AiDA – Assistance in Dying Altruistically – featured in Liberty Equality and Fertility. Here’s AIDA’s picture. It likely depends on your mood as you look at the picture. She might make an AiDA option look attractive or add to its horror. Some people, particularly mothers, can be extraordinarily altruistic, and might think they could sacrifice themselves for the good of their children or grandchildren.
Others may well feel that a superficially caring end of life option just adds to the horror of our slide down a slippery slope.
The AI in this AIDA stands for Artificial Intelligence. She paints.
The TAiL in the title stands for Technological Assistance in Living – and echo the acronyms MAiC and MAiD below. TAiL immediately conjures up Dog as in Tail Wags Dog but in this case TAiL Wags God is more appropriate.
Fertility and Morality
Last week’s post was sent in early draft form as an email to a listserve I’m on, asking for their input. I was asking, I thought, about fertility not mortality. About birth not death. About medical factors causing infertility and a growing Medical Assistance in Conception (MAiC) to sit alongside medical treatments causing disability leading to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).
The listserve has a varied and stellar cast of recipients. Their responses focused exclusively on MAiD. I was later told this was likely because very few people in Canada were now unaffected by MAiD. Strong and confusing feelings run deep on the issue.
But although the points I hoped would be picked up weren’t, the act of sending the email brought something into the frame that I may have been asking about in the first place but can put more clearly now. If we are moving from a world we have framed as Cradle to Grave to one where the frame is MAiC to MAiD, then life is becoming more and more TAiLored..
TAiLorism and Alienation
In the early 1800s, textile-workers in the North of Britain, who became known as the Luddites, and textile workers in South of France especially silk workers around Lyon, who became know as Communists, began protesting against the introduction of machinery into crafts. See From The French Revolution to Artificial Intelligence.
The machines weren’t just going to replace workers, they were going to replace skills. The French in particular saw this deskilling as an alienation – long before anyone heard of Karl Marx. The conditions in which machines were being used and the injuries and illnesses they gave rise to helped create both public health and occupational health. They also led Etienne Cabet in 1840 to create the Communist Party in Lyon.
The story of our gradual reconciliation to technology is told in Shipwreck of the Singular along with the story of how following a set of failed revolutions across Europe in 1848 the French Communist Party emigrated to Illinois – just south of where Chicago is now.
The early 1900s saw the creation of Taylorism, which explicitly aimed at adapting workers to the machines and the factory. Taylorism was the name given to idea of scientific management which meant adapting people to what were later called flowcharts and guidelines. It was adopted by both capitalism in the US and communism in the USSR. It was magnificently pilloried by Charlie Chaplin the movie Modern Times.
Max Weber at the same time had drawn attention to the bureaucratic equivalent to Taylorism. Where factory Taylorism seemed to suit the capitalists who wanted to squeeze everything they could out of workers, Weber saw bureaucracy as inherently socialist, a Deep State trying to stifle individual liberty.
Weber saw bureaucracy as inevitable in modern states but also argued we still needed leaders – and the role of the leader was to take decisions rather than follow protocols. A leader also takes responsibility for those decisions whereas almost no-one is responsible when a bureaucrat follows protocols. He compared a leader to a doctor who can get a people to take a medicine they may not like.
For Weber, medicine was sure to become a technical enterprise. He could not see where anything other than technology or technique could enter in except in a Deus ex Machina fashion. A hundred years ago he believed we would have technologies and techniques to facilitate the entry of people into the world and for disposing of them. This led Zygmunt Bauman to claim Weber foresaw the Holocaust – Modernity and the Holocaust.
Now in the early 2000s, with Artificial Intelligence, people are once again saying that technology dooms us. Not just that it will take our jobs but that it alienates us from our true selves. It will inevitably take over and we will be bit players in what we have viewed as the ‘human’ drama, ending up much like both individual ants and the ant colonies, which we see as bit players in the life on earth drama – when they might be better adapted to survive a coming holocaust than we are.
Pharmageddon
While leaning to different sides of specific technology questions, to take MAiC or not to, to take MAiD or not to, rather than being completely on different sides, most of us seem to believe or hope we can retain a mastery over technology
Can we maintain control over technologies, of which drugs are one, is the question at the heart of Charles Medawar’s concept of Pharmageddon. His Pharmageddon lecture featured in Pharmageddon and our HealthCare Climate, shows a certain stumbling toward expressing a point of view rather than any stridently expressed view. The stumbling and lack of stridency, as much as the words, seem to indicate where he stood – worried.
