Light of Hope, or Middle Finger?
Driving home the Saturday night before Thanksgiving, I had a long three-hour trek during the football game between the University of Missouri and my beloved if chronically dumb Florida Gators. I managed to keep an over 20-year streak alive of never listening to a game on the radio that ended in a Florida win, painful for the ears, bad for the nervous system, but I hung on to every play while keeping a sharp eye for all the frisky deer on the shoulders of rural north Florida roads. During almost every commercial break, there was an ad from a local health system playing off the teamwork of Mizzou football, fan loyalty, and the need for everyone to do their part by getting the latest, greatest, absolutely vital COVID-19 shot (I tried in vain to find a link to the actual ad, but you get the idea). Throughout the season on CBS and the SEC Network, a Pfizer ad has run very frequently showing all sorts of very professional shots of the famous conference stadiums, cheering crowds, and on-field catches and crunches, reminding viewers that every detail counts, all to sell more COVID shots. We are three years removed from the idiotic spectacle of empty stadiums with booster-paid life-size pics in their seats; of coaches pulling down cloth masks to yell in a player’s face, while masked referees huff-puff up and down the field, pulling their cloth masks down to address the camera for penalty calls. The stadium crowds are soldout, and no one apart from Pfizer and our benevolent government seems much concerned about the China Flu any longer.
Is this all a broad wave strategy to flood even incongruous markets to try to offset declining jab acceptance? Pfizer reported losses on both the jab and the contraindication-fraught Paxlovid, so maybe these ad buys are write-offs? Pfizer has increased its price for both the shot and the pills to offset large drops in demand, but are they still being subsidized by large government purchases?
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) which would never lie about the efficacy of mass masking or lockdowns still classifies Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine as “safe and effective.” Equally virtuous academia is still pushing a COVID shot for anyone older than 6 months no matter how many children will not have any clinically significant effects from the virus.
Elsewhere, Moderna halted its trial for a mRNA Epstein-Barr vaccine, finding in adolescents that it caused … myocarditis. The author of that story is suing both Pfizer and the Administration for conspiring to shut him up on Xwitter over his COVID shot “conspiracy theories.” Why would they want to do that? Why not just shut up a conspiracy nut with data and move on? When you have enough clout to light up the Empire State Building like your own giant corporate hypodermic, why sweat the small stuff?
There are a lot of reports about the COVID (non)vaccine causing myocarditis, and a lot of reports that dismiss that link. Ditto so-called “turbo cancers”, and increased miscarriage risks. There are plenty of rabbit holes to run down, so help yourself.
The larger point is that there is a massive cognitive dissonance surrounding the COVID vaccine, its record, its effects, and what it says about the future of health care. Those invested – Big Pharma, academia, government, mainstream media – are all in lockstep about the “safe and effective” shots that should be given to everyone, no matter what. The general population seems to have moved on, even as questions continue to bubble up over side effects. Is society just as dumb as calling a soft prevent defense on 4-and-17 to give Mizzou a first down and a game winning field goal? (Dammit) Or are Pfizer et al not playing straight with us? Florida’s football season has mercifully ended, but the Season of Disconnect is far from over.
What are you telling your patients?
