A Balanced Diet
I thought long and hard about writing today’s blog, but I decided I had to. You see, one of my best friends in this industry sent this link out yesterday with a preface saying that she didn’t want to start debates and an ending saying that she didn’t want to lose friends over it. The article, she said, was written by a luminary at the Yale School of Medicine, and if you click on it, the sources are right there and visible.
Sure, the article comes from a right-leaning publication, but so what. I’m a believer in a balanced news diet — a little left, a little right, and thank God for AP, which according to the latest Interactive Media Bias Chart is right at the center (and just about the only ones, at that). I read ’em all. I have to — it’s my profession, and I believe in authoritative data from all kinds of sources. So, lose a friend? I wrote her back and said if you lose a friend over this, they weren’t one anyway.
How did we get to the point where we tiptoe around public discourse or, worse, fear sharing an article that we think is meaningful? We are all allowed to disagree. We get to dialog and debate and then we can say we agree to disagree. But lose friends? No — not in my world, and if I do lose one, then what sort of friend was it anyway? I want my friend to keep telling herself that and to believe it.
As for me, I want to know if it’s true that Elsevier yanked the article about myocarditis and vaccines. And I want to read things that challenge conventional wisdom in a world where the science is SOOO new that we are bound to have aspects wrong. How can anyone know for sure any stream being fed to us about COVID-19 or vaccines is right? How can we be so sure that the vaccines we’re taking are harmless? Is it true that doctors are being censured or risking their licenses for going “against protocol”? We need to know.
Remember Galileo? Remember when the world was flat? We have to allow for the sharing of good quality information — left, right, or center. We must have a balanced and diverse information diet, especially now. And no, ladies and gentlemen, I’m not an anti-vaxxer — full-throttle Moderna over here at HQ, and boosted to boot. It’s about good information and making the choices that are right for now and not getting hysterical if someone else we are close with makes a different one.
We have to be able to read what’s out there so we can develop informed opinions and make sound personal choices. Why is it anyone’s business who got a vaccine and who didn’t? That’s between each of us and our god and doctor, and maybe spouse. What I know for sure is that it’s not my business, and I’m not planning on making it mine.
Why do businesses insist on vaccine cards when breakthroughs happen every day? If they want to keep their patrons free and clear, then rapid testing might be as good as it gets, and even that can be wrong if today we’re well and tomorrow we’re not. It happens with viruses. But vaccine cards? Meh. Not because I don’t believe in them but because with breakthrough and Omicron, asking for cards makes people feel secure when they aren’t, or worse, they are doing it for optics, which feeds into the hysteria. Instead, they look ignorant. Shoot, even international airlines are still requiring negative tests before flights. It’s more information because they also know vaccine cards aren’t guarantees — it’s not the vaccine’s purpose.
At the 2021 Outsell Signature Experience, Dr. Steven Simpson, President of CHEST, reminded us that the vaccine isn’t about eradication. It’s about minimizing personal risk and keeping hospitals on a more even keel. Folks, we are living in unchartered waters, and what we have to keep open is the free flow of all kinds of good information. Not just the information that reinforces our own opinions. I was in a meeting of execs talking about their event protocols and asked why they were insisting on vaccine cards instead of just using rapid tests. I mentioned news that morning showing breakthrough infections and Dr. Simpson’s comment about what the vaccine does and doesn’t do. What I got from the host was this: “Anthea, you’re being too logical.”
So now emotions run our world, and pretty soon, we’ll be even more afraid of people who aren’t vaccinated and have them run around with scarlet letters. This is a slippery slope, and it scares me — a LOT. It scares my dear friend, who was worried about losing a friend. I care about people keeping the facts open and consuming a balanced diet of information. Asking “are you vaccinated?” so I can feel safe about going out to lunch with you is not based on good information. Censoring a friend because she shares an article that provides another important point of view isn’t so cool either.
I was sad yesterday when my friend said she was concerned she’d lose friends. I was also sad that no one replied to her publicly. Maybe I should have. What I know for sure is that good information is necessary for us to improve the human condition. It’s why we started Outsell, and 25+ years later, it’s why I’m more committed than ever to good information rising to the top and consuming a balanced diet of information to share all points of view.
We don’t have all the facts about COVID — not by a long shot. It’s simply too new. So exchange more info freely, even if it flies in the face of your own opinion. Then do it again and again. Read a source every day that doesn’t represent your normal neighborhood or views. Now that would be a New Year’s resolution to keep.