Could we control pharmaceuticalization? He thought not but equally seemed to think we have no option but to try. Having said that – Charles vanished soon after creating Pharmageddon. He stopped interacting with any of us whom he had bounced these ideas off. His abrupt incommunicado felt like the fate of the Tenant in Roman Polanski’s movie of the same name.
Leaders and Doctors
We now have a Fertility Crisis and Emmanuel Macron has fronted up – seemingly seeing a need to tackle it – Sex, Fertility, France and Serotonin. This is the other end of MAiD. If we aren’t going to march everyone off to the gas chambers say at the age of 80, or maybe 65 if they have any disabilities that cost money, or perhaps kill them by restricting Pensions to over 71s, as the British media are reporting this morning, we need more children.
If you think Macron’s move is anything other than a political stunt to counter Marine Le Pen’s immigration card in forthcoming European elections, the question is whether a Nation, any more than an individual, can make a difference? A nation can access more technical resources than an individual but would using technologies be morally appropriate or done morally if left to the State?. Do technique and morality interface?
Corporations legally it seems are individuals and as venal and short-sighted as any of the rest of us individuals. Are Nations also individuals? They can be pretty venal and short-sighted. But perhaps that’s part of the deal. We want our football team to win one way or the other – it need not be beautiful football. If you’re Irish you know you are doomed to a magnificent but maybe even tragic loss – as when we all knew the best rugby team in the world was not going to win the World Cup.
Is Macron leading in Max Weber’s sense – stepping beyond bureaucratic technique and taking the kind of responsibility bureaucrats don’t take. Unless someone leads, and like a doctor is able to get a Nation to swallow a medicine it might not like, the patient is doomed to die.
Good and Evil
This comes back to the question of Good and Evil. There is a line of thinking that says there is no such thing as an Evil Being. Evil is the absence of Good. Technologies, and techniques as in bureaucracy and propaganda, are inherently evil. Whether Good gets brought out of them, as in anesthesia for surgery or gas for the chamber, is down to us.
From a universal point of view – and the French pride themselves on being universalist – it makes no difference if life on earth ends up being predominantly African or Afro-Asian rather than French. Can magnificent resistance from one Nation make a difference? Is it worth trying to hold out for ‘our individuality’? Would it be moral to try?
A major factor getting in the way of the French being able to see an element of all our problems are the pharmaceutical developments they pioneered – from Thalidomide to psychotropics. I could have said petrochemical developments but the French are acutely aware of the petrochemicals all around us and see their role in causing infertility – Sex, Fertility, France and Serotonin. But they can’t see their twins, the petrochemicals we swallow – Medicochemical and Petrochemical Twins.
Has medicine become as Evil as the universe? Can we control this Evil and Bring Good out of the use of Poisons?
Bringing good out of the use of poisons was the original understanding behind medical professionalism. But even my most sophisticated medical friends, who seem to be on the same side of this argument as me (confused like Charles), recoil in horror when I frame things in terms of bringing good out of the use of a poison.
Since childhood, certainly if you are of a certain age, we have been taught that the Ends don’t justify the Means. The idea of doing Evil to achieve a Good outcome doesn’t compute for most people. A liberal elite, in particular, recoil in horror, sometimes claiming that the public will recoil with horror at this idea and need therefore for their own sake to be misled. Which is a dream for company marketing – the Democrats, Labour and Green Parties all become our unpaid sales staff.
The point behind a professional was to be independent of Church, State and Corporations.
But somehow a morally neutral technology like a computer, robot, drug or whatever has become a Good, which of course it is from a company point of view – a commodity that pulls in money. The Evil lies in us, which is does in a sense – the Good lies in us and when we don’t opt for the what all things being equal is the Good, the benefit to others option, we do Evil.
Our Drugs have become Sacraments. This transforms doctors into technicians. The clergy always were technicians. Their job was never to think for themselves. They take vows of Obedience after all but we don’t seem to notice that. Doctors find it increasingly impossible to think for themselves and Obedience to Guidelines that, where drugs are concerned, are based on an essentially fraudulent medical literature, is now written into their job contracts.
There are great problems when any of us try to do Good. The Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions. Or as Gandhi put it – he who would do a Great Evil must first of all persuade himself he is doing a Great Good. But, lots of us figure the problems get even greater when a State tries to do good – To Err is Human but to really foul things up you need a Computer/Bureaucracy etc.
SoS
SoS is the International Distress signal in morse code. I was amused when some years ago, a very distressed Alastair Benbow of GSK, being grilled by Shelley Jofre for the BBC, refused to concede that paroxetine – Paxil, Seroxat – could cause addiction, dependence, withdrawal or even discontinuation reactions. He resorted to calling the after-effects of the drug Symptoms on Stopping, which has allowed me put SoS to good use ever since.
