5 ms·

I know I’m not addressing the article , but the comment above and many others on this topic. I’m still surprised by the blank check this community generally giv

I know I’m not addressing the article , but the comment above and many others on this topic. I’m still surprised by the blank check this community generally gives to big pharma and governments, seeing their track records. It’s not that I expect an anti (COVID-19) vaccine attitude, but I would have expected to see here a more questioning tone more regularly, as I see how strongly voiced HN can be with other topics. For example: discussion of their fast development time vs safety, VAERS stats, vaccination of children and pregnant women, real-world efficacy and the fact that these vaccines are under experimental usage up to 2023 or so. All I’m saying is that I’d expect to see less consensus here on not touching these matters.

Santosh83 5y ago
People are strongly voiced and logical until their very life (or way of life) is on the table (or even just the whipped up perception of it being so). Then they retreat into a shell of conformity and xenophobia. We see this over and over again.
ggm 5y ago
How many doses worldwide, how many reported incidents. It's that simple. If you think some at-scale public disaster is impending, Can you explain what you think it is, beyond skepticism it might exist and we're not adequately cautious?
- ghoward 5y ago
  That's just it: we are not adequately cautious. Who knows what the long-term side effects of the vaccines will be? The fact that those concerns are hand-waved away makes me more concerned. I mean, I don't trust Big Pharma, but at the very least, the FDA stood in their way. This time, the FDA gave them a pass called "Emergency Use Authorization," and that worries me.
  - zarzavat 5y ago
    Covid has long term effects too, seemingly much more than vaccines. Were this not the case then yes the calculus for younger people would be very different. But it seems that everybody benefits.
    - ghoward 5y ago
      You can only make that judgment for yourself. Assuming that your judgment works for everyone is highly presumptuous. For myself, I see less risk in going the route where I may not even get COVID at all and risk actually getting it, rather than having a 100% chance of injecting myself with a vaccine that I don't trust.
      - vkou 5y ago
        > You can only make that judgment for yourself. Assuming that your judgment works for everyone is highly presumptuous. Yet people who refuse to get vaccinated seem to have no problem making this judgement for other people that they are likely to spread COVID to, when they fall ill.
        ghoward 5y ago
        When I fall ill, I quarantine. I do not just "spread" it to others. Other than that, I'm not responsible for the health of other people. They are responsible for their own health.
        vkou 5y ago
        Covid also spreads asymptomatically, and for a lot of people, days 1-14 of it can feel a lot like a common cold. You need to take preventable measures to not be a potential spreader. Those measures are... Getting vaccinated. Unless you are living in a spacesuit, you shedding viral particles into common spaces does make you responsible for the health of other people.
        ghoward 5y ago
- mistermann 5y ago
  Is the reporting of incidents to VAERS truly simple? More generally, there's an entire field devoted to such matters: epistemology.
- chessmiater 5y ago
  It's not that simple. Lead poisoning for example takes years to manifest itself. So did other drugs which took years until regulators retracted them because they did more harm then good. Specifically about mRNA vaccines, we know little about the long term effects of the lipid nano particles used in them and there are reasons to be concerned.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    What are the reasons to be concerned? To me as a layman the mechanism of action seems very straightforward and not at all concerning.
    - chessmiater 5y ago
      https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/drug-delivery/Without-lipid-shells-mRNA-vaccines/99/i8 https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/drug-delivery/Without-li... https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20210315/Research-looks-at-inflammatory-nature-of-lipid-nanoparticle-component-in-mRNA-vaccines.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20210315/Research-look...
      - adrianN 5y ago
        Thanks! So the main concern seems to be autoimmune disease? > Overall, the robust inflammatory milieu induced by LNPs, combined with presentation of the vaccine-derived peptides/protein outside of antigen-presenting cells, might cause tissue damage and exacerbate side effects. Since self-antigen presentation in an inflammatory environment has been linked to autoimmune disease development (Charles A Janeway et al., 2001), this merits further investigation, albeit not detected here. Because short term inflammation is, as far as I know, not a big deal and somewhat desirable for vaccinations? It is my understanding that we intentionally mix in inflammatory substances ("adjuvants") with normal vaccines to kick the immune system into action?
  - _Microft 5y ago
    As far as I remember there were never serious adverse effects that did not appear within a few weeks of administration of a vaccine. The mRNA technology is conceptually even a lot simpler than other ways of vaccination. What are you exactly afraid about?
flocial 5y ago
The vaccine is now a political issue just like mask wearing and lockdowns or any other aspect of this pandemic. Rational discussions that deviate from the accepted narrative are attacked and suppressed even on HN. Apparently experimental mRNA vaccines, censorship, violation of civil liberties, and other transgressions are fair game during a “pandemic”.
- mattigames 5y ago
  Rational discussions are created by speaking only with calm rational arguments, instead of inflammatory discourse such as putting the word pandemic between quotes, implying that 4 million deaths by a virus are not enough to be considered a pandemic.
colechristensen 5y ago
It became a political issue. People seem to have a problem with overcompensating for issues they align with positively. This happens with vaccines, masks, racial, gender, identity, environmental, etc. basically any issue that brings up strong feelings in people tends to go into a religious fanaticism (chips all in, this is absolutely right with no question, anyone not in on the groupthink is the enemy)
swader999 5y ago
I'm most worried about the vaccine passport. Show us your papers! Seems like it could be the start of a social credit system for the west.
- vkou 5y ago
  We already have a social credit system, it's called the credit system and a criminal background check. We also already subject immigrants to medical inspections and forced vaccinations.
- mindslight 5y ago
  What do you think Equifax, LexisNexis, criminal background checks, person-search websites, and automated account termination are? "Social credit" only seems like some foreign concept because it was coined describing a foreign society - it's more difficult to look inwards at what already exists.
  - swader999 5y ago
    You don't have to do those for day to day living, attending school, getting on a plane, most employment, entering a grocery store, a pub or daycare for your kid. These will have to be scanned to work and will be able to be turned off. USA seems to be slow rolling towards it but look at France and UK just this week. Life ending fines, 6 month jail time if you enter one of these places without it. No exemptions for those that aquired natural immunity either.
    - mindslight 5y ago
      Three of your own examples (day to day living, attending school, most employment) actually do require subjecting yourself to control by the systems I listed. Furthermore, all of the examples you listed make you subject to observation. The only way to be able to escape this is to be independently wealthy, which with the way our economy is designed is only ever possible for a minority of people. I agree that vaccine requirements are part of ever-creeping totalitarian control, regardless of apparent prudence, but to frame it as some sort of not-yet-here watershed moment is either uninformed or disingenuous.
fsh 5y ago
All of these issues have been discussed extensively for months. According to the mRNA vaccine data I've seen, for adults the benefit of protection against COVID-19 vastly outweighs any observed risks due to the vaccine. This was already the case after the very large phase-3 studies, and much more so after real-world data from hundreds of millions of vaccinations became available. So it should not be surprising that there is a broad consensus that getting the vaccine is a good idea. Of course the initial studies excluded riskier groups such as pregnant women and children. Now there is some data, but no general consensus between the different countries' regulatory agencies yet. Overall, I don't see a "blank check" for the pharma companies at all. They had to conduct and publish very large studies before getting even emergency use authorizations for their products.
kmos17 5y ago
The blank check has a lot of research available to back it up, and the fact that vaccines are the most successful medical advance in human history having wiped out entire diseases like polio that had horrific consequences. There is also the non-negligible 600k deaths in the US alone directly due to covid with none attributable to the vaccine so far and a very clear decrease in hospitalization and deaths in vaccinated populations. What is mind boggling is the callousness of people questioning vaccination because they think their personal risk is low when so many have died, and a belief in some unproven hypothetical risk when so many facts are weighing in favor of vaccination.

