I’m sure I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol. I was on bp meds and statins for a few years until about 12 or 13 years ago when I needed more tablets to control the water retention presumably cause by these medications. I stopped everything around then and the water retention went .. I still had high bp when last tested about three years ago but I will be 69 this year and am still here.
I practice tai chi and qigong irregularly and jog a mile or two from time to time ignoring the advice that it’s bad for people my age. The only pills I take are vitamins. I don’t get myself tested for anything if I can help it. I know that good health is a matter of luck as much as good judgement so my attitude is one of gratitude rather than arrogant self belief. I refuse to be scared because death is inevitable not because I am invulnerable and I understand both death and vulnerability as essential parts of my humanity.
I’ve never taken flu shots and have not sent my poo to be analysed as over 60s are advised to. I deeply resent being instructed how to manage my own body and refuse to take vaccines that I don’t trust, even under the threat of societal exclusion. I will live and die as a free human and as part of a natural world that I do not believe is out to kill me.
I’m not against vaccines or any other medical intervention. I know for sure that many people have been saved by and had their lives made livable by medical science but I see no reason for me to get onto what I see as a medical conveyer belt when every instinct screams at me that I shouldn’t. If other people’s insights and instinct and intellect (I love my alliteration) lead them to different choices that’s well and good – and I wish them well but don’t fucking try to force your choices on me.
That’s all I can say.Actually I can say more and probably will .. but not right now.
Addendum:
Although I would not take or advise taking the covid vaccines I have, I think, a nuanced view of their efficacy and utility. I have never denied that they do reduce the severity of symptoms and the likelihood of death from covid for the vaccinated by about three times (see chart). Nor has this been denied by scientists I have cited, notably, Doctors Peter McCullough, Robert Malone.
This Christmas several unvaccinated members of my family had a bad time with covid and two, with significant other health problems, were hospitalised. Other family members who have been vaccinated have not had the disease. One triple vaccinated member currently has the covid – after each injection he was ill for a couple of weeks now he says the covid is making him feel just as he did after have taken the vaccines.
Everyone has a different personal experience but from both experience and from following the debate it’s difficult to deny that the vaccines have been effective in ameliorating syptomatic disease and therefore reducing deaths. However it’s also difficult to deny that there have been adverse reactions in some people, that conversation about these has been suppressed and that the overall effects of the vaccines (based on a new technology) on the immune system has not been assessed.
Even doctors, like John Campbell, who have been very pro-vaccination, have questioned things like the administration of injections intended to be intra muscular without aspiration, the lack of treatment protocols/advice before presentation at hospital and the failure to promote vitamin D and other vitimins that might reduce succeptibility to harm from covid.
It is also becoming increasing clear that the relative benefits of the vaccines diminish and become harms as the recipients become younger – so that we know that children are more likely to be seriously harmed by the vaccines than by the virus.
There is clearly a continuum of harm .. The majority of people will suffer no or little (immediate) harm but some suffer significant harm and there may be cumulative and long term harms. We are told that significant harms are rare but really have no idea.
Beyond this however there are certain principles that should be held sacrosanct such as the inviolability of our bodies. That states are, to different degrees, effectively coercing their citizens to be vaccinated should concern us all because we can be sure that this will not end with the covid vaccinations. I think that the nations of the world are sliding towards totalitarianism and that this is reflected not just in covid measures but also, in the UK, measures such as those in the Nationality Bill and the Police Bill.
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