back to article Deluded medics fail to show Ohio lawmakers that COVID vaccines magnetise patients

A registered nurse helped the US on its seemingly inevitable descent into terminal conspiracy-induced intellectual collapse last week when she stood in front of the Ohio state legislature and attempted to convince lawmakers that COVID-19 vaccinations "magnetise" their recipients. Joanna Overholt was appearing at a hearing …

  1. Rich 2 Silver badge

    Struck off?

    One would hope these two “medical professionals” will be hauled up in front of a tribunal, exposed for being the charlatans they are and be barred from practice?

    Really, people are actually fucking insane in the US(*)!! And they’re backed up by morons in the Republican Party that seem, on a daily basis, to go out of their way to fuck-over everyone and anyone they can to further their loony mindset. It really beggars belief - it’s the stuff of a nutty sitcom

    (*) yes, I’m well aware we’re have our own loonies this side of the water too.

    1. cray74

      Re: Struck off?

      exposed for being the charlatans they are and be barred from practice?

      Dr. Tenpenny has been a vocal anti-vaxxer for years. For example, in 2015 she was barred from entering Australia where she had been invited to speak to anti-vaccine groups. Despite spreading harmful information on a grand scale, she has retained her osteopathic license because it's an "alternative medicine" license. Facebook might've banned her, but the Ohio Board of Medicine has been steadily renewing her license every 2 years.

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: Struck off?

        The technical name for alternative medicine that works is 'medicine'.

        Everything else is charlatanry and snake oil.

        1. MrDamage Silver badge

          Re: Struck off?

          Come now. Sometimes the snake oil is so heavily diluted it's basically pure water.

          1. llaryllama

            Re: Struck off?

            Nope, that's called homeopathy.

            1. teknopaul

              Re: Struck off?

              don't laugh at homeopathy, that's where vaccines come from. Hair of the dog and all that. The NHS had to eat its words with some alternative medicines that were shown to work even though the explanation is pure yogurt weaving. Acupuncture has very good numbers.

              Tony Blair, bless his cotton socks, insisted that stats were taken by docs and some things like triple bypass heart surgery turn out poor numbers: expensive, not effective and the side effects of failure being death. Acupuncture turns up cheap, effective and has insignificant side effects if it doest work.

              Depending on your ailment you are often better off seeing an alternative doc before you see an agent of big pharma. Naturally you should take the drugs if the yogurt weaving does not work. and you can usually do both at the same time.

              Faith healing has supprisingly good numbers, as do placebos.

              In fact, no big pharma drug makes the grade until it can beat placebo.

              Some shit like comic crystals and silver water have been proven to be totally ineffective. but just because you don't know how something works does not mean that therefor it does not, check the numbers before you judge.

              antivaxxers are pretty mad, it's often pretty close to killing people, the numbers of deaths by antivaxxers is an easily calculatable statistic.

              It doesn't help to have tits like Boris, who had covid, taking vaccine jabs on the telly.

              1. HorseflySteve

                Re: Struck off?

                "don't laugh at homeopathy". Why not, it's rubbish and vaccines most certainly do not come from it, othewise you'd be able to stick a cotton bud (q-tip) up the nose of an infected person, swill it in distilled water, dilute it 30 million times, bang it a number of times on a horsehair filled leather pad & cure the whole world.

                Some vaccines are made using de-activated virusses, not diluted. Others are made using a relatively harmless virus which prevent the nasty one from infecting the host. Yet more program white blood cells to target surface structures on the virus.

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Struck off?

                I am trying to get off some medications that have serious side effects, not because of the drug itself, but because Big Pharma insist on making the capsules look pretty by including various E numbered colouring matters. For instance, E133, Brilliant Blue, affects my back, I once had four weeks off work because my medication had a blue coating, which I later found out is known for that very side effect. Of the ten medications I take daily, for Diabetes, Angina, Asthma, and various other ailments, four of them are in these brightly coloured capsules, which I have to dismember in order to avoid the colouring matter. Why do Big Pharma insist on adding these colours, which add nothing to the efficacy of the drug, but increase the cost? Plain transparent Hard Gelatin capsules are readily available at lower cost than the coloured ones, so why not use them?

                1. Rich 11

                  Re: Struck off?

                  Why do Big Pharma insist on adding these colours, which add nothing to the efficacy of the drug, but increase the cost?

                  They do it for people who would otherwise be more likely to confuse which drugs they should take and when. It's a real bugger for you, obviously, but the practice is going to benefit more people than it harms.

                  I used to help my mum sort out her medication for the week ahead into the little compartment trays that are marked by day of the week and by time of day (well, by meal and waking/retiring), so that she was all set up for the times when no-one was there to help her. If it wasn't for all the different colours and shapes and sizes of the pills and capsules, I would have had to really concentrate to get it right. No-one could have asked that of my mum, given the age she was, her occasional lapses of concentration, the limited fine motor control she had and the pain she was sometimes in. It's not like she wasn't aware of the necessity of getting her medication right -- she'd been a nurse for 40 years.

