8 ms·

I think it is a disservice to outright label people as anti-vaxers simply for questioning the risk-calculus of vaccines. The (1/7 million) is the current, uncon

by hamadj 5y ago

I think it is a disservice to outright label people as anti-vaxers simply for questioning the risk-calculus of vaccines. The (1/7 million) is the current, unconditional and empirically observed adverse effect of the vaccine - this is a somewhat noisy measure of the true prevalence of this issue. It is okay to be cautious and there are legitimate concerns, and quite frankly, I trust the FDA have good reason to pause this if Moderna/Pfizer are readily available anywy. In countries where there are not alternative vaccines available, the risk calculations change, and as such, you might be better off taking J&J or AZ. In any case, to your earlier point of why they stopped it: they didn't stop it because (7/7 million), they stopped it because it was not observed in the trials and now they have to recalculate the risks for various age-groups and inform people, accordingly. If these events were observed in the trials and the prevalence was the same (in trial, and out of trial) then it would not be a cause for concern. Edit: got the wrong agency, it was FDA, not CDC

kordlessagain 5y ago
> I've already seen a bunch of anit-vaxers referring to this It's not only a disservice, it's a biased way of thinking which only serves the one making the statement, given it allows them a way to alleviate their concerns about having received a level of uncertainty from their actions. I get them them because I also got that shot!
thelean12 5y ago
> I think it is a disservice to outright label people as anti-vaxers simply for questioning the risk-calculus of vaccines. It's the same idea though, and should still be called out. It's people who have unqualified medical opinions, and who are then often spreading that opinion to others as if it's useful. Let the agencies figure it out, pay attention to the latest recommendations from them, and go with that. Anything else is just the blind leading the blind and should be called out.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  In 2012 if someone decided against their doctor's advice not to take an opioid which the FDA had greenlit as safe in far too many cases, would you call that "blind leading the blind"? Iatrogenesis rivals strokes as a cause of death. Most doctors are just slavishly following official doctrines from authorities, and sometimes those authorities get it wrong. We don't even have to look to the Before Covid Times to see examples!
  - thelean12 5y ago
    > sometimes those authorities get it wrong Yes. That's correct. That doesn't change what I said. Answer me this: why do you think unqualified individuals are better suited to get it right? Just because there are examples in the past of people who went against the recommendations who ended up being right, doesn't mean you should take everything else into your own hands. Unless, of course, it's literally your job.
    - blitz_skull 5y ago
      It’s not a question of getting it right, really. I haven’t heard a single uneducated opinion say, “You should not get it because X”. I’ve seen several say, “I will not get it because X” It’s a subtle, but IMO important distinction. If people wanna rationalize not getting the shot based on their own misunderstanding of the science, that’s fine. That’s okay. We don’t need universal understanding here for the vaccine to do it’s thing. Let those who want to get it, get it. And those who don’t, to not get it.
      - spion 5y ago
        That's a good method to not develop immunity and develop resistant strains.
      - thelean12 5y ago
        > I haven’t heard a single uneducated opinion say, “You should not get it because X”. It's not even 3 hours into my day and I've already received 3 texts from family saying something along those lines regarding J&J, even if it gets unpaused. It's a much more prevalent thing to say than you think. > If people wanna rationalize not getting the shot based on their own misunderstanding of the science, that’s fine. That’s okay. It's not okay. We need shots in arms. And you're doing your part by enabling those who are misunderstanding the science by making them feel like it's okay to not get the shot.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  Careful to not play the appeal to authority. Anyone can understand anything, regardless of their so-called qualifications. Are they likely to? No, and that’s why someone’s qualifications are purely a heuristic, not a prerequisite.
  - ryankemper 5y ago
    It's extra frustrating because organizations like the CDC get held to lower standards than anyone else. They can make a pronouncement recommending the use of face masks for SARS-CoV-2 community transmission when the body of the research confirms that (a) such intervention has never been tried in an RCT and indeed the whole "my mask protects you" hypothesis is intentionally unfalsifiable, (b) the research literature documents numerous negative impacts whereas the positive impact on transmission is completely unproven at best, and yet their evidence-less pronouncement is considered evidence in its own right and such a pronouncement is used as a citation in Wikipedia articles, etc. (Just using masking as an example, if any onlookers strongly believe that masking is efficacious for the stated purpose just imagine I gave a different example, although I don't see how anyone could reach that conclusion about masking specifically based on the research literature out there which is neutral at best) Or as another example, the CDC loves to try to encourage people to take the flu vaccine, and yet I was shocked to discover that it takes 71 flu shots to prevent a single flu case, 29 flu shots to prevent one ILI (this is a better number than the flu case number since really we care about ILI in general, but even so 29 is an abysmal number), AND that regardless of the mediocre reduction in cases/ILI, it makes essentially no difference in hospitalizations. Citation on the flu vaccine stuff: https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influenza-healthy-adults https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influ... -- I didn't realize until this year how much of "public health" involves (a) actively and intentionally lying to the public (for example, if you read about the AIDS crisis you learn about the "noble lies" told about who was vulnerable as well as the not-even-noble lies like when Fauci told people you could get AIDS from close contact with someone with AIDS when the scientific evidence showed that to be false), and (b) is really a giant marketing campaign for various big pharma interests (I say that as someone who is an unashamed free-market capitalist, not that the US is actually a true free market when it comes to the pharma/medical industry)