Santosh83 5y ago

People are strongly voiced and logical until their very life (or way of life) is on the table (or even just the whipped up perception of it being so). Then they retreat into a shell of conformity and xenophobia. We see this over and over again.

ggm 5y ago

How many doses worldwide, how many reported incidents. It's that simple. If you think some at-scale public disaster is impending, Can you explain what you think it is, beyond skepticism it might exist and we're not adequately cautious?

ghoward 5y ago
That's just it: we are not adequately cautious. Who knows what the long-term side effects of the vaccines will be? The fact that those concerns are hand-waved away makes me more concerned. I mean, I don't trust Big Pharma, but at the very least, the FDA stood in their way. This time, the FDA gave them a pass called "Emergency Use Authorization," and that worries me.
- zarzavat 5y ago
  Covid has long term effects too, seemingly much more than vaccines. Were this not the case then yes the calculus for younger people would be very different. But it seems that everybody benefits.
  - ghoward 5y ago
    You can only make that judgment for yourself. Assuming that your judgment works for everyone is highly presumptuous. For myself, I see less risk in going the route where I may not even get COVID at all and risk actually getting it, rather than having a 100% chance of injecting myself with a vaccine that I don't trust.
    - vkou 5y ago
      > You can only make that judgment for yourself. Assuming that your judgment works for everyone is highly presumptuous. Yet people who refuse to get vaccinated seem to have no problem making this judgement for other people that they are likely to spread COVID to, when they fall ill.
      - ghoward 5y ago
        When I fall ill, I quarantine. I do not just "spread" it to others. Other than that, I'm not responsible for the health of other people. They are responsible for their own health.
        vkou 5y ago
        Covid also spreads asymptomatically, and for a lot of people, days 1-14 of it can feel a lot like a common cold. You need to take preventable measures to not be a potential spreader. Those measures are... Getting vaccinated. Unless you are living in a spacesuit, you shedding viral particles into common spaces does make you responsible for the health of other people.
        ghoward 5y ago
mistermann 5y ago
Is the reporting of incidents to VAERS truly simple? More generally, there's an entire field devoted to such matters: epistemology.
chessmiater 5y ago
It's not that simple. Lead poisoning for example takes years to manifest itself. So did other drugs which took years until regulators retracted them because they did more harm then good. Specifically about mRNA vaccines, we know little about the long term effects of the lipid nano particles used in them and there are reasons to be concerned.
- adrianN 5y ago
  What are the reasons to be concerned? To me as a layman the mechanism of action seems very straightforward and not at all concerning.
  - chessmiater 5y ago
    https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/drug-delivery/Without-lipid-shells-mRNA-vaccines/99/i8 https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/drug-delivery/Without-li... https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20210315/Research-looks-at-inflammatory-nature-of-lipid-nanoparticle-component-in-mRNA-vaccines.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/amp/news/20210315/Research-look...
    - adrianN 5y ago
      Thanks! So the main concern seems to be autoimmune disease? > Overall, the robust inflammatory milieu induced by LNPs, combined with presentation of the vaccine-derived peptides/protein outside of antigen-presenting cells, might cause tissue damage and exacerbate side effects. Since self-antigen presentation in an inflammatory environment has been linked to autoimmune disease development (Charles A Janeway et al., 2001), this merits further investigation, albeit not detected here. Because short term inflammation is, as far as I know, not a big deal and somewhat desirable for vaccinations? It is my understanding that we intentionally mix in inflammatory substances ("adjuvants") with normal vaccines to kick the immune system into action?
- _Microft 5y ago
  As far as I remember there were never serious adverse effects that did not appear within a few weeks of administration of a vaccine. The mRNA technology is conceptually even a lot simpler than other ways of vaccination. What are you exactly afraid about?

