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Trump adviser tells people to skip flu shots in favor of prayer
| “Just keep saying that ‘I’ll never have the flu. I’ll never have the flu,’” she continued. “Inoculate yourself with the word of God. Flu, I bind you off the people in the name of Jesus. Jesus himself gave us the flu shot. He redeemed us from the curse of flu.”
Copeland’s advice is standard fare in the charismatic Christian tradition, but is also medically unsound as the US faces its worst flu epidemic in a decade. (2)
|
“So far this year the cumulative rate of hospitalization is the highest since we began tracking in this way,” Dr Anne Schuchat, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told reporters late last week after the rate climbed above 50 per 100,000. Schuchat is less than a week on the job after Trump’s prior CDC director, Dr Brenda Fitzgerald, resigned over financial conflicts of interest. (3)
| This year’s tough strain of influenza has hit children especially hard. Sixteen children died of the flu in the week ended 27 January, bringing total pediatric deaths to 53 for the season, according to the CDC’s weekly report. (4)
| Medical professionals advise that flu shots are an important part of a holistic prevention strategy, even though this year’s vaccine has been calculated at an effective rate of as low as 10%. Health workers often report that misconceptions about the flu vaccine actually causing or contributing to the outbreak (it doesn’t) can stymie their efforts to fight the bug. (5)
| Also, empirically more helpful than appeals to providence or, for some, relying on the social media rumor mill: frequent hand-washing and staying home when sick.
Trump’s faith advisory council is a veritable who’s who of rightwing televangelists. It has stuck with him while he has had to disband two business advisory councils and an infrastructure panel due to defections by key members. (6)
| Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/feb/07/evangelical-flu-shot-pray-donald-trump-gloria-copeland
| Yeah we're fucked.
Although tbh, I got a flu shot and then still caught the flu. Damn flu shot scam industry.
| Damn. These influenza bugs are really saying "fuck you" to our vaccines.
Curse you, natural selection!!!!
| >>142444
Climate change is environmental change. The organisms that adapt faster are those with the most number of generations and these are the microorganisms.
It will only get worse for everything big. The formula is the same for all: countless die off and only a handful survive with those genes that better fit in the new environment. The faster this cycle and the greater the population number, the faster the species will adopt. Bacteria are unbeatable at this.
| >>142435
The problem is, flu shots only inoculate against certain strains of flu, and sometimes, they're not even the most advanced strains. The damn thing changes every year so sometimes people still get the flu even with the shots because it mutates quicker than a vaccine can be created.
That's not to say that you shouldn't still get the shots, only that it can't *stop* the flu entirely.
Also this pastor is really fucking retarded- so much so, I bet even Jesus would facepalm.
| There's faith and there's blindfolded delusion. Don't get me wrong, people will definitely say "hurr durr faith is basically that", but speaking with context of religions here:
I'm pretty and fairly fucking sure that this is the same as "no need to work, mate, just pray those money in" — it's as ridiculous as it sounds. No religion have I ever encounter states that you can sit around and do fuckall and have a good life.
| I do not remember which culture has a very old saying: On a boat, pray to God all you wish, but it is vital to not forget rowing all the time.
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| A Texas evangelist preacher and member of Donald Trump’s faith advisory council told parishioners to skip the flu shot in favor of prayer, inviting scorn from concerned medical professionals and epidemiologists.
“Jesus himself gave us the flu shot,” Gloria Copeland said in a video posted last Wednesday that has slowly begun to go viral, no pun intended, after some observers highlighted Copeland’s ties to Trump. (1)