New and Experienced Climbers Over 50 #18

Victor Kwrote:

I'm super lucky that I have nearly zero vax refusers in my daily life (including work!). However, when you grasp the collective problem of herd immunity, it seems truly incomprehensible that anyone would have that position. A few years ago, I read this book: American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Personal Liberty and the Common Good. This book is a masterpiece, and really illuminates the who and why of the other side of the argument, with minimal judgement. Even here, among those of us who are unequivocal about getting immunized, there's a recognition that personal liberty is a valid part of the calculus. And a side note to Carl, if you find Americans incomprehensible, this book reveals a lot.

You say "the other side of the argument" as if there some binary choice. One side or the other. Which side do you mean by other?

I will read this book. My prejudice going in is that I think in most cases personal liberty is the common good. 

On another note, referring to other posts on this thread, please stop referring to the injections as "immunization." Even their makers will tell you that they are not.

edit. Sorry I guess I'm way behind the 8 ball on this post. I thought about it for a while and now it's probably irrelevant to the topics at hand.

Two in a row, this more important than the first by miles. TONY LOOKS MAGNIFICENT!!!

S. Neohwrote:

I have to get and read this book!  Does it mention or deal with "American Exceptionalism"?

I'm getting it also.  Thanks for the recommending this Victor.

Lori Milaswrote:

Todd, beautiful!  I’m no expert but I’m learning to appreciate what I see.  You put so much heart into your bouldering and you look strong and graceful.  

I bumped into this clip this morning and thought of you.

(I wonder if Ron also bouldered…)

First time I met Ron he was doing a bouldering traverse along the base of the Manure Pile in the Valley, and was looking pretty good!

Kris, a vaccine is a means to get immunity. 

Mark Frumkinwrote:

Kris, a vaccine is a means to get immunity. 

No.

Edit: OK Mark. I'll agree with you.

Yes

Here is a nice article discussing the terminology and relationships between vaccination, immunization, and inoculation. 

https://www.verywellhealth.com/the-difference-between-immunization-and-vaccination-4140251

Mark Frumkinwrote:

Kris, a vaccine is a means to get immunity. 

It's not a vaccine. It doesn’t use the same mechanism as a vaccine, and it doesn't leave you with T-cell immunity like the polio or smallpox vaccine's which give you immunity for life. Thusly, you need regular boosters. Call that immunity if you like.

I find it interesting that until now we all hated big pharma but today they're our savior's. Pfizer has paid out one of the largest fines leveed to any corporation in history, but it's just part of the cost of doing business. 

$2.3B for off label promotion and kickbacks. 2009.

J&J: $2.2B for the same. 2013. They saw what happened to Pfizer and did the same shit anyway. Chump change for them with 2019 revenues at $80B+.

 I take a med to control seizures. It's a specific drug that works for me, and with my problem I went through two horrendous years working with neurologists to find the one that works. When I lose my current insurance and go on Medicare part D for drugs this one, at list price, comes in at $78,000/year. There’s a generic but the variance in release rate and dosage per pill are unacceptable for me. Grand mal seizures kind of suck. Needless to say, I don’t know wtf I’m going to do. The manufacturer is Glaxosmithkline. Their list of settlements for various malfeasance is impressive with the largest being $3B (the largest fine against a corporation in American history).

“Criminal: Off-label promotion, FAILURE TO DISCLOSE SAFETY DATA..
 Civil: paying kickbacks to physicians, making false and misleading statements concerning the safety of Avandia, reporting false best prices and underpaying rebates owed under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program” The largest False Claims Act settlement in American history. 2012.

These companies are run by mobsters and ghouls. 

The COVID meds were initially sold as 95% effective. Today you wear a mask, even if you’re vaxxed, because as it turns out the meds don’t stop you from getting or transmitting the virus. You won’t get as sick. That’s quite a comedown from 95% effective.

As it happens, I’m one of those rare people that has a legit medical reason to think twice about getting the jab. Do I owe it to society to take the risk of ending up in a wheelchair or worse? I’ve decided not.

Think about operation Warp Speed. Trump offered these companies, which don’t exactly have reputations for ethical behavior, indemnity from any responsibility for consequences and, at the same time, the opportunity to make many billions of dollars. For pharma, this is the best opportunity they’ve ever had. 

