7 ms·

There's been nearly 4 billion shots delivered across the world in the past 8 months. I suspect if they were to cause great harm, we would have known by now.

by giarc 5y ago

freedomben 5y ago
Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm. See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the covid vax. I got Pfizer myself as soon as it was available. But there is still room for doubt.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- giarc 5y ago
  Sure, but the harm from COVID is pretty evident in the 600,000 deaths in the states in the past 18 months. No one has said the vaccine is 100% safe, it does list side effects after all, but this whole notion of "I'm waiting until all the data is out/it's only approved for emergency use" is just nonsensical.
  - bruceb 5y ago
    If you are young and in shape, then the likely hood of you dying is extremely low.
    - pb7 5y ago
      Except if there are severe consequences that will only arise years down the line, which we're already seeing, right?
    - tfehring 5y ago
      Yeah, mortality risk is only part of the picture, and probably not the most relevant part for young and healthy people. But there are lots of other medium-term (at least) impacts of COVID that have already been observed, and at this point I think it's really unlikely that the expected long-term harm from the vaccine is anywhere close to the expected long-term harm from COVID even in young, healthy people. The cognitive effects of COVID alone (discussed recently at [0]) are probably much more harmful in expectation than the vaccine side-effects, even accounting for the relatively high likelihood that those effects are not real, not causal, and/or reversible. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/oq4vho/cognitive_deficits_in_people_who_have_recovered/ https://old.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/oq4vho/cognitive_d...
      - PKop 5y ago
        This study does not show a before and after cognitive decline from having COVID. It shows correlation between people with lower cognitive levels having COVID vs those who do not have COVID. The causality could of course be going in the opposite direction from what you are implying (lower IQ -> more likely to get COVID).
  - drclau 5y ago
    Death is one thing. Then, there seem to be long term side effects from having the Covid-19 disease that one would not risk having from the vaccines. Because this is such a sensitive topic, I will refrain from sharing more information or links. But, between the known problems of Covid, including risk of death and risk of infecting other potentially more vulnerable people on one hand, and no evidence of serious problems from the vaccines on the other hand, the choice is simple, in my books. I may be proven wrong in the future, but I have to act based on information I have currently, and I have to act relatively fast.
- est31 5y ago
  Some viruses take decades to show harm as well, e.g. HPV, and there are theories that herpes is involved in Alzheimers. Maybe we'll realize in a couple of years that even asymptomatic covid harms your heart so much that affected people lose years of their lives? The vaccine seems like the safer choice to me.
  - freedomben 5y ago
    Yep, excellent point. We don't know the long term repercussions of getting covid either, so avoiding the vax because of unknowns may end up being the riskier position.
    - chris_va 5y ago
      Agreed, there are only 2 options: - Lipid nanoparticle delivering mRNA expressing 1 protein (vaccine) - Lipid nanoparticle delivering mRNA expressing many proteins (virus), that has severe short term side effects Odds are much higher than the virus has worse side effects, but we will not be able to wait and see. Waiting just defaults to the second option (with all of its known negative externalities). (yes, there are other types of vaccines too, and a discussion of which vaccine to take seems completely rational)
- 411111111111111 5y ago
  > The anthrax vaccines were receiving criticism in several scientific circles, because of both potency problems and allegations that the anthrax vaccine contributed to Gulf War syndrome. That's the only excerpt I was able to find wrt that. Is there more?
- Alex3917 5y ago
  Also, at least in some years, people who got the flu vaccine in previous years are more likely to die from the flu.
- beardbandit 5y ago
  I agree. Its a coin flip. We don't know what the long term effects of COVID are, we don't know what the long term effects of the vaccine are. I'd argue that we know more about what COULD happen with the vaccine long term and I'd rather place my bets on that. The alternative is hiding away for 20+ years and not getting vaccinated or contracting COVID, obviously not feasible.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm. See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences. If you don't get the vaccine, unless you become a shut in, you're going to get COVID eventually (and being a shut in will probably become less and less tenable the farther we get from the peak). I highly doubt the vaccines have additional long term side effects that the actual disease doesn't have. The situation with an Anthrax vaccine is different, because it's very unlikely for someone to get exposed to Anthrax.
