General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsConfused about getting vaccinated?
Why all the confusion?
Why are so many people choosing to resist expert advice? Why are so many people choosing to not only decline but actively resist vaccination?
One contributing reason may be the message sent by the frequent ads for biologic medication like Humira.
Humira is one of the best-selling pharmaceuticals in the world. It is used to treat autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and Crohns disease by suppressing the inflammatory response of the immune system. It is expensive.
In the midst of a pandemic involving an extremely infectious and deadly virus, it seems strange to aggressively promote the use of a medication designed to suppress the immune system.
Yet Humira and similar medications like Remicade, Rituxan, and Enbrel are highly advertised in print, online, and on television.
They are approved by the FDA and prescribed by thousands of physicians. They are, by the way, expensive.
Life is full of risks and those who suffer from these painful diseases want relief. Perhaps they are making an informed choice.
However, when the same agencies which advise us on how to protect ourselves from Covid-19 are at the same time approving and encouraging the use of medications which may suppress our natural immune system, some folks may find it hard to accept scientific advice from those sources.
It is confusing.
Ohio Joe
(21,653 posts)I think it is much more the concerted effort to put out blatant lies by right wing lunatics.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,096 posts)the way a 9 yr old would and the result is DEVASTATION.
Therefore said dumbest adult on EARTH had to pretend the virus wasn't REAL and EVERYTHING that has happened since visavi masks and vax is his followers denying reality as a way of showing worship to him.
period
There was a TINY group of people who were anti vax before all this that had nothing at all to do with trump. And there are some in the AA community that for good reason doubt some stuff but anyone who voted for trump who is also anti vax has NO REASON to be other than they worship him.
NOT confusing.
Response to Eliot Rosewater (Reply #2)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
Crunchy Frog
(26,548 posts)to mistrust and refuse the vaccine.
Eliot Rosewater
(31,096 posts)bobnicewander
(791 posts)Last edited Sat Oct 16, 2021, 08:44 PM - Edit history (3)
With all the millions that have been vaccinated if the vaccines were causing death to any great degree there would likely be a death count of more than 700,000 in this country by now. What was the count before vaccines were applied? What has it been since their introduction?
Numbers below are as of today Oct 16, 2021.
Percentage of deaths in confirmed cases in the U.S. is 0.016%
Confirmed cases of COVID19 in U.S. 44,928,252
Deaths attributed to COVID19 in U.S. 728,452
I say go with the vaccines if possible in your circumstances. Hopefully it will be for most.
Bmoboy
(255 posts)I am saying that we are too stupid to see what is in front of our eyes and that the folks who make money off of our stupidity have not stopped screwing us even as we die.
Unfortunately, the pharmaceutical industry has corrupted the medical system and turned too many physicians into salesmen.
The lure of profit fills the airwaves with seductive ads for products with warnings including:
"Humira affects your immune system. Adalimumab can lower the ability of your immune system to fight infections and you may get infections more easily. Serious infections caused by viruses, fungi or bacteria have happened in people taking this medicine. Some people have died from these infections."
The fact that we allow ads for products that kill should be one of the definitions of cognitive dissonance.
Of course, someone is making money. Lotsa money.
BTW, I am vaccinated, including the booster, and encourage everyone to get vaccinated.
The folks who are "confused" may have reasons to distrust the pharmaceutical/medical complex.
Tuskegee, eugenics research, CIA fake HepB tax program, Henrietta Lacks, and on and on.
The folks who don't get vaccinated for Covid put me and my family at risk. As do speeders, polluters, gun nuts, and a wide variety of people who don't do what I want them to do.
I cannot eliminate them.
Maybe if we change some of the things that lead them to their confusion ... maybe that would be helpful.
Response to Bmoboy (Reply #7)
Chin music This message was self-deleted by its author.
Ms. Toad
(33,915 posts)People who need humira. entyvio, remicade, etc. really need them because their own immune systems are overactive, and destroying their bodies.
