https://maximumfun.org/episodes/sawbones/sawbones-vitamin-k/
“Do you understand what I'm saying?" shouted Moist. "You can't just go around killing people!"
"Why Not? You Do." The golem lowered his arm.
"What?" snapped Moist. "I do not! Who told you that?"
"I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Three Eight People," said the golem calmly.
"I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!"
"No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.”
― Terry Pratchett, Going PostalAnti-vax activists like RFK Jr. https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/healthpolicy...
He's rather infamous for his part in the 2019 Samoa measles outbreak.
See: https://apnews.com/article/rfk-jr-samoa-measles-kennedy-vacc...
See: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rfk-jr-samoa-measles-va...
See: https://www.newsweek.com/rfk-jr-denies-samoa-visit-was-vacci...
The changes he's made upon taking over HHS are almost certain to have far-reaching affects which eclipse that.
He's actively suppressing publication of studies showing vaccine safety as a government official.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/us/politics/fda-covid-vac...
That would be an extraordinary claim.
If you’re the top health official of the country and spread doubt about numerous public health interventions, including actively suppressing research showing their safety and efficacy, yes, you’re guilty as fuck.
Hope this helps clarify things.
It’s just so diffuse that it doesn’t fit in our crime model. Like polluters who shave years off an entire neighborhood’s lives via health impacts.
If your policy of letting kindergarteners play with grenades goes bad, you go to jail.
Fucking with vaccines kills people. Getting rid of USAID kills people. Selling cigarettes kills people. But none of these are crimes. Some of them probably should be.
Individual different is real. Law of large number is true only for large number. Until you can claim omniscience, I don't think we should make an individual responsible for a "statistical" crime for one individual.
Government policy, on the other hand, ...
Why not? We know tobacco execs lied about the dangers, even in Congressional testimony, and suppressed evidence. It's documented; no omniscience required.
Musk's DOGE cuts killed, at minimum, hundreds of thousands. It's highly likely he was aware of that likelihood.
The world has a lot of things it needs to figure out with all this stuff. Blanket statements just aren’t very valuable IMO.
No, I'd say the responsibility there lies on the car company execs making F-250s ever-bigger to the point they have worse forward visibility than a M1 Abrams tank. https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-v...
> What about the trees outside my home and their hundred pound limbs — if one breaks it will almost certainly be fatal.
If you don't maintain your trees and they kill your neighbor or damage their house, you'll often be on the hook for it, yes. Insurance won't cover you if it was negligence.
> why does an infant refused a vaccine constitute murder but 11 days earlier in the womb its life had no value?
Virtually zero abortions happen 11 days before term. When they do, they're medical emergencies, not voluntary.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:US_abortion_by_gesta...
(The ointment is also primarily for chlamydia these days.)
I guess I don't see the point in rejecting the shot. It's a vitamin, it has a clear benefit, and no drawback.
We kept it civil. But in the end, I came to the conclusion that being anti-vaxx was a core part of his identity as part of the wellness community, and I was never going to change that.
Ok? Give me all the vaccines. Being able to train our immune systems to recognize and attack harmful or even deadly pathogens is like a super power that we all have access to.
> Another point is the conspicuous lack of honesty surrounding the COVID vaccine,
You'd have to help me out here; the vaccines worked well, and are safe for the vast majority of people. I don't think there was any lack of honesty surrounding them except from the people who are anti-vaccine.
You’re entitled to your opinion, but I’d caution you to treat vaccines as a binary and imply they’re all good and always worth taking. There are numerous examples in history where vaccines were rolled out and had to be recalled due to unintended negative effects (Pandemrix is one example). Not all vaccines are a net positive.
I don't think it will end well.
I can't see what else humanity would need to develop as defenses, we can access nearly all information that exists, almost instantly, from the convenience of almost anywhere. The problem is to knowing how to parse so much information, even more when there's conflicting information where nuance and critical thinking are required.
Accepting that there's very few absolute right answers, that the real world is much more "depends" than "for certain", and stil being able to navigate it all to reach a conclusion that aligns with the best probable answer demands quite a lot more quality education than the vast majority of humanity has access to.
Between that and going back and forth on the efficacy of masks amongst other things, a lot of faith in these kinds of institutions was eroded.
I feel that the water was muddied by many "influencers" just trying to get views and people lack common sense to understand the subtleties on the messaging and as soon as they see some contradiction they declare that you cannot trust doctors.
Source: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/backlash-and-reversal-af...
> Dr. Walensky spoke broadly ... “It’s possible that some people who are fully vaccinated could get COVID-19. The evidence isn’t clear whether they can spread the virus to others.”
Seems like they arn't saying you cannot get it, but that you are LESS LIKELY to spread it. Which, if Covid was spread via coughing/sneezing, and the vaccine reduces those symptoms, would be a logical next step. She also hedged multiple times, stating that this is just what the initial data is saying, and not a full-throated promise.
That's a straw man. Nobody in authority said this once the vaccine was out and it was obvious that immunity wasn't 100% or permanent. All vaccines are different. No one knew until it came out what category this vaccine would fall into. You can still get measles after getting the measles vaccine. But you're much much less likely to die from it.
What the vaccine did do is greatly reduce the severity of the disease, which saved countless lives. See Wuhan, Northern Italy or NYC before lockdown. If the vaccine didn't work, as soon as lockdown ended, the hospitals would have filled to over capacity like they were in those places in the early days.