- bitsoda 5y ago
  That tiny bit of room for doubt is still much smaller than that for the virus itself. For example, once you get over chickenpox, the virus remains dormant in your nerve cells and could rear its head in the form of shingles later on in life. Who knows what long-term effects COVID will have? History shows for the overwhelming amount of vaccines no random side-effects after ~3 months. There are outliers, of course, but since Delta looks like it will makes its rounds and infect many people, it's not quite the same in terms of anthrax exposure which is why I'm cool with Google mandating the COVID vaccine from a risk/benefit perspective.
- mlindner 5y ago
  I can't find anything about the Anthrax vaccine that shows it was problematic, just a a bunch of conspiracy theories.
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
  > Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm. Frankly, in the entire history of vaccination, this has proven so extremely rare as to be a non-factor, especially given how these mRNA vaccines work. This really sounds like FUD at this point...
- moeris 5y ago
  > See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences. Do you have a source? Paul Offit, at least had said that we don't see vaccines causing long-term harm which aren't apparent within the first couple weeks. (In his interview on Oh No! with Ross and Carrie.)
gomox 5y ago
Radiation, asbestos, lead paint and a bunch of others would like a word.
- IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
  Can we put smoking on that list ?
dgs_sgd 5y ago
The people resistant to taking them are concerned with potential “long term”effects so by definition argue that it wouldn’t be known by now.
- azangru 5y ago
  > The people resistant to taking them are concerned with potential “long term”effects Not necessarily long-term. I would suggest that short-term effects such as thrombosis of myocarditis, however rare, are also a valid cause for concern.
  - astura 5y ago
    This concern must be taken in context, myocarditis is also a side effect of COVID-19 infection. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666337620300469 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266633762... Last year a Red Sox pitcher missed an entire season due to myocarditis caused by COVID-19 infection. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30929594/red-sox-p-eduardo-rodriguez-fully-recovered-covid-19-bout-myocarditis https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30929594/red-sox-p-eduar...
  - Arnt 5y ago
    I computed that on the day when I got my vaccine (the first dose was AZ) and the risk of thrombosis from the vaccine was comparable to that of that of thrombosis from corona in the next few weeks, assuming that my risk of being infected was the average for the city and that the incidence would be stable over the next weeks. Three weeks I think? So the vaccine raised my chance of thrombosis in the next two weeks by 50%, but cut my chance of thrombosis in the next six weeks by 50%. Pick a number according to the conclusion you'd like to see.
- Arnt 5y ago
  Serious question: Is anyone putting up a real argument that the vaccines may have long-term harm that outweighs the harm done by the risk of the disease in the same timeframe? Say 20 years. Compute the risk of getting covid over 20 years based on, say, the risk seen in North Dakota over the last year and estimate a health outcome based on that. Is anyone putting up a real argument that any of the vaccines might have a comparable outcome?
endisneigh 5y ago
lol - there are plenty of things that only cause (attributable) harm after a long time.
- giarc 5y ago
  You mean like severe cases of COVID? Admission to critical care or death from COVID?
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    no, I'm talking about doing something that's helpful, like insulation using asbestos that ends up being harmful as well. things can be both helpful and harmful in different ways. obviously COVID is bad, no one is denying that. no one is denying that the vaccine is good. but to say that the vaccine cannot be bad ever or ever have potentially negative side effects is being misleading at best and disingenuous at worst. this is why people who are concerned about these tradeoffs should consult a medical professional.
bruceb 5y ago
If they are safe, then there is no reason the vax makers should be protected from liability then. At the moment we could be mandated to take something yet have no recourse if something happens down the line.
native_samples 5y ago
I suspect if they were to cause great harm, we would have known by now. Known how, exactly. The only way that would be known is via official statistics, but the only sources of such data have serious reliability problems. Additionally any paper that tries to use these stats to do any analysis struggles to get published or gets immediately retracted because some people don't like the conclusions. One thing that's undeniable though is that earlier vaccines had their approvals pulled after fewer reported deaths than these vaccines have racked up from just single causes of death alone. The same safety standards as before are not being applied. Thus it cannot be said that these vaccines are "safe", compared to earlier vaccines.

