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I'll bite. He says it's crazy conspiracy theories. I have family hospitalized with blood clots after receiving the vax. She's out now, but that hospitalization

by panny 5y ago

I'll bite. He says it's crazy conspiracy theories. I have family hospitalized with blood clots after receiving the vax. She's out now, but that hospitalization will lead to a personal bankruptcy. It's not crazy conspiracy theory when your own family starts seeing negative effects. After watching what happened to her, nobody else in my family has any desire to get vaxxed. Nobody in my family is "anti-vax" as we've all gotten vaxed at birth, have voluntarily gotten flu vaccines in the past, etc. It's anti-this-vax, because it is not fully tested, and has caused real harm to people. What happened to "First, do no harm"?

colinmhayes 5y ago
The vaccine has saved far more people than have died due to the blood clots.
- hackinthebochs 5y ago
  That's reassuring from a public health perspective, not so reassuring from an individual perspective. When it comes to one's personal risk, you have a sense of control over not getting COVID, and/or are personally at low risk of severe complications, which can weigh in favor of avoiding a vaccine with extremely rare but serious side effects.
  - Nursie 5y ago
    You can, but almost always people weigh this up incorrectly.
miloignis 5y ago
Linus is responding specifically to the allegations made that the mRNA vaccines change your genes "into a new humanoid race", which I think can reasonably count as a conspiracy theory. Additionally, I don't believe the mRNA vaccines are the ones linked to blood clots (a big part of mRNA vaccines is that they should be safer and more effective!), but I'm sorry to hear about your family member's hospitalization. I think vaccination is the best thing we can do cost/benefit wise and recommend it wholeheartedly, but I respect those waiting for more testing if they continue to take appropriate precautions. Good luck to you and yours!
Nursie 5y ago
Do you recognise how rare a reaction that is? Compared to adverse effects of the disease itself?
chipotle_coyote 5y ago
I’m sorry your family member had this serious but exceedingly rare reaction to the vaccine, but here’s the thing: when, exactly, do you propose making the call to go ahead and get your family vaccinated? When vaccines are provably 100% safe? Probably not. So how about five nines, 99.999% safe? Well, no, apparently that’s not good enough for you, because that’s roughly what we’ve got. When it comes to fatal reactions to the vaccines, it’s past six nines. And of course, that still means that out of 330 million Americans, we could expect 33 to die from the vaccine! That’s dozens! Compared to over a half a million dead and still counting from Covid-19. Again, it sucks that serious, life-threatening side effects from the vaccine are possible, and sucks more than you’ve been personally touched by them. But the chances are still literally orders of magnitude greater that you will suffer serious, life-threatening side effects if you get Covid-19. Including blood clots. More people have been hospitalized by or even died from blood clots caused by Covid than they have from the blood clots caused by the vaccines. By a lot.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  Just curious, what are the safety numbers for other commonly deployed vaccines like the ones for influenza, etc...?
  - zaarn 5y ago
    About 1 person in 1 million (so 300 americans) will possibly suffer (there is a weak link) GBS, a rare disorder where the immune system begins to attack the nervous system. More commonly, people suffer allergic reactions (Up to a few hours later) which can be deadly. Allergic reactions aren't rare.
- panny 5y ago
  >exceedingly rare reaction In my personal case, it's 1 in 8 vaxxed that I know personally with bad reaction and accompanying devastating financial consequences. I also don't really consider the reported thousands dead, tens of thousands of ER visits, and thousands more hospitalized and/or permanently disabled as exceedingly rare. These are CDC numbers from the VAERS database, https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=CAT&EVENTS=ON&VAX=COVID19 https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GRO... >when, exactly, do you propose making the call to go ahead and get your family vaccinated? When it is proven safe.
dundarious 5y ago
All due sympathy to your family member, but there is potential for serious side-effects in almost every medical intervention. It's true that these vaccines received emergency authorization, so the known unknowns are greater in number than usual, but this vaccine appears to be safer than many commonly prescribed medications. It's as irrational to be anti-vax as it is to be anti-medications. First do no harm does not imply a guarantee against all potential harm in all cases for all people (the world is too complicated to guarantee such a thing). (I do think Western medicine is slavishly focused on medications and relatively blind to prevention but that's a separate issue)
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
There's a fund for those harmed by vaccines (sorry, don't remember the name). Your relative should apply for compensation from that fund. (If I understand correctly - and I might not - she won't even have to prove that the vaccine was the cause of the clots.)