  - 5y ago
- JoshuaDavid 5y ago
  I agree that, unless you have specific concrete reasons to think a public health agency is distorting the facts or making decisions based on politics and ass-covering instead of optimizing for health, you should trust that agency. However, once you have concrete reasons to think that the public health agency is acting on politics and not science, you should not continue to blindly trust them. There are other sources of information besides the public health agency of your particular country, for example public health agencies in other countries, or directly looking at the stats and research papers. In this case, looking at the stats makes it blatantly obvious that your risk from the J&J vaccine is much, much lower than your risk from getting COVID, so if your choice is "J&J" or "no vaccine for another month or two", you should probably pick J&J.
heywherelogingo 5y ago
Agreed, I've had all other vaccines, but this batch is rushed, experimental, and not necessary for me - labelling people such as myself "anti-vaxers" is just dishonest, bitter, childish, name calling. Very few people in my area of London have bothered with the so-called lockdown (too much was open to be called a lockdown), masks, etc - I expect I've had all variants, and apparently my immune system is on top of it, in which case there's nothing to pass on; and the people in my area clearly don't care if I did. I'm no more an "anti-vaxer" than I am an anti-martian.
- tharne 5y ago
  The technology behind this vaccine has been actively worked on for over a decade. Yes, these vaccines have been sent to market faster than normal, but they certainly have not been "rushed".
  - ryankemper 5y ago
    I hear this line being trotted out all over - especially from the "experts" - and I find it nothing short of enraging. There is a difference between saying "an mRNA platform in general might not be safe" and the actual claim real people make which is "this specific vaccine has not existed for more than a year and is being hastily rolled out on the world population via implicit or explicit coercion". The mRNA platform in general can be safe and, say, the Moderna vax could still have a poor safety profile. This is why we perform rigorous long-term testing and why most vaccine approvals (not that these are FDA approved of course) take several years. If you can't be intellectually honest enough to admit that there is a difference between "we've used this platform in theoretical research in small numbers" to "we mass-market and roll out this novel vaccine to billions of humans worldwide", you shouldn't be in the discussion, IMO.
    - 8note 5y ago
      It's the same thing with flu vaccines, mind you. They only get a few months testing before entering mass use The speed of access for these vaccines is that they started mass production while testing was ongoing, rather than waiting until after testing to start production
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
arcticbull 5y ago
> The (1/7 million) is the current, unconditional and empirically observed adverse effect of the vaccine - this is a somewhat noisy measure of the true prevalence of this issue. It is okay to be cautious and there are legitimate concerns, and quite frankly, I trust the FDA have good reason to pause this if Moderna/Pfizer are readily available anywy. How many injections do you personally need to feel comfortable? Seven million people is way more than any clinical trial for any drug you've ever taken, and I guarantee you any of them is more likely to kill you. Every single year 150 people die from taking Tylenol in the US in the normal course of treatment -- and 500 die of acute liver failure due to acetaminophen overdose. 25,000 hospital admissions. 50,000 ER visits. If we pretend that 350,000,000 people take Tylenol each year, that makes Tylenol 50% more likely to kill you than this vaccine. It's simply not ok. They are anti-vaxxers.
- vmladenov 5y ago
  This comment is a prime example of why we’re in this mess with vaccine denial in the first place. You’re either not allowed to say anything negative about vaccines, or you’re an anti-vaxxer who thinks your kids will get autism and 5G chips. It’s so cult-like. We should be honest about the (low) risks and benefits of vaccination without turning it into a political campaign of shame and bullying, and trust people to make the right choice for them and the public. Perhaps you also think the US government is anti-vaxxer, as it runs a publicly funded National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program - https://hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html https://hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    IMO, no - I'm saying that folks risk management is completely out of wack. The chance the disease kills you is 1 in 100. The chance that the vaccine kills you is 1 in 7 000 000. One is bigger than the other. By, like, a lot. The government's response is to pacify anti-vaxxers.
    - vmladenov 5y ago
      Again with the made up numbers that erode trust. I’m 25 and I’m relatively healthy. The risk that the disease kills me is significantly less than 1 in 100; it’s hard to find numbers but one chart had the hospitalization rate for me at 1%, and the death rate 0.01% (edit: though the death rate only covered age and didn’t divide by other factors such as obesity). The “chance” the vaccine kills you is currently zero as there have been no recorded deaths that have been linked to a COVID vaccine. The blood clotting risk has been cited as 1 in a million, but we’re working with limited data. This is the problem with making such extrapolations. I write all of this as I’m on day 2 of dealing with the side effects of J&J.

