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When Politics and Healthcare Meet No One Wins
When politics and healthcare meet, no one wins. Certainly not me, anyway.
As a practicing nurse in California, I am mandated by law to comply with a two-dose mRNA vaccine with booster. Regardless of masking and a downward trend, the California Department of Public Health has instituted guidelines that pressure all medical staff (and medically adjacent) to get a booster if they’ve already been vaccinated. Religious exemptions will only be tolerated if they were previously known, documented, and thoroughly supported. No “new” exemptions will be allowed.
This means that a convert to fundamental Christianity who discovers that the mRNA vaccines were created with descendent lines of cells taken from aborted fetal tissue will not be allowed an exemption for their newfound religiosity.
For those of us who love freedom, this alone is concerning.
But for me, personally, what is more concerning is the following CDPH guidance about medical exemptions:
To determine qualifying medical reasons, the physician, nurse practitioner, or other licensed medical professional practicing under the license of a physician should refer to Interim Clinical Considerations for Use of COVID-19 Vaccines from the CDC, specifically, clinical considerations, as well as contraindications and precautions. The identified contraindications include:
- Documented history of severe allergic reaction to one or more components of all the COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S.
- Documented history of severe or immediate-type hypersensitivity allergic reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine, along with a reason why you cannot be vaccinated with one of the other available formulations.
It is not enough that my doctor indicates that I had a severe reaction to my Covid vaccine; I have to convince my doctor to justify why I cannot take another vaccine that is available. Additionally, guidance states that only severe anaphylaxis is a reason to exempt employees. When referred to the CDC website, it makes it very clear what it considers to be a severe enough reaction:
For the purposes of this guidance, regarding severity of allergic reactions:
Severe allergic reactions include:
- Possible anaphylaxis, a progressive life-threatening reaction that typically includes urticaria but also with other symptoms such as wheezing, difficulty breathing, or low blood pressure (see Appendix D)
- Any angioedema affecting the airway (i.e., tongue, uvula, or larynx)
- Diffuse rash which also involves mucosal surfaces (e.g., Stevens-Johnson Syndrome)
Non-severe allergic reactions may include:
- Urticaria (hives) beyond the injection site
- Angioedema (visible swelling) involving lips, facial skin, or skin in other locations. NOTE: Any angioedema affecting the airway (i.e., tongue, uvula, or larynx) is considered a severe allergic reaction (see above).
Additionally, people who have had myocarditis following their Covid vaccination with a mRNA vaccine are still somehow recommended to get a booster once they have recovered.
Ultimately, the CDC decides to cover itself by indicating that if these guidelines aren’t specific enough (vaccinate everyone, all the time!), you can have one of their special scientists look at your patient’s case to determine if they should or should not get a vaccine or booster. I’m sure, given the above guidance, that they will be completely circumspect and immune to any sort of government pressure to impose vaccinations for all but the most immediate life-threatening of reactions.
At the end of the day, for me, it has emerged like most bureaucratic decrees; though everyone agrees that I should not get another vaccine because of the severity of the reaction, no one wants to be the one to sign the letter. Filing this letter with my institution leaves it open to CDPH, which leaves it open to the CDC. Both of these entities could have a negative impact on my physicians (yes, plural) who do not want to be the one to formally make the call; one could lose a practice, one could lose a research grant, one could lose a prestigious place on a medical board. If it came out that they helped someone avoid guidelines, it could be perceived as anti-vax behaviors and a lack of confidence in science. It could be perceived as defiance of common-sense medical guidelines put in place by the CDC. It could also impact their licensing from the state board (rumor has it).
It could be very, very negative for them.
Additionally, and perhaps more pedestrian, no one wants to sit down and take the time to write a letter that justifies to CDPH exactly how it is that I should be exempt from both types of vaccines (because guidance is that if you’re allergic to one type, you get the other). Time is, after all, money. Particularly in healthcare, the time taken to write a letter of this magnitude requires research, finesse, and an iron-clad line of argument. This is time that would or could be better spent in rooms with patients, teaching medical students, writing research papers, or cutting down the mountain of digital charting that depresses every practitioner in every state.