by panny 5y ago

colinmhayes 5y ago

The vaccine has saved far more people than have died due to the blood clots.

hackinthebochs 5y ago
That's reassuring from a public health perspective, not so reassuring from an individual perspective. When it comes to one's personal risk, you have a sense of control over not getting COVID, and/or are personally at low risk of severe complications, which can weigh in favor of avoiding a vaccine with extremely rare but serious side effects.
- Nursie 5y ago
  You can, but almost always people weigh this up incorrectly.

miloignis 5y ago

Linus is responding specifically to the allegations made that the mRNA vaccines change your genes "into a new humanoid race", which I think can reasonably count as a conspiracy theory. Additionally, I don't believe the mRNA vaccines are the ones linked to blood clots (a big part of mRNA vaccines is that they should be safer and more effective!), but I'm sorry to hear about your family member's hospitalization. I think vaccination is the best thing we can do cost/benefit wise and recommend it wholeheartedly, but I respect those waiting for more testing if they continue to take appropriate precautions. Good luck to you and yours!

Nursie 5y ago

Do you recognise how rare a reaction that is? Compared to adverse effects of the disease itself?

chipotle_coyote 5y ago

I’m sorry your family member had this serious but exceedingly rare reaction to the vaccine, but here’s the thing: when, exactly, do you propose making the call to go ahead and get your family vaccinated? When vaccines are provably 100% safe? Probably not. So how about five nines, 99.999% safe? Well, no, apparently that’s not good enough for you, because that’s roughly what we’ve got. When it comes to fatal reactions to the vaccines, it’s past six nines. And of course, that still means that out of 330 million Americans, we could expect 33 to die from the vaccine! That’s dozens! Compared to over a half a million dead and still counting from Covid-19. Again, it sucks that serious, life-threatening side effects from the vaccine are possible, and sucks more than you’ve been personally touched by them. But the chances are still literally orders of magnitude greater that you will suffer serious, life-threatening side effects if you get Covid-19. Including blood clots. More people have been hospitalized by or even died from blood clots caused by Covid than they have from the blood clots caused by the vaccines. By a lot.

moralestapia 5y ago
Just curious, what are the safety numbers for other commonly deployed vaccines like the ones for influenza, etc...?
- zaarn 5y ago
  About 1 person in 1 million (so 300 americans) will possibly suffer (there is a weak link) GBS, a rare disorder where the immune system begins to attack the nervous system. More commonly, people suffer allergic reactions (Up to a few hours later) which can be deadly. Allergic reactions aren't rare.
panny 5y ago
>exceedingly rare reaction In my personal case, it's 1 in 8 vaxxed that I know personally with bad reaction and accompanying devastating financial consequences. I also don't really consider the reported thousands dead, tens of thousands of ER visits, and thousands more hospitalized and/or permanently disabled as exceedingly rare. These are CDC numbers from the VAERS database, https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GROUP1=CAT&EVENTS=ON&VAX=COVID19 https://www.medalerts.org/vaersdb/findfield.php?TABLE=ON&GRO... >when, exactly, do you propose making the call to go ahead and get your family vaccinated? When it is proven safe.

dundarious 5y ago

All due sympathy to your family member, but there is potential for serious side-effects in almost every medical intervention. It's true that these vaccines received emergency authorization, so the known unknowns are greater in number than usual, but this vaccine appears to be safer than many commonly prescribed medications. It's as irrational to be anti-vax as it is to be anti-medications. First do no harm does not imply a guarantee against all potential harm in all cases for all people (the world is too complicated to guarantee such a thing). (I do think Western medicine is slavishly focused on medications and relatively blind to prevention but that's a separate issue)

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

There's a fund for those harmed by vaccines (sorry, don't remember the name). Your relative should apply for compensation from that fund. (If I understand correctly - and I might not - she won't even have to prove that the vaccine was the cause of the clots.)