Ron DeSantis is edging toward being a full-on vaccine denier:
Lashing out at what he called the “medical authoritarianism” of mask mandates and other anti-Covid measures, DeSantis accused federal health agencies of being “basically an arm of Big Pharma” as they mulled authorizing [new] vaccines as early as next week.
“Pharma will make more money if this thing is approved and they start pushing it on everybody,” said DeSantis, touting Florida’s “freedom” from vaccine mandates.
This is all based on the advice of DeSantis's surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, a guy who has manipulated data and lied about vaccine side effects in the past. His latest claim is that the newest vaccine variant isn't safe because it hasn't been tested on humans. That's more or less true, but it's true of annual flu shots too. We have enough experience with different versions of the COVID vaccine that we no longer have to spend nine months on a full-blown human trial for every minor new variant.
It's quite the turnaround, isn't it? Two years ago the big gripe was that the FDA was too cautious and hundreds of thousands of people died unnecessarily because it didn't approve the first vaccines soon enough. Now the gripe is that they're moving too quickly.
It kinda makes you think this isn't about COVID at all. People just want to take shots at the big, bad bureaucrats of the FDA, and coming up with a reason is secondary. There's always some reason you can dig up, after all.
Part of what's frustrating with this nonsense is that in some sense, there probably is too much Big Pharma and Big Health Care influence on both our health care policy and on actual health care. I don't even think the main problem is evil big fat cats after profit (although I'd be naïve if I didn't think that ever happens), but more that because these industries are such large stakeholders in policy and practice, their need to cut costs and maximize profits and introduce new drugs and procedures is going to have an influence over how we envision care. And medical orgs are trying to be evidence-based, but evidence-based care (like evidence-based anything) is hard to do and easily manipulated by our biases.
All that said, the people bitching about Covid and vaccines are the people who care least about corporate power influencing policy, corporate profits coming at the expense of people's lives and happiness, and public health as a concept. They would be happy to let you die in the street if it made another buck for CareHealthIndustries, Inc. They are not arguing in good faith, and they are spreading FUD about safe vaccines to advance their interests at the expense of public health.
Its almost like "right to work" and unions. Republicans have done a surprisingly good job convincing workers to give up protections and unions in exchange for the "right" to lose wages and get fired at will. What a racket. Now they're convincing people to distrust good health policy for the "freedom" to die preventable deaths.
DeathSantis strikes again. Surprised they allow that vaccine of poison to be delivered into the state. The Florida Surgeon General needs to stock up on horse dewormer instead.
FDA should call their bluff and announce the vaccine won’t be made available in Florida until all other states have tried it for at least a year, due to concerns that the governor has raised about its efficacy. Let the seniors there decide if they love DeSantis more than they love being first in line for vaccination.
(In my ideal world, lots of entities would do this to Florida. For example, the College Board could announce that it’s pulling all its exams - including AP, SAT and the other ones used for college admissions - from Florida since Florida keeps questioning their AP standards. Let the parents of high school kids in Florida decide if they love DeSantis more than they love their kid being able to apply to out of state schools or saving money on tuition for classes that their kid used to be able to take in high school. Keep doing this for everything until Florida accepts modernity or Florida is just economically and socially walled off from the rest of America.)
I can only do my own small part, but I absolutely refuse to travel to Florida for any reason for the foreseeable future. Texas, too.
Same here.
I wonder if there isn't really larger Republican strategy to save Social Security by killing off as many old people in dodgy health as possible?
Unfortunately, because I want to see the eclipse next April I have to travel to TX. Fuck.
And that right there is why the right has had 3 successful boycotts this year and the left... uh when IS the last time a left boycott resulted in sales tanking?
So...they're looking to cut down on Medicare and Medicaid?
Think of the money that can be saved! Also, think of all that generational wealth transfer than can occur early if you keep gramps and grans from spending it all on themselves and nursing home care.
/sarcasm
But then won't we need an emergency government bailout of nursing home companies? Nursing home workers, though, get their minimum wage and no benefits and should like it. Unless they lose their jobs first.
Do I really need to add the snark tag?
