Doctors, Science, and Vaccine, 9/30

Heather Heying makes her stand

Heather Heying writes,

After the exam, the pediatrician asked me if Toby would be getting the Pfizer shot that day, or at another time.

“He won’t be getting vaccinated against Covid,” I said simply. Our family discusses nearly everything openly, and we had already had many conversations about these vaccines. We were and are a family that takes Covid very seriously, and had been dismayed by the failures of science journalism, and then journalism at every level, to cover nearly any of the aspects of the pandemic with clarity or honesty. We had changed our own minds on some things—in the Spring of 2020, for instance, it seemed to us that widespread masking would help, and even that lockdowns would help, to keep the pandemic at bay. Those positions seem naïve now. But from the origins of the virus, to the ability to treat the disease with common drugs that were already in existence, to the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines, time and again we had seen group think supersede analysis. Furthermore, because as a family we talked about these things so openly, if either of our sons had seen the world differently on this topic, I felt confident that I would have known.

What the pediatrician saw in me, when I told him that my son would not be getting vaccinated against Covid, was a foolish woman, and an ignorant one. As he saw it, I was putting my own child at risk. I was a danger to my own family.

In fact, this pediatrician knew that I had a PhD in Biology, and had been a professor for 15 years. But that didn’t jibe with his position.

I had a similar reaction from a doctor when he said that I should go for a diagnostic procedure because he had found microscopic blood in my urine. But I knew that this had shown up off and on for decades. I looked up what information I could find, and my baseline risk of any serious problem, given my age and other characteristics, was really low. Moreover, at least 15 percent of the population has microscopic blood in the urine. Citing Bayes’ theorem, I told the doctor I was not going for the test.

His response was to call my wife and warn her that I was acting strangely, and that I was citing someone he had never heard of (Bayes). I eventually went for the test. But after that experience, I switched doctors.

As for the vaccine issue, Heying is arguing that it is not getting a fair scientific hearing. Instead, she sees the deck being stacked by Big Pharma. There may be some of that, but what is even more alarming is how political the issue has become. If you do research that goes against the official line that the vaccine has low risk and lots of benefit, can you make that research public without being accused of spreading misinformation?

I cannot evaluate the issue myself. This is a classic case of having to decide what to believe by deciding who to believe. Bret and Heather are not going with the vaccine. The Zvi is fine with it. For now, I’m going with the Zvi.