I read a subreddit called HermanCainAward. The award is given to people who mouth off about the vaccine and then get sick (“nominated”) or die (“awarded”) of COVID. Judge me if you will.
Anyway, there was a post last night about someone who convinced their Trumphumper mom to get vaccinated:
Honestly, my step-dad sent me some of his bullshit propaganda via email last week (WHILE they were on vacation in freaking FLORIDA!!) and I went off on him. I told him maybe he should start listening to my sister [a physician] instead of all the quacks. I told him it was an insult to her, having worked the front lines in the hospital in Hazmat gear and he should be ashamed of himself. I went on to tell him that I would never forgive him if his delusions got my mom killed and that he shouldn’t bother replying, as I had blocked him on all social media, email and my phone. I was just done with his delusions and bullshit.
I think in some weird way, my mom felt the need to prove that he wasn’t the reason she hadn’t been vaccinated (despite the fact that he 100% was the reason).
Some other comments:
My parents(75-80) got their first dose today. They called a couple weeks ago to see which house we were going to have Thanksgiving/Christmas at. I said that I didn’t think it was worth discussing. Said that since antivax/Delta and in such bad health they likely wouldn’t be alive to worry about it. Pissed them off and hung up on me, but apparently it worked.
Similarly, I told my mom (71 and in poor health) many times since January that as long as she remained unvaccinated, I will not visit her, adding, “I’m not going to be responsible for sending you to your death.”
She finally became fully vaccinated earlier this week. My brother, hugely anti-vax, has recently been experiencing problems with his cell phone. I told him I’d buy him a new phone if he got vaccinated.
His second shot is next week.
Whatever it takes.
Dan Savage’s standard talk to LGBTQ kids who come out to their unsupportive parents is that the only leverage they have over their parents is their presence. Let the parents freak out for a while, he advises, but after a year or so, let them know that you won’t be part of their lives unless the parents accept them. Similarly, kids refusing to be part of their parents’ lives, or giving them a frank, unfiltered view of the consequences of being unvaccinated, is probably more effective than sweet reason. Being old, lonely and bitter is a fate that some older MAGA hat anti-vaxxers will choose, but not all of them.
dlwchico
I got the opposite situation. My mom is 79 and getting immunotherapy for her second fight with lung cancer. My RN sister won’t get vaccinated or wear a mask and my nieces aren’t vaccinated either.
It hurts my mom so much but she told them to stay away.
cain
It reveals something about them if they are willing to be old and lonely based on quack science and propaganda. Goddam cult.
ETA:? ohhh myyyy ?
Matt McIrvin
I am so thankful about my family situation. My parents are taking this super seriously and got vaccinated long ago. My mother-in-law vaccinated ME.
Olivia
In Minnesota, there was a 2 or 3 week span of time where you could get $100.00 for getting vaccinated. I don’t know how many people went for it but I know a several who didn’t because they are “tired of government telling them what to do”.
I wonder if DeSantis and Abbott were paid a dime for every person in their states who got vaccinated, would they have vaccination parties in their governors mansions?
Chief Oshkosh
@Olivia:
Fixed to keep with the theme of this thread.
Jerzy Russian
That stepdad in the first quoted part sounds like a real asshole. My sympathies to everyone with asshole stepparents.
Another Scott
Thanks for this.
This is my feeling.
There was an old (Midas?) commercial on TV for years: “Pay me now, or pay me later.” That’s where we all are with COVID-19. We can spend, say, $200 bucks a person now to get most of the stragglers vaccinated, or we can keep spending billions on lost economic growth for months on end, paying for damage to heathcare workers and teachers and everyone else trying to keep society running for the rest of us.
We should be doing whatever it takes.
Cheers,
Scott.
UncleEbeneezer
When the inevitable “Why don’t you guys come to Colorado to visit?” question gets asked of me and my wife, our answer will be “Not until Dad gets vaccinated.” I watched my Mom die on a respirator in 20012 (pneumonia/cancer) and I’m not about to go through that again, and possibly be the one who puts them there. Dad is mid-70’s so the clock is ticking. If being unvaccinated is more important to him than seeing us, then that’s up to him.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
The problem is that one of our political parties wants to sabotage the country whenever they’re out of power. They see that lost economic growth and general disruption of the country as a positive, since they think it will reflect badly on the party in power and help them at the next election. Of course they also wind up sabotaging the economy when they’re in power, but generally in a more subtle way rather than just straight-up arson.
sab
I said below on another thread: If the antivax bozos fill up your ICUs, if you need hospitalization and it isn’t available locally, then when they find you a bed three states away you will be out of network. This isn’t about freedom any more. These bozos will cost you serious money while they playact whatever fantasy they are living in.