Many of us, me anyway, once figured SoS stood for Save our Souls. It doesn’t. Anyway if it once did, we have transitioned from an era where Holiness has been replaced as the key target in life by Health and Souls would now have to be replaced by Save our Skins.
In fact, SoS is like the universe – meaningless – it’s as technical as 0,1,0,0,0,1.
We once used to go to doctors, relatively rarely, essentially only when we had serious problems, when we were in distress, with an SoS message. Doctors though have now transitioned into calling us in to see them, commanding us to come in or be delisted, so that we can be put on Statins, or Blood Pressure or other pills, in order to SoS – Save our Salaries (doctors salaries).
As Weber wondered, where does morality enter into this? Doctors, like financiers in the financial crisis, are operating in a state of moral hazard. They give us products they must know risk blowing up in our face, or increasingly our children’s faces, and destroying our lives. They collect salaries and even bonuses provided they do not warn us beforehand or take our side afterwards – See Healthcare Gone Mad..
Is Anyone out there in this Void? Is the doctor we are going to capable of bringing Good out of the Void or will s/he Avoid doing so?
This post links to Disaster Sex Yes, No Sex Disaster on RxISK, where you will find Philippe Pinel 220 years ago echoing Charles Medawar:
As, translated for today, Pinel, one of the creators of modern medicine, said it’s great to have technologies but it’s an even greater art to know when to use them.
This is what confuses people.
The Head of Pfizer; is he good or evil.
He brags about his company’s great PR, and he has a heart as a Jewish citizen.
Albert Bourla
@AlbertBourla
Very #PfizerProud that @Pfizer is ranked #20 on @FortuneMagazine’s 2024 Most Admired Companies List. Moreover, we are the top-ranked pharmaceutical company on the list. This achievement wouldn’t have been possible without our amazing colleagues. They truly embody our core values of #courage, #excellence, #equity, and #joy, and I am privileged to call them my teammates. Thank you for all you do to help our patients everywhere. https://bit.ly/42mUPPy
Last edited4:25 PM · Feb 2, 2024 2,690 Views
Albert Bourla
@AlbertBourla
As I reflect on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I can’t help but to also think about the 136 hostages that have been held in Gaza for 112 days. Innocent people who are sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers, whose loved ones have little or no information about their well-being. I’m not sure who suffers more; those living in the terrible conditions of captivity, or their relatives and friends who are in agony and despair. We must do everything we can to end the hostage situation in Gaza now! We must not forget them and speak up until all of them are free. Let’s stop at nothing to prevent the tragedies of yesterday from happening today. #InternationalHolocaustRemembranceDay #NeverForget #BringThemHomeNow
1:03 PM · Jan 27, 2024 12.3K Views
Pfizer has done evil, court cases acquiesce.
GSK has done evil, court cases acquiesce.
A rung down, with regulators, in between, have doctors done evil?
Trying to understand doctor’s modus operandi is like trying to find tomatoes in the tomato soup.
Whisk it until it is pulverised.
https://twitter.com/ClareCraigPath/status/1754411660247179771
What is it about doctors?
Almost every deal with a patient, has a gigantic fail.
Why do they constantly say, ‘it’s all Greek to me’; ‘I will randomly select a drug for this patient’; ‘I will not fail in my duty to do what is expected of me’; ‘I will not try to find good out of evil as the drugs are good and any evil is a big swamp that I would prefer to have nothing to do with’
Tail Wags God; morality is out of the window…
Here’s a link to the story of a young girls in the Netherlands who was raped and suffered depression afterwards, and at the age of seventeen was granted Medical Assistance in Dying:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7103019/Dutch-girl-17-legally-ends-life-euthanasia-clinic.html
As always, maddeningly vague about the details. Was this child given drugs for her depression? If so, which drugs?
And as always, no consideration of the possible role any drugs she had been given might have played in her despair, even though we know so-called “antidepressants” cause worsening depression and suicidality.
Doctors have always had the prerogative of burying their mistakes. But nowadays some seem to be in a rather unseemly haste to do so.