There's been nearly 4 billion shots delivered across the world in the past 8 months. I suspect if they were to cause great harm, we would have known by now.

by giarc 5y ago

There's been nearly 4 billion shots delivered across the world in the past 8 months. I suspect if they were to cause great harm, we would have known by now.

freedomben 5y ago

Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm. See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the covid vax. I got Pfizer myself as soon as it was available. But there is still room for doubt.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
giarc 5y ago
Sure, but the harm from COVID is pretty evident in the 600,000 deaths in the states in the past 18 months. No one has said the vaccine is 100% safe, it does list side effects after all, but this whole notion of "I'm waiting until all the data is out/it's only approved for emergency use" is just nonsensical.
- bruceb 5y ago
  If you are young and in shape, then the likely hood of you dying is extremely low.
  - pb7 5y ago
    Except if there are severe consequences that will only arise years down the line, which we're already seeing, right?
  - tfehring 5y ago
    Yeah, mortality risk is only part of the picture, and probably not the most relevant part for young and healthy people. But there are lots of other medium-term (at least) impacts of COVID that have already been observed, and at this point I think it's really unlikely that the expected long-term harm from the vaccine is anywhere close to the expected long-term harm from COVID even in young, healthy people. The cognitive effects of COVID alone (discussed recently at [0]) are probably much more harmful in expectation than the vaccine side-effects, even accounting for the relatively high likelihood that those effects are not real, not causal, and/or reversible. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/oq4vho/cognitive_deficits_in_people_who_have_recovered/ https://old.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/oq4vho/cognitive_d...
    - PKop 5y ago
      This study does not show a before and after cognitive decline from having COVID. It shows correlation between people with lower cognitive levels having COVID vs those who do not have COVID. The causality could of course be going in the opposite direction from what you are implying (lower IQ -> more likely to get COVID).
- drclau 5y ago
  Death is one thing. Then, there seem to be long term side effects from having the Covid-19 disease that one would not risk having from the vaccines. Because this is such a sensitive topic, I will refrain from sharing more information or links. But, between the known problems of Covid, including risk of death and risk of infecting other potentially more vulnerable people on one hand, and no evidence of serious problems from the vaccines on the other hand, the choice is simple, in my books. I may be proven wrong in the future, but I have to act based on information I have currently, and I have to act relatively fast.
est31 5y ago
Some viruses take decades to show harm as well, e.g. HPV, and there are theories that herpes is involved in Alzheimers. Maybe we'll realize in a couple of years that even asymptomatic covid harms your heart so much that affected people lose years of their lives? The vaccine seems like the safer choice to me.
- freedomben 5y ago
  Yep, excellent point. We don't know the long term repercussions of getting covid either, so avoiding the vax because of unknowns may end up being the riskier position.
  - chris_va 5y ago
    Agreed, there are only 2 options: - Lipid nanoparticle delivering mRNA expressing 1 protein (vaccine) - Lipid nanoparticle delivering mRNA expressing many proteins (virus), that has severe short term side effects Odds are much higher than the virus has worse side effects, but we will not be able to wait and see. Waiting just defaults to the second option (with all of its known negative externalities). (yes, there are other types of vaccines too, and a discussion of which vaccine to take seems completely rational)
411111111111111 5y ago
> The anthrax vaccines were receiving criticism in several scientific circles, because of both potency problems and allegations that the anthrax vaccine contributed to Gulf War syndrome. That's the only excerpt I was able to find wrt that. Is there more?
Alex3917 5y ago
Also, at least in some years, people who got the flu vaccine in previous years are more likely to die from the flu.
beardbandit 5y ago
I agree. Its a coin flip. We don't know what the long term effects of COVID are, we don't know what the long term effects of the vaccine are. I'd argue that we know more about what COULD happen with the vaccine long term and I'd rather place my bets on that. The alternative is hiding away for 20+ years and not getting vaccinated or contracting COVID, obviously not feasible.
tablespoon 5y ago
> Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm. See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences. If you don't get the vaccine, unless you become a shut in, you're going to get COVID eventually (and being a shut in will probably become less and less tenable the farther we get from the peak). I highly doubt the vaccines have additional long term side effects that the actual disease doesn't have. The situation with an Anthrax vaccine is different, because it's very unlikely for someone to get exposed to Anthrax.
bitsoda 5y ago
That tiny bit of room for doubt is still much smaller than that for the virus itself. For example, once you get over chickenpox, the virus remains dormant in your nerve cells and could rear its head in the form of shingles later on in life. Who knows what long-term effects COVID will have? History shows for the overwhelming amount of vaccines no random side-effects after ~3 months. There are outliers, of course, but since Delta looks like it will makes its rounds and infect many people, it's not quite the same in terms of anthrax exposure which is why I'm cool with Google mandating the COVID vaccine from a risk/benefit perspective.
mlindner 5y ago
I can't find anything about the Anthrax vaccine that shows it was problematic, just a a bunch of conspiracy theories.
CarelessExpert 5y ago
> Some vaccines take years or even decades to show harm. Frankly, in the entire history of vaccination, this has proven so extremely rare as to be a non-factor, especially given how these mRNA vaccines work. This really sounds like FUD at this point...
moeris 5y ago
> See Air Force pilots and Anthrax vaccine history. Rare but devastating consequences. Do you have a source? Paul Offit, at least had said that we don't see vaccines causing long-term harm which aren't apparent within the first couple weeks. (In his interview on Oh No! with Ross and Carrie.)

