Sorry, can’t find any better sources for this.

The animator then asked Maher what the “downside” of “getting a vaccine” was, which caused the comedian to go on an anti-vax tirade.

“The fact that you the fact that you don’t even have a clue what’s the cost of getting a vaccine that you don’t know the answer to that. You completely want to shut your eyes to the fact that there are repercussions to all medical interventions, including a vaccine, all vaccines,” he ranted. “They come, they say side effects, just like every medication does. You can see it in the literature. They can’t write it on their back on the vaccine. So you have to dig them. And of course, there is a vaccine court because so many people have been injured.”

  • Muehe
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    How the fuck do we still have quacks that are allowed to be called Dr. in this day and age?

    Well the answer to that is rather multifaceted, but a few significant patterns seem to emerge:

    • Ambiguous use of “Doctor” as an academic title in general and “Doctor” for the title “Medicinae Doctor” specifically. This just confuses a lot of people.
    • “Paper mill” universities, selling “degrees” for money basically.
    • Adjacent to that, recognition of foreign degrees. It is worth noting here that this is largely a legitimate process which is just occasionally abused, specifically by paper mills.
    • Semi-adjacent to that, variance in title laws by jurisdiction. What education is allowing whom to bear which protected title under which circumstances is very different from country to country.
    • Regulatory capture, aka “I will create my own degree, with Blackjack and Hookers”. Several branches of medicine considered by many to be pseudo-scientific have managed to get themselves actual academic degrees recognised in several jurisdictions. For example the “Doctor of Chiropractic”, or D.C. for short, is a recognised and protected academic title in many countries.

    Is there a solution to all this? Not really. I guess educating the general public on the significance of academic titles could help, better global alignment in title laws as well. Preventing pseudo-sciences, or whatever someone considers as such, from establishing their own branches of science and academic titles seem highly dangerous though. Just think what this would imply for gender studies in the current political climate for example. Pseudo-science is just the price science has to pay for freedom of research, and when it bore theology being a branch since its inception than it will survive the D.C. as well.