Comment on Mandates vs. Religious Exemptions by Don Helland MD.
I find your comments interesting, illuminating, and disturbing.
It’s like you are saying: “Meh, the US government was funding research at the CCP’s Wuhan Viral Institute. Something happened, get over it and deal with the pandemic. Take the vaccine.”
I’m not even sure what my further response to this is at this time. But I am certainly going to do more independent reading and research into the origin of COVID19 and the US government’s (and my tax dollars) involvement.
Don Helland MD Also Commented
Mandates vs. Religious Exemptions
As usual, you misunderstand and misconstrue what I am saying. You are incredibly good at twisting things around.
I send patients to ICU all the time, and get follow up on a daily basis.
I don’t present arguments like the ones presented here to patients. This is a blog site. They can look at any blog site they choose. In reality I talk to patients very little about vaccines. The nurses do most of the vaccine education etc. My job is to diagnose and treat. If a patient asks me about the vaccine, I tell them to look at all the science and data, current CDC recommendations, etc. And then make up their own minds. So please stop trying to pin “increased injuries and death” on me. I resent this very much.
I am not saying “I don’t actually follow my own advice that I post in blogs when I practice primary care medicine on a daily basis.” That’s not what I am saying at all. That is you twisting things around.
Now your point about this being a public conversation is understood. But it is still just a blog site.
The majority of what I have said and done here is point out papers that have been published in the peer reviewed scientific literature, and are available to the public. People can read these and make up their own minds. Nowhere have I specifically recommended that people get, or not get, the covid vaccine.
This has become a wearisome distasteful expericence. Which is why I spend very little time on blog sites in general.
Mandates vs. Religious Exemptions
“Well, I’m glad you go at least this far… although I still think that the kinds of arguments you present here really do put people’s lives and health at increased risk. I know you don’t agree, but that’s how I see things from my own perspective.
Now, I’m fine with you, and those who think like you, having the ability to freely share your opinions – despite how mistaken and damaging I personally think these opinions may be. That’s just the nature of living in a free society – which I think is far more important than restricting the freedom of speech.”
I am growing very weary with this back and forth conversation. But you need to remember that you are talking to a primary care provider who works in a rural health clinic and hospital near an Indian reservation. I have been seeing covid patients (including high risk and nursing home patients) almost every single day that I work for the last 2 years. It is as routine as influenza or strep throat now. We have treatment protocols that the providers follow. All patients are offered the vaccine if they want it. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc. (And no I am not there trying to talk them out of getting the vaccine, as you try to insinuate.)
To someone like myself who has been seeing and treating covid patients up close and in person for the last 2 years, your underlying tone sounds a little weird to be perfectly honest. You are very dramatic about “putting people’s lives and health at increased risk” etc, etc, etc, etc. Almost a little paranoid or something. I don’t know. Like I said, to someone like myself, you sound a little weird and overly dramatic.
And no I’m not trying to minimize covid. I have seen people die of covid, especially in the nursing home. But people die on a regular basis in a nursing home, as you already know. And all our nursing home patients are now vaccinated as per CDC protocol, etc, etc, etc.
I don’t know. I wound suggest that you actually talk to a primary care provider that sees covid patients on a daily basis.
I’m sure this wont change your thinking or attitude one iota. But I’m just saying, this is the way that you come across to someone like myself.
The discussions that I have on blogs like this are my personal thoughts and concerns. They don’t reflect the way that I actually practice primary care medicine on a daily basis.
This is my last comment here. Like I said, I am growing extremely weary of this conversation. Feel free to respond and have the last word. It’s your website.
(For what it’s worth, I do appreciate all the good work that you have done in the creation/science/evolution area over the years. And I would encourage you to continue this.)
Mandates vs. Religious Exemptions
Please don’t accuse me of spreading misinformation. I tell other doctors, providers, and patients to look at ALL the research and data, the current CDC recommendations, etc. And then make up their own minds.
Those in certain risk groups I believe should get the covid vaccine, and I recommend this.
I think targeted vaccination is the best approach. Not vaccinate everyone that is alive and breathing. But again, I tell everyone to make up their own minds.
Recent Comments by Don Helland MD
Why Vaccinate Kids Against COVID-19?
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Thank God (literally) that there are some physicians who are still thinking clearly about COVID19.
Harvard Epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff on the COVID ‘Public Health Fiasco’
Video, COVID-19, Healthcare & Welfare, Peter HolleSeptember 2, 2021 (Link)
“Those who are pushing these vaccine mandates and vaccine passports … they’re doing so much more damage to vaccine confidence than anybody else,” says Dr. Martin Kulldorff, one of the world’s leading epidemiologists.
This video interview with Kulldorf is an interesting deep dive on COVID-19 immunity, vaccines, the Delta variant, and his observation that the global COVID response has been the “biggest public health fiasco in history.”
Dr. Martin Kulldorff is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a biostatistician and epidemiologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He helped develop the CDC’s current system for monitoring potential vaccine risks, and he is also one of the co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued for “focused protection” of the most vulnerable, instead of lockdowns.
DR MARTIN KULLDORFF IS NO LIGHTWEIGHT. I WOULD HOPE YOU DON’T TRY TO DISPARAGE HIS CREDENTIALS LIKE YOU DO DR ROBERT MALONE’S, SEAN.
Why Vaccinate Kids Against COVID-19?
Sean you apparently did not read my comment carefully.
Human cells apparently use the LINE retrotransposon mechanism (which includes reverse transcriptase, integrase, etc) to make “processed pseudogenes” from human mRNA. I am wondering if this could happen with the mRNA in the covid vaccine.
Why Vaccinate Kids Against COVID-19?
One concern that I have is the potential for integration in the host DNA, using the same mechanism produces “processed pseudogenes”.
“Human LINE retrotransposons generate processed pseudogenes”. This article discusses this process.
I have never heard this discussed up to this point.
What are your thoughts Sean?
Most Species the “Same Age” with No “In-Between” Species
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I tend to agree with Ken that we really have no idea what mutation rates were in the past.
“Gods ways are not our ways.”
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I read the verse in Genesis recently about the “strong wind” that God sent after the flood to dry the land.
Have either of you considered this and what geologic evidence it may have left?