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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3043 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for February 23, 2025

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Just because someone was wrong one time

There's being wrong, and then there's being wrong with intent.

Just being wrong isn't generally cause for concern. Being wrong with intent, on the other hand, will naturally prompt back-checking of work and a "deny by default" posture until they re-earn that trust... if that's even possible. They did a lot of damage.

On the other hand, though, "number go down because a bunch of insane outgroupers had their way" is the only lever I have to pull for them to be forced to face any consequences whatsoever, so it's in my political interest that skepticism be maximized even though it would strictly speaking be better (and a local maximum of health outcome) for most people (who are themselves much dumber than the medical establishment) to blindly trust said medical establishment.

I'm not asking people to blindly trust the medical establishment I'm asking people to actually research the thing they want to do.

You can find papers with actuarial analysis, side effect rates and presentations, justification for the schedule and so on.

So do it.

With respect to COVID the whole thing was stupidly complicated and while I don't support the rights restrictions except in very narrow cases a great deal of it was correct and just poorly implemented/messaged.

Their is also a huge problem with outright conspiracy theories that got a lot of mileage because trust was so low but that doesn't make those things not effectively insane conspiracy theories, it just hampers people getting them cleared up.

You can find papers with actuarial analysis, side effect rates and presentations, justification for the schedule and so on.

So do it.

I can't. You know I can't. I don't have the background training, or the time, or possibly even the raw intelligence. And even if I did, I don't have the credentials that are required to make my opinion valid.

This is just ordinary epistemic helplessness. I do know two things: first, that this is beyond my primary knowledge. Second, the people I trusted to inform me betrayed me.

I know of no other option than extreme skepticism until such time as trust can be rebuilt. But it does take time.

The resources available to address vaccine hesitancy are in general very good, they have ones that lay the problems and considerations out in plain English with good details and citations to high quality research. I'd send you one but my desire to find the best one means I'd be going on a research rabbit hole I don't have to time for at this exact moment, but if you look you should find one (sorry I'm not a pediatrician, if I was I'd probably have one I like on hand).

The problem is the the left-wing political capture of the field and therefore the refusal to abandon any of the "teams" talking point which right now means over recommending the COVID vaccine.

"Hey we recognize that the COVID vaccine recommendations are unpopular but the evidence base is much stronger for everything else, here's how" would probably please a good chunk of the skeptics but broken woke brains can't do that, leaving frustrated people like me with a mess.

Which has been why I've been (loudly here and very very quietly in real life) been complaining about captured political expression in medicine since before Trump 1.

You can find papers with actuarial analysis

Agreed. Pop quiz: substance X causes you to drop dead in 20 years with no side effects before then. It has been 10 years since substance X has been introduced. What does actuarial analysis show on the effect of substance X?

This is begging the question.

The realistic question would be, for interventions, that at the time of invention, did not have conclusive evidence in either direction regarding making people "drop dead in 20 years", what proportion were found to do so after 20 years had passed?

The answer would be almost none.

"The last ten times I played Russian Roulette I was fine". Beware selection bias. If a prior mass intervention had caused this, you likely wouldn't be here to make that statement.

(Also, "drop dead in 20 years" is an obvious extreme example to illustrate the point. I am far more concerned in practice about e.g. long-term impacts on fertility, as that legitimately can have lags of 15-20 years.)

The original polio vaccine was kind of like this:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2000/02/the-virus-and-the-vaccine/377999/

Interesting, I didn't know about this, but to be fair it was before my time.

The polio vaccine hasn't remained the same since inception, for example, in India the live polio vaccine is being phased out for an inert vaccine.

This is because the live vaccine uses an attenuated variant of the virus, which is much less likely to cause harm than the real one, while also having the perk of being infectious in itself.

However, it can cause full blown polio. This was once considered acceptable, but as the number of cases of natural polio dropped, the number of iatrogenic cases became more relevant, and the decision was made to switch to forms without any living virus whatsoever.

Sure, that is a potential limitation for the COVID vaccinate at this time, other vaccines have mostly been around long enough to feel good about this, it is worth noting that while what you are suggesting is a hypothetical risk their isn't a good explanation for how that would biologically happen however.

Sometimes we do miss on things where there is initially no good biological explanation but it is extremely rare.

I'm trying to not get deep into the weeds of defending the COVID response though because it's far from the matter at hand however.

other vaccines have mostly been around long enough to feel good about this

This suffers from precisely the same issue as talking about e.g. refrigerants. There have been those that stood the test of time - that you can no longer purchase.

Or to put it another way: let's talk excipients.

their isn't a good explanation for how that would biologically happen however.

"drop dead in 20 years" is a blatent example to illustrate the point.

I am far more concerned in practice about things like, oh...

"This causes you to express a particular IgG antibody. Oops, said antibody breaks oocytogenesis. Oops, now any of your subsequent female children have nonviable oocytes". As this is something that:

a) has massive longterm effects (infertility of female offspring).
b) is essentially completely invisible for ~15 years or so.
c) is nontrivial to figure out even down the line.

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