Ralph welcomes Samuel Levine who heads the Bureau of Consumer Protection at the Federal Trade Commission to give you tips on how to use this government agency to protect yourself from corporate fraud and abuse.
As Carome said, the FDA looked at the trial data provided by Pfizer/Moderna which we now know was flawed and insufficient. Why in the world are our public health officials continuing this charade?
Carome also said "We quickly concluded that independent of the FDA and any corporations that these vaccines were highly effective and very safe… Since then, there have been hundreds of millions of doses received by hundreds of millions of people across the world and they really have prevented serious complications and probably prevented millions of deaths with some very limited and rare adverse effects." The track record of Public Citizen's Health Research Group is impeccable. For over fifty years. They have gotten over 25 really harmful drugs off the market. You believe what you want to believe.
You people are showing a complete lack of intellectual rigor on the topic of the "vaccines", really a shocking amount of dishonesty that you looked at the evidence and find them safe. Why not encourage a debate with many top scientists, doctors and former executives that have been with Pharma companies and have been sounding the alarm?
It's truly hard to be respectful of Ralph Nader's groups when you are blind and brainless when it comes to the "vaccines" as well as the dangerous and mutagenic anti-viral drugs.
Please review the science and even the peer reviewed papers that made it through the largely Pharma captured review boards.
How about you google how many countries have suspended or banned the shots? Including the US now. And as to the new bivalent, the trial data is so bad even the FDA itself admits it. Read this guy's column, maybe you'll learn something: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/peter-marks-of-fda-admits-he-did
And maybe the study of the bivalent was flawed but where is evidence of harm?
You're going to believe what you want to believe. I have no illusion that I'm going to convince you. But the info I trust comes from Public Citizen's Health Research Group who over 50 years has gotten over 25 truly dangerous drugs off the market. It's the reason historically we knew about the dangers of red dye #2 and toxic shock syndrome and Vioxx just to name a few. They get no government or corporate funding. They have a team of doctors and researchers that puts out a newsletter called Worst Pills/Best Pills with all the latest updated pharmaceutical info.
There's no evidence of widespread harm. If there is, why don't you google me that, because you know what really has caused a lot of harm? Covid 19
Wow. You got really worked up. I was sincere in hoping you’d learn something - like why countless expert voices opposing the official covid narrative who were continuously censored so-called conspiracy theorists has proven to be correct in almost every regard. re origin, transmission, efficacy, injury, natural immune, the list goes on. No doubt Covid did lots of damage in no small part by our government’s failed policies and pharma’s failed vaccine program. On that point ur right, I will not change my view.
A complete lack of real intellectual rigor and it just shows how biased you are and sold out to the corrupt Democratic Party because they are the least worst of the two on regulations! You were in complete denial on the risks the staggering federal budget deficts pose to the country; and by the way so far tax receipts are falling well below previous years.
We have a number of high IQ doctors and scientists who have been writing with real intellectual seriousness and honesty in the last couple years who had very little benefit by doing so. Many were censured, banned, shunned, unfriended by colleagues. These are not hillbillies or racists.
The most high profile lawyer on the vax and Pharma issues is Bobby Kennedy who has a long and illustrious history of fighting for environmental justice. I've never heard an inspiring message from a politician like he delivered last week in Boston. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLrVWmt_33g
I wish to share an anecdote about how FTC consumer protections helped curb corporate abuses in an area of interest to ole’ Klassik. As a music lover, I have quite a collection of music recordings and I also have some decent Hi-Fi equipment to play these recordings. Back in the early 1970s, when home Hi-Fi was the form of home entertainment for middle class American families, companies were producing expensive Hi-Fi equipment with dubious claims about their power output and distortion. I’m not sure if Mr. Nader had anything to do with this (it would be interesting to ask him about this), but the FTC enacted new testing procedures for amplifiers in 1974 to ensure advertising claims about amplifiers were consistent and relevant to the buying public. If the public bought a 100 watts-per-channel receiver as per the FTC standards, for example, the public knew they were getting an amplifier which could produce that kind of power reliably without a significant amount of distortion.