The void is still wide open. Judging from her past failures to act in her role as Safety Guardian this GP/doctor/woman / author of the report is another A/VOIDER. It is a government appointment She has been heavily criticised in her last government appointment as health Guardian. Has now been appointed as health Safety commissioner . Or more likely a Safe pair of hands for those who have caused such harm. It is not just forgiveable human error of fialings. The role was –
Henrietta Hughes GP
The national guardian for the freedom to speak up has said her office will not be an “investigation body”, instead issuing “recommendations rather than judgments” to trusts on how they can improve whistleblowing
Yesterday on BBC
Mesh and sodium valproate scandal victims need payouts soon, report says
More than 100,000 woman are believed to have had mesh implants fitted between 2007-2015 – many unaware of the risks
By Sophie Hutchinson and Aurelia Foster
BBC News
Families of children left disabled by an epilepsy drug and women injured by pelvic mesh implants should be given urgent financial help, England’s patient safety commissioner has said.
Dr Henrietta Hughes has called on the government to act quickly to help victims of the two health scandals.
It follows a review which found lives had been ruined because concerns about some treatments were not listened to.
Ministers say they will consider and respond to the recommendations.
Dr Hughes’s role was created to look into the scandals. She told the BBC: “These families weren’t listened to by a system that really turned its back, and fobbed them off with information which led to them not only being harmed, but thousands of others being harmed.”
What are these health scandals?
Sodium Valproate is an effective medication for epilepsy and bipolar disorder.
If the drug is taken during pregnancy it can cause major birth defects, but for decades women were not properly warned about the risks.
An estimated 20,000 children were exposed to the drug while in the womb and many live with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism.
For years, pelvic mesh was considered to be the gold standard treatment for incontinence and prolapse in women.
However, the net-like implant can erode and harden, cutting through tissue and causing serious pain.
Thousands of women who have experienced life-changing complications have lost their mobility, relationships and jobs.
Scientific papers from as early as the 1980s suggested valproate medicines were dangerous to developing babies, yet warnings about the potential effects were not added to some packaging until 2016.
Some families affected have been campaigning for decades to raise awareness of the potential effects of the drug, with some calling for compensation and a public inquiry.
Dr Hughes was asked by the government to look into a potential compensation scheme for those affected by that scandal, as well as the one involving some 10,000 women who were injured by their pelvic mesh implants – a treatment for pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and incontinence.
Some women were left in permanent pain, unable to walk, work or have sex.
Figures suggest there were 127,000 mesh implants to treat incontinence and POP between April 2008 and March 2017, but campaigners believe the actual number is higher.
Dr Hughes has recommended initial payments of £100,000 to be made to victims of the sodium valproate scandal and £20,000 to be paid to women injured by mesh implants.
This should be followed by further payments for some, as well as some non-financial assistance to victims and their families, Dr Hughes said.
‘Scandal bigger than thalidomide’
Dr Henrietta Hughes told the BBC she believed the sodium valproate scandal was “bigger than thalidomide” – referring to the severe birth defects caused by a morning-sickness drug, which was licensed in the 1950s in the UK.
“I’ve heard so many heartbreaking stories about the problems they’re having in terms of getting access to the medical care that they need, but also the impact that it’s had on the parents who have had to give up their work, give up their businesses and stay at home and care for their children,” Dr Hughes said.
She said many of those born with disabilities – known as foetal valproate syndrome – had been unable to work or look after themselves as adults.
She said a redress scheme was “a question of justice” for families who had “been fighting for years or even decades”.
Failure to help victims of the scandal would show “a callous disregard for the pain and the suffering” of those harmed, Dr Hughes said.
Emma Friedmann told the BBC she feels “guilt” after her son Andy was born with foetal valproate syndrome
‘Guilt’ for taking epilepsy drug
“It’s the guilt of taking the pills. It’s the guilt of not asking enough questions. It’s the guilt of becoming pregnant. It’s the guilt of believing your doctors… It’s the guilt of not being able to provide for your family.”
Andy, now aged 25, is unlikely ever to live independently and is more like a six-year-old, his mother said.
Mr Friedman said she was not hopeful she would receive any compensation and that her trust “can never be fixed”.
“This is what makes me upset – that these people have known for so long and they are still resisting… doing things.”
She said she had found it difficult to cope emotionally, at times.
The government now says the drug should not be given to women or girls of childbearing age, except in special circumstances.
Even now, about three babies a month are born with developmental disorders and physical abnormalities after foetal exposure to the drug.
Hundreds sue NHS over ‘barbaric’ mesh treatment’
Sadie Lambourne said her life turned into a “nightmare” after having a pelvic mesh implanted
‘Severe pain’ from mesh
A review in 2020 concluded that the suffering caused by pelvic mesh had also been entirely avoidable, caused by failings in the health system and a failure to heed families’ warnings.
