Cycling UK Forum

Gearoidmuar wrote: ↑13 Jan 2024, 2:11pm I didn't really. There have only been two RCTs of mask wearing and Covid. Just two. One in Denmark and another in Bangladesh.
There have been loads more on Flu and on other infections. I am not uttering something which suddenly came out of my head, but the opinions of top epidemiologists in this field. Fauci e.g., is not an epidemiologist nor is Birx.
The real man to listen to in this regard is Vinay Prasad who is prof of Epid in UCLASF and has no axe to grind.

Right. The way science works is that the "real man" should be identified, then his (naturally, a 'he') views should be followed to the exclusion of others.

Not sure why you think he alone has no axe to grind, but he certainly seems to be a naturally talented attention seeker.

https://cancerletter.com/the-cancer-letter/20211008_4/

Vinay Prasad:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinay_Prasad

Jonathan

What authority has Wikipedia? What it takes. It has all kinds of biases.

Many don't like Prasad because he's abrasive etc. You will also find that many who turn out to be right have been dissed in their time, if not most of them. The phenomenon which people like him smash, is the echo chamber.
Were there a value to masking, it would long ago have been confirmed.
You might say, would you have an operating theatre without masks?
Well it's been tried and the masks have no value. Do they prevent would infections? No.

One of the great strengths of Wikipedia is that it cites its sources...

Jonathan

Gearoidmuar wrote: ↑10 Jan 2024, 8:01pm They just don't. If you read all the proper trials going back to before Covid, they fail. This has nothing to do with conspiracy theories or being pro or anti-vaxx etc.
...

Gearoidmuar wrote: ↑13 Jan 2024, 8:00am In fact, most public health medical interventions don't work.

Please could you tell us what you include in that... clean drinking water, sewage, vaccination... ?

Thanks

Jonathan

Jdsk wrote: ↑13 Jan 2024, 3:12pm

Gearoidmuar wrote: ↑10 Jan 2024, 8:01pm They just don't. If you read all the proper trials going back to before Covid, they fail. This has nothing to do with conspiracy theories or being pro or anti-vaxx etc.
...

Gearoidmuar wrote: ↑13 Jan 2024, 8:00am In fact, most public health medical interventions don't work.

Please could you tell us what you include in that... clean drinking water, sewage, vaccination... ?

Thanks

Jonathan

Jonathan, I'm not an idiot. Was a consultant Pathologist etc.
Tell us how well dietary interventions are doing? Resoundingly well?
There is an epidemic of obesity, metabolic syndrome, mental illnesses of all types, osteoarthritis, heart disease etc.

Gearoidmuar wrote: ↑13 Jan 2024, 3:23pm

Jdsk wrote: ↑13 Jan 2024, 3:12pm

Gearoidmuar wrote: ↑10 Jan 2024, 8:01pm They just don't. If you read all the proper trials going back to before Covid, they fail. This has nothing to do with conspiracy theories or being pro or anti-vaxx etc.
...

Gearoidmuar wrote: ↑13 Jan 2024, 8:00am In fact, most public health medical interventions don't work.

Please could you tell us what you include in that... clean drinking water, sewage, vaccination... ?

Jonathan, I'm not an idiot. Was a consultant Pathologist etc.
Tell us how well dietary interventions are doing? Resoundingly well?
There is an epidemic of obesity, metabolic syndrome, mental illnesses of all types, osteoarthritis, heart disease etc.

And what do those have to do with "most public health medical interventions"?

Thanks

Jonathan

Gearoidmuar wrote: ↑13 Jan 2024, 3:05pm What authority has Wikipedia? What it takes. It has all kinds of biases.

You are asking us to take on your personal authority that Prasad is the "real man" and his views alone are the arbiter of these issues.

Biggest threat to public health these days is non-communicable diseases, main mechanism being pathological insulin resistance related to metabolic syndrome related to overweight related to a dreadful diet and absence of exercise. Results in increased mortality from cancers, heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, stroke etc etc. Also this will increase severity of Covid, flu etc.

