TallGuyJohninBKK

The mainstream medical and pediatrician community, not surprisingly, disagrees with anti-vaxer, COVID misinformer RFK Jr.: New FDA framework on Covid vaccines leaves pediatricians confused and concerned May 20, 2025 ... "The possibility that Covid shots would become unavailable for kids alarmed pediatricians. “I see children admitted to the hospital with Covid and they’re not all high-risk children — including those who go to intensive care units,” said James Campbell, a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases specialist at the University of Maryland. “If we have safe and effective vaccines that prevent illness, we think they should be available.” [emphasis added] ... Making sure children have immunity through early vaccination is something many physicians support, however, especially because most infants have not been exposed to the virus. “I think there is strong data to suggest Covid should be part of routine childhood vaccinations,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “We vaccinate kids for things that have less morbidity and mortality than Covid, like chickenpox for example.” Emergency physician Jeremy Faust of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who hosted his own livestream to discuss the new framework as soon as it was released, said it was critical to make sure “immune-naive” infants 6 months and older receive the vaccine." (more) STAT News https://archive.ph/d6faP

Another nobody anti-vaxer social media post from the gutters of the internet: Here's UC San Francisco law professor Dorit R. Reiss on the above author's kind of nonsense: MISINFORMATION AND COVID-19 2023 The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on our world cannot be overstated. One of its noticeable features was the prominence of misinformation generally, and anti-vaccine misinformation more specifically. This article provides a breakdown of the five major themes of antivaccine misinformation and the way they were used to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt about COVID- 19 vaccines. Long before the pandemic, anti-vaccine activists argued using a five-part playbook. They argued that (1) vaccine preventable diseases were not really dangerous, (2) vaccines were dangerous and ineffective, (3) there were alternative treatments that were better than (dangerous and ineffective) vaccines, (4) there was a conspiracy to hide this information, and (5) the real issue is one of civil rights, not science. ... The anti-vaccine movement is as old as vaccines. The movement has used a variety of tactics to promote misinformation for decades,9 but in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is operating in a new reality. COVID-19 killed and harmed millions of people worldwide and upended our society.10 COVID-19 vaccines are an important part of our route out of the pandemic, so there is extensive public attention focused on the vaccines and their development process.11 As more people turned their attention to infectious diseases and vaccines, anti-vaccine leaders saw an opportunity to increase their reach and influence.12 They were ready." (more) https://repository.uclawsf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2994&context=faculty_scholarship Dorit Rubinstein Reiss is a Professor of Law and the James Edgar Hervey '50 Chair of Litigation at University of California Law San Francisco.

Also Dragnet with Jack Webb and Harry Morgan, for us U.S. folks, mainly from 1967-70 Then in later years, the much lauded Hill Street Blues (1981-87) starring Daniel Travanti, and The Shield series (2002-08), the latter starring Michael Chiklis.

Yes, everyone's going to die eventually, no doubt about that... But thinking and empathetic people ought to be concerned about those who didn't have to die when they did, and whose lives could have been saved if they had chosen or been given the proper kinds of preventive medical care... in the case of COVID, COVID vaccines. You can try to obscure that fact and reality all you want by tossing out all-cause death figures. But the COVID vaccines have been shown to be very effective in preventing serious COVID illness and death in the most vulnerable populations, those age 65 and above. Except too many of them are scared off by the anti-vax nonsense peddled by those like many of the posters here, and some end up dying prematurely because they fell victim to that kind of misinformation. The CDC reported last fall that U.S. seniors who took the 2023-2024 COVID vaccine had between 69% (one month after vax) and 43% (up to 5 months after vax) lower risks of critical illness and death from COVID vs those who didn't get the then-latest vaccine. There was similar data this spring from the CDC for the 2024-2025 COVID vaccine among seniors: Per the U.S. CDC, the 2024-2025 COVID vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalization from COVID in seniors age 65 and above by 45-46%, compared with all seniors who had NOT received the 2024-2025 vaccine. February 27, 2025 "Among immunocompetent adults aged ≥65 years from two CDC networks, VE [vaccine effectiveness] estimates against COVID-19–associated hospitalization were 45% (95% CI = 36%–53%) and 46% (95% CI = 26%–60%) during the first 7–119 days after vaccination." What are the implications for public health practice? "These findings indicate that 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccination provides additional protection against COVID-19–associated ED/UC encounters and hospitalization, versus no 2024–2025 vaccination and support CDC and ACIP recommendations that all persons aged ≥6 months receive 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccination." https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7406a1.htm