As opposed to all the typical corporate claims we hear about regulation stifling product choice for the public, the FTC cleaning up the Hi-Fi industry actually allowed the Hi-Fi industry to flourish throughout the rest of the 1970s. Companies produced amplifiers/receivers which were built robustly enough to meet the FTC’s standards and the public, armed with confidence in the products, were willing to spend a lot of money on Hi-Fi equipment. Amplifiers built in this era are highly valued even today and the products from the FTC era are considered to be from a ‘golden era’.
The FTC standards still exist for amplifiers, to the best of my knowledge, but what happened is that the FTC was slow to update their standards to meet new technology. The standards are still written for mostly 2-channel stereo amplifiers and not for the popular surround sound amplifiers. As a result, many modern surround sound amplifiers make bold, and often inaccurate statements, about power output and distortion just like the stereo amplifiers of the early 1970s. The reliability of these receivers are poor and it seems to me that the public has lost a great deal of faith in the products
Long story short, FTC standards and regulations can, and should, be applied to many other areas. Just as the FTC standards led to a ‘golden era’ of Hi-Fi for both the public and the Hi-Fi industry in the late 1970s, FTC standards can very well lead to broad benefits to society.
As for the part about Lina Khan, I’ve mentioned this before in the comments, but I think the RNRH staff would be wise to bring up the topic of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons supermarket merger and how the FTC should view this proposal. I know Public Citizen has taken a stance on this and I believe this topic is important to many, if not most, of the RNRH listeners as Kroger and Albertsons have many supermarkets across the country with their various banners (Ralphs, Vons, Pavilions, Dillons, Fred Meyer, Randalls, Safeway, etc.) and they are also major employers in the US. Even people not typically interested in politics are interested in saving their supermarkets and their related pharmacies.
On a final note, I’m looking forward to the RNRH episode about sporting issues next week. There should be no shortage of topics to discuss on that show!
That word "probably" is concerning, coming from Carome in his comment about the mRNA injections. As is "really have". Not very scientific to my mind. Just wild and desperately hopeful assertions. Covid was never ever going to get the majority of the population anyway, so any purported prophylactics can't piggyback on those stats. The IFR has pretty much supported what Ionnadis extrapolated right from the get-go - not much worse than your average flu season (which strangely disappeared over this time, incidentally). The susceptible groupings got hammered either way - the very old and morbidly ill and unhealthy. Whether mortality was front-loaded in those countries that weren't able to close up or isolate themselves at the start, or whether it came for them eventually, it still ran its course, because you can't keep people cloistered indefinitely. Adverse side effects are also starting to be acknowledged (notably Lauterbach in Germany).
We are mortal beings. We have forgotten that. If people want to brandish amulets and charms against the Grim Reaper - and these injectables are no more than that, to my mind - then that's entirely up to them. Each must be permitted to face the prospect of death in their own way, or to ward it off as best they can for as long as they can. And each must be able to choose their path of health in their own way as well. We are still sovereign beings imbued with the inalienable right to bodily autonomy. It's great that there are organisations that look out for the public health and try to identify and regulate harmful products, but their reach and influence stops at my skin and my cells. I get to decide what enters my blood and my body, nobody else.
I haven't read all the comments below, nor anything close to the entirety of the debate/controversy/whatever on vaccines, but as Steve says we live in scary times in which it is not easy to know whom to believe. I have suggested this before to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour on a topic I can't remember (might have been Russiagate) but not enough podcasts have experts or exponents who disagree on a controversial topic AT THE SAME TIME challenging each other. The Munk Debates does this well, albeit I think the range of its guests on "both sides" of an issue sometimes comes up short and they're too pretentiously "civilized". I think the Nader Hour should do this too, at least occasionally, outlawing interruptions, and with the moderators requiring as best they can the parties to respond to each other's standing propositions without evading them. This will have to become more of the paradigm in general if we are to counteract the separation of opinions into the mutually exclusive opposed camps that we so often deplore.
Why not interview the CT attorney general on their efforts to protect consumers?
I have successfully filed complaints with them and have gotten many successful consumer oriented issues resolved such as with shipping companies not honoring their insurance.
