9 ms·

Probably every drug has risks, many higher than the 1:1,000,000 reported for AZ/J&J. It's always a balance between the risk untreated vs. treated - many cancer

Probably every drug has risks, many higher than the 1:1,000,000 reported for AZ/J&J. It's always a balance between the risk untreated vs. treated - many cancer drugs will kill you, but slower than they kill the cancer. Contraceptives have various issues, but their "social good" is deemed worthwhile. I've read that they are doing gene analysis to try and determine why these cases appear - is it gender, age, cross-reactions with other meds, ...? And recall that some of these conditions appear without obvious causes. If they're due to an overly aggressive immune response, recall that the cytokine storm caused by covid in such cases is what attacks the lungs (why immunosuppressants are used as treatments). And nobody understands Long Covid.

seriousquestion 6y ago
Long Covid is mostly self reported vague symptoms, namely fatigue and brain fog. It's what happens when you stay at home too much and don't get enough exercise and have a poor diet. Isolation? The Covid 15* that many of us packed on? You will feel worse and especially more fatigued, no doubt. Not to mention being constantly immersed in an environment of fear. It's a misattribution to associate side effects of weight gain, isolation, depression with the Covid illness. * https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-covid-15-if-only-this-is-how-much-weight-the-average-person-actually-gained-during-the-pandemic-11615574913 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-covid-15-if-only-this-...
- rolha-capoeira 6y ago
  That's an awfully simple interpretation to post without linking to at least one study or professional analysis.
- lxgr 6y ago
  That's some pretty impressive remote diagnostic capability you have there, have you thought about a career in telemedicine? (Update: This snarky comment is in response to a much more hostile parent comment that has since been changed.) > It's what happens when you stay at home too much and don't get enough exercise and have a poor diet While both are risk factors for a wide range of illnesses, last time I checked, neither of those cause lung damage visible on a chest x-ray.
- ericb 6y ago
  Source? Yesterday I met a woman whose husband has lost his sense of smell for 4+ months and still has not regained it. My lungs still hurt sometimes on deep breaths 6 months later.
  - incrudible 6y ago
    We'd have to distinguish between physical symptoms that are well-known long-term effects of viral infections and psychosomatic disorders that may be triggered without any infection whatsoever. Losing your sense of smell, even permanently, is a known side-effect of Influenza infection: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23948436/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23948436/ The same is true for many inflammatory conditions, such as myocarditis. As for diffuse symptoms that are most likely psychosomatic: Look into ME/CFS. These are patients which may have a very real perception of debilitating symptoms that have no tangible underlying physical cause. There's a lot of misguided activism surrounding the topic, because people don't want to be perceived as having a mental disorder, due to the associated stigma.
    - ericb 6y ago
      Covid isn't influenza and these were verified cases. You seem to be working from a position of motivated reasoning, so I'm going to opt out of trying to convince you.
      - incrudible 6y ago
        Indeed, Sars-CoV2 isn't Influenza, but its symptoms are anything but unique to respiratory illnesses and viral infections. A popular media narrative has arisen, claiming that COVID poses some unique health risks that weren't already facts of life to some degree. This is then used for justifying endless interventions, re-arranging our whole lives around this one new illness. This can cause panic among the psychologically vulnerable population, causing the very symptoms that are now attributed to "long COVID". I wouldn't phrase it quite as polemically as my flagged cousin, but there is truth to what they are saying. > You seem to be working from a position of motivated reasoning, so I'm going to opt out of trying to convince you. I don't even know what you would want convince me of. We probably agree for the most part. Sars-CoV2 isn't Influenza and (in aggregate) it is more dangerous than Influenza. It made everyday life riskier. We may or may not agree on what an appropriate response to this new risk is. Either way, we both are susceptible to motivated reasoning. That shouldn't prevent us from having a conversation.
- zarkov99 6y ago
  How about all the other people who did not get covid but also stayed home? Shouldn't they all be complaining about fatigue and brain fog? Come on.
  - seriousquestion 6y ago
    They do, and would if asked! Question: Do you feel more fatigued over the past year? Common Answer: Yes. Question: Are you having a harder time concentrating or focusing? Common Answer: Yes.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - lxgr 6y ago
      Again, do you have any data to back this significant claim? To paraphrase, your thesis is "there is no significant difference in physical and mental health between covid patients and people that have only been suffering the social/economic effects of a quarantine but not contracted covid". This thesis seems highly verifiable/falsifiable in an empirical way.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > They do, and would if asked! Today I learned I must have fatigue and brain fog... What delusionally contrived nonsense.
- drzaiusapelord 6y ago
