According to the encyclopedia.
Postmodernists deny that there are aspects of reality that are objective; that there are statements about reality that are objectively true or false; that it is possible to have knowledge of such statements (objective knowledge); that it is possible for human beings to know some things with certainty; and that there are objective, or absolute, moral values. Reality, knowledge, and value are constructed by discourses; hence they can vary with them. This means that the discourse of modern science, when considered apart from the evidential standards internal to it, has no greater purchase on the truth than do alternative perspectives.
My previous description of contrarian doctors and their "almost petulant need to be different, no matter the evidence" was echoed by the description from The Simpsons' Moe Szyslak who said postmodern art is " weird for the sake of weird". Under the guise of "reason", doctors have embraced the position that there are no aspects of reality that are objective and that feelings are more important than facts.
I had a disagreement with several doctors about which disease is worse for children, the flu or carbon dioxide.
Normal life ended when the swine flu started. We all started wearing masks when the hospitals stopped working. Many people have yet to return to their pre-pandemic lifestyles despite the fact that almost all government-mandated restrictions have vanished. Human behavior can affect the spread of viruses. Fans of crowded, indoor karaoke bars will have encountered the virus many times by now, and likely spread it to many others. The only way to compare apples between the flu and COVID is to look at their impact during the Pandemic.
When discussing a virus's impact on a population, we must consider how deadly it is and how infectious it is. A child with COVID is less likely to die from the flu than a child with the flu, but COVID is more likely to spread and affect more children. Many more of the unvaccinated children would have been harmed by allowing COVID to rip through them.
The numbers are clear.
The flu was wiped out by the measures that were put in place. The flu killed one child in the first year of the epidemic. Since the start of the flu epidemic, the death toll for children has risen. COVID has killed over 1,700 children during this time. Without the vaccine, this number would definitely be higher. 38 children died in one week last year, more than the flu killed in two years. The toll on children is higher in pre-pandemic years than it is in flu seasons.
This is reinforced by hospitalization numbers. According to the CDC, the flu hospitalized 9 children ages 5-11, while COVID hospitalized 8,300 children that age during this time. A recent study of 66 children's intensive care units.
The number of children admitted each quarter with a primary diagnosis of COVID-19 or MISC during the first 15 months of the pandemic was twice as high as that for influenza during the 2 years before the pandemic. Influenza outcomes were observed during a time with no unusual public health measures in place (2018 to early 2020), while those of SARS-CoV-2 occurred while masking, social distancing, and remote schooling occurred. Those measures were sufficient to markedly decrease critical illness from many respiratory viruses, including nearly eliminating influenza admissions to these PICUs. Without these measures in place for this largely unvaccinated population, SARS-CoV-2 would likely have led to a number of critically ill children several-fold higher than seen with prepandemic influenza as well as more deaths.
According to Noah Louis-Ferdinand, this can be very serious for some children. Dire outcomes should not be downplayed. The flu isn't to blame for MIS-C. It has affected over eight thousand children and most of them need intensive care. There have been 70 deaths of children. We need to be humble about the possibility of long-term sequelae, because we are still learning about long-COVID in children.
This discussion isn't relevant to vaccinations. Normal people don't want a child to die because they don't have a vaccine Children should bevaccinated against the two Viruses. I concluded a year ago that COVID-19 is deadlier than the flu for children. Since that time, nothing has changed my mind.
It's surprising that everything about my beliefs is controversial. Prominent and influential doctors believe that the flu is worse for COVID, so they argue against vaccine for children.
There were at least 227 children who had died of carbon dioxide and one who had died of the flu. Doctors claim that the flu has been killing more children than chronic bronchitis since the beginning of the epidemic.
The five doctors were all praised in an article by Dr. Jeffrey Singer, which was published at the Orwellian-titled Reason Magazine. The denial that there are aspects of reality that are objective is one of the many tools that COVID-minimizing doctors can use.
I usually begin with several areas of agreement. Science must be open to new ideas if they are supported by evidence. Dr. Katalin Karik was a scientist who toiled in the shadows for years because she loved her work. Her work led to the creation of the vaccine. She needs to be supported.
I agree that people who ask legitimate questions and concerns about the vaccine should not be labeled as anti-vaxxers. I have said that we need to be on guard against bad faith.
We need to leave room for people to have good faith disagreements and questions without inappropriately smearing them as “anti-vaxxers”.
Dr. Fauci should not have been called the number one anti-vaxer because he didn't tell people two vaccine doses made them invulnerable to COVID.
I agree with Dr. Singer that we shouldn't tolerate nonsense. He spoke.
Openness to unconventional ideas has its limits. We don’t take flat‐earthers seriously. Nor should we lend credence to outlandish claims that COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility, implant people with microchips, or change their DNA.