Also something as seemingly insignificant as a pair of sneakers I got at Walmart falling apart within weeks I was able to seek recourse on. I filed with the state department of consumer affairs and got contacted by Walmart corporate in Little Rock and the local manager contacted me to refund me and give me a gift card with extra money for my trouble. Other states where I have filed are far less amenable to helping consumers claiming that commerce is full of risks.
You should interview MP Bridgen (UK) and Dr. John Campbell. Carome is wrong about the cov1d vaxes. The UK no longer recommends these unsafe/experimental vaxs for COVID except to those above 70+ years. They are not safe; have never been tested adequately; and do not prevent anything. the US is the most heavily corporate propagandized nation IN THE WORLD. The MSM is totally corporate owned and operated and censorship is rampant. Whatever happened to the First amendment and Free speech? You must be aware of this? https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=740923287502522&external_log_id=ba73ca69-f0b9-4e9d-aa19-010ebb019831&q=Dr.%20John%20Campbell
You say "The UK no longer recommends these unsafe/experimental vaxs for COVID except to those above 70+ years." A quick search of the NHS website reveals this statement: "COVID-19 vaccination is safe and effective. It gives you the best protection against COVID-19." (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/covid-19/covid-19-vaccination/about-covid-19-vaccination/)
You want me to put my faith in a right wing British MP, who was recently sanctioned by The House of Commons for according to the BBC "failing to declare his financial interests in Mere Plantations when writing to ministers about the company. The Cheshire-based firm had donated money to Mr Bridgen's local party and funded a trip to Ghana. The cross-party group of MPs also described Mr Bridgen's letter to Kathryn Stone - who has since left the post of standards commissioner - as an "unacceptable attack". Mr Bridgen currently sits as an independent MP after being suspended from the Conservative Party in Parliament for posting a tweet that compared vaccines to the Holocaust." He sounds like the Marjorie Taylor Greene of the UK.
You offer no evidence, no studies, only links to a sketchy politician and retired nurse with a YouTube channel, neither of whom offer evidence. You make false statements about the British health system that you could easily have looked up yourself instead of making me do it.
Meanwhile you discount the actual doctors and researchers at the premier public interest organization in the U.S., Public Citizen, who for fifty years has a stellar track record going up against the FDA and Big Pharma. No corporate funding. Has gotten over 25 truly harmful drugs off the market. For 30 years they have been putting out a newsletter Worst Pills/Best Pills with the latest up to date information on all sorts of drugs and medications.
We live in scary times and it's hard to know who to trust. You have every right to be scared. We all are. But you do yourself and anyone eles no favors spreading this misinformation. You can start by putting your faith in the right people. The good news is you're here. You're in the right place.
Ralph Nader's Public Citizen representatives here are the blind leading the blind when it comes to the pandemic. Historically you people were on the side of those who should have a right to sue when injured, right? And we have well into the six figures in vaccine injuries and deaths in the federal VAERS system, and they have only paid out petty amounts at this point? The good news is that the shielding from liabilities will end on May 11 when the incompetent Biden administration lifts the pandemic officially finally. Biden voted against that as well as Senator Blumenthal, though the vast majority of Americans wanted this over a long time ago!
Why not read serious science writers, for once, such as Alex Berenson's substack, Dr. Peter McCullough, Igor Chudov. They all heavily document their assertions with footnotes. You folks would not debate very well with them from all indications with your left-wing bigotry! You are very closed-minded!
This is not really related to the topic of Covid-19 vaccines, but it is an interesting case of comparative health policies so I will mention it here. The US, at least those who have health insurance, essentially have access to universally available seasonal flu vaccinations. It might be assumed by those in the US that the rest of the western world has similar standards, but such is not the case. In most of Europe, if not all of Europe, only senior citizens and those with elevated risk factors are eligible for free flu vaccines even with the WHO recommending universal flu vaccination. Canadian provinces, minus Quebec, have recently moved towards universally-available flu vaccination and this comes from government funding.
