In support of Michelle Rabin, PhD

The unvaccinated, and the anti-vaxxers

Michelle Rabin, PhD, who writes Musing of a Retired Shrink, is a big girl who does not need and likely does wish my support. But I was struck by how one commentator on her recent post, “The Era of Big Lies,” resorted to a viscous personal attack.

So imagining that the issues this person raised in passing might be confusing to others, let’s untangle why people who are neither rednecks nor Trump supporters might still be opposed to the vaccine mandates, and to the relentless demonization of the “unvaccinated” and the “anti-vaxxers.”

The Vaccine Mandate Debate

The debate is NOT over vaccines in general, or even if vaccine mandates are ever justifiable. The debate concerns the current vaccines on offer in respond to the Covid-19 pandemic in the USA.

Basic Facts

So in regard to the current vaccines on offer in the USA, let’s get some facts straight.

• The vaccines do NOT prevent a vaccinated person from becoming infected with Covid.

• The vaccines do NOT prevent a vaccinated person from transmitting Covid.

• The vaccines do NOT offer immunity from Covid to the vaccinated person.

These are not sterilizing vaccines similar to those for smallpox, polio, and the measles. In fact, they are “vaccines” by fiat: by a belated redefinition.

The vaccines are NOT what we were promised and do not work as promised. Truth, not conspiracy. Reality confirmed by data, not misinformation.

Risks and Complications

Now, another deeply unpleasant fact:

• The vaccines have risks — the complications can even be fatal.

If one needs a face or a name to go with the numbers, we have the tragic story of Lisa Shaw, a 44 year-old mother, BBC Presenter, and otherwise healthy and lovely human being whose death was “clearly established” to have resulted from “vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia” [BBC: ref].

She is not the only casualty — not the only story of a person who had virtually no chance of dying from Covid, but who died from vaccine complications. Below, the VAERS COVID Vaccine Adverse Event Reports:

The First Rule of Medicine

So we are back to the first rule of medicine: Do No Harm. We should understand that every treatment has risks. Generally speaking, a patient should undergo a treatment when the benefits clearly outweigh the risks. This has been standard and accepted medical practice. Standard and accepted public health practice.

Let’s hear from Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, MD, who is also a bio-ethicist:

Many of the arguments for vaccine mandates, and the supposed justification for overriding informed consent, relied on conflating these vaccines with traditional vaccines that offered sterilizing immunity.

…

But it was clear, early in 2021, that these were not sterilizing vaccines. And if that’s the case, we have to rely on traditional clinical ethics that says patients have the right to decline medical intervention if they so choose because they’re the ones who are assuming the risks and they’re the ones who are assuming the benefits.

The Problems with Vaccine Mandates

To start, for some otherwise healthy people, the vaccines carry risks that outweigh the mortality risks posed by Covid itself. And for the Omicron variant, especially so. No person who is otherwise healthy — not one— should be required to be vaccinated for Omicron.

But even in regard to the earlier and more lethal variants, it is worth noting that Japan never had vaccine mandates. To cite directly from the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare:

If that font is tricky to read:

Although we encourage all citizens to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, it is not compulsory or mandatory. Vaccination will be given only with the consent of the person to be vaccinated after the information provided. Please get vaccinated of your own decision, understanding both the effectiveness in preventing infectious diseases and the risk of side effects. No vaccination will be given without consent. Please do not force anyone in your workplace or those who around you to be vaccinated, and do not discriminate against those who have not been vaccinated.

No vaccine mandates. At any level. No harassment of or discrimination against the unvaccinated. But Japan does have far better Covid-19 public health outcomes than the USA. Even though Japan freely allows medical practitioners to treat Covid-infected patients with ivermectin.

Japan: a nation of over 126 million people, heavily urbanized, and reliant on public transportation. No vaccine mandates. Ridiculously fewer deaths.

Mandating Covid Vaccines for Children? NO.

Otherwise healthy children have virtually no risk of dying from Omicron. A seriously ill, immuno-compromised, or abused child might die with Omicron — but Covid would not be the true or primary cause. That said, the vaccinations do present risk to children — and the more shots and boosters, the higher the risk.

To mandate the vaccination of otherwise healthy children for Omicron is state-sponsored and state-enforced child abuse. It is treating a defenseless person strictly as a disease vector, and exposing them to needless risk for a vaccine that we know will NOT stop Covid infection or transmission. We know this. The vaccines do NOT work as promised.