  I have lc. It is borderline crippling. I can barely climb the stairs and terms like "brain fog" are comically inaccurate. Its like being drugged or having something like dementia. I've only somehow managed to barely keep my job by hiding this from my employer. I'm also usually unable to stay away the entire daya and have hard crashes in the afternoon where I must lie down and crash into a weird deep sleep or I might faint standing up. Before this I was active, fit, and generally a high energy person. This also isn't "stress." I won't tell you my life story but I have more mileage on me than most and I've handled serious stress without my entire body falling apart on me. Secondly, the only thing that has helped was my first dose of pfizer, which made me very sick for a week but since then helped with my symptoms significantly. Its very, very clearly linked to the actual virus and how our immune system reacts to it and I'm guessing things like the vaccine may help our immune system recalibrate itself or help our bodies fight off resident infections we just can't beat. Thirdly, post-viral effects are well studied. We see them in all sorts of infections like Lyme, SARS, or EBV. This isn't necessarily new, its just different per virus family. Doctors usually can't help because there's no real treatment, and write people up like me as CFS/ME and hope it goes away (which so far thankfully there are a lot of reports of lc going away after a 2nd dose of the vaccine). Lesser so, people without lc still have chronic issues with their lungs, heart, sense of smell, tinitus, etc. Its really all a matter of degree. This isn't the common cold where you just beat it and go back to normal. For many people normal doesnt come back for a long time and how bad it is in the meantime is the big question. Lastly, I think calling people hysterical from your comfy armchair where you're enjoying good health is tasteless, rude, and ignorant. I hope you never get lc or have to help a loved one with it. I hope you also stay out of the medical field if you have such an ungenerous and anti-compassionate attitude towards sick people.
  - google234123 6y ago
    The fact that you feel like the vaccine helped you makes me suspect your symptoms are not due to covid. Getting covoid will provide the same type of lasting immunity as a vaccine. Moreover, the existence of chronic lyme disease is very dubious. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/chronic-lyme-disease-another-negative-study/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/chronic-lyme-disease-anothe... https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/fake-diagnoses-not-fake-diseases/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/fake-diagnoses-not-fake-dis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Psychology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Psychology
- jean_tta 6y ago
  It is my understanding that many doctors have found "long covid" to 1. be a thing and 2. have specific, unexpected symptoms. Now it is possible that they are all wrong, but could you perhaps give a few arguments why you are right and all those doctors are wrong? [0] unfortunately I only have a French source on this https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2021/03/22/epuisement-difficultes-de-concentration-douleurs-persistantes-l-enigme-des-covid-longs-une-epidemie-dans-l-epidemie_6074061_1650684.html https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2021/03/22/epuisemen...
  - abduhl 6y ago
    These are the same doctors that we now doubt their competence in when it comes to pausing vaccination with J&J and AZ, or are these doctors somehow more credible?
  - incrudible 6y ago
    I can't really concern myself with a paywalled source in French. "Long COVID" is a thing, but is it something unique and specific? Probably not: https://www.vox.com/22298751/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-hauler-symptoms https://www.vox.com/22298751/long-term-side-effects-covid-19... As for ME/CFS being psychosomatic, that's a bit more controversial, with doctors on either side. Nothing is proven either way. Still, symptoms such as fatigue and brain fog are consistent with ME/CFS. We like to dismiss such symptoms when it is convenient, e.g. when it occurs as a side-effect of a vaccine, while taking it rather serious when it occurs after some hyped-up new illness such as COVID. In either cases, it could simply be the Nocebo effect at work.
    - jean_tta 6y ago
      I apologize for not being American and the press in my country costing money. I'll try to do better next time. I note that your link astablishes that long covid is the thing, which the parent comment denies.
      - incrudible 6y ago
        > I apologize for not being American... There's nothing wrong with not being American. You should apologize for being French. > ...and the press in my country costing money. Indeed, it's absurd to charge money for articles written in French. They should pay you for reading them. > I note that your link astablishes that long covid is the thing, which the parent comment denies. Nobody in this thread denies that it exists. We're talking about what it is and is not.
- AndyMcConachie 6y ago
  One of my best friends and his wife have long covid and it has completely wrecked their lives. They had covid 6 months ago and are still incapable of going back to work. My friend was an avid cyclist and his wife was also pretty physically fit. My friend described to me how hard it was for him to make a grilled chese sandwich and how it required him to take breaks in between taking the things out of the fridge and beginning the grilling. He also described to me how he couldn't even listen to music until recently because he couldn't focus on it. It is only recently that he can talk to me on the phone for 30 minutes without getting completely exhausted from the mental energy of it.
physicsguy 6y ago
On top of that, we wouldn't even yet know if there were any long term side effects from Pfizer, etc.
- shlant 6y ago
  although we do not have data yet to show if there are any side effects 1+ years after vaccination, it would be very unlikely that there would be. Serious side effects from vaccines are almost always immediate and seen within a few weeks after administration, not months or years later. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history....
  - bmj 6y ago
    Except this particular vaccination mechanism (mRNA) has never been licensed for use in humans. Yes, there has been research, but never any sort of trial on the scale of what is happening right now. So, we really don't know what the long term effects of this particular type of vaccine are. I'm not trying to cast doubt on the efficacy of the vaccines that have been approved. Rather, I'm simply pointing out we don't have much data on the long term effects on humans.
    - shishy 6y ago
      edited because its not worth
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - srswtf123 6y ago
        By saying "I'm not trying to cast doubt" they in fact acknowledge their statement casts doubt. Surely you can see how...?