Ideally, in my opinion, the US government should increase funding for truly universal flu vaccines for the US public so that it is not reliant on private insurance. That said, I think the general US culture of universal flu vaccines is a good thing and I think those in Europe, and Quebec, should use the US as an example and request their neoliberal governments increase funding to cover universal flu vaccines. Of course, I suspect most Europeans are not aware of US policies and culture on this subject just as most Americans are not aware of European policies in this area.
I’ve heard arguments from Europeans, supposedly leftist ones, that universally-available (in other words, optional but available for anyone who wants one) flu vaccines are not necessary and that government should mandate fair sick time allowances instead. I find this to be a preposterous argument here in the 2020s. Flu vaccines are inexpensive and easy to administer here in modern times. The public should have the option to easily reduce the chances of getting illnesses which are easily preventable to some degree. There are plenty of reasons to support favorable labor laws regarding sick time for the sake of not-so-easily preventable illnesses which almost everyone will get at some point. Furthermore, the public health situation should be made better for vulnerable populations and for children so that they do not miss instruction time at school.
As Carome said, the FDA looked at the trial data provided by Pfizer/Moderna which we now know was flawed and insufficient. Why in the world are our public health officials continuing this charade?
Carome also said "We quickly concluded that independent of the FDA and any corporations that these vaccines were highly effective and very safe… Since then, there have been hundreds of millions of doses received by hundreds of millions of people across the world and they really have prevented serious complications and probably prevented millions of deaths with some very limited and rare adverse effects." The track record of Public Citizen's Health Research Group is impeccable. For over fifty years. They have gotten over 25 really harmful drugs off the market. You believe what you want to believe.
You people are showing a complete lack of intellectual rigor on the topic of the "vaccines", really a shocking amount of dishonesty that you looked at the evidence and find them safe. Why not encourage a debate with many top scientists, doctors and former executives that have been with Pharma companies and have been sounding the alarm?
It's truly hard to be respectful of Ralph Nader's groups when you are blind and brainless when it comes to the "vaccines" as well as the dangerous and mutagenic anti-viral drugs.
Please review the science and even the peer reviewed papers that made it through the largely Pharma captured review boards.
https://igorchudov.substack.com/
https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/
https://alexberenson.substack.com/
And your evidence is...?
How about you google how many countries have suspended or banned the shots? Including the US now. And as to the new bivalent, the trial data is so bad even the FDA itself admits it. Read this guy's column, maybe you'll learn something: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/peter-marks-of-fda-admits-he-did
First of all, your condescending "maybe you'll learn something" attitude is quite off putting. And I did google how many countries have banned the vaccine, and the results in no way support your superior attitude. A number of countries in 2021 "suspended" use in younger people. That's it. All the other claims of bans were fact-checked as "false." https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-europe-moderna/fact-check-some-european-countries-halted-moderna-covid-19-vaccines-for-young-people-idUSL1N2RE22K
https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-has-sweden-denmark-norway-iceland-banned-moderna-vaccine-1638563
https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/vaccines-verify/fda-did-not-ban-pfizer-moderna-covid-vaccines-with-authorizaton-change/536-140a2ca0-f96f-46f3-a2ed-23f0d2faa555
And maybe the study of the bivalent was flawed but where is evidence of harm?
You're going to believe what you want to believe. I have no illusion that I'm going to convince you. But the info I trust comes from Public Citizen's Health Research Group who over 50 years has gotten over 25 truly dangerous drugs off the market. It's the reason historically we knew about the dangers of red dye #2 and toxic shock syndrome and Vioxx just to name a few. They get no government or corporate funding. They have a team of doctors and researchers that puts out a newsletter called Worst Pills/Best Pills with all the latest updated pharmaceutical info.
There's no evidence of widespread harm. If there is, why don't you google me that, because you know what really has caused a lot of harm? Covid 19
Wow. You got really worked up. I was sincere in hoping you’d learn something - like why countless expert voices opposing the official covid narrative who were continuously censored so-called conspiracy theorists has proven to be correct in almost every regard. re origin, transmission, efficacy, injury, natural immune, the list goes on. No doubt Covid did lots of damage in no small part by our government’s failed policies and pharma’s failed vaccine program. On that point ur right, I will not change my view.