Gearoidmuar wrote: ↑13 Jan 2024, 3:54pm Biggest threat to public health these days is non-communicable diseases, main mechanism being pathological insulin resistance related to metabolic syndrome related to overweight related to a dreadful diet and absence of exercise. Results in increased mortality from cancers, heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, stroke etc etc. Also this will increase severity of Covid, flu etc.

The prevalence of those conditions doesn't mean that "most public health medical interventions don't work.". It is consistent with effective public health interventions not having been implemented.

Jonathan

It's actually due to misguided interventions. Look at the food pyramid with no scientific basis and myplate etc. Advice for diabetics to eat carbs.

Simply comparing Covid infection rates (does that mean total over the whole course of the pandemic, or over stated times, or what, BTW?) and mask-use practice in one country with those in another, even if you do it well, which will be very difficult given the difficulty of characterising and measuring something as multi-faceted as “mask use”, especially several years after the event, and then drawing a conclusion about the effectiveness or otherwise of mask-wearing as a prophylactic against Covid infection from that alone is almost certain to lead you up the garden path, because it fails to account for all the other differences that might exist between the two countries.

Put more bluntly: it’s sloppy thinking.

It’s also very questionable to use headline grabbing phrases like “masks don’t work”, when the truth is almost certainly some horrendously complicated and nuanced set of facts that can’t be rammed into one catchphrase.

Put more bluntly: it’s potentially very misleading.

The weirdness seemed to start ( or be revealed ) in loads of folk during and after the pandemic.

The list seems to go from :
Masks don't work.
Covid didn't do much harm it was the lock downs
Trump is great.

To

There's micro chips in the vaccine to trace you.
We didn't land on the moon.
The Jews control all the money.
The Ukrainians are the baddies.
Putin's the goodie.
15min cities mean you're not allowed out of your home.
Cows are being blew up by the government

To

The earth is flat ( oh right )
The sea is held in by an ice wall ( seriously )
You're not allowed near the ice wall in case you find the secret door ( where to? Narnia ? )


This is just some of the complete nonsense I'm hearing from people I'd have considered ' fairly ' intelligent and sane before the pandemic.

Sometimes I just don't know how to respond to that. I can't hide the incredulous look on my face when I'm thinking ' will this Nutter want to kill me if I disagree with any of this twattery?'


There's probably someone out there that understands what the fluffy is going on ATM but it's all a bit scary for a 'normal chap' just trying to get through a day.

I think it’s because a combination of things, one after the other, the climate crisis becoming self-evident, economic recession, Brexit (which highlighted to everyone, whatever their opinion, that half of the country disagrees with that opinion), the pandemic, war in a part of Europe that is recognisably nearby and “like here’, etc, have shaken many, highlighting the fragility of long-held assumptions and beliefs, together they have constituted a prolonged “bad news shock”.

And, what’s the natural, innate, first response to bad news shocks? Disbelief and denial.

Some people just can’t get properly beyond that first response, even into the next stage, which is sadness/depression. They get stuck in ‘disbelief and denial land’, building an ever more complex confection of nonsense, tilting-over into irrationality, and clinging to tiny improbabilities, to protect themselves from the mental anguish prompted by the onslaught of bad news.

Of course, there is at least one state that devotes itself to promulgating lies as a means of destabilising other states that it sees as threats to it, plus some politicians have latched onto promulgating irrationality as a route to power (not exactly a new trick, just a rediscovered and refined trick), and plenty of commercial interests that dabble round the edge of the same swamp for their own ends.

Then there are the people who have managed to move beyond denial of the bad news and taking refuge in irrationality, but have only got as far as the sad/depressed stage, not beyond that it into anything more positive, among whom I’d count myself on bad days.

Basically, there are a lot of deluded people, and a lot of depressed people about currently because a long run of bad news, and a lot of professional
liars have damaged our collective mental health - a kind of widespread, low-grade PTSD if you like.

Locked due to conspiracy theories, etc.