PenAndKey
I did this to my extended family shortly after the vaccines became widely available. They were all told in no uncertain terms that my nobody in my house, including their my kids (one of whom was born after the lockdowns started), would see them or anyone else in the family who refused to get vaccinated until they changed their mind.
As is, all the grandparents and great grandparents (save one step asshole) got their shots. My aunts and uncles on my mom’s side, though? It’s very likely my kids will grow up never knowing that entire wing of the family.
We use the leverage we have and we stick to it so they know we’re serious. It’s all any of us CAN do at this point.
dmsilev
I am so glad to be part of a family of sane people. The only ones who aren’t vaccinated are the kids under 12, and there weren’t any long dramatic struggles either; everyone got in line pretty much the instant they became eligible.
PenAndKey
@dmsilev: That was my parents, maternal grandfather, and paternal cousins/aunts. Everyone else, sadly, is firmly in MAGA-land and has either been blackmailed into grudgingly getting vaccinated in order to see my kids or has just been disowned as irredeemable assholes.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Oddly I get a lot of confused and upset LGTB teens coming to me for advice since I am an old dud now and this. Ok, I am odd in my own way, but nothing like being gay with a homophobic parent.
is the best thing I have ever heard to tell them.
Brachiator
Herman Cain Award
I love this.
dmsilev
The resisters are definitely a minority; we’re pushing towards 3 out of 4 adults at least having started the process. Less than 1/10th of the over-65 group are unvaccinated, and I’ll bet that at least a few percentage points out of that 9% can’t get the shots because of genuine medical reasons.
That may be one reason why so many of the resisters are so loud and obnoxious; they know that they’re in a (shrinking) minority and they don’t like it one bit.
SiubhanDuinne
For months, I’ve been anticipating driving to Phoenix this October for my grand-niece’s wedding. But I recently decided to cancel the trip because:
• Both of my brothers (the bride’s great-uncles) will be there, and both refuse to get vaccinated.
• Her Trump-humping, authoritarian, RWNJ asshole of a grandfather will be there, and neither he nor his wife will get the vaccine.
• The drive would take me through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.
The whole prospect just feels too risky.
The kids are streaming the wedding, so I can still “be there.” But it’s both disappointing and maddening that the crazy uncles and grandpas continue to ensure that we can’t have nice things.
MJS
@Another Scott: I remember those commercials, and was curious. It was Fram oil filters – “You can pay me now, or pay me later.”
UncleEbeneezer
@PenAndKey: That sucks. I know it’s got to be much harder to take that stance for those who have kids. Our family world is really just our parents, my sister and her kids. We had already ditched any real connections to Aunts/Uncles/cousins etc. years ago for several reasons but partly because we always suspected them of being precisely the kind of Republican/Libertarian/Independent assholes who would refuse to get vaccinated during a deadly pandemic). The worst part is looking back at my family and realizing that 80+% of them were/are garbage. I blame Whiteness, in general.
TheOtherHank
My father in law is a 91 year old cancer survivor who lets Hannity and Carlson keep him company on the TV. So naturally he’s unvaccinated and tries to justify it with scientific sounding rationalizations (he has a PhD in oceanography so he can sling all the science words and sound knowledgeable). I overheard one of his conversations with my wife where he was fundamentally wrong about antibiotics, vaccines, and the immune system. Ah well, if he’s still alive at Christmas time, it will make the holidays less stressful since I will have a good reason not to be in the same room as him.
Brachiator
@dlwchico:
Why is this? I do not understand how doctors and nurses can be antivaxx.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Me and my wife consider ourselves damned fortunate in this case. All parents dead. No kids. What family, on either side, are scattered and nobody’s been at all close so what they do or don’t do doesn’t impact us.
More importantly, we’ve lost no friends over this. All have been vaccinated, none grudgingly despite a few having conservative/glibertarian outlooks on life. They might feel that way politically but they’ve never been brainwashed.
