To your first point, that man has gained significantly from spreading hogwash for years. I’d like to think of myself as an honest MD who provides the same care to everyone that I would give to my own family with no influence from the outside. Wakefield, the OG antivax doc, didn’t actually believe what he published about vaccines and autism. If you pay a corrupt person enough or they believe they stand to gain some sort of fame/acclaim, these people will say anything (eg: McCullough - he has never given a single turd about patients and never will). He gained notoriety for preventive cardiology research and doing clickbait research such as “troponin release after marathons” so that marathon runners could believe they were learning what happens to their bodies during a race. It adds less than nothing to the scientific community or to the running community - but easy clickbait. All the sudden, he’s publishing the scientific version of “empty stats” and convinced himself this equated with actual academia and advancing the field. It doesn’t and he hasn’t.
In terms of vaccines, the likelihood of significant bad outcomes is incredibly small and the benefits are obvious. Re: the COVID vaccine - of course there is no long-term data yet but the short term data (prevents severe illness/death from COVID, esp in those higher risk groups) is a blowout in terms of risk/benefit. At this point, the risks have been public with a fucking bullhorn. 1 in a million have clots with J&J etc and so on. Who doesn’t know? Who isn’t aware? At this point, there is way more unjustified fear over a COVID shot than there is willingness to take one.
God knows how many times I’ve had these discussions with patients/families/friends but the idea that there is some mass medical conspiracy to mask incredibly rare, mostly benign consequences is ridiculous.
If it wasn’t for his billons of dollars, ridiculous ego, holier-than-thou approach to life, i would feel bad for Elon Musk. This prosecute Fauci shit - in the medical community - is one of the dumbest narratives I’ve heard. THE infectious disease doctor takes every precaution (and probably more than every precaution) during a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic? God forbid there was an infectious coronary artery disease pandemic and I had to tell the public to take high intensity statins. I’d be tarred, feathered, drawn and quartered
Re: the paper at the bottom. Yes, have seen myocarditis after a shot. Have also seen it from common cold at a much higher clip. See it constantly with COVID. Even in barely symptomatic outpatients. Outcomes with COVID myocarditis can often be fatal. With the vaccine? Yawn emoji