To learn more about case against mandating vaccinations for children, please start at the Unity Project. Please proceed to the Global Covid Summit.

Crimes Against Humanity

The vehemence in the personal attack against Michelle Rubin comes in part because she holds that the USA Covid policies and practices are dangerously misguided, even destructive. I hold this position also. The American response to the Covid pandemic has been destructive socially, economically, in terms of public health and personal well-being, and more. I refer you to the recent study out of John Hopkins University.

So as to not put words in Rubin’s mouth, let me make clear I am arguing my case here.

No Vaccine Mandates
I discussed earlier how the vaccine mandates violate a central and basic premise of both medical practice and public health: the necessity for risk-benefit analysis —otherwise known as the first rule of “Do No Harm.”

The vaccine mandates deny bodily autonomy, deny informed consent, and trample on individual human rights and dignity. They expose otherwise healthy individuals to needless and serious — perhaps even fatal — vaccine complications. The presumed “greater good” benefits from the mandates do not exist — and we have no cause to believe they will ever exist. The vaccines do NOT stop the virus.

No Harassment of the “Unvaccinated”

In the USA, the “unvaccinated” have been harassed and demonized. Denied employment or had employment terminated. Threatened with internment — with forced social isolation and quasi-banishment. The “unvaccinated” have been blamed and shamed, ridiculed and denounced by public officials, by MSM personalities, and by a horde of celebrities and would-be celebrities.

But who are the “unvaccinated?” The “unvaccinated” applies to anyone who fails to meet, to immediately comply with the ever-shifting definition of “fully vaccinated.”

The “unvaccinated” includes many people who have already had Covid-19, recovered, and now have robust natural immunity. This includes many medical professionals who were on the front lines of the Covid pandemic, treating patients and saving lives. Dr. Mollie James is one such medical professional; Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, another. This includes many first responders who served throughout the pandemic: police officers, fire fighters, and emergency medical technicians. This includes many nurses and healthcare personnel. This includes anyone for whatever reasons who does not comply with the arbitrary standard of fully vaccinated.

In California, Covid-infected nurses were ordered back to work even if sick. Provided they were fully vaccinated. Nurses who were previously fired for not meeting the standard of “fully vaccinated”, even if they were perfectly healthy and had previously recovered from Covid and so had robust natural immunity, were still not permitted to return to work. This has nothing to do with sound medical practice, or with concern for beneficial patient outcomes. This is about power enforcing an ideology at the expense of sound science and established medical practice.

What “Anti-Vaccine” Really Means

To be anti-vaccine has been redefined as anyone who questions the recommendations of Anthony Fauci, and his ever-changing definition of “fully vaccinated.” This — as I pointed out earlier — includes the nation of Japan. To which we may add the nations of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Norway: all of which have superior Covid-19 public health outcomes compared to the USA.

No matter, it seems. The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration were smeared as fringe scientists. Fauci and the then NIH director Francis Collins organized a media smear campaign against them. No scientific discussion, no scientific debate. No transparency about public health policy.

Why do some people find this so disturbing? Evidently, I need explain this.

Totalitarian Corporatism and Fauci’s Reign of Error and Terror

Because of the lockdowns and mandates, because of Fauci’s reign of error and terror, we know now there will be generational consequences, generational damages, in terms of health, child development, education, personal and national prosperity, and more. (Start here).

But Fauci could not have implemented his program, his massive and dangerously flawed experiment in public health, without the cooperation of the state, big pharma, and the MSM: without what amounts to totalitarian corporatism.

A student of history should know that fascism does not exist without or independent of totalitarian corporatism. Hence why some Jewish-Americans, rightly or wrongly, have made connections with our current events to the events which led to the Holocaust. This was a connection that Michelle Rabin, PhD, made explicit — and she was not alone in doing so. This is what led to the vehement attack on her.

I will speak for myself on the more general issue.

If we allow the “unvaccinated” and the “anti-vaxxers” to be denied their human rights and human dignity, to be discriminated against socially and economically, to be publicly humiliated and dehumanized, we are heading down a dark path indeed. We have been on such a path. We are still on such a path.

History has no good ending for us as a people, as a nation. We must turn aside. We must find a new direction.

To end on a hopeful note, let me share a photo [by me: now CC0 (Public Domain)] of one of my most sacred places. Crater Lake, Oregon, USA. Thank you for reading.