I don't believe Dr. Singer believes in this. His thesis was that the five doctors were victims of a "priesthood" that suppressed pioneers like Ignaz Semmelweis. This is a bit of sophistry.
The persecution of brave, maverick doctors continues at the hands of an orthodoxy enforced by a priesthood. He said it.
Challenges to the priesthoods that claim to represent the “scientific consensus” have made them increasingly intolerant of new ideas… If anyone, expert or otherwise, questions the orthodoxy, they commit heresy. The result is groupthink, which undermines the scientific process.
He was angry with the people who were there.
Dismissed epidemiologists as “fringe” when those specialists dared to question the conventional wisdom.
Postmodernism is there.
Dr. Singer will reject this comparison. Let's be very clear about what he is talking about. He thinks that doctors who claim 33 is larger than 1,700 are just expressing new ideas and questioning the wisdom of the past. Wrong is not one of the things these doctors are.
Dr. Singer thinks that those who defend the idea that 1,700 is larger than 33 are just priests. The scientific process is undermined by our insistence that basic facts still matter. The belief that there are statements about reality that are objectively true or false is completely rejected in his essay. When it comes to doctors with stellar academic credentials, there is no truth, just opinions, and only people who engage in "groupthink" should be criticized.
It's true that all cranks talk this way, but they feel they're just expressing new ideas and questioning the "conventional wisdom". They claim to have been exiled by the medical establishment for their independence. Semmelweis will be in the pantheon of misunderstood genius because they bring them up. This is not a good genre.
What is Dr. Singer's opinion of thepriests? Is it possible that we stopped these doctors from influencing politicians or from making videos on the internet? Is there any threat that people we disagree with should be beheaded? It is absolutely true that not. Most of us are frontline healthcare workers and we know members of our profession have been attacked. The violence against healthcare workers horrifies us. Other doctors who are sheltered from the consequences of their words add fuel to the fire. Dr. Singer thinks these doctors need to be protected.
Dr. Singer feels that we shouldn't have criticized these doctors in the first place. He was not happy with one of Dr. Gorski's articles titled " The Great Barrington Declaration: COVID-19 Deniers Follow the Path laid Down by Creationists, HIV/AIDS Denialists, and Climate Science Deniers." There were no areas of disagreement or flaws in the article. He wasn't a fan of the title. That is the end. He was offended by the idea that anyone could disagree with a doctor because they wanted unvaccinated children to get cancer. Dr. Singer didn't have anything to say about SBM.
We now know what the priests are guilty of. They're guilty of speaking in a tone that's in bad taste. I talked about this technique here. According to Dr. Singer, Dr. Ioannidis was pilloried by the medical science priests and its supporters in the media. Dr. Singer was upset that Francis Collins, the director of the National Institute of Health, wanted to take down the Great Barrington Declaration.
According to Dr. Singer, famous, contrarian doctors should be immune from public criticism even if they say something they don't like. He doesn't seem to care that unvaccinated children have died and healthcare workers have been attacked. Doctors who posted pictures of guillotines and advocated exposing unvaccinated children to the virus were called "fringe" by other doctors. Our words made them feel bad.
He doesn't seem to have much respect for the doctors he defends. He feels that the entire world should be their safe space, since everyone gets a participation trophy. I don't agree. Doctors who publicly voice "heterodox" opinions have no right to immunity from "personal attacks by peers".
Our disagreements with these doctors are not personal, and they go beyond whether or not the flu is worse than Covid for children.
Our work is not the same as Dr. Singer's article. Many people have written volumes about their disagreements with these doctors. Dr. Singer didn't pay much attention to it. He either didn't know about them or deliberately avoided them to spare himself the effort of refuting them. He doesn't consider the priests to be valid critics of the "heretics" because he's enamored with his simplistic heroes and villains narrative. It is easier to throw around jeers of groupthink than it is to engage with them.
My articles detail how these doctors minimize the impact on kids. They claim that it is less harmful than the flu and that it is beneficial for society as a whole. School closings may diminish the chance of developing herd immunity in an age group that is spared serious disease. For children, getting sick and recovering is part of a natural and healthy life. More children were killed and hospitalized because of Omicron in the real world.
The doctors have downplayed the benefits and exaggerated the risks of vaccine for children. Many are anti-vaccine. The Ill-Advised Push to Vaccinate the Young was written by Dr. Kulldorff and Bhattacharya.
The idea that everyone must be vaccinated against COVID-19 is as misguided as the anti-vax idea that no one should. The former is more dangerous for public health.
