“I had another of many friends have a horrible
reaction to the vaccine just today. She thought she was dying and
fears her quality of life has changed in the past few days for
good."
The world’s greatest surfer, athlete, Kelly Slater, has
enlivened an otherwise dreary news day by teeing off on COVID
vaccines on a relatively obscure Instagram account.
The almost fifty-year-old Slater lit up after the account
@summer_ofsurf posted a
message thanking ocean racing competitors for getting vaccinated
against COVID-19, prompting ironman Matt Poole to
write.
“The next time I head down to surfers I’m going to jump in the
rip because “freedom of choice”,” Poole wrote. “It’s no issue
for me, but as soon as I start telling others there is no danger in
the rip, they’ll jump in too, and tell their mates and before you
know it, there is a 100 of us in there… Now some of the 100 get in
trouble, and lifesavers come to save them… putting those lifesavers
in danger as well. Now 50 are drowning and the lifesavers are
overrun, and can’t save them all or themselves…. But that was our
choice. It’s not freedom of choice if it impacts others — it’s
about helping others.”
Here, Slater jumped in.
“@matt_poole1 let me explain why your analogy makes no
sense. If I know the risks (informed consent) and I judge the
choice to be one that benefits/hurts me based on stats and info and
my own ability (health), I can choose accordingly.
“If something happens to me it’s on me, not someone else. Your
argument is a false equivalence. Apples and oranges. If 99.7% of
all people would be fine with no lifeguard while in that rip and
they’re given all the possibilities, most could swim the most
dangerous part of that beach without risking drowning.
“And plenty of people drive without seatbelts. We can agree
that’s statistically not a great thing at speed but it’s still your
choice, not mine. And my seatbelt (like the gene therapy) doesn’t
save you so that’s another fallacy. Now regarding covid…21 total
deaths in OZ under the age of 30 and 6 below 20. This is clearly a
disease of obese, unhealthy, and elderly if you study the official
statistics.
“And for people saying listen to the doctors, I’m positive I
know more about being healthy than 99% of doctors, but I wouldn’t
trust me. But most of my covid info comes directly from doctor
friends, many of them in disagreement with the official
‘science’.
“I had another of many friends have horrible reaction to the
vaccine just today. She thought she was dying and fears her quality
of life has changed in the past few days for good. My mom also is
part of those underreported stats. Other friends have literally
died from it. So anyone here shaming people who are affected or
concerned does nothing but feed the ego.
“When you study and talk to health professionals that deal with
actual health and find out about the immune system suppression from
the vaccines one day, you’ll open your mind to it.
“Don’t worry, plenty of doctors also talk about this but your
algorithm isn’t feeding it to you. It’s wild that people don’t
believe we are born with the ability of our bodies to adjust and
prepare for different health issues. Covid exposes the unhealthy
underlying patterns and issues in people.”
Back in August, Slater leveraged his formidable social media
platforms to create what he had hoped would be a non-politicised
debate around the use of vaccines to fight COVID-19 and its
sequels.
Slater posted an excerpt from an article by Michael
Yeadon, a former VP of Pfizer who has become the poster-boy of
anti-vaxxers for his belief that there’s gonna be a few side
effects we don’t know about yet.
“There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the
pandemic,” wrote Yeadon. “I’ve never heard such nonsense talked
about vaccines. You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from
a disease. You also don’t set about planing to vaccinate millions
of fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn’t been
extensively tested on human subjects.”
Adding an addendum Slater wrote,
“Something to ponder. But I’m no epidemiologist.”
In a story from March, news agency Reuters tore hell out of
Yeadon and his claims etc.
Read that here.