To keep track of this highly contagious, completely preventable, deadly virus. I will answer questions if I can, provide updates as I can, and invite any input y’all want to throw in here.
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@Docosc (and everyone) How do you expect medical organizations, from individual doctors to health care organizations to deal with what will likely be poorly thought out to downright harmful advice/guidance that will eventually come from NIH / FDA / CDC? Will these organizations seek evidence-based guidance from outside our government? How much wiggle room is there to say “that’s stupid, we/I are not going to to that”.
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I can only speak for our organization here (UVA), specifically, and the AAP as a larger organization, but we are planning to continue to provide the best evidence-based care we can. HHS cannot really affect that level of care, and the AAP is currently taking steps to try to influence the direction RFK jr and his goons try to take us. The issue as I see it is that we will be lacking any central organization and overall coordination, which in what could become a national crisis is a recipe for disaster. We will do our best at the local level, but there is no real substitute for national organization. From what I am seeing, I think the AAP will try to help there, but that is not what they were organized for and I don’t know how effective they will be. At the moment, it is very much a thrown together, disorganized mess. But we shall see. I do have faith that the docs will do our jobs. We are ornery cusses and despise being told how to do our jobs.
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This is the shit that no individual doc, practice or organization can replace or work around. This is a terrifying development for all of us.
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(Maybe OT…)
My neurologist believes I may have (actual) vaccine injury from the flu vaccine (this is apparently a pet research project of his that he’s been working on for years).
That being said, he’s not telling me not to take it if I don’t want to, just that it might be worthwhile to skip it for a few years and see if this improves/stops progression of a condition of mine. I’m also not at risk of dying of the flu, so there’s that.
He also doesn’t want me to skip other vaccines including the dreaded COVID vaccine, which leads me to believe this isn’t just crackpot anti-vax nonsense.
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There is nothing that has an effect that doesn’t have a side-effect, and anyone who implies that this is not the case is lying. The trick in my job is balancing the benefits against the risks. For the population as a whole, it’s clearly far more beneficial to vaccinate than not. What does this say about any individual? Nothing at all. Some folks cannot, and should not, take certain vaccines. This is why it is so important for those of us who can to do so. This is “herd immunity” or “community protection.” Even if you are not worried about a given illness for yourself, spreading it to someone who cannot be vaccinated, for whatever reason, is critical. But for that, we have to care about each other. And that is, apparently, to “woke” to be considered. Yes, I am a bit bitter about where we are.
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That’s also why if I am to skip the flu vaccine to test my neurologist’s theory, I take my responsibility seriously to do totally “woke” things like: “don’t go out if I’m not feeling well”, or “if I have to go out when I’m not feeling well, wear a damn mask in an effort to prevent spreading my illness to others”. I know, this is totally crazy, right?
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Like my mother and her father, when I get a flu shot, I am sick with awful flu symptoms for more than a week…followed by a hideous cold/respiratory illness. I do not recall having any other vaccine reactions.
covid shots made me feel like hell. I am forever grateful to the nurse who told us to take acetaminophen for the symptoms, b/c I was back to normal w/in 45 mins of taking it. Having the plague wasn’t as bad as the shot! Still, it got so wearisome having the symptoms for days and days.
I had “hard measles” as a kindergartner, and it was awful. The 1st symptom was the rash. My fingers looked like little raw sausages. Along w/everything else, any light at all hurt my eyes so much it made me cry. I went from having unbelievably sharp eyes to a blurriness that eventually forced mom to get me glasses when I was in 6th grade, but I should have had 'em long before. I was vaccinated, of course.
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The damned ivermectin woo. Had a relative who is now dead from cancer. Last posts on her FB talked about how she was definitely going to beat this because she has God and ivermectin.
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It’s the fucking “shark cartilage” of this era it seems. When my mother was dying of cancer this trendy “treatment” was explored. In the end, it resulted in a lot of money wasted on nonsense, so I’m kind of bitter about people pushing fake woo treatments to those who are vulnerable.
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Your actions have fucking consequences, asshole! And this is not the first, nor the last, blood on his hands.
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TIL a previous measles infection conveys immunity, and of course the CDC says the vaccine’s preferable.
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This is why folks born prior to '57 are not usually at risk, they all were exposed in childhood. As a pediatrician, not really something that comes up much! I think it is interesting that a measles infection kinda famously erases the immune memory for other viral infections but not for itself. Nature is weird.
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I saw that it compromises gen’l immunity, but WHOA. The CDC article didn’t say that!
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Yeah, all-causes morbidity and mortality jumps significantly following a measles infection, largely due to sudden immunologic naivete.
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