9 ms·

I honestly have a hard time following that line of reasoning. It's always like: "These vaccines are dangerous, what about sideeffects? You're hiding the sideef

by hannob 6y ago

I honestly have a hard time following that line of reasoning. It's always like: "These vaccines are dangerous, what about sideeffects? You're hiding the sideeffects!" Then countries and health authorities show that they're very sensitive when sideeffects show up and do a careful investigation. Now being extra careful is criticized as undermining trust in vaccines? (I guess if they had decided to not pause that would've also caused claims that this undermines trust in vaccines, as they're ignoring sideeffects.) I'm not even saying pausing was the right decision. It was a tough call and I wouldn't want to be in a position to make that call. But I guess there's one undeniable fact: The Anti-Vax crowd will use whatever happens to construct new bullshit arguments. There's no way to prevent that, and I think the best thing to do about it is to ignore those people as much as possible.

lvice 6y ago
The anti-vax crowd is complete nonsense, but the feeling I got from Italy wasn't so much "see! vaccines are dangerous! I am not getting a jab!, but rather "it looks like AstraZeneca may not be entirely safe, I demand a Moderna or Pfizer jab!". Due to extremely skewed media coverage of the recent events, it may also be almost justifiable as a general reaction of population. If people are told that a vaccine has a rare but lethal side effect, and they are not in at-risk category, and there are two other vaccines that seem safer, it is almost reasonable to wait the other one. The main issue has been communication by media which made the investigation into side-effect seem much more severe than what it really was, undermining people trust in AZ. I think newspapers made an horrible job at it. I would definitely still get the AZ vaccine, but I kind of understand where people are coming from, given the message given by media and their number-illiteracy that does not allow them to understand probability and the scale of numbers.
- mmahemoff 6y ago
  The minute-by-minute story of vaccines emerging over the past year has turned everyone into an armchair immunologist. Most people wouldn't normally have a clue who's making a vaccine they need for travel etc, let alone how they compare, but now people act like they're picking from a wine menu. The reality is we're damn well lucky to have any vaccine at all, and only a year after the pandemic kicked off.
  - psychiatrist24 6y ago
    It's a good thing if people try to get informed. The pandemic and its handling by the authorities has unfortunately shown that "the authorities" don't always make the right choices and don't always provide the right data. If the vaccines are safe, it should be easy for the authorities to provide data that shows they are safe. Of course trusting the authorities is a valid life choice, to each their own.
    - m-p-3 6y ago
      > If the vaccines are safe, it should be easy for the authorities to provide data that shows they are safe. A portion of that crowd refuse to acknowledge their safety without more data about their possible long term side-effects, which inevitably takes time that we don't really have.
      - psychiatrist24 6y ago
        Then that portion of the crowd have to make their own decisions. As I said, uncertainty should also be communicated. How exactly do the authorities handle the issue of long term side effects? Presumably they base their decision on some kind of reasoning?
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > It's a good thing if people try to get informed. Do they get informed though? It seems they mostly get articles written by journalists who don't really understand the issue either, sprinkled with a few quotes from professionals that often get taken out of context. I don't think we're turning the population into experts. They're not able to judge the effectiveness, risk and side-effects of any measure. I'm not sure "a little bit of knowledge, some fear and a lot of opinion" is a benefit.
      - psychiatrist24 6y ago
        It is the responsibility of the authorities to provide appropriate information. If they fail to do that - maybe something is wrong with the authorities. I don't think they can simply blame "journalists". In my European country, for example, there is even a "public TV" system that gets funding of several billion dollars every year. If they can not find some good journalists for that money, what can they even be trusted with? I mean they DO have the information, right? We assume they are making "informed" decisions, so the information should be available (including uncertainty, which would also be information - the degree of uncertainty, that is).
