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> Historically, two cases of rushed vaccines (cutter polio and Gullah barre) were worse than the disease - and these were for diseases worse than covid. This i

> Historically, two cases of rushed vaccines (cutter polio and Gullah barre) were worse than the disease - and these were for diseases worse than covid. This is just patently untrue. The Cutter Incidence gave patients Polio due to an improperly activated virus. While this is bad, it could not be worse than the disease itself - since it is the disease itself, no worse, no less. Regarding risk of Gullain-Barre syndrome due to vaccination, Wikipedia has this to say: "In fact, natural influenza infection is a stronger risk factor for the development of GBS than is influenza vaccination and getting the vaccination does reduce the risk of GBS overall by lowering the risk of catching influenza." So here I also find it hard to believe the vaccine would be worse than the disease, I'm also sceptical of the claim that Polio or the 1976 Swine Flu would unambiguously be worse than Covid19. 70% of Polio case have no symptoms, and less than 0.5% cause permanent injury, according to Wikipedia. The 1976 Swine Flu outbreak seems to have caused a few hundred cases and only one death.

roenxi 6y ago
On the one hand I tend to agree, and all my expectations for this vaccine are positive. The medical industry tends to be paranoid to a level that exceeds rationality and even if they dropped their standards for this that should only get them down to "conservative and rather safe" levels of caution. On the other, a cursory search says the current record for fastest developed vaccine was mumps at 4 years. So this is a vaccine setting new milestones, and there is a risk that not all of them will be positive. I'd rather be a little late to be vaccinated than a little early, especially being in a lower risk demographic.
- taejo 6y ago
  I'm not an expert by any means, but I do know that a lot of the speed comes from moving along the CHEAP-FAST side of the CHEAP-FAST-SAFE triangle, without necessarily changing anything on the FAST-SAFE axis. In particular, governments paid for the companies to start producing enough vaccines for phase 3 trials before phase 1 was complete, while normally drug companies would wait for phase 1 to be completed before preparing for phase 2 for economic reasons.
  - beagle3 6y ago
    BiondVax recently finished their phase 3 trial of a universal flu vaccine. It was 15 years in the making. Science was (still is solid). Phase 3 took two years to account for ADE and other safety issues. At the 1-year mark, everything looked perfect. At the towo years mark (original endpoint) the conclusion was that while it was safe, it offered statistically insignificant protection. Properly designed tests need those 2 years, at the very least. The “SAFE” confidence axis was compromised. Whether or nit it is justified is what we’re discussing here.
feral 6y ago
I'm very pro-vaccine, and not disagreeing with your conclusions, but your logic leaves out the consideration that the natural risk also depends on catching the disease, whereas the vaccine is administered systematically.
- jjk166 6y ago
  Well the odds of people getting the flu are pretty high
beagle3 6y ago
No, the cutter incidence was worse than the disease, because the activated virus was injected into a population, whereas naturally only a tiny part would be exposed at the same level, and the rest would be exposed at a much lower level - that would give them immunity but not disease. Cutter was, most definitely, much worse than the disease if you look at it from a population perspective. The 1976 Guilian barre was at least comparable to the flu it was supposed to stop, if not worse. According to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak, the disease caused one death and 13 hospitalizations, and an uptick of Giullan barre reports - a disease that more often than not requires hospitalization and sometimes death. I can assure you it caused more than 13 hospitalizations, and - having known two GBS people who made a full recovery - a very long and painful months long process. So, at 50,000,000 immunized - a 1 in 1,000,000 would still be worse than the flu. I am not anti vax even if HN constantly seems to interpret my comments as such. I am vaccinated, so are my kids. But whenever I mention that immunizations have risks, I’m treated like a heretic. Everyone is assuming something like cutter cannot happen again. This is a religious assumption, not a scientific one.
- i_cannot_hack 6y ago
  > No, the cutter incidence was worse than the disease, because the activated virus was injected into a population, whereas naturally only a tiny part would be exposed at the same level, and the rest would be exposed at a much lower level - that would give them immunity but not disease. This is a more reasonable assessment, but it is still patently false. According to Wikipedia, 0.04% vaccinations resulted in paralysis in the Cutter Incident, compared to 0.1-0.5% of wild type polio. So the vaccine was 2-10x safer than wild polio. Without vaccinations, virtually all children were infected with polio virus early in life [1], so being administered the defective vaccine was still a lot better than taking a chance with the real disease. Of course, you are correct regarding the 1976 flu outbreak. If you administer something to a large segment of the healthy population, even a small risk of side-effects will add upp to a large number of cases. If the disease itself turns out to be very rare, as was the case with the flu outbreak, the vaccine itself could cause more damage than the disease even if the disease is much worse. However, this is clearly not applicable Covid-19, which we already know is spreading very fast and will need to infect a large number of the population before herd immunity is achieved. The situations are simply not comparable at all – even the vaccine from the 1976 flu outbreak would be less risky than the odds of being infected with a serious case of Covid 19 (of which the long term effects are also unknown, to be clear). > But whenever I mention that immunizations have risks, I’m treated like a heretic. Mainstream media, healthcare professionals and social media are all worried about the risks of a rushed vaccine. I literally see articles and hear conversations about this several times a month. Nobody is denying that large scale vaccinations have risks. I'm not criticizing you because I'm against being cautious of vaccination risks. The criticism is that you are spreading false facts and misleading analysis that grossly mischaracterise what the risks of vaccinations really are, both presently and historically. "Some vaccines can have rare but serious side effects" is a perfectly alright statement. But "Historically, two cases of rushed vaccines (cutter polio and Gullah barre) were worse than the disease - and these were for diseases worse than covid" is just not. Some of it is false and the comparison to Covid19 is misleading. [1] https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/poliomyelitis/facts https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/poliomyelitis/facts
disabled 6y ago
I have had Guillain-Barre Syndrome (not due to a vaccine). No matter what, I still always get my vaccines and make sure that I am up to date and never late on any of them. Sure, having Guillain-Barre is scary, but it is something that you can make a full recovery from. It is never an excuse NOT to get a vaccine, unless you actually know that you got Guillain-Barre Syndrome from a vaccine. That is a discussion between that particular patient and their neuromuscular neurologist. In that case, you do not get the flu vaccine any longer because it can cause you to experience Guillain-Barre Syndrome again. But, this really is an isolated situation that can be categorized as very rare and the general public should always get their vaccines. If you catch the flu, it can absolutely trigger Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and would be far more likely to trigger Guillain-Barre Syndrome than the flu vaccine itself. If you get the flu and had the flu vaccination, it typically makes the flu illness less worse, making you less likely to get something like Guillain-Barre Syndrome. There are lots of infectious agents that can trigger Guillain-Barre Syndrome, so it is wise to get your vaccines to prevent them as much as possible. They prevent serious infections, at minimum, which would help prevent Guillain-Barre Syndrome. I also have the long term variant of Guillain-Barre Syndrome, known as Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy, which is in pharmaceutical remission due to me taking subcutaneous immunoglobulin twice a week for 3 hours each time. What I am saying is that while all of this sounds rare and devastating, it’s treatable. Not only that, you’re more likely to get Guillain-Barre Syndrome from a bad case of the flu than from a flu shot.