We got out of Misery literally just in time. To be back there now during all of this, already socially isolated surrounded by red-state, anti-vaxxers, would have killed us on numerous levels.
john b
I’ve seen some weird variation on survivorship bias before: they worked the frontlines for a year without a vaccine last year, why should they be required to get a vaccine now?!
It’s really bizarre logic. But I think a lot of folks confuse working knowledge of being a doctor or nurse with knowledge of public health and they are very different areas of expertise
mrmoshpotato
@Chief Oshkosh: Thanks. Murderous shitstains DeathSantis and Abbott should be beaten with their own bones.
West of the Rockies
@SiubhanDuinne:
It sounds like you made the right, if difficult, decision, SD. You gotta take care of yourself. We Jackals demand it! ?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Brachiator:
This is an academic analysis on that question:
https://www.aafp.org/journals/fpm/blogs/inpractice/entry/countering_vaccine_hesitancy.html
But I prefer my take: they’re brainwashed dumbasses. The sooner doctors, hospitals, etc., mandate the vaccine, the sooner we can weed these shitforbrains people out of the profession.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’d noticed early this morning that Lin Wood pal Pressley Stutts is an honoree.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/comments/p7dz0v/pressley_stutts/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
mrmoshpotato
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yeah. Nah.
scav
Such pruning as described here might be better for both our physical and emotional health.
A Ghost to Most
Nice hasn’t worked for 40 years. Bullies don’t back up until you punch them in the mouth.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@A Ghost to Most:
They’re expecting kumbaya, drum circles and giant puppets, but so think the landscape shifted.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I’m dismayed by this but sadly unsurprised. There are a lot of doctors and nurses who don’t really know or care about science and lean heavily on personal experience instead. Plenty of them are wingnuts, especially the doctors who work in lucrative specialties. And bear in mind that not all doctors and nurses have been heavily involved in COVID response for the past year.
SiubhanDuinne
@West of the Rockies:
Well, thank you! Where jackals are involved, I always try to follow the pack!
ETA: Utterly O/T but there’s apparently a “suspicious” pick-up truck cruising Capitol and Library of Congress areas. Driver claims to have explosives aboard. May be a nothing, but authorities are treating it seriously.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: Indeed it’s a huge problem.
But as with the design of the Internet, we need to route around the damage. We can do this.
Increasing vaccination mandates, rewards for getting it done, social pressure from peers, making vaccines available everywhere 24/7, prosecuting the fraudsters and making an example of them, etc. All of the above.
We don’t have to play on the GQP playing field. We can route around it.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
Or they can get vaxxed and still be old, lonely and bitter. Ask me how I know!
Another Scott
@MJS: Ah, that makes sense.
Thanks for checking.
We regret the error. Those responsible have been sacked.
Cheers,
Scott.
CliosFanBoy
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: that’s a very depressing Reddit thread. Gad these people* are DUMB (and brainwashed)
Matt McIrvin
@john b: The vast majority of doctors are vaccinated–it’s something like 96%. But go beyond doctors to other medical staff and the numbers go way down.
Suzanne
@dmsilev:
Me too. Actually, most of my family has been seriously radicalized since 2016. One of my aunts, who is as genteel and refined and non confrontational as they come, has been increasingly nasty and hilarious. Now we’re worried about the kids.
SFAW
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, but that was so she could make sure you got the “vaccine” with the nanochips, so that she could track you wherever you go.
Wake UP, sheeple!!!
CliosFanBoy
Ok, how do you know??
JCJ
@Another Scott:
Fram oil filter
ETA – Oops – MJS already got it
TheflipPsyd
Happened to be off today and my tv was on msnbc. Guy with a pickup saying he has a bomb near library of congress. Crazy times.
Cacti
The carrot approach was tried and worked with the reasonable people.
We’ve run out of the first group. Now it’s time for the stick for the stubborn jackasses.
Steeplejack
@CliosFanBoy:
Hmm, maybe should’ve gone with “Don’t ask me how I know.” ?
MoCaAce
They have their incoherent rage to keep them company.
I wish I were kidding.
