[Suntzu]

The risks are far greater than what's claimed and the effectiveness of vaccines is also greatly overstated. All the establishment has to back up its claims is junk science and official pronouncements and none of that passes muster with anyone who doesn't have their babbitt head all the way up their babbitt ass. There is no institution in this crooked fucking world that can be trusted, all there is is the science and when you look at the actual science you find that it's pretty fucking flimsy. And that's not just me talking, that's coming from NIH directors, top epidemiologists, practicing clinicians, and a whole host of respected academics and researchers. Shit, even the institutes of babbittry like the IOM say the science is shoddy and shot through with conflicts and biases. The whole thing's a fucking joke that relies on the stupidity, ignorance, and fear endemic to mass society.

Yep, the polio and smallpox vaccines were a giant hoax!

[Sivad]

Yep, the polio and smallpox vaccines were a giant hoax!

Where did I say vaccines were a hoax? I think they work and I don't think they're the cause of every neurological disorder and autoimmune disease like the anti-vaxxers do. I'm just skeptical about the claim that they're safe as milk and that they're the sole reason for the precipitous drop in mortality rates from communicable diseases. That's obviously propaganda designed to gain public confidence. Think about it, if vaccines were perceived as being even slightly dangerous or posing a even remote risk of causing severe neurological disorders vaccination rates would plummet. They couldn't be honest with the public about it, they wouldn't be honest with the public about it, because the public can't be trusted to be reasonable. If vaccines weren't safe as milk I would fully expect the public health authorities to lie and say they were, that's just common sense.

[Suntzu]

Big pharma is pushing lots of drugs that are downright dangerous, statins and opioids being just a couple. Vaccines look like a scape goat to me, someone looking for deep pockets. Amazingly, retardation went from 2% of the population to zero while autism went from zero to 2%. Coincidence?

[Ter]

Nobody denies that there is a risk, a very very small risk, when receiving vaccines.
There is a similar risk every time you get on an airplane or if you have surgery or if you drive a motor vehicle.
This debate is not relevant or useful.

[Godstud]

QFT @Ter and we don't tell people they will die if they get on a plane or into a car.

[XogGyux]

Big pharma is pushing lots of drugs that are downright dangerous, statins and opioids being just a couple. Vaccines look like a scape goat to me, someone looking for deep pockets. Amazingly, retardation went from 2% of the population to zero while autism went from zero to 2%. Coincidence?

Genius all drugs have side effects and possibly awful ones when at toxic levels or when patient intolerant. But they exist for a reason. Most of them are awfully important and save lives. Statins reduce cardiovascular mortality. It has been proven that if you had a heart attack or a stroke and you are not taking these medications (among others) you are more likely to have another event, die sooner and have a poorer outcome than if you did not take the medication. Opioids are not much different. Basically, they are the only type of medication that can be routinely given for patients with severe acute pain. They are definitely a problem in the chronic setting and that is why you see a dramatic shift in the last few years or decades or physicians that increasingly decline to prescribe these things. Basically, there are 3 main categories of painkillers we can routinely use. Tylenol and NSAIDs are the big 2 categories we should always try first in that order (Tylenol > NSAID). Opiods is the third option and and least desirable option but in the acute setting is more convenient under certain circumstances. Tylenol, although very good it is unlikely to adequately control severe pain and IV tylenol is expensive and large number of hospitals do not even carry them so all those patients that are "NPO" (e.g. cannot eat for one reason or another) cannot really take this medication. NSAIDs are great and not only controls the pain but they can also block the mechanism by which pain starts. For instance, if you had a kidney stone, the stone would irritate the ureter and cause inflammation, the AI in NSAID stands for "anti-inflammatory" so these would be amazing drugs for things like this. That being said they do have major side effects including increased risk of bleeding (most severe of which is GI bleeding), water retention, elevation of blood pressure and they are contraindicated on people with renal dysfunction which are a large amount of the inpatient population. Because of the GI bleeding side effects, they should NEVER be used chronically but only during short periods of time when tylenol or other topical solutions are not sufficient. One of the most common settings we see a GI bleed in a hospital is an elderly person taking chronic NSAIDs for arthritic pain. Finally, we have opioids including weak opioids such as tramadol. The main issue with these is the risk of creating tolerance and addiction. However, they are very effective controlling severe pain, they can be given both by mouth and IV and they are relatively safe unless except for specific drugs with severe renal or hepatic dysfunction. All in all, every patient should be evaluate and prescribed in this order tylenol > NSAID > opiod based on immediate need, and organ dysfunction.