RFK Jr.s record on health matters and COVID and vaccines is very clear and well known. He made his name as being the head of an all-purpose anti-vaxer organization. You and anyone can find the same assessment of his history from countless other news organizations and public health professionals. If you don't like Wikipedia, CBS News above just offered a brief snippet on him and his nonsense: "Kennedy has a long history of raising doubts about vaccines — despite decades of evidence showing they have saved millions of people from debilitating illness or death. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-medical-advice-vaccine-question-hearing/

Funny enough, that's exactly what your comrade anti-vaxer and COVID misinformer RFK Jr. recently told Congress when they asked him about vaccines... Unfortunately, though, he's been appointed by Trump to head the entire U.S. government Health and Human Services department, which includes most of the federal government's public health units like the CDC and NIH.. But RFK Jr., of course, is an attorney and politician by trade and has no medical training whatsoever, making him a perfect Trump pick for the job. RFK Jr. says people shouldn't take his medical advice when asked about vaccines at hearing May 14, 2025 "When asked hypothetically if he would vaccinate his children today for measles during a House hearing Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said "probably," but added he doesn't think people should be taking medical advice from him. "My opinions about vaccines are irrelevant," he said in response to the question from Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan of Wisconsin during the House Appropriations Committee hearing. "I don't want to seem like I'm being evasive, but I don't think people should be taking medical advice from me." [emphasis added] ... Kennedy has a long history of raising doubts about vaccines — despite decades of evidence showing they have saved millions of people from debilitating illness or death. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-medical-advice-vaccine-question-hearing/ Nice thought on RFK's part to abstain, except that it's his clown clones who now are setting U.S. government vaccine policy, entirely bypassing the actual medical expert groups at the FDA and CDC that historically have guided those policies. Governance by the loons. "Since 2005, Kennedy has promoted vaccine misinformation[1] and public-health conspiracy theories,[2] including the chemtrail conspiracy theory, HIV/AIDS denialism, and the scientifically disproved claim of a causal link between vaccines and autism. He has drawn criticism for fueling vaccine hesitancy amid a social climate that gave rise to the deadly measles outbreaks in Samoa and Tonga." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr. For the record, I also don't offer medical advice here, since I don't have professional training in the field. But I do share the current thinking and expertise of actual professional experts and health organizations in the field, as opposed to social media rubbish from the gutters of the internet.

I was wondering when there was going to be some mention in this thread of the other / very recent police aviation mishap in the Prachuap Khiri Khan area, as recounted in the above linked thread: "In response to recent aviation tragedies, the Royal Thai Police have grounded their entire fleet of aircraft, encompassing both fixed-wing planes and helicopters. This precautionary decision, announced by Police General Kitrat Phanphet, aims to ensure the highest safety standards following two deadly accidents within the past month. The grounding comes in the wake of two fatal crashes. On April 25, a fixed-wing aircraft crashed into the sea off Prachuap Khiri Khan, resulting in fatalities that underscored potential maintenance shortfalls. Just weeks later, on May 24, a Bell 212 helicopter met a similarly tragic fate, crashing as it returned to its base in Kanchanaburi from Surat Thani. The crash claimed the lives of the pilot, co-pilot, and mechanic onboard." [emphasis added] It's been a bad past month for police aviation in the Prachuap Khiri Khan area. Maybe I missed it -- has there been any public accounting yet of what led to the fixed wing aircraft crash that preceded the current helicopter mishap?

Now you're onto vaccines and autism, echoing serial anti-vaxer and COVID misinformer RFK Jr. Enough said....

Anytime anyone comes to this kind of discussion talking about "another part of the scam," that says a lot about their frame of mind / reality... Even so, I never said, and the NIH never said AFAIK, that Vit D has no benefits... They only said, there wasn't sufficient / conclusive evidence to recommend for or against it as a preventive or treatment for COVID. Some general, current info on Vitamin D supplementation: "Your health care provider can advise you on how much vitamin D to take. Some reports published in the past 10 years advocated supplementing with up to 2,000 IU of vitamin D daily. “But more recent clinical trials suggested that amount of intake does not show benefits (no harms either), so it may not be the best generic approach for everybody,” Chan says. Still, excessive doses — the daily upper limit for adults is 100 mcg / 4,000 IU — can do terrible things to the body: vomiting, confusion, dehydration, muscle weakness and more. Extremely high levels of vitamin D can lead to kidney failure and death." https://www.aarp.org/health/drugs-supplements/supplements-after-50/