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > the feeling I got from Italy wasn't so much "see! vaccines are dangerous! I am not getting a jab!, but rather "it looks like AstraZeneca may not be entirely safe, I demand a Moderna or Pfizer jab!" N=1, but example from my own family circles is: "See! Vaccines are dangerous! If AstraZeneca was safe, half of the world wouldn't be putting it on hold! I'm not going to take it, and don't talk to me about Pfizer and Moderna - I don't want an mRNA vaccine, they're too new technology, who knows what their side effects are. If I really, really have to take a vaccine, I'll wait for Johnson & Johnson." Which, of course, is almost entirely unavailable here (Poland).
  - blub 6y ago
    Another big reason why the vaccine orders were delayed in the EU was that many governments were unconvinced about mRNA vaccines and wanted a classical vaccine. So your family's in good company there. They're also right that we don't know what the side-effects are. We're reasonably sure that there are no long-term damaging effects and know that the current crisis justifies the risk of using this new form of vaccine.
    - hef19898 6y ago
      To be fair, even the mRNA manufacturers weren't that optimistic a year ago. Their development speed and efficacy are pleasant surprise.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > Another big reason why the vaccine orders were delayed in the EU was that many governments were unconvinced about mRNA vaccines and wanted a classical vaccine. Which is a weird stance in my opinion. Even if you're skeptical about safety and effectiveness, not ordering them as soon as they're available makes little sense. Yes, it costs money, but significantly less than locking down for a week or two. It felt a bit like "let's not invest in a backup system yet, we don't know whether we'll need it".
      - blub 6y ago
        I think price + unproven was a big concern for the less wealthy countries. One has to keep in mind with the EU that we tried our best to avoid splitting the continent into winners and losers based on which countries were the wealthiest. Unfortunately we ended up being on the losing side together, but the driving idea wasn't wrong. :-) It was also not wrong to want to do a complete instead of emergency certification of the vaccine or pressing e.g. Pfizer to take responsibility for unwanted side-effects. Other countries risked more and it seems that they were favoured by fortune.
- kryogen1c 6y ago
  > The anti-vax crowd is complete nonsense friendly reminder that this is factually false. vaccines can and do cause harm all the time. there is danger in getting all medicine, and more danger in rushed medicines with potential unstudied long-term side effects. thats not to say that the history of vaccine use isnt overwhelmingly net positive, with the net-positive per cost metric being somehow even higher, but the fastest way to discredit yourself is to ignore the obviously valid and true points of your opponent, even if their overarching thesis is wrong.
  - the_af 6y ago
    > friendly reminder that this is factually false The anti-vax crowd is complete nonsense. Regardless of any actual side-effects or concerns about the actual medicine and science of vaccines, the anti-vax crowd is still conspiracy theory nonsense. They don't go at it rationally, and no discourse is possible with them.
    - tim333 6y ago
      I discourse a bit. I feel it's my duty to debunk a little. Usually it's not hard - a brief googling shows the meme of the day to be junk.
      - the_af 6y ago
        I believe it's not possible precisely because the underlying mentality is one of "they are lying to us". So you debunk the meme of the day and the next meme is waiting for you tomorrow, repeated by the same people. You gain nothing by debunking today's meme. No lesson will be learned because the problem is not one that can be solved by reasoning. No general conclusions are drawn. It's tiresome and futile, and ultimately the anti-vaxxer crowd just "wants to believe"... in conspiracies. I find it's also not always as easy as you put it to debunk crap. It requires time, effort, digging up numbers, comparing statistics, etc, whereas making shit up takes almost no effort.
        tim333 6y ago
solarkraft 6y ago
> Now being extra careful is criticized as undermining trust in vaccines? Some people certainly see it that way, but it seems to me like it's the perfect way to regain trust exactly by demonstrating an extreme sensitivity to actual issues. Besides, something I don't get: Doesn't vaccine demand still way outstrip supply? Should that be the case, "skeptics" and whatever shouldn't matter for now, should they? Neither would stopping vaccination for a moment since we're already running on tiny buffers because we have gigantic vaccination capacity, right? Why not let the early adopters get it to demonstrate safety and just get it out to the people? There are early & late adopters with any technology and as something spreads organically you will also have a ton of "Oh, my friend got it and they're fine!" moments.