Dr Hughes told the BBC many women who have been injured by the mesh have suffered, need wheelchairs and have to “pay a fortune” to travel to hospital appointments.
“It just adds insult to injury,” she said.
Sadie Lambourne, from Yeovil, told the BBC she had lost her independence due to injuries sustained by her mesh implant.
She said she was advised by a surgeon to have it fitted to treat incontinence. After a few years, she said she began to suffer severe pain in her lower back and had many infections.
“The mesh had eroded through into my bladder, causing all the infection and pain,” she explained.
Sadie had to give up working because she could not stand or sit for long periods, and her teenage children now help her shower and get into bed.
“I’m not able to be a mum for them,” she said.
“We are living hand-to-mouth and we don’t go on holiday.
“A redress scheme would mean I don’t need to worry.
“If I knew then what I know now, I wouldn’t have had the mesh.”
Asked about the sodium valproate scandal on BBC Breakfast, health secretary Victoria Atkins said the government had “listened to women who have gone through this horrific ordeal”.
She said Dr Hughes’ report was being looked at by ministers “very, very carefully” and the government will require some time to come forward with some “meaningful recommendations and proposals” in response to both scandals.
Valproate has been highlighted on the blogs for a long time.
Again it has taken decades to get this report published – and the women on are still cynical about the outcome. Presenters try to focus heavily on compensation and payouts but those harmed constantly bring it back to accountability of those who knowingly caused such harm. Justice requires both . The word Evil is so attached to religion I would rather find another word but what . The magnitude of the harms knowingly perpetuated is so unspeakable there are no words
BBC News
6 minutes ago
,
Action – Take THREE
Dr David Cartland
@CartlandDavid
Imagine signing up to a career and training for ten years that promotes safety, ethics, duty of candour, primum non nocere, evidence based practice and making your patient your first concern…..only to find that it is all a fraud!
When you follow your own regulators guidance to the letter you are disciplined, censored and silenced!
Onto pastures new
#newbeginning #noconfidenceNHS #thosewhospokeoutwillneverbebusier #timetothinkbig
https://twitter.com/CartlandDavid/status/1754470254867001550
‘Its beyond all reasonable doubt now’
Prof Norman Fenton reposted
BRING_THE_NOISE
@Nohj_85
One year on from this video release and the sea of faces have been forgotten It’s incredible how the words in this video are still relevant, but there’s still zero help or support from the ones who pushed this.
https://twitter.com/Nohj_85/status/1754899540216250437
Prof Norman Fenton reposted
Alexandra Marshall
@ellymelly
How does a mathematician end up as a pariah of the medical world?
“I have published 400 reference papers, 6 books on computing…
I was considered to be an international authority on #RISK.
“That all changed in 2020 when I started to show that the entire #Covid narrative was being driven by flawed and easily manipulated statistics.” –
@profnfenton
https://twitter.com/ellymelly/status/1754739921187909647
‘my normal work’ –
‘God’s gift’ to ‘Pariahs’ …
Neil Oliver reposted
Kathy Gyngell
@KathyConWom
Extraordinary to hear #safeandeffective Sir Patrick Vallance give an interview to the
@thetimes today which begins,
“Imagine if there had been no jab. Imagine if the dark of that first Covid winter had arrived without being offset by the light of the vaccine.”
Shocking in the face of all we know now.
Kathy Gyngell
@KathyConWom
But then Vallance, who is calling for more innovation in the #NHS, appears to show he has learnt nothing from all the mendacity that has been exposed about that time, the ‘pandemic’.
“I really believe that the NHS is the best healthcare system in the world. It’s just lost its way a bit. “No one in the world had better data during Covid.
No one else produced a vaccine as quickly as we did.”
Kathy Gyngell
@KathyConWom
Disgraceful. The denial and attempt to control continues.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sir-patrick-vallance-nhs-must-take-more-risks-covid-vaccine-health-commission-2n6d7hsh0
No one in the world had better data during GlaxoSmithKline and Paroxetine
https://davidhealy.org/resources/#Restoring_Study_329
Getting closer?
The links between GSK and AllTrials have appeared to get even closer recently with Iain Chalmers of AllTrials co-authoring an editorial with Patrick Vaillance of GSK. (The Attitude of Chicks to Trojans and Horses).
https://davidhealy.org/gsks-transparency-and-access-journey/
The Wisdom of the Dixie Chicks –
The dark, the light; God, closes in…
The fact that any qualified doctor would listen to medical advice on how to deal with the so called pandemic from a multi billionaire with no medical expertise and who holds multip.le patents involved with Covid and the vaccines astound me .The obvious explanation to me being the combination of money coercion and blackmail.