Since that sentence was written, over 1,000 children have died and tens of thousands have been hospitalized. They argued that children should be left vulnerable to COVID because it's more dangerous for grandma. They said it was true.
While anyone can get infected, the old have a thousand-fold higher mortality risk than the young.
Multiple studies have shown that the vaccine is effective at limiting outcomes. Even though these doctors have written about the vaccine in books, you won't usually get any positive news from them. They complain that the vaccine wasn't studied in unethical trials of hundreds of thousands of children.
Another error by Dr. Singer has been revealed. Doctors aren't saying "new ideas" The anti-vaccine movement has been going on for a long time. Dr. Singer wants anti-vaccine doctors to not be criticized.
This isn't the way it used to be. Prior to the swine flu, a doctor who bashed the vaccine would be lumped in with other frauds. After a doctor mongered about a vaccine for the flu, Dr. Prasad was correct.
Wow, this quack is the head of an institute of an actual medical center?
Dr. Prasad believes that for a deadlier virus in 2022.
Any strong advocate for kid covid vaccination is off their rocker. It really doesn’t matter. The risks are super low.
This is not a challenge. In the pre-pandemic era, Dr. Prasad called vaccine-advocates psychotic and said "it really doesn't matter" that some children are affected by COVID. Someone who denies that there are objective, or absolute, moral values can pretend otherwise.
Dr. Singer has strange notions ofgatekeepers andheretics. He is correct that we reflect the medical consensus on vaccinations. Only a few heretics, with no real-world responsibility for sick children, see the data and conclude, "since 33 is larger than 1,700, unvaccinated kids should get COVID"
Doctors who treat sick children know that some of them have been devastated by the virus. They know the vaccine can limit these rare harms and so they want to protect their patients. We will have to live with his condemnation if he feels we are priests orgatekeepers because we support pediatricians. I will sleep well tonight because Dr. Prasad thinks I am off my rocker.
Though these heretics are a small group, this doesn't mean they aren't important people. They have had a lot of power. The doctors who were silenced helped set the policy for the country. The administration embraced herd immunity through mass infections. There is a science adviser there.
Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected…
The Department of Health in Florida is now anti-vaccine. In courts and before Congress, their testimony has been found to be unreliable. They are frequently quoted and published in the international media, reassuring everyone that the threat is overblown and the epidemic is over. Since the beginning of the Pandemic, a few have been on Fox News. Several have large social media followings, and they all make a lot of widely-seen YouTube videos. Except for hospitals, they've been everywhere.
Their ideas won. Only 2% of children under the age of 18 have been vaccineed. It is exactly what the doctors wanted. Dr. Singer should applaud the success of the children who have been hospitalized.
My articles are read by thousands of people and my requests to speak at their conferences have not been taken seriously. I don't advise presidents, and I can't just call up Florida's governor. I don't think Reason Magazine will amplify this article since they have my permission to publish it. It's silly to say that this modest website has been a gateway for these powerful doctors.
What else is Dr. Singer's article about? He demands we do exactly this despite the fact that he says we don't needdence. His entire article is dedicated to the premise that reality, knowledge, and value are constructed by discourse, and therefore, we must not call the claims crazy if they come from an icon of the movement for evidence based medicine.
He isn't right. There is no free pass for anyone.
Highly-credentialed doctors with who have published and critically reviewed hundreds of medical research papers are not obligated to give credence to claims like this. The year before and the year after the Pandemic shouldn't be taken seriously. We should not give credence to claims that the key to immunity is to allow COVID to run rampant in unvaccinated children. The claim that children should not bevaccinated because older people are more at risk is ridiculous. When unvaccinated children contract a Viruses that has killed 1,700 and hospitalized 140,000 of them, we shouldn't give credence to the claims that it's beneficial. Groupthink doesn't mean that children have the right to be protected against a potentially dangerous virus. Only a person who sees reality as a mental construct could claim otherwise.
I haven't seen a detailed defense of the claim that the flu is worse for children than COVID, nor have I seen why this belief implies that "COVID was overblown" When an effective vaccine is available, it's shameful that we casually accept so many child flu deaths.
I don't think the flu is worse for children than it is for adults. They have a difficult case to make. This is why they never mention the number of children who have been killed by the same disease again. Most people think that a virus that kills 1,700 children is worse than a virus that kills 33.
I share facts and defend my ideas. In the first place, I wrote " COVID-19 is Deadlier than the Flu for Children" I don't think my premises are sacred and I won't melt if someone calls me "fringe" I would love for one of these doctors to write an article titled "The Flu is Deadlier than COVID-19 for Children", as long as it explains why doctors should tolerate even a single unvaccinated child.
The article should be written since Dr. Singer thinks it's wrong to call these doctors wrong. He has a beginning.
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