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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

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).
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > It is the responsibility of the authorities to provide appropriate information. What good is information without knowledge? What can a random citizen do with a medical study but shrug and say "I guess?" > If they can not find some good journalists for that money, what can they even be trusted with? Journalists have increasingly transitioned from understanding themselves as a public watchdog to explaining government policies. But even if they hadn't, journalists are fundamentally "citizens with typewriters", they are generally not experts on the topics they cover, and I'm sure you've noticed that on topics you know a lot about. Even if you agree with their general description, they'll get a lot of details wrong, and somebody who doesn't know the topic at all won't gain a lot by reading an article written by someone who also doesn't really know the topic. It's like playing Chinese Whispers, where you whisper something into another player's ear, they repeat it to the next person and so on until something totally different makes it back to you. I sure hope they have some information, but I don't think that politicians are making informed decisions. I believe, they delegate the decision to (who they believe to be the best) experts. It's unreasonable to expect career politicians to e.g. understand how exactly viral infections are spreading, how that will affect some part of the population during some specific seasonal weather that we're expecting with such and such probability etc. What they can do is ask their favorite topic expert who hopefully understands all that and tells them to push this button or that one. But beyond giving that expert room in a news paper to say what they told the politician, what can be done? Surely they can't just compress 6 years of intense studying of the topic at hand into an article and expect citizens to be "up to speed" and able to make informed decisions?
blub 6y ago
Doctors in the EU are obliged to educate the patient on the risks and benefits of vaccines. It's not unheard of that they don't, but it is our right as patients to know the basic information about any vaccine we are being administered. Sometimes there are multiple options which can be evaluated. Don't preach about how we should accept anything that's thrown our way. Many of us are in a tough situation so we'll accept the crappy AZ, but if such a vaccine were released on the market and had to compete with the likes of Pfizer nobody would pick it.
- thu2111 6y ago
  This is horrible. There is no difference between the AZ vaccine and Pfizer. One is not "crappy" - you're literally posting this on a thread that says it's safe and effective in multiple studies. The EU is becoming a disaster zone of vaccine propaganda. I would never have imagined that national governments would become the primary source of anti-vax nonsense. Make no mistake about it - European politicians have been attacking the AZ vaccine because it originates from the UK and they are ideologically blinded by hatred of Brexit. They've been systematically lying about this particular vaccine and no other one right from the start. They claimed it didn't work: false, based on a "misreading" of a German report. They claimed the UK had blocked export of it: false. They claimed AZ was in contract violation: false. They claimed it was dangerous: false. Every time one lie is dispelled, another immediately emerges to take its place. And it's coming from people like Merkel and Macron. Unreal.
  - dtf 6y ago
    > European politicians have been attacking the AZ vaccine because it originates from the UK and they are ideologically blinded by hatred of Brexit. There was a good piece in the Irish Times this weekend if you fancy a less UK-centric view on this. The view you've expressed above seems to be the only one I read among the British press/commentariat. Perhaps it is the UK that is blinded? https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/brexit-blinds-britain-to-astrazeneca-s-blunders-1.4514825 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/brexit-blinds-britain-to-... "The Oxford/AstraZeneca team managed an extraordinary feat – producing a safe and effective vaccine against a novel coronavirus within a few months. Yet time and again, AstraZeneca has undermined its own efforts with communication blunders, a lack of transparency and a consistent record of overestimating its own capacity to deliver."
m-p-3 6y ago
I'm glad we got vaccines out so quickly, but I can see why some people ask about their safety as it never happened so quickly in the past and mRNA at such a large scale is unheard of. Unfortunately, the anti-vax crowd will use any means necessary to discredit vaccines, and scepticism is part of their toolkit.
- xiphias2 6y ago
  It's not just skeptism: I didn't like the ,,1 and half dose'' and other bullshit that AstraZeneca did in their Phase 3 to not have proper testing on old people. There is a reason why the data was not good enough for the FDA to approve it, it seemed like the AstraZeneca Phase 3 testing was rushed and on a level that would be unacceptable if there wasn't a pandemic. Even in their announcements AstraZeneca seems like trying to hide the problems instead of giving a balanced view of the (probably small) risks.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    The FDA requires their own trials, there was no after the fact decision to not use the other data, they just never considered it. It's likely they'll issue an EUA for the AstraZeneca vaccine based on the US trial results in a couple weeks here.
  - kcartlidge 6y ago
    > it seemed like the AstraZeneca Phase 3 testing was rushed and on a level that would be unacceptable if there wasn't a pandemic I didn't like the lack of data on the older populations, either, and totally get why various regulators decided they wanted more such before going forward with it (given that the AZ one is based on known vaccine tech I'd have trusted it anyway, but that's a personal choice). However the lack of data in the older population was not due to rushing (though it was rushed, obviously). They started pretty early on before much was known about the medical aspects of Covid-19 and took the deliberate decision not to risk people with age-reduced immune systems at the start. Yes, that wasn't helpful, but you could also argue it was pretty good ethically and morally so it's hard really to fault them for it.