    - shlant 6y ago
      yes you are correct that we don't really know until we know, but there is good reason to believe that mRNA vaccines are actually safer than traditional methods https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/multimedia-article/were-better-off-with-mrna-vaccines/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/multimedia-article/were-be... This seems to be at least partially supported by the current risks in regards to currently available non-mRNA vaccines (such as AZ). Also I'm not really sure what saying "we don't know the long term effect are" accomplishes. It's not really adding much to the conversation.
quantgenius 6y ago
Lumping AZ and JNJ together seems inappropriate. The fundamental problem with AZ is that they don't seem to understand how to conduct clinical trials and do data science and so you can't trust any of their numbers. Population level studies on the effectiveness of the AZ vaccine everywhere but the UK would seem to show it is barely effective or ineffective. The population level studies in the UK were largely conducted by the Oxford team that developed the vaccine themselves or their "friends". The head of the team is politically connected. The UK population level studies are almost certainly complete bullshit because during the period when the vaccine supposedly reduced Covid deaths, a draconian lockdown was instituted which certainly had an effect as well, and despite this excess deaths went up by a bit more than half the supposed reduction in Covid deaths. It's not clear the reduction in Covid deaths was any more than would be expected with just the lockdown. The well publicized UK studies are in my opinion, more likely than not, massaging of the numbers to make the Boris Johnson government look good, especially relative to the EU post-Brexit. The Oxford Team and AZ essentially openly admitted to doing p-hacking at a press conference and insist that the vaccine should be used if the results are significant only in any sub-sample. The Oxford team in particular has had a history of claiming fake good vaccine results for other diseases that aren't prevalent in the West. Their history of doing this may not be well known in the West but there have been a lot of problems here. Each problem seems to have had the same cause, p-hacking so they could claim they had good results and get research grants. It's unfortunate in my opinion that a lot of UK and EU policy was based on things these guys said, for example delaying the gap between shots etc. For a vaccine with the actual rather than claimed level of effectiveness of the AZ vaccine, the appropriate level of acceptable side-effects is very low. You only approve a drug if the cost/benefit makes sense. The JNJ vaccine by contrast seems excellent. The top line numbers are not as good as PFE/MRNA but you have to look deeper than that. PFE/MRNA cause side effects including fever etc in 30-40% of people after the second dose. Many people, especially those who've had Covid, get side effects after the first dose as well. JNJ does not prevent mild Covid in 35% of people but the symptoms of this mild Covid are comparable to the side effects from the second dose in the 35% of people who get side effects from PFE/MRNA. In a world where getting exposed to Covid is inevitable, like in the US or Europe right now, it probably doesn't matter which you get, you have to deal with a 30-40% chance of a week of flu like symptoms. However, in a world where Covid is rare, hopefully soon, with JNJ you end up with less symptoms overall and something just as effective in preventing serious Covid and death as PFE/MRNA. Essentially, if there is only a 4% chance of being exposed to Covid when you are out an about, your risk of a week of fever is 4%*35% with JNJ rather than 35% with PFE/MRNA and it's otherwise very comparable. The FDA action on the JNJ vaccine may be overly cautious. About 1 in a million vaccinated got blood clots over almost 2 months of use of the vaccine. In a typical year 6 in a million get blood clots anyway and the frequency seems to be a bit higher in colder months. Given the population groups most vulnerable to blood clots, based on the data currently publicly available, the frequency of blood clots does not seem to go up with the JNJ vaccine either in the population as a whole or in any subgroup. I suspect the FDA action would not have been taken if it hadn't been for the mixup at the Baltimore plant. They likely want to triple check production facilities and the vaccine in the logistics chain because it seems some contaminated vaccines did make it to vaccination sites and may have even been injected. If you got a vaccine with the ingredient switcheroo, it's not unreasonable to believe you would have a higher risk of blood clots. There is no actual study of this, and you would have do a real experiment to make a solid claim but given everything we know increased risk from a vaccine with the ingredient switcheroo is more than just possible.
tpm 6y ago
Denmark reports AZ's serious blood clotting issue as up to 1:40'000. I will still get vaccinated with it if it's available in our country for me as I think the risk is worth it in my case. But if I was a woman under 60 and especially under 40 I would be hesitant to get vaccinated with AZ and probably wait for other vaccine.
- andy_ppp 6y ago
  Source?
  - tpm 6y ago
    "The Danish Health Authority said studies had shown a higher than expected frequency of blood clots following doses, affecting about one in 40,000 people." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56744474 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56744474
    - andy_ppp 6y ago
      It's a weird one isn't it - 1/40,000 but they only gave 150,000 doses out. This seems like the error bars on this would be huge - we've seen in the UK very few of these events with millions vaccinated which is pretty strange. Is there something different about Denmark and Britain at this time of year? I've had the AZ vaccine 1st dose 3 weeks ago now and I keep getting very concerned by the ever changing picture; is it 1 in a million or 1 in 40000, or did these people have conditions that made this situation more likely... will we see an increase in the rate as we get more data too over the coming weeks a lot like we did with COVID. All very unclear right now. I wish the case reports of all the people with blood clots were made available so everyone could review if they match the groups who have had the problems.