And you've offered nothing but generalities. No effects. No numbers. Just "countless expert voices" Vaccines aren't the problem. Covid is.
Here's another top doctor who has been writing on this top for years now!
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=substack_profile
A complete lack of real intellectual rigor and it just shows how biased you are and sold out to the corrupt Democratic Party because they are the least worst of the two on regulations! You were in complete denial on the risks the staggering federal budget deficts pose to the country; and by the way so far tax receipts are falling well below previous years.
We have a number of high IQ doctors and scientists who have been writing with real intellectual seriousness and honesty in the last couple years who had very little benefit by doing so. Many were censured, banned, shunned, unfriended by colleagues. These are not hillbillies or racists.
The most high profile lawyer on the vax and Pharma issues is Bobby Kennedy who has a long and illustrious history of fighting for environmental justice. I've never heard an inspiring message from a politician like he delivered last week in Boston. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLrVWmt_33g
I wish to share an anecdote about how FTC consumer protections helped curb corporate abuses in an area of interest to ole’ Klassik. As a music lover, I have quite a collection of music recordings and I also have some decent Hi-Fi equipment to play these recordings. Back in the early 1970s, when home Hi-Fi was the form of home entertainment for middle class American families, companies were producing expensive Hi-Fi equipment with dubious claims about their power output and distortion. I’m not sure if Mr. Nader had anything to do with this (it would be interesting to ask him about this), but the FTC enacted new testing procedures for amplifiers in 1974 to ensure advertising claims about amplifiers were consistent and relevant to the buying public. If the public bought a 100 watts-per-channel receiver as per the FTC standards, for example, the public knew they were getting an amplifier which could produce that kind of power reliably without a significant amount of distortion.
As opposed to all the typical corporate claims we hear about regulation stifling product choice for the public, the FTC cleaning up the Hi-Fi industry actually allowed the Hi-Fi industry to flourish throughout the rest of the 1970s. Companies produced amplifiers/receivers which were built robustly enough to meet the FTC’s standards and the public, armed with confidence in the products, were willing to spend a lot of money on Hi-Fi equipment. Amplifiers built in this era are highly valued even today and the products from the FTC era are considered to be from a ‘golden era’.
The FTC standards still exist for amplifiers, to the best of my knowledge, but what happened is that the FTC was slow to update their standards to meet new technology. The standards are still written for mostly 2-channel stereo amplifiers and not for the popular surround sound amplifiers. As a result, many modern surround sound amplifiers make bold, and often inaccurate statements, about power output and distortion just like the stereo amplifiers of the early 1970s. The reliability of these receivers are poor and it seems to me that the public has lost a great deal of faith in the products
I know that the FTC has solicited feedback about updating and even possibly eliminating the FTC amplifier standards. In fact, this FTC press release about amplifiers even directly quotes Mr. Levine: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/07/ftc-seeks-public-comment-amplifier-rule-amendments-make-testing-methods-more-useful-consumers
Long story short, FTC standards and regulations can, and should, be applied to many other areas. Just as the FTC standards led to a ‘golden era’ of Hi-Fi for both the public and the Hi-Fi industry in the late 1970s, FTC standards can very well lead to broad benefits to society.
Here’s another article about the amplifier FTC standards and why they are important for those interested in reading about it: https://www.audioholics.com/audio-amplifier/ftc-amplifier-rule-help-protect-home-audio-consumers-today
As for the part about Lina Khan, I’ve mentioned this before in the comments, but I think the RNRH staff would be wise to bring up the topic of the proposed Kroger-Albertsons supermarket merger and how the FTC should view this proposal. I know Public Citizen has taken a stance on this and I believe this topic is important to many, if not most, of the RNRH listeners as Kroger and Albertsons have many supermarkets across the country with their various banners (Ralphs, Vons, Pavilions, Dillons, Fred Meyer, Randalls, Safeway, etc.) and they are also major employers in the US. Even people not typically interested in politics are interested in saving their supermarkets and their related pharmacies.
On a final note, I’m looking forward to the RNRH episode about sporting issues next week. There should be no shortage of topics to discuss on that show!