Isn’t it odd that it’s the companies themselves, not the CDC or NIH, that started the push for booster shots? Shouldn’t that be the other way around?

And now we are told to be very afraid of Omicron. This, despite the fact that clinical evidence in South Africa shows that this strain is less dangerous than previous strains. More contagious but far less dangerous. This is not uncommon behavior among viruses. It’s simple selection. Killing the host isn’t a recipe for success. Infecting more hosts but letting them live is. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_pharmaceutical_settlements

Kristian Solemwrote:

...... clinical evidence in South Africa shows that this strain is less dangerous than previous strains. More contagious but far less dangerous. This is not uncommon behavior among viruses. It’s simple selection. Killing the host isn’t a recipe for success. Infecting more hosts but letting them live is. 

Early days yet but it will be ironic if Omicron turns oout to be our true savior.  
The 1918 Spanish flu, more devastating than COVID mostly due to the state of healthcare and knowledge back then, "died down" after 2 to 3 years. Exact records are undesrstandly scarce.
 Perhaps COVID-19 will follow the same pattern.

Kris, I know nothing about viruses and have wondered why some, like polio and smallpox, have never mutated to get around the vaccines. COVID seems more like the flu, which is countered with a different shot every year -- none 100% effective. So I'll take the shots, boosters, or whatever, from which I've never had a serious adverse reaction, to get whatever protection they provide, without condoning the greed of big pharma.

Since you have a legitimate medical reason to not get the shot, I'd think you would have more reason than I to want other people to get it and decrease your risk of infection. That's the common good counter to absolute liberty that I think underlies - or should underlie - a society.        

Kristian Solemwrote:

It's not a vaccine. It doesn’t use the same mechanism as a vaccine, and it doesn't leave you with T-cell immunity like the polio or smallpox vaccine's which give you immunity for life. Thusly, you need regular boosters. Call that immunity if you like.

Kris that is absolutely positively 100% not true.  Both mRNA vaccines and the one adenovirus vaccine approved in the US (and probably all the others) generate memory B and T cells.

moderna-covid-19-vaccine-generates-long-lasting-immune-memory

A  vaccine "mechanism" is that an inoculation of an antigen or antigens in a variety of forms, direct or indirect,  elicits a response from the immune system.  This includes both the inate and adaptive arms of the immune system, and results in both short term cellular and long term cellular responses. With some vaccines the antigen is purified and given directly, usually with an adjuvant.  Some vaccines are viral based:  virus itself, either inactivated whole virus, attenuated virus, or genetically engineered live virus carrier (like Janssen which is adenovirus carrying Covid spike protein).  The mRNA viruses produce the antigen (spike protein) after the mRNA is taken up by cells. They are ALL vaccines.

I really don't have time to write a treatise on this but it's frustrating to me that people are getting this incorrect information from somewhere. It's frustrating to me this crap information is spread around.

Kristian.  Just stop with the stupid shit you pull from antivax sites.  millions of people are dying all over the world. lets get back to climbing please.   I ain't no doctor,(pretty fcn sure you are not either) and I don't pretend to be able to sift through all the BS on the internet and come up with the truth. I do however know that My neice is a covid nurse and that this shit is real. I believe what she tells me because she deals with it every day. The vast majority of the people that end up in the hospital are unvaxed. Period. No BS, no conspiracy theories. Just what the working stiffs on the job are experiencing. 

wendy weisswrote:

Since you have a legitimate medical reason to not get the shot, I'd think you would have more reason than I to want other people to get it and decrease your risk of infection. That's the common good counter to absolute liberty that I think underlies - or should underlie - a society.        

I'm not really worried about it. Maybe I'm stupid and I'll get sick and die. Unlike so many in our society today, I don't have an inordinate fear of death.

I'm reasonably careful. I don't hang out in indoor public spaces like bars and theaters (not that I ever did). What restaurants I frequent all serve out of doors. My outdoor recreation consists largely of hopping in my jeep with Dog, heading out to the middle of nowhere, and hanging out exploring for a few daze...

