Thread by @Matthew__Barber

Thread on #NoVaccineMandates:
1) Surreal—The CDC director is asked to confirm the inaccuracy of Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor's gross overstating of numbers of kids hospitalized with COVID, but she quickly pivots to a "give your kids the vaccine" mantra.
vimeo.com/665727683

2) It's like watching a programmed robot play an endless game of redirect back to the acceptable talking points. Refusing to treat people as adults who deserve nuanced discussion of all aspects of an issue will only exacerbate the decline of trust in medical authorities.

3) And at a moment when the Supreme Court will be issuing rulings on vaccine mandates, it is scary that a justice wouldn't have basic, essential facts straight.

4) While it is good that COVID vaccines are being developed and experimented with, the mandates are an absolute violation of the rights that every person should have over their body and a contravention of the freedom of medical choice.

5) And it is disingenuous to label pro-vax people as "anti-vax" if they opt to wait before taking a new and still-experimental vaccine or if they—like me—took the vaccine but are opposed to vaccine mandates.

6) No drugs are perfect and we shouldn’t expect them to be free of all side effects. But at present we cannot even have an open discussion about side effects or ask questions about relative levels of safety/risks/benefits without being branded "anti-vax."

7) The myocarditis issue has become serious enough that Germany’s vaccine advisory board recommends against Moderna’s shot for those under 30. I didn't see the media discuss it much. I hope that Twitter won't censor something that Forbes would report:
forbes.com/sites/robertha…

8) That guidance from the German authorities followed the dramatic increase of European soccer players collapsing/dying during practice or matches. European papers are publishing on it but one still risks incurring the anti-vax label by discussing it.
summit.news/2021/11/09/ger…

9) Dr. Simone Gold @drsimonegold's organization America's Frontline Doctors is fighting the mandates on legal grounds. She and other doctors are talking about young healthy people in the military dying due to the myocarditis issue.
americasfrontlinedoctors.org/about-us/

10) I don't want to focus on the side effect conversation in this thread. Nevertheless, a few of those issues were important to mention to emphasize that there are legitimate reasons for some people to seek vax alternatives, if they so choose.

11) We're still at a moment in the conversation—though this is beginning to change—where many believe that someone must be insane if they prefer to wait on COVID jabs. But there are many legitimate considerations that simply receive no attention in mainstream media discourse.

12) The bottom line problem with the mandates: No person should be forced to receive a new and still-experimental medical product if they do not agree to it. Mandates strip people of basic rights of choice and consent and subject them to a criminal form of economic coercion.

13) Assurances of pharma companies regarding long-term safety are ironic when: 1) it has not yet been possible to perform long-term research on side effects, and 2) they were clearly wrong about long-term efficacy. They didn't know how the vaccines would perform, and still don't.

14) A doctor at @UChicagoMed told me early on that he'd prefer to wait several years for more thorough, robust research (and opportunities to tweak and improve the formula) before taking a new vaccine. Is he an anti-vaxxer for wanting to have a personal choice?

15) Answer: No. He is a scientist who wants to see the science over time. He wants to allow the science to develop, to prove the safety of the formula, and to monitor long-term side effects. It's a sensible approach and one that affirms the need for quality vaccines.

16) This position is common among health care workers, but they are treated like idiots by employers and the federal government through the compulsion of mandates. This is abusive.

17) Our fundamental starting point when examining and evaluating public policy on the pandemic should be to follow the money. I am frankly astounded that the media is largely silent about this, especially in light of the legal and ethical track record of the pharma industry.

18) We are incredibly naïve when we fail to take into account that behind particular policies, there are scores of billions of dollars to be made. When have such interests not produced lobbies that have impacted government policy?

19) That journalists do not—or are not allowed—to cover the phenomenon of personnel shifting between leadership positions in pharma companies and roles in our most authoritative governmental health institutions is flabbergasting.

20) The recent appearances of Dr. Peter McCullough @P_McCulloughMD, Dr. Robert Malone (recently banned by Twitter), and others on Joe Rogan's podcast raise many questions on the policy decision to focus on vaccine development rather than other, less profit-generating treatments.

21) This isn't a conversation about vaccine safety or side effects; it is about whether vaccines were pushed center stage while the development, research, or use of other potentially effective (and cheaper) forms of treatment were pushed aside, discouraged, and even suppressed.

22) The most fascinating aspect of the entire pandemic is the odd politicization of the mandate issue: proponents tend to be liberal, critics tend to be conservative. What happened to the left's traditional role of checking and critiquing corporate power and moneyed interests??

23) Following the Afghanistan pullout, an analyst (can't recall who) commented that the war—and the Iraq War—were neither about spreading democracy nor neocolonialism, but rather about a massive wealth transfer from the middle class American taxpayer to select private entities.

24) I believe that vaccine mandates are a new example of the same phenomenon: The forced adoption of massively government subsidized medical technology that benefits shareholders of major pharmaceutical companies (more than benefits public health), funded by the taxpayer.

