There follows a guest post by Dr. Simon M. Fox, a Consultant in Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine in an NHS hospital.
COVID-19 vaccination is now to be offered to all five to 11 year olds across the United Kingdom. This follows an extraordinary Government-led push to vaccinate older children and young adults.
It is difficult to imagine a scenario where caution and careful consideration would be more necessary than vaccinating healthy children against an illness that poses such a low risk of serious illness and death to them.
When I began at medical school, I remember being somewhat bemused that the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates was best known for his dictum “first do no harm”. It just seemed so trite, even obvious. If this man was the father of modern medicine, surely there must be a more profound primary insight that had been passed down from generation to generation of physicians.
The more I have gone on in the medical profession, the more I have come to understand and respect the importance of this simple but profound injunction. I suspect that any doctor that has spent time treating patients will agree. It is deceptively easy to worsen a situation one is trying to help. The problem, simply put, is unintended consequences. Human beings are extraordinarily complex: physiologically, psychologically and sociologically. And unfortunately we, as physicians, are not as good as we would like to be, despite astonishing advances in modern medicine. It is therefore something of a natural law, that when dealing with complexity, it is very much easier to make things worse than to make things better. This was the genius of Hippocrates’ powerful insight.
While many of these unintended consequences fall into the category of ‘unknown unknowns’ (to quote an unlikely source), others derive from our earnest desire to do something, even if we don’t know the effect. This is particularly problematic when a serious and often tragic calamity occurs and in our sincere desire to help, one can overreact and paradoxically worsen the outcome in the long-run. There is also a much more insidious problem: that of dismissing inconvenient truths or ‘wilful blindness’. The motivations behind this are often complicated and not always nefarious, but the results are serious.
It may be unpopular, but there are inconvenient facts here that require careful consideration. COVID-19 is a mild illness in the vast majority of children and young adults. It is simply the case that the virus is endemic now, and while vaccination has mercifully made an impact in reducing disease severity and mortality in those at risk, it has not been able to interrupt transmission in a manner that would terminate the circulation of the virus. This has removed much of the rationale for vaccinating children.
We ignore these issues at our peril as there are significant side-effects associated with these vaccines; they may not be common, but they are there. Myocarditis and cardiac arrhythmias, neurological side-effects and thrombotic complications are issues that cannot be ignored. Furthermore, there are still unknowns associated with the COVID-19 vaccines, particularly the novel mRNA and DNA platforms, as these platforms simply do not have safety data longer in duration than two years. The knock-on effects on public confidence in all vaccines if there is a bad outcome could be catastrophic.
Mandating medical therapies, particularly for those who are well, requires the most careful consideration and cannot be justified in my view except in extreme situations. In the case of children and young adults and COVID-19 vaccination, even the slender thread of justification was severed when it was clear that these vaccinations were not preventing children being infected and transmitting the virus.
The tale of the RMS Titanic that sank in 1912 following a collision with an iceberg may well be prescient. The hubris of its builders, who were so confident in its safety they dubbed it ‘unsinkable’, is well-known. Clearly, there were ‘unknown unknowns’ rendering this confidence misplaced. But perhaps more interesting was the reaction afterwards. Titanic had 20 lifeboats, able to accommodate 1,178 people, while it sailed with 2,223 passengers on board. Of course, this was not considered particularly problematic given the certainty in the minds of many that this ship was unsinkable. When the ship did sink, many died for lack of lifeboat space.
Having witnessed such a compelling tragedy, there was public clamour for reform – and why not? The loss of life had been horrific. The U.S. Federal Government reacted by mandating that all ships be retro-fitted with enough lifeboats to cater for every one of its passengers. The intent was an admirable one, except that in the rush to do good, warnings were ignored from ‘inconvenient’ experts explaining that this would dangerously overbalance ships and make the likelihood of a sinking higher. These voices were unwelcome to the Government and owners of the big ships as the alternative was to reduce the number of passengers to meet the available lifeboat space. The policy passed into federal law. Three years later, the SS Eastland, dangerously overbalanced by the added lifeboats, rolled and sank, resulting in 844 (avoidable) lost lives.
The lesson is clear. Children and young adults in general have very little to gain from COVID-19 vaccination in terms of severe disease or mortality reduction. At the same time there is every reason to be cautious so that we do not cause more harm than good. Those deciding to rush ahead with these policies despite the disappearing rationale will not pay the price; it is our children and young adults that will bear that risk. But let us not be in any doubt, the fault will be ours and it will not be good enough to say we had no way of knowing.
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Brilliant!
Seconded…..
This sort of demonic insanity is like a bottomless pit: individuals and societies that fall into it are in a permanent state of fall, never reaching the bottom.
To sustain the basic lie (i.e. that a man can change gender) further and further elaborate lies must be invented, propagated and enforced. At the end the whole thing will implode, inevitably, as ultimately there is order in the universe and that order ensures that reality always wins.
By the way, I don’t think Madame Macron looks like a man; no, she looks like a desperately sad woman who has had far too much plastic surgery.
But yeah, there is something weird about the relationship.
