The life and tragic death of John Eyers - a fitness fanatic who refused the vaccine

The problem with vaccinations is that you have to take them before the fact. For a vaccine to work, people who aren't sick (and probably will never become sick) have to get a shot. The fact is a lot of people don't want to do this.

We are apparently about to get two new treatments that can save the lives of people who haven't been vaccinated. I was reading the new Pfizer drug is 89% effective at preventing deaths and hospitalization for people who are unvaccinated.

This is clearly a good thing, it solves the problem without the political fighting. (Yes yes, obviously people should still get vaccinated... this just takes away the need to wish death on people who don't).

Get the freaking vaxx and stop the whining.

Nobody's 'wishing death' on anyone, including people who haven't gotten vaxxed. How extreme of max to suggest otherwise.

not true.

the vaccine can prevent you from getting covid a second time...

This is a drug that will greatly reduce the chance of death and hospitalization for people who aren't vaccinated. The advantage of this drug is that they can take this drug after they start having symptoms. Whether they will get some level of immunity after this point isn't clear.

Do you agree that this is a very good thing?

What kind of person recommends a medication that isn't even in final form without understanding even how it works, that a study last week said it isn't near as effective as first thought, and over a vaxx that's been used successfully for over a year, based on technology, and successful practice since before Gen Washington had troops vaxxed at Valley Forge?

A disingenuous sophist with an unclear half-baked notion of how and what the Bill of Rights protects.

I didn't know that they had MRNA vaccines at Valley Forge. I guess you learn something new every day.

The Pfizer anti-viral drug is pretty far along in tests. The question is; at what point will you support such a drug?

If there is drug that can be taken at home by people with covid symptoms to greatly reduce death and serious illness. And this drug were proven as safe and effective as the vaccines.

At what point would you support it?

Vaccines have become so political. I hope that you will support life-saving antiviral treatments that can be taken by unvaccinated people.

I really do not get what fine point you're making. But as you point out it's an experimental regimine that may that a 89% chance to avoide or reduce Covid symptoms, that they are trying to fast track their concoction thru the FDA, and lobbying Congress (and we all know how a Republican can not leave any money on the table from a lobbyist) to get this ting monetized - vs. - A vaccine that's already working.

Now before you start claiming I relish a Republican death by Covid, let me tell you, you are wrong.

For the first thing: Explain the disconnect between squeamishness over the vaxx as "not tested enough" to jump for joy over an FDA unapproved, experimental regime.

For the next thing: Before you bring up up any yammer about break thru infection, please cite and source your proof.

For the last thing: I have held drawing and oil painting classes out here for the last six or seven years.. I'd had as few as four as many as eight. We all discussed Covid, our responsibility to each other, ourselves, our families and the other students and crafters in the building. We quit reusing table coverings. We sanitized before and after class, wore gloves, wore masks and I was allowed to believed these people all about my age were vaxxed. During Pandemic, I only held classes in periods of four weeks twice over about six months.

Only one was vaxxed, one died and the husband of another got it and was using horse dewormer. The only two who were vaxxed stayed home.

So when you slice your bologna, no matter how thin you slice it - it's bologna.

You keep addressing me after you've ordered me not to respond to you. Sounds like you are trolling, to me. Again.

I really can't see any purpose to responding to you ever again. Keep your own bargain.

Most Covid Vaccines Will Work as Boosters, Study Suggests

Source: New York Times

People looking for a booster shot of a Covid-19 vaccine probably don’t need to fret about what brand it is: Many combinations of shots are likely to provide strong protection, according to a large new study. In a comparison of seven different vaccine brands, British researchers found that most of them prompted a strong immune response, with the mRNA shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech eliciting the largest responses. The study was published on Thursday in The Lancet.“These are welcome data for policymakers,” said Merry Voysey, a statistician at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the study.

“The most significant take-home message here is that there are a large number of excellent boosting options for third doses.” It’s too soon for researchers to say much about how well different vaccine boosters will work against the new Omicron variant, which has mutations that may allow it to evade some of the antibodies produced by existing Covid-19 vaccines. Some researchers suspect that people would need a very high level of antibodies to protect against it. All of the study’s 2,878 volunteers initially received two shots of either the AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccines. (Both of those vaccines are authorized in Britain; shots by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have been authorized in the United States.)

