3 ms·

Exposed to SARS-CoV-2? Absolutely, no problem. Exposed to god-knows-what in their untested vaccine? Absolutely not, even five years after release ("my body, my

Exposed to SARS-CoV-2? Absolutely, no problem. Exposed to god-knows-what in their untested vaccine? Absolutely not, even five years after release ("my body, my choice"). There is a long history of contaminants in biologics, and vaccines in particular. Problems like GBS (Guillain-Barre Syndrome), tumors, polio, and who knows what from PCV. If I recall correctly, wasn't SV-40 injected into 25 million Americans, and perhaps hundreds of millions world-wide? Well-tested and analyzed vaccines like BCG I have no problem with, but being a guinea pig for whatever was cooked up in a rush over the last few weeks? Count me out. The headline has it backwards -- the more significant (unbounded) risk is from the therapy, not the SARS-CoV-2 exposure.

bennyelv 6y ago
It sounds to me like your risk assessment is a little unbalanced. We also have no idea what the medium and long term effects of being infected with SARS-CoV-2 are, so why are you happy to be exposed to it?
- londons_explore 6y ago
  SARS-CoV-2 is pretty similar to other coronavirus types which humans have been exposed to for millions of years. Vaccines on the other hand have a pretty dubious safety record. We still put mercury in many vaccines for example! If it weren't for the massive benefits of (working) vaccines, they would undoubtedly be banned for being unsafe.
- balnaphone 6y ago
  Because coming from a natural source, namely other people, I can estimate risk probabilities for a range of outcomes, in the short term. Highly pathogenic viruses in general have a tendency to become attenuated as they spread, due to evolutionary pressure. In the medium and long terms, there are two main benefits to the virus versus an experimental vaccine. One is that there are no known long-term effects (aside from scarring) from other closely-related viruses, and two is that because tens of millions (or more) of other people have been (or will be) infected by it, there is enough of a population for serious focus and work to be done on dealing with it. Lastly, it isn't unreasonable to assume that practically everyone will be exposed to it anyway. Vaccines, on the other hand, especially experimental ones, have been historically known to suffer from contamination (biological or otherwise), and result in strange, hard-to-diagnose problems. These problems are suffered by a tiny population (the experimental group), with no broad societal, medical, or research support -- which makes sense, since the highest societal priority is typically to help as many people as possible. The three main concerns with the vaccines themselves are that (a) there's no biological pressure to attenuate negative effects, (b) the biologic components themselves may infect the patient, without any point of comparison commensurate with widespread viruses in the field, and (c) the other ingredients (stabilizers, preservatives, etc.) in vaccines are often toxic in their own right. In the past it has taken many years, even a decade or more, to get it all right.
  - balnaphone 6y ago
    As a footnote, I came across a couple interesting papers on the topic of vaccine contamination from around 2012. They talk about the usual development time being 8-10 years, and about a few recent cases of vaccine contamination. Extraneous agent detection in vaccines: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Attila_Farsang_Dr/publication/224939093_Extraneous_agent_detection_in_vaccines_-_A_review_of_technical_aspects/links/59ea4ba2aca272cddddb7cce/Extraneous-agent-detection-in-vaccines-A-review-of-technical-aspects.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Attila_Farsang_Dr/publi... Detection of Avian Retroviruses in Vaccines: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3647912/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3647912/

bennyelv 6y ago

It sounds to me like your risk assessment is a little unbalanced. We also have no idea what the medium and long term effects of being infected with SARS-CoV-2 are, so why are you happy to be exposed to it?

londons_explore 6y ago
SARS-CoV-2 is pretty similar to other coronavirus types which humans have been exposed to for millions of years. Vaccines on the other hand have a pretty dubious safety record. We still put mercury in many vaccines for example! If it weren't for the massive benefits of (working) vaccines, they would undoubtedly be banned for being unsafe.
balnaphone 6y ago
Because coming from a natural source, namely other people, I can estimate risk probabilities for a range of outcomes, in the short term. Highly pathogenic viruses in general have a tendency to become attenuated as they spread, due to evolutionary pressure. In the medium and long terms, there are two main benefits to the virus versus an experimental vaccine. One is that there are no known long-term effects (aside from scarring) from other closely-related viruses, and two is that because tens of millions (or more) of other people have been (or will be) infected by it, there is enough of a population for serious focus and work to be done on dealing with it. Lastly, it isn't unreasonable to assume that practically everyone will be exposed to it anyway. Vaccines, on the other hand, especially experimental ones, have been historically known to suffer from contamination (biological or otherwise), and result in strange, hard-to-diagnose problems. These problems are suffered by a tiny population (the experimental group), with no broad societal, medical, or research support -- which makes sense, since the highest societal priority is typically to help as many people as possible. The three main concerns with the vaccines themselves are that (a) there's no biological pressure to attenuate negative effects, (b) the biologic components themselves may infect the patient, without any point of comparison commensurate with widespread viruses in the field, and (c) the other ingredients (stabilizers, preservatives, etc.) in vaccines are often toxic in their own right. In the past it has taken many years, even a decade or more, to get it all right.
- balnaphone 6y ago
  As a footnote, I came across a couple interesting papers on the topic of vaccine contamination from around 2012. They talk about the usual development time being 8-10 years, and about a few recent cases of vaccine contamination. Extraneous agent detection in vaccines: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Attila_Farsang_Dr/publication/224939093_Extraneous_agent_detection_in_vaccines_-_A_review_of_technical_aspects/links/59ea4ba2aca272cddddb7cce/Extraneous-agent-detection-in-vaccines-A-review-of-technical-aspects.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Attila_Farsang_Dr/publi... Detection of Avian Retroviruses in Vaccines: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3647912/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3647912/