People always talk about the side effects being worse than the disease, but they never specify what these supposed side effects are, much less evaluate what the probabilities of their happening might be.

Ever wondered why one of the listed side effects for Imodium is diarrhea? Because if someone—anyone—reports that something—anything—happened while they were using a medication, the pharmaceutical companies are required by law to list it on the insert, regardless of whether there is the slightest bit of evidence or even plausibility that there could be any causal connection. So yeah, one of the side effects of Tylenol is headaches, and one of the side effects of Viagra is impotence. You're already experiencing those symptoms. They don't go away instantly!

The law is idiotic and, worse, counterproductive.

The availability of this meaningless information, devoid as it is of any context, freaks patients out and seriously damages the therapeutic relationship between doctor and patient. No matter how intelligent they think they are, laymen simply don't have the knowledge or expertise to properly assess these kinds of risks. I'm a medical school graduate who's spent years studying this stuff, and I'll freely tell you I don't know shit. Board-certified physicians have spent many more years studying this stuff, and they will tell you they don't know shit either. They forget more medicine on a daily basis than laymen will ever learn in their entire lifetimes. Why do patients fancy themselves qualified physicians just because they have Google, search results of which are driven by sensationalism, paranoia, and conspiracy theories, at their fingertips? It's annoying, it's a waste of precious time, and it's a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action. Worst of all, it can be downright dangerous.

Do yourself a favor: don't go on Google before you go to the doctor—or after you get home, for that matter. You don't know what the hell you're doing, and you're just going to cause yourself a ton of unnecessary anxiety and stress.

Originally Posted by: Nonstopdrivel 

People always talk about the side effects being worse than the disease, but they never specify what these supposed side effects are, much less evaluate what the probabilities of their happening might be.

Ever wondered why one of the listed side effects for Imodium is diarrhea? Because if someone—anyone—reports that something—anything—happened while they were using a medication, the pharmaceutical companies are required by law to list it on the insert, regardless of whether there is the slightest bit of evidence or even plausibility that there could be any causal connection. So yeah, one of the side effects of Tylenol is headaches, and one of the side effects of Viagra is impotence. You're already experiencing those symptoms. They don't go away instantly!

The law is idiotic and, worse, counterproductive.

The availability of this meaningless information, devoid as it is of any context, freaks patients out and seriously damages the therapeutic relationship between doctor and patient. No matter how intelligent they think they are, laymen simply don't have the knowledge or expertise to properly assess these kinds of risks. I'm a medical school graduate who's spent years studying this stuff, and I'll freely tell you I don't know shit. Board-certified physicians have spent many more years studying this stuff, and they will tell you they don't know shit either. They forget more medicine on a daily basis than laymen will ever learn in their entire lifetimes. Why do patients fancy themselves qualified physicians just because they have Google, search results of which are driven by sensationalism, paranoia, and conspiracy theories, at their fingertips? It's annoying, it's a waste of precious time, and it's a classic case of the Dunning-Kruger effect in action. Worst of all, it can be downright dangerous.

Do yourself a favor: don't go on Google before you go to the doctor—or after you get home, for that matter. You don't know what the hell you're doing, and you're just going to cause yourself a ton of unnecessary anxiety and stress.

Originally Posted by: Nonstopdrivel 

Even more damaging than the lists of side effects on drug inserts is the chaos of VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Effect Reporting System). If you report that your daughter died in a car accident six weeks after getting a vaccine, that goes in as an adverse event. If you report that a vaccine transformed you into the Incredible Hulk or Wonder Woman , the bureaucrats will dutifully enter that information into the database for the rest of the world to find on Google. They don't have a choice—it's required by law.

The data is worse than meaningless. It's dangerously misleading.

You know how many deaths have been causally linked to Gardisil since it was introduced in 2006? Zero. Motherfucking zero. But I bet that won't find that out on the first or even the tenth website that pops up in Google. Maybe not even the twentieth. Meanwhile, deaths from cervical cancer, which historically was one of the top two or three cancer killers of women worldwide, have plummeted over 90 percent since the advent of Pap smears and now Gardisil. Yet people are so panicked over apocryphal reports of girls committing suicide months after getting the shot that they refuse to immunize their children. To this day, barely twenty percent of boys are getting vaccinated against HPV, despite the fact that we are experiencing an explosion of oral and throat cancer among men in this country, treatments for which are grotesquely disfiguring.