CDC says my chance of dying if I get COVID is about 1% at my age of 69. CDC also says that 78% of those who are hospitalized for COVID are obese with the single most important marker being type 2 diabetes. Since I'm far from obese and don't suffer from other relevant co-morbidity's I'll knock 3/4 off that 1%,  to have a risk of .25%. 

On another note, I think that balance between absolute liberty and social responsibility is a tricky thing. To start with, absolute liberty is easy to define, while social responsibility is a moving target. Do I advocate absolute liberty? Of course not. The question becomes how much liberty do I believe we should have before we encroach on the reasonable needs of society? I think that when in doubt, we must favor liberty. We need to keep a brake on the historical fact that governments never relinquish powers once granted (or taken).

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

Kristian.  Just stop with the stupid shit you pull from antivax sites.  millions of people are dying all over the world. lets get back to climbing please.   I ain't no doctor,(pretty fcn sure you are not either) and I don't pretend to be able to sift through all the BS on the internet and come up with the truth. I do however know that My neice is a covid nurse and that this shit is real. I believe what she tells me because she deals with it every day. The vast majority of the people that end up in the hospital are unvaxed. Period. No BS, no conspiracy theories. Just what the working stiffs on the job are experiencing. 

How about you stop calling other points of view "stupid." 

Edit: Even the "over 50" threads aren't immune to these arguments!

A couple of things before I bow out. I feel like this argument, and my role in amplifying it, are spoiling an otherwise friendly and constructive thread that should be nothing but fun. I apologize.

Phyl, you know that I have nothing but the highest regard and respect for your depth of knowledge on this subject. If I were to continue down this wormhole here I'd do my best to stick to the parts of this I actually know about, which are several. Instead I'll say point taken.

Nick, I don't take info from anti-vaxx sites on the web. Whatever.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming?

Just butting in here for a second, with great pride and affection for everyone here. All points of view are so important. I would just say for myself I am trying to avoid all/nothing choices.  I’m adjusting as new information comes along.  One thing that I appreciate from this Covid scare is that I lost my unreasonable fear of vaccinations. In this case I just walked in and got them and it was no big deal. So maybe I’ll get the shingles vaccine next.  

I just went a few rounds with Rolf here in Desert Hot Springs and I share only because it’s great to swap information and strategies. It’s been years since I could afford regular massage but I felt like I needed some thing to help my body recover from so much hard climbing. I was referred to this Thai deep tissue work and decided to give it a go.  After the first few sessions I found I could reach behind me and scratch an itch on my scapula, I could put my nose to my knees, I really felt light. I’ve let some time go since then and once again losing that lightness so I came back today for an intensely painful two hours. She uses CBD oil and a device she calls the hammer, along with strolling along my back, arms and legs… and wherever I wince or pull back she doubles down on that area.   

With a scoliosis from early childhood and now extremely painful feet she takes no mercy but goes right for those areas.  But she swears we go through this to get rid of the pain and I swear she’s right.   The thing is I feel like it’s this kind of suppleness with strength that would allow the kind of climbing I really want to focus on. So now I’m thinking I really need to keep this up.  Don’t know what your experiences are with massage, acupuncture, physical therapy as it relates to being able to use your body better.  

She also picked a handful of bitter melon leaves and some kind of paste she swears by and suggested I have some tonight when all the muscles start screaming. Just another really lovely person brought into my life.  

My PT has been going so well, increased and different exercises to retrain my shoulders to move correctly. We have been hitting the gym and slowly doing harder climbs. 

Then yesterday, a day after a hard PT session, on my 7th route, I got a sharp pain in my shoulder, took and lowered. Seems like I may have done a bit too much, and now will have to heat, ice and rest and see where I'm at next week. Pretty frustrated.

But, it was a completely gorgeous day today and on my ride I ran into a Stag Party.

Rolf always makes me think of the Muppets.

We're headed into a stretch of cold and wet here, so it's gyms, both types, now. 

I'm continuing with my pt stuff, and hoping to get an evaluation again in January, see if there's measurable progress, and have that recorded. Anything for encouragement to keep going, helps! 

H.

Lori Milaswrote:

The thing is I feel like it’s this kind of suppleness with strength that would allow the kind of climbing I really want to focus on.

Yup, strong yet supple.  Helps my climbing a lot.  But, these days, I need lots of warm up to get there.