Captain C
@Roger Moore:
FTFY
narya
My parents went for their THIRD shot this week (mom has a transplant, dad is nearly 91 w/ multiple conditions, and their docs recommended it). Brother and SIL are vaxxed (and Bro even had a mild case, apparently). Younger nephew is vaxxed. But older nephew won’t do it, won’t listen to anyone–so my parents are basically refusing to see him when he visits. it’s breaking their hearts–they adore their only two grandchildren–but with their situation, and the fact that, for his new job, nephew TRAVELS, FFS, they just feel like it’s too risky. And all my aunts and uncles are dead at this point (the last four died in the past two years).
Raoul Paste
@Steeplejack: LOL
brendancalling
My dad got remarried a few years ago and a couple members of my new stepfamily are anti-vaccine. My dad and stepmom had to nag them into getting the kids the regular ol’ measles/mumps vaccines, but they won’t budge on the covid.
These people are holy rollers as dad calls ’em, “Jesus will protect me” types, and they claim they are “still doing their research.” Dad called them out on that BS, which put him in the doghouse—but he’s not having it. This couple has something like 5 kids, all under 12, and a few they’ve adopted. My dad and stepmom are worried that one (or more) of the kids will get it and get really sick, or that one (or both) of the parents will get it and die.
I don’t know what to do with people like that, and I have no idea what I’ll say if the worst should happen, because I have no sympathy for the anti-vaccine covid denying wackadoos that are dragging the rest of us down.
dmsilev
@Suzanne:
Sounds like my mom. The anti-refugee etc. measures were what specifically pushed her over the edge. She pretty quickly was joining protests outside refugee detention centers, holding up a poster with a photograph of her mother, captioned “refugee, 1921”. Things escalated from there.
matt
@Roger Moore: Right, we have an insurgency problem that’s making our pandemic problem a lot harder to fight. Most countries kill insurgents because there aren’t really better alternatives.
Kay
OT but I just cannot even tell you how insane real estate agents are becoming. They’re sales people so they’re always aggressive, which is fine, but they’ve now been in this super hot market for a while and they’re just strung as tight as a wire. I think it’s particularly difficult in places like where I live because prices just didn’t move this much in the past. Our agents musty be like “wtf- people are now bidding this dump up?” It feels a leeeetle Tulipy, to be honest. Makes me nervous.
matt
@brendancalling: What do you tell people whose kids are quivers of arrows to them?
Another Scott
@brendancalling: Remind them that God is going to do what he wants, and one can’t know the reason in advance…
Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
MSNBC, and I’m guessing CNN: A guy claiming to have a detonator in his hand tied to a propane tank in his truck is threatening to blow himself up in front of the Library of Congress. He’s from N Carolina, a known anti-gov’t crank, he’s apparently live-streaming himself?
WhatsMyNym
@Brachiator:
There are some really crappy Dr’s out there, I’ve had the misfortune to run across several. Sadly, they even get good ratings by other folks.
Michael
@SiubhanDuinne: Be sure to inform them all of your reasons for not attending.
PJ
@Kay: I haven’t been following this closely, but apparently a lot of banks and hedge funds are investing in residential real estate, driving up prices everywhere.
Scuffletuffle
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: you may be old, but you’re no dud!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Pete Williams says he’s live-streaming on Facebook while communicating with Capitol Police by white board, like markers and a dry-erase board. Williams says it’s an anti-gov’t ramble.
CaseyL
It is entirely possible many of the unvaxxed think of themselves as guerilla soldiers in the RW/GQP war against the US, and consider it a win if they can infect/kill other people before they get sick and die.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Why can’t they use some sort of jammer to stop his streaming?
Scuffletuffle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: clear the area then double dog dare him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: second question at the police press conference: Is he a veteran of Afghanistan?
Andrea Mitchell cuts away from domestic terrorism in our nation’s capital to get back to the important story: The Biden administration “on the defensive” about Afghanistan
RaflW
@Brachiator:
I do not understand how doctors and nurses can be antivaxx and remain employed
eta: I am overdue for a common but unpleasant cancer screening. Which requires people to be far less than six feet from me. I’m pissed that I no longer feel safe going in for this procedure. Shoulda gone during the vax bubble in late spring, alas.
Kent
It’s the persecution complex. The smaller of a minority they are the more shrill they get. It’s like the Westboro Baptist Church crazies.
Kent
They won’t be for much longer in my state. And they won’t be able to cheat because medical employers have access to their actual electronic medical records and don’t rely on paper vaccine cards. They also won’t be able to get fake medical exemptions.
geg6
@dmsilev:
Me too. No family drama around vaccines. And thank heaven for that because we are pretty well-known for our family drama. Never about politics or health, though.
