is general information about him.  Just because you may not  agree with his other activism does not mean he is not medically competent.  I am sure many other doctors also are involved in some form of activism.

Clearly,this doctor/business man's main "activism" is to promote his business, is what I "understood" when I researched him as gringohombre did.

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27 minutes ago, Zeb said:

Well. He is obviously active in many areas and that is general information about him.  Just because you may not  agree with his other activism does not mean he is not medically competent.  I am sure many other doctors also are involved in some form of activism.

So you saw and article online by someone with a M.D. after their name and immediately assumed it to be true and posted it here? I do not think that I am being overdramatic but am afraid that society as a whole is being overwhelmed and swallowed up with this Social Media phenomena and the huge unregulated, politically connected tech companies are laughing all the way to the bank!!!   

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4 hours ago, John Shrall said:

Perhaps for most but what of the small percentage of people who contracted Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS)? It's an autoimmune reaction that is rare and occurs for no known reason at this time. If you search GBS and the vaccine you'll see contradictory articles with most pointing to no occurrences during the vaccine trials. I got it 20 years ago and let me tell you it was no walk in the park. No matter what they say this vaccine is still experimental with only guesses about long term effects.

This of course is a conundrum. Take the vaccine and risk GBS or take a pass and risk Covid? The answer will probably become clearer as time passes but for now I think I'll sit on the sidelines.

Even Dr Fauci said no in December but it's likely he's changed his mind by now.

My father was paralysed from the waist down for 2 yrs after the swine flu vaccine in the 70's, luckily he recovered.  Most folks don't understand the history of vaccines.  Pasteur repudiated his own work at the end of his life," the germs are there for everybody, it's the territory".  In other words, your immune system. Pasteur was backed by the Bonapartes and that's the way this mode of thinking about health began and that we're stuck with today.  Vaccine shot into your body go around your usual immune system and create antibodies--irritation. The first polio vaccine caused 30,000 cases of polio.  In the UK and France at the same time didn't vaccinate and cases fell by 85%!  The polio virus had mutated to a form that didn't cause paralysis.....if I have to choose between a 1% chance of dieing IF I get CoVid and a 1% change of dieing from the vaccine, Id rather trust my own immune system over any experts, it knows me best.

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Well, I don't trust my immune system because it has let me down before. But, I also do everything possible to keep it in tip top shape now. I will take the vaccine because I'm 69 and live alone. Medicine, vaccines and the strenuous trials to back their efficacy have come a long way since the days of the polio vaccine. Do whatever works for you.

 

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Disagreeing with an "opinion" is not political. All things considered, intelligent folks consider the facts as they find them, and when they come across someone who should be garnering the public trust but is seen in refute all over the internet for his wildly ostracizing "opinions"... well, no wonder the first thread drew such a reaction.

I find it almost as bad as reposting something so clearly ridiculous and demanding that people treat it with respect, just to keep the trollling rolling,

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British government report on side effects:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting

Quote

This safety update report is based on detailed analysis of data up to 14 February 2021. At this date, an estimated 8.3 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 6.9 million doses of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine had been administered, and around 0.6 million second doses, mostly the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, had been administered. This represents an increase of 2.8 million on the previous week.

As of 14 February 2021, for the UK

  • 26,823 Yellow Cards have been reported for the Pfizer/BioNTech
  • 31,427 have been reported for the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine
  • 177 have been reported where the brand of the vaccine was not specified

For both vaccines the overall reporting rate is around 3 to 5 Yellow Cards per 1,000 doses administered...

For both vaccines, the overwhelming majority of reports relate to injection-site reactions (sore arm for example) and generalised symptoms such as ‘flu-like’ illness, headache, chills, fatigue (tiredness), nausea (feeling sick), fever, dizziness, weakness, aching muscles, and rapid heartbeat. Generally, these happen shortly after the vaccination and are not associated with more serious or lasting illness.

Yellow cards are reports of side effects.

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I once mistrusted sputnik vaccine.  After much research I have decided that I would take it.  It is a good product.  I know nothing about the two Chinese vaccines (nor can I find out). I would take sputnik before oxford A.Z. without a doubt because of the presence of the S.A. variant here in Jalisco and the fact I am over 60.

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I'd recommend waiting for more data on Sputnik; soon there will be 'real world' data after more of it is administered. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/02/22/russians-chinese-are-touting-their-vaccines-should-we-trust-them/

When Russian President Vladimir Putin personally announced in August that Russia had approved the world’s first covid-19 vaccine, many reacted with skepticism and concern. Russian scientists hadn’t conducted Phase 3 trials, normally used before deploying a vaccine. Could the vaccine be trusted?