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Re: Struck off?

                    Thanks for your comment. I am currently 73½ years old, and (as I mentioned) not in the best of health, but as the individual medications are securely packaged in their blister packs, with clearly discernible writing on the outside, I can see no necessity for the colour coding. As you say, some people who are visually challenged or have other difficulties may find such colours helpful, but if their family or helper would put the meds in clearly marked calendar packs, such as Dosette or Mediassist, then they should not get in a pickle with them. Six of my meds are plain white, and therefor almost indistinguishable from each other, but I am quite capable of loading them into the Dosette, I just wish that the other four could also be white. Regards.

                    1. Rich 11

                      Re: Struck off?

                      but as the individual medications are securely packaged in their blister packs, with clearly discernible writing on the outside, I can see no necessity for the colour coding.

                      I had to deal with a mix of packagings and jars, which as I said I did find fiddly. Part of that may have been down to the design of the pack; it's the only one I've ever seen so I don't know what might be available. My mum would have 2-5 pills in each compartment, and successive days would not necessarily have the same regimen, so it was absolutely necessary to double-check everything against the prescription labels after the pack had been loaded up, and to make sure that my clumsiness or replacing the sliding cover hadn't knocked one pill into another compartment.

                      Best of luck.

                2. Terry 6 Silver badge

                  Re: Struck off?

                  I have sympathy for you. Calling out "Big Pharma" however isn't that relevant. Small Pharma will do the same.

              3. Rich 11

                Re: Struck off?

                Acupuncture has very good numbers.

                Acupuncture is a placebo for those who don't mind bizarre interventions applied to subjective non-specific problems such as pain relief. You can get 'good numbers' by wearing a white lab coat rather than a black t-shirt when telling a patient to take aspirin twice a day. You can get 'good numbers' by packaging an analgesic in a box marked with green stripes rather than blue stripes.

                Acupuncture is nothing but a placebo. The pre-scientific justification that needles divert qi flow in the body is utter shite; acupuncture interventions using false needles which don't pierce the skin, or using needles in places other than a particular set of recognised qi points in the body, all produce the same placebo result. It should be telling that different schools of traditional medicine recognise different systems of qi points -- they can't even agree on their superstition because no-one is able to show that qi even exists let alone detect where it supposedly flows.

              4. llaryllama

                Re: Struck off?

                If people think that magnetic crystals, magic beads and the Lord Almighty make them feel better and they're not getting ripped off too badly I will keep my mouth firmly shut. Sometimes a hug and a kind word can do wonders after all.

                However this is a tech site where I assume we are all at least reasonably educated folks. You should be able to see the difference between a vaccine (containing real, measurable ingredients) and homeopathic solution (essentially water).

          2. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

            Re: Struck off?

            Then we call it homeopathy.

        2. Natalie Gritpants Jr

          Re: Struck off?

          My sample size of one indicates that osteopaths are 100% ok. Now this lunatic has brought the score down to 50%.

          The one I know that does good likes to pint out the difference between osteopaths and chiropractors by saying to compare the car parked outside their practice. He drives a tatty Land Rover, the chiropractors around are all in posh Mercs. That seems to be a good measure of how effective you are at getting your patients to a point where they no longer need you, or how good you are at convincing them they need to come back every week.

          1. Dabooka

            Re: Struck off?

            I'm utterly sick to death of the non-stop low brow attempts to discredit chiropractors, it's everywhere nowadays; social media, TV, you name it.

            To actually become qualified these practitioners have to attend a seminar that lasts a whole weekend, or maybe complete an e-learning programme.

            They don't just give these certificates away you know.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Struck off?

              'They don't just give these certificates away you know'

              Yes, your cat needs to earn that certificate... erm, earn the money to pay for that certificate!

            2. Stork Silver badge

              Chiropractors

              That depends a lot of where in the World you are. In Denmark at least it is a Master degree at a proper university.

              I saw a few in Denmark, there was some scary sounding manipulations of my back and very little mysctischism. And for me it worked amazingly fast, after having struggled for over half a year.

              You can read more about them here: https://www.danskkiropraktorforening.dk/om-os/english/

          2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: Struck off?

            I've had osteopaths as my GP, because one of the medical schools at Michigan State has an osteopath program and I used the local teaching clinic as my source for primary physicians. They were fine. (And one of the nice things about the teaching clinic was their case loads were lighter than with many more-established GPs, so consultations could last longer and we could talk at greater length about any issues.)

            In the US, the D.O. degree now has requirements essentially equivalent to the M.D. The fact is you can get quacks and charlatans with either degree. As is often the case, the individual matters much more than the title.

    2. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: Struck off?