At the end of the day, these policies are not good for anyone individually and probably not even good for society as a whole, as Covid peters out into a milder, friendlier version of SARS.
But most importantly to me, this policy endangers not only my livelihood, but realistically, also my life as getting another vaccine could potentially be deadly. It is one thing to insist that we are vaccinated for patient care. It is another to disregard thrombocytopenia, coagulopathies, allergies, and even myocarditis in a push for political correctness.
At the end of the day, my job is not worth my death, even if it means leaving patient care.
Published in General
It’s an abstract from AHA. I have no idea what this “poster” nonsense is.
Semantics. Routine testing of a product on cell lines *is* development.
So you think personal experience trumps science for profit? How superstitious/sarc.
Hm. Air and water can be fatal, too. So can exercise. And eating. And walking. Everything has risks, but severe side effects? From HCQ and ivermectin? I’d like to see the specific risks they talk about and their incidence prior to covid.
Get it straight, TRN. No fetal tissue was used in development, it was use of fetal tissue in testing. And even then they paid someone else to do it, so there’s no moral taint here /sarc.
The abstract was a poster at an on line meeting- it had to be rewritten b/c it had numerous typos & if you read it their is “no statistical analysis” b/c the test they used is not proven to do anything
Flicker (View Comment):
“We found that treatment with hydroxychloroquine is associated with increased mortality in COVID-19 patients, and there is no benefit of chloroquine.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22446-z
the fact that HCQ is safe & effective for RA & malaria has no bearing on its uselessness in COVID
it doesn’t work:
https://www.cochrane.org/news/chloroquine-or-hydroxychloroquine-useful-treating-people-covid-19-or-preventing-infection
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2779044
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2772921
I’m not sure someone who considers it a distinction with a difference will understand the moral objection in the first place, much less the sarcasm.
I’m sure “their” is.
Oh it is the conspirators again….
So what you are saying is that you completely do not understand the use of posters at professional organization meetings? You do not understand what an “observational study” is? As for the “online” bit, that was due to in-person restrictions, so I’m not sure how you think you’re demeaning it.
But sure. You are fully entitled to not care about emerging topics and areas for potential research. I wouldn’t expect you to; it was a technical meeting for educated medical practitioners and researchers who were interested in cardiovascular advancements.
Just let me know when you’ve presented to a very large, well-known, and respected medical organization on a topic of interest. I’ll be sure to share it here where everyone will be able to examine your spelling and choice of font.
Posters aren’t peer reviewed- want to bet this never gets published?
the author isn’t interested in publishing he is to busy selling dietary supplements & writing on Goop- that famous medical site
https://theskepticalcardiologist.com/2018/07/14/why-you-should-ignore-the-plant-paradox-by-steven-gundry/
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/gwyneth-paltrow-and-goop-another-triumph-of-celebrity-pseudoscience-and-quackery/
I don’t know about conspirators, but I have my suspicions there’s more straw-man fallacy in there. That Nature study has no original information; it’s drawn from 29 other studies.
The conclusion is that Drs. Zelenko, Risch, et al are wrong. Those good doctors recommend chl. as early-use and with zinc and an antibiotic.
Right?
How is it anything other than a straw-man fallacy to say they are wrong on the grounds that some different chl. treatment didn’t work?
But is that what those 29 studies actually say? I can’t promise anything. As I said, I have my suspicions.
But I did briefly look over 4 or 5 of them the other day–I found premises to a fallacy, nothing more.
Give me world enough and time, and I can look at all 29. Maybe I’ll find some study that actually stays on topic and provides some relevant premises for your argument. Or . . . maybe you and I will still know nothing whatsoever about chloroquine for Covid–but we’ll know that we have one more reason to think the powers that be, with or without conspiracy, are an illogical nuisance.
