The Playground

    On abortion rights - well surely it's up to the women to choose what they do with their vaginas? If a teenage girl is raped, for instance, surely she should be naturally advised by her GP to have an abortion. With all the political decisions above each case has to be viewed and treated individually. With an out-dated written constitution the US has far fewer degrees of freedom than the UK where, ultimately, our moral compass is steered by a God-given Monarchy. So God Save the Queen on her 70'th year in power!

    Quote from Dr Richard*

    our moral compass is steered by a God-given Monarchy

    Absolutely. In the Uk we believe fervently that God gave our royal family the right to rule over us, and control our moral debate.


    Are you sure? It works well with QE II who has always absolutely avoided these political controversies. Not so much her more opinionated and less wise children.


    The real advantage of a monarchy is at least when you get a clown as political leader you still have a head of state everyone can respect.

    And as a postscript I should also point out that Boris has much in common with Zelensky both having a good sense of humour. Which is what exactly both the UK and Ukraine need to propel us from the depressingly dark side of this war. Churchillian politics is now needed, even though both my wife and I voted for Jeremy Corbyn (Labour-far left) at the last general election. Times have changed, now we all need to band together to fight for our freedom and democracy - by any means because the gloves are off!

    Just to be contrarian - and since this is the Playground - I think the politics of science - that is how science is (unjustly) used by political ideologies to score points - is entirely on topic. After all the prevalent antivaxxer strand of posting here does exactly that, as do mods posting as Shane D.


    If you can't distinguish when this is happening you end up viewing science as political in ways it does not have to be.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    And in a rational debate the evidence on that balance needs to be considered - in all cases you need experts (who will argue) to determine what it is - if you care about anything other than going with your gut feeling or your tribe.

    The rest of your post was all over the political map, and in the spirit of focusing only on the science and political aspects of the pandemic, I will comment only on the above:


    There is now study after study showing the so called "experts" were wrong at almost every step of the way. In the article I posted earlier The COVID Cult Did Lasting Damage to Our Kids - Tablet Magazine the author concentrates on how they got it so terribly wrong with our children. We will live the consequences for many years to come.


    Oh, the "science" was there from the very beginning that our children should be left alone and protected from this great social experiment we were subjected to, but it was ignored, buried, or it's proponents threatened, scorned, and in some cases ruined by the policy makers and politicians. All with the help and endorsement of those leaders in the health care science community.


    It sounds as if you did not actually read the article, so you might take a few minutes to do so. This one comment sums it up best:


    But to many doctors and scientists, the damage to kids caused by COVID-19 panic was neither inevitable nor surprising. Rather, it was the result of the public health establishment’s conscious choice to eschew rational cost-benefit analysis in favor of pet cultural theories and political gamesmanship. For those who applied the scientific method to the available evidence, the consequences were already clear just a few weeks into the pandemic.

    Quote from Shane D.

    There is now study after study showing the so called "experts" were wrong at almost every step of the way. In the article I posted earlier The COVID Cult Did Lasting Damage to Our Kids - Tablet Magazine the author concentrates on how they got it so terribly wrong with our children. We will live the consequences for many years to come.

    Your link does not show that "the experts were wrong".


    It shows that (politically) - and yet again - mental health is being given less political priority than other health consequences in society.


    No Western democracy has prioritised children's health above all other things - the article you quote makes the correct point that the mental health of children was definitely poor during lockdowns - for many obvious reasons. The headline is political - no scientist could claim that - we do not yet know "long term" for those children. People are infinitely adaptable and adversity, or delayed development, can have both positive and negative effects.


    Mental health is particularly underfunded and neglected - not least because in the US everyone outside the field is suspicious that the mental health establishment itself is overdiagnosing. And maybe they are - but I have to say i do not know. I think the problem is more that in the US health is seen as "healthy" or "unhealthy" - and unuseful black and white distinction.


    I'm not arguing on balance that lockdowns were good for children. Personally I am an outlier thinking we should always put much more money and intervention into all aspects of early years support. Most of societies ills come from children brought up with bad schools, bad homes - and most of the time the badness comes from lack of resources (not juts financial resources, but including that) to deal with difficult problems. So I'm in favour, broadly, of prioritising young children having better care over old people having better care. But it is a moral and political choice, and a difficult one.