      What you have to remember is that many of the early European settlers of America were religious extremists who left Europe to start a new life where the could be as kooky as they liked. It's a bit of a pity that the natives helped the Pilgrim Fathers survive their first winter because this helped stoke the myth of American Exceptionalism…

      Conspiracy theory is, of course, a big business in America, and the coat tail riders are not limited to the Republican Party: it was only a few years ago that the pampered, very Democrat middle classes of California decided that vaccinations against measles were the stuff of the devil. Whatever you believe, someone is willing you to sell you just the right kind of snake oil. And, if you want to sue someone, then there will always be a lawyer willing to represent you. For the right price™.

      This doesn't mean that medical malpractice doesn't go on. Nor does it discount the potentially fatal side effects of some vaccinations: the flu vaccine can cause meningitis; causing magnetism is probably less likely than predicting next week's lottery numbers…

      1. Danny 2

        Re: Struck off?

        " the flu vaccine can cause meningitis"

        No, no it can't. It may fail to prevent some meningitis but it never causes it.

      2. Rich 11

        Re: Struck off?

        the flu vaccine can cause meningitis

        I think you may have meant to say that the flu vaccine can cause Guillan-Barre Syndrome, which is possible because the flu virus itself (like many other infections) is capable of causing Guillan-Barre Syndrome. Since the annual vaccine is almost always made from an attenuated (ie drastically weakened rather than completely inert) flu virus, there is still a very small chance that the immune response which the vaccine triggers might also lead to a mild form of Guillan-Barre. It's not something you'd want to contract, but you're far more likely to contract it if you leave yourself open to a full-force flu infection, especially if you are elderly (fuck, I'm now in that category!), have a weakened immune system or a pre-existing respiratory condition.

        No medical intervention is absolutely guaranteed to be 100% safe. People have died from an allergic reaction to sticking plasters, but far more people have died from leaving a wound open to the risk of infection.

      3. fidodogbreath

        Re: Struck off?

        It's a bit of a pity that the natives helped the Pilgrim Fathers survive their first winter because this helped stoke the myth of American Exceptionalism...

        ...which was (and still is) a catastrophe for the indigenous people.

        1. ayay

          Re: Struck off?

          I was going to comment just that.

          A perfect example of "no good deed goes unpunished".

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Struck off?

        That was not the democrats in california. That was the religious nutjobs on the right that populate the farming communities in the central valley.

        1. FarnworthexPat

          Re: Struck off?

          Au contraire: There was a sustained anti-vaccination campaign here in Marin, one of the most Democratic and wealthy counties in California (if not the whole USA), a number of years ago. So much so that the law was changed to make it much more difficult to get exemptions for children to attend school without the appropriate vaccinations.

      5. Sir Loin Of Beef

        Re: Struck off?

        The Puritans, persecuted n their native England, set the foundation for the culture in America. Why didn't I make that connection earlier in life.

        While subsequent immigrants to the country probably didn't contribute to that culture there were enough religious nuts to carve a good niche of the population that this conspiracy thinking lingers today.

        I also think that the persecuted coming to America also had a "always looking over their shoulder" complex and that adds to the "there are enemies everywhere" mentality Americans have.

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Re: Struck off?

          The Puritans, persecuted n their native England, set the foundation for the culture in America..

          Half right. It goes further than that, and in a different direction. The Puritans were massively intolerant of other Christian denominations at a time when tolerance was becoming much more accepted and went off to seek a land where they didn't have to put up with them. Less fleeing from persecution, more fleeing to it. And Puritan Christian intolerance seems to be a major foundation of some strands of American culture.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Struck off?

            "Puritan Christian intolerance seems to be a major foundation of some strands of American culture."

            Yes, but not some. Most. The vast majority of us Yanks are quite intolerant of the nutcase xtian groups. Fortunately, as a nation we are growing up and the entire xtian myth is becoming less and less relevant.

        2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

          Re: Struck off?

          The Puritans contributed significantly to US history and culture, but they were only one of numerous immigrant groups. Overestimating their influence is a common error in understanding the cultural history and history of ideas in the US and the European colonies that preceded and were incorporated into it.

          That said, it's true that both the authentic Puritan-derived culture that was established in the Massachusetts Bay area, and the odd nineteenth-century faux-Puritanism which was popular among the Northeastern US upper and middle classes in the first half of the nineteenth century, had influence in excess of its share of the national population, thanks to its extensive embedding in academic and political institutions and in industry.

          But cultural contests in the US have been very complex, and calling the US "Puritan" is a sophomoric reduction with almost no explanatory power.

        3. Mooseman Silver badge

          Re: Struck off?

          "The Puritans, persecuted n their native England, set the foundation for the culture in America."

          Except they weren't persecuted in England. They left because they were intolerant of the rest of the country's lax ways (as they saw it) and the parallels they saw with the Catholic church. So they went to the Netherlands for a few years where they fell out with the locals and each other before deciding on a new venture without any pesky dissenting voices in the Americas.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Struck off?

