Trump admin crippled vaccination rollout out of paranoia. Actively lobbied congress against funds.

Page 3 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,634
8,522
136
As I said before, I have no issue with any sort of outreach or education efforts which are tailored to various populations. In fact, I think they are a good idea. But I'm probably not the person to be doing it because I personally have little tolerance for people making irrational decisions regarding their own health and the health of others based on paranoia.

I just think that shows a lack of empathy or ability to consider other people's different experiences and circumstances, i.e. a flaw on your part.

Something I found cheering recently was hearing a young Muslim guy on a radio phone-in beomoaning the prevalence of conspiracy theories about vaccines in his own community, particularly the older members of it (ha, the boomers strike again!). He made the point that the irony is it was common in those (oringally migrant) communities for the young to be encouraged to go train as doctors (if not that, engineers) and that concequently these oldsters were implicitly accusing their own grandchildren, who'd become doctors, of being part of this 'conspiracy'. He said how he was constantly arguing with his own relatives about the topic. Such arguments are best if they come from 'within'. Likewise with prominent black people promoting getting vaccinated.
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,634
8,522
136
Yes, I read about the Tuskegee experiment when I first heard this argument being made. How many black people do you suppose have even heard of the Tuskegee experiment?

It may well be a selection-effect, but I'd say "every black adult I've ever known"
 
  • Like
Reactions: Meghan54

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,189
14,114
136
I just think that shows a lack of empathy or ability to consider other people's different experiences and circumstances, i.e. a flaw on your part.

Something I found cheering recently was hearing a young Muslim guy on a radio phone-in beomoaning the prevalence of conspiracy theories about vaccines in his own community, particularly the older members of it (ha, the boomers strike again!). He made the point that the irony is it was common in those (oringally migrant) communities for the young to be encouraged to go train as doctors (if not that, engineers) and that concequently these oldsters were implicitly accusing their own grandchildren, who'd become doctors, of being part of this 'conspiracy'. He said how he was constantly arguing with his own relatives about the topic. Such arguments are best if they come from 'within'. Likewise with prominent black people promoting getting vaccinated.

It's not a general lack of empathy for people with different experiences. It's a specific lack of empathy for people who make bad life or death decisions based on ignorance and paranoia. It's based on life experiences.

Like I said above, someone should do outreach to these people to increase their chances of accepting the vaccine, but it's not a good idea for that person to be me. Yes, they should probably use black doctors for the job.
 
Last edited:
Dec 10, 2005
25,053
8,333
136
Historically mistreated communities have a distrust of the authorities who abused their authority, and it gets reinforced with known systemic racism issues in the delivery of healthcare. Community knowledge - the stories passed down orally - are very powerful and must be acknowledged if attitudes are to change. That's why, from a communications perspective, it's important to directly engage key community stakeholders to change minds instead of just dismissing their concerns as ignorance and paranoia.
 

PingSpike

Lifer
Feb 25, 2004
21,749
584
126
At this rate...what is the point of news like this? It's clear that if trying to overturn an election and inciting an Insurrection aren't enough to sway his voters...why would a botched vaccine rollout that many of them consider a hoax do it?

I'm guessing that Trump figured if he screwed everything up badly Biden would get blamed and he'd either look better comparatively or it would help him win in 2024. Its like how the tax cuts are set to expire after this term, just a little poison pill for the next guy.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hal2kilo

SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,221
4,452
136
It's not a general lack of empathy for people with different experiences. It's a specific lack of empathy for people who make bad life or death decisions based on ignorance and paranoia. It's based on life experiences.
The problem with your argument is that it is not really ignorance or paranoia. There really is people out to get them, and some of those people are doctors and owners of major pharma companies.
This then leads to the Parmenides Fallacy. This fallacy is our tendency to believe that the cost of doing nothing (not getting the vaccine in this case) is always lower then the cost of doing something and it turning out bad. Basically the idea is that since there is the possibility of a bad outcome for any action, no action is preferable, because we do not consider not taking an action as something we choose to do. If I do nothing and something bad happens it is not my fault.
 