roenxi 6y ago

On the one hand I tend to agree, and all my expectations for this vaccine are positive. The medical industry tends to be paranoid to a level that exceeds rationality and even if they dropped their standards for this that should only get them down to "conservative and rather safe" levels of caution. On the other, a cursory search says the current record for fastest developed vaccine was mumps at 4 years. So this is a vaccine setting new milestones, and there is a risk that not all of them will be positive. I'd rather be a little late to be vaccinated than a little early, especially being in a lower risk demographic.

taejo 6y ago
I'm not an expert by any means, but I do know that a lot of the speed comes from moving along the CHEAP-FAST side of the CHEAP-FAST-SAFE triangle, without necessarily changing anything on the FAST-SAFE axis. In particular, governments paid for the companies to start producing enough vaccines for phase 3 trials before phase 1 was complete, while normally drug companies would wait for phase 1 to be completed before preparing for phase 2 for economic reasons.
- beagle3 6y ago
  BiondVax recently finished their phase 3 trial of a universal flu vaccine. It was 15 years in the making. Science was (still is solid). Phase 3 took two years to account for ADE and other safety issues. At the 1-year mark, everything looked perfect. At the towo years mark (original endpoint) the conclusion was that while it was safe, it offered statistically insignificant protection. Properly designed tests need those 2 years, at the very least. The “SAFE” confidence axis was compromised. Whether or nit it is justified is what we’re discussing here.

feral 6y ago

I'm very pro-vaccine, and not disagreeing with your conclusions, but your logic leaves out the consideration that the natural risk also depends on catching the disease, whereas the vaccine is administered systematically.