            "Except they weren't persecuted in England."

            In fact, many of them returned to England from the colonies. It cracks me up every time you Brits claim the US was founded by the Puritans. In reality, the Puritans were a fairly unimportant sub-culture by 1776. If you look at facts, not a single one of our Founding Fathers was a Puritan. In fact, many of them spoke out against organized religion partially because of the Puritans ... If anything, the American Revolution happened in part to rid ourselves of such bullshit (sadly, we're not done yet).

            On the other hand, and apropos of ElReg's science oriented crowd, seven of the ten initial core group that became The Royal Society were Puritans. The Puritans never ran the United States, but they DID run England for many years. The effects are still visible.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Strike out!

      May I remind you of the example of medical professionals - real doctors! - of Oklahoma and other stalwart centers of braininess, that after having been elected to state legislatures, now put forward anti-abortion bills, because... you can't get pregnant from rape.

      "I'm a trained doctor", they'd say, "and I know the human body. You can only get pregnant when you've enjoyed it!"

      That they could go through medical school, have read the science, passed the tests, earned the postfix letters, and still came away with all their prejudices intact saddens me, but does not surprise me.

      Always look for whether the information they are relating, is from being *informed* or from being incurably *biased*.

      1. tfewster
        Facepalm

        Re: Strike out!

        What do you call a person who just scrapes through medical school? Doctor.

        Not "God". Although some consultants, politicians and celebrities think that their expertise in one field somehow qualifies them in other fields as well.

        On the other hand, Socrates, PhDs and most Techies know that the more you learn, the more you realise there is to learn, even within your own speciality.

        Dunning–Kruger strikes again.

        1. MarkSitkowski

          Re: Strike out!

          Don't know if this helps, but a recent survey of the average IQ of professional people placed doctors at the very bottom.

          1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: Strike out!

            IQ is a metric of how well someone does on IQ tests. Aside from that it's largely meaningless.

            (And in case you're wondering, I do very well on IQ tests.)

        2. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Re: Strike out!

          Add to this the facts that medical doctors do need to have a lot of factual information at their finger tips and that the exam systems of most countries (maybe all) are built around memorising and then regurgitating facts and you have a path to a medicine degree that is built around storing lots of data locally. While problem solving skills and reasoning may also be assessed the recall of information is paramount. Assessment systems built round course work rather than terminal exams are pretty much hated by politicians and denigrated to the public. To some extent with reason, since making these systems fair and rigorous requires investment of time and money. Or to put it another way, a dim slogger with a decent memory will go further than someone who's bright but with poorer decontextualised recall- especially if they have been able to get through the previous school years by relying on thinking rather than recalling.

          1. Rich 11

            Re: Strike out!

            Or to put it another way, a dim slogger with a decent memory will go further than someone who's bright but with poorer decontextualised recall- especially if they have been able to get through the previous school years by relying on thinking rather than recalling.

            This is the excuse (and to some degree it is an excuse rather than a reason) I use for my poor exam results at school. I always did well throughout the year but considerably less well in the exams at the end of the year, which was really bloody demoralising and I never found a way to fix it (though focusing on the subjects I loved helped most). So it really galls me when I then see privately-educated Oxbridge PPE graduates in government who have put themselves forward to be responsible for the running of our society and for supposedly making all our lives better, who despite all their education can't string two joined-up thoughts together and seem to live in an information vacuum, unaware of the consequences of their actions. Then at times like this, they literally kill people.

            1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

              Re: Strike out!

              There's a field in pedagogy called "assessment" which investigates the question of how to determine what people have learned. Over the past half-century or so it has increasingly incorporated various methodologically-sound techniques (controls, statistical methods, etc.) and a wealth of anthropological techniques (such as ethnography) to analyze what actually happens with students and how we might measure it.

              Across all academic disciplines, from the humanities to the hard sciences, the conclusion seems to be that it's really difficult to create examinations that achieve that purpose. On the other hand, many people can be trained to outperform similarly-educated peers on most types of examinations, with no other demonstrable better understanding of the subject material. In other words, it's easier to teach people how to take tests than it is to actually test what they know.

              So you can console yourself with the knowledge that experts largely agree that exams are pretty much rubbish.

            2. This post has been deleted by its author

    4. Chris G

      Re: Struck off?

      I don't know what speciality or qualifications the nurse has, so she may be a medical professional but Osteopaths are not doctors and manipulating joints while it may give some temporary relief will not cure anybody and can cause irrepairable damage to ligaments and tissue.

      1. Imhotep

        Re: Struck off?

        Well, osteopaths can obtain doctorates from their 'medical schools' so they can use the title.

        And they are now also commonly reimbursed for treatment - as are chiropracters - by medical insurance, including Medicare.

        The rest of the world may have a more rational approach toward quackery.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Struck off?