jariel 6y ago
This is an incredibly important lesson in public communications. 'The Crowd' is dumb, even if it's made up of mostly smart people. 'Fact' and 'Communications' are completely different things. FYI it's one of the reasons for cancel culture as well. Most people are not offended, or at least might understand a situation given context. But in a flurry of hype, all of that gets lost. This is multiplied by social media. This is why people occupying positions of integrity i.e. Doctors, Presidents's of Countries have a double responsibility to the Truth to the point where it should be legislated. That said - we always need to support legitimate contrarians - but it needs to be based on fact, not hyperbole. There are some lunatic anti-vaxx doctors on TikTok and I'm really not comfortable with it. 'Free Speech' to disseminate absolute lies is literally costing lives.
laurent92 6y ago
> The Anti-Vax crowd will use whatever happens You trust your government and medial institutions, fine. My government has been caught lying over and over “for the public good” during this pandemic, but also on topics like feminism. We know they would lie again without an afterthought like they have in the past, for example giving AIDS to people through blood transfusion (4000 victims because they didn’t want to be seen doubting) or Chernobyl (“Don’t worry, the cloud didn’t reach France” - It did), or bombing the Greenpeace boat with people inside in NZ, or giving 6 diplomatic passports to Benalla and when he was caught beating up political opponents for the service of the king, “seize his passport”... but not seizing the remaining 5 of them. You may live in a democracy, but we don’t. We literally have laws that the press isn’t free to talk during the pandemic. People don’t trust doctors and politicians, simply because they have been shown several times to not be trustworthy. The only remedy is not to take more or less precaution; the only remedy is to start being trustworthy, having open science, having a talk about the risks, and not trying to slander or sue people who have opinions that are not approved by the nomenklatura. As a reminder, the Ordre des Médecins has sued Dr Raoult for “violating fraternity”. The rest of the accusations I’m not a doctor, but “violating fraternity”? Is that science we are talking about, does physics include “follow whatever the group says”? In the end, as long as you believe it is a thing to “lie for the public good”, it is good to trust absolutely no figure we are given and doubt about every single thing you say.
- KMag 6y ago
  > My government has been caught lying over and over “for the public good” during this pandemic, but also on topics like feminism. I'm not familiar with what's been going in your country (France?), but I'd suggest some heavy citations to back up a lightning-rod statement like the above. It's particularly surprising from a country with a pretty good international reputation for press freedom. Were these "feminist lies" arguably innocent innumeracy / failing to perform multivariate regression?
  - wayneftw 6y ago
    You need a citation for government lying to people? Their point was that people generally don't trust institutions anymore. This much is self evident.
krzyk 6y ago
> The Anti-Vax crowd will use whatever happens I assure you that if those that resign from AZ would take a jab with Pfizer or Moderna. But in e.g. Poland they can't because those more pricey vaccines are reserved form >= 70 year olds.
hef19898 6y ago
The anti vaxx crowd is already against it anyway. The way Europe is treating AZ does mean generally pro-vaxx people become sceptical as well. And I see that effect in Germany as well.
ulfw 6y ago
Anti-vax comes from fear. Problem with vaccines is that you take them when you're healthy. People don't worry as much when they're healthy. When you're sick and lying in a hospital bed you're much less hesitant to 'try this one more drug' in hopes of getting better.
mchusma 6y ago
It's the vaccine bans that are bad. Careful review is not. When your government doesn't let you take something you want, it's a ban we just aren't using the word. This one was particularly eggregious, because even if the side effect was caused by AZ (unlikely but possible), it would still make sense to take the vaccine. But giving people a choice is the important thing, particularly in a situation where risk profiles vary so widely. Using pessimistic assumptions and data we knew in July 2020 it made sense to lift the ban, let alone now.
7952 6y ago
The whole argument is based on a false dichotomy between having the vaccine or not having the vaccine. When really it is a choice between have vaccine (possible side effects) or get covid (definite well documented effects). They should explain the decisions in those terms.

