Thread by @gorskon

This victim shaming of #COVID19 patients is part and parcel with alternative medicine beliefs that I've been discussing for many years, the delusion that, if you only eat the right foods and live the right lifestyle, you can be more or less immune to infectious disease. 1/

https://twitter.com/ThomasHague/status/1447821660510359552

Interestingly, Bob Costas, of all people, once nailed the nonsense of this belief when in 2009 @billmaher claimed that because he was so healthy he wouldn't catch the flu on a plane. Costas' retort? "Oh, come on, Superman!" 2/ sciencebasedmedicine.org/oh-come-on-sup…

While it is true that it is better to eat a healthy diet, exercise, and otherwise live a healthy lifestyle than not, it won't make you immune to disease. It might, for instance, decrease your risk of certain cancers, but you can still get cancer. 3/

That doesn't even consider the fact that there are a lot of diseases that are just inherent to aging whose risk you can lower but never even come close to eliminating. Then there are genetic and familial predispositions. 4/

Add to that socioeconomic factors that make living the "right" lifestyle or eating the "right" healthy diet difficult, if not impossible, and you see where this is going. 5/

The problem with this belief system is the negative flip side of it, which we see in Mr. Hague's Tweet. If you can so effectively prevent disease by living the "right" lifestyle, then if you get sick that must mean you weren't doing that; i.e., it's *your* fault you got sick. 6/

Perhaps my favorite example to cite of this most despicable point of view comes from—who else?—antivaxxer @delbigtree. 7/

In June 2020, @delbigtree did an episode of @HighWireTalk where he basically blamed those at high risk for severe #COVID19 (type II diabetes, obese, etc.) for being that way and did it in the most explicit fashion. 7/ sciencebasedmedicine.org/antivaccine-le…

I transcribed part of what @delbigtree said, so that when the video disappeared it wouldn't be lost. Read it and see what I mean. He even tries to sidestep the issue that age in and of itself is a huge risk factor for severe #COVID19. 8/

Amusingly, @delbigtree then went on to portray himself (and his righteous "healthy" viewers) as benevolent, willing to go out there and "Catch this cold" in order to protect these poor schmucks who had destroyed their own health. How magnanimous of him! 9/

Of course, whenever I see someone like @delbigtree advocate for going out there and catching #COVID19, my response is always: You first. Oddly enough, Mr. Bigtree does not seem to have taken me up on my offer. 10/

I mean, I'm sure there are lots of his listeners who have #COVID19 who would be more than happy to spend a couple of hours in a small, poorly ventilated room, the better to make sure that the intrepid @delbigtree does indeed "catch this cold." 11/

In any event, never forget that attitudes like those of Mr. Hague and @delbigtree have long been a major part of the belief systems that underlie alternative medicine modalities. 12/

It's basically magical thinking (if I am righteous I will not get sick) and victim blaming (if you get sick you must not be righteous). 13/13

One more. According to this thinking, if you get sick you must not be righteous, or you must not be pure. 14/14 sciencebasedmedicine.org/natural-immuni…

Sometimes this goes to ridiculous and dangerous extremes, as when @delbigtree flew to a quack clinic in Mexico to get a transfusion of "unvaccinated" blood, risking bleeding to death because of his refusal just to take a transfusion. 15/15 respectfulinsolence.com/2021/06/04/big…