      - tpm 6y ago
        I think they have also used Norway's numbers. As to the difference, maybe they first vaccinated health professionals with AZ and UK mostly vaccinated older people with it, so different issues became apparent? It affects mostly younger women, so it would manifest pretty clearly with female nurses.
josefx 6y ago
This might just be the straw that broke the camels back. As far as I remember the contracts the EU signed turned out to be incredibly one sided, with deliveries getting cut down when someone found out that more dosages could be extracted, no hard delivery requirements leading to constant shortages, etc. . Not getting out of that mess when alternatives exist seems like a bad idea.
- makomk 6y ago
  There were no hard delivery requirements in any of AstraZeneca's contracts because they didn't have any way to guarantee how much they could deliver - the contract was literally to build the full-scale production lines, and they had no idea of the yield until those lines were actually built because messy biological processes are involved. The big problems with the EU's AZ purchase is that they bought less of it relative to their population than the UK (so had a commensurately reduced amount of production capacity allocated to them), signed the contract later (meaning less time to fix yield issues), and completely failed to grasp that signing a "best effort" contract for X units of a never-mass-produced vaccine on timescale Y didn't guarantee they'd be delivered on time. Like, the UK apparently only got something like a third the amount of AZ vaccine as expected by now in the initial contract and is more dependent on it than the EU, but you wouldn't even know there was a problem because the publicly-announced schedule was based on actual production numbers - and the UK contract had clauses with teeth to make sure AZ provided the information needed to make that possible. Not only that, the initial plans were ambitious enough that even after the main vaccine supplier underperformed hugely, the UK still ended up ahead of the EU despite most of their vaccines coming from suppliers who did perform as expected.
  - josefx 6y ago
    What kind of "best effort" is signing five more delivery contracts when you aren't even sure that you can get the first few done? > Like, the UK apparently only got something like a third the amount of AZ vaccine as expected So just how far behind the expected production is AZ? The UK only got a third, the EU is months behind schedule and half a dozen other countries are just around the corner waiting to have their contracts fulfilled. > and the UK contract had clauses with teeth Yeah, that would require halfway competent politicians, not something you find in the EU.
8note 6y ago
Does the calculus change based in how many people you'll be giving this to? A 1:1M chance is much different to me if you give it to 3 people or 2 Billion
- sokoloff 6y ago
  I don't think it's different based directly on that, but rather based on something which is strongly related to that. If you're giving a chemotherapy drug to patients with advanced cancer, 1 in 10⁶ is perfectly acceptable. But it's acceptable because the do-nothing course is probably worse. Even serious, chronic pain relief I'd consider 1 in 10⁶ to be a good tradeoff. With vaccines, you're taking healthy people with no acute condition and exposing them so the do-nothing course is much better than the cancer case. Those differences of course drive the "do we give it to 3 people or 2 Billion people?" decision, but it's not directly the breadth but the underlying reason for the breadth that make me think differently about the acceptable risk level. If 2 Billion people had cancer or serious, chronic pain, I'd be in favor of giving them a drug which would cure 999,999 of them for every 1 that it killed.
- dillondoyle 6y ago
  Along that line i'd be interested to hear insight here from a stat person or someone who does these studies. At those low %s what are the chances the actual clot rate say doubles, quadruples as we keep getting larger audiences. With such low numbers random chance would not likely show up in small studies. So what are for instance the statistical chances of seeing a 10x increase in clotting going to 250mm population?
surfsvammel 6y ago
I think the big issue is that people are afraid of the active risk of the vaccine (more so than the passive risk of not getting the shot). I think that even rational people have this fear to some degree. We need to help people deal with that fear. Something I see very little of. I know that kind of fear personally, I’m on meds with risks orders of magnitude worse than that vaccines and that have been (and still is) a struggle for me. I can do the math, and I understand the risks, but taking an active risk is just hard.
- guitarbill 6y ago
  This is probably the most underrated comment. Very few people think twice about e.g. driving a car, but a lot of people are scared of flying. It can also be as simple as being afraid of needles; when I get vaccinated I barely feel it but even knowing that I'm still apprehensive beforehand. Hopefully, as more people get vaccinated, it will become somewhat normalised (in communities that aren't actively against it). If all your mates did it, it's probably fine. (no sarcasm)
throwaway189262 6y ago
These are both Adenovirus vectored vaccines. My theory is that plain Adenovirus also causes clots, but likewise at percentages so low you would never see them in data. Unless you infected millions of people with the same strain, like these vaccines do. There's studies dating back many years showing that adenoviruses can cause clots and thrombocytopenia in rodents. The lesson might end up being, surprisingly, that mRNA vaccines are both safer and more effective than traditional vaccines
- saurik 6y ago
  Viral vector vaccines have a bit more real-world testing than mRNA vaccines, but they certainly aren't "traditional": there are only a few vaccines developed with this technology--for Dengue fever and Ebola--that have ever been authorized for use, and most within the last couple years; the classic notion of a vaccine--and all of our "traditional" vaccines--are either inactive or attenuated strains.