Scaring the population seemed to be the sole agenda. Reports on millions of fatal casualties were presented without mention that they were based on model calculations. No mention was made that Ferguson ,the producer of these numbers had always been completely wrong in his numerous doom forecasting predictions
At the same time, the media abstained from.question how RKI numbers were compiled. Instead the figures were uncritically accepted and used to unsettle the public. They have some nerve!
History repeats itself on different types of lies and more lies
Different subject brain chemical imbalance has been scientifically established. The main drivers of this claims have been the medical profession and many pharmaceutical companies Not surprising
many mental health workers have been persuade believing that brain chemical imbalance is a know fact in depression
The process of persuasion has spread like a
virus to a metal health organisation.
From the very beginning we had and have honarable professionals who provided sound information and substantiated facts and encourages people worldwide to form their own opinion. on the crisis.
I listen to trustworthy professionals.
Dr Terry Lynch Dr David Healy Prof John Ioannidis Prof Dolores Cahill Prof Sucharit Bhakdi Dr Peter Breggin Dr Peter Gotezhe Dr Pat Morrisey Dr Markus de Brun Dr Vernon Colman DrScottJensen Dr Adreaw Kawfman Dr Anne McClosky Dr Tony Humphreys Psychologist John Read I can’t possibly include them all
I would like to express my gratitude to the hundreds of visionaries scientist and researchers who contributed to the scientific knowledge that is available today in the field of mental health, nutrition and the recent Covid Hysteria.
If a ‘unifying force’ took over the world, maybe not the best time to push your luck with the hands that feed you…
The Dialogue Project
Rebuilding The Common
https://dialogueproject.fuqua.duke.edu/stories/2024/01/25/rebuilding-the-common/
Dr. Albert Bourla
Chairman & CEO, Pfizer
By almost every measure, America is becoming more polarized. We often disagree not just about opinions, but about basic facts. And while researchers, political scientists, academics and others can debate the underlying cause, there is broad agreement that polarization by its very nature comes from the lack of the common. This can mean a lack of common space, a lack of common purpose, a lack of common entertainment, a lack of common information sources – even a lack of common neighborhoods.
In this context businesses have a unique opportunity, incentive, and even responsibility to fight polarization. We can provide some of these “missing commons,” foster understanding between employees with differing beliefs, and unite people around a common purpose. We can help bridge the gaps that divide us.
Common Spaces
Businesses are among the last remaining places where people of all races, faiths, political persuasions, and economic backgrounds not only converge, but work together toward a common goal. Pfizer, with approximately 30,000 employees in the United States, is a microcosm of the nation’s diversity. These employes collaborate in person, virtually, and when they travel. Had they not been working at Pfizer, many of them would likely have never met.
Exposure to people different than yourself reduces polarization, and we do not just let that exposure happen by accident. By deliberately and strategically fostering connections among employees during and after work hours, businesses can build bonds across ideological divides. At Pfizer we call this time spent together “celebrating joy,” and it is one of our strategic pillars – but it is a strategy that any large business can follow. Shared experiences of joy can create common ground and reduce polarization, and businesses should work to create them.
Something Common to Believe In
“Business” is one the few institutions that can inspire people to consider other points of view. According to the 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer, for example, trust in media and government is at an all-time low, while business is the only institution left that is seen as “competent and ethical.” What’s more, among those who feel polarized, the employer is the only trusted institution.
This trust provides a huge opportunity. By being outspoken about and staying true to their purpose, businesses can give people with differing perspectives something common to believe in and strive toward. Pfizer’s production of potentially life-saving medicines and vaccines is our unifying force, and a common goal that all of our employes have. We continuously discuss this work and celebrate our successes. Shared goals, in the hands of a trusted institution, reduces polarization and promotes a sense of shared purpose.
A ‘Common Good’ Business Case for Reducing Polarization
I’ve so far focused on the impact that businesses can have on their own employees, but there are ways for us to reduce polarization outside the confines of our offices. Businesses can do that by identifying an underlying cause of polarization that affects their operations and consciously work to combat it. For Pfizer, one such cause is disinformation.
To combat disinformation, Pfizer has worked with fact-checkers, partnered with health authorities, established new online information sources, and more to combat disinformation related to healthcare. By doing so we’ve helped build systems inside and outside the biopharmaceutical industry, which both helps us and helps society.
In our current environment, businesses are uniquely positioned to reduce polarization. By using their diverse workforce, building trust, and actively combating its underlying causes, they can help create a more cohesive and understanding society. The challenge is significant, but so too is the opportunity. We must rise to the occasion and play our part in bridging the divides that threaten to engulf us.