It's immoral and it's evil, that's what it is.

Originally Posted by: Nonstopdrivel 

President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

May 19, 2020

Dear Mr. President:

Thousands of physicians in all specialties and from all States would like to express our gratitude for your leadership. We write to you today to express our alarm over the exponentially growing negative health consequences of the national shutdown.In medical terms, the shutdown was a mass casualty incident.During a mass casualty incident, victims are immediately triaged to black, red,yellow, or green.

The first group, triage level black, includes those who require too many resources to save during a mass crisis. The red group has severe injuries that are survivable with treatment, the yellow group has serious injuries that are not immediately life threatening, and the green group has minor injuries. The red group receives highest priority. The next priority is to ensure that the other two groups do not deteriorate a level. Decades of research have shown that by strictly following this algorithm, we save the maximum number of lives.Millions of Americans are already at triage level red. These include 150,000 Americans per month who would have had a new cancer detected through routine screening that hasn’t happened, millions who have missed routine dental care to fix problems strongly linked to heart disease/death, and preventable cases of stroke, heart attack, and child abuse.

Suicide hotline phone calls have increased 600%.Tens of millions are at triage level yellow. Liquor sales have increased 300-600%,cigarettes sales have increased, rent has gone unpaid, family relationships have become frayed, and millions of well-child check-ups have been missed.Hundreds of millions are at triage level green. These are people who currently are solvent, but at risk should economic conditions worsen. Poverty and financial uncertainty is closely linked to poor health. A continued shutdown means hundreds of millions of Americans will downgrade a level. The following are real examples from our practices.

Patient E.S. is a mother with two children whose office job was reduced to part-time and whose husband was furloughed. The father is drinking more, the mother is depressed and not managing her diabetes well, and the children are barely doing any schoolwork.

Patient A.F. has chronic but previously stable health conditions. Her elective hip replacement was delayed, which caused her to become nearly sedentary, resulting in a pulmonary embolism in April.

Patient R.T. is an elderly nursing home patient, who had a small stroke in early March but was expected to make a nearly complete recovery. Since the shutdown, he has had no physical or speech therapy, and no visitors. He has lost weight, and is deteriorating rather than making progress.

Patient S.O. is a college freshman who cannot return to normal life, school, and friendships. He risks depression, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, trauma, and future financial uncertainty.We are alarmed at what appears to be the lack of consideration for the future health of our patients.

The downstream health effects of deteriorating a level are being massively under-estimated and under-reported. This is an order of magnitude error.It is impossible to overstate the short, medium, and long-term harm to people’s health with a continued shutdown. Losing a job is one of life’s most stressful events, and the effect on a person’s health is not lessened because it also has happened to 30 million other people. Keeping schools and universities closed is incalculably detrimental for children, teenagers, and young adults for decades to come.

The millions of casualties of a continued shutdown will be hiding in plain sight,but they will be called alcoholism, homelessness, suicide, heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure. In youths it will be called financial instability, unemployment, despair, drug addiction, unplanned pregnancies, poverty, and abuse.Because the harm is diffuse, there are those who hold that it does not exist. We,the undersigned, know otherwise.Please let us know if we may be of assistance.

An actual cure might never be found. And if they do find a vaccine, it could take years. And to know what long time side effects are also unknown. Just watch TV and see lawyer ads against drugs that have ended up causing worse problems.
They can’t even cure a common cold.
So keep the country on lockdown until when?
First it was a couple weeks, then a month, then 2 months. Now how long? Let people choose to stay home or go out and back to work.

Originally Posted by: Cheesey 

Regrettably

What I don’t understand is people thinking automatically that a vaccine will be found quickly, or at all. The common cold still has no cure. Do I hope they come up with a vaccine? Heck yes! But there’s no guarantee. And we can’t keep the country closed until they come up with one.
Social distancing and common sense will help until then.

Originally Posted by: Cheesey