seriousquestion 6y ago

Long Covid is mostly self reported vague symptoms, namely fatigue and brain fog. It's what happens when you stay at home too much and don't get enough exercise and have a poor diet. Isolation? The Covid 15* that many of us packed on? You will feel worse and especially more fatigued, no doubt. Not to mention being constantly immersed in an environment of fear. It's a misattribution to associate side effects of weight gain, isolation, depression with the Covid illness. * https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-covid-15-if-only-this-is-how-much-weight-the-average-person-actually-gained-during-the-pandemic-11615574913 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-covid-15-if-only-this-...

rolha-capoeira 6y ago
That's an awfully simple interpretation to post without linking to at least one study or professional analysis.
lxgr 6y ago
That's some pretty impressive remote diagnostic capability you have there, have you thought about a career in telemedicine? (Update: This snarky comment is in response to a much more hostile parent comment that has since been changed.) > It's what happens when you stay at home too much and don't get enough exercise and have a poor diet While both are risk factors for a wide range of illnesses, last time I checked, neither of those cause lung damage visible on a chest x-ray.
ericb 6y ago
Source? Yesterday I met a woman whose husband has lost his sense of smell for 4+ months and still has not regained it. My lungs still hurt sometimes on deep breaths 6 months later.
- incrudible 6y ago
  We'd have to distinguish between physical symptoms that are well-known long-term effects of viral infections and psychosomatic disorders that may be triggered without any infection whatsoever. Losing your sense of smell, even permanently, is a known side-effect of Influenza infection: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23948436/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23948436/ The same is true for many inflammatory conditions, such as myocarditis. As for diffuse symptoms that are most likely psychosomatic: Look into ME/CFS. These are patients which may have a very real perception of debilitating symptoms that have no tangible underlying physical cause. There's a lot of misguided activism surrounding the topic, because people don't want to be perceived as having a mental disorder, due to the associated stigma.
  - ericb 6y ago
    Covid isn't influenza and these were verified cases. You seem to be working from a position of motivated reasoning, so I'm going to opt out of trying to convince you.
    - incrudible 6y ago
      Indeed, Sars-CoV2 isn't Influenza, but its symptoms are anything but unique to respiratory illnesses and viral infections. A popular media narrative has arisen, claiming that COVID poses some unique health risks that weren't already facts of life to some degree. This is then used for justifying endless interventions, re-arranging our whole lives around this one new illness. This can cause panic among the psychologically vulnerable population, causing the very symptoms that are now attributed to "long COVID". I wouldn't phrase it quite as polemically as my flagged cousin, but there is truth to what they are saying. > You seem to be working from a position of motivated reasoning, so I'm going to opt out of trying to convince you. I don't even know what you would want convince me of. We probably agree for the most part. Sars-CoV2 isn't Influenza and (in aggregate) it is more dangerous than Influenza. It made everyday life riskier. We may or may not agree on what an appropriate response to this new risk is. Either way, we both are susceptible to motivated reasoning. That shouldn't prevent us from having a conversation.
zarkov99 6y ago
How about all the other people who did not get covid but also stayed home? Shouldn't they all be complaining about fatigue and brain fog? Come on.
- seriousquestion 6y ago
  They do, and would if asked! Question: Do you feel more fatigued over the past year? Common Answer: Yes. Question: Are you having a harder time concentrating or focusing? Common Answer: Yes.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - lxgr 6y ago
    Again, do you have any data to back this significant claim? To paraphrase, your thesis is "there is no significant difference in physical and mental health between covid patients and people that have only been suffering the social/economic effects of a quarantine but not contracted covid". This thesis seems highly verifiable/falsifiable in an empirical way.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > They do, and would if asked! Today I learned I must have fatigue and brain fog... What delusionally contrived nonsense.
drzaiusapelord 6y ago
I have lc. It is borderline crippling. I can barely climb the stairs and terms like "brain fog" are comically inaccurate. Its like being drugged or having something like dementia. I've only somehow managed to barely keep my job by hiding this from my employer. I'm also usually unable to stay away the entire daya and have hard crashes in the afternoon where I must lie down and crash into a weird deep sleep or I might faint standing up. Before this I was active, fit, and generally a high energy person. This also isn't "stress." I won't tell you my life story but I have more mileage on me than most and I've handled serious stress without my entire body falling apart on me. Secondly, the only thing that has helped was my first dose of pfizer, which made me very sick for a week but since then helped with my symptoms significantly. Its very, very clearly linked to the actual virus and how our immune system reacts to it and I'm guessing things like the vaccine may help our immune system recalibrate itself or help our bodies fight off resident infections we just can't beat. Thirdly, post-viral effects are well studied. We see them in all sorts of infections like Lyme, SARS, or EBV. This isn't necessarily new, its just different per virus family. Doctors usually can't help because there's no real treatment, and write people up like me as CFS/ME and hope it goes away (which so far thankfully there are a lot of reports of lc going away after a 2nd dose of the vaccine). Lesser so, people without lc still have chronic issues with their lungs, heart, sense of smell, tinitus, etc. Its really all a matter of degree. This isn't the common cold where you just beat it and go back to normal. For many people normal doesnt come back for a long time and how bad it is in the meantime is the big question. Lastly, I think calling people hysterical from your comfy armchair where you're enjoying good health is tasteless, rude, and ignorant. I hope you never get lc or have to help a loved one with it. I hope you also stay out of the medical field if you have such an ungenerous and anti-compassionate attitude towards sick people.
- google234123 6y ago
  The fact that you feel like the vaccine helped you makes me suspect your symptoms are not due to covid. Getting covoid will provide the same type of lasting immunity as a vaccine. Moreover, the existence of chronic lyme disease is very dubious. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/chronic-lyme-disease-another-negative-study/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/chronic-lyme-disease-anothe... https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/fake-diagnoses-not-fake-diseases/ https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/fake-diagnoses-not-fake-dis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Psychology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo#Psychology
jean_tta 6y ago
It is my understanding that many doctors have found "long covid" to 1. be a thing and 2. have specific, unexpected symptoms. Now it is possible that they are all wrong, but could you perhaps give a few arguments why you are right and all those doctors are wrong? [0] unfortunately I only have a French source on this https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2021/03/22/epuisement-difficultes-de-concentration-douleurs-persistantes-l-enigme-des-covid-longs-une-epidemie-dans-l-epidemie_6074061_1650684.html https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2021/03/22/epuisemen...
- abduhl 6y ago
  These are the same doctors that we now doubt their competence in when it comes to pausing vaccination with J&J and AZ, or are these doctors somehow more credible?
- incrudible 6y ago
  I can't really concern myself with a paywalled source in French. "Long COVID" is a thing, but is it something unique and specific? Probably not: https://www.vox.com/22298751/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-hauler-symptoms https://www.vox.com/22298751/long-term-side-effects-covid-19... As for ME/CFS being psychosomatic, that's a bit more controversial, with doctors on either side. Nothing is proven either way. Still, symptoms such as fatigue and brain fog are consistent with ME/CFS. We like to dismiss such symptoms when it is convenient, e.g. when it occurs as a side-effect of a vaccine, while taking it rather serious when it occurs after some hyped-up new illness such as COVID. In either cases, it could simply be the Nocebo effect at work.
  - jean_tta 6y ago
    I apologize for not being American and the press in my country costing money. I'll try to do better next time. I note that your link astablishes that long covid is the thing, which the parent comment denies.
    - incrudible 6y ago
      > I apologize for not being American... There's nothing wrong with not being American. You should apologize for being French. > ...and the press in my country costing money. Indeed, it's absurd to charge money for articles written in French. They should pay you for reading them. > I note that your link astablishes that long covid is the thing, which the parent comment denies. Nobody in this thread denies that it exists. We're talking about what it is and is not.
AndyMcConachie 6y ago
One of my best friends and his wife have long covid and it has completely wrecked their lives. They had covid 6 months ago and are still incapable of going back to work. My friend was an avid cyclist and his wife was also pretty physically fit. My friend described to me how hard it was for him to make a grilled chese sandwich and how it required him to take breaks in between taking the things out of the fridge and beginning the grilling. He also described to me how he couldn't even listen to music until recently because he couldn't focus on it. It is only recently that he can talk to me on the phone for 30 minutes without getting completely exhausted from the mental energy of it.