StringOnAStick
My angry, hate filled 89 year old wing nut father is apparently unvaccinated, but lies about it with family, I suppose so he can maintain his fealty to the R tribe. He called TRump a “disappointment” to my sister but as soon as she criticised the orange idiot , he started yelling his support for his policies. There’s no way in hell I’m driving 20 hours one way for any kind of holiday get together, or flying either. He is such a miserable person in every way.
Just Chuck
@WaterGirl: Because you’d jam half the city too? Jamming a signal isn’t magic, it’s just drowning it out. Easier to find the server he’s streaming to and kill it, or find his IMEI from the cell tower and block it, but he’d know about those immediately too. They step carefully around people with bombs.
glc
@Raoul Paste: But we still want to know …
smith
Up to now the Goobers thought incandescent rage was their shtick. They’re surprised we can do it, too.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
My impression is that a big part of what’s driving the real estate market right now is that there just aren’t very many properties on the market, so people who want/need to buy have to get into bidding wars. The flip side of that is that sales volume is low, so the absolute dollar value of mortgages hasn’t gotten out of control. That should help avoid the kind of boom and collapse that destroyed the financial system in 2008. If/when sales volumes start to go up, they will probably go with prices returning to something closer to normal.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
As I’ve said before, they want to feel like a tiny persecuted minority. It’s right there in Matthew 5:10-12:
Feeling persecuted validates their faith, and if they can’t be persecuted for real, they’ll invent some persecution so they can feel righteous.
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
There is no need to be constantly violated by others.
Granted, people under 18 have fewer rights but if you are over 18 and your parents/relatives are totally against how you live your life (as long as it is not ACTUALLY, physically hurting someone, including yourself) then move on. No one is responsible for how someone else sees the world and shouldn’t have to suffer because of how that someone sees the world. Racism, homophobia, misogyny, religion or lack thereof, (among others) all of these are constraints that some put upon everyone else and they have no right to do that.
Dan B
@mrmoshpotato: But… There’s an alternative! Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma……..
Oh.
Nevermind…………..[:<))
Gravenstone
dlwchico
@Brachiator: She hasn’t worked as a nurse for something like 15 years now, though she has done the paperwork to keep her nursing license (or whatever it’s called) up to date.
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
Some of those 9% don’t have the means. And I don’t mean dollars. I am a geezer and live in a seniors (over 55) complex. Some of my neighbors don’t/can’t drive, and aren’t going to walk the mile or two that would be the closest place to get vaccinated. Now most of those I know/talk to are vaccinated, some went to the huge drive in clinics that were around in LA county. I know of 3 of them that people I know went to. LA county fairgrounds, Cal State Northridge, and Magic Mountain. A friend and his wife, who live almost all the way west to the other side of the county went on the same day to appointments at the same time to two different ones.
Dan B
@brendancalling: During AIDS there were friends who denied it was a virus and/or you could protect yourself and others with safe sex or abstinence. Some I visited when they were dying and others I did not. Their “reasons” seemed to be coping methods to cover their fears. There were people who believed in evil shadow government conspiracies.
And there were the closet cases who hid their fears under mountains of sadistic acts. They abetted the heartless inaction of the people who lived to maintain the status quo, their power and money. We learned to expend our kindness, and our rage, where it could make a difference. The hardest thing to do was to control your own emotions when anger would be counterproductive.
SiubhanDuinne
@Dan B:
LOL! I thought of that too, and had the identical reaction!
Ruckus
@Another Scott:
How about plowing it under? Seems more reasonable…
Roger Moore
@Ruckus:
Can we sow the fields with salt so nothing can grow there again? I’ve heard that worked in Carthage.
Shantanu Saha
I read my parents the riot act on vaccines in March. I’ve been breathing a lot easier (so have they, literally) since then.
Dan B
@Kay: It’s disturbing to hear that residential real estate is inflating in NW Ohio. Seattle is fug bucking nuts. I bought a house in a high crime neighborhood (a rape on the side lawn of the house) in the Boeing bust for $40K, sold it for $700K in the recession. It’s currently appraised at $1.5 million. We bought in a 10% white neighborhood that we thought was off the radar for $2.7K and nearly identical houses are going for $700K. There are no sidewalks and some houses are on Critical Slopes (landslide risk in earthquake / rain country!).
