“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)
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)
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.
“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.”
“By wastewater levels, #JN1 is now associated with the second-biggest wave of infections in the United States in the pandemic, after #Omicron. We have lost the ability to track the actual number of infections since most people either test at home or don’t even test at all, but the very high wastewater levels of the virus indicate about 2 million Americans are getting infected each day.” #COVIDisNotOver#COVIDhttps://mstdn.social/@erictopol/111698225140794627
“study published on Wednesday in Nature has found that using online search engines to vet #conspiracies can actually increase the chance that someone will believe it. The researchers point to a known problem in search called "#DataVoids." Sometimes, there's not a lot of high-quality information to counter misleading headlines or surrounding fringe theories”
Yersinia Pestis never went away. It is endemic in the rural South West of the USA for example. It was the conditions that helped it propagate that improved. Even then the multiple waves of the plague went well beyond a few years.
“the #HeatDome was a foreshock of the world to come, with impacts both immediate and long-lasting. Yet it occurred in a world that has only warmed, on average, about 1.2 degrees since 1850. We’re now racing to 1.5 degrees and are likely to cross that threshold by the mid-2030s.” #ClimateCrisishttps://mastodon.social/@ryanschultz/110906759659640682
“While the planet has warmed 1.2 degrees since the 19th century, when humans first started burning #FossilFuels at an industrial scale, Canada has warmed at twice that rate, and the Arctic at four times. ..An Earth that’s two degrees hotter translates to a #Canada at least four degrees hotter, on average. .“A hot, dry summer ..in the Canadian context that means forest fires, that means #CropFailures, that means urban #droughts .”
Rural FP anesthetist formerly of Fort St John, BC, Canada. Trained in Aus and UK. Now doing rural locums in Canada. Blessed to live, work and play on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc people. #Science and #Medicine Twitter was invaluable to me as the guy at the pointy end of "if you have questions ask your doctor".But also appreciate links to #music, #art, #photography, health equity and many other things #fedi22