    I stand by what I say. Science is easily weaponised by those with a political agenda - and Shane D. argues for this.


    Don't blame the experts. You can find any opinion you like from experts and I don't notice any of these political links doing a full literature survey in order to determine the consensus of opinion amongst experts.


    The complaints are about public health actions - those are political. Shane conflated "public health establishment" with "experts". Why?


    I believe he is taken in by a modern tendency to conflate politics and science and therefore view all scientific expert advice as being essentially unreliable. That is wrong, and the people who do it have a political agenda.


    THH


    PS - while I'm all for cost-benefit analysis myself - and agree it was not done politically in this case - I can see why politicians don't get elected (or appointed by other politicians) if they run on a platform of "we will make health decisions based on strict cost-benefit analysis". People do not vote for it, and popular campaigns seldom align with that. If they did, we would have much more money spent on prevention of crime, and less on prosecution of crime.

    Quote from THHuxleynew

    Note that people who take Vit D supplements may be healthier on average than others - that is not the same as saying that if you are given Vit D supplements it makes you healthier.

    Up until around the year 2010 it was widely believed that calcium and/or vitamin D help prevent colon cancer. Many doctors recommended people take them after they had polyps removed with colonoscopies. The Emory University Medical School and others cooperated in a multi-year study of middle aged people to see whether this is true or not. It went on for years. They had thousands of patients of all different ethnicities, income levels, and different states and cities. I was one of them. I had to undergo a painful procedure every few years, for which they paid me $50. The lady doctor who administered it said, "The biggest risk factor here is that we might accidently bill you." They called me every 6 months to ask what I was eating, and whether I had cancer.


    Anyway, it turned out that calcium alone, vitamin D alone, or the two combined in one pill had no measurable effect. No different from the placebo pill. That was a large study, so it probably was significant. Correlation may not equal causation, but when it don't work and there is no correlation, that is solid proof there is no causation.

    Anyone had any idea what this is all about,,

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    even if its off the wall... any idea?

    Isn't the change in Schumann Resonance linked to atom-smashing at CERN? Or is it the Solar Minimum (lack of sunspot activity)? Changing the magnetosphere in measurable ways, but to most operators is only registered by changes in animals (including humans and dogs) behaviour? Like he says in the video, we are the experimental animals, and such changes are capable of changing not only the present but also the future.

    Large Israeli Real-World Study: Pfizer’s Paxlovid Benefits Ages 65+ but not Those Between the Ages of 40-64


    Large Israeli Real-World Study: Pfizer’s Paxlovid Benefits Ages 65+ but not Those Between the Ages of 40-64
    In what some critics may find a troubling finding if validated via the peer review process, the large Israeli health maintenance organization Clalit Health…
    www.trialsitenews.com


    In what some critics may find a troubling finding if validated via the peer review process, the large Israeli health maintenance organization Clalit Health Services recently found that the Pfizer antiviral drug Paxlovid may not deliver the benefits marketed for younger at-risk populations. The study results, uploaded in ResearchSquare, suggest people under the age of 65 may have worse mortality outcomes if they take Paxlovid, suggesting caution should be imposed on age recommendations if shown to be the case via the peer review process. The Israeli real-world data does indicate a significant benefit to at-risk elderly against COVID-19.


    An antiviral combination medication including ritonavir and nirmatrelvir, an active 3C-like protease inhibitor, Paxlovid has been pushed aggressively by the Biden administration as a way to protect at-risk populations across the United States.


    Published in the preprint server, the Israeli real-world study included findings from nearly 110,000 participant records.


    Local media 7 Israel National News reported that the new study was “based on 109,213 participants who were eligible for Paxlovid treatment (high-risk and with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection), 3,939 of whom chose to be treated with Paxlovid. While those over the age of 65 did appear to benefit from the course of treatment, those under 65 did not, and data regarding mortality even suggests that Paxlovid was detrimental to these people..."


    Pfizer's Paxlovid reduces COVID risk in seniors regardless of vaccine status -study
    Pfizer Inc's antiviral treatment Paxlovid reduces COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates in vaccinated and unvaccinated patients 65 years and older,…
    www.reuters.com

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