10 ms·

> * Novel vaccination - barely month of research. Weeks of evidence and practice. We don't have best practices yet. That is completely untrue. This vaccine has

> * Novel vaccination - barely month of research. Weeks of evidence and practice. We don't have best practices yet. That is completely untrue. This vaccine has been through several clinical trials for months. We know that there are no side effects that are common enough to be of real concern. The reason we are only seeing this one now is that it is so rare.

cheph 6y ago
> We know that there are no side effects that are common enough to be of real concern How did they establish that there are no long term side effects?
- _Understated_ 6y ago
  You've been unfairly downvoted. Your question is perfectly reasonable. This seems to be characteristic of HN in the last couple of years... very reminiscent of Reddit imo. Long-term effects are one of the main points of study in clinical trials so why would these drugs ben any different?
- abduhl 6y ago
  Probably the same way they established that long covid is an apparent death sentence.
- majewsky 6y ago
  Not a doctor, but from what I've heard from immunologists, vaccines in general are incredibly unlikely to have long-term side effects on the scales that you think about. When an immunologist talks about "long-term side effects" of a vaccination, they're usually considering time ranges on the order of 6-8 weeks. Meanwhile, the 10000s of patients from the big Phase 3 trials have been vaccinated for 6-9 months, so the usual scale of long-term side effects has long been registered. That's not to say that it's completely out of the question that there will be long-long-term side effects. But if anything is going to cause long-term issues, my money is on the virus, not any vaccine.
  - Solstinox 6y ago
    The only reason we think that is because vaccines in the past have had most of their recorded side effects present in the first few weeks. Past performance...
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      ... is a pretty decent indicator in this case. Vaccines are not the stock market. No one doubts gravity because "past performance is not indicative of future results".
      - Solstinox 6y ago
        I don’t think gravity and medical intervention risk and uncertainty are in the same domain. I could be wrong.
        ceejayoz 6y ago
        I'm suggesting you apply the same cross-domain skepticism to your adage that comes from the financial domain.
        Solstinox 6y ago
        The situation here is closer to financial domain than the law of gravity failing.
      - dnautics 6y ago
        > Vaccines are not the stock market How many genetically engineered adenovirus vaccines have there been before? The vaccines that are your prior are typically attenuated or inactivated virus. Majorly different category, we are in untreaded space (I'm still planning on getting one)
        Ericson2314 6y ago
        You realize attenuated virusues are also genetically modified? Just via artificial selection.
- fit2rule 6y ago
  It hasn't been established yet.
- pbak 6y ago
  You kind of answer your own question : only time will tell, ironically, and nobody else. Also, to all those saying "clinical trials have succeeded", I strongly suggest them to read said published trial results and look at _measured_ sample sizes used in the results, not total inoculation numbers. Applying the precautionary principle, particularly if you are not at risk, is a perfectly reasonable position, IMHO.
octopoc 6y ago
> We know that there are no side effects that are common enough to be of real concern No, we can't know that. Some affects don't show up for a long time. One example is women. Women's bodies are complex because they go through so many changes. These changes affect how they respond to medical treatments. In other words: - Just because pre-menopause women respond well doesn't mean post-menopause women will. - Just because pre- or post-menopause women respond well doesn't mean women who are going through menopause respond well. - Just because non-pregnant women respond well to the vaccine for a month doesn't mean that pregnant women will respond well. - Just because 6-month pregnant women respond well doesn't mean 3-month pregnant women will respond well. - Any issues with the vaccine during pregnancy may not show up until after the child is born. - Women's hormones are fluctuating wildly at the beginning and after pregnancy. These are also times that need a lot of representation in the study. In fact, the amount of change women's bodies undergo affects medical treatment so much that many clinical trials deliberately under-represent women to simplify the study, and then use the results of the trial to recommend prescriptions for women.
bluGill 6y ago
The clinical trials have been for months on limited numbers of people. Given this seems to be a 1 in a million situation the odds are against those trials discovering them.
- mikem170 6y ago
  Actually they did notice extra blood clots during the trials, but didn't think it was statistically significant [0] (15 blood clots versus 10 in the placebo group, in a trial of 20k people). [0] https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/johnson-vaccine-blood-clots-cdc-fda/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/johnson-vaccine-blood-...
  - bluGill 6y ago
    I stand corrected.

cheph 6y ago

> We know that there are no side effects that are common enough to be of real concern How did they establish that there are no long term side effects?

