09-04-2020, 02:24 PM
(09-04-2020, 01:36 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(09-03-2020, 12:29 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(09-03-2020, 10:30 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(09-03-2020, 05:45 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The AP is reporting that the US health agencies are getting ready to release a vaccine just before the election. There is conjecture that this is a political decision, that Trump's political people so much want a miracle to happen, for the bug to just go away, that they are going to override the medical people.
The medical profession and (due to vulnerability from lawsuits) pharmaceutical industry insist upon "safe and effective" treatments. The politicians who know about as much about medicine and medical research as they know about quantum mechanics (usually nothing) may insist upon pushing miracles. (It may be surprising, but some of the most advanced medical activity is in veterinary care).
Good administrative techniques could have done far more good than any questionable miracles. Rushed vaccines and medications are ordinarily worthless or inexcusably harmful. We know Trump's record on many things: he is one of the biggest poseurs ever, and poseurs rarely get good results.
I've heard there's several vaccines that are very promising that were entering their final phase of testing about a month ago and the federal government had placed a massive order as well. I don't know if the Democratic party and all their media outlets wanted you to know that or not at the time or at this point either and prefers to keep its voters out of the loop for personal/political reasons of its own. Why are you guys so deaf, dumb and blind and seem so aloof and out of the loop when it comes to knowledge of important information that relates to an issue that scares Democratic voters and empowers Democratic regimes so much these days.
It seems to me that a lot of the same folks who defy orders to social distance and wear masks and who go to protest rallies against shutdowns are also those who deny the safety and effectiveness of all vaccines, and will refuse to take them. And they are all part of Trump's base, which is full of conspiracy theory believers like Trump himself. I would not rule out that Trump will also politicize vaccines, and flip and waffle on them as he has on masks and social distancing in order to please his base of voters. He would also be incompetent as a distributor of vaccines, as he has been as a distributor of protective equipment and testing, and make them expensive and less available to poor people where covid is most virulent.
The result of re-electing Trump would be to keep the pandemic going and keep us all in the covid prison indefinitely.
The medical industry insists upon "safe and effective" as a criterion for allowing a therapy or a vaccine. This prevents such bad results as quackery that has official recognition before it loses it. Ineffective treatments are worthless, and unsafe treatments may be worse than worthless. Physicians need to be authority figures because they can order drastic measures such as surgery, chemotherapy, amputations, referrals to psychiatric wards, and detox -- all of which are troublesome. Were I a physician I would want to be an authority figure strong enough to convince someone to quit drinking or smoking or to get behavioral modification for problem gambling or sexual addiction.
Failed therapies and treatments discredit the authority that physicians need. Yes, you will take that anti-psychotic drug even if it makes you impotent. Yes, you will take that anti-anxiety drug even if it means that you cannot enjoy a nice Cabernet or beer on occasion (you drink rarely and little, but when you do it is refreshing). Yes, you must quit that job that exposes you to dangerous radiation or chemicals. Good medical device may force behaviors even more drastic than surrendering assets. But an authority figure of any kind, whether a parent, a teacher, or a political leader must keep that authority intact by maintaining its credibility. Of course it is easy to have authority if one is willing to torture and kill anyone who fails to cooperate as demanded. This said, the ends of Nero, Caligula, Commodus, Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Nicolae Ceausescu, Saddam Hussein, and Moammar Qaddafi don't look so great. They lost their authority and died of the consequences.
At one point I described some dangerous behaviors that have inexcusable risks attached. Catching COVID-19 is hard to rationalize. It is compensation for nothing that one cannot defer or modify. As a nation we will need to divest ourselves of some bad habits associated with the authority of greed over the helplessness of people in severe need for being poor even if they work. American capitalism has led to an assumption that mass suffering and deprivation is well and good so long as it turns a profit, indulges elites, and enforces the power of the rich because such is the cause of prosperity. This said, prosperity that depends upon degrading poverty is suspect.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.