The vaccine’s name, Sputnik V — harking back to a Soviet triumph against the West in the Cold War — suggested the Kremlin viewed the project not as a purely scientific public health endeavor, but as one with enormous geopolitical potential. Many remained suspicious. Even most Russians said they would not take the shot.

In November, U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced that its vaccine was 90 percent effective. Two days later, Russia declared that its own vaccine had tested as 92 percent effective. Skeptics narrowed their eyes in disbelief.

This month, though, the prestigious scientific journal the Lancet published an article that seemed to confirm the Russian claims, concluding that Sputnik V appeared “safe and effective.” The study found its efficacy rate to be more than 90 percent, comparable to the best vaccines developed in the West.

The results of studies by Russian or Chinese scientists might turn out to be completely accurate — and we hope they are. Right now the world needs as many effective vaccines as we can get. But data emerging from tightly controlled authoritarian regimes deserves far more skepticism than we have seen so far.

The Lancet’s seal of approval has given a huge boost to the Russian vaccine effort, which is already selling millions of doses in dozens of countries around the world, a massive soft-power boost to Russia’s geopolitical clout.

The global vaccine race is not only about public health. The U.S. State Department accuses Russian state media of launching a coordinated disinformation campaign in Latin America to cast doubt on Western vaccines as dangerous and inferior to the Russian one. A disinformation researcher at a nonprofit organization described the campaign as “one of the largest operations we’ve seen.” Latin American countries, and others around the world, have rushed to buy Sputnik V, along with Chinese vaccines from Sinovac and Sinopharm.

Even Hungary, a member of the European Union, has already started inoculating its citizens with the Russian vaccine, and is considering using the Chinese ones as well. (The E.U.’s European Medicines Agency has not approved Sputnik V for use.)

Carlos del Rio, a leading researcher at Emory University who participated in development of the Moderna vaccine, told me that we should take Russian and Chinese results “with two grains of salt.” Del Rio, like other scientists, says he would like to see more data, adding that he’s sure the Lancet reviewed more material as part of the peer-review process. But the questions run deeper than data analysis.

Peer-review requires scientists to examine data provided by researchers and put it through rigorous paces. But how do we know the data provided are legitimate?

When it comes to the veracity of data, the system relies mostly on trust. But there’s a history of peer-reviewed journals that have been cheated before by people falsifying or manipulating data. Research of much less consequence than today’s vaccine trials turned out to be phony. In 2018, a Harvard-affiliated heart researcher was found to have fabricated or falsified data in 31 published studies. Scientists have long worried about the problem of faked or massaged data.

That doesn’t even take into account the immense pressure that can be brought to bear by authoritarian regimes aiming to expand their global influence.

Tellingly, Russians remain skeptical of the vaccine even as much of the rest of the world seems to welcome it.

It’s worth remembering that Putin has gone to extraordinary and sinister lengths to achieve his political aims in the past. Should we worry that several doctors working in Russia’s early response to the pandemic, who had criticized the system, have reportedly “jumped” out of windows to their deaths — a fate also experienced by journalists and other critics of the system?

We have also seen the Chinese Communist Party apply considerable effort to suppressing news about the pandemic and stonewall further investigation of the virus’s origins by international teams.

If ever there was a time to exercise skepticism about the research emerging from such regimes, rather than allowing the warmth of a scientific journal to evaporate all questions, it is now.

All vaccine developers have a lot at stake; all research should be scrutinized. But del Rio notes a major advantage of vaccines developed in open, democratic societies: the independence enjoyed by researchers and regulators. He notes that the Food and Drug Administration rejected pressure from President Trump to move faster on approving vaccines. “What you want is independence — independent investigators, independent companies, independent regulators,” says del Rio. “Checks and balances are good to have.”

Del Rio predicts that Russia will never subject its vaccine to the approval process from U.S. or E.U. regulators. As for the Chinese vaccines, he’s even more skeptical about those.

Skeptical or not, the world desperately needs billions of doses of vaccine to push back the virus. As the Russian and Chinese vaccines are rolled out, independent Phase 4 studies should double-check the reliability of earlier research, following up on those who have received doses and comparing their outcomes to those who have not or who have received other vaccines. As someone once urged during the Cold War: Trust, but also verify.

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8 minutes ago, Ferret said:

Sigh. Trust but verify is the only way... in a perfect world.

It doesn't take that long for real-time data.  Israel which got off to an early and fast start, was able to publish data on efficacy, side-effects, etc. in about 8 weeks. 

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