‘Pfizer’s production of potentially life-saving medicines and vaccines is our unifying force’
the only institution left that is seen as “competent and ethical.”
The challenge is significant…
Let’s not be naive, Science is just as corrupt as politics. Any person who presents as a scientific authority is trying to compel you with arguments that are probably not true and almost certainly not in your self interest.
In the area of public health which is so chaotic and constantly changing with untold human factors involved the idea of a person who is an authority or worse ,the authority is untenable.
Fauci often contradicted himself and was clearly pushing the agenda of wealthy and powerful drug companies..But we never imagined that tracking his activities would lead us to Bill Gates and then to what we now call the global predators
Fauci directly funding projects making deadly viruses with American researchers openly and even proudly collaborating with the global predators of all,the Chinese Communist Party.ultimately fueling its chilling biological weapons stategy called unrestricted warfare. None of this made sense until we began to understand the psychology and the goals that hold together this loose coalition of global predators, each
member pursing its own agenda to the detriment of humanity .
Ursula Heiko Von der Leyen wife buys vaccine, Husband runs company that makes Covid vaccines
What did the government do wrong?
It proclaimed an epidemic of national concern that did not exist
it deprived citizens of thier rights
it made arbitrary instead of evidence based decisions
it intentionally spread fear
it devastated the economy and destroyed livehoods
It disrupted the health care system
It inflicted immense suffering on the populance
What should the government have done?
Listen to trustworthy professionals who provided substantiated facts about Covid
Dr Peter Breggin warns the world Covid 19 are a Bioweapon. Prof Dolores Cahill predicts deaths will occur around the world as direct consequence of taking the vaccine.
In scientific discussions postulation of any thesis should invide antithesis,So that finally the synthesis may resolve potential disagreement and enable to advance in the interest of mankind..Luke O’Neil and Dr Fauci monopolise..Never had an open debate with worldwide experts or medical Doctors
Prohibiting the use of inexpensive hydtoxychloroqine for early treatment of Covid
Dr Markus de Brun has described the management of the crisis as the biggest political blunder in the history of the state.
I want to express my gratitude to the hundreds of visionaries scientist and researchers who have contributed to the scientific knowledge that is available today in the field of health
I try to bring their work closer to the world.
Dr Vincent Carroll Dr Pat Morrisey Dr Anne.McClosky Prof John Ioannides Dr Andrew Kaufman Dr Scott Jensen Dr McCullough Dr Vernon Coleman Dr Peter Gotezhe prof Sucharit Bhakdi Dr Karina Reiss Dr David Healy Prof Dolores Cahill Dr Simone Gold lays out the facts on HCH lying politicians govermens officials and big tech dictators who created a pandemic for total cotrol America’s frontline doctors http://www.AFLDS.com your country needs you
Conclusion
So which measures would have actually been correct?Simple:a resolute protection of the vulnerable groups ,especially those in nursing and care facilities. Period
You are perhaps getting at the key element in Weber’s dilemma – where if anywhere does morality enter into what the then (1900 A.D.) saw as our new science based world. Perhaps someone else can see what they think from Weber’s work, but I can’t remember any place where he distinguishes between technology and science or technique and law.
He introduces the leader of the nation as the Deus Ex Machina who would bring the element of individual judgement into the technological machine and bureaucratic machinery. But this is a very authoritarian picture, surprisingly so for a liberal like Weber and perhaps part of the reason why he found it difficult to get a buy-in from German socialists.
Science can give rise to technologies but science and technology are fundamentally different. Technologies eliminate judgement calls. The algorithm in any technology embodies a fixed path from A to M. This is the same with bureaucratic techniques which embody a fixed path from N to Z. When faced with a patient who has become suicidal after consuming a technology like Singulair or Accutane or Cymbalta that has not gone from A to M, as planned, science involves a judgement call as to how we might now get from A to M and not just a judgement call by a medical leader or dictator but as with all science a judgement that embodies a consensus.
In the same way, there is a real crisis in law at the moment, anticipated perhaps by Weber who was worried about an inevitable encroachment of bureaucracy on government – a Deep State. This is felt deeply by Lawyers now feel that something semi-bureaucratic has encroached on the possibility of someone like Harvey Weinstein getting his day in court. Younger lawyers cannot imagine that any lawyer would be willing to defend him. But as with science, its at moments like these that justice demands a hearing with a jury able to come to their own consensus as to what the evidence they have been faced with indicates – whatever about what a surrounding bureaucratic or media or cultural consensus might indicate.
