‘Who Wants To Be A Guinea Pig?’
Call it the ripple effect.
Or actually, don't. Because that's not how the company wants to frame things.
"The pandemic was not a cause for these changes, but it has been a catalyst to move faster," Coca-Cola said Thursday, explaining the acceleration of a restructuring effort that will result in the loss of some 1,200 American jobs, either through buyouts or plain old layoffs. The global cull will ultimately affect 2,200 workers, or around 2.5% of the company's workforce.
It's true that the o
Does anyone know what the estimates are for how many lives worldwide have been saved in the last 100 years because of vaccines? What, maybe 10, total? I don’t know anyone who has been saved from taking any vaccine.
In fact, this reminds me now of the drinking water problem I face. My family hasn’t been diagnosed with either cholera or typhoid fever from the city supply of drinking water at the tap. Not yet, at least. My family is so much just guinea pigs. Just waiting. I am so abused and used. I and my family are part of a colossal scam by the city to experiment on us taxpayers with the city’s clean drinking water scam.
I don’t trust their water any longer. I’m calling my city water department tomorrow and demanding dirty tap water. If they can’t provide it, I’ll just find some cholera or typhoid fever cultures somewhere and put them in the Culligan. I’m tired of being a guinea pig.
Toilet paper is another experiment. Don’t be guinea pigs! For your own health and the health of all your families, stop using toilet paper.
This is one of the stupidest comments I’ve seen on this site. When I was a kid we used to have fundraisers for families who were victims of polio. You are obviously ignorant of the fear that diseases like polio and smallpox caused, the many deaths, and the wasted life potentials. Try to grow up.
If this was an attempt at sarcasm, it was a very poor one. This was not funny.
It was not well-worded satire, my friend, but I’m sure you and the runamoker are on the same page on this.
Sure hope so!
Yes, it seems they’re on the same page. In these dark times we need to stick together. Today I chatted with my Trump supporting neighbor. Please, let’s keep the discussion friendly and informative.
I got it. Cute; it might’ve landed a little flat, but I appreciate the attempt to bring some levity to a grim situation, and to poke fun at the logical fallacy behind these peoples’ thinking.
While I feel bad for soft drink workers who are trying to fund their families, it comes to mind that soft drinks, arguably, lead to more disease than cigarettes. An area where a reset is badly needed.
I have to assume that getting the disease is much worse than getting the vaccine. I plan to get vaccinated as soon as it becomes available to me. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I can get it by March. I want to get my freedom back, and the vaccine is a good thing.
I was assuming to get the J&J single dose when ready. I thought April/May was a realistic expectation. I think if these dual shots are up for grabs I may get to the Caribbean this winter after all. Warp speed was a dumb name.This administration has been all about T.V. nonsense and drama. Space Force. When I was in college that meant the Acid Heads.
Having had Dengue Fever I am hoping an outcome from the outside the box of vaccine development from Covid translates to more rapid development of vaccines for the various viruses whose ranges are expanding. The southern states of the USA are in for a rude awakening if warmer temperatures become common sooner rather than later.
As a dilettante with an interest in science, I’m leaning toward the mRNA vaccines (so, Pfizer and Moderna). The AstraZeneca/JNJ offerings are a bit too complex for my tastes, a veritable Rube Goldberg of biochemical machinations. In comparison, a simple strand of mRNA that can really only interact with your cells in one way, and breaks down within a day, is intuitively less risky to me. Not that I’m highly qualified to make the call, but if I were you, I’d absolutely go for the two-dose vaccine. (The biggest risk IMHO is that it will only trigger antibody production, not T cell production, and will therefore only offer short-term immunity < 1y.)
One thing people tend to forget about mRNA vaccines is that they’ve been researched for 15 years and trialed in humans (on a small scale) for almost a decade. In animal models, they’ve been found effective against zika, flu, rabies and numerous other viruses. In humans, we have an ebola vaccine waiting in the wings for phase 3 trial the next time there’s an outbreak; we stage-2 trialed vaccines against a few specific forms of CANCER; and we’ve tried several times to vaccinate against HIV (alas, mRNA doesn’t seem like a good fit there).
So, to your point about dengue: yes, the advancements in synthesizing and delivering mRNA that we’ve made in 2020 will absolutely accelerate all related research – and to me, it seems this technology could be a game changer for immunology in general.
