Conversation 63, Part 8: Soft Eugenicists and Vaccine Realists (September 12, 2021)

This episode contains the eighth part of our conversation about COVID-19, the Delta variant, and the territory we’re all lost in. Grace and I continue straight through from the last part, and discuss three articles: a hot mess of a hot take from Glenn Greenwald, a terrific summary of the current vaccine situation by Buzz Hollander, and an editorial reminding us that mocking and belittling those who haven’t yet been vaccinated is not only counter-productive, but often based on mistaken understandings of the population, their motivations, their relationships to the medical establishment, and their risk factors.

Show Notes

I (Paul) would like to apologize for mumbling and sounding sleepy. It’s because I was, in fact, fairly sleep-deprived during our recording session.

Glenn Greenwald’s article, “The Bizarre Refusal to Apply Cost-Benefit Analysis to COVID Debates” can be found here.

Buzz Hollander’s article “Let’s Stop Pretending about the Covid-19 Vaccines” can be found here.

Dan Brooks’ editorial “Contempt for the unvaccinated is a temptation to be resisted” can be found here.

For those who would like to take deeper dives into the literature: I (Paul) was not quite correct when I described famotidine as a “proton pump inhibitor.” This common drug (sold under the trade name of Pepcid) does decrease stomach acid production, but it’s an H2 receptor antagonist, so its mechanism of operation is a bit different than proton pump inhibitors like omeprazole. It shows some promise in treating COVID. A paper can be found here. The patent has expired so drug companies don’t have a big incentive to fund such studies, but a very small observational study (not a full-fledged clinical trial) showed some promise; see the paper here.

Quercetin is a plant flavonol found in a variety of fruits and vegetables. It is likely harmless, and may have potential as an anti-inflammatory, but currently has not been found clinically effective at treating any disease (although again, it is worth mentioning that there aren’t a lot of financial incentives to study compound like this that aren’t patented). It’s not unreasonable to test its efficacy as an adjunct in treating COVID. A paper on quercetin can be found here.

The music clips are from Stevie Wonder’s song “Master Blaster (Jammin’),” originally released in 1980.

How to Listen

You can find the MP3 file here.

The Podcast feed is here.

Note that I recently changed our server to support HTTPS. All future podcast links will use HTTPS, and HTTP requests to our server should be automatically redirected to use HTTPS.

This episode is also on YouTube here. It is audio-only. Note that because I often use brief clips of copyrighted music, YouTube may insert ads or block viewing in some locations (for example, some episodes can’t be viewed in Cuba). Even if a video can be played now, there is no guarantee YouTube won’t change these permissions in the future.

The Podcast channel on YouTube is here.