“Viruses are a hoax” seems to have been growing ever since COVID. I never encountered it before that, now I’ve encountered it multiple times. There was a guy in the skeptic sub on Reddit who came in to argue like mad that viruses didn’t exist.
People were lined up around street corners to get the polio vaccine when it came out because they all knew just how horrible polio was.
And now that we’ve had decades of basically no polio because of the vaccine, people think vaccines aren’t needed, are dangerous, and that diseases are a hoax.
I do work for a bunch of pharmaceutical companies and developing nation health outreach type organizations. (Don’t ask me much technical, I’m not personally on the medical side.) But I can tell you that most major pharmas, Health NGOs and Government drug safety regulatory bodies are keenly aware that “Vaccines are a victim of their own success.” They have multiple approaches to dealing with the problem that a successful vaccine campaign makes the need for the vaccines socially invisible. There are varying degrees of success, but not a lot of generalized and reliable ways to combat this kind of cognitive disconnect.
The spectrum of human thought is astounding some times.
On the one hand you have people adamant that viruses don’t even exist against all rational thought, reason, the almost daily experience of their existence, and over a hundred years of scientific research around the world learning more about them in detail and cataloguing at least 15,000 distinct species.
While simultaneously you have people who know so much that they can manipulate viruses into becoming our own little machines to deliver working copies of genes straight into particular types of cells in someone’s body and treat their deadly genetic illness with gene therapy.
You joke, but I have an uncle who is basically on the liberal version of the COVID conspiracies who seems to be saying exactly this now. That big pharma is engineering everything from pandemics to allergies to psychosis to sell drugs. And that we should revert to monke to survive.
“Viruses are a hoax” seems to have been growing ever since COVID. I never encountered it before that, now I’ve encountered it multiple times. There was a guy in the skeptic sub on Reddit who came in to argue like mad that viruses didn’t exist.
Polio has entered the chat
✨ Rabies ✨
People were lined up around street corners to get the polio vaccine when it came out because they all knew just how horrible polio was.
And now that we’ve had decades of basically no polio because of the vaccine, people think vaccines aren’t needed, are dangerous, and that diseases are a hoax.
Education is critical.
I do work for a bunch of pharmaceutical companies and developing nation health outreach type organizations. (Don’t ask me much technical, I’m not personally on the medical side.) But I can tell you that most major pharmas, Health NGOs and Government drug safety regulatory bodies are keenly aware that “Vaccines are a victim of their own success.” They have multiple approaches to dealing with the problem that a successful vaccine campaign makes the need for the vaccines socially invisible. There are varying degrees of success, but not a lot of generalized and reliable ways to combat this kind of cognitive disconnect.
a) you are correct b) those who advocate against education are insidious
The spectrum of human thought is astounding some times.
On the one hand you have people adamant that viruses don’t even exist against all rational thought, reason, the almost daily experience of their existence, and over a hundred years of scientific research around the world learning more about them in detail and cataloguing at least 15,000 distinct species.
While simultaneously you have people who know so much that they can manipulate viruses into becoming our own little machines to deliver working copies of genes straight into particular types of cells in someone’s body and treat their deadly genetic illness with gene therapy.
What did he think they were? Bacteria? People and doctors colluding to fake symptoms? Demonic possession?
I mean, said guy has to have had the common cold at some point.
He thought it was Big Science lying to everyone, obviously.
You joke, but I have an uncle who is basically on the liberal version of the COVID conspiracies who seems to be saying exactly this now. That big pharma is engineering everything from pandemics to allergies to psychosis to sell drugs. And that we should revert to monke to survive.
I wasn’t joking. That’s basically what this guy thought.