physicsguy 6y ago

On top of that, we wouldn't even yet know if there were any long term side effects from Pfizer, etc.

shlant 6y ago
although we do not have data yet to show if there are any side effects 1+ years after vaccination, it would be very unlikely that there would be. Serious side effects from vaccines are almost always immediate and seen within a few weeks after administration, not months or years later. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history....
- bmj 6y ago
  Except this particular vaccination mechanism (mRNA) has never been licensed for use in humans. Yes, there has been research, but never any sort of trial on the scale of what is happening right now. So, we really don't know what the long term effects of this particular type of vaccine are. I'm not trying to cast doubt on the efficacy of the vaccines that have been approved. Rather, I'm simply pointing out we don't have much data on the long term effects on humans.
  - shishy 6y ago
    edited because its not worth
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - srswtf123 6y ago
      By saying "I'm not trying to cast doubt" they in fact acknowledge their statement casts doubt. Surely you can see how...?
  - shlant 6y ago
    yes you are correct that we don't really know until we know, but there is good reason to believe that mRNA vaccines are actually safer than traditional methods https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/multimedia-article/were-better-off-with-mrna-vaccines/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/multimedia-article/were-be... This seems to be at least partially supported by the current risks in regards to currently available non-mRNA vaccines (such as AZ). Also I'm not really sure what saying "we don't know the long term effect are" accomplishes. It's not really adding much to the conversation.

