Doctor Curmudgeon® “The Madness of Crowds”
[AdSense-A]
By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP Doctor Eisman, is in Family Practice in Aventura, Florida with her partner, Dr. Eugene Eisman, an internist/cardiologist
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—”
With heartfelt apologies to Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), I begin my weekly diatribe with a quote from one of this curmudgeon’s favorite poems, “The Walrus and the Carpenter.”
However rather than talking of “many things,” I find myself impelled to talk of one specific thing lurking in my tortured mind: those crowd-internet-social platform-driven people who refuse vaccinations and the COVID-19 vaccination specifically.
It is indeed beyond my Ken!
I harken back to my days in college at the University of Chicago.
There was a marvelous series of books that we discussed: “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.”
This series, from the brain of a Scottish journalist, Charles Mackay, was an early study in the psychology of the crowd mentality.
I humbly quote from the preface to his first volume:
“The object of the author…has been to collect the most remarkable instances of those moral epidemics…to show how easily the masses have been led astray…”
This prompted me to think about some of the objections my patients present as to why they are against the COVID-19 vaccine.
A common popular delusion has been that the vaccine will give them COVID.
NO! IT WON’T, I shout and then give a simple explanation of the vaccine’s composition. I screech that there is no virus or virus particle in the vaccine…and yet I am not believed.
This idiocy that the vaccine can cause COVID has been dispersed throughout the ether and therefore it must be so!
And yet, another popular delusion: “That darn vaccine just can’t be safe. I thought it took years of testing and millions and millions of people.”
Untrue!
The genetic code of that beastly interloper was published by scientists very quickly so that the vaccine could be produced quickly. Years and years had already been spent in learning how to make MRNA vaccines. MRNA vaccines are not newcomers on the block.
The FDA and CDC and lots of other experts have looked at the data before the vaccine could be considered safe. So there!
More popular delusions? Well, here’s a good one. “That dang shot’s going to change my DNA. And I like my DNA just the way it is.”
Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! The MRNA doesn’t touch your DNA. It doesn’t even want to get near your DNA. It just gives your immune system a blueprint to fight that killer virus that now lives amongst us!
I have saved one of the best reasons to avoid the vaccine for the last. “Listen, Doc, I’ve been hearing that the shot puts a microchip into your body.”
That one was too much for a curmudgeon, so I just said, “Listen, all you have to do is buy the largest roll of aluminum foil you can find and wrap up in it. Don’t even take it off to shower or bathe.
When you get out of the shower, just quickly dispose of the foil you have worn and put it in five layers of those heavy trash bags. Wrap the bags with seven layers of strapping tape and dispose of it in your outside garbage can. That’s to protect anybody who might be near your trash.
“Be sure to wear the foil covering when you are asleep…because that’s the best time for ‘them’ to tune in to your microchip.”
Oh, where oh where is that wonderful Scottish journalist, Charles Mackay when you really need him”?
Dr. Curmudgeon suggests “Bitter Medicine”, Dr. Eugene Eisman’s story of his experiences–from the humorous to the intense—as a young army doctor serving in the Vietnam War.
Bitter Medicine by Eugene H. Eisman, M.D. –on Amazon
Doctor Curmudgeon® is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.
SERMO www.sermo.com “talk real world medicine”
[si-contact-form form=’2′]