Now that we know that vaccines won't prevent transmission enough to stop the pandemic, the urgency for "mandates" to convince these morons to get the vaccinated is in the rear view mirror.
I guess no opportunity for grievance can be wasted.
Actually. good masks worn correctly and consistently and social distancing helped keep us infection free for the first year (early 2020 to March 2021.
We didn't expect the vaccines to really start rolling out till June/July of 2021, given the total mess the TFG admin was making of the early roll-out. "I'm not a shipping clerk!" TFG bellowed when asked. I muttered: "That's damn clear!", to my wife.
The Biden administration went from being walled out of any proper transition through the entire transition non-process plus J6 fallout and we weren't expecting a vaccine till Jun or July, given the total mess TFGs clown show did in the early roll-out. About mid-February we got word that vaccine supplies were on the way, a very good site was put up in WA for reserving slots, and a huge vaccination facility was set up nearby. Got the first shot, got the second schedule during our 15 minute waiting period, and got the second shot.
We took the boosters as well. By that time all the local pharmacies were stocked and ready to handle the boosters. We used them for the bivalent boosters earlier this year.
When we finally got hit last month I had only moderate symptoms sinus congestion and a mildly productive cough, mild fever. My wife got hit a bit harder - lighter cough, sinus congestion, mild fever, but some myalgia.
We checked when my symptoms showed up and we both were positive for Covid-19. I suspect this was the "Eris" variant since the BA 2.86 strain was not yet wide spread back in early-mid August. So I think we did get some protection from the worst affects as a result of the vaccines. We tested clear after a bit under 2 weeks.
We'll take the new Booster once it becomes available, then wait a bit and get the flu cocktail of the season. Probably go for RSV after that if our PCP thinks it a good idea - which he probably will - we're both over 70.
Anyway - Dark Brandon came through after the TFG loser pretty much blew logistics 101.
You shouldn't get the booster for several more months. Because infection boosted your defenses a shot in 2 weeks will be far less effective because your body will destroy the spikes too fast.
Also the doctors refused to give my wife paxlovid and refused to treat her long covid because tests showed her lungs clear despite shortness of breath and a nasty cough so we had to do it ourselves.
Dark Brandon got halfway there
DeSantis is an amoral monster who enjoys killing people. He wants to cut the throats of government employees. He gleefully advocates murdering people crossing the southern border. He is directly responsible for thousands of Floridians dying of Covid. I fully believe the stories of him participating in torture in Guantanamo. Yet he is somehow popular in Florida. I’m happy he is not popular nationally but the alternative offered by Republicans is just as bad if not worse.
It seems as if a lot of Americans want "cruelty" as government policy lately. Apparently, even to themselves. Not being a psychiatrist, I have no idea of what's up with this.
You don't need a psychiatrist to tell you, you need John Calvin or St. Augustine.
It's the fundamental depravity of mankind.
Exactly. I couldn't even finish "The Better Angels of our Nature" due to the graphic descriptions of torture and unimaginable cruelty. We are indeed much better now, but that underlying streak of depravity is still there. I wish we were better than this.
I think most of us ARE better than this.
" nationwide NBC News poll published this week found that just 24 percent of Americans had a positive view of the MAGA movement, while 45 percent had a negative view." From: https://truthout.org/articles/poll-less-than-one-quarter-of-americans-view-maga-positively/
Those who relish is the pain of others are just a lot louder. And they are clearly very sick people. I say gather them all into a couple of states and use those Texas buoys to keep them locked up.
It's not cruelty, it's stupidity. They don't understand .gov, they don't understand why it's the way it is, really they don't even understand basic things. Then the world they live in reinforces that.
It's a tragedy, not just that they oppose good ideas, you can disagree on things, the tragedy is that we can't even have the discussion any more.
It is the cruelty, at least in large part
https://www.amazon.com/Cruelty-Point-Present-Future-America/dp/0593414152
https://www.mattball.org/2023/08/partisanship-and-hatred.html
RFK Jr. will be angry that DeSantis is stealing his reason for running.
“medical authoritarianism”
Isn't that what denying women health care options is called? Especially when you call for prosecuting women who cross state lines to avail themselves of those options?