The researchers then tested seven different vaccines as boosters: along with AstraZeneca and Pfizer, they tried three brands that have been authorized in various countries: Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Novavax. They also tried two shots that have not been authorized anywhere: an mRNA vaccine from CureVac, and a vaccine from Valneva made from inactivated coronaviruses. Finally, some of the volunteers received a meningitis vaccine as a control. After four weeks, the researchers collected blood samples from the volunteers and measured their antibody levels. They also looked for immune cells, known as T cells, that specifically attack other cells infected with the coronavirus.

Antibodies and T cell levels increased in people who received a Covid-19 booster shot compared with those who got the meningitis vaccine. The range was quite large, however. People who got the Valneva booster after a Pfizer vaccine saw only a 30 percent increase above the control group. But a Moderna booster produced at least a 1,000 percent increase. The new study also found that boosters increased T cells that recognize the coronavirus. Antibodies may be good at knocking the coronavirus out early in an infection, when the virus is colonizing the nose. But deep in the airway, T cells may provide a second line of defense.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/02/health/covid-booster-shots-mix-and-match.html


Link to the publication in Lancet is at the NYT article.

'Magic dirt': How the internet fueled, and defeated, the pandemic's weirdest MLM

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/magic-dirt-internet-fueled-defeated-pandemics-weirdest-mlm-rcna6950

Black Oxygen Organics became a sudden hit in the fringe world of alternative medicines and supplements, where even dirt can go for $110 a bag.
Illustration of hands holds sparkling dirt.
Black Oxygen Organics burst across social media in just a few months, generating sales that surprised even company executives. But that success attracted government regulators.Robert Beatty for NBC News
Dec. 2, 2021, 5:01 AM CST / Updated Dec. 2, 2021, 6:49 AM CST
By Brandy Zadrozny

The social media posts started in May: photos and videos of smiling people, mostly women, drinking Mason jars of black liquid, slathering black paste on their faces and feet, or dipping babies and dogs in tubs of the black water. They tagged the posts #BOO and linked to a website that sold a product called Black Oxygen Organics.

Black Oxygen Organics, or “BOO” for short, is difficult to classify. It was marketed as fulvic acid, a compound derived from decayed plants, that was dug up from an Ontario peat bog. The website of the Canadian company that sold it billed it as “the end product and smallest particle of the decomposition of ancient, organic matter.”

Put more simply, the product is dirt — four-and-a-half ounces of it, sealed in a sleek black plastic baggie and sold for $110 plus shipping. Visitors to the Black Oxygen Organics website, recently taken offline, were greeted with a pair of white hands cradling cups of dirt like an offering. “A gift from the Ground,” it reads. “Drink it. Wear it. Bathe in it.”

BOO, which “can be taken by anyone at any age, as well as animals,” according to the company, claims many benefits and uses, including improved brain function and heart health, and ridding the body of so-called toxins that include heavy metals, pesticides and parasites.

By the end of the summer, online ads for BOO had made their way to millions of people within the internet subcultures that embrace fringe supplements, including the mixed martial arts community, anti-vaccine and Covid-denier groups, and finally more general alternative health and fake cure spaces.

And people seemed to be buying; parts of TikTok and Instagram were flooded with #BOO posts. The businessman behind Black Oxygen Organics has been selling mud in various forms for 25 years now, but BOO sold in amounts that surprised even its own executives, according to videos of company meetings viewed by NBC News.

The stars appeared aligned for it. A pandemic marked by unprecedented and politicized misinformation has spurred a revival in wonder cures. Well-connected Facebook groups of alternative health seekers and vaccine skeptics provided an audience and eager customer base for a new kind of medicine show. And the too-good-to-be-true testimonials posted to social media attracted a wave of direct sellers, many of them women dipping their toes into the often unprofitable world of multilevel marketing for the first time.