quantgenius 6y ago

Lumping AZ and JNJ together seems inappropriate. The fundamental problem with AZ is that they don't seem to understand how to conduct clinical trials and do data science and so you can't trust any of their numbers. Population level studies on the effectiveness of the AZ vaccine everywhere but the UK would seem to show it is barely effective or ineffective. The population level studies in the UK were largely conducted by the Oxford team that developed the vaccine themselves or their "friends". The head of the team is politically connected. The UK population level studies are almost certainly complete bullshit because during the period when the vaccine supposedly reduced Covid deaths, a draconian lockdown was instituted which certainly had an effect as well, and despite this excess deaths went up by a bit more than half the supposed reduction in Covid deaths. It's not clear the reduction in Covid deaths was any more than would be expected with just the lockdown. The well publicized UK studies are in my opinion, more likely than not, massaging of the numbers to make the Boris Johnson government look good, especially relative to the EU post-Brexit. The Oxford Team and AZ essentially openly admitted to doing p-hacking at a press conference and insist that the vaccine should be used if the results are significant only in any sub-sample. The Oxford team in particular has had a history of claiming fake good vaccine results for other diseases that aren't prevalent in the West. Their history of doing this may not be well known in the West but there have been a lot of problems here. Each problem seems to have had the same cause, p-hacking so they could claim they had good results and get research grants. It's unfortunate in my opinion that a lot of UK and EU policy was based on things these guys said, for example delaying the gap between shots etc. For a vaccine with the actual rather than claimed level of effectiveness of the AZ vaccine, the appropriate level of acceptable side-effects is very low. You only approve a drug if the cost/benefit makes sense. The JNJ vaccine by contrast seems excellent. The top line numbers are not as good as PFE/MRNA but you have to look deeper than that. PFE/MRNA cause side effects including fever etc in 30-40% of people after the second dose. Many people, especially those who've had Covid, get side effects after the first dose as well. JNJ does not prevent mild Covid in 35% of people but the symptoms of this mild Covid are comparable to the side effects from the second dose in the 35% of people who get side effects from PFE/MRNA. In a world where getting exposed to Covid is inevitable, like in the US or Europe right now, it probably doesn't matter which you get, you have to deal with a 30-40% chance of a week of flu like symptoms. However, in a world where Covid is rare, hopefully soon, with JNJ you end up with less symptoms overall and something just as effective in preventing serious Covid and death as PFE/MRNA. Essentially, if there is only a 4% chance of being exposed to Covid when you are out an about, your risk of a week of fever is 4%*35% with JNJ rather than 35% with PFE/MRNA and it's otherwise very comparable. The FDA action on the JNJ vaccine may be overly cautious. About 1 in a million vaccinated got blood clots over almost 2 months of use of the vaccine. In a typical year 6 in a million get blood clots anyway and the frequency seems to be a bit higher in colder months. Given the population groups most vulnerable to blood clots, based on the data currently publicly available, the frequency of blood clots does not seem to go up with the JNJ vaccine either in the population as a whole or in any subgroup. I suspect the FDA action would not have been taken if it hadn't been for the mixup at the Baltimore plant. They likely want to triple check production facilities and the vaccine in the logistics chain because it seems some contaminated vaccines did make it to vaccination sites and may have even been injected. If you got a vaccine with the ingredient switcheroo, it's not unreasonable to believe you would have a higher risk of blood clots. There is no actual study of this, and you would have do a real experiment to make a solid claim but given everything we know increased risk from a vaccine with the ingredient switcheroo is more than just possible.

tpm 6y ago

Denmark reports AZ's serious blood clotting issue as up to 1:40'000. I will still get vaccinated with it if it's available in our country for me as I think the risk is worth it in my case. But if I was a woman under 60 and especially under 40 I would be hesitant to get vaccinated with AZ and probably wait for other vaccine.

andy_ppp 6y ago
Source?
- tpm 6y ago
  "The Danish Health Authority said studies had shown a higher than expected frequency of blood clots following doses, affecting about one in 40,000 people." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56744474 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56744474
  - andy_ppp 6y ago
    It's a weird one isn't it - 1/40,000 but they only gave 150,000 doses out. This seems like the error bars on this would be huge - we've seen in the UK very few of these events with millions vaccinated which is pretty strange. Is there something different about Denmark and Britain at this time of year? I've had the AZ vaccine 1st dose 3 weeks ago now and I keep getting very concerned by the ever changing picture; is it 1 in a million or 1 in 40000, or did these people have conditions that made this situation more likely... will we see an increase in the rate as we get more data too over the coming weeks a lot like we did with COVID. All very unclear right now. I wish the case reports of all the people with blood clots were made available so everyone could review if they match the groups who have had the problems.
    - tpm 6y ago
      I think they have also used Norway's numbers. As to the difference, maybe they first vaccinated health professionals with AZ and UK mostly vaccinated older people with it, so different issues became apparent? It affects mostly younger women, so it would manifest pretty clearly with female nurses.