by hannob 6y ago

lvice 6y ago

The anti-vax crowd is complete nonsense, but the feeling I got from Italy wasn't so much "see! vaccines are dangerous! I am not getting a jab!, but rather "it looks like AstraZeneca may not be entirely safe, I demand a Moderna or Pfizer jab!". Due to extremely skewed media coverage of the recent events, it may also be almost justifiable as a general reaction of population. If people are told that a vaccine has a rare but lethal side effect, and they are not in at-risk category, and there are two other vaccines that seem safer, it is almost reasonable to wait the other one. The main issue has been communication by media which made the investigation into side-effect seem much more severe than what it really was, undermining people trust in AZ. I think newspapers made an horrible job at it. I would definitely still get the AZ vaccine, but I kind of understand where people are coming from, given the message given by media and their number-illiteracy that does not allow them to understand probability and the scale of numbers.

mmahemoff 6y ago
The minute-by-minute story of vaccines emerging over the past year has turned everyone into an armchair immunologist. Most people wouldn't normally have a clue who's making a vaccine they need for travel etc, let alone how they compare, but now people act like they're picking from a wine menu. The reality is we're damn well lucky to have any vaccine at all, and only a year after the pandemic kicked off.
- psychiatrist24 6y ago
  It's a good thing if people try to get informed. The pandemic and its handling by the authorities has unfortunately shown that "the authorities" don't always make the right choices and don't always provide the right data. If the vaccines are safe, it should be easy for the authorities to provide data that shows they are safe. Of course trusting the authorities is a valid life choice, to each their own.
  - m-p-3 6y ago
    > If the vaccines are safe, it should be easy for the authorities to provide data that shows they are safe. A portion of that crowd refuse to acknowledge their safety without more data about their possible long term side-effects, which inevitably takes time that we don't really have.
    - psychiatrist24 6y ago
      Then that portion of the crowd have to make their own decisions. As I said, uncertainty should also be communicated. How exactly do the authorities handle the issue of long term side effects? Presumably they base their decision on some kind of reasoning?
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > It's a good thing if people try to get informed. Do they get informed though? It seems they mostly get articles written by journalists who don't really understand the issue either, sprinkled with a few quotes from professionals that often get taken out of context. I don't think we're turning the population into experts. They're not able to judge the effectiveness, risk and side-effects of any measure. I'm not sure "a little bit of knowledge, some fear and a lot of opinion" is a benefit.
    - psychiatrist24 6y ago
      It is the responsibility of the authorities to provide appropriate information. If they fail to do that - maybe something is wrong with the authorities. I don't think they can simply blame "journalists". In my European country, for example, there is even a "public TV" system that gets funding of several billion dollars every year. If they can not find some good journalists for that money, what can they even be trusted with? I mean they DO have the information, right? We assume they are making "informed" decisions, so the information should be available (including uncertainty, which would also be information - the degree of uncertainty, that is).
TeMPOraL 6y ago
> the feeling I got from Italy wasn't so much "see! vaccines are dangerous! I am not getting a jab!, but rather "it looks like AstraZeneca may not be entirely safe, I demand a Moderna or Pfizer jab!" N=1, but example from my own family circles is: "See! Vaccines are dangerous! If AstraZeneca was safe, half of the world wouldn't be putting it on hold! I'm not going to take it, and don't talk to me about Pfizer and Moderna - I don't want an mRNA vaccine, they're too new technology, who knows what their side effects are. If I really, really have to take a vaccine, I'll wait for Johnson & Johnson." Which, of course, is almost entirely unavailable here (Poland).
- blub 6y ago
  Another big reason why the vaccine orders were delayed in the EU was that many governments were unconvinced about mRNA vaccines and wanted a classical vaccine. So your family's in good company there. They're also right that we don't know what the side-effects are. We're reasonably sure that there are no long-term damaging effects and know that the current crisis justifies the risk of using this new form of vaccine.
  - hef19898 6y ago
    To be fair, even the mRNA manufacturers weren't that optimistic a year ago. Their development speed and efficacy are pleasant surprise.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > Another big reason why the vaccine orders were delayed in the EU was that many governments were unconvinced about mRNA vaccines and wanted a classical vaccine. Which is a weird stance in my opinion. Even if you're skeptical about safety and effectiveness, not ordering them as soon as they're available makes little sense. Yes, it costs money, but significantly less than locking down for a week or two. It felt a bit like "let's not invest in a backup system yet, we don't know whether we'll need it".
    - blub 6y ago
      I think price + unproven was a big concern for the less wealthy countries. One has to keep in mind with the EU that we tried our best to avoid splitting the continent into winners and losers based on which countries were the wealthiest. Unfortunately we ended up being on the losing side together, but the driving idea wasn't wrong. :-) It was also not wrong to want to do a complete instead of emergency certification of the vaccine or pressing e.g. Pfizer to take responsibility for unwanted side-effects. Other countries risked more and it seems that they were favoured by fortune.
kryogen1c 6y ago
> The anti-vax crowd is complete nonsense friendly reminder that this is factually false. vaccines can and do cause harm all the time. there is danger in getting all medicine, and more danger in rushed medicines with potential unstudied long-term side effects. thats not to say that the history of vaccine use isnt overwhelmingly net positive, with the net-positive per cost metric being somehow even higher, but the fastest way to discredit yourself is to ignore the obviously valid and true points of your opponent, even if their overarching thesis is wrong.
- the_af 6y ago
  > friendly reminder that this is factually false The anti-vax crowd is complete nonsense. Regardless of any actual side-effects or concerns about the actual medicine and science of vaccines, the anti-vax crowd is still conspiracy theory nonsense. They don't go at it rationally, and no discourse is possible with them.
  - tim333 6y ago
    I discourse a bit. I feel it's my duty to debunk a little. Usually it's not hard - a brief googling shows the meme of the day to be junk.
    - the_af 6y ago
      I believe it's not possible precisely because the underlying mentality is one of "they are lying to us". So you debunk the meme of the day and the next meme is waiting for you tomorrow, repeated by the same people. You gain nothing by debunking today's meme. No lesson will be learned because the problem is not one that can be solved by reasoning. No general conclusions are drawn. It's tiresome and futile, and ultimately the anti-vaxxer crowd just "wants to believe"... in conspiracies. I find it's also not always as easy as you put it to debunk crap. It requires time, effort, digging up numbers, comparing statistics, etc, whereas making shit up takes almost no effort.
      - tim333 6y ago

solarkraft 6y ago

> Now being extra careful is criticized as undermining trust in vaccines? Some people certainly see it that way, but it seems to me like it's the perfect way to regain trust exactly by demonstrating an extreme sensitivity to actual issues. Besides, something I don't get: Doesn't vaccine demand still way outstrip supply? Should that be the case, "skeptics" and whatever shouldn't matter for now, should they? Neither would stopping vaccination for a moment since we're already running on tiny buffers because we have gigantic vaccination capacity, right? Why not let the early adopters get it to demonstrate safety and just get it out to the people? There are early & late adopters with any technology and as something spreads organically you will also have a ton of "Oh, my friend got it and they're fine!" moments.

