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The vaccines did not skip any safety tests, they just compressed the schedule because millions of people were dying of a preventable disease. At this point hun

The vaccines did not skip any safety tests, they just compressed the schedule because millions of people were dying of a preventable disease. At this point hundreds of millions of people have taken the various vaccines. There clearly are no major short or medium term effects (other than the reported, rare side effects). Also you can literally read all the documents provided to the FDA concerning the efficacy and safety of the vaccines. There isn't a giant conspiracy, all the original studies and data are in the open.

mikem170 5y ago
The parent never mentioned a conspiracy. They did mention running into a lot of glibly dismissive dead ends researching their concerns. I don't think their decision is unreasonable. I'm personally not looking at the same factors, and think of covid vaccination differently. I'm guessing you do, also. I personally don't see a problem with that. Who am I to tell force someone else to my way of thinking?
- jdhendrickson 5y ago
  That philosophy is fine when the resulting issues only harm the person taking that attitude, herd immunity, viral mutation due to more hosts, and a plethora of other reasons don't allow us to take the live and let live attitude about vaccinations this time around.
  - mikem170 5y ago
    But it's still a heavy thing to force other people into something. We live in quasi-democracies and a significant percentage of people feel differently than you do. There's also a significant percentage of people, me included, who are willing to respect that people have different understandings of the risks. Lots of things harm us as a group, and we accept them. We don't, and can't, aim for zero risk.
  - lagadu 5y ago
    I'll be getting downvoted but it doesn't matter: it's you. You and people like you are the reason I'm not getting vaccinated. I'm from a time when having and exercising autonomy over what one does or does not with their own body was something celebrated, however now society has normalized insulting and bullying people for making their own choices. I will not tolerate a society that does this, fortunately I'm in a position to hurt it by simply not getting vaccinated. I have no doubts that it's perfectly safe and I'd be fine, with the bonus of being more protected. So yes. You are the reason I'm doing my part to ensure we'll never achieve herd immunity. Good job.
    - kybernetikos 5y ago
      > I will not tolerate a society that does this, fortunately I'm in a position to hurt it by simply not getting vaccinated. Don't think of it as hurting a society that upsets you, think of it as hurting the individual people who get a serious disease through no fault of their own and suffer and die from it. It's very unlikely you'll hurt any of the people who have upset you - they are probably all well vaccinated. There are all sorts of actions you could take to promote bodily autonomy, and I'd support them, but if you're really choosing to do this one out of spite because some small section of society has offended you, then I would encourage you to find a different way to express your distress. > So yes. You are the reason I'm doing my part to ensure we'll never achieve herd immunity. Good job. Along with your old fashioned view on bodily autonomy, I'd suggest you take a old fashioned view on personal responsibility too and try to avoid blaming others for a choice that you are making.
      - lagadu 5y ago
        No offense but those are pretty weak arguments. I'm not looking to hurt specific individuals, but rather society as a whole; large social phenomena aren't the fault of any individual (although granted some specific individuals may carry a lot of fault, given their positions, Trump and other far-right high-profile individuals such as Orban or Bolsonaro being a prime example of that but that's not what we're discussing here). Two outcomes: either my not taking the vaccine has no impact on society as a whole so it doesn't matter, or it helps having a negative impact in society as a whole and therefore it also directly or indirectly hurts the groups who upset me (be it via further restrictions, health or economic downturns), in which case I feel vindicated. Most importantly: in both cases my actions spite those who would pressure me into doing it which by itself is a good enough outcome for me. That last argument goes both ways: people who feel it's acceptable to bully me out of my autonomy should take personal responsibility for the choice they are making, so dismissing that argument is effortless on my part. edit: I should point out that for very personal reasons I won't be getting in to, autonomy over the self is something that I hold very close to my heart.
- peter422 5y ago
  The OP said it was hard to find the data and documents. I searched for “fda vaccine pfizer documents” and the 2nd link is the FDA page with every document and study that was reviewed for approval. The information is not hard to find. Yes, there are a lot of pro-vaccine resources and anti-vaccine resources as well, but it’s obviously not hard to find the source materials.
bananabiscuit 5y ago
Steps were not skipped, but they are left incomplete. None of the vaccines have left Phase 3 yet, have they? Also it’s really hard to be confident in the data collected about vaccine safety as there is a social stigma associated with claiming that you have a negative effect from the vaccine.
- peter422 5y ago
  Is there? Everybody I've met talked about how the 2nd shot knocked them out for a few days at least. From my POV there is a heavy stigma associated with anti-vaccine activists downplaying and disbelieving the very real stats about covid sicknesses and deaths.
faeriechangling 5y ago
It's semantics at the end of the day. Less tests were done overall in accordance with a prepared in advance plan to rapidly deploy a vaccine in the case of a global pandemic. More risk was taken for more reward. It's questionable if more risk was even taken at all given the unknowns of COVID itself. At this point the COVID vaccines are among the most "tested" medicines in history just on merit of their huge scale deployment, with them only truly lacking much insight into what happens after 2 years, which is something we hardly know about COVID itself.