  • Like
Reactions: pmv

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,189
14,114
136
The problem with your argument is that it is not really ignorance or paranoia. There really is people out to get them, and some of those people are doctors and owners of major pharma companies.
This then leads to the Parmenides Fallacy. This fallacy is our tendency to believe that the cost of doing nothing (not getting the vaccine in this case) is always lower then the cost of doing something and it turning out bad. Basically the idea is that since there is the possibility of a bad outcome for any action, no action is preferable, because we do not consider not taking an action as something we choose to do. If I do nothing and something bad happens it is not my fault.

Can you be a little more specific as to what you mean by what is bolded, and note it is framed in the present tense.
 

SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,221
4,452
136
Can you be a little more specific as to what you mean by what is bolded, and note it is framed in the present tense.
I mean exactly that.
There are doctors that do not believe that minorities deserve quality medical treatment, or assumes that a black person that complains of pain is drug seeking.
There are pharma bosses that believe that the poor is a resource to sell to and the fact that what they are selling to them is killing them is not a problem.
These things are not even all that uncommon.
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,189
14,114
136
I mean exactly that.
There are doctors that do not believe that minorities deserve quality medical treatment, or assumes that a black person that complains of pain is drug seeking.
There are pharma bosses that believe that the poor is a resource to sell to and the fact that what they are selling to them is killing them is not a problem.
These things are not even all that uncommon.

Yes, I'm aware of blacks being discriminated against in a medical setting, but the discrimination is usually in the manner of denying care or not taking complaints seriously rather than actively trying to cause harm. Indeed, it is being alleged that people of color are being put at back of the line to receive this very vaccine. Which is mutually exclusive with the idea that the vaccine is somehow engineered to harm them. I'm sorry, I just don't see the logical relation between the kinds of things that you are talking about and fearing this vaccine.

I also think that these efforts to rationalize what is indeed paranoia do not help one bit. We need as many people as possible to receive this vaccine. Telling them that their fears make sense does not serve that end.
 

SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,221
4,452
136
Yes, I'm aware of blacks being discriminated against in a medical setting, but the discrimination is usually in the manner of denying care or not taking complaints seriously rather than actively trying to cause harm. Indeed, it is being alleged that people of color are being put at back of the line to receive this very vaccine. Which is mutually exclusive with the idea that the vaccine is somehow engineered to harm them. I'm sorry, I just don't see the logical relation between the kinds of things that you are talking about and fearing this vaccine.

I also think that these efforts to rationalize what is indeed paranoia do not help one bit. We need as many people as possible to receive this vaccine. Telling them that their fears make sense does not serve that end.
That is because you start from the premise that the purpose of the healthcare industry in the US is to help people. You come from a standpoint that the Hippocratic oath is still held to be important.
Unfortunately for a lot of the poor and minorities they can't assume that because their experiences as a culture has taught them that is not true. When start this argument with a premise of 'They are trying to sell me something and don't care if it harms me or not' then you come to very different answers of what is a reasonable fear.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PingSpike

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,189
14,114
136
That is because you start from the premise that the purpose of the healthcare industry in the US is to help people. You come from a standpoint that the Hippocratic oath is still held to be important.
Unfortunately for a lot of the poor and minorities they can't assume that because their experiences as a culture has taught them that is not true. When start this argument with a premise of 'They are trying to sell me something and don't care if it harms me or not' then you come to very different answers of what is a reasonable fear.

No, it is not "reasonable" to fear this vaccine. It is being given to everyone, including white people. There is no evidence so far of significant adverse effects. There is no such evidence pertaining to prior vaccines either, going back 200 years. Most black people were vaccinated for measles and other diseases as children and suffered no harm. Black people are not being harmed by vaccines, nor is anyone else.

