I'm not dead!

Bring out your dead! Via YouTube

In the classic scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Eric Idle is moving down the road with a wagon covered with dead bodies, banging a piece of metal, calling out: “Bring out your dead!”. John Cleese comes up with an old man over his shoulder, wanting to add him to the wagon, but the old man calls out “I’m not dead”. After some back-and-forth, Eric Idle helps by bludgeoning the old man, and John Cleese throws him on the pile with an “Ah! Thanks very much!”

This bit has nothing to do with the story line of the movie, really, but certainly helps to establish the feel.

I, too, am not dead.

But wait, you might say, how can that be?

I have received multiple COVID-19 vaccines, which introduce quantum nanotubes that alter your molecular frequency, causing your cells to vibrate at an unnatural oscillation. This disrupts the bioelectric field, enabling dark matter to invade. As the unstable tachyon particles accumulate, they trigger a catastrophic fusion reaction within your core, culminating in a sudden and violent explosion. (courtesy of ChatGPT)

Or, put another way:

Death of Frost, from Blade, via YouTube

These explanations are about as reasonable as many of the ones I have seen, talking about the “danger” of vaccines in general, and the COVID-19 vaccine specifically. Isn’t it interesting, though, that the impending doom was imminent when the vaccine first came out, and there would be millions of deaths within months?

Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, but over 5 billion people have received a COVID-19 vaccine, and I don’t remember hearing of millions of deaths caused by the vaccine.

Weird!

If only 1% of 5 billion people were to die of the vaccine, that would be 50 million deaths.

I think we’d have heard about that, somehow... Even if you believe that the shadowy “they” would try to “cover it up”, it’s utterly ridiculous to believe they could successfully do so.

Even stranger, the story has changed. When millions failed to die (or explode, or whatever) after a few months, the timeframe shifted to a year, then two, and now the story seems to have shifted from death to “DNA damage”, “cancer risk”, “ticking time bomb”, and other dire warnings with longer lead-times and equally non-existent evidence.

It’s almost as if it was bullshit from the beginning...

If you look at the numbers of COVID-19 cases and deaths, it comes to around a 1% death rate, but that’s crazy! That sounds consistent with what the scientists were saying almost from the beginning! Estimates have changed and evolved, of course, due to ongoing research, new strains of COVID, vaccination efforts, and (sadly) interference and disinformation from anti-vaxxers.

This is wholly aside from the fact that the COVID-19 vaccine reduces the speed at which the virus evolves, reduces the number and impact of novel strains of the virus, reduces hospitalization and death, and so on, and so on. I’ve discussed anti-vaxxers several times before, including The Answer, Two Years In, and Trust the Science.

My biggest worry, however, is the impact of having one of the “Disinformation Dozen” in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services in the US. Robert F. Kennedy Jr has a long history of spreading lies and disinformation about vaccines, and other subjects. While claiming to support science and evidence, he has continually refused to do so.

This is all documented extensively, and it’s interesting to note the staggering level of dishonesty he demonstrates when pressed on any of the issues he supports. I have previously discussed the fraudster and anti-vax activist Andrew Wakefield, who had his medical license revoked for his fraudulent “study” claiming a causal relationship between vaccines and autism. By 2004, the results of the 1998 “study” could not be reproduced, and most of the co-authors withdrew their support after Wakefield’s conflicts of interest were uncovered in 2004. Later, in 2010, it was discovered that the actual results had been falsified, the “study” was fully retracted, and Wakefield was struck from the UK’s medical register.

But why, if RFK Jr supports science so much, was he working so closely with Wakefield that he is listed as an executive producer of the the anti-vax propaganda film “Vaxxed II”, in 2019, years later?

Or, take the use of thimerosal in vaccines. The compound is used mainly as an antiseptic and antifungal agent in vaccines, but it contains (ominous musical sting) mercury... Anti-vax groups have been spreading disinformation about mercury for years, and keep claiming a causal relationship between mercury and autism – with absolutely no evidence.

Here, we have an interesting case study, though. The original claim was that thimerosal in vaccines was leading to increasing autism rates. (The actual reason was actually changes in the diagnostic criteria and increased public awareness, but the anti-vax community refused to acknowledge that.) So, to “save the children”, they pushed the US government to remove thimerosal from childhood vaccines, and this was done by mid-2001.

If there were even some truth in the claims about thimerosal, it’s removal should have had an impact on autism reports, right?

You’d expect autism reports to just stop, right?

Or go down, right?

Just a bit, right?

Of course not. There was absolutely no change to reporting rates of autism after the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, because neither vaccines nor thimerosal cause autism!

RFK Jr, of course, would have followed the science, right? Would it be surprising if he was still pushing the disinformation that thimerosal was causing autism in 2010? I went looking for one of the articles RFK Jr wrote in 2010 about this, and...

Via https://www.huffpost.com/

Hm. I found the article via the Wayback Machine, and it was the same baseless accusations, years later.

Could it be that he just wasn’t aware of the research? It’s not like he’d been writing about this sort of thing for years.... Oh, wait. He’s been spreading disinformation about vaccines since (at least) 2005.

These are just two examples. The simple truth is that RFK Jr has been spreading lies, disinformation, and malinformation about vaccines (and other subjects) for decades, and deserves absolutely no benefit of the doubt. He’s a liar.

When pressed, he’ll say that he wants “vaccine choice” or “common sense” policies, and start blathering about supplements and vitamins, even when that can lead to things like vitamin A toxicity...

Bullshit.

He’s simply lying.

And this is the person who’s now in charge of the US Department of Health and Human Services?

The COVID-19 vaccine didn’t kill me, but what happens as a result of RFK Jr’s actions might...

Cheers!