by hamadj 5y ago

kordlessagain 5y ago

> I've already seen a bunch of anit-vaxers referring to this It's not only a disservice, it's a biased way of thinking which only serves the one making the statement, given it allows them a way to alleviate their concerns about having received a level of uncertainty from their actions. I get them them because I also got that shot!

thelean12 5y ago

> I think it is a disservice to outright label people as anti-vaxers simply for questioning the risk-calculus of vaccines. It's the same idea though, and should still be called out. It's people who have unqualified medical opinions, and who are then often spreading that opinion to others as if it's useful. Let the agencies figure it out, pay attention to the latest recommendations from them, and go with that. Anything else is just the blind leading the blind and should be called out.

AndrewBissell 5y ago
In 2012 if someone decided against their doctor's advice not to take an opioid which the FDA had greenlit as safe in far too many cases, would you call that "blind leading the blind"? Iatrogenesis rivals strokes as a cause of death. Most doctors are just slavishly following official doctrines from authorities, and sometimes those authorities get it wrong. We don't even have to look to the Before Covid Times to see examples!
- thelean12 5y ago
  > sometimes those authorities get it wrong Yes. That's correct. That doesn't change what I said. Answer me this: why do you think unqualified individuals are better suited to get it right? Just because there are examples in the past of people who went against the recommendations who ended up being right, doesn't mean you should take everything else into your own hands. Unless, of course, it's literally your job.
  - blitz_skull 5y ago
    It’s not a question of getting it right, really. I haven’t heard a single uneducated opinion say, “You should not get it because X”. I’ve seen several say, “I will not get it because X” It’s a subtle, but IMO important distinction. If people wanna rationalize not getting the shot based on their own misunderstanding of the science, that’s fine. That’s okay. We don’t need universal understanding here for the vaccine to do it’s thing. Let those who want to get it, get it. And those who don’t, to not get it.
    - spion 5y ago
      That's a good method to not develop immunity and develop resistant strains.
    - thelean12 5y ago
      > I haven’t heard a single uneducated opinion say, “You should not get it because X”. It's not even 3 hours into my day and I've already received 3 texts from family saying something along those lines regarding J&J, even if it gets unpaused. It's a much more prevalent thing to say than you think. > If people wanna rationalize not getting the shot based on their own misunderstanding of the science, that’s fine. That’s okay. It's not okay. We need shots in arms. And you're doing your part by enabling those who are misunderstanding the science by making them feel like it's okay to not get the shot.
ironmagma 5y ago
Careful to not play the appeal to authority. Anyone can understand anything, regardless of their so-called qualifications. Are they likely to? No, and that’s why someone’s qualifications are purely a heuristic, not a prerequisite.
- ryankemper 5y ago
  It's extra frustrating because organizations like the CDC get held to lower standards than anyone else. They can make a pronouncement recommending the use of face masks for SARS-CoV-2 community transmission when the body of the research confirms that (a) such intervention has never been tried in an RCT and indeed the whole "my mask protects you" hypothesis is intentionally unfalsifiable, (b) the research literature documents numerous negative impacts whereas the positive impact on transmission is completely unproven at best, and yet their evidence-less pronouncement is considered evidence in its own right and such a pronouncement is used as a citation in Wikipedia articles, etc. (Just using masking as an example, if any onlookers strongly believe that masking is efficacious for the stated purpose just imagine I gave a different example, although I don't see how anyone could reach that conclusion about masking specifically based on the research literature out there which is neutral at best) Or as another example, the CDC loves to try to encourage people to take the flu vaccine, and yet I was shocked to discover that it takes 71 flu shots to prevent a single flu case, 29 flu shots to prevent one ILI (this is a better number than the flu case number since really we care about ILI in general, but even so 29 is an abysmal number), AND that regardless of the mediocre reduction in cases/ILI, it makes essentially no difference in hospitalizations. Citation on the flu vaccine stuff: https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influenza-healthy-adults https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-influ... -- I didn't realize until this year how much of "public health" involves (a) actively and intentionally lying to the public (for example, if you read about the AIDS crisis you learn about the "noble lies" told about who was vulnerable as well as the not-even-noble lies like when Fauci told people you could get AIDS from close contact with someone with AIDS when the scientific evidence showed that to be false), and (b) is really a giant marketing campaign for various big pharma interests (I say that as someone who is an unashamed free-market capitalist, not that the US is actually a true free market when it comes to the pharma/medical industry)
- 5y ago
JoshuaDavid 5y ago
I agree that, unless you have specific concrete reasons to think a public health agency is distorting the facts or making decisions based on politics and ass-covering instead of optimizing for health, you should trust that agency. However, once you have concrete reasons to think that the public health agency is acting on politics and not science, you should not continue to blindly trust them. There are other sources of information besides the public health agency of your particular country, for example public health agencies in other countries, or directly looking at the stats and research papers. In this case, looking at the stats makes it blatantly obvious that your risk from the J&J vaccine is much, much lower than your risk from getting COVID, so if your choice is "J&J" or "no vaccine for another month or two", you should probably pick J&J.

