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England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

bbc.com

251–260 of 452 posts

Re: England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

#251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the UK once you've had your childhood vaccinations it's entirely possible you'd simply never see a doctor again in your life until you're ready for your prostate exam in older life. It's entirely possible to do this in the US, too, but it's not the default path. I know some people who think it's a point of pride to brag that they haven't been to a doctor in 20 years. I know other people who never miss their annu…

I'm not a big proponent of restricting speech but "Ask your doctor about..." advertising should be banned in the USA. If you don't have medical training you're in no position to decide what medical conditions you may have or what treatments might be appropriate. If you want to be a doctor, go to medical school.

The idea of advertising prescription drugs is absolutely bonkers in and of itself. If I recall correctly, the only reason they say "Ask your doctor about..." was a regulatory compromise that allowed such advertising. Telling the general public to simply "take Procrapin for their constipation" was deemed too extreme: The general public doesn't have the medical training to diagnose themselves or recommend treatment, but instead the manufacturer was allowed to urge the general public to nag their doctor about a medicine--that was seen as fine.

Re: England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

#252

[flagged]

There are two kinds of vaccine skeptics: a much larger group of people who will in fact have conversations about costs and benefits, and a small group of cranks like yourself that should be treated like the drooling imbeciles that they are.

- Don't live in California

- Risks are considered, but you will never be satisfied

- Long-term risks have been studied with very good methodology.

Re: England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

#253
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the amount of cultural influence the USA has and the universal nature of the internet it seems likely to me that global anti-vax sentiment could have started with the USA.

The pivotal paper that tried to link vaccines to autism came out of the UK and was published in The Lancet. Assuming that the US was the root of the current surge of anti-vax idealism is not supported by the facts.

And that guy ended up losing his medical license permanently over it.

Re: England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here [1] is a montage of some of the public messaging around the COVID vaccines. [1] It was quite simply dishonest. That, paired alongside the effort to force people to take the shots, completely destroyed public trust on a level that will take many decades to repair. Generalized vaccine skepticism follows naturally from that. I'm certainly a part of that group. For instance I ended up doing extensive research on e.g…

But this has been building for years ahead of COVID. COVID just gave people something to latch on to. And in spite of COVID vaccine issues, the latest numbers i saw suggest around 80% of people still support standard childhood vaccinations.

The media has been referencing this for years now, but the data don't show that there was any meaningful effect on a national level. Here [1] are CDC data on various childhood vaccines. Childhood DTP/MMR vaccination rates varied very little over the past 15 years and never fell below 94%. They actually hit a record high in 2019 right before COVID - of about 95% each. Now they're both at record lows (around 92%) and continuing to trend lower.

[1] - https://www.cdc.gov/schoolvaxview/data/index.html

Re: England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

#255
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this is liberal/left heavy, it's to be expected, you can't just rummage in and expect people to be like hm good points you're right! when most of the audience is against you it's expected if you could delve into what supports your arguments that'd help more than "trust me instead" I personally am skeptical of many things, including pharma, but I'm not going to claim that vaccines don't work when historically t…

[flagged]

> HN pretends there's nothing to discuss here.

Have you read the discussions on vaccine stories? See, for example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26629234 – chosen arbitrarily using the search box at the bottom of the page. I've not read anyone pretending this.

> shut up

People are being dismissive of you, but nobody has told you to shut up in this thread. (The closest thing is flagging the comments which started with broad-spectrum insults, but this only occurred after you wrote this.) Despite its tone, I'm going to have to second GP's assessment that you're responding to imagined slights.

Re: England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL, no that's simply not true. The borders between Scotland, England, and Wales are effectively like state borders in the US. Unless you see a street sign, you wouldn't know you crossed it. NI is physically on a different island, so requires a boat or plane ride. And all of the UK (ignoring the territories and ex-colonies) is on islands. And require a valid passport, passing through customs/immigration checks, and e…

Most of the Scottish border is fairly physically obvious, unlike Wales (although the Severn bridge is). Tens of thousands of people live on islands other than Britain and Ireland. Much of Scotland is not even considered UK mainland by delivery firms, even major places such as Perth.

Really? Perth? You can go on uninterrupted 70mph roads from London to Perth.

Re: England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

#258

[flagged]

There are two kinds of vaccine skeptics: a much larger group of people who will in fact have conversations about costs and benefits, and a small group of cranks like yourself that should be treated like the drooling imbeciles that they are. - Don't live in California - Risks are considered, but you will never be satisfied - Long-term risks have been studied with very good methodology.

Not that anyone who needs this will read it, but "skeptic" does not mean "already made up your mind and will never change it".

People were "skeptical" of vaccines. Then they did science. Now they aren't. Then, yes, people like the guy trying starting this thread who will never be convinced and cannot change his mind.

Re: England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

#259
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I mean this is liberal/left heavy, it's to be expected, you can't just rummage in and expect people to be like hm good points you're right! when most of the audience is against you it's expected if you could delve into what supports your arguments that'd help more than "trust me instead" I personally am skeptical of many things, including pharma, but I'm not going to claim that vaccines don't work when historically t…

It didn't start out as liberal/left, so a lot of the people that have been here since 2010 want to keep most politics out it entirely. After all the name of the group is "Hackers". Most of the people in compsci/engineering were libertarian prior to 2007 anyway. It's really undergone a shift which is fine, but it actually adds absolutely nothing, from an intellectual point of view imho. It would be nice to at least send a warning note, to any accounts that solely post political stuff here - or give them their own subgroup. For God's sake if you are going to talk about Hepatis-C then talk about here, rather than using it to bring up issues with an administration you don't like.

Re: England set to be one of the first countries to eliminate hepatitis C

#260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but RFK (and other politicians and celebrities) have been active in pushing some form of anti-vax ideology for a decade plus, in some cases back to the 1970s. It's been a growing movement, not something that kicked off when RFK assumed the HHS role.

Pre-Trump, anti-vaxxers were notorious left-wing granola types. Lots of anti-vaxxers were white liberals living in Marin and NorCal and sending their children to private schools like Waldorf. Only after Trump did people start lumping them in with right wing.

Trump gave them official government support and promoted them.
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