Stop supporting conspiratorial nonsense.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zorba

Meghan54

Lifer
Oct 18, 2009
11,684
5,222
136
No, it is not "reasonable" to fear this vaccine. It is being given to everyone, including white people. There is no evidence so far of significant adverse effects. There is no such evidence pertaining to prior vaccines either, going back 200 years. Most black people were vaccinated for measles and other diseases as children and suffered no harm. Black people are not being harmed by vaccines, nor is anyone else.

Stop supporting conspiratorial nonsense.

You keep going on and on and on about how blacks seem to be too stupid and dumb to understand the need for the vaccine and have made huge attempts at belittling, dismissing, denying that the black population and its culture may have a very different outlook and response to medicine.

It isn't stupidity, ignorance, lack of knowledge or anything else in the black population, despite what you want it to be. It's cultural and your denying this isn't going to change facts one whit. Blacks have been mistreated, ignored, discounted, belittled by health care pros, not to mention being used as guinea pigs for "research" over and over in our history.

My "black friend" and I talk about things like this. (This is my 24 y.o. black friend who greets me every time with "My N**GA!" A bit more than your typical "black friend" assertion, I assure you. Although it has been a bit odd for me, at my age of 67, to be referred to by that phrase. I'm still working on it...)

And every damned black I've talked with knows Tuskegee, Juneteenth, and a host of shit you've probably never heard of. Amazing what a differing culture to the clueless whites might find important.
 

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
32,118
10,939
136
You keep going on and on and on about how blacks seem to be too stupid and dumb to understand the need for the vaccine and have made huge attempts at belittling, dismissing, denying that the black population and its culture may have a very different outlook and response to medicine.

It isn't stupidity, ignorance, lack of knowledge or anything else in the black population, despite what you want it to be. It's cultural and your denying this isn't going to change facts one whit. Blacks have been mistreated, ignored, discounted, belittled by health care pros, not to mention being used as guinea pigs for "research" over and over in our history.

My "black friend" and I talk about things like this. (This is my 24 y.o. black friend who greets me every time with "My N**GA!" A bit more than your typical "black friend" assertion, I assure you. Although it has been a bit odd for me, at my age of 67, to be referred to by that phrase. I'm still working on it...)

And every damned black I've talked with knows Tuskegee, Juneteenth, and a host of shit you've probably never heard of. Amazing what a differing culture to the clueless whites might find important.

as i have come to learn, along with a lot of other white people i'm sure, there's a whole lot more to "american history and culture" than what we were taught in schools. i didn't even know juneteenth was a thing until this past year, and i'm 34. it really is a shame there's very much two americas (e.g. white america vs black america/everyone else). there's so much that we miss out on - literally a whole culture full of beauty and creativity and ingenuity. and that is a goddamn tragedy.
 

woolfe9998

Lifer
Apr 8, 2013
16,189
14,114
136
You keep going on and on and on about how blacks seem to be too stupid and dumb to understand the need for the vaccine and have made huge attempts at belittling, dismissing, denying that the black population and its culture may have a very different outlook and response to medicine.

It isn't stupidity, ignorance, lack of knowledge or anything else in the black population, despite what you want it to be. It's cultural and your denying this isn't going to change facts one whit. Blacks have been mistreated, ignored, discounted, belittled by health care pros, not to mention being used as guinea pigs for "research" over and over in our history.

My "black friend" and I talk about things like this. (This is my 24 y.o. black friend who greets me every time with "My N**GA!" A bit more than your typical "black friend" assertion, I assure you. Although it has been a bit odd for me, at my age of 67, to be referred to by that phrase. I'm still working on it...)

And every damned black I've talked with knows Tuskegee, Juneteenth, and a host of shit you've probably never heard of. Amazing what a differing culture to the clueless whites might find important.

I don't understand the culture of poor white people in the south either. Does that mean I should try to better understand why they believe in qanon or "stop the steal?"

Somewhere amidst all these cultural experiences is something called objective reality. That is what I believe in. I am not interested in belittling anyone. I'm interesting in people at least making an attempt to understand the truth so that they don't make bad decisions for themselves and others. If you really want to help out black people, don't make excuses for the ones who don't want to be vaccinated. Instead, tell them the truth about vaccines. It just might save their lives.
 