heywherelogingo 5y ago

Agreed, I've had all other vaccines, but this batch is rushed, experimental, and not necessary for me - labelling people such as myself "anti-vaxers" is just dishonest, bitter, childish, name calling. Very few people in my area of London have bothered with the so-called lockdown (too much was open to be called a lockdown), masks, etc - I expect I've had all variants, and apparently my immune system is on top of it, in which case there's nothing to pass on; and the people in my area clearly don't care if I did. I'm no more an "anti-vaxer" than I am an anti-martian.

tharne 5y ago
The technology behind this vaccine has been actively worked on for over a decade. Yes, these vaccines have been sent to market faster than normal, but they certainly have not been "rushed".
- ryankemper 5y ago
  I hear this line being trotted out all over - especially from the "experts" - and I find it nothing short of enraging. There is a difference between saying "an mRNA platform in general might not be safe" and the actual claim real people make which is "this specific vaccine has not existed for more than a year and is being hastily rolled out on the world population via implicit or explicit coercion". The mRNA platform in general can be safe and, say, the Moderna vax could still have a poor safety profile. This is why we perform rigorous long-term testing and why most vaccine approvals (not that these are FDA approved of course) take several years. If you can't be intellectually honest enough to admit that there is a difference between "we've used this platform in theoretical research in small numbers" to "we mass-market and roll out this novel vaccine to billions of humans worldwide", you shouldn't be in the discussion, IMO.
  - 8note 5y ago
    It's the same thing with flu vaccines, mind you. They only get a few months testing before entering mass use The speed of access for these vaccines is that they started mass production while testing was ongoing, rather than waiting until after testing to start production

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

arcticbull 5y ago

> The (1/7 million) is the current, unconditional and empirically observed adverse effect of the vaccine - this is a somewhat noisy measure of the true prevalence of this issue. It is okay to be cautious and there are legitimate concerns, and quite frankly, I trust the FDA have good reason to pause this if Moderna/Pfizer are readily available anywy. How many injections do you personally need to feel comfortable? Seven million people is way more than any clinical trial for any drug you've ever taken, and I guarantee you any of them is more likely to kill you. Every single year 150 people die from taking Tylenol in the US in the normal course of treatment -- and 500 die of acute liver failure due to acetaminophen overdose. 25,000 hospital admissions. 50,000 ER visits. If we pretend that 350,000,000 people take Tylenol each year, that makes Tylenol 50% more likely to kill you than this vaccine. It's simply not ok. They are anti-vaxxers.

vmladenov 5y ago
This comment is a prime example of why we’re in this mess with vaccine denial in the first place. You’re either not allowed to say anything negative about vaccines, or you’re an anti-vaxxer who thinks your kids will get autism and 5G chips. It’s so cult-like. We should be honest about the (low) risks and benefits of vaccination without turning it into a political campaign of shame and bullying, and trust people to make the right choice for them and the public. Perhaps you also think the US government is anti-vaxxer, as it runs a publicly funded National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program - https://hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html https://hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html
- arcticbull 5y ago
  IMO, no - I'm saying that folks risk management is completely out of wack. The chance the disease kills you is 1 in 100. The chance that the vaccine kills you is 1 in 7 000 000. One is bigger than the other. By, like, a lot. The government's response is to pacify anti-vaxxers.
  - vmladenov 5y ago
    Again with the made up numbers that erode trust. I’m 25 and I’m relatively healthy. The risk that the disease kills me is significantly less than 1 in 100; it’s hard to find numbers but one chart had the hospitalization rate for me at 1%, and the death rate 0.01% (edit: though the death rate only covered age and didn’t divide by other factors such as obesity). The “chance” the vaccine kills you is currently zero as there have been no recorded deaths that have been linked to a COVID vaccine. The blood clotting risk has been cited as 1 in a million, but we’re working with limited data. This is the problem with making such extrapolations. I write all of this as I’m on day 2 of dealing with the side effects of J&J.