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The article needs some more context: namely that the outbreaks are caused by an old vaccine from which many countries have moved away. But it is very interest

The article needs some more context: namely that the outbreaks are caused by an old vaccine from which many countries have moved away. But it is very interesting that the live attentuated vaccine can mutate. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00812-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00812-z

macspoofing 6y ago
>The article needs some more context Why? It seems like a pretty straightforward factual article. Are you trying to add context in a well-meaning attempt to short-circuit the potential for this article to give credence to anti-vaxxers? Or that the pro-vaccine perspectives tend to heavily imply (or explicitly state) vaccines are without risks and this is a bit of an embarrassment? To qualify that further: not arguing the efficacy of vaccines as all public health officials agree the risk-reward ratio tilts heavily towards vaccines and vaccine historical success is unprecedented ... just the arguments that are made in support of them by well-meaning 'debunkers', 'skeptics' and 'science-communicators'. Is that really what news is supposed to be? A way to drive narratives (well-meaning that those narratives may be), lest the readers take the 'wrong' idea if you just present the facts? In other words, is this article supposed to: 1) Provide a factual account of events in Sudan around the Polio outbreak, OR 2) Further the goal of large-scale vaccination efforts in Sudan, Africa and the world. #2 is certainly a worthy goal, but is that what the point of news is? Push worthy goals like #2, instead of doing #1? >https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00812-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00812-z Not a huge fan of "Argument by citing a random published study to supports my conclusion" either. Typically in these cases, there are thousands of studies on the topic, some with very subtle conclusions - but specific studies are cherry-picked to support a pre-defined conclusions, which tends to say more about what the arguer believes versus what's actually true. Here's my cynical conspiracy theory: This article would be flagged or banned on social media (Twitter/YouTube/Facebook) as misinformation, especially if shared by any non-mainstream outlet.
- escape_goat 6y ago
  The article fails to mention that there are different polio vaccines and leaves the impression that there is a risk of polio infection from all vaccines.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    >leaves the impression that there is a risk of polio infection from all vaccines. To who? Did you think that? How did you manage to not get that impression? Don't trust the rest of the readers to figure things out? What if the reason why there is so much mistrust of the news media is precisely because they take the same approach - that the reader needs to be forced fed a very specific interpretation and any contravening facts suppressed, lest they get the wrong impression from using their own head.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  Well, let's add some actual context that the article lacks. 1. The live vaccine has significant practical benefits, which should not be overlooked as has happened here. Yes it's cheaper, which is often the thing highlighted in text written by industrialised countries where the price for the killed vaccine is not an obstacle to using it. It's cheaper to make and it's cheaper to deploy in the field. But it's also actually more effective at inducing immunity. There are at least two reasons for that, let's start with the most obvious - this is literally the virus (albeit attenuated) so it's the best possible template for what your immune system needs to fight. It's not just fragments, or a similar shape mimicked by something else. Next, it's ingested, your immune system will first run into it in your gut, which is exactly where a "real" viral exposure would begin - whereas the killed vaccine has to be injected into a muscle. Having an oral vaccine also avoids objections to needles and similar interventions which may be a problem in some cultures - everybody eats and drinks. 2. This is currently considered important news in the industrialised north only because of coronavirus vaccine development, normally approximately nobody cares about polio cases in Sudan. But today I see several articles purporting that this is somehow relevant or has important lessons for us preparing for distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine. But that's nonsense, Oral Polio Vaccine is a live vaccine, it always did this, it's been known it does this and that you need to figure out a plan for how to get from "No wild virus" to "No polio" possibly via internationally subsidised deployment of the killed vaccine for many decades. In contrast there are no existing or planned COVID-19 live vaccines. This isn't a zombie movie, fragments of non-working coronavirus can't magically re-assemble into a working transmissible virus and infect people. A protein designed to be like the "spike" used by a coronavirus is not a whole working virus, any more than pebble shaped like a shark tooth is a whole working shark.
  - macspoofing 6y ago
    You're having a strawman argument with yourself. This has nothing to do with COVID-19, and COVID-19 virus or vaccines are not mentioned at all (AT ALL) ... and yet you're arguing some hypothetical. >Well, let's add some actual context that the article lacks. Why does it need more context? Or rather, why does it need the specific context that you're arguing for? The fact that one cannot even put together a factual article about something that really happened, without getting criticism that some larger narrative isn't constructed (either that vaccines are good, or that COVID-19 vaccines will be safe - unless administrated by the Trump administration) should provide a clue why news outlets are so distrusted by the large swaths of the public. To make it more personal: I don't need help to make up my own mind what this polio outbreak in Sudan means for my life, my choices, and my politics. Tell me what happened, give me good-faith context to understand the background of the events, and let me do the rest. If you don't, I just won't believe you because now you're not a journalist but an actor pushing politics or ideology that I may not agree with.
- bigtex 6y ago
  I would guess that vaccination is one of the most well protected and guarded subjects in all of media and usually any criticism or citing of critical information is immediately shot down. "Anti-vaxxer" is right up there with calling someone a racist.