25) With the wars in the Middle East, the major transfer of public funds to private interests was opposed by liberals and defended by conservatives (who were easily convinced to remain blind to the financial aspect through "patriotism" rhetoric).

26) The harnessing of conservative support for the wars was necessary to keep that money machine going. With the vaccine mandates, it is the conservatives who offer the critique while liberal indignation toward the unvaccinated is harnessed to feed the beast.

27) The fact that liberals do not denounce and resist the vaccine mandates on the basis of human rights, freedom of choice, medical autonomy, and economic justice is unconscionable.

28) After decades of FOX misinformation and fearmongering—often in the service of big-corporate interests—it's now surreal to see FOX as the only major network to push back and skeptically question the monolithic narrative being jointly advanced by government + private companies.

29) The left's refusal to "encourage dissent" in this moment is even more ironic when we consider the rapid expansion of CRT-influenced epistemologies in the last few years.

30) Recently, we've been repeatedly told that knowledge produced by science is not absolute but merely a Western (and imperialist/colonialist) "way of knowing" that is often instrumentalized by white people to oppress those with less power.

31) With that in mind, is it not bewildering to witness the proliferation of the "in this house, we believe in science" front-yard signs and the frequency of the "trust the science" slogan?

32) During a cultural moment when it has suddenly become commonplace to see “math is racist” and “science is racist,” it is perplexing to simultaneously witness science become absolute once again for the same political bloc that embraced the postmodern epistemology rejecting it.

33) I myself am not as critical of the "postmodernism" boogeyman as are many critics of CRT—I think that postmodern thinkers have developed useful ways to theorize abusive power (which the mandates exemplify); it's the way that critical theorists have used it that can be harmful.

34) But what is truly riveting to behold is how science is optional / truth is unknowable for that bloc only when it serves a conclusion or policy that is already aligned with their current political orientation.

35) I am incredulous toward the woke decrying “fascism” while defending the corporate medical industry that has not only succeeded in determining government policy but that also polices public discourse, in social media as well as mainstream media.

36) The censorship of Dr. Robert Malone, who was a key figure in the invention of mRNA vaccine technology, is indicative of this kind of actual fascism. He helped invent crucial vaccine technology but is labeled an anti-vaxxer for questioning a particular corporate product.

37) Just prior to his Twitter ban, he tweeted the Canadian COVID Care Alliance report (which I won't link to). This report is not anti-vax, but critiques Pfizer's research, practices, and procedures rather than vaccines generally.

38) He was also banned by LinkedIn after noting that the chairman of the Thomson Reuters Foundation also sat on the board of Pfizer. We now live in a world where we are penalized for questioning a private company's product or for speaking about government-corporate collusion.

39) A slew of hit pieces against him have cropped up—especially since the ban—yet none of them address the content of his message. Most just nitpick about the scope of his contribution in the mRNA vaccine invention.

40) I highly recommend watching his recent conversation on The Joe Rogan Show @joerogan:
open.spotify.com/episode/3SCsue…

41) Equally important is the Rogan podcast with Dr. Peter McCullough @P_McCulloughMD.
open.spotify.com/episode/0aZte3…

42) And also the conversation with Dr. John Abramson that gets into Pfizer's massively corrupt history: open.spotify.com/episode/64ZsPU…

43) The authors of the Malone hit-pieces criticize him for the term "mass formation psychosis," stating that "it's not a real thing in psychology." (Since when has the left had a problem with coining new terms to describe social phenomena?)

44) But they are so uninformed about the ideas of the dissenting voices they seek to cancel that they're unaware that it was McCullough who used this term in his appearance on Rogan, before Malone later referred to it as well.

45) If you feel that “fascist” is an extreme descriptor to apply to the mandates, you MUST watch this ENTIRE bit with an Australian woman who 1) cannot take the jab due to extreme sensitivities, 2) can't work without it, and 3) cannot acquire an exemption:

46) If we don't critique Pfizer and other pharma companies, we've failed as citizens of a country that is supposed to be a democracy. Here is report on their all-powerful ability to bully other countries regarding vaccine negotiations:
…lbztg254fzode-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/upl…

47) While you're at it, watch this video comparing Remdesivir and Ivermectin. It's a whole other can of worms, but another important conversation:
tv.gab.com/channel/gordr/…

48) Also, don’t neglect the natural immunity issue—another conversation that pharma dislikes since there’s no money in it:

https://twitter.com/Hamletgarcia17/status/1480212681839763462

49) To end: I'm pro-vaccine and vaccinated (sad I have to say it). But I am 100% against mandates of a product when the science is new and when there is massive collusion and shared financial interests between vaccine manufacturers and officials. #NoVaccineMandates

50) It is wrong to remove choice from Americans when the formulas are new, when long-term studies of side effects do not yet exist, and when alternative drug treatments have not been thoroughly studied or are still emerging. #NoVaccineMandate #NoVaccinePassports

51) P.S. Here's where the mass formation talking point came from:
reddit.com/user/Mattias-D…