That word "probably" is concerning, coming from Carome in his comment about the mRNA injections. As is "really have". Not very scientific to my mind. Just wild and desperately hopeful assertions. Covid was never ever going to get the majority of the population anyway, so any purported prophylactics can't piggyback on those stats. The IFR has pretty much supported what Ionnadis extrapolated right from the get-go - not much worse than your average flu season (which strangely disappeared over this time, incidentally). The susceptible groupings got hammered either way - the very old and morbidly ill and unhealthy. Whether mortality was front-loaded in those countries that weren't able to close up or isolate themselves at the start, or whether it came for them eventually, it still ran its course, because you can't keep people cloistered indefinitely. Adverse side effects are also starting to be acknowledged (notably Lauterbach in Germany).
We are mortal beings. We have forgotten that. If people want to brandish amulets and charms against the Grim Reaper - and these injectables are no more than that, to my mind - then that's entirely up to them. Each must be permitted to face the prospect of death in their own way, or to ward it off as best they can for as long as they can. And each must be able to choose their path of health in their own way as well. We are still sovereign beings imbued with the inalienable right to bodily autonomy. It's great that there are organisations that look out for the public health and try to identify and regulate harmful products, but their reach and influence stops at my skin and my cells. I get to decide what enters my blood and my body, nobody else.
Regarding problems with medical devices, have organizations representing various physicians made statements concerning medical devices?
I haven't read all the comments below, nor anything close to the entirety of the debate/controversy/whatever on vaccines, but as Steve says we live in scary times in which it is not easy to know whom to believe. I have suggested this before to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour on a topic I can't remember (might have been Russiagate) but not enough podcasts have experts or exponents who disagree on a controversial topic AT THE SAME TIME challenging each other. The Munk Debates does this well, albeit I think the range of its guests on "both sides" of an issue sometimes comes up short and they're too pretentiously "civilized". I think the Nader Hour should do this too, at least occasionally, outlawing interruptions, and with the moderators requiring as best they can the parties to respond to each other's standing propositions without evading them. This will have to become more of the paradigm in general if we are to counteract the separation of opinions into the mutually exclusive opposed camps that we so often deplore.
Why not interview the CT attorney general on their efforts to protect consumers?
I have successfully filed complaints with them and have gotten many successful consumer oriented issues resolved such as with shipping companies not honoring their insurance.
Also something as seemingly insignificant as a pair of sneakers I got at Walmart falling apart within weeks I was able to seek recourse on. I filed with the state department of consumer affairs and got contacted by Walmart corporate in Little Rock and the local manager contacted me to refund me and give me a gift card with extra money for my trouble. Other states where I have filed are far less amenable to helping consumers claiming that commerce is full of risks.
More up to date information from MP Bridgen and Dr. Campbell. https://youtu.be/GkhjH2ySMUw
You should interview MP Bridgen (UK) and Dr. John Campbell. Carome is wrong about the cov1d vaxes. The UK no longer recommends these unsafe/experimental vaxs for COVID except to those above 70+ years. They are not safe; have never been tested adequately; and do not prevent anything. the US is the most heavily corporate propagandized nation IN THE WORLD. The MSM is totally corporate owned and operated and censorship is rampant. Whatever happened to the First amendment and Free speech? You must be aware of this? https://www.facebook.com/watch/?ref=search&v=740923287502522&external_log_id=ba73ca69-f0b9-4e9d-aa19-010ebb019831&q=Dr.%20John%20Campbell
You say "The UK no longer recommends these unsafe/experimental vaxs for COVID except to those above 70+ years." A quick search of the NHS website reveals this statement: "COVID-19 vaccination is safe and effective. It gives you the best protection against COVID-19." (https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/covid-19/covid-19-vaccination/about-covid-19-vaccination/)
You want me to put my faith in a right wing British MP, who was recently sanctioned by The House of Commons for according to the BBC "failing to declare his financial interests in Mere Plantations when writing to ministers about the company. The Cheshire-based firm had donated money to Mr Bridgen's local party and funded a trip to Ghana. The cross-party group of MPs also described Mr Bridgen's letter to Kathryn Stone - who has since left the post of standards commissioner - as an "unacceptable attack". Mr Bridgen currently sits as an independent MP after being suspended from the Conservative Party in Parliament for posting a tweet that compared vaccines to the Holocaust." He sounds like the Marjorie Taylor Greene of the UK.
