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who seem to have tossed aside all caution and critical thinking when it comes to medical interventions that get labeled “vaccines.”

So... this is an antivax substack?

(I think this is being taken as a glib dunk, but I'm really asking: is there a way to write that sentence and not be an antivax person? "The mRNA vaccines are not really vaccines because they're not sterilizing", or something like that, is a core antivax talking point.)



I read through a few paragraphs of weird rants before I gave up. No mention of the cdc from what I saw there.


Huh? I see CDC mentioned 26 times.


The link was changed to a different post on the same substack.


Is there no middle ground between being pro-vax and anti-vax? What about vax skeptical or vax agnostic? Seems to me that anti-vax definition is overally broad for its highly negative connotations.


There's a ton of middle ground. I'm just suggesting this substack does not appear to occupy any of it.


I don't even see the quote you claim comes from the article. What I read in the article is about conflicts of interest between media and federal bureaucracy, a problem regardless of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.


Presumably you don't see the direct quote I made from the article because Dan changed this story to point to a different article, on the same site.


I would theoretically posit "maybe".

However in real world, it has been my positively overwhelming experience that "vax skeptic" is anti-vax but clever enough to try to hide it, and take the spiteful stance of "I'm not saying anything, I'm just asking (extremely leading questions with clear strong agenda)".

If true legit "vaccination skeptics" exist who somehow, have not found over abundance of data to make up their mind but still feel they have interesting opinion to share, they are low enough of a percentage to be safe to assume against.

I would put it similarly to "round-earth agnostic". If in 2022 you have not made up your mind yet on whether Earth is round - what are you waiting for? What criteria or info do you feel is outstanding? How are you meaningfully differentiating yourself from flat-earther-in-disguise?

This is not to say that questions should not be asked or that debate is not healthy and necessary and that we should take things on faith. But it's hard to convincingly be vaccination-undecided in 2022 - it feels like it would take large amount of effort and possibly some internal naivette.

Put it in a different way - the default scientific consensus is "vaccines save lives". It's what you're taught in schools and repeatedly told by all reliable medical personnel across governments and countries and continents and religions. It feels like it takes some substantial amount of effort to get yourself into "vaccination skeptic / agnostic" realm, which I would not consider the neutral stance on this topic.

My 100 Croatian lipa :)


There are different classes of vaccine, I can be convinced of some while holding skeptical views towards others.


Sure, but I personally wouldn't call that "vaccine (in general sense) skepticism".

I would be surprised if anybody took a completely blanket approach that every vaccine ever made for any purpose under every circumstance is a Good Thing(tm) and totally worked out.


It's an interesting question because almost every single person I've met who is against the mRNA vaccines has all of their other vaccinations and if they have kids, they do too. So why are we calling people like that antivax?

That's like saying anybody who is nervous around pitbulls hates dogs.


No. Someone else asked if there wasn't some middle ground between absolute reverence for the new vaccines and "anti-vax". And, indeed there is. But you're not occupying it when you're calling them, in effect, "so-called vaccines".


>But you're not occupying it when you're calling them, in effect, "so-called vaccines".

Can I ask why you're using quotes for something I never said?

Follow up question, why do you suppose this sort of dishonesty is needed to make your point if the truth is on your side?


I'm not quoting anybody ("in effect"), and, in particular, wasn't talking about anything you said. I'm talking about the article author (the "you" in my sentence above). Dial it back. You asked me a question, and I answered it. This is in the guidelines: assume good faith.


OK, maybe I read your response wrong. But then the response doesn't really follow. The main argument against the mRNA vaccine was in fact the lack of long term testing. Now we know they were right because Pfizer has acknowledged never having tested against transmission, which was really the stated goal of mandates.

So the people you're calling antivax aren't actually antivax. They were anti-mandate, and with good reason as it turns out.


No, that's not the main argument here. You're responding to me, not the other way around, and the point I made is that this post implies that the mRNA vaccines aren't even vaccines. That's a pure anti-vax talking point. It isn't part of the middle ground.


Not really. Every other vaccine has been tested to determine how it impacts transmission. Except this one. So yes, it's different.


No, that's not true in any sense.




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