Nobody denies that there is a risk, a very very small risk, when receiving vaccines.
There is a similar risk every time you get on an airplane or if you have surgery or if you drive a motor vehicle.
This debate is not relevant or useful.

Exactly! The "severe" reaction to a vaccine is extremely low and unless you happened to have a known previous of such reaction there is really no excuse to avoid them as the benefits far outweigh these tiny chances.
Do we need to always research more, learn more and try to perfect what we already have? ABSOLUTELY! always, we should keep researching and find better and safer drugs and vaccines all the time until such time we can cure everything without side effects or compromise in safety. But until such day... we will have to deal with what we have and stop whining about minuscule chances of a major side effect.

[Godstud]

Don't eat food, @Sivad! You could choke and die!

[Tainari88]

Genius all drugs have side effects and possibly awful ones when at toxic levels or when patient intolerant. But they exist for a reason. Most of them are awfully important and save lives. Statins reduce cardiovascular mortality. It has been proven that if you had a heart attack or a stroke and you are not taking these medications (among others) you are more likely to have another event, die sooner and have a poorer outcome than if you did not take the medication. Opioids are not much different. Basically, they are the only type of medication that can be routinely given for patients with severe acute pain. They are definitely a problem in the chronic setting and that is why you see a dramatic shift in the last few years or decades or physicians that increasingly decline to prescribe these things. Basically, there are 3 main categories of painkillers we can routinely use. Tylenol and NSAIDs are the big 2 categories we should always try first in that order (Tylenol > NSAID). Opiods is the third option and and least desirable option but in the acute setting is more convenient under certain circumstances. Tylenol, although very good it is unlikely to adequately control severe pain and IV tylenol is expensive and large number of hospitals do not even carry them so all those patients that are "NPO" (e.g. cannot eat for one reason or another) cannot really take this medication. NSAIDs are great and not only controls the pain but they can also block the mechanism by which pain starts. For instance, if you had a kidney stone, the stone would irritate the ureter and cause inflammation, the AI in NSAID stands for "anti-inflammatory" so these would be amazing drugs for things like this. That being said they do have major side effects including increased risk of bleeding (most severe of which is GI bleeding), water retention, elevation of blood pressure and they are contraindicated on people with renal dysfunction which are a large amount of the inpatient population. Because of the GI bleeding side effects, they should NEVER be used chronically but only during short periods of time when tylenol or other topical solutions are not sufficient. One of the most common settings we see a GI bleed in a hospital is an elderly person taking chronic NSAIDs for arthritic pain. Finally, we have opioids including weak opioids such as tramadol. The main issue with these is the risk of creating tolerance and addiction. However, they are very effective controlling severe pain, they can be given both by mouth and IV and they are relatively safe unless except for specific drugs with severe renal or hepatic dysfunction. All in all, every patient should be evaluate and prescribed in this order tylenol > NSAID > opiod based on immediate need, and organ dysfunction.



Exactly! The "severe" reaction to a vaccine is extremely low and unless you happened to have a known previous of such reaction there is really no excuse to avoid them as the benefits far outweigh these tiny chances.
Do we need to always research more, learn more and try to perfect what we already have? ABSOLUTELY! always, we should keep researching and find better and safer drugs and vaccines all the time until such time we can cure everything without side effects or compromise in safety. But until such day... we will have to deal with what we have and stop whining about minuscule chances of a major side effect.

I took vykadin after a bad car accident in the year 2000. It felt great at the time for managing the pain. But it can be highly addictive. So I made sure to stop taking it once the initial stiffness of the car accident went away. Many of those heroin/morphine based drugs are problematic with addictiveness. I always vaccinate my child and so do I. I ask for the version without preservatives included. I don't think the preservatives are good for you. So far my child never has had an averse allergy to vaccines. Interestingly my husband got measles as an adult in the USA. The doctor told him since he was born and raised in the tropics? Measles are not common in the tropics. So he never got them.

