The quoted source, childrenshealthdefense.org, is Dr Brainworm’s personal nonprofit that spreads anti-vaxx lies and crackpottery.
What
Gates actually said
|
Brainworms'
Lies
|
Vaccine efficacy declines
against variants
|
"Don't
work at all"
|
Transmission-blocking
limited for Omicron
|
"Don't
block transmission"
|
Boosters needed for
sustained protection
|
"Don't
last"
|
BLOG POST
In an astonishing display of mindless hostility to vaccines based on ignorance of science, arrogant stupidity, sadism and/or lust for revenge for whatever, Health and Human Services Secretary and chronic liar Dr Brainworm (RFK Jr) is forcing clinical trials for new vaccines to include a placebo group. This is a very big deal. Some people will be needlessly but seriously harmed. Some of them will die.
The Hill reports:
Health and Human Services Secretary
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is changing the way vaccines are tested and will now require all new vaccines to undergo safety testing in placebo-controlled trials, meaning that some people will receive the vaccine while others get an inert substance like saline to test the vaccine’s efficacy.
“You need a comparison group, but it doesn’t always have to be a placebo, in a way I think they are defining,” William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins University. Moss added that it could be unethical to use a placebo when an existing and well-established vaccine is available that health experts know is safe and effective, like the current measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine.
The NYT reports that major decisions like this are usually made by career scientists at the Food and Drug Administration, not anti-vaxx crackpots like the MAGA thug Brainworm. in the face of overwhelming empirical evidence that COVID mRNA vaccines work quite well and are very safe, Brainworm once lied and said that “mRNA jabs don’t stop infection, don’t block transmission, don’t block mutants, don’t last, don’t work at all.” Every one of those assertions is proven by rock-solid evidence to be a false, presumably a lie if he is aware of the evidence but rejects it.
In the recent past, the last ~40 years, new drugs and vaccines for diseases or infections where there already was an existing, safe and effective drug or vaccine were tested in clinical trials that compared the existing drug or vaccine with the new one being tested. Placebo control groups were usually not used. That was the case to protect patients from diseases or infections that could seriously harm or kill them. In cases where there is an effective existing drug or vaccine, medical ethics demands comparison of the new material with the old material. The reason is to avoid not treating test subjects with an existing material so they don’t get sick and injured or killed. Some exceptions apply in countries where local circumstances dictate a placebo control group despite the risks to the untreated people in the clinical trial.
Medical ethics: When proven drugs or vaccines exist for serious diseases or conditions, assigning participants to placebo groups usually violates the
equipoise principle (equilibrium state).
The equipoise principle requires that there be genuine uncertainty among experts about the superiority of a new drug or vaccine in a clinical trial. If there is uncertainty, then a placebo control group is usually justified. But if the old treatment is known to be effective, withholding it would expose placebo recipients to preventable harm.
That would violate the Hippocratic Oath’s mandate to prioritize patient welfare. For example, in trials for diseases like measles or polio where vaccines have >90% efficacy, using a placebo group would unnecessarily risk severe illness or death to the people in that group.
What Brainworm is doing here is two very bad, rotten things. First, he is making bad faith allegations of uncertainty about COVID and other vaccine efficacy despite overwhelming empirical, peer-reviewed evidence of their safety and efficacy. He sells himself as an expert, but is not even close to being an expert. He has a bachelors degree in American history and literature, a law degree and an advanced law degree in environmental law. He has authored or co-authored no peer-reviewed papers on vaccines. None.
Second, what he proposes will not only slow down vaccine development because placebo-controlled clinical trials are slower and more expensive than trials that compare existing drugs and vaccines that compare to existing treatments. It is reasonable to believe that some vaccines will either not be developed at all, or developed and sold at higher cost. It is also reasonable to assert as a fact, not an opinion, that some people in the placebo groups will be seriously harmed, and a few will be killed.
This is evil, crackpot MAGA science at work.
The following Q1 is based on these assertions about morality and evil:
The scope of immorality includes including lying, making unjustifiable false statements (contradicted by compelling, publicly-known evidence) and other forms of deceit, but they are evil when lies, unjustifiable false statements and other forms of deceit lead some people to suffer significant or serious harm or death that would have been avoided but for the lies, unjustifiable false statements or deceit.
Q1: Can one reasonably and rationally say that Dr Brainworm is immoral when he lies or makes unjustifiable false statements about what people like Gates said about vaccines, but immoral crosses a line into evil if his lies and deceit (1) lead people to participate in placebo groups where they get sick and are injured or die, (2) cause people to not get themselves or their children vaccinated, or (3) cause everyone to not get vaccinated because a new vaccine is not developed due to high cost or ethical concerns?
Q2: Do you believe that Brainworm’s anti-vaxx lies and crackpottery are sincere, good faith mistakes, or are they lies and deceit driven by who knows what, maybe some combination of cruelty, sadism, a sense of victimhood with a lust for revenge on everyone, dead brain tissue left by his brainworm, etc.?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Below the line for the wonks in the land of TL/DR
Available evidence is that Dr Brainworm did have a parasite larva in his brain and it did die in there.
The death of the larva would be expected to cause one or more of brain fog, memory loss, difficulty with word retrieval, headaches, and/or seizures.
Experts believe that the parasitic infection is most likely a neurocysticercosis caused by
Taenia solium (pork tapeworm). He probably ate undercooked pork in a foreign country.
Contrary to his claim that the parasite ate some of his brain, experts reject that as bullshit. The larva gets food from the surrounding fluids, not by eating tissue.
What we do not know is what, if any symptoms he still has. Given the fact that Brainworm is a chronic liar and a deranged crackpot, he could not be trusted to be honest about what symptoms he still has, if any. We can’t even be sure if his brain fog still makes him incapable of knowing what is going on around him or what he knows vs what he has forgotten.
Given his demeanor and speech, it is reasonable to believe he still has serious brain fog and serious memory loss. He obviously has difficulty with word retrieval. One can reasonably conclude he is unfit for any position of significant power in the federal government, much less a position that is supposed to protect public health. This is how MAGA elites routinely treat the public and the public interest, i.e., it spits on them in absolute contempt.