XY is not XX and testosterone is not estrogen or progesterone.
Along with the usual two overall options for bodily features, that’s all there is to it.
Am somehow reminded of the reputed excesses of the Weimar Republic this time last century.
Because she/he/it is a man ?
Or maybe she/he/it is a monkey ?
Difficult to tell.
FBI supposedly has the proof that Big Mike aka Michelle OClowna is a man.
Looking forward to Tronald and Kash releasing that info.
Because of Germany’s ludicrous self-identity gender laws ( which apply from the age of 14yrs old ), all the loopholes are opened and all the weirdos, predatory perverts and con artists are protected because they suddenly have ‘rights’ to behave this way. This case just demonstrates what is possible when you fixate and prioritise DEI above all else because those who run society are epic woketards;
”A trans-identified male in Dortmund, Germany, is facing scrutiny after winning over €250,000 over the course of 240 separate discrimination lawsuits. Many have accused the man, who has been unemployed for 12 years, of using Germany’s strict protections for those who self-identify as transgender to enrich himself.
Apart from three internships and one short-term job, the trans-identified man has been unemployed since 2012 and receives public welfare.
In a recent interview with Westphalen Blatt, Steffen claimed to have applied for over 1,577 jobs over the last eight years, but reported he has struggled to find a position. But critics have accused Steffen of running something akin to a racket, labelling him an “AGG-hopper.” The German slang term refers to individuals who do not apply for a job with the intention of actually taking it up, but rather to receive compensation for alleged violations of anti-discrimination laws.
Steffen has been known to apply for jobs he does not actually qualify for throughout the North Rhine-Westphalia region. For example, in one instance he applied for a job which was a one-hour drive from his home despite the fact he does not have a driver’s license and cannot drive.
But the moment Steffen receives a rejection from a job he applies for, he files a lawsuit citing a violation of the German Equal Treatment Act (AGG). Steffen has also filed lawsuits for jobs he never applied for, but found to be “discriminatory” in advance by focusing on minor errors in the job advertisements.
For example, in one case, an advertisement omitted to specify that people of “diverse” genders can apply, and only stated that “male and female” applicants were welcome. Steffen sued over this omission and won.”
https://reduxx.info/germany-trans-identified-male-on-welfare-sues-over-240-employers-for-discrimination-after-being-continuously-rejected-from-jobs-he-is-not-qualified-for/
A number of different adjectives may be appropriate for Candace Owens – I can understand why some of her positions might be found hard to take – but I can’t see how she could be described as “moronic” in the commonly used sense of the word.
Regarding Macron’s wife, I have no idea about her, but I am not sure how the author can determine that she’s a woman just because Mr Macron was interested in her. The fact that she is reported to have children seems more telling – probably quite hard to fake having children.
Whether or not it is hard depends who you are and/or who you know, I suppose…
Stranger things have happened.
Candace Owens has zero credibility as she’s a Jew-hating, vacuous talking head who defends known perverts and simps for sex-trafficking, rapist, misogynist, scam-artist pimps. Just another female traitor to her own sex, then. There’s a fair amount of them about;
https://x.com/TheMilkBarTV/status/1889146872432058748
I have no idea if it’s male or female. But it definitely is ugly.
Looks like my assessment of you the other day was spot on.
Missed it. I’m just gutted.
The fact you’ve repeatedly proven yourself to be the misogynists’ loyal little handmaiden? One of many who lurk on here? There you go, consider yourself up to speed.
I guess, forever being the anomaly around these parts, I’m never going to be a nasty little keyboard warrior, sat at home, calling an elderly woman “ugly”. But that’s just me. Never was much cop at being a ‘nodding dog’ in an echo chamber.
Top article. ‘First Ladyboy’–love it!
I recall Richard Dawkins’ idea of memes – a self-propagating unit of cultural evolution having a resemblance to the gene (the unit of genetics). As an example the phrase “Play it again, Sam” is a well known and recognised phrase – even though the phrase was never spoken in the film ‘Casablanca’.
There were plenty of nay-sayers to the meme idea… but if memes attract approval they can spread without necessarily being true. Perhaps weird allegations spread as memes because they are too delicious not to pass on, whether they are true or not?
You could make an argument that many of the Social Justice ideas are just memes that play into the worldview of those that wish the memes were true.
What a crazy conspiracy theory that Brigitte is a man. No more likely than a worldwide pandemic caused by a lab leak to lock us all up and get us all jabbed.
Depressing to see the intolerant abuse terms of the mob in the DS – for the first time that I recall. If Candace Owens is a moron she is at least as articulate as Steven Tucker, and a good deal more successful in reaching an audience. I suspect his dislike of her may be more to do with her attitude to the activities of the Israeli state than the landscape of the Marcronic nether regions….
Dr Victor Acharian clearly doesn’t own a scalpel as the application of said article to the excess appendages would have gone some way to solve the problem. Oh I suppose he might have needed anaesthetic too.
Name calling and othering Candace Owens? shame on you. People should listen to the podcast and decide for themselves, it is a well researched entertaining piece.
This was hilarious