Why are so many people getting addicted to the opioids? It must be some kind of bad doctors over prescribing them. Some doctors get wined and dined by the pharmaceutical industry to push some kinds of brand name drugs for their patients. At the same time, I think you should be getting a lot more information from your doctor about diet analysis and trying to get people to lose weight and exercise regularly and also de stress and get more vacation days. Stop smoking, no excessive drinking and lot of regular sleep. Also people need intercourse and intimacy. But? I guess no one can tick all the boxes most of the time. For many? Just don't have the good habits and need some intense work to make it stick. Most people got problems with bad habits in general XoGyux.

I struggle with my chronic health condition. One of the reasons one has to make some drastic changes in life. Or die trying.

[ness31]

It's pretty simple, the world is a scary place that can go sideways at any minute for any number of reasons and because the asshole liberal class are super sophisticated atheists that don't have the comfort and reassurance traditional religion provides they look to institutional authority like government or science to calm their fears and ease their angst. So when someone comes along and points out the obvious corruption and unreliability of those institutions they react like any religious fundie does when the pillars of their faith are challenged with facts and reason. Same age old idiocy just with a secular doctrine.

omg, it can’t be that. It can’t be, cos I’ll get super depressed if that’s all it boils down to.

Honestly, nothing would make me happier then for conclusive proof to surface that shut down anti vaxxers instead of the same stuff that gets peddled out. A proper fucking grown up DIALOGUE that respects our intelligence. Been waiting for sober discourse from mainstream media for years now, but it ain’t there.

That’s what really frightens me. The silence.

[Hindsite]

If I had a stupid kid, I'd probably finally look into this whole debate but so far I've been ignoring it.

I have noticed though, how those who are pro-vaccines tend to get a bit hysterical towards people who aren't, what's that aboot?

They are people that have never had a bad reaction from a vaccine, like I have. Not everyone is allergic to the same thing. However, many of these vaccines have helped eliminate Polio and certain other conditions from the general public. So, generally speaking, I am in favor of some of these vaccines that have been tested with success. However, it seems to me that it is unreasonable to just dismiss the possibility of some harmful reaction for all people, including babies and children.

[XogGyux]

I took vykadin after a bad car accident in the year 2000. It felt great at the time for managing the pain. But it can be highly addictive. So I made sure to stop taking it once the initial stiffness of the car accident went away. Many of those heroin/morphine based drugs are problematic with addictiveness. I always vaccinate my child and so do I. I ask for the version without preservatives included. I don't think the preservatives are good for you. So far my child never has had an averse allergy to vaccines. Interestingly my husband got measles as an adult in the USA. The doctor told him since he was born and raised in the tropics? Measles are not common in the tropics. So he never got them.

Why are so many people getting addicted to the opioids? It must be some kind of bad doctors over prescribing them. Some doctors get wined and dined by the pharmaceutical industry to push some kinds of brand name drugs for their patients. At the same time, I think you should be getting a lot more information from your doctor about diet analysis and trying to get people to lose weight and exercise regularly and also de stress and get more vacation days. Stop smoking, no excessive drinking and lot of regular sleep. Also people need intercourse and intimacy. But? I guess no one can tick all the boxes most of the time. For many? Just don't have the good habits and need some intense work to make it stick. Most people got problems with bad habits in general XoGyux.

I struggle with my chronic health condition. One of the reasons one has to make some drastic changes in life. Or die trying.

Well... Like just about everything in life, moderation is key and abuse of anything, no matter what it is, is likely going to be detrimental. If you are sick and need antibiotics for 7 days, great they will be fantastic for you (provided you are not allergic to a particular antibiotic, but even then you could simply receive an alternative). However, if for some reason you would get a prescription for 70 days (say an error?) likely you would be harmed by this.

In the US as a population, I have noticed that we are generally bad dealing with pain. We expect doctors to simply take it away, no matter how insignificant it is. Yes, absolutely doctors share the blame with this problem. Either by ignorance, laziness, fear of retaliation or even greed we have abused our ability to prescribe drugs in general but opioids in particular. I was trained recently, and believe me this an integral part of modern physician training. This means, that it has become less and less likely that recently trained (and even not so recent, provided they keep up with medical literature) physicians prescribe less and fewer opioids AND educate their patients more. But again, this barely does a small dent on a much larger problem.