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).
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > It is the responsibility of the authorities to provide appropriate information. What good is information without knowledge? What can a random citizen do with a medical study but shrug and say "I guess?" > If they can not find some good journalists for that money, what can they even be trusted with? Journalists have increasingly transitioned from understanding themselves as a public watchdog to explaining government policies. But even if they hadn't, journalists are fundamentally "citizens with typewriters", they are generally not experts on the topics they cover, and I'm sure you've noticed that on topics you know a lot about. Even if you agree with their general description, they'll get a lot of details wrong, and somebody who doesn't know the topic at all won't gain a lot by reading an article written by someone who also doesn't really know the topic. It's like playing Chinese Whispers, where you whisper something into another player's ear, they repeat it to the next person and so on until something totally different makes it back to you. I sure hope they have some information, but I don't think that politicians are making informed decisions. I believe, they delegate the decision to (who they believe to be the best) experts. It's unreasonable to expect career politicians to e.g. understand how exactly viral infections are spreading, how that will affect some part of the population during some specific seasonal weather that we're expecting with such and such probability etc. What they can do is ask their favorite topic expert who hopefully understands all that and tells them to push this button or that one. But beyond giving that expert room in a news paper to say what they told the politician, what can be done? Surely they can't just compress 6 years of intense studying of the topic at hand into an article and expect citizens to be "up to speed" and able to make informed decisions?

blub 6y ago

Doctors in the EU are obliged to educate the patient on the risks and benefits of vaccines. It's not unheard of that they don't, but it is our right as patients to know the basic information about any vaccine we are being administered. Sometimes there are multiple options which can be evaluated. Don't preach about how we should accept anything that's thrown our way. Many of us are in a tough situation so we'll accept the crappy AZ, but if such a vaccine were released on the market and had to compete with the likes of Pfizer nobody would pick it.

thu2111 6y ago
This is horrible. There is no difference between the AZ vaccine and Pfizer. One is not "crappy" - you're literally posting this on a thread that says it's safe and effective in multiple studies. The EU is becoming a disaster zone of vaccine propaganda. I would never have imagined that national governments would become the primary source of anti-vax nonsense. Make no mistake about it - European politicians have been attacking the AZ vaccine because it originates from the UK and they are ideologically blinded by hatred of Brexit. They've been systematically lying about this particular vaccine and no other one right from the start. They claimed it didn't work: false, based on a "misreading" of a German report. They claimed the UK had blocked export of it: false. They claimed AZ was in contract violation: false. They claimed it was dangerous: false. Every time one lie is dispelled, another immediately emerges to take its place. And it's coming from people like Merkel and Macron. Unreal.
- dtf 6y ago
  > European politicians have been attacking the AZ vaccine because it originates from the UK and they are ideologically blinded by hatred of Brexit. There was a good piece in the Irish Times this weekend if you fancy a less UK-centric view on this. The view you've expressed above seems to be the only one I read among the British press/commentariat. Perhaps it is the UK that is blinded? https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/brexit-blinds-britain-to-astrazeneca-s-blunders-1.4514825 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/brexit-blinds-britain-to-... "The Oxford/AstraZeneca team managed an extraordinary feat – producing a safe and effective vaccine against a novel coronavirus within a few months. Yet time and again, AstraZeneca has undermined its own efforts with communication blunders, a lack of transparency and a consistent record of overestimating its own capacity to deliver."

m-p-3 6y ago

I'm glad we got vaccines out so quickly, but I can see why some people ask about their safety as it never happened so quickly in the past and mRNA at such a large scale is unheard of. Unfortunately, the anti-vax crowd will use any means necessary to discredit vaccines, and scepticism is part of their toolkit.

xiphias2 6y ago
It's not just skeptism: I didn't like the ,,1 and half dose'' and other bullshit that AstraZeneca did in their Phase 3 to not have proper testing on old people. There is a reason why the data was not good enough for the FDA to approve it, it seemed like the AstraZeneca Phase 3 testing was rushed and on a level that would be unacceptable if there wasn't a pandemic. Even in their announcements AstraZeneca seems like trying to hide the problems instead of giving a balanced view of the (probably small) risks.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The FDA requires their own trials, there was no after the fact decision to not use the other data, they just never considered it. It's likely they'll issue an EUA for the AstraZeneca vaccine based on the US trial results in a couple weeks here.
- kcartlidge 6y ago
  > it seemed like the AstraZeneca Phase 3 testing was rushed and on a level that would be unacceptable if there wasn't a pandemic I didn't like the lack of data on the older populations, either, and totally get why various regulators decided they wanted more such before going forward with it (given that the AZ one is based on known vaccine tech I'd have trusted it anyway, but that's a personal choice). However the lack of data in the older population was not due to rushing (though it was rushed, obviously). They started pretty early on before much was known about the medical aspects of Covid-19 and took the deliberate decision not to risk people with age-reduced immune systems at the start. Yes, that wasn't helpful, but you could also argue it was pretty good ethically and morally so it's hard really to fault them for it.