There's been research that shows lower Vitamin D levels being found in people with severe COVID and even Long COVID. But last time I checked, the U.S. National Institutes of Health had reviewed available evidence for Vitamin D either as a preventive or treatment for COVID, and concluded to NOT recommend either for or against it's use in connection with COVID, because the available evidence was not sufficiently conclusive, even though some studies had findings suggesting it helped. NIH hasn’t recommended supplements as new COVID-19 strategy "CLAIM: The NIH now recommends vitamin C, vitamin D3 and zinc for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. The National Institutes of Health does not currently recommend, or advise against, those supplements for fighting COVID-19. https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-038944486790 The above report was from 2021, but NIH made its final COVID treatment protocols update at the end of 2023 with the same conclusion. This below was from a somewhat earlier report: Vitamin D doesn't prevent COVID-19, other respiratory infections, studies find September 8, 2022 https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/vitamin-d-doesnt-prevent-covid-19-other-respiratory-infections-studies-find

For my UK friends here, not to be entirely U.S.-centric: One year on: Three myths about COVID-19 that the data proved wrong 23 March 2021 ... Myth 1: ‘Those who die from COVID-19 would have died soon anyway’ In the first year of COVID-19 (5 March 2020 to 5 March 2021), 1.5 million potential years of life were lost in the UK as a result of people dying with the virus. In England and Wales alone this figure is 1.4 million. On average, each of the 146,000 people who died with COVID-19 lost 10.2 years of life. [emphasis added] https://www.health.org.uk/reports-and-analysis/analysis/one-year-on-three-myths-about-covid-19-that-the-data-proved-wrong

More unsourced and false nonsense: Hospital COVID payments tied to patient treatment, not deaths March 10, 2023 CLAIM: U.S. hospitals are earning a $48,000 government subsidy for every patient that dies from COVID-19 in their care. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Hospital industry officials and public health experts confirm the federal government provides hospitals with enhanced payments for treating COVID-19 patients, but the payments are only currently applicable to those on Medicare. The enhanced payments, which are slated to end in May, also aren’t contingent on a patient’s death but on the treatment or services provided to the patient, they said. [emphasis added] https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-covid-pandemic-hospitals-medicare-157398144949

"One study from October 2020 calculated that the virus had stolen 2.5 million years of potential life in the US. Just under half of these years were taken from people younger than 65 years. As the paper’s author, Dr. Stephen J. Elledge said, “COVID-19 has wiped out millions of years of productive, active, and happy existence.” Another study from May 2022 calculated the virus had stolen 3.9 million years of life away from Americans and the average COVID victim lost over 9 years of life. Not all COVID victims were 90-year-olds with advanced cancer, only days away from dying, when they happened to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 as some doctors implied. In the words of Dr. Utibe Essien: These are everyday people who are dying. They’re losing time with their kids, their grandkids, their opportunities to build their futures." https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/this-thing-has-killed-less-than-or-about-as-many-as-flu-would-kill-in-a-normal-year-in-kids-i-say-hardly-any-80-year-olds-their-time-to-death-in-general-is-not-that-long/

You're repeating a falsehood that's already been debunked in two graphics I previously posted in this thread above from the U.S. government: Of all reported COVID deaths in the U.S. thus far in 2025, at least two third had COVID as the underlying / main cause. If you go back to the entire duration of the pandemic, that share rises to 87%:

Dr. Fauci was never part of the U.S. CDC in any capacity... But I understand you don't want to let facts get in the way of your claims... https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/anthony-s-fauci-md