Perhaps it was a result of overprescribing for a very long time, perhaps it is a result of the expectations of patients that they should feel little-to-no-pain if they go to the doctor or perhaps it is a consequence of a system that is virtually designed for prescribing them. Our medical system in the US is shyt and we end up causing some undue harm because if it. Our hospitals have "metrics" which is kind of a fancy way to measure productivity and patient satisfaction as to increase the bottom line (e.i money). These metrics translate into wasted resources (e.g. Doing a cardiac workup on a 20 year old with no risks factors for coronary artery disease) or to something as simple as overprescribing opioids.

Furthermore, addiction is far more complex than simply exposure -> addiction. Many of us have taken opioids as some point in our lives and not become addicts. Experiments in animal models suggest that only exposure is not the answer but in some cases, detrimental social situations is a requirement or at least a strong potentiator. So don't be fooled by the news that blames a complex problem and gives it a simple solution. The sad part is that the solution to addiction requires an overhaul of our society and mental health systems and we do not want to hear this. We want to think that simply killing all drug dealers, or having doctors suddenly stop prescribing opioids, or putting a wall in the border of Mexican can be solutions to this problem. We want to think this because they are easy fixes with just a couple of steps. The reality is that is not the answer. We need to address this at its core, by addressing the social problems that lead to these problems and perpetuate/amplify them.

Also, the news doesn't really help in this situation at all. Alcohol is, by every measure imaginable far worse drug than any of the famous ones. Only alcohol and benzodiazepines (which basically functions in very similar fashion to alcohol inside the body) has the potential to reliably kill patients that are withdrawing from these drugs. Heroine withdrawal will be very unpleasant and painful but it is not going to kill you (unless on a very rare circumstance in which you might have a very bad heart and basically die from pain?) same thing for cocaine. Alcohol can also kill in a very similar fashion to opioids (e.g. you pass out, vomit and aspirate your own vomit into your lungs and die). It is very addictive as well, more so than many of the most famous "drug" names such as cocaine and marijuana. And I don't say this as to derail the blame or something but rather to illustrate that society plays a central role on all of this. We all have access to alcohol but the vast majority of us do not abuse it. One of the most important, if not THE most important reasons is because of our social situations. It is not surprising that those with the shittiest social lives are the ones that end up abusing alcohol and any other drugs.

I have had discussions regarding opiods and drugs of abuse in this forum before and It is a topic that interests me and certainly I'd happily discuss but I think we have talked enough about this on this thread which is unrelated.

[Suntzu]

Genius all drugs have side effects and possibly awful ones when at toxic levels or when patient intolerant. But they exist for a reason. Most of them are awfully important and save lives. Statins reduce cardiovascular mortality. It has been proven that if you had a heart attack or a stroke and you are not taking these medications (among others) you are more likely to have another event, die sooner and have a poorer outcome than if you did not take the medication. Opioids are not much different. Basically, they are the only type of medication that can be routinely given for patients with severe acute pain. They are definitely a problem in the chronic setting and that is why you see a dramatic shift in the last few years or decades or physicians that increasingly decline to prescribe these things. Basically, there are 3 main categories of painkillers we can routinely use. Tylenol and NSAIDs are the big 2 categories we should always try first in that order (Tylenol > NSAID). Opiods is the third option and and least desirable option but in the acute setting is more convenient under certain circumstances. Tylenol, although very good it is unlikely to adequately control severe pain and IV tylenol is expensive and large number of hospitals do not even carry them so all those patients that are "NPO" (e.g. cannot eat for one reason or another) cannot really take this medication. NSAIDs are great and not only controls the pain but they can also block the mechanism by which pain starts. For instance, if you had a kidney stone, the stone would irritate the ureter and cause inflammation, the AI in NSAID stands for "anti-inflammatory" so these would be amazing drugs for things like this. That being said they do have major side effects including increased risk of bleeding (most severe of which is GI bleeding), water retention, elevation of blood pressure and they are contraindicated on people with renal dysfunction which are a large amount of the inpatient population. Because of the GI bleeding side effects, they should NEVER be used chronically but only during short periods of time when tylenol or other topical solutions are not sufficient. One of the most common settings we see a GI bleed in a hospital is an elderly person taking chronic NSAIDs for arthritic pain. Finally, we have opioids including weak opioids such as tramadol. The main issue with these is the risk of creating tolerance and addiction. However, they are very effective controlling severe pain, they can be given both by mouth and IV and they are relatively safe unless except for specific drugs with severe renal or hepatic dysfunction. All in all, every patient should be evaluate and prescribed in this order tylenol > NSAID > opiod based on immediate need, and organ dysfunction.