  • Like
Reactions: hal2kilo and Zorba

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
I don't understand the culture of poor white people in the south either. Does that mean I should try to better understand why they believe in qanon or "stop the steal?"

Somewhere amidst all these cultural experiences is something called objective reality. That is what I believe in. I am not interested in belittling anyone. I'm interesting in people at least making an attempt to understand the truth so that they don't make bad decisions for themselves and others. If you really want to help out black people, don't make excuses for the ones who don't want to be vaccinated. Instead, tell them the truth about vaccines. It just might save their lives.

The simple fact that White America isn't advocating anything we won't do ourselves really should overcome this cultural hesitancy being cited. The fact that we've already administered 30M doses in this country & that extreme allergic reaction is extremely rare should reinforce that. I get that much of America isn't rational about a lot of things right now but this is where we most need to be. Nobody should let irrational fear lead them to the wrong choice.
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,280
5,720
146
The simple fact that White America isn't advocating anything we won't do ourselves really should overcome this cultural hesitancy being cited. The fact that we've already administered 30M doses in this country & that extreme allergic reaction is extremely rare should reinforce that. I get that much of America isn't rational about a lot of things right now but this is where we most need to be. Nobody should let irrational fear lead them to the wrong choice.

And that's your fucking white privilege. At some point you can just go "I can't understand it because I've never had that happen to me", you know, right?

Its cute that you two are doing your best Fox News routine and can't even see it though. You really are that clueless. But what and how you're saying it is exactly how Fox News talks about black people on every issue. Or rather it was, until they dropped any pretense of not being racist and have just started declaring any non-GOP worshipping black person a member of the criminal Marxist Antifa BLM mob.

And like I said, you doing that is how they get to where they act similarly to anti-mask lunatics, because when their legit concerns are raised, you just handwaive it away and go "yeah but its not happening any more" even though it still kinda is. Its not as brazen or tacitly done, but as people have repeatedly pointed out to you, black people are not treated equally by the medical field. Doctors were targeting low income areas to push opiates, knowing and not caring it was going to devastate those. Guess what, when concerns about that were raised, it was hand waived away just like you're doing now. "These synthetic opioids aren't addictive!" How'd that turn out?

You're literally acting exactly like the right wingers act on here by the way. You just keep spouting the same nonsense, no matter how much people point out your claims are flawed, you just keep repeating it.

I don't know how you two think their skepticism isn't warranted considering the shitshow we saw just last year. The government actively fucked up the pandemic response. This is not 80 year old behavior. This shit happened right in front of your eyes last year. And yet you're still arguing like this.

Which, woolfe was already defending police fucking macing a 9 year old girl after putting her in hand cuffs, so we can guess where he stands on mistreatment of black people by police. You gonna join him on that as well?
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,634
8,522
136
I don't understand the culture of poor white people in the south either. Does that mean I should try to better understand why they believe in qanon or "stop the steal?"

I'm by no means certain the answer to that question is "no". Is it really possible to change anything without attempting to understand it?

I'm very nervous where this logic might be taking me, but I have a general distrust of the way the notion of "rationality" gets appropriated as a method of reinforcing power or excusing a lack of ability to exercise empathy. There's more to people's lived experiences than quasi-rational abstract arguments couched in words. People come to believe the things they do, even crazy things, because of the experiences they have had. The only real way to change those beliefs is to change those experiences (and the circumstances that produce them).

(This is part of the reason why I came to greatly dislike CBT, as it happens - it seems to be founded on the same impoverished notion of 'rationality' that is also the basis of libertarian-type politics.)
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,634
8,522
136
And that's your fucking white privilege. At some point you can just go "I can't understand it because I've never had that happen to me", you know, right?

Its cute that you two are doing your best Fox News routine and can't even see it though. You really are that clueless. But what and how you're saying it is exactly how Fox News talks about black people on every issue. Or rather it was, until they dropped any pretense of not being racist and have just started declaring any non-GOP worshipping black person a member of the criminal Marxist Antifa BLM mob.