You're trolling out the well-worn anti-vaxer arguments about prospective long term side effects, whereas in fact, a long history of vaccines show that any side effects that do surface typically happen in the very short term post-vaccination. We're now 4+ years into the global COVID vaccination regimen, and it's very likely that anything that might surface has already surfaced. As for children being vaccinated, especially the very young, the reason is that their immune systems are still developing, and aren't as protective as they'll be later in life. So the COVID vaccines give protection to the very young who also haven't been previously exposed to COVID and thus haven't had any immunity from prior infection. Listen to the pediatricians: New FDA framework on Covid vaccines leaves pediatricians confused and concerned May 20, 2025 ... "The possibility that Covid shots would become unavailable for kids alarmed pediatricians. “I see children admitted to the hospital with Covid and they’re not all high-risk children — including those who go to intensive care units,” said James Campbell, a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases specialist at the University of Maryland. “If we have safe and effective vaccines that prevent illness, we think they should be available.” [emphasis added] ... Making sure children have immunity through early vaccination is something many physicians support, however, especially because most infants have not been exposed to the virus. “I think there is strong data to suggest Covid should be part of routine childhood vaccinations,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “We vaccinate kids for things that have less morbidity and mortality than Covid, like chickenpox for example.” Emergency physician Jeremy Faust of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who hosted his own livestream to discuss the new framework as soon as it was released, said it was critical to make sure “immune-naive” infants 6 months and older receive the vaccine." (more) https://archive.ph/d6faP

The U.S. CDC would say you're wrong: Per the U.S. CDC, the 2024-2025 COVID vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalization from COVID in seniors age 65 and above by 45-46%, compared with all seniors who had NOT received the 2024-2025 vaccine. "During September 24, 2023–August 11, 2024, approximately 800,000 COVID-19–associated hospitalizations occurred in the United States (1); adults aged ≥65 years accounted for 70% of these hospitalizations." "COVID-19 vaccination averted approximately 68,000 hospitalizations during the 2023–24 respiratory season." https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7406a1.htm

Strangely enough, most of the same good habits that help protect people from COVID also help protect them from the flu, given that they're both viral infections: --getting vaccinated --wearing a quality face mask when close around others --practicing good hand hygiene --keeping in good general health etc etc etc.

Meanwhile, from elsewhere in the forum relating to COVID and the flu in Thailand:

Unlike you, everything I post here is sourced to credible sources and includes the supporting weblinks for the info. None of my sources are those with long histories of COVID misinformation or unknown social media types trolling the gutters of the internet.

COVID has killed far more Americans annually in recent years than has the flu, as the chart below clearly shows: https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/data/illness-severity.html?CDC_AAref_Val=https://www.cdc.gov/respiratory-viruses/data-research/dashboard/illness-severity.htm But the numbers have been getting closer in 2025, as this was a very bad year for the flu in the U.S., and COVID thus far in 2025 has been comparatively mild compared to recent years. The CDC says the U.S. had between 6,300 – 52,000 flu deaths annually between 2011 and 2024. If you add all those years together, the total for flu is still going to be far less -- less than half by my quick count -- compared to the 1.2 million U.S. COVID deaths only since 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/flu-burden/php/about/index.html

Except you're wrong, as the CDC chart for 2025 below shows: At least 67% of the reported COVID deaths in the U.S. thus far this year had COVID as the underlying [main] cause. Only the remaining one-third had COVID as a contributing cause. But hey, keep making up stuff as you go along...

The U.S. CDC reported last fall that receiving the 2023-2024 COVID vaccine reduced the risk of COVID critical illness [defined as ICU admission or death] in adults age 18 and above by: --67% during the first two months post vaccination --56% during months three and four post vaccination, and by --40% during months five and six post vaccination. I'll take those odds, thank you!

Most significant drugs in the U.S. are by doctor's prescription only. That's the way the U.S. medical system works, now and in the past. Thailand is a bit looser in that regard, in that you can obtain things like routine antibiotics here without a doctor's prescription. But still, a lot of the more serious medications also are only available here with a doctor's order at hospital pharmacies. And some of the more advanced medicines may not yet be available here at all....

One important point here is that many of those U.S. seniors dying from COVID don't have to be dying, if more had been vaccinated: Per the U.S. CDC, the 2024-2025 COVID vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalization from COVID in seniors age 65 and above by 45-46%, compared with all seniors who had NOT received the 2024-2025 vaccine. "During September 24, 2023–August 11, 2024, approximately 800,000 COVID-19–associated hospitalizations occurred in the United States (1); adults aged ≥65 years accounted for 70% of these hospitalizations." "COVID-19 vaccination averted approximately 68,000 hospitalizations during the 2023–24 respiratory season." " Among immunocompetent adults aged ≥65 years from two CDC networks, VE [vaccine effectiveness] estimates against COVID-19–associated hospitalization were 45% (95% CI = 36%–53%) and 46% (95% CI = 26%–60%) during the first 7–119 days after vaccination." https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7406a1.htm