Was at my GP recently for something unrelated to COVID, but asked about when they were gonna get cleared to give boosters in the office.
Was taken aback by his mentioning that he’s basically not even recommending any of the updated shots to healthy people who have at least the initial 2 shots + booster. He says they’re literally always gonna be behind the curve with regard to whatever current variant is going around, and therefore are doing approximately nothing additional to either prevent infection or make it milder. He’s all in with prescribing Paxlovid if a case turns out to be bad, but basically says that collecting boosters every six months is just performative BS at this point.
Is there anything to what he’s saying, or is he a moron? For the record he’s never shown signs of believing anything sketchy before.
I had deviated septum surgery when I was 17 (a long long time ago). It seemed to be enough gauze for 4 heads. Like the magic trick where they pull an infinite amount of scarves out.
It’s just what it is, being behind the curve. But broadening your response to a wider antigen spectrum and reminding your immune system about COVID are both very good things with a very very low risk of a downside.
Would he recommend against the flu shot on the same basis?
Ask him where he gets his news.
That said, I wouldn’t sweat a 6 month interval if there isn’t much known antigen drift in the news. But I think we are more like 12 months the last 3 cycles?
“…behind the curve with regard to whatever current variant is going around, and therefore are doing approximately nothing additional to either prevent infection or make it milder.”
Ask him from what school he received a degree in immunology.
I asn’t about to get into a deep dive with him, but yeah I was thinking the same thing about the flu shot analogy. To be clear, I’m not really considering taking his advice, just curious about whether it’s based on anything in reality.
It’s based on his feelings that COVID was a bummer and can’t we just fucking MOVE ON ALREADY?
But yeah, to me that seems like an obvious chunk of pseudoscience and doesn’t really jive with my caveperson understanding of how vaccines and the immune system works, but he’s the big brain with the Dr. in front of his name so I am not really comfortable going full “he’s a moron me the smart one”.
When I was drinking really heavily I repeatedly mentioned to my doctor that most of my health problems were probably related to the drinking. It was a cry for help. He would ask how many drinks I had a week. I would say 50-60. He wasn’t concerned in the least about that. Come to find out later my wife knows his wife and the guy is an alcoholic himself.
All that to say that doctors are just like everyone else. Biased by their own views on the world.
Given how effective the original shots were as boosters even against new variants, the stronger explanation for the increase in susceptibility of vaccinated over time is more towards waning immune response in the individual rather than the new variants completely escaping the old vaccines, even if there is some degree of escape. Getting a shot that’s a variant or two late is still very likely to re-prime your immune system enough for any covid variant so as to be substantially protective, even if, sure, in a perfect world we could have new-variant-matched vaccines rolling out all the time. There’s no sense in letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Did he never do a live enzyme test on you? Ive got my doctor crawling up my ass about mine because Im fat and it can do a relatively similar amount of damage to the liver that alcohol can
Damn. Once a patient starts averaging 2+ cocktails per day I assume they may be alcohol abusers, and I would gently start discussing alcohol cessation or even rehab with them.
The Government of Canada (for example) guidelines have always been laughable and “under the influence” of industry lobbyists. Like here is the pre-2023 guidelines for men:
These were the so-called “low risk alcohol drinking” guidelines and I think it’s pretty safe to say that there is no healthy habit that includes 15 drinks a week. The government finally came out in 2023 and said that these guidelines aren’t recommendations, and that no amount of alcohol is healthy compare to zero. Everyone got really mad.
Nope. Unless that was done in my normal blood work. There were a few things in there that were elevated that when i googled them said possible liver damage but he never mentioned it when discussing the results.
I think exploring this with him for a few minutes is not an unreasonable expectation from you as a patient. More discussion beyond that is likely to be fruitless anyway.