And like I said, you doing that is how they get to where they act similarly to anti-mask lunatics, because when their legit concerns are raised, you just handwaive it away and go "yeah but its not happening any more" even though it still kinda is. Its not as brazen or tacitly done, but as people have repeatedly pointed out to you, black people are not treated equally by the medical field. Doctors were targeting low income areas to push opiates, knowing and not caring it was going to devastate those. Guess what, when concerns about that were raised, it was hand waived away just like you're doing now. "These synthetic opioids aren't addictive!" How'd that turn out?

You're literally acting exactly like the right wingers act on here by the way. You just keep spouting the same nonsense, no matter how much people point out your claims are flawed, you just keep repeating it.

I don't know how you two think their skepticism isn't warranted considering the shitshow we saw just last year. The government actively fucked up the pandemic response. This is not 80 year old behavior. This shit happened right in front of your eyes last year. And yet you're still arguing like this.

Which, woolfe was already defending police fucking macing a 9 year old girl after putting her in hand cuffs, so we can guess where he stands on mistreatment of black people by police. You gonna join him on that as well?

Weird to see the darkswordsman excessive-attack-machine be deployed in a cause I find myself in agreement with. Tricky to know how to feel about that. But on this I agree with you.
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,244
10,817
136
You keep going on and on and on about how blacks seem to be too stupid and dumb to understand the need for the vaccine and have made huge attempts at belittling, dismissing, denying that the black population and its culture may have a very different outlook and response to medicine.

It isn't stupidity, ignorance, lack of knowledge or anything else in the black population, despite what you want it to be. It's cultural and your denying this isn't going to change facts one whit. Blacks have been mistreated, ignored, discounted, belittled by health care pros, not to mention being used as guinea pigs for "research" over and over in our history.

My "black friend" and I talk about things like this. (This is my 24 y.o. black friend who greets me every time with "My N**GA!" A bit more than your typical "black friend" assertion, I assure you. Although it has been a bit odd for me, at my age of 67, to be referred to by that phrase. I'm still working on it...)

And every damned black I've talked with knows Tuskegee, Juneteenth, and a host of shit you've probably never heard of. Amazing what a differing culture to the clueless whites might find important.
Refusing to take this vaccine is ignorant, regardless of culture. It is ignorant for JWs, Orthodox Jews, RWNJs, LWNJs, etc. They all believe there is a reason to fearful, that doesn't make it right for any of them.

Of course, there should be outreach to all of these groups, but that outreach shouldn't be "yeah some terrible stuff has happened to black people resulting in poor medical outcomes. So it's fine if you don't get a vaccine that is the easiest way of improving your outcome."

To me it just looks like a bunch of white conmen, like Robert Kennedy Jr, taking advantage of the black population once again. And instead of pushing facts, liberals seem to be largerly on the side "well yeah, black people have had bad things happen to them, it's okay if they protest with their lives."
 

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
32,118
10,939
136
Refusing to take this vaccine is ignorant, regardless of culture. It is ignorant for JWs, Orthodox Jews, RWNJs, LWNJs, etc. They all believe there is a reason to fearful, that doesn't make it right for any of them.

Of course, there should be outreach to all of these groups, but that outreach shouldn't be "yeah some terrible stuff has happened to black people resulting in poor medical outcomes. So it's fine if you don't get a vaccine that is the easiest way of improving your outcome."

To me it just looks like a bunch of white conmen, like Robert Kennedy Jr, taking advantage of the black population once again. And instead of pushing facts, liberals seem to be largerly on the side "well yeah, black people have had bad things happen to them, it's okay if they protest with their lives."

that would be incorrect. it's "we understand that a community that has been historically - and continues to be to this day- mistreated by society at large, including being subject to an entirely unethical and immoral medical experiment, is going to be hesitant to trust those very same authorities, and that very same society, about a vaccine program which, in the past, had been a guise for medical experimentation"
 

pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
13,634
8,522
136
Refusing to take this vaccine is ignorant, regardless of culture. It is ignorant for JWs, Orthodox Jews, RWNJs, LWNJs, etc. They all believe there is a reason to fearful, that doesn't make it right for any of them.

