Medicine vs Public Health and the ACIP

All comes down to the rights of the collective vs the rights of the individual

The opinions expressed in this essay are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the US Government (USG), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), or the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Those paying attention are aware that, as the broader culture emerges from the global gross mismanagement of the COVIDcrisis, there is significant conflict and disagreement concerning the proper role of the World Health Organization, virtually all western governments, corporate media, on-line censorship and “factchecking” social media actions, national health authorities, “public health”, and the medical-industrial-pharmaceutical complex. The lies and mistakes made are legion. Acknowledgement, lessons learned exercises, and apologies for the mismanagement are rare as hens teeth.

Now and in the past, all who question these lies and misguided policies are censored, shadow banned, small roomed, gaslit, and accused of a wide range of ill intentions including the weaponized defamatory catch-all accusation of being intentional spreaders of mis- dis- and malinformation.

One of the greatest advantages of the totaliarian elites of the twenties and thirties was to turn any statement of fact into a question of motive.

Hannah Arendt

In serving (in an unpaid voluntary capacity) as co-/vice-chair of the CDC ACIP, I have been forced to confront, consider, and try to make sense of the deep cultural differences between those promoting these clearly dysfunctional and ill-advised public policy decisions, what might have been, and what will be in the future. I will try to summarize my own internal sensemaking in hopes that it will help you, dear reader, to consider the issues and come to your own conclusions.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.

Hannah Arendt

Speaking now to those confused by or having trouble following along with all of the controversy within “public health” as practiced in USA, vaccines, medical mandates, and medical practice. When you distill it all, it comes down to the rights of the individual versus the rights of the collective.

Modern “Public health” is all about maximizing the greatest happiness for the greatest number, and acts to advance the rights and interests of the collective. “Public Health” derives mission and legitimacy from the new twenty-first-century utilitarian trend in bioethics. Pursuit of the greatest happiness for the greatest number. Today’s “Public Health” logic and morality are built on a utilitarian foundation.

In contrast, traditional medical practice is focused on the rights and interests of the individual patient. Codified in the Hippocratic oath, Nuremberg Code, Helsinki agreement, and the Belmont report.

From this, you can appreciate why socialists and leftists are all in on the rights of “Public Health” to impose mandates, and those that support personal liberty are aligned with the medical rights of the individual and the importance of informed consent.

Hannah Arendt criticized utilitarianism for treating individuals as just tools to achieve a greater society’s good. This position can then justify actions that violate personal rights and dignity in the name of overall utility. She argued that this consequentialist view risks devaluing people’s inherent worth by placing their needs and lives below what benefits the majority.

“Public health” in the USA believes that the rights of the collective are more important than the rights of the individual. The work of Karl Marx and colleagues supports the collective as pre-eminent. The US Constitution and associated founding documents disagree and emphasize the rights of the individual. Collectivism vs individual rights. That is really what this is all about.

In discussions about these topics, a close colleague took this observation one step further and applied it to the tension within CDC, the medical caregiver community, the various professional society guilds, and the self-appointed defenders of “public health” regarding the proper role of the ACIP .

ACIP makes recommendations to the Director of the CDC, whose recommendations (theoretically) prioritize collective health. Yet, their recommendations, if and when adopted by the CDC Director, functionally become guidance for physicians who — by oath and ethics — must treat the patient in front of them (a focus on the individual and their rights).

It’s a conflict of interest and an ethical lapse in judgment for medical doctors to prioritize public health (the rights and interests of the collective) over the rights of individual patients, yet that’s where ACIP guidance originates.

The fundamental question about ACIP is whether (or not) this advisory group is creating de facto guidance for physicians, in which case they should only weigh the risks and benefits on an individual patient basis. Or is the ACIP practicing “public health”? If the answer is “public health,” then the ACIP guidance recommendations must be separated by law from the physician’s standard of care.

To illustrate the point, the recommendations for the Hepatitis B birth dose and the Chickenpox vaccine timing were made on purely public health grounds.

ACIP cannot simultaneously serve both as advisors regarding public health and guides for individualized medical practice standard of care.

Public health and individual health are fundamentally in conflict because the first is based on the logic and morality of utilitarianism, and the latter is based on the logic and morality of individual sovereignty and liberty.

This tension is at the center of what is the most important philosophical and public policy conflict of our time. The tension between the rights of the individual and the rights of the collective to force policies (and medical procedures) on those individuals who dissent. It is not really a question of left versus right - that is both too superficial and too derivative. It is the tension of whether the rights of the collective shall predominate over the rights of the individual.

The case of shouting FIRE in a crowded theater is one thing. The case of forcing a newborn to accept an injected, inflammatory, reactogenic product to protect against a disease primarily found in adult south-east asian immigrants and injected drug abusers, or a child required to accept similar products in order to obtain the benefits of a state-supported education, is entirely different.

To take this a step further down the Utilitarian morality pathway, consider the case of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). In the case of Canada and its government, MAID policies are knocking on the door of asserting that when a person, through age or infirmity, is costing the State more than they are providing in benefits through their activities, the State should offer MAID. One step further and the State will be employing its awesome PsyWar capabilities - in cooperation with captured media outlets- to convince those deemed useless eaters that they must accept MAID in the interests of maximizing collective happiness. It will become their social duty and obligation to do so.

Do the rights of the State to mandate public health interventions supersede the rights of the child and/or guardian to true informed consent of an invasive medical procedure?

What do you think?

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John 8:32

and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

1 Peter 2:16

Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.

Galatians 5:13

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

2 Corinthians 3:17

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

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Case in point…

Results:

…51% of pediatricians reported that their office had a policy to dismiss families if they refused vaccines in the primary series, while 37% of physicians reported often/always doing this themselves. Physicians more frequently dismissed families for refusing (37%) than for spreading out (6%) vaccines in the primary series, and a similar pattern was seen for office policies (51% for refusal vs 28% for spreading out).

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This is a great example of physicians upholding the rights of the collective over their individual patients. They would rather do harm than treat an unvaccinated child. And it is reasonable to speculate the the numbers may be considerably higher now. A more recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that over 50% of pediatricians endorse and practice in this way.

How can it ever be right for a physician to refuse to see a child because a parent has determined that the child didn’t need a medical procedure, such as a vaccine?

Isn’t it time the government stepped in to end this unethical and disgusting practice?