mikem170 5y ago

The parent never mentioned a conspiracy. They did mention running into a lot of glibly dismissive dead ends researching their concerns. I don't think their decision is unreasonable. I'm personally not looking at the same factors, and think of covid vaccination differently. I'm guessing you do, also. I personally don't see a problem with that. Who am I to tell force someone else to my way of thinking?

jdhendrickson 5y ago
That philosophy is fine when the resulting issues only harm the person taking that attitude, herd immunity, viral mutation due to more hosts, and a plethora of other reasons don't allow us to take the live and let live attitude about vaccinations this time around.
- mikem170 5y ago
  But it's still a heavy thing to force other people into something. We live in quasi-democracies and a significant percentage of people feel differently than you do. There's also a significant percentage of people, me included, who are willing to respect that people have different understandings of the risks. Lots of things harm us as a group, and we accept them. We don't, and can't, aim for zero risk.
- lagadu 5y ago
  I'll be getting downvoted but it doesn't matter: it's you. You and people like you are the reason I'm not getting vaccinated. I'm from a time when having and exercising autonomy over what one does or does not with their own body was something celebrated, however now society has normalized insulting and bullying people for making their own choices. I will not tolerate a society that does this, fortunately I'm in a position to hurt it by simply not getting vaccinated. I have no doubts that it's perfectly safe and I'd be fine, with the bonus of being more protected. So yes. You are the reason I'm doing my part to ensure we'll never achieve herd immunity. Good job.
  - kybernetikos 5y ago
    > I will not tolerate a society that does this, fortunately I'm in a position to hurt it by simply not getting vaccinated. Don't think of it as hurting a society that upsets you, think of it as hurting the individual people who get a serious disease through no fault of their own and suffer and die from it. It's very unlikely you'll hurt any of the people who have upset you - they are probably all well vaccinated. There are all sorts of actions you could take to promote bodily autonomy, and I'd support them, but if you're really choosing to do this one out of spite because some small section of society has offended you, then I would encourage you to find a different way to express your distress. > So yes. You are the reason I'm doing my part to ensure we'll never achieve herd immunity. Good job. Along with your old fashioned view on bodily autonomy, I'd suggest you take a old fashioned view on personal responsibility too and try to avoid blaming others for a choice that you are making.
    - lagadu 5y ago
      No offense but those are pretty weak arguments. I'm not looking to hurt specific individuals, but rather society as a whole; large social phenomena aren't the fault of any individual (although granted some specific individuals may carry a lot of fault, given their positions, Trump and other far-right high-profile individuals such as Orban or Bolsonaro being a prime example of that but that's not what we're discussing here). Two outcomes: either my not taking the vaccine has no impact on society as a whole so it doesn't matter, or it helps having a negative impact in society as a whole and therefore it also directly or indirectly hurts the groups who upset me (be it via further restrictions, health or economic downturns), in which case I feel vindicated. Most importantly: in both cases my actions spite those who would pressure me into doing it which by itself is a good enough outcome for me. That last argument goes both ways: people who feel it's acceptable to bully me out of my autonomy should take personal responsibility for the choice they are making, so dismissing that argument is effortless on my part. edit: I should point out that for very personal reasons I won't be getting in to, autonomy over the self is something that I hold very close to my heart.
peter422 5y ago
The OP said it was hard to find the data and documents. I searched for “fda vaccine pfizer documents” and the 2nd link is the FDA page with every document and study that was reviewed for approval. The information is not hard to find. Yes, there are a lot of pro-vaccine resources and anti-vaccine resources as well, but it’s obviously not hard to find the source materials.

bananabiscuit 5y ago

Steps were not skipped, but they are left incomplete. None of the vaccines have left Phase 3 yet, have they? Also it’s really hard to be confident in the data collected about vaccine safety as there is a social stigma associated with claiming that you have a negative effect from the vaccine.

peter422 5y ago
Is there? Everybody I've met talked about how the 2nd shot knocked them out for a few days at least. From my POV there is a heavy stigma associated with anti-vaccine activists downplaying and disbelieving the very real stats about covid sicknesses and deaths.

faeriechangling 5y ago

It's semantics at the end of the day. Less tests were done overall in accordance with a prepared in advance plan to rapidly deploy a vaccine in the case of a global pandemic. More risk was taken for more reward. It's questionable if more risk was even taken at all given the unknowns of COVID itself. At this point the COVID vaccines are among the most "tested" medicines in history just on merit of their huge scale deployment, with them only truly lacking much insight into what happens after 2 years, which is something we hardly know about COVID itself.