macspoofing 6y ago

>The article needs some more context Why? It seems like a pretty straightforward factual article. Are you trying to add context in a well-meaning attempt to short-circuit the potential for this article to give credence to anti-vaxxers? Or that the pro-vaccine perspectives tend to heavily imply (or explicitly state) vaccines are without risks and this is a bit of an embarrassment? To qualify that further: not arguing the efficacy of vaccines as all public health officials agree the risk-reward ratio tilts heavily towards vaccines and vaccine historical success is unprecedented ... just the arguments that are made in support of them by well-meaning 'debunkers', 'skeptics' and 'science-communicators'. Is that really what news is supposed to be? A way to drive narratives (well-meaning that those narratives may be), lest the readers take the 'wrong' idea if you just present the facts? In other words, is this article supposed to: 1) Provide a factual account of events in Sudan around the Polio outbreak, OR 2) Further the goal of large-scale vaccination efforts in Sudan, Africa and the world. #2 is certainly a worthy goal, but is that what the point of news is? Push worthy goals like #2, instead of doing #1? >https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00812-z https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00812-z Not a huge fan of "Argument by citing a random published study to supports my conclusion" either. Typically in these cases, there are thousands of studies on the topic, some with very subtle conclusions - but specific studies are cherry-picked to support a pre-defined conclusions, which tends to say more about what the arguer believes versus what's actually true. Here's my cynical conspiracy theory: This article would be flagged or banned on social media (Twitter/YouTube/Facebook) as misinformation, especially if shared by any non-mainstream outlet.

escape_goat 6y ago
The article fails to mention that there are different polio vaccines and leaves the impression that there is a risk of polio infection from all vaccines.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >leaves the impression that there is a risk of polio infection from all vaccines. To who? Did you think that? How did you manage to not get that impression? Don't trust the rest of the readers to figure things out? What if the reason why there is so much mistrust of the news media is precisely because they take the same approach - that the reader needs to be forced fed a very specific interpretation and any contravening facts suppressed, lest they get the wrong impression from using their own head.
tialaramex 6y ago
Well, let's add some actual context that the article lacks. 1. The live vaccine has significant practical benefits, which should not be overlooked as has happened here. Yes it's cheaper, which is often the thing highlighted in text written by industrialised countries where the price for the killed vaccine is not an obstacle to using it. It's cheaper to make and it's cheaper to deploy in the field. But it's also actually more effective at inducing immunity. There are at least two reasons for that, let's start with the most obvious - this is literally the virus (albeit attenuated) so it's the best possible template for what your immune system needs to fight. It's not just fragments, or a similar shape mimicked by something else. Next, it's ingested, your immune system will first run into it in your gut, which is exactly where a "real" viral exposure would begin - whereas the killed vaccine has to be injected into a muscle. Having an oral vaccine also avoids objections to needles and similar interventions which may be a problem in some cultures - everybody eats and drinks. 2. This is currently considered important news in the industrialised north only because of coronavirus vaccine development, normally approximately nobody cares about polio cases in Sudan. But today I see several articles purporting that this is somehow relevant or has important lessons for us preparing for distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine. But that's nonsense, Oral Polio Vaccine is a live vaccine, it always did this, it's been known it does this and that you need to figure out a plan for how to get from "No wild virus" to "No polio" possibly via internationally subsidised deployment of the killed vaccine for many decades. In contrast there are no existing or planned COVID-19 live vaccines. This isn't a zombie movie, fragments of non-working coronavirus can't magically re-assemble into a working transmissible virus and infect people. A protein designed to be like the "spike" used by a coronavirus is not a whole working virus, any more than pebble shaped like a shark tooth is a whole working shark.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  You're having a strawman argument with yourself. This has nothing to do with COVID-19, and COVID-19 virus or vaccines are not mentioned at all (AT ALL) ... and yet you're arguing some hypothetical. >Well, let's add some actual context that the article lacks. Why does it need more context? Or rather, why does it need the specific context that you're arguing for? The fact that one cannot even put together a factual article about something that really happened, without getting criticism that some larger narrative isn't constructed (either that vaccines are good, or that COVID-19 vaccines will be safe - unless administrated by the Trump administration) should provide a clue why news outlets are so distrusted by the large swaths of the public. To make it more personal: I don't need help to make up my own mind what this polio outbreak in Sudan means for my life, my choices, and my politics. Tell me what happened, give me good-faith context to understand the background of the events, and let me do the rest. If you don't, I just won't believe you because now you're not a journalist but an actor pushing politics or ideology that I may not agree with.
bigtex 6y ago
I would guess that vaccination is one of the most well protected and guarded subjects in all of media and usually any criticism or citing of critical information is immediately shot down. "Anti-vaxxer" is right up there with calling someone a racist.