Exactly! The "severe" reaction to a vaccine is extremely low and unless you happened to have a known previous of such reaction there is really no excuse to avoid them as the benefits far outweigh these tiny chances.
Do we need to always research more, learn more and try to perfect what we already have? ABSOLUTELY! always, we should keep researching and find better and safer drugs and vaccines all the time until such time we can cure everything without side effects or compromise in safety. But until such day... we will have to deal with what we have and stop whining about minuscule chances of a major side effect.

You are reading big pharmas propaganda. Statins do not reduced mortality and neither do opioids. The do generate massive profits.

[XogGyux]

You are reading big pharmas propaganda. Statins do not reduced mortality and neither do opioids. The do generate massive profits.

LOL. Nobody said anything about opioids lowering mortality, just statin. Anyhow, put back your tin foil or your thoughts will be read by aliens.

[Suntzu]

Something to consider:
"The debate over the cholesterol hypothesis and statins has raged for decades. Some may point to the recent decline in cardiovascular deaths in the United States as proof of statin effectiveness, but this view fails to incorporate the impact of smoking cessation, lifestyle changes, and dramatic improvements in heart attack survival rates due to timely reperfusion and the availability of external and implantable defibrillators. Others may argue that statins are started too late in life to be effective (the horse may already be out of the barn) and reference Mendelian randomization studies which show that rare individuals with genetically low cholesterol levels have a much lower incidence of CHD[39]. However, this concept should not be extrapolated to the 99.99% of us who lack these genes and also fails to explain how the Mediterranean diet reduces mortality within months of initiation[2-4]. In 1996 Nobel laureates Brown and Goldstein anticipated the eradication of coronary disease in their Science editorial, “Exploitation of recent breakthroughs - proof of the cholesterol hypothesis, discovery of effective drugs, and better definition of genetic susceptibility factors - may well end coronary disease as a major public health problem early in the next century”[40]. History has proven otherwise, and the global prevalence of CHD, despite worldwide statin usage and cholesterol lowering campaigns, has reached pandemic proportions. Coronary heart disease is an extremely complex malady and the expectation that it could be prevented or eliminated by simply reducing cholesterol appears unfounded. After twenty years we should concede the anomalies of the cholesterol hypothesis and refocus our efforts on the proven benefits of a healthy lifestyle incorporating a Mediterranean diet to prevent CHD[2-4,41,42]."

[XogGyux]

Something to consider:
"The debate over the cholesterol hypothesis and statins has raged for decades. Some may point to the recent decline in cardiovascular deaths in the United States as proof of statin effectiveness, but this view fails to incorporate the impact of smoking cessation, lifestyle changes, and dramatic improvements in heart attack survival rates due to timely reperfusion and the availability of external and implantable defibrillators.

I don't know who you quoted but this person is awfully wrong (and so are you by using him/her as an authority). The first part of the quote seems to imply that the way we do drug testing or can know whether a drug works by just releasing it into the wild and coming back a few years or decades later to see what changes have occurred. This is not the case, not only that is unethical but it would not give us any useful information as it would ignore co-founding variables and other changes. In fact, the goal standard to check this kind of things are double blinded, and sometimes triple blinded studies in which there is an intervention arm (e.g. in this case they would receive statin) vs a placebo arm (e.g. they get a sugar pill, or they get "standard of care" depending on what you are testing). The two arms are selected as such they have the same or similar demographics, health problems, age, gender, race, etc as to try to minimize confounding variables. Then the study starts and we can see at the end if there is a statistical difference. Depending on the drug/intervention, more often than not, studies are duplicated many times by different people around the world, sometimes on slightly different settings. After all this, sometimes we do meta-analysis in which we pool data from many studies (sometimes hundreds of studies) and they are used to confirm findings.
Even my explanation is a gross oversimplification of the actual process, but this is not the venue for more in-depth analysis of experimental studies and you do not seem to have the bare minimum to even comprehend how this is done.
The bottom line is that the statement you just provided is a complete strawman by criticizing a method we don't even use because it is fking dumb.

History has proven otherwise, and the global prevalence of CHD, despite worldwide statin usage and cholesterol lowering campaigns, has reached pandemic proportions.

