4 ms·

I was having a discussion with a friend yesterday and we got onto the topic of vaccinations. To my knowledge, while we can develop a statistical assessment of

by jes 5y ago

I was having a discussion with a friend yesterday and we got onto the topic of vaccinations. To my knowledge, while we can develop a statistical assessment of a vaccine's safety, we can never know how the vaccine will affect a specific person that takes it. My argument here is that the human body is so fantastically complex that no two cases are ever the same, and so the only way to know how a vaccine will affect a person is to run the experiment, by having them take it. I think this is one attribute of what are called "Wicked Problems": The only way to know if a change is going to be an improvement or not is to make the change and see how the system state evolves forward in time. Is this roughly correct?

dd36 5y ago
Evolution says hi. I like Kevin Kelly’s technium concept. We are merely an extension of evolution and our purpose is to continue it, which we do willingly and unwillingly.
teekert 5y ago
Not really, we can test a drug on a large population and determine it to be effective on 5% of all people. With no further info you know you have about a 5% chance of getting better. With more research we may determine that for people with a specific variant in their DNA the succes rate is 60%, so you can be part of two groups. We can keep making it better, maybe never 100% but very from “a gamble”. Would you say that hopping on a plane is an experiment in testing if it will crash? When you know it very likely will not?
- Vrondi 5y ago
  Your plane analogy would only work if every passenger had a unique plane due to genetics, epigentics, etc.
  - teekert 5y ago
    I’d say it’s more like we have a lot of similar genetics (the plane) and then some small differences (the seat you are in) but yeah the analogy is a stretch, “similar” is not really a quantitative term but I think you are assuming we are more different then we really are. But that also varies per parameter. For example there is a reason we test drugs on mice, because they are pretty similar to us (mammals), of course there are also differences.
skulk 5y ago
It points to an interesting gap in discourse around vaccines. One side (the mainstream) claims vaccines are effective and safe. The other side, claims that no, we do not in fact know that the vaccine is safe and therefore you should not get it and take your chances with the disease. The problem is that we don't in fact know that the vaccines are truly safe for everyone, because mRNA technology (while incredible) is new, but from my personal interactions I've observed that most intelligent people see that getting the vaccine increases your expected quality of life given you've never had COVID before. However, those who don't believe this will take any claim made by the mainstream (vaccines are safe) as evidence that they are hiding something, further deepening their suspicions. This is a feedback loop; the more people that refuse the vaccine, the more the mainstream will push for more vaccinations, causing more people to refuse the vaccine. All because the nuance of "we don't know that this is as safe as taking a walk in the sun, but we have solid evidence that it improves your E[QOL]" isn't easy to communicate.
- endgame 5y ago
  More precisely, "the other side" claims that we do not in fact know the vaccine is safe, and points to all the other times "the mainstream" side lied to us as reasons to be skeptical: the US Surgeon-General told us "masks don't work", lying to manage supply, now they're critical; Biden said "get vaccinated, or wear a mask until you do", now the masks are going back on; Kamala Harris said she wouldn't take a Trump vaccine, now there's a big fight over mandates and passports; Fauci kept dangling a vaccine target just beyond what the country was tracking towards (there are articles where he's quoted as saying "I can nudge this up a bit"); Cuomo was hailed as some great leader despite sending covid-positive people into old people's homes (it was his sexual misconduct that finally sunk him). Hesitancy around covid vaccines isn't the antivax of the previous generation, and responding as if it was won't help anything. Actually having an honest conversation with the public that you're more likely better off with a vaccine is not an easy concept to communicate (as you correctly point out), but it would be a good first step in trying to rebuild that lost trust.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    It has definitely become partisan, but not all of it is inconsistent. For example Biden said "wear a mask until you do" before the massive rise of Delta and our knowledge that it causes breakthrough infection. Once we knew that, it made sense to start wearing masks again because we found out that vaccines will be less effective against Delta. Cuomo was held up as a great example when it looked like he had done a good job, but then when screwups were