Of course, there should be outreach to all of these groups, but that outreach shouldn't be "yeah some terrible stuff has happened to black people resulting in poor medical outcomes. So it's fine if you don't get a vaccine that is the easiest way of improving your outcome."

To me it just looks like a bunch of white conmen, like Robert Kennedy Jr, taking advantage of the black population once again. And instead of pushing facts, liberals seem to be largerly on the side "well yeah, black people have had bad things happen to them, it's okay if they protest with their lives."

That seems like a strawman argument to me. Who says "So it's fine"?

I think I feel the same way about this as about elite liberals sneering at poor whites. In both cases there's a strange trope in US culture that involves pretending everything is all about entirely abstract "reason", divorced from experience, and ignoring the fact that people's attitudes and behaviour are the consequences of real material conditions and experiences. It's no coincidence that both libertarianism and CBT are products of American culture. It's an intensely bourgeois culture (I guess because it's the product of a bourgeois revolution?). Utlimately if you want to change attitudes you need to change the material conditions that gave rise to those attitudes.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
And that's your fucking white privilege. At some point you can just go "I can't understand it because I've never had that happen to me", you know, right?

Its cute that you two are doing your best Fox News routine and can't even see it though. You really are that clueless. But what and how you're saying it is exactly how Fox News talks about black people on every issue. Or rather it was, until they dropped any pretense of not being racist and have just started declaring any non-GOP worshipping black person a member of the criminal Marxist Antifa BLM mob.

And like I said, you doing that is how they get to where they act similarly to anti-mask lunatics, because when their legit concerns are raised, you just handwaive it away and go "yeah but its not happening any more" even though it still kinda is. Its not as brazen or tacitly done, but as people have repeatedly pointed out to you, black people are not treated equally by the medical field. Doctors were targeting low income areas to push opiates, knowing and not caring it was going to devastate those. Guess what, when concerns about that were raised, it was hand waived away just like you're doing now. "These synthetic opioids aren't addictive!" How'd that turn out?

You're literally acting exactly like the right wingers act on here by the way. You just keep spouting the same nonsense, no matter how much people point out your claims are flawed, you just keep repeating it.

I don't know how you two think their skepticism isn't warranted considering the shitshow we saw just last year. The government actively fucked up the pandemic response. This is not 80 year old behavior. This shit happened right in front of your eyes last year. And yet you're still arguing like this.

Which, woolfe was already defending police fucking macing a 9 year old girl after putting her in hand cuffs, so we can guess where he stands on mistreatment of black people by police. You gonna join him on that as well?

Ugh. Now you're making attributions based on feels & Gish galloping in attack mode. Please address what I actually posted rather than dragging out a laundry list of grievances.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Zorba

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,244
10,817
136
that would be incorrect. it's "we understand that a community that has been historically - and continues to be to this day- mistreated by society at large, including being subject to an entirely unethical and immoral medical experiment, is going to be hesitant to trust those very same authorities, and that very same society, about a vaccine program which, in the past, had been a guise for medical experimentation"
And you are completely missing how do you go from your statement to getting vaccines in their arms?

I have no problem acknowledging bad things have been done and we should acknowledge that. But that doesn't mean it should be used as an excuse for the community to not get vaccinated.
 

Jhhnn

IN MEMORIAM
Nov 11, 1999
62,365
14,681
136
that would be incorrect. it's "we understand that a community that has been historically - and continues to be to this day- mistreated by society at large, including being subject to an entirely unethical and immoral medical experiment, is going to be hesitant to trust those very same authorities, and that very same society, about a vaccine program which, in the past, had been a guise for medical experimentation"

What past vaccination program has been a guise for medical experimentation?