Notices by Auscandoc (auscandoc@med-mastodon.com), page 2

Vaccines Work! 2024 Edition - ScienceUpFirst https://www.scienceupfirst.com/project/vaccines-work-2024-edition/ “the lives of 146 million children under the age of five have been saved, 101 million of those being under one year old, leading to a 40% reduction in global infant mortality. It is worth noting that vaccination against measles alone is responsible for saving 60% of those lives” #VaccinesSaveLives

“There’s nothing wrong with contrarianism per se. It’s just that we live in a world where facts exist,” said Murdoch, a senior research associate with the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta’s Faculty of Law.

Murdoch said there is a vast amount of science that shows the vaccines are overwhelmingly safe.

“Smith also made the claim that the organizers have invited a variety of doctors. I think that is also a reckless misrepresentation,” Murdoch said. (2/4)

“The problem is that the information ecosystem has moved away from reliance on evidence to reliance on ideology and identity politics and extremism.”

Murdoch said the idea that contrarian voices were not considered during the #pandemic is “a false narrative.” (3/4)

Meanwhile in Albertastan

Alberta premier’s support for #TownHall questioning #COVIDvaccines worries experts | Globalnews.ca https://globalnews.ca/news/10511738/danielle-smith-covid-vaccine-town-hall/

“Blake Murdoch at the University of Alberta said #DanielleSmith framing the town hall as a chance to look at the international evidence of harm to children by COVID vaccines is a “reckless misrepresentation of what this event” is based on the guest list. (1/4)

“The issue is not that there is a difference of opinion here. It’s that there is a huge amount of science that shows that these #VaccinesSaveLives and they are overwhelmingly safe so to claim otherwise becomes a statement of #misinformation,” (4/4)

@WhippoorwillSong Yes the article speaks to this. Quite elegantly put I think.

“It’s commonly assumed that education inoculates against conspiratorial thinking. However, schooling is not a foolproof safeguard against paranoid thinking.”

And

“Education and conspiratorial thinking have an ambivalent relationship”

How Three Big #ConspiracyTheories Took Root in Canada | The Walrus https://thewalrus.ca/conspiracy-theories-canada/ (1/4)

“An important dynamic of people falling into a #conspiratorial milieu is how such theories can help rationalize difficulties an individual may be experiencing by flattening complexity and providing answers that soothe and distract from uncomfortable realities. (2/4)

Rather than accepting that negative circumstances were often the result of individual choices in the face of a global pandemic, #AntiVaccine conspiracists evoke global-domination conspiracies about the #WorldEconomicForum to explain away a complicated situation and ameliorate responsibility for personal circumstances.” (3/4)

“Fringe beliefs are fringe until they’re not, and the mainstreaming process can be aided by academics and other prominent thinkers. Education is an important tool in building up bulwarks against conspiratorial thinking, but it’s not a silver bullet. Conspiracism masquerading as legitimate thought is influencing educated, powerful Canadians.” (4/4)

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/05/16/opinion/anti-vaxxers-are-winning-war “These facts will have little purchase on the feelings of those attending this event, though. The roster of speakers includes a number of doctors who trade in conspiracy theories about so-called “turbo cancers” caused by the vaccine and the list of their colleagues who have supposedly died prematurely as a result of taking it. (1/2)

In its October 2023 hearing into the conduct of Mark Trozzi, one of those scheduled speakers, the Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal noted that “in promoting a false narrative about 80 deceased doctors, he targeted private individuals, causing distress to their grieving families.” (2/2)

“But the people who continue to obsess over the supposedly negative impacts of these vaccines are neither rational nor reasonable. Instead, they’ll spend the rest of their lives moving the goalposts around the field in ways that help them avoid the inevitable confrontation with this scientific reality.” (3/4)

B#C. #HealthCareWorker #VaccineMandate gets court approval https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/highlights/vaccine-mandates-for-health-care-workers-reasonable-and-constitutional-bc-judge-rules-8740955 “B.C. Supreme Court Justice Simon Coval has sided with provincial health officer Dr. #BonnieHenry on vaccine mandates for health-care workers, largely dismissing claims they are unreasonable and unconstitutional.

In a May 10 ruling, Coval states that the province’s top doctor was justified in extending COVID-19 vaccine mandates from October 2021 via two renewed orders made on Oct. 5, 2023. (1/6)

@malwaretech this assuredly is not tech. 😉 https://mastodon.social/@cassiar/109430606283281600

#CLIMATEACTION IS CHEAPER THAN #CLIMATEINACTION
Costs of #ClimatePolicies by 2050 Costs of #ClimateDamages by 2050
Kotz, M., Levermann, A. & Wenz, L. The economic commitment of #ClimateChange. Nature 628, 551-557 (2024).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07219-0

Seven countries now generate 100% of their electricity from renewable energy | The Independent https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/renewable-energy-solar-climate-targets-b2529461.html “Seven countries now generate nearly all of their #electricity from #renewable energy sources, according to newly compiled figures.

Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo produced more than 99.7 per cent of the electricity they consumed using #geothermal, #hydro, #solar or #wind power.

I received the new gene-editing drug for sickle cell disease. It changed my life. | MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/12/04/1084209/vertex-exacel-approval-gene-editing-sickle-cell-disease-patient/ “I’d lived with #SickleCell my whole life—experiencing chronic pain, organ damage, and hopelessness. To me, this opportunity meant finally taking control of my life and having the opportunity to be a present father.

The drug I received, called #ExaCel, could soon become the first #CRISPR-based treatment to win approval from the US Food and Drug Administration,”

German emissions at 70-year low as coal use drops https://phys.org/news/2024-01-german-emissions-year-coal.html “German #emissions were at their lowest point in around 70 years as Europe's largest economy managed to reduce its dependence on #coal faster than expected, a study published Thursday showed.

Europe's biggest economy emitted 673 million tonnes of the #GreenhouseGases last year, 9.8 percent lower than in 2022, “

“With all three respiratory viruses circulating at full force, you would think we’d be seeing people wearing masks everywhere in public. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The state of denialism and general refusal to take simple steps to reduce the risk of infection can be seen everywhere.”