flocial 5y ago

The vaccine is now a political issue just like mask wearing and lockdowns or any other aspect of this pandemic. Rational discussions that deviate from the accepted narrative are attacked and suppressed even on HN. Apparently experimental mRNA vaccines, censorship, violation of civil liberties, and other transgressions are fair game during a “pandemic”.

mattigames 5y ago
Rational discussions are created by speaking only with calm rational arguments, instead of inflammatory discourse such as putting the word pandemic between quotes, implying that 4 million deaths by a virus are not enough to be considered a pandemic.

colechristensen 5y ago

It became a political issue. People seem to have a problem with overcompensating for issues they align with positively. This happens with vaccines, masks, racial, gender, identity, environmental, etc. basically any issue that brings up strong feelings in people tends to go into a religious fanaticism (chips all in, this is absolutely right with no question, anyone not in on the groupthink is the enemy)

swader999 5y ago

I'm most worried about the vaccine passport. Show us your papers! Seems like it could be the start of a social credit system for the west.

vkou 5y ago
We already have a social credit system, it's called the credit system and a criminal background check. We also already subject immigrants to medical inspections and forced vaccinations.
mindslight 5y ago
What do you think Equifax, LexisNexis, criminal background checks, person-search websites, and automated account termination are? "Social credit" only seems like some foreign concept because it was coined describing a foreign society - it's more difficult to look inwards at what already exists.
- swader999 5y ago
  You don't have to do those for day to day living, attending school, getting on a plane, most employment, entering a grocery store, a pub or daycare for your kid. These will have to be scanned to work and will be able to be turned off. USA seems to be slow rolling towards it but look at France and UK just this week. Life ending fines, 6 month jail time if you enter one of these places without it. No exemptions for those that aquired natural immunity either.
  - mindslight 5y ago
    Three of your own examples (day to day living, attending school, most employment) actually do require subjecting yourself to control by the systems I listed. Furthermore, all of the examples you listed make you subject to observation. The only way to be able to escape this is to be independently wealthy, which with the way our economy is designed is only ever possible for a minority of people. I agree that vaccine requirements are part of ever-creeping totalitarian control, regardless of apparent prudence, but to frame it as some sort of not-yet-here watershed moment is either uninformed or disingenuous.

fsh 5y ago

All of these issues have been discussed extensively for months. According to the mRNA vaccine data I've seen, for adults the benefit of protection against COVID-19 vastly outweighs any observed risks due to the vaccine. This was already the case after the very large phase-3 studies, and much more so after real-world data from hundreds of millions of vaccinations became available. So it should not be surprising that there is a broad consensus that getting the vaccine is a good idea. Of course the initial studies excluded riskier groups such as pregnant women and children. Now there is some data, but no general consensus between the different countries' regulatory agencies yet. Overall, I don't see a "blank check" for the pharma companies at all. They had to conduct and publish very large studies before getting even emergency use authorizations for their products.

kmos17 5y ago

The blank check has a lot of research available to back it up, and the fact that vaccines are the most successful medical advance in human history having wiped out entire diseases like polio that had horrific consequences. There is also the non-negligible 600k deaths in the US alone directly due to covid with none attributable to the vaccine so far and a very clear decrease in hospitalization and deaths in vaccinated populations. What is mind boggling is the callousness of people questioning vaccination because they think their personal risk is low when so many have died, and a belief in some unproven hypothetical risk when so many facts are weighing in favor of vaccination.