I seem to recall quite a few people happy with their states' abortion bans saying that women could just go to another state for that option. Not all of them specified that they would have to.move out of state, & even that would seem to be blocked by new legislation - unless the person fleeing took a plane? I'm wondering just how far these "small government" will go to block others' bssic rights.
People just want to take shots at the big, bad bureaucrats of the FDA...
It ain't just THEM, it's ALL them ee-leetist know-it-alls tryna tell me what to do and what to say and who I can't hate on no more! An' here they go again, with their "science" an' their "statistics" an' their "medicine," like anybody believes that stuff! Just a buncha smart-asses tryna steal my money!
I found this at the top of the page:
Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect. —Frank Wilhoit
My translation: Get your DNA tested. If it comes back frog or scorpion, you are not tribal. If it comes back Homo sapiens, you are tribal. The question is, who is in your tribe (in-group) and who is not (out-group).
The real tribe is any internally interdependent and externally independent social system.
Now ask yourself who does and does not belong to your tribe. If your answer is everybody belongs, welcome to the team. If your answer is everybody except "them," the next sound you hear will be the Republican Party saying "Welcome to the team!"
I mean, if conservative Floridians are under the influence of DeSantis' anti-vax rhetoric, aren't they the ones who'll end up either dead or at highest risk of post-acute sequelae / long-CoViD?
No argument at all about Darwinian self-selection. The issue is the innocent bystanders -- people who are immune-suppressed and can't take the vaccine, or people with chronic lung disease who are particularly susceptible (eg the elderly). When the idiots refuse the vaccine, they make themselves carriers, and they can infect others who aren't as stupid but might die anyway. It's a public health issue.
Yeah, but I have full confidence that those who are susceptible are not going to relent on mitigation just because the CDC says you no longer need to wear masks or something something.
And the first circle of contact of these conservatives will be...other conservatives.
It's not like you or I can change these people's minds -- Long-CoViD or facing death, of course, are generally the only things that will.
One of the most recklessly cynical people in modern American history, good thing he's never going to be President.
Actually, I read a few articles on the Covid-19 vaccine development process. In fact the companies developing the first vaccines did "fast track" the process, with the knowledge of the CDC and FDA. They didn't cut any corners though. What they did was overlap stages to do work in parallel that would normally be done sequentially, with work on the next stage not starting till final reports and conclusions were done on the prior stage.
The risk they were knowingly taking was that they might have to do a lot of extra work if they found a problem in prior work after starting the next stage. They decided, and I think it was the correct decision, to risk extra work and cost for the chance to shorten the overall development time.
Actually the fact that multiple lines were being developed might have factored in to that decision. The eggs were not in one basket, but three in the US.
I fully support all Floridians who want to get a booster getting the booster.
I want to strongly urge all Republican voters in Florida to not get the vaccine as it may introduce new strains of nanobots that may interfere with current 5G connectivity.
Which is to say, I'm OK with Republicans killing themselves to own the libs.
I'm still criticizing them for moving to slowly. The new covid wave is here which means they are too late in getting this out in time. It should have been out a month ago.
It's hard to wrap one's mind around that level of utter indifference to one's future reputation. DeSantis is a stone movement conservative, sure, but I don't buy for a second he's a true-believing antivax lunatic. This is pure (incredibly evil) political expediency 101. Mind-boggling.
Very flexible "stone", consider his heavy-handed-state initaitives on various issues (also what he says about foreign matters).
I'll take Ron DeSantis' complaints about big pharma seriously when he announces his plan for the government to fund drug development all the way through human trials and then put the patents in the public domain.
mRNA boosters aren't popular at all in the U.S.
In the UK and much of Europe, governments are not allowing children and teens to get an mRNA booster shot and have mostly limited access to those 65 and up. (In some countries, the cut-off is 50 or 55 years old and exceptions are allowed through a doctor.)
I couldn’t find any evidence of this. mRNA vaccines are by far the most popular in Europe:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccine-doses-by-manufacturer?facet=metric
Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna total 600 million doses, far more than any other.
All but a few EU countries still recommend vaccines:
https://vaccine-schedule.ecdc.europa.eu/Scheduler/ByDisease?SelectedDiseaseId=52&SelectedCountryIdByDisease=-1