It’s a beautiful region but crazy if you don’t already own property.
Nelle
Only if we also salt the ground. Noxious weeds can be oretty persistent, even after being plowed under.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Seems….. reasonable!
Dan B
@CaseyL: Bingo! The same mentality drove horrific acts during AIDS by people who were defending the country against “immorality” and the evil sodomites. Some people need a war to feel good about themselves. They feel like sadsacks. They mostly are and can’t shake the idea that doing good for the larger society is a sign of weakness.
Cheryl from Maryland
My immediate circle is vaxxed, but my spouse’s mother’s grand-nieces are anti-vax, their children are minors and thus also unvaxxed, and their vaxxed mother lets them visit her. I don’t wish back surgery on anyone, but since the vaxxed mother will be out of commission for 4-6 months, I have breathing space to tell her NOT to visit my mother-in-law as long as she has regular contact with unvaxxed people. After my brother told me I was wrong to be tested to donate a kidney to my spouse, I haven’t spoken to him, and it’s a total relief not to have to deal with him during this pandemic.
Dan B
@Cheryl from Maryland: The break in our social networks this pandemic has sown are tough to endure but it’s good to keep ones sanity, especially when far too many are losing their ability, or willingness, to reason. Good for you! And hang in their.
andy
@dmsilev: they know at this point that they are complicit in spreading it, dragging things out, and in the body count too. they are loud and obnoxious to drown out their own consciences, because they know and we know they were presented with the facts, and they chose to do what they are doing anyway.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Coming back late to the thread…
“A lot” who don’t know about science?
Then they have to be faking it pretty damn well. How do you avoid or ignore biology and chemistry and shit and become a doctor and not believe in it?
Tony Gerace
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:Yes. Immediately fire any medical staff (and cops, and teachers, and anyone else who deals with the public) who refuse to be vaccinated. It will be an efficient way to get rid of of the bad ones.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
The Los Angeles County public health site tries to be comprehensive, but it is visually too busy and complicated. I had to hunt for it, but found information about in home vaccination services, and paratransit and free rides.
Of course, if you don’t have access to a computer or smartphone, or some patience, it is difficult to find this information.
I know that there were attempts to reach out to seniors and other groups, but I don’t know how successful they were.
I also keep wondering if officials are fully aware of the little and big problems that prevent their outreach efforts from being as successful as they think they are.
ETA. I was in the Los Angeles Union Station the other day, and there are still free rides to vaccination sites. Unclear if there was also a vaccine setup in Union Station itself.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
They have learned to memorize and regurgitate answers to score well on tests. That doesn’t mean they believe everything they’ve memorized, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean they understand where that stuff came from. Once they’re done with taking tests, they don’t bother with book learning anymore. They go by what they remember from school and what they’ve personally learned along the way. It’s an incredible uphill fight to get a lot of doctors to change the way they practice; they want to keep doing things as they’ve been doing them rather than following the best evidence.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I keep forgetting that California licenses alternative medicine and pseudoscience.
Sigh.
J R in WV
@Brachiator:
…I keep forgetting that California licenses alternative medicine and pseudoscience.
So… You need a license in CA to be a witch-doctor? Who knew?
Drawing pentagrams on the floor, lighting candles made from the fat of a hanged murderer, incense of hemlock, chanting prayers to Culthu… this needs a license?
Wow!!
ETA: Which University of California offers a degree program in that? ;~)
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I keep forgetting. Are you a doctor or medical professional?
But there are also laboratory assignments and related work, and as interns you are supposedly observed making diagnoses, etc.
I don’t think it’s a matter of “pass a test, get an MD or RN.”
But obviously there are quacks and frauds.
ETA. It was sad, but amusing to see YouTube refutations of conservative math and statistics professors who tried to defend Trump’s lies that the election had been stolen. In example after example, it was revealed that some of these people did not grasp the principles of their own profession.
Some of them probably should be fired.
Brachiator
@J R in WV:
I went briefly down the rabbit hole. Wow
Gotta be a nationwide thing.
And this…
This has got to increase the risk of a bad diagnosis and withholding of useful medication.
This is a also thing in Canada
Google maps conveniently showed naturopathic doctors near me.