But I note that the "a politician was wrong once, therefore vaccines can't be trusted" folks don't tend to extend that theory to things like "tax cuts cause economic booms" or "abstinence only sex ed is super effective" sort of statements that have repeatedly flopped in tests.
Yeah okay she spoke out of turn very early after the vaccine was out for a short time. The CDC sucked a lot through this, especially when they refused to recommend masks. But you notice pretty much all of her own underlings are immediately refuting her. To cling to "They told us you wouldn't get covid" when 99% of the people in authority were not saying that, and the few who might have said it were quickly corrected, is disingenuous imo.
The CDC kind of sucks to be honest, and it sure isn't better with the current leadership. But it doesn't mean they're wrong on everything. And the CDC's suckiness is a flimsy excuse to just believe anyone on youtube, regardless of scientific evidence.
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/backlash-and-reversal-af...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-n95-fa...
(Which apparently stemmed from concern of shortages, but was a seriously bad way to address that.)
They did this because there was already a mask shortage and whatever other political reasons. It was wrong and it eroded confidence. Personally I'll never put a lot of stock in anything they come out with again w/o getting it verified by other sources I trust who know how to interpret medical literature.
The ironic thing is the anti-vaxx wellness community never jumps on the CDC being wrong on masks, because they don't believe in masks either.
I'm not free to take it, anymore. As you said, it's been taken off the market for most people.
> Fuck shunning people for not doing something to their bodies because they don't consider the benefits "obvious" or sufficient.
No, I like shunning people who are wrong and dumb.
Well, I meant that you should be free to take it if there is a reasonable argument that taking it is better than not taking it. There are multiple reasons why it isn't offered anymore.
>No, I like shunning people who are wrong and dumb.
People who refused the vaccine are not wrong or dumb. It is too laborious to explain it to you though. I think no matter how much I explain or provide contrary evidence, your mind is made up. What happened to "My body, my choice"? Do you seriously think that people would refuse the vaccine if the benefits were so overwhelming? If the virus and the vaccine were what they said, you wouldn't need to try to mandate shit. You'd have to break up fights as people fell all over each other to get the damn vaccine.
Yeah, limiting the impact and effects of a COVID infection is a compelling and reasonable argument to me. I'd like my booster shot, please.
> What happened to "My body, my choice"?
It is your choice. I can and will mock you for your choice if your reasoning doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
> Do you seriously think that people would refuse the vaccine if the benefits were so overwhelming?
Yes, anti-vaxers are inherently irrational. Overwhelming benefits do not change their opinion because being anti-vaccine is a core part of their identity.
There are people like this but you can say the same about anything. Pro-pharma vax promoters definitely make "trust the science, don't do research or question anything from authorities" part of their identity too.
Sure, and murders are easily addressed by not murdering people. Unfortunately, we live in reality.
> Sufficient levels can be confirmed at birth by an inexpensive blood screening…
"We'd like to do a blood draw. To see if they need the shot you're terrified of." "No!"
Yeah, I'd rather you not be able to choose to kill your kid.
> severe reactions and deaths of babies that get the shots
Are we gonna sue peanut farmers for making peanuts, too?
>The reality you want is government overreach and a removal of individual choice.
Have you not met the general public? The infants are incapable of advocating for themselves and they risk death all because an incredulous new mother has been influenced by some lunatic on TikTok (or, indeed, in Government).
Did you not read the article, or are you refuting it?
Per the article: "All newborns lack vitamin K. No matter how much vitamin K a mother consumes, it doesn’t sufficiently pass through the placenta, and breast milk contains only small amounts."
Infants are supposed to get vitamin K and other nutrients from breastfeeding, but we push formula.
Vitamin K is supposed to stabilize after a week, but we push booster shots.
Some parents believed the advocacy of actors, and withheld boosters and vaccines-- while feeding their children chemical slop that makes the news every so often after being found contaminated with toxins or deficient in some vital nutrient or mineral, leading to headlines like this.
For maximum hilarity we're putting infants' underdeveloped clotting mechanisms to the test with a battery of injections and performing cosmetic circumcisions just hours after birth.
If the assignment was "come up with a way to maim or kill as many children as possible while maintaining plausible deniability," these are the sorts of subversive pediatric policies I'd suggest. They'll bleed out days or months later, I feign ignorance and avoid attribution, mission accomplished.
Every step of this is handled in the dumbest way conceivable, and if you speak out about it you get blackballed. (Not that this is anything new; they did the same to Semmelweiss, committing him to a mental hospital and beating him to death for suggesting that doctors should wash their hands between surgeries.)
Babylonians/Jews wait until day 8--no sooner, no later--for reasons they could only have discovered through trial-and-error. They perform the same operations and get all the same vaccines we do but Israel's autism rate is 50% lower than the US. Maternal and infant mortality rates are also significantly lower for them. We trade in equipment and cross-train the same practitioners. The only differences are keeping infant nutrition organic/kosher and delaying ritual infant trauma just long enough so that they don't bleed to death in the absence of Vitamin K boosters.
Did you just pull out of this out of the air?
Increased diagnosis and awareness, which is something Israel has caught up on recently, has brought the rate to effectively equal. Not 50% lower.
Pretending that it doesn't exist doesn't make it actually not exist.
This is literally nonsense.
From the article:
> All newborns lack vitamin K. No matter how much vitamin K a mother consumes, it doesn’t sufficiently pass through the placenta, and breast milk contains only small amounts. That puts babies who are exclusively breastfed at a higher risk for vitamin K deficiency bleeding. Formula is fortified with vitamin K, but even with that, experts agree, babies should still get the shot.