gomox 5y ago

Radiation, asbestos, lead paint and a bunch of others would like a word.

IG_Semmelweiss 5y ago
Can we put smoking on that list ?

dgs_sgd 5y ago

The people resistant to taking them are concerned with potential “long term”effects so by definition argue that it wouldn’t be known by now.

azangru 5y ago
> The people resistant to taking them are concerned with potential “long term”effects Not necessarily long-term. I would suggest that short-term effects such as thrombosis of myocarditis, however rare, are also a valid cause for concern.
- astura 5y ago
  This concern must be taken in context, myocarditis is also a side effect of COVID-19 infection. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666337620300469 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266633762... Last year a Red Sox pitcher missed an entire season due to myocarditis caused by COVID-19 infection. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30929594/red-sox-p-eduardo-rodriguez-fully-recovered-covid-19-bout-myocarditis https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30929594/red-sox-p-eduar...
- Arnt 5y ago
  I computed that on the day when I got my vaccine (the first dose was AZ) and the risk of thrombosis from the vaccine was comparable to that of that of thrombosis from corona in the next few weeks, assuming that my risk of being infected was the average for the city and that the incidence would be stable over the next weeks. Three weeks I think? So the vaccine raised my chance of thrombosis in the next two weeks by 50%, but cut my chance of thrombosis in the next six weeks by 50%. Pick a number according to the conclusion you'd like to see.
Arnt 5y ago
Serious question: Is anyone putting up a real argument that the vaccines may have long-term harm that outweighs the harm done by the risk of the disease in the same timeframe? Say 20 years. Compute the risk of getting covid over 20 years based on, say, the risk seen in North Dakota over the last year and estimate a health outcome based on that. Is anyone putting up a real argument that any of the vaccines might have a comparable outcome?

endisneigh 5y ago

lol - there are plenty of things that only cause (attributable) harm after a long time.

giarc 5y ago
You mean like severe cases of COVID? Admission to critical care or death from COVID?
- endisneigh 5y ago
  no, I'm talking about doing something that's helpful, like insulation using asbestos that ends up being harmful as well. things can be both helpful and harmful in different ways. obviously COVID is bad, no one is denying that. no one is denying that the vaccine is good. but to say that the vaccine cannot be bad ever or ever have potentially negative side effects is being misleading at best and disingenuous at worst. this is why people who are concerned about these tradeoffs should consult a medical professional.

bruceb 5y ago

If they are safe, then there is no reason the vax makers should be protected from liability then. At the moment we could be mandated to take something yet have no recourse if something happens down the line.

native_samples 5y ago

I suspect if they were to cause great harm, we would have known by now. Known how, exactly. The only way that would be known is via official statistics, but the only sources of such data have serious reliability problems. Additionally any paper that tries to use these stats to do any analysis struggles to get published or gets immediately retracted because some people don't like the conclusions. One thing that's undeniable though is that earlier vaccines had their approvals pulled after fewer reported deaths than these vaccines have racked up from just single causes of death alone. The same safety standards as before are not being applied. Thus it cannot be said that these vaccines are "safe", compared to earlier vaccines.