jariel 6y ago

This is an incredibly important lesson in public communications. 'The Crowd' is dumb, even if it's made up of mostly smart people. 'Fact' and 'Communications' are completely different things. FYI it's one of the reasons for cancel culture as well. Most people are not offended, or at least might understand a situation given context. But in a flurry of hype, all of that gets lost. This is multiplied by social media. This is why people occupying positions of integrity i.e. Doctors, Presidents's of Countries have a double responsibility to the Truth to the point where it should be legislated. That said - we always need to support legitimate contrarians - but it needs to be based on fact, not hyperbole. There are some lunatic anti-vaxx doctors on TikTok and I'm really not comfortable with it. 'Free Speech' to disseminate absolute lies is literally costing lives.

laurent92 6y ago

> The Anti-Vax crowd will use whatever happens You trust your government and medial institutions, fine. My government has been caught lying over and over “for the public good” during this pandemic, but also on topics like feminism. We know they would lie again without an afterthought like they have in the past, for example giving AIDS to people through blood transfusion (4000 victims because they didn’t want to be seen doubting) or Chernobyl (“Don’t worry, the cloud didn’t reach France” - It did), or bombing the Greenpeace boat with people inside in NZ, or giving 6 diplomatic passports to Benalla and when he was caught beating up political opponents for the service of the king, “seize his passport”... but not seizing the remaining 5 of them. You may live in a democracy, but we don’t. We literally have laws that the press isn’t free to talk during the pandemic. People don’t trust doctors and politicians, simply because they have been shown several times to not be trustworthy. The only remedy is not to take more or less precaution; the only remedy is to start being trustworthy, having open science, having a talk about the risks, and not trying to slander or sue people who have opinions that are not approved by the nomenklatura. As a reminder, the Ordre des Médecins has sued Dr Raoult for “violating fraternity”. The rest of the accusations I’m not a doctor, but “violating fraternity”? Is that science we are talking about, does physics include “follow whatever the group says”? In the end, as long as you believe it is a thing to “lie for the public good”, it is good to trust absolutely no figure we are given and doubt about every single thing you say.

KMag 6y ago
> My government has been caught lying over and over “for the public good” during this pandemic, but also on topics like feminism. I'm not familiar with what's been going in your country (France?), but I'd suggest some heavy citations to back up a lightning-rod statement like the above. It's particularly surprising from a country with a pretty good international reputation for press freedom. Were these "feminist lies" arguably innocent innumeracy / failing to perform multivariate regression?
- wayneftw 6y ago
  You need a citation for government lying to people? Their point was that people generally don't trust institutions anymore. This much is self evident.

krzyk 6y ago

> The Anti-Vax crowd will use whatever happens I assure you that if those that resign from AZ would take a jab with Pfizer or Moderna. But in e.g. Poland they can't because those more pricey vaccines are reserved form >= 70 year olds.

hef19898 6y ago

The anti vaxx crowd is already against it anyway. The way Europe is treating AZ does mean generally pro-vaxx people become sceptical as well. And I see that effect in Germany as well.

ulfw 6y ago

Anti-vax comes from fear. Problem with vaccines is that you take them when you're healthy. People don't worry as much when they're healthy. When you're sick and lying in a hospital bed you're much less hesitant to 'try this one more drug' in hopes of getting better.

mchusma 6y ago

It's the vaccine bans that are bad. Careful review is not. When your government doesn't let you take something you want, it's a ban we just aren't using the word. This one was particularly eggregious, because even if the side effect was caused by AZ (unlikely but possible), it would still make sense to take the vaccine. But giving people a choice is the important thing, particularly in a situation where risk profiles vary so widely. Using pessimistic assumptions and data we knew in July 2020 it made sense to lift the ban, let alone now.

7952 6y ago

The whole argument is based on a false dichotomy between having the vaccine or not having the vaccine. When really it is a choice between have vaccine (possible side effects) or get covid (definite well documented effects). They should explain the decisions in those terms.