          I don't really know much about osteopathy, but I see it includes massage. I've used those massage chairs and found they really helped backache and generally reduced tension and pain. It helps circulation, shakes the crud out, etc. No it's not at the high-science level of mRNA but does that matter if you are not claiming it is a miracle cure?

          I've noticed in airports in Taiwan there are always plenty of professional masseur/massuese giving back massages to people sitting up, in the crowded lobby. Nevertheless I opted for the coin chair.

          About calling an osteopath a doctor - have they undergone core medical training? If not then the "doctor" should be left out.

          1. parlei Bronze badge

            Re: Struck off?

            "Doctor" is problematic as a title/honorific.

            Is someone with a Ph.D. in quantum physics or English literature a doctor? Is someone who has finished medical school and obtained the required license (but done no independent research on par with that of the Ph.D.) a doctor in that sense, even if the official title is "Medical Doctor"? And then there is the subpopulation of M.D.s that has obtained a Ph.D. in medicine as well...

            Some jurisdictions does not officially use the title "doctor" for all physicians, reserving it for the scientific research degree. Personally I think this is sound, and allows for stringent rules on who can claim to be a physician (or whatever equivalent term is used). Judging the relative merits of a Ph.D. from Oxford, MIT or Shithole University of Outer Bumfuck is then a separate task, one which the relevant employers are fairly well versed in.

            1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              Re: Struck off?

              Even more confusingly, and this might only be a British thing AFAIK, but you train for 5 years to become a medical doctor and gain the title doctor. You practice your profession and in some case continue to study to move up the ladder and become a specialist Consultant, at which point you drop the doctor title and become Mister (or, I assume Miss, Ms or Mrs) instead.

              1. Terry 6 Silver badge

                Re: Struck off?

                Think this applies just to surgeons, harking back to the days when they also cut hair.

            2. Arthur the cat Silver badge

              Re: Struck off?

              Some jurisdictions does not officially use the title "doctor" for all physicians, reserving it for the scientific research degree.

              NASA does the exact opposite. So many people who work there have at least one PhD that everybody would be called Doctor if they were being formal. As it is they reserve the title for medics.

            3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

              Re: Struck off?

              Is someone with a Ph.D. in quantum physics or English literature a doctor?

              Yes. Those are doctoral degrees.

              The fact that a bunch of mostly-clueless sawbones in the nineteenth century felt the need to ursurp the title "doctor" (which means "scholar") to gain a bit of respectability does not mean our modern body-plumbers have the sole right to use it.

              That said, as I noted above, previous posters in this thread are completely wrong about people who hold the D.O. degree.

      2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Struck off?

        Osteopaths are not doctors

        This is not true in the US. The Doctor of Osteopath degree is a medical degree with requirements essentially equivalent to the MD.

    5. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Struck off?

      America is a vast self-reinforcing culture of malignant lunacy.

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Struck off?

        What non-trivial group of human beings does this description not apply to?

    6. jake Silver badge

      Re: Struck off?

      "people are actually fucking insane in the US"

      Just the ones who make enough of a fool of themselves in public to make the news wherever you are. The rest of us are quite sane, really. Come visit, see for yourself. California is open for business post-Covid, as of today. May I recommend Sonoma County? Good food, good beer, good wine, good people ... not much to dislike around these here parts.

      1. David 132 Silver badge
        Thumb Up

        Re: Struck off?

        And while you're on this side of the pond, come to Oregon too (we're not all hipsters or antifa looters).

        Some of the nicest, friendliest, most welcoming people I've ever known - a refreshing change after 30+ years of living in England.

    7. Potemkine! Silver badge

      Re: Struck off?

      Really, people are actually fucking insane in the US(*)!

      It isn't limited to the US. We've got plenty of lunatics our side of the Channel. It's horrifying to see medical doctors propagating all this non-sense. Each day it seems there are more of them. Maybe it's because of the amplifying effect of the Internet...

  2. cray74

    Governor DeWine has an unimpressive political career filled with the usual 1990s-2010s Republican positions, but he has a few respectable points in his resume. He greatly accelerated criminal DNA testing, shut down "pill mill" dispensaries, and most recently showed a little common sense about medicine:

    On Thursday, DeWine said he opposes House Bill 248 and asked Ohioans to think of the impact vaccines have had on society. "Before modern medicine, diseases such as mumps, polio, whooping cough were common and caused great, great, great suffering and death to thousands of people every single year."

  3. Adrian 4

    I take it she wasn't worried about being blasted by the 500THz radiation from the courtroom lighting either

    1. katrinab Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      If it is LED lighting then she probably is ...

    2. b0llchit Silver badge

      It was the 400 THz ... 700 THz spread that made her uncomfortable. However, the spread around 1.2 PHz outside did the real damage and her skin has taken a red tint and is starting to peel. Currently, the 20 THz ... 150 THz range touching the skin are causing serious discomfort.