josefx 6y ago

This might just be the straw that broke the camels back. As far as I remember the contracts the EU signed turned out to be incredibly one sided, with deliveries getting cut down when someone found out that more dosages could be extracted, no hard delivery requirements leading to constant shortages, etc. . Not getting out of that mess when alternatives exist seems like a bad idea.

makomk 6y ago
There were no hard delivery requirements in any of AstraZeneca's contracts because they didn't have any way to guarantee how much they could deliver - the contract was literally to build the full-scale production lines, and they had no idea of the yield until those lines were actually built because messy biological processes are involved. The big problems with the EU's AZ purchase is that they bought less of it relative to their population than the UK (so had a commensurately reduced amount of production capacity allocated to them), signed the contract later (meaning less time to fix yield issues), and completely failed to grasp that signing a "best effort" contract for X units of a never-mass-produced vaccine on timescale Y didn't guarantee they'd be delivered on time. Like, the UK apparently only got something like a third the amount of AZ vaccine as expected by now in the initial contract and is more dependent on it than the EU, but you wouldn't even know there was a problem because the publicly-announced schedule was based on actual production numbers - and the UK contract had clauses with teeth to make sure AZ provided the information needed to make that possible. Not only that, the initial plans were ambitious enough that even after the main vaccine supplier underperformed hugely, the UK still ended up ahead of the EU despite most of their vaccines coming from suppliers who did perform as expected.
- josefx 6y ago
  What kind of "best effort" is signing five more delivery contracts when you aren't even sure that you can get the first few done? > Like, the UK apparently only got something like a third the amount of AZ vaccine as expected So just how far behind the expected production is AZ? The UK only got a third, the EU is months behind schedule and half a dozen other countries are just around the corner waiting to have their contracts fulfilled. > and the UK contract had clauses with teeth Yeah, that would require halfway competent politicians, not something you find in the EU.

8note 6y ago

Does the calculus change based in how many people you'll be giving this to? A 1:1M chance is much different to me if you give it to 3 people or 2 Billion

sokoloff 6y ago
I don't think it's different based directly on that, but rather based on something which is strongly related to that. If you're giving a chemotherapy drug to patients with advanced cancer, 1 in 10⁶ is perfectly acceptable. But it's acceptable because the do-nothing course is probably worse. Even serious, chronic pain relief I'd consider 1 in 10⁶ to be a good tradeoff. With vaccines, you're taking healthy people with no acute condition and exposing them so the do-nothing course is much better than the cancer case. Those differences of course drive the "do we give it to 3 people or 2 Billion people?" decision, but it's not directly the breadth but the underlying reason for the breadth that make me think differently about the acceptable risk level. If 2 Billion people had cancer or serious, chronic pain, I'd be in favor of giving them a drug which would cure 999,999 of them for every 1 that it killed.
dillondoyle 6y ago
Along that line i'd be interested to hear insight here from a stat person or someone who does these studies. At those low %s what are the chances the actual clot rate say doubles, quadruples as we keep getting larger audiences. With such low numbers random chance would not likely show up in small studies. So what are for instance the statistical chances of seeing a 10x increase in clotting going to 250mm population?

surfsvammel 6y ago

I think the big issue is that people are afraid of the active risk of the vaccine (more so than the passive risk of not getting the shot). I think that even rational people have this fear to some degree. We need to help people deal with that fear. Something I see very little of. I know that kind of fear personally, I’m on meds with risks orders of magnitude worse than that vaccines and that have been (and still is) a struggle for me. I can do the math, and I understand the risks, but taking an active risk is just hard.

guitarbill 6y ago
This is probably the most underrated comment. Very few people think twice about e.g. driving a car, but a lot of people are scared of flying. It can also be as simple as being afraid of needles; when I get vaccinated I barely feel it but even knowing that I'm still apprehensive beforehand. Hopefully, as more people get vaccinated, it will become somewhat normalised (in communities that aren't actively against it). If all your mates did it, it's probably fine. (no sarcasm)

throwaway189262 6y ago

These are both Adenovirus vectored vaccines. My theory is that plain Adenovirus also causes clots, but likewise at percentages so low you would never see them in data. Unless you infected millions of people with the same strain, like these vaccines do. There's studies dating back many years showing that adenoviruses can cause clots and thrombocytopenia in rodents. The lesson might end up being, surprisingly, that mRNA vaccines are both safer and more effective than traditional vaccines

saurik 6y ago
Viral vector vaccines have a bit more real-world testing than mRNA vaccines, but they certainly aren't "traditional": there are only a few vaccines developed with this technology--for Dengue fever and Ebola--that have ever been authorized for use, and most within the last couple years; the classic notion of a vaccine--and all of our "traditional" vaccines--are either inactive or attenuated strains.