Don't Go West, Young Man

The other day, Allen West – once a very-failed GOP candidate for president and now hoping to be governor of Texas – came down with COVID-like symptoms.  He proudly said he was unvaccinated and would be taking hydroxychloroquine and ivermection.  I believe this is when many people started praying for him.

And to be very clear, I wish him well and wrote that I hope he didn’t test positive and is well.

He was subsequently admitted to the hospital and given a monoclonal antibody infusion, and says he’s doing better.  Whether he actually is or not, who knows, we’ll find out soon enough.  But I hope he is.

What he didn’t say is that he tested positive for COVID-19, which he must have been, since otherwise he wouldn’t have been admitted to the hospital and also given a monoclonal antibody infusion.  So, yeah, just a minor omission. 

I suppose he could be excused for not feeling up to typing much, except for the fact that he went on a crazed six-tweet binge.

And it really was crazed.  I won’t repeat it all, since he doesn’t deserve his crazed, dangerous words repeated in full.  But just to give an example, his rants against the vaccine – typed in a hospital where he is hopefully recovering from COVID-19 – included the following tweet:

“I can attest that, after this experience, I am even more dedicated to fighting against vaccine mandates. Instead of enriching the pockets of Big Pharma and corrupt bureaucrats and politicians, we should be advocating the monoclonal antibody infusion therapy.”

For the record – it was Big Pharma that developed the monoclonal antibody infusion Allen West took and is saving his life.

Also, they get $2,100 from the government for each dose administered.  On the other hand, they get only $20 a dose from the government for each vaccine.  Though the cost to Americans is free.  It’s just that almost all people getting one of the doses, unlike Allen West, are only putting the government in a position of paying $20, not $2,100.

So, Allen West is actually truly helping "enrich" Big Pharma -- which one would think he’d be very greatly for since it is likely saving his life. 

Equally important, what is left out in all this ranting about vaccine mandates and praise of monoclonal antibody infusions is that because Allen West didn’t get vaccinated, it’s likely that he infected others.  Who may have infected others.  And hopefully none of them died.

One other thing.  Many critics of the vaccine use the explanation that it only got emergency approval, not regular FDA approval -- never mind that 4.8 billion people around the world have gotten at least one dose.  But the use of monoclonal antibody infusion treatments -- which Allen West lauds, and which may have saved his life -- only got emergency approval, too.  Yet this medical treatment he's okay with, just no word about vaccines.

Indeed, in all his rants, West only descries “vaccine mandates.”  If he was actually fair and decent and concerned about other people and not me-me-me selfish, West would have explained that while he (rightly or wrongly) is against mandates, the vaccine is actually a good thing and works and saves lives.  And when people have chosen to get vaccinated – and so far, 217 million Americans have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine – they have helped protect others from getting infected and have generally kept themselves out of the hospital and not had to get the very expensive for the government (though free for Americans) monoclonal antibody infusion.

But rather than say that, rather try to protect others, rather than thank science and “Big Pharma” for hopefully helping save his life…Allen West trashed vaccines and those who hopefully helped save his life.

What a very Republican thing to do from yet another Republican leader helping spread the pandemic one deceit at a time.