Ok, so instead of addressing my questions about ideas for research, you pivot toward ad hominem attacks? I have no particular love for this dude, but you just lost.
I’d say this is another opportune time to bring up Balzer’s Law, but I have to think someone else came up with it first. At any rate: it doesn’t matter if it’s a conspiracy or not, what matters is the results.
“By their fruits ye shall know them.”
Anyone claiming Ivermectin and HCQ aren’t invaluable in the treatment of Covid isn’t serious about studying (or solving) the issue.
I suppose. But I don’t want to discard Hanlon’s Razor here.
More on the meeting abstract:
“The American Heart Association has published a corrected version of a controversial meeting abstract which claimed to show that Covid-19 vaccinations “dramatically” increased a person’s risk for serious heart problems.
The study was the work of Stephen Gundry, a cardiac surgeon who now sells dietary supplements of questionable efficacy on his website….
Gundry submitted the abstract, titled “Mrna COVID Vaccines Dramatically Increase Endothelial Inflammatory Markers and ACS Risk as Measured by the PULS Cardiac Test: a Warning,” to the AHA’s 2021 scientific meeting, which apparently accepted it without much, if any, review. ”
“The amended abstract has the much less alarming title “Observational Findings of PULS Cardiac Test Findings for Inflammatory Markers in Patients Receiving mRNA Vaccines.”
https://retractionwatch.com/2021/12/22/aha-journal-tones-down-abstract-linking-covid-19-vaccines-to-risk-of-heart-problems/
Imaging is important when you’re trying to hold onto a crumbling narrative.
Then why isn ‘t anyone using your putative wonder drugs?-oh I forgot-the conspiracy. Doctors just love letting patients die & investing in companies that make high priced drugs they can force on their patients.
There is small hope for ivermectin- the ACTIV-6 study. But if it comes back negative you can bury it. The TOGETHER Trial has already dug the hole to place it in. Dr Kory & Marik’s retracted study has not helped either-nor has the large number of other fraudulent or flawed studies done on it that have been retracted(Carvallo, Niaee, Elgazzar, Samaha etc). The failure of some of its advocates to update flawed meta analysis they have authored (Kory, Bryant) isn’t helping the cause of ivermectin. Threats against honest investigators isn’t helping either.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-021-01535-y
https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-100956/v2
https://retractionwatch.com/2021/11/02/ivermectin-covid-19-study-retracted-authors-blame-file-mixup/
https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on-fraudulent-research-part-3-5066aa6819b3
So what’s your angle then?
A conservative MD who hates to see this site over run with conspiracy theories
That’s fine, but does anyone in this thread even have a conspiracy theory about chloroquine and ivermectin?
Give it six months and they’ll all be true.
I am kinda disappointed it wasn’t “I loved Ivermectin and it done me wrong” though.
I’m going with they’re going to elope and have a love child, chloromectin.
Or, you could have just looked at the AHA’s own statement on it. But I suppose it doesn’t have the same pizzazz as linking to retractionwatch or whatever rag makes you feel superior.
Here, let me link to retractionwatch’s own page that gives the exact wording on how posters are meant to “prompt scientific discourse, not to evaluate scientific validity”.
Happy reading.
Not to ruin your fun, but literally none of what I have posted is in any way controversial or anti-vax. You claim to be conservative, but you have spent 4 pages making random attacks that are in no way convincing against what I wrote. If anything, they indicate the absolute terror of the medical establishment when anyone dares to suggest anything adjacent to refuting the current orthodoxy.
The idea I proposed was that coercion of doctors to literally harm their patients was not doing anyone any favors. You have not only expressed dislike, but have actively argued against it by promoting the same gross mischaracterizations that leftists often use against actual conservatives.
You might want to take a closer look in the mirror and really examine exactly what it is you think you are doing here, because it is not what you claim it is.
Also, I wanted to point out that your source agrees with me. Not in manufacturing but in DEVELOPMENT. The exact word I chose.