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Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

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Re: Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

#241
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hippa only applies to medical professionals i believe. Employers can always ask for your medical records. This has always been the case.

so can employers for instance ask about HIV status and discriminate based on that?

Only if HIV status has a significant relevance to your ability to perform your job duties (including things like the safety of other workers, the public, etc., when your work.)

Of course, unless your job involves something unusual like having sex with your coworkers or the public, that's not all that likely.

Re: Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

#242
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hippa only applies to medical professionals i believe. Employers can always ask for your medical records. This has always been the case.

so can employers for instance ask about HIV status and discriminate based on that?

Is that something you've seen happening? Seems far-fetched to me, since you can't contract HIV simply by doing office work in the same room with HIV-positive co-workers.

Re: Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

#243

Good. Its time to stop messing around with this. The vaccines are tested and are safe.

I have taken both shots. But I wouldn't call them "safe", as they are young and approved under emergency guidelines. They are probably safe, but nobody knows that right now.

actually, they just proved themselves "safe enough" over the past few months. If they weren't, it would have been detected by epidemiologists. In fact, they did manage to determine there were some extremely rare effects, which increases the confidence they didn't miss some major effects.

Re: Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

#244
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been nearly 4 billion shots delivered across the world in the past 8 months. I suspect if they were to cause great harm, we would have known by now.

Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm. See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the covid vax. I got Pfizer myself as soon as it was available. But there is still room for doubt.

> Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm. See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences.

If you don't get the vaccine, unless you become a shut in, you're going to get COVID eventually (and being a shut in will probably become less and less tenable the farther we get from the peak). I highly doubt the vaccines have additional long term side effects that the actual disease doesn't have.

The situation with an Anthrax vaccine is different, because it's very unlikely for someone to get exposed to Anthrax.

Re: Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interesting - I thought either HIPAA (thanks for the correction), FMLA or ADA protected employees from being asked about medical information that could result in they being discriminated against in regards to employment things.

> I thought either HIPAA (thanks for the correction), FMLA or ADA protected employees from being asked about medical information that could result in they being discriminated against in regards to employment things. ADA does for some things, but not all things. Vaccination status is apparently not among them, though many of the things that would be involved in a medical reason not to vaccinate are.

> ADA does for some things, but not all things. Vaccination status is apparently not among them, though many of the things that would be involved in a medical reason not to vaccinate are.

Right - this is my point that I poorly presented. If you say you cannot be vaccinated for medical issues, obviously they must be presented proof otherwise any anti-vaxxer would say that.

However if said proof would be constitute information under ADA then you wouldn't have to share it no? However since there's no way to know if that's actually true without knowing it seems we're in a dilemma.

Re: Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

#246
post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) That's not really a convincing response. There were only two viral vector vaccines ever approved for human use before 2020, both for ebola I believe, and therefore probably not widely administered. So the concern isn't mRNA or is it? > 2. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Sure, but it also means you need some sort of empirical or a priori starting point. There isn't even a hypothesis to gather evid…

I'm only guessing based on my personal interpretation of azangru, but I think the concern is delivery mechanisms that have never, or only rarely, been used before. Regarding evidence for "spooky things", well, by their nature there is no or little evidence for them. They are black swans and the means by which they are addressed is the precautionary principle. In particular, by their nature, there can be no evidence a…

> I think the concern is delivery mechanisms that have never, or only rarely, been used before.

What is this concern based on? That it's new or rarely used? Why would you have prior concern one way or the other?

> Regarding evidence for "spooky things", well, by their nature there is no or little evidence for them. They are black swans and the means by which they are addressed is the precautionary principle. In particular, by their nature, there can be no evidence about presence or absence of long term effects of novel delivery mechanisms.

This runs into the same problem. And it's even worse because you have a known risk (COVID-19) and a future, unknown and unquantifiable risk with no prior reason to believe such a risk exists and you're opting to defend against that risk instead.

It's like never investing in the stock market because one day something might happen and cause something to happen. It doesn't make any sense.

> Personally speaking, I suspect I'm a lot better off being vaccinated than not but some of the credulity around vaccines is rather surprising to me (especially the fact that many people don't seem to know that J&J uses a novel delivery mechanism too).

Sure, but to be fair not a single one of these people ever questioned any other vaccine delivery mechanism they were getting. Questioning this stuff is new, and it's a deliberate disinformation campaign.

Re: Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

#247

Good. Its time to stop messing around with this. The vaccines are tested and are safe.

I have taken both shots. But I wouldn't call them "safe", as they are young and approved under emergency guidelines. They are probably safe, but nobody knows that right now.

They're vastly safer than letting the pandemic rage on, at least.

Re: Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

#248

Good. Its time to stop messing around with this. The vaccines are tested and are safe.

I'm vaccinated and I personally don't care if others choose not to do it.

We're about to go through another spike in cases in the US because of the Delta variant spreading through the unvaxed population. This has implications for vaccinated people.

We may need to reintroduce some lockdown rules and the Delta variant is still going to kill some vaccinated people (in much lower numbers, but unnecessary).

Re: Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before Obamacare, I did have to fill out my full medical history when starting a job in order to get the employer-provided health plan. So we've actually improved on that, thankfully! The pro-vacccination crowd doesn't seem like the crowd that's looking to turn back that clock.

That's interesting; I've been getting health insurance through my employers since that time as well, and never had to provide any health history. I thought that was part of the value of a group health plan.

Curious. This was 2010 and 2011 in Texas and California. Looks like the pre-existing condition rules went into effect in 2014, https://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/about-the-aca/pre-existing-co... - I wasn't denied care because of any, but I assume they used them to price the plan for the employer.

The 2010 plan also had a lifetime max benefit limit, which has now been removed.

Or it could just be some plans are more privacy-invasive than others. But I hope not, it was nice to be able to stop filling out those forms.

Re: Google Offices to Mandate Vaccines

#250
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point is, an appeal to history does not work when you are dealing with something new. I'm not appealing to history. I'm appealing to the science of creating vaccines. Do you take no vaccines? You could apply the same argument to the measles or flu vaccine. Nobody did until now. > By the way, how long have we had vaccines based on adenovirus vectors? Can you articulate in a scientific manner why an adenovirus wou…

> Can you articulate in a scientific manner why an adenovirus would be treated differently as it relates to the creation of vaccines and the body's response to them? For whatever reason that is not the prevailing method when it comes to regulating new medical interventions.

I'll take that as a no.
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