    3. Schultz
      Holmes

      She'd probably go crazy if she knew ...

      that she's been emitting Gigahertz radiation ever since that flu shot. And before.

  4. Rich 11

    The tribunal option

    In many states it is quite difficult to get the State Medical Board to act. Texas, for example, is notorious for its libertarian views on letting any crackpot or grifter who once managed to get a few letters after their name carry on lying about the services they offer, to the point that the SMB there is seriously underfunded and understaffed. Maybe Ohio will be different, but who knows? Ohio does currently have a Republican governor and both houses of the State Assembly are Republican-controlled, but maybe those are the responsible Republicans who care about the health of their citizens and would recoil in horror if they knew that dangerous lies were being spread in the midst of a global pandemic.

    Anyway, I can't look to see if a complaint against Tenpenny has been registered because right now the Ohio SMB web site appears to be down.

    1. Rich 11

      Re: The tribunal option

      Sorry, that was meant as a reply to Rich 2 above.

      1. W.S.Gosset
        Happy

        Heh

        We have an embarrassment of Riches.

        1. Rich 11

          Re: Heh

          Don't worry. The number will reduce at Carousel.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Evidence is

    showing how much stupidity there is in the world. Pro/Anti vac, doesn't matter.

    From what I see, the only people that have real answers aren't allowed to talk. People that are allowed to range from these two nuts, to profiteer and recent media hero turned flop Faucie. I don't know anyone who isn't crazy - either to start with - or from all the crazies around them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Evidence is

      The power of cynical thinking! Or not?

    2. Mooseman Silver badge

      Re: Evidence is

      "showing how much stupidity there is in the world. Pro/Anti vac, doesn't matter"

      If you can't see the difference between pro and anti-vax then you need help. Pro vaccine? Do you know anyone who has died of smallpox, cholera, whooping cough, measles, polio, tuberculosis, etc etc etc?

      Do you know any anti-vaxers who "haven't" had at least one vaccine in their lives?

      What we have is the "right" for any loony to spew their uniformed paranoid garbage across the media and in the case of Bumfuck, Ohio, to try to pass their insanity into law.

      We had antivax "activists" handing out leaflets to schoolchildren here - in some cases forcing them to take the propaganda so that they could help their parents "choose".

      And this anti-Fauci rubbish is another facet of stupidity. Have a look at his bio.

      Doesn't matter? It matters enormously.

      1. julian.smith
        WTF?

        Bumfuck

        I always thought Bumfuck was in Arkansas

  6. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge
    Terminator

    Please, please, please can I have the vaccine that gives me direct 5G. Because it's a huge drag to have to stick a plug into the back of my neck so I can jack in to jack off.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Your plug goes in the back of your neck? Lucky you!

      1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

        There's a backup socket. But the latency is very painful because it's at the arse end of my spine.

    2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Bah. I just got the LTE vaccine. 5G is a scam.

  7. Mark 85

    Lately, I think this applies.

    All the world has gone mad except for me and thee... and I'm worried about thee.

  8. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    "neither seemed to notice or be troubled by the fact they both wore partially metal-framed glasses during their testimony."

    They probably can't take them off because they're magnetically attached.

    Seriously - they easiest way to test for something being magnetised is a simple compass. I don't suppose they considered demonstrating their magnetism with that. What a pity nobody asked for that to be demonstrated when she asked "Any questions?"

    1. TheProf
      Happy

      Glass magnets

      I just tested my spectacles frame with a proper magnet and there was no attraction.

      Mind you, they are made from titanium so that's to be expected.

      Are syringes made from fine bore magnetic steel? Wouldn't the vaccine get stuck in the tube?

      1. ThatOne Silver badge
        Joke

        Re: Glass magnets

        > I just tested my spectacles frame with a proper magnet and there was no attraction.

        I've just tested myself with the steely-eyed female receptionist and there was no attraction either. Go figure.

        As for using compasses, that's way too highly specialized science, you can't expect normal people to know, much less think of that. I'd dare say the concept is beyond the compass of most minds...

  9. Alistair

    magnetic vaccines.

    Had a dude at the marina spout that one whilst I was hanging off his binnacle. I just pointed.

    1. Chris G

      Re: magnetic vaccines.

      Considering there is only about 3-4 grams of iron in the human body, not much is going to be attracted to it, plus you would think 'medical professionals' would know that.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: magnetic vaccines.

        That particular hare was started as a gag on Social Meedja. And was a totally faked joke demonstration.The young person who seemed to be sticking a coin to her magnetic arm subsequently admitted she'd licked the coin first. It seems to have been picked up rather eagerly by the crack pots and went err viral . Unlike her later admission. "A lie.......before the truth has got its boots on"

        1. Schultz
          Thumb Up

          Next up on social media:

          The vaccine that electrified you. Don't believe me? Try rubbing a balloon against your hair and see it stick. Surely it didn't do that since your 3rd Birthday party?! If you live in a humid climate, that might not work but that only shows that you got the other vaccine, the one that discharges all your energy.