My daughter has ulcerative colitis, and has had it shortly before her 5th birthday. Her immune system literally eats her colon from the inside out. She has a grandfather who is nearly 90. Her risk of colon cancer is higher than her grandfather (who regularly has polyps removed becasue of the risk that they are pre-cancerous). She has a colonsocopy every year to catch it early enough so that it doesn't kill her.
The disease itself creates a risk of colon cancer.
Inflammation is an independent, added risk. Biologics (for her entyvio) are the only thing that keep her inflammation (and her cancer risk) under control.
Yes, they are expensive. Her billed medical expenses are more than $200,000 a year - most of tha for entyvio. But, after a period of 5 years in which each colonoscopy showed increasing inflammation on the medication she has taken to control it since just before her 5th birthday (sh is now 31), on entyvio she for 3 or 4 years now finally down to no more than microscopic inflammation.
(She is at increased risk for colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, liver cancer, cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer), and gall bladder cancer because of her UC and a companion disease PSC. Whatever we can do to minimize a small portion of that risk is worth it.
Note: I said nothing at all about relief from a painful disease. For many people who need biologics, it is literally a matter of life and death.
As to whether they should be advertising directly to the public, that is an entirely different qestion.
But please do not trivialize the reason people like my daughter take them: literally to save her life.
Bmoboy
(255 posts)People like your daughter have been under the care of specialists for their illness. They would be prescribed these medications after consultation, discussion, and informed consent.
A point is that a 60 second ad targeted at the general population trivializes the complexity of a very expensive medication with serious side effects.
Claire Oh Nette
(2,636 posts)so you, too will ask your doctor. Doctors don't get medical advice from TV ads any more than they do from Golf Digest or Southern Living. Those are to drum up brand recognition.
The FDA, however, doesn't push any of those meds. The FDA regulates, it doesn't advertise, which the OP argues disingenuously.
Pharmaceutical companies do. They are advertising medication for autoimmune disorders that lots of people have. They want investors, too. Those illnesses are not contagious, and preceded COVID, and sadly, will linger long after Covid finally burns itself out.
Ms. Toad
(33,915 posts)This comment:
feels as if you are.
ShazzieB
(15,952 posts)The o.p. is trying to create an issue that doesnt even exist in order to try to explain a real and serious issue that has completely different causes. In the process, other very real issues (autoimmune disorders) are bein trivialized. I dont care what they say their intent was. The effect is what it is, regardless of what they may have intended, and what is, is offensive. That is what matters, in my opinion, and they need to own that.
Ocelot II
(115,267 posts)Ads for drugs for treating immune system disorders aren't confusing people. Bullshit from GOP politicians and social media is what's confusing people.
Hugh_Lebowski
(33,643 posts)in the first place.
Hopefully that makes sense ...
Scrivener7
(50,773 posts)time looking for reasons for what they do.
There are no reasons.
There are no excuses.
There is only their imbecilic hubris and their natural tendencies to blindly follow fools.
We need to stop acting like there is anything more to them than that.
Hav
(5,969 posts)It's getting tiresome to see the effects of those who believe they've figured it out and see conspiracies everywhere.
Maraya1969
(22,441 posts)it's been found out that my body reacts if the number of these cells is at all increased. That is not my entire immune system - it is just that one type of cell.
Drugs work like that. They can be very specific. I got the booster shot because the doctor told me to But I am not an unhealthy person because I take a drug to lower part of my immune system. Drugs can be very specific and the body is a very complicated organism.
Hav
(5,969 posts)When you suffer from an autoimmune disease, you take medication against it. Thankfully, there are people and companies that develop drugs. Ads target a specific group. That's not a contradiction to the current pandemic and relying on an a good immune response to fight an infection. If I don't have an autoimmune disease, then ads won't persuade me to take medication against it. I'd have no interest to weaken my immune system. Nothing is confusing about this.
Shellback Squid
(8,909 posts)JustABozoOnThisBus
(23,282 posts)... for a booster to be approved for Moderna. Then, my only question: should I wait until after I donate blood next week, or get the shot first? I think I'll wait on the shot, I don't want the Red Cross to steal any of the fresh vaccine out of my arm.