But success came at a price. Canadian and U.S. health regulators have cracked down on BOO in recent months, initiating recalls and product holds at the border, respectively. And just as an online army of fans powered BOO’s success, an oppositional force of online skeptics threatened to shut it down.

Just before Thanksgiving, the company announced in an email it was closing up shop for good. Sellers packed video calls mourning the death of their miracle cure, railing against executives who had taken their money and seemingly run, and wondering how they might recoup the thousands of dollars they paid for BOO that never arrived.

The announcement was the apparent end of one of the most haltingly successful companies to ride a wave of interest in online and directly sold alternative medicines — immunity-boosting oils, supplements, herbs, elixirs and so-called superfoods that, despite widespread concerns over their efficacy and safety, make up a lightly regulated, multibillion-dollar industry.

In a world where consumers flock to alternative health products, BOO seemed to provide an answer to the question: Just how far are people willing to dig to find their miracle cure?
A social post from Black Oxygen Organics and a Facebook post from a fan of the "magic dirt."
A social post from Black Oxygen Organics and a Facebook post from a fan of the "magic dirt."Obtained by NBC News
What is BOO?

Monica Wong first learned about BOO in May. The 39-year-old was scrolling Facebook from her home in Brentwood, California, and saw a Facebook ad that caught her eye: A woman in a bright green shirt emblazoned with a marijuana leaf holding a sign that read, “F--- Big Pharma!” alongside a kind of treatment that promised to “detox heavy metals.”

Wong had been looking for such a product, for her boyfriend and herself, and while the price was steep, a little internet research convinced her that the health effects would be worth it. Wong clicked on the ad and bought some BOO.

Wong said that for two months she dissolved a half-teaspoon of the black stuff in a glass of water and drank it every day. But unlike people in her new BOO Facebook group who posted miraculous testimonials of cured diseases, weight loss, clearer skin, whiter teeth, regrown hair, reclaimed energy, expelled worms and even changes in eye color (from brown to blue), Wong didn’t feel like any toxins were leaving her body. In fact, she started having stomach pains.

“I can’t say it was the BOO for sure,” Wong said she remembers wondering as she went to the hospital for tests, “but wasn’t it supposed to heal my gut?”

Wong quit taking BOO and told the head of her Facebook group, a higher-ranked seller who earned commission off Wong’s participation, about her new pains. When asked why

Bobsal,

You are more than welcome to respond to any of my posts. If I suggested you not respond, it is only because I am worried about your mental health since you seem to get overly upset sometimes when someone questions your beliefs. I only think it is funny that people say they are going to ignore me... and then spend pages and pages whining about it (whining is the opposite of ignoring).

I have no problem with you engaging as you please.

You just can't resist trolling. The mental health risk you really should worry about is your own.

Stalin gets a lot of bad press, and deservedly so he was a monster after all.

However, he would have thrown Max into a gulag at the drop of a hat, so he wasn't all bad.

And I'd shake Iron Joe's hand for it.

He's is trying to get this op locked. That would be three in a week.

Nurse Charged With Creating Fake Vaccine Card for Relative With 'Anti-Vaccination Beliefs'

A nurse will be the first person in South Carolina to face federal criminal charges after making a fake vaccine card for her relative, according to the Associated Press.

Tammy McDonald, a registered nurse and the director of nursing at a health center in Columbia, has pleaded not guilty to the charges. She is accused of making a false vaccination card for a relative who holds "anti-vaccination beliefs" and then lying to government officials when asked about it. She was indicted by a federal grand jury on the case in November.

According to The State, creating a fraudulent government-issued vaccine card could result in a maximum of fifteen years in prison. Lying to a federal agent also carries a maximum five-year sentence. Due to McDonald's clean track record, it is unlikely that she will carry these maximum sentences, potentially settling for probation instead.

McDonald's place of work and the relative that she made the card for have not been released to the public.

https://www.newsweek.com/nurse-charged-creating-fake-vaccine-card-relative-anti-vaccination-beliefs-1655591

I don't know why people have to be so self obsessed.

It's a wonderment.