_Understated_ 6y ago
You've been unfairly downvoted. Your question is perfectly reasonable. This seems to be characteristic of HN in the last couple of years... very reminiscent of Reddit imo. Long-term effects are one of the main points of study in clinical trials so why would these drugs ben any different?
abduhl 6y ago
Probably the same way they established that long covid is an apparent death sentence.
majewsky 6y ago
Not a doctor, but from what I've heard from immunologists, vaccines in general are incredibly unlikely to have long-term side effects on the scales that you think about. When an immunologist talks about "long-term side effects" of a vaccination, they're usually considering time ranges on the order of 6-8 weeks. Meanwhile, the 10000s of patients from the big Phase 3 trials have been vaccinated for 6-9 months, so the usual scale of long-term side effects has long been registered. That's not to say that it's completely out of the question that there will be long-long-term side effects. But if anything is going to cause long-term issues, my money is on the virus, not any vaccine.
- Solstinox 6y ago
  The only reason we think that is because vaccines in the past have had most of their recorded side effects present in the first few weeks. Past performance...
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    ... is a pretty decent indicator in this case. Vaccines are not the stock market. No one doubts gravity because "past performance is not indicative of future results".
    - Solstinox 6y ago
      I don’t think gravity and medical intervention risk and uncertainty are in the same domain. I could be wrong.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        I'm suggesting you apply the same cross-domain skepticism to your adage that comes from the financial domain.
        Solstinox 6y ago
        The situation here is closer to financial domain than the law of gravity failing.
    - dnautics 6y ago
      > Vaccines are not the stock market How many genetically engineered adenovirus vaccines have there been before? The vaccines that are your prior are typically attenuated or inactivated virus. Majorly different category, we are in untreaded space (I'm still planning on getting one)
      - Ericson2314 6y ago
        You realize attenuated virusues are also genetically modified? Just via artificial selection.
fit2rule 6y ago
It hasn't been established yet.
pbak 6y ago
You kind of answer your own question : only time will tell, ironically, and nobody else. Also, to all those saying "clinical trials have succeeded", I strongly suggest them to read said published trial results and look at _measured_ sample sizes used in the results, not total inoculation numbers. Applying the precautionary principle, particularly if you are not at risk, is a perfectly reasonable position, IMHO.

octopoc 6y ago

> We know that there are no side effects that are common enough to be of real concern No, we can't know that. Some affects don't show up for a long time. One example is women. Women's bodies are complex because they go through so many changes. These changes affect how they respond to medical treatments. In other words: - Just because pre-menopause women respond well doesn't mean post-menopause women will. - Just because pre- or post-menopause women respond well doesn't mean women who are going through menopause respond well. - Just because non-pregnant women respond well to the vaccine for a month doesn't mean that pregnant women will respond well. - Just because 6-month pregnant women respond well doesn't mean 3-month pregnant women will respond well. - Any issues with the vaccine during pregnancy may not show up until after the child is born. - Women's hormones are fluctuating wildly at the beginning and after pregnancy. These are also times that need a lot of representation in the study. In fact, the amount of change women's bodies undergo affects medical treatment so much that many clinical trials deliberately under-represent women to simplify the study, and then use the results of the trial to recommend prescriptions for women.

bluGill 6y ago

The clinical trials have been for months on limited numbers of people. Given this seems to be a 1 in a million situation the odds are against those trials discovering them.

mikem170 6y ago
Actually they did notice extra blood clots during the trials, but didn't think it was statistically significant [0] (15 blood clots versus 10 in the placebo group, in a trial of 20k people). [0] https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/johnson-vaccine-blood-clots-cdc-fda/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/13/health/johnson-vaccine-blood-...
- bluGill 6y ago
  I stand corrected.