Actually, being a long time Trekkie, “warp speed’ worked for me. What has not worked for me has been the thinking, if you can call it that, that has gone into the marketing and distribution of the vaccine. One number I’ve seen is 300 million from congress. That’s less than a dollar per person in the US. Billions have been spent in developing these vaccines but nearly nothing has been put into getting people to understand the process of development behind them. These MRna vaccines aren’t anything new. The science behind them has been around for years.
Still, people are going to die after taking this vaccine, most deaths will be coincidence but some won’t be. People have to understand risk. The stairs in their homes represent far more risk than this vaccine and it certainly should be preferred to being inoculated by catching this thing. That health care workers even have such an attitude tells oodles about how poor the messaging has been. The word has to be properly put out. Get a fu**ing ad firm that has sold crap forever and have them come up with a campaign to get this done.
As to “who wants to be a guinea pig?” Me. My two favorite places in the world are Detroit and almost any where along the 7 line in Queens. I’m headed to another funeral on Monday and I almost have no more tears to cry. I wish for this horror to end. Give it to me. I’m Black, old and diabetic. Don’t care. If it helps this come to and end, take me.
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Michael, I’m sorry for your loss. As for the safety of the vaccine, I’m a reality-based person and everything I’ve read suggests that deaths directly caused by any of the vaccines will be a pittance compared to the number attributed to COVID (now more than 3,000 a day). Like you, I’ll be lining up for a shot (or two) as soon as one becomes availaible to me.
I trust Fauci. He’s not infallible and doesn’t pretend to be, but he’s knowledgeable, experienced, and
has integrity. If he advises us to take any of the approved vaccines, the risk/reward decision for me is
to take it as soon as I can.
This issue reminds me of an old joke about two guys out in the wilderness that come across a hungry bear. The first guy says “we can’t out run this bear” and the second guy says “I don’t need to out run the bear, I just need to out run you.” Many people will think they won’t need to get the vaccine if most other people do get vaccinated.
I’m planning on getting vaccinated but awaiting further information on the Pfizer vaccine given I have a nut allergy. However different manufacturers have their own vaccines coming so the only real decision for me is which should I aim for and which will be available? Getting covid is only a matter of time and I’ll be no less a guinea pig for it.
“ getting Covid is only a matter of time“ that is the crux of the matter. Back in February I was in the hospital quite a bit with a friend’s cancer and surgeries. I was then asking every doctor I talked to Covid, two years? Probably was the universal answer
Vaccines became popular back in the day because they were a godsend for childhood diseases. I waited for the two shot shingles vaccine I do think if Johnson and Johnson has a single shot vaccine it will be a much easier sell . They may be able to do their own marketing and it might be the eventual winner. We will always struggle with corona type viruses.
I had the virus back in March. I’m 66 and generally do not like people – I like persons.
I wouldn’t wish this disease on tRump voters. It is Not just another flu.
During my travels this year I was required to get an antibody test waiting in the Prague airport ($280 and 12 hours). I tested positive and was allowed into Czechia.
I’m still going to get the J&J vaccine when it’s available. Cheap insurance.
Stay safe
One of my HS classmates sent me an email a couple days ago giving all the stupid fake reasons why everyone should avoid getting vaccinated and I couldn’t help remembering my childhood. I was born in 1944, too old to be a “boomer,” but not so old I don’t remember the horrible polio epidemic in the 1950s. Many today don’t even know this happened but it fortunately gave rise to one of the most important vaccines of the 20th Century. I grew up in north-central Indiana. In the town of 35,000 there was only one hospital. In the summer of 1955 the heart of the epidemic every space that could be found was filled with “iron lung” machines pumping air into the paralyzed bodies of children stricken with deadly polio. Some had been there for months. Machines were stuffed four or five to a room, lined every hallway, puffing away making this scary noise. Adults got it, too, but mostly it was kids. Several of my classmates were came down with the disease and some died. Even those who recovered were often paralyzed and we now no that many of those who recovered died young from the unknown after-effects of the illness. I remember when Dr. Salk’s miracle vaccine became available and all my classmates lined up in school as soon as it was available because none of us wanted to chance getting this disease. Even with the vaccine world-wide polio cases kept rising until the early 1980s before they finally declined. Why anyone would eschew vaccinaiton to avoid death is just beyond me.