jjk166 6y ago
Well the odds of people getting the flu are pretty high

beagle3 6y ago

No, the cutter incidence was worse than the disease, because the activated virus was injected into a population, whereas naturally only a tiny part would be exposed at the same level, and the rest would be exposed at a much lower level - that would give them immunity but not disease. Cutter was, most definitely, much worse than the disease if you look at it from a population perspective. The 1976 Guilian barre was at least comparable to the flu it was supposed to stop, if not worse. According to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak, the disease caused one death and 13 hospitalizations, and an uptick of Giullan barre reports - a disease that more often than not requires hospitalization and sometimes death. I can assure you it caused more than 13 hospitalizations, and - having known two GBS people who made a full recovery - a very long and painful months long process. So, at 50,000,000 immunized - a 1 in 1,000,000 would still be worse than the flu. I am not anti vax even if HN constantly seems to interpret my comments as such. I am vaccinated, so are my kids. But whenever I mention that immunizations have risks, I’m treated like a heretic. Everyone is assuming something like cutter cannot happen again. This is a religious assumption, not a scientific one.

i_cannot_hack 6y ago
> No, the cutter incidence was worse than the disease, because the activated virus was injected into a population, whereas naturally only a tiny part would be exposed at the same level, and the rest would be exposed at a much lower level - that would give them immunity but not disease. This is a more reasonable assessment, but it is still patently false. According to Wikipedia, 0.04% vaccinations resulted in paralysis in the Cutter Incident, compared to 0.1-0.5% of wild type polio. So the vaccine was 2-10x safer than wild polio. Without vaccinations, virtually all children were infected with polio virus early in life [1], so being administered the defective vaccine was still a lot better than taking a chance with the real disease. Of course, you are correct regarding the 1976 flu outbreak. If you administer something to a large segment of the healthy population, even a small risk of side-effects will add upp to a large number of cases. If the disease itself turns out to be very rare, as was the case with the flu outbreak, the vaccine itself could cause more damage than the disease even if the disease is much worse. However, this is clearly not applicable Covid-19, which we already know is spreading very fast and will need to infect a large number of the population before herd immunity is achieved. The situations are simply not comparable at all – even the vaccine from the 1976 flu outbreak would be less risky than the odds of being infected with a serious case of Covid 19 (of which the long term effects are also unknown, to be clear). > But whenever I mention that immunizations have risks, I’m treated like a heretic. Mainstream media, healthcare professionals and social media are all worried about the risks of a rushed vaccine. I literally see articles and hear conversations about this several times a month. Nobody is denying that large scale vaccinations have risks. I'm not criticizing you because I'm against being cautious of vaccination risks. The criticism is that you are spreading false facts and misleading analysis that grossly mischaracterise what the risks of vaccinations really are, both presently and historically. "Some vaccines can have rare but serious side effects" is a perfectly alright statement. But "Historically, two cases of rushed vaccines (cutter polio and Gullah barre) were worse than the disease - and these were for diseases worse than covid" is just not. Some of it is false and the comparison to Covid19 is misleading. [1] https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/poliomyelitis/facts https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/poliomyelitis/facts

disabled 6y ago

I have had Guillain-Barre Syndrome (not due to a vaccine). No matter what, I still always get my vaccines and make sure that I am up to date and never late on any of them. Sure, having Guillain-Barre is scary, but it is something that you can make a full recovery from. It is never an excuse NOT to get a vaccine, unless you actually know that you got Guillain-Barre Syndrome from a vaccine. That is a discussion between that particular patient and their neuromuscular neurologist. In that case, you do not get the flu vaccine any longer because it can cause you to experience Guillain-Barre Syndrome again. But, this really is an isolated situation that can be categorized as very rare and the general public should always get their vaccines. If you catch the flu, it can absolutely trigger Guillain-Barre Syndrome, and would be far more likely to trigger Guillain-Barre Syndrome than the flu vaccine itself. If you get the flu and had the flu vaccination, it typically makes the flu illness less worse, making you less likely to get something like Guillain-Barre Syndrome. There are lots of infectious agents that can trigger Guillain-Barre Syndrome, so it is wise to get your vaccines to prevent them as much as possible. They prevent serious infections, at minimum, which would help prevent Guillain-Barre Syndrome. I also have the long term variant of Guillain-Barre Syndrome, known as Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy, which is in pharmaceutical remission due to me taking subcutaneous immunoglobulin twice a week for 3 hours each time. What I am saying is that while all of this sounds rare and devastating, it’s treatable. Not only that, you’re more likely to get Guillain-Barre Syndrome from a bad case of the flu than from a flu shot.