I am surrounded by quacks.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I’m a scientists in an allied field. I work with MDs, but I am not a medical professional myself. My experience is that there are plenty of doctors who care about science and evidence, but there are also plenty of doctors who don’t have a scientific worldview and got through the sciency parts of their training through rote memorization.
The second category can be fine practitioners, but they tend to go by what they remember from their training and what they have personally experienced. They tend not to take well to being told that what they learned before is no longer the standard of care, and they need to start doing something else instead. They’re exactly the kind of people who would hear that hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin can help with COVID, read a couple of articles hyping them, and start prescribing. They’re the kind of people Planck was thinking of when he said new theories supplant old ones by waiting for the people who believed the old theory die off.
neldob
Well I finally snapped in the library when a plump little well made up maskless youngish lady came in with her about 4 year old daughter, the lady being rude to the library helper guy and barging past the many signs about masks required, full of self-rightous adrenaline. Rude and agro, and he saintly and calmly brought her a mask and waited while she put it on. I was also filled with self-rightous adrenaline by this point. When he left and she took off her mask I wounded her by telling her she was rude. She responded that ‘he was rude to me’, but I could tell she knew she had been and felt guilty. It’s going to be awhile before she comes back to that library. I’ll be waiting. Or at least I could be.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Thanks for the background information.
Most of the people I knew in college were deeply pro-science. Capable and motivated. Probably biased my view. I never had much time for people who just wanted to skate by or memorize and get a pass.
Yeah. This is a problem. As an aside, I wonder how often a good pharmacist might say “hold on. This might not be right.” Probably not often enough.
I had a professor who noted during a lecture that some recent studies had invalidated some of his ideas about human evolution and he couldn’t wait to see more. Some people immediately grasp the significance of new theories. Others who had been ignored or pushed aside find themselves vindicated. It is rarely a case of old fussbudgets dying off.
And a new generation of idiots are always waiting to take the place of old dopes. I note that members of the younger generation spout some of the same nonsense that annoyed the hell out of me when I was a teen.
And I notice that in California, especially, there is a long tradition of mysticism, alternative stuff, folk medicine and pseudoscience that always appeals to certain types who disdain conventional ways of thinking. Sometimes this is good because it challenges the orthodoxy. But it also encourages and sustains intellectual bullshit.
J R in WV
Still want to know which universities in the UC system provide degrees in Natural Medicine???
Witch doctoring.
Hexes and chants and signs!!
We don’t appear to have those degree programs here in West Virginia… There is a DO program, I understand that’s mostly like the MD programs.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
I think there is some matter of personality and some matter of how big a scientific change is that affects whether established people will be able to accept it. Planck was obviously thinking of the switch from classical to quantum physics, which is one of the most drastic in the history of science, and a lot of the older physicists just couldn’t adapt.
I read a very interesting biography of Hermann Kolbe, who was one of the early developers of what we would describe as organic chemistry; he was the first person to use the word “synthesis” to describe reactions to produce a new compound. But after being a leading light early in his career, he simply couldn’t accept the structural theories of people like Kekule and van’t Hoft. By the end of his career, he was the old man shaking his fist at the clouds. That was the kind of thing Planck was thinking of. It’s also interesting reading John McPhee’s Annals of the Former World, which discusses the development of plate tectonics in part by looking at the careers of geologists who were active when the theory was taking over.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
I take your point and agree with some of your examples. But it is not just about older scientists who cannot adapt. There is also often an Establishment which has determined a conventional wisdom.
And sometimes the evidence is ambiguous or just not being considered correctly.
In anthropology a lot of the battles over the significance of new finds is less about age and more about ego and the need to hold onto old ways of looking at the evidence.
Another Scott
@Brachiator: I think Roger’s right that they take their personal experience as being correct and are often very resistant to change, even when backed up by strong evidence.
Witness the widely reported opposition to physician checklists to control MRSA and other infections in hospitals.
“I KNOW how to wash my hands!!1″
I remember watching, flabbergasted, as the pulmonary team in the hospital did suction on my FIL and they guy suctioning out his trach tube used his sterile gloved hand to adjust the (non-sterile) suction control knob then went back to using that hand as if it were still clean. And nobody said a word…
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
sempronia
@Another Scott: That’s because suctioning out a trach isn’t a sterile procedure. Think of all the things you inhale – your lungs aren’t sterile. Even bronchoscopy, which is suctioning deeper into the lungs, isn’t sterile.