You want me to believe a retired "nurse educator" who makes money stoking Covid fear on his YouTube channel and whose claims about vaccine harms and ivermectin have been debunked (for example) https://fullfact.org/health/john-campbell-youtube-singapore-children/)
You offer no evidence, no studies, only links to a sketchy politician and retired nurse with a YouTube channel, neither of whom offer evidence. You make false statements about the British health system that you could easily have looked up yourself instead of making me do it.
Meanwhile you discount the actual doctors and researchers at the premier public interest organization in the U.S., Public Citizen, who for fifty years has a stellar track record going up against the FDA and Big Pharma. No corporate funding. Has gotten over 25 truly harmful drugs off the market. For 30 years they have been putting out a newsletter Worst Pills/Best Pills with the latest up to date information on all sorts of drugs and medications.
We live in scary times and it's hard to know who to trust. You have every right to be scared. We all are. But you do yourself and anyone eles no favors spreading this misinformation. You can start by putting your faith in the right people. The good news is you're here. You're in the right place.
Ralph Nader's Public Citizen representatives here are the blind leading the blind when it comes to the pandemic. Historically you people were on the side of those who should have a right to sue when injured, right? And we have well into the six figures in vaccine injuries and deaths in the federal VAERS system, and they have only paid out petty amounts at this point? The good news is that the shielding from liabilities will end on May 11 when the incompetent Biden administration lifts the pandemic officially finally. Biden voted against that as well as Senator Blumenthal, though the vast majority of Americans wanted this over a long time ago!
Why not read serious science writers, for once, such as Alex Berenson's substack, Dr. Peter McCullough, Igor Chudov. They all heavily document their assertions with footnotes. You folks would not debate very well with them from all indications with your left-wing bigotry! You are very closed-minded!
J and Steve,
I am also rather bamboozled by this statement: "The UK no longer recommends these unsafe/experimental vaxs for COVID except to those above 70+ years."
In addition to the NHS link Steve provided, the NHS also makes it clear that all adults in the UK are eligible for various Covid-19 vaccines (including the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines popular in the US) and that UK citizens “should get them as soon as possible.” Link: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/covid-19/covid-19-vaccination/getting-a-1st-and-2nd-dose-of-the-covid-19-vaccine/
This is not really related to the topic of Covid-19 vaccines, but it is an interesting case of comparative health policies so I will mention it here. The US, at least those who have health insurance, essentially have access to universally available seasonal flu vaccinations. It might be assumed by those in the US that the rest of the western world has similar standards, but such is not the case. In most of Europe, if not all of Europe, only senior citizens and those with elevated risk factors are eligible for free flu vaccines even with the WHO recommending universal flu vaccination. Canadian provinces, minus Quebec, have recently moved towards universally-available flu vaccination and this comes from government funding.
Ideally, in my opinion, the US government should increase funding for truly universal flu vaccines for the US public so that it is not reliant on private insurance. That said, I think the general US culture of universal flu vaccines is a good thing and I think those in Europe, and Quebec, should use the US as an example and request their neoliberal governments increase funding to cover universal flu vaccines. Of course, I suspect most Europeans are not aware of US policies and culture on this subject just as most Americans are not aware of European policies in this area.
I’ve heard arguments from Europeans, supposedly leftist ones, that universally-available (in other words, optional but available for anyone who wants one) flu vaccines are not necessary and that government should mandate fair sick time allowances instead. I find this to be a preposterous argument here in the 2020s. Flu vaccines are inexpensive and easy to administer here in modern times. The public should have the option to easily reduce the chances of getting illnesses which are easily preventable to some degree. There are plenty of reasons to support favorable labor laws regarding sick time for the sake of not-so-easily preventable illnesses which almost everyone will get at some point. Furthermore, the public health situation should be made better for vulnerable populations and for children so that they do not miss instruction time at school.