Another statement that proves whoever made this argument does not know shit about medicine, statistics, epidemiology or even how basic science is done. Prevalence = Incidence x duration of disease. SO... if you increase the duration someone lives with a disease, you expect the prevalence to go up. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING!. In laymen terms, if you have someone with CAD that was destined to die ~50year old but one time during his 40's his/her doctor did a risk assessment and decided to start statin (among other medications) and this person now lives to be 70... this person is increasing the overall prevalence of the disease. Same thing with incidence.

Anyhow. Cholesterol is the STRONGEST risk factor for coronary artery disease that we are aware of. It is stronger than family history, obesity, and even diabetes.
There are plenty of studies for cholesterol-lowering medications and mortality and this is not even a debate that they work and the risks of side effect are outweighed by the benefits of mortality and even morbidity.

[Suntzu]

A simple way to lower cholesterol in most folks is just to lose weight. No profit in that.

[XogGyux]

A simple way to lower cholesterol in most folks is just to lose weight. No profit in that.

That is very different from saying that statins do not work.
While this is true, this does not change much. A large portion of patients with high cholesterol are not even overweight.
The vast majority of doctors will insist in patients losing weight whenever they are overweight REGARDLESS of medication therapy. This, however, does not happen as it is far easier for the patient to just take a pill daily than top quit eating McDonalds and eat grass from time to time. Same shit with lung cancer, it would be far easier if everyone just stopped smoking but that is not a reason not to investigate and expand on cancer treatment or in doing chemotherapy/radiation/surgery/immunotherapy once cancer is detected, again, regardless of whether or not you stop smoking.

[Godstud]

Yes, @Hindsite, some people do have adverse reactions to vaccines, but this number is extremely small in number, and those who cannot take vaccines are protected by herd immunity*.

*Herd immunity: the resistance to the spread of a contagious disease within a population that results if a sufficiently high proportion of individuals are immune to the disease, especially through vaccination.

14 Diseases You Almost Forgot About (Thanks to Vaccines)
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/di ... eases.html

[Sivad]

omg, it can’t be that. It can’t be, cos I’ll get super depressed if that’s all it boils down to.

I think that's mainly what drives it but there are other reasons. Liberals fancy themselves as intellectually sophisticated and their little science fetish allows them to indulge in smug condescension and feel like a superior class of people, they're insufferable jackasses. It's kind of comical to witness for anyone who does have a decent knowledge of science because they're such smug little twits. They'll go on and on about the whig history, the science method, consensus, and all the rest of it when none of that shit is taken seriously outside of the glossy popsci propaganda hype liberals can't get enough of. And they're so profoundly clueless that it's impossible to get them to see what a bunch of damn fools they are, but that's the jackass liberal mentality for ya.

Honestly, nothing would make me happier then for conclusive proof to surface that shut down anti vaxxers instead of the same stuff that gets peddled out. A proper fucking grown up DIALOGUE that respects our intelligence. Been waiting for sober discourse from mainstream media for years now, but it ain’t there.

They can't, if they were honest not only would they permanently lose the public trust but at this point it wouldn't just be a matter of lost fortunes and ruined careers, it would be hundreds of billions of dollars in lawsuits against every major Western government and criminal prosecutions for top regulators and pharma executives all over the world. If they were honest it would destroy the global public health establishment.

That’s what really frightens me. The silence.

It's an npc world, we're just living in it.

[Pants-of-dog]

remarkable new information: a respected pro-vaccine medical expert used by the federal government to debunk the vaccine-autism link, says vaccines can cause autism after all. He claims he told that to government officials long ago, but they kept it secret.

Dr. Zimmerman declined our interview request and referred us to his sworn affidavit. It says: On June 15, 2007, he took aside the Department of Justice—or DOJ lawyers he worked for defending vaccines in vaccine court. He told them that he’d discovered “exceptions in which vaccinations could cause autism.” “I explained that in a subset of children, vaccine induced fever and immune stimulation did cause regressive brain disease with features of autism spectrum disorder.”

“I explained that in a subset of children, vaccine induced fever and immune stimulation did cause regressive brain disease with features of autism spectrum disorder.” [CJF emphasis]

Do you have a link to the actual affidavit?

It seems odd to look at Zimmerman’s words out of context.