Science and law in these senses are common endeavours, sharing a common value in a freedom to make judgement calls based on the observables we have seen. The we element of this last sentence points to their democratic basis. The ‘we’ is the crack through which the light gets in .
DH
The ‘we’ is the crack
Pfizer is pumping it out; Tokyo, Japan; David Cartland, the GMC
Albert Bourla@AlbertBourla 25m
Happy #LunarNewYear to all who celebrate! I hope this Year of the Dragon brings you good health, peace and many moments of happiness. May it also give us the power to break down barriers, push boundaries and build a better future for everyone.
Dr David Cartland
@CartlandDavid
It’s a really sinister ignorance among the jab cultists…..it can’t be simply the tenner a jab, guilt from knowing you took several and administered to anything with a pulse.
There’s a bizarre almost spiritual blindness to anything logical you try and explain to them…..glazed expressions…..even to this day some people argue with me and are unaware re mRNA and attempts to hide Pfizer docs, EUA, indemnity as conspiracy and fail to see the basic ethical and safety breaches. It really is inexplicable!!
Basic basic science like aspiration of IM injections especially when gene based content to the syringe, jabbing folk previously immune several times over and the potential for autoimmunity when training a human cell to produce a non human spike protein construct. It’s not difficult!
Dr David Cartland
@CartlandDavid
Anyone who has followed me on here is likely aware of the persistent, consistent, vexatious and malicious bullying and incitement that I have received … ! However the plot twist is that I am being charged and sent to an MPT by the GMC for ME being the bully, harasser and inciter of hatred for calling out demonstrable lies.
there is a very strong and persistent tendency in western thought which sees ‘technology’ as a primary force. this outlook is especially prevalent in north america, in my opinion. it is like a mythology which sees ‘technology’ as a primary, unified and unexplained principle. it is like a new form of ‘vitalism’. I don’t think you can explain things or solve problems by this type of thinking. technology can best be understood as the concrete expression of society’s relations within itself and to nature. it is not a force in itself but an outcome of society’s productive relations. you will think and build different things if you live in a palace instead of an apartment. if you look at the world this way, you can see the differences between separate types of technologies and their relationships to the societies which built them. in contrast, you will forever be mystified by complex and contradictory societal facts if you are stuck with idealistic thinking; a thinking which takes the concepts of the world as real as the world itself.
What you outline is a touch twentieth century. There is no idealism about what is happening now. Its a follow the rationality of numbers – if your figures for weight or blood pressure or blood sugar are not right and there is an efficient way to put the figures right, that is what people do and the systems expects them to do and supports them to do.
Ditto for a countries inflation figures. We don’t have leaders any more – we have followers. This has nothing to do with living in a palace as opposed to an apartment. It was not envisaged by Marx and possibly was by Weber
D
of course the world is not idealistic but your outlook is. when you don’t establish your analysis on concrete realities, you will be forced to look for “forces” or ideas which could take any shape in any place. technology, good or evil, these are concepts without a definite content, they are basically ghosts and when you try to understand reality using these concept, you are basically chasing ghosts. dr healy, I am sure you understand that this is a sort of mythology where you speculate on the attributes of deities. I’d be very interested if you have a comprehensive analysis of marx’s shortcomings in your own area of expertise because I see just the opposite. coercive rules of market and competition which are at the center of marx’s theory, are objective and impersonal. this means almost everyone is expendable and the general interest of the system always transcends any group or personal interest. I respect and learnt from you a lot but I think your understanding of marx’s theory is really superficial. the main reason for most of the unexplainable phenomena in the world today is the dominance of finance capital. finance also rules in the domain of medicine through intellectual property privileges. the rules and values of our era was built by industrial capitalism which needed human beings at least as workers and consumers. finance works by means completely different from industrial capital; tricks, frauds and deceptions. finance is in reality “fictitious capital”. when a company can buy its own stock to increase its value than its employees and customers become almost unimportant. human life itself becomes worthless because capital only values what it can use. I think any person who looks at such an issue should think in terms of a political project. all analyses and solutions should be aiming at the level of society and politics instead of individual or ‘moral’ level. moral arguments doesn’t work because there are objective, impersonal forces who shape peoples’ lives.
Ahmet
You are just jotting down meaningless words. I deal with injured patients the whole time who are not abstractions but the bureaucracy they are up against shapes their lives more than any creed or political idealogy does. And doctors have stopped being professionals making judgement based on the patient in front of them – they now simply take orders from above – they have essentially become bureaucrats
D