          Seriously, people just choose to believe whatever nonsense they encounter. Fortunately, there is a cure: stay indoors, turn off your computer and don't talk to anybody about your affliction. You can also try that trick where you stir the water three times clockwise (counterclockwise in Australia!) before you drink it. See if that helps and consult with the nearest UFOlogist if it doesn't. I have more advise, but I'd have to bill you for that.

          1. Alistair
            Windows

            Re: Next up on social media:

            If you wanna try the stirring fix for your water you need the magic crystal glass rod from goop, or whichever woo provider is going it this week.

          2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: Next up on social media:

            people just choose to believe whatever nonsense they encounter

            Particularly if others challenge it. That's the appeal of conspiracy theories. They give the believers 1) a sense of being in the know, in a special group; 2) a feeling of being smarter, more aware, better informed than their interlocutors; and 3) social capital, because they have something controversial to inject into the conversation.

            Less-controversial claims lack those features, which makes them less valuable to anyone who doesn't assign innate value to internal metrics such as rationality, critical thinking, and correspondence truth.1

            That's also why conspiracy theories are particularly popular with those who feel relatively powerless and oppressed by "elites", and by bored members of the middle class who are looking for diversion and some way to gain attention in their social circles. And why they proliferate on social media, where the attention market is extremely fast and cutthroat.

            1All of which are, of course, problematic six ways from Sunday and full of their own psychological traps. But they're the best we've got.

        2. W.S.Gosset

          Re: magnetic vaccines.

          > That particular hare was started as a gag on Social Meedja.

          QAnon started as a gag on 4chan.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: magnetic vaccines.

            "QAnon started as a gag on 4chan."

            So did Anonymous.

            1. W.S.Gosset

              Re: magnetic vaccines.

              Is Anonymous now not (primarily) a 4chan thing? I thought it still was. Been kinda ignoring it.

          2. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

            Re: magnetic vaccines.

            8chan, not 4chan.

            1. jake Silver badge
        3. Cuddles

          Re: magnetic vaccines.

          How quickly people forget. Magnetic people were being debunked by the likes of James Randi decades before social media even existed. It used to usually be nuts claiming to have superpowers rather than linked to vaccines, but the basic claims and methods to (totally fail to) demonstrate them remain identical.

          This is the part I find most sad about conspiracy nuts; the total lack of any imagination. The specific details of which authority figures are part of the lizard people cabal gets updated occasionally to stay current with politics, but the actual meat of the claims is just endless repetition of the same things people have been ranting about for decades.

      2. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: magnetic vaccines.

        Medical professionals that are either cynical manipulators or just crack pots may simply choose not to knowledge what they were taught.

    2. David 132 Silver badge
      Happy

      Re: magnetic vaccines.

      whilst I was hanging off his binnacle

      Is that what you kids are calling it these days, huh. Don't worry, I'm not here to judge.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Just a theory

    Perhaps nothing stuck to her neck because brass is non-magnetic.

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: Just a theory

      I suspect nothing stuck to her neck because she's so full of shit her eyes are brown.

      I must be right, because my theory is just as scientifically accurate as all of hers put together.

  11. Spaller

    Spoons are not magnetic to begin with. My fridge magnets don’t work on them. Quite a vaccine that would make them so.

    1. Tom 38

      I started off writing

      Most cutlery is stainless steel, which is definitely ferromagnetic.

      and then I looked it up. Apparently there are 5 classes of stainless steel, one of which, austenitic stainless steel, is not magnetic. The most common grade of austenitic stainless steel is Type 304, which is used for "cookware, cutlery and kitchen equipment".

      Now I'm slightly perturbed, as my spoons are highly magnetic when tested with one of my hard drive magnets, and I'm wondering wtf they are made from!

      To confuse things further, the wiki page for 304 stainless steel says that It is less electrically and thermally conductive than carbon steel and is essentially-magnetic but less magnetic than steel, so who the fuck knows :)

      1. batfink

        I'm impressed that you've taken your disk apart to test the magnetivity of a spoon. What read/write rate were you getting?

        1. Tom 38
          Boffin

          The magnets in spinning disk hard drives are wicked strong. If you ever have an old HDD that you want destroyed, take it apart and retrieve the magnet, they're handy and fun.

          1. David 132 Silver badge
            Happy

            And if you want to get the apparent advantages of the COVID-19 vaccine without the pain and hassle of an injection, just swallow the magnet*.

            *Joke. DON'T EVER DO THIS. But if you need me to provide this disclaimer, well, you're probably beyond help anyway.

            1. HorseflySteve

              I remember reading a while back that someone took their hamster to the vet because it hadn't moved in its cage for 3 days. Turned out it had swallowed a small magnet and was stuck to the bars...

