I was hoping not to be the first to comment, but that may be a time zone thing.
I'm a new follower, so this is the first of the vaccine posts I've seen. The perception from the US is that NZ was much higher in vaccine uptake than the US. Your post indicates that you still houre holdouts.
In addition to the left-right politicization of the vaccine issue here, there are other communities with concerns. A vaccine program was used as a cover to deliberately infect African Americans with syphilis. A vaccine program was used as a cover for collection of DNA samples from Pakistanis in an attempt to find relatives of Bin Laden. I haven't read your older posts, so maybe you've covered these issues. Vaccine sceptics are not going to be persuaded by science, because that's not where their objection is rooted.
I'd love to see more posts about your personal journey!
Hi Melanie. I know little about the vacs a such, but am well aware of controversies raging in Nederland and the UK. I've had the jab, and a booster. The latter gave me side effects. . I suspect I am immune, as I have twice come down with "triple illnesses" epidemics.
I would suggest that there is greater need now to push governments to safeguard against future such pandemics than to add to just the Covid conversation.
That Push should absolutely include water. ..... Are you aware of the Massive Scandal in the UK ??
The regional public authorities were sold to the private sector. Bills went up, quality went down and the shareholders were quite happy. Then the Conservative Party started to water down safety standards and protective law..... They also ensured that the Watchdog lost its teeth. Since Brexit, vast quantities of raw sewage has been allowed to contaminate most of the rivers and much of the coast.
The ancient infrastructure has not been maintained, let alone improved, whilst chief execs earn millions, and the shareholders happier still.
Water is full of Covid, PFA's etc., such problems exist in many nations.
I enjoy all your posts, especially the ones on climate change, but also would love to receive occasional personal essays about your experiences of science and reflections on it. Food security also sounds like an interesting topic.
There is mountains of information on vaccines, water contamination, etal. My sense is swaying (if that is the goal) or just informing (if that is the goal) is an uphill climb as minds are settled via the herd they belong to. I think writing personally has more power and I generally enjoy that sort of writing more. Best wishes whatever you decide.
In the narrow subject of vaccines, at least in the US, history is instructive. It was mostly the left that drove vaccine hesitancy prior to COVID. It was the right that drove vaccine hesitancy amidst COVID. Neither was ever based on health and safety but rather fear, conspiracy and opportunism. A telling example in the US was Robert De Niro. He was front and center with vaccine hesitancy prior to COVID and magically became the opposite amidst COVID. It would not shock me if folks who feel they align with Mr. De Niro likely give him a pass for one and embrace him for the other. Hard to conclude his approach was anything other than shoot the messenger and running within his herd. It is hard to fashion reasoning wherein he was consistent.
Thank you for your article Melanie. Re the two aspects:
1. Water - clean water supplies are critical to life as our bodies are roughly 75-80% water. Under-investment in these is a problem. In the UK this was the major advance of what is called public health works.
2. Vaccines - vaccines contain poisons/toxic substances/foreign bodies to create an immune response.
However, that is all they can do. It is a gross deceit to think that poisoning oneself was ever good for one's health. But vaccines do help create customers for big pharma as it has always been about the wealth, not our health.
I would have thought by now after over 3.5 years of the COVID nonsense more people would be seeing through the lies and propaganda of big pharma sponsored governments and its agencies.
It is completely illogical to think that cleaning up water supplies by removing toxic substances is good (it is of course) and then about face and say injecting toxic substances into the body is good which clearly it is not and never has been.
I was hoping not to be the first to comment, but that may be a time zone thing.
I'm a new follower, so this is the first of the vaccine posts I've seen. The perception from the US is that NZ was much higher in vaccine uptake than the US. Your post indicates that you still houre holdouts.
In addition to the left-right politicization of the vaccine issue here, there are other communities with concerns. A vaccine program was used as a cover to deliberately infect African Americans with syphilis. A vaccine program was used as a cover for collection of DNA samples from Pakistanis in an attempt to find relatives of Bin Laden. I haven't read your older posts, so maybe you've covered these issues. Vaccine sceptics are not going to be persuaded by science, because that's not where their objection is rooted.
I'd love to see more posts about your personal journey!
Hi Melanie. So much info to mull over. I always prefer more personal essays here on the stack so I vote for more you, less research.
Hi Melanie. I know little about the vacs a such, but am well aware of controversies raging in Nederland and the UK. I've had the jab, and a booster. The latter gave me side effects. . I suspect I am immune, as I have twice come down with "triple illnesses" epidemics.
I would suggest that there is greater need now to push governments to safeguard against future such pandemics than to add to just the Covid conversation.
That Push should absolutely include water. ..... Are you aware of the Massive Scandal in the UK ??
The regional public authorities were sold to the private sector. Bills went up, quality went down and the shareholders were quite happy. Then the Conservative Party started to water down safety standards and protective law..... They also ensured that the Watchdog lost its teeth. Since Brexit, vast quantities of raw sewage has been allowed to contaminate most of the rivers and much of the coast.
The ancient infrastructure has not been maintained, let alone improved, whilst chief execs earn millions, and the shareholders happier still.
Water is full of Covid, PFA's etc., such problems exist in many nations.
What should we do ?
I enjoy all your posts, especially the ones on climate change, but also would love to receive occasional personal essays about your experiences of science and reflections on it. Food security also sounds like an interesting topic.
There is mountains of information on vaccines, water contamination, etal. My sense is swaying (if that is the goal) or just informing (if that is the goal) is an uphill climb as minds are settled via the herd they belong to. I think writing personally has more power and I generally enjoy that sort of writing more. Best wishes whatever you decide.
In the narrow subject of vaccines, at least in the US, history is instructive. It was mostly the left that drove vaccine hesitancy prior to COVID. It was the right that drove vaccine hesitancy amidst COVID. Neither was ever based on health and safety but rather fear, conspiracy and opportunism. A telling example in the US was Robert De Niro. He was front and center with vaccine hesitancy prior to COVID and magically became the opposite amidst COVID. It would not shock me if folks who feel they align with Mr. De Niro likely give him a pass for one and embrace him for the other. Hard to conclude his approach was anything other than shoot the messenger and running within his herd. It is hard to fashion reasoning wherein he was consistent.
There is swimming safety information for New Zealand on LAWA too. https://www.lawa.org.nz/explore-data/swimming/
I'm interested in the personal reflections too!
There is no such thing as a good vaccine. Full stop.
It's an ugly invention of eugenicists.
Thank you for your article Melanie. Re the two aspects:
1. Water - clean water supplies are critical to life as our bodies are roughly 75-80% water. Under-investment in these is a problem. In the UK this was the major advance of what is called public health works.
2. Vaccines - vaccines contain poisons/toxic substances/foreign bodies to create an immune response.
However, that is all they can do. It is a gross deceit to think that poisoning oneself was ever good for one's health. But vaccines do help create customers for big pharma as it has always been about the wealth, not our health.
I would have thought by now after over 3.5 years of the COVID nonsense more people would be seeing through the lies and propaganda of big pharma sponsored governments and its agencies.
It is completely illogical to think that cleaning up water supplies by removing toxic substances is good (it is of course) and then about face and say injecting toxic substances into the body is good which clearly it is not and never has been.