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Aaron Kheriaty, MD

29 Sep, 16 tweets, 4 min read

@mdlizs

1/ @mdlizs and @DrSandman11 I have never encountered someone who is "advocating for 'natural immunity' over vaccination." I certainly have never done so. This is a straw-man argument, but a telling one. I advocate for those who have *already recovered* from Covid.

https://twitter.com/mdlizs/status/1443237374608171010

2/ I have never suggested anyone deliberately try to get infected with the virus. This mischaracterization is telling, for it reveals one of the key reasons that so many public health officials and physicians refuse to acknowledge what research shows about natural immunity.

3/ Scientific findings are ignored not because they are false, but because people worry that if the public knows, it might impede behavioral outcomes (getting vaccinated) that public health officials want. But this just reveals a condescending contempt for the intelligence...

4/ ...and judgement of most ordinary people. Yes, perhaps some people will behave recklessly, but we physicians encounter people who make misguided health decisions routinely. This has never justified withholding relevant scientific information or bypassing informed consent.

5/ As I have said *repeatedly* on this platform and in my legal documents regarding vaccine efficacy: vaccines lower one's risk of moderate to severe symptoms and hospitalization; they may might lower one's risk of mild or asymptomatic infection...

6/...though all of these protective effects are waning with time and new variants, especially the latter. Covid vaccines do not prevent transmission--an inconvenient truth, perhaps, but true nonetheless. Deliberately ignoring these truths only increases hesitancy and mistrust.

7/ Ordinary people can and do read the primary literature. They can see through half-truths that contribute to public health behavioral propaganda. (The group in the U.S. with the highest rates of vaccine hesitancy are PhDs, not low-information folks).

8/ One-size-fits all policies, and especially coercive mandates, *increase hesitancy*. People can readily see that the risks/benefits of vaccines and r/b of Covid are *very different* between those who recovered from Covid already and those who have not yet been infected.

9/ Like you, I have consulted on countless Covid cases in our ICU and on the wards. Serving as our lead ethics consultant, I have had more anguishing conversations than I can count with families explaining to them that their loved one in our ICU is irretrievably dying of Covid.

10/ I suffered with Covid, as did my wife and five children. I don't need a lecture from another physician on how bad this illness can be. I have never dissuaded anyone--whether they have natural immunity or not--from getting vaccinated. I simply advocate for informed consent.

11/ But informed consent requires accurate information and the freedom to consent or refuse the intervention. So yes, please do "take a scroll through my page" or any of my legal documents before you mischaracterize my position on vaccines or mandates.

12/ And before you accuse a fellow physician (who has suffered just like you through the difficulties of this pandemic) of advocating for something that "would result in millions of dead Americans," please make sure you understand what he has actually said.

@mdlizs

13/ Finally, @mdlizs and @DrSandman11, I am happy to engage in a respectful and civil debate with either or both of you, either live-streamed or in writing, on the topic of vaccine mandates for Covid-recovered individuals. I will publish anything you write on this topic...

14/...on my blog, along with my response of equal word-count. You can write a rejoinder to my response and we can go as many rounds as you'd like. My only rules are that we avoid ad hominem attacks or straw-man arguments.

15/ We can respectfully disagree on public health policy without accusing the other either of bad faith or a callous disregard for those who have lost their lives during this pandemic. Let me know if you would like to engage in a respectful dialogue/debate.

The end.

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More from @akheriaty

Aaron Kheriaty, MD

@akheriaty

30 Sep

Ideas are not viruses. You won't expose yourself and "catch" something deadly by reading, talking to, or considering the viewpoints and perspectives of those with whom you have strong disagreements. Be open and willing to learn. Admit that you don't yet have all the answers.

I want to follow my own advice here. Engage me if you think my claims expressed here or elsewhere are mistaken. Give reasons, cite evidence, ask difficult questions. I will engage and try to respond in kind, so long as there are no bad faith arguments or ad hominem attacks.

I have faith that shared rationality, in which all of us can participate, is not yet dead (though it may be on life support these days). We cannot let propaganda and power games have the last word.

Read 4 tweets

Aaron Kheriaty, MD

@akheriaty

22 Sep

@EPPCdc

1/ From my colleague Carl Truman at @EPPCdc:

"Technology has served to fuel humanity’s belief in, if not its own omnipotence, then at least in its ability to achieve anything it wishes by the deployment of instrumental reason and technical know-how.

2/ "In this context, it is interesting to notice the panic, perhaps even mass hysteria, induced by the Covid-19 pandemic. We have been faced with an enemy which cannot be immediately defeated and which brings the reality of mortality closer to us than has been typical of our age,

3/ "... marked as it is by the practical denial of death. Our panicked response has entailed eliminating the consideration of any social good except the immediate preservation of life, whatever the cost to others, and a corresponding desperate hunt for a vaccine.

Read 4 tweets

Aaron Kheriaty, MD

@akheriaty

21 Sep

1/ Over the past century, an arrogant, technocratic positivism sought to elevate empirical science as the only valid form of knowledge. With a kind of totalitarian impulse, this negated entirely other domains of inquiry: ethics and metaphysics were declared nonsensical.

2/ Certain questions simply could not be raised. The point was not to understand the world but to transform it. Within this impoverished philosophy, which knows only impersonal forces, a critique of violence becomes impossible.

3/ As the useful replaces the good and efficiency becomes the highest value, not only is knowledge instrumentalized but human beings are also instrumentalized.

Read 4 tweets

Aaron Kheriaty, MD

@akheriaty

20 Sep

News from the UK: a new mutation is associated with immune escape – suggesting the virus is coming under pressure from highly vaccinated population inews.co.uk/news/politics/…

"Although case numbers are very low, the presence of E484K – known in virology circles as “Eeek” because of its vaccine-dodging qualities – is a cause for concern and Public Health England have classed it as a 'signal under investigation'."

"Scientists have warned... that a combination of highly transmissible Delta with an immune escape mutation could pose a threat to vaccines. The shift also suggests the virus is coming under pressure in a largely vaccinated population in the UK and is trying to adapt to survive."

Read 5 tweets

Aaron Kheriaty, MD

@akheriaty

20 Sep

https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1439706605826813954

1/ Yes, the pandemic revealed and amplified what was already there. At every step our response to the virus has favored the laptop class over and against the working class. Some populations have remained entirely invisible.

https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1439706605826813954

2/ Here’s just one example: children with autism or other cognitive disabilities and their parents. During lockdowns, their day programs were shut down and their social routines completely disrupted. These routines and services are essential for their stability.

3/ In the face of these disruptions, and given their limited coping skills, they act it out behaviorally and emotionally, often landing in the hospital. Parents were calling me in tears, helpless, with no resources. Seen any of this mentioned on TV?

Read 5 tweets

Aaron Kheriaty, MD

@akheriaty

17 Sep

1/ A fellow physician recently reached out expressing support for my lawsuit and shared the following with me:

"I was ill for about 3 months or more after my first Pfizer shot in February 2021.

2/ "I never knew I had Covid but suspected my reaction was amnestic, especially due to the lump at the injection site that reminded me of a positive PPD [tuberculosis skin test], and persisted beyond when I was scheduled for the second shot. I declined the second shot.

3/ "My supposition was that I had exposure to Covid before the vaccine, had T cell immunity and was protected. I decided to check for antibodies. I had the test and my level was high, consistent with my supposition especially since it was 7 months after my single dose of vaccine.

Read 6 tweets

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