            2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

              A single magnet, so long as it doesn't break or otherwise turn into bits, is probably no more dangerous than swallowing any other solid , non-sharp item that you really should not have swallowed in the first place. The real, and potentially life threatening stuff is swallowing more than one very strong magnet. They can attract each other while in different parts of the windy intestine and cause multiple blockages.

              1. jake Silver badge

                Worse.

                They'll chew through soft tissue to get to each other. I've seen the results in a puppy, who apparently swallowed three of the things a few hours apart (how is anybody's guess). Fortunately the Vet was on the ball and figured it out quickly. The critter survived the peritonitis, and is happily running around three years later, sans several inches of intestine. If the owner had waited even 12 hours before bringing in the pup, the end result wouldn't have been quite as happy.

              2. Terry 6 Silver badge

                And there was recently news of kids suffering serious internal injuries from the very small magnets. They'd put them on their tongues to simulate piercings, but they slide off and get swallowed.

        2. David 132 Silver badge
          Coat

          I'm impressed that you've taken your disk apart to test the magnetivity of a spoon

          I do that to test all my cutlery. As a proud FOSS user, how else am I supposed to fork my software?

  12. Jamesit

    Joanna Overholt: The reason the key stuck to your chest is called perspiration.

    Is she still a nurse? I wouldn't want to be seen by her.

    1. CrackedNoggin Bronze badge

      > I wouldn't want to be seen by her.

      That's the bottom line isn't it. There is a real danger she will not follow the rules because she thinks she knows better. Just like the pharmacy employee who took vaccines out of the fridge so they would spoil overnight - putting them back the next morning. Nabbed!

      Anyway, if she can't take vaccines she shouldn't be a nurse - wrong job - it's a health risk to others.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Just like the pharmacy employee who took vaccines out of the fridge so they would spoil overnight - putting them back the next morning. Nabbed!"

        And from NBC news: A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced the Wisconsin pharmacist, who destroyed 500 Covid-19 vaccine doses "during a national public health emergency" to three years in prison. Back in January, Steven Brandenburg agreed to plead guilty to two counts of attempting to tamper with consumer products with reckless disregard.Jun 8, 2021

        Since we don't seem to have enough mental hospitals, I guess we have to stuff these crazies into general population at the prisons.

    2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "Is she still a nurse? I wouldn't want to be seen by her."

      According to her own testimony, she's currently training as a Nurse Practitioner. If the US or Ohio term is the same as in the UK, that's a nurse allowed to diagnose and prescribe, ie almost but not quite a medical doctor.

      Not someone I'd want diagnosing or prescribing for me!

      1. ThatOne Silver badge

        > Not someone I'd want diagnosing or prescribing for me!

        Me either. Unfortunately I doubt she wears a little sticker "Beware! Crackpot!" on her blouse. You'll only start suspecting something when she goes on to sacrifice the chicken (or goat) (or yourself).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          I dunno, I'd trust the dark-hooded weirdo with the wavy silver knife and handy stable of livestock over some of *these* crackpots...

  13. swm

    You can't make this stuff up

    See title.

  14. Toni the terrible Bronze badge

    AntiVaxxers

    I think the UK must apologise to the USA because when the british medical establishment strikes off idiots like this they go to the USA and become rich peddling such idiocy. Though being struck off ought to be a clue.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: AntiVaxxers

      I think the UK must apologise to the USA because when the british medical establishment strikes off idiots like this they go to the USA and become rich peddling such idiocy. Though being struck off ought to be a clue.

      You all still haven't apologized enough for Piers Morgan.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        Re: AntiVaxxers

        "You all still haven't apologized enough for Piers Morgan."

        Sorry! But since possession is 9/10th of the law, you can keep him :-)

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: AntiVaxxers

          Turn about's fair play ... Likewise, you lot get to keep Boris.

          At least Morgan, although a blow-hard, is mostly harmless. And our laws, being somewhat sensible (ish, if you squint) mean he'll never be President. Thankfully.

    2. Terry 6 Silver badge

      Re: AntiVaxxers

      Toni. Your last sentence is the truth of it. But not the rest We don't owe the USA an apology. We didn't tell them to let discredited anti-vaxxers who were struck off for fraudulent research claims swan around in their country hero worshipped by dim celebs who promote their nonsense.

  15. Sir Loin Of Beef

    Somebody get me off this insanity land.

    How are things in England?

  16. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

    But it's true

    I find myself being repelled from these people.

  17. aregross
    Mushroom

    Where's James “The Amazing” Randi when you need him!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Truth_About_Uri_Geller

    https://pranksters.com/uri-geller/

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Depressing but Entertaining

    Totally believable that many patients in the US could have their illnesses miss diagnosed if it's possible to become a medical professional without needing even a basic level of general knowledge that most other countries would expect schoolchildren to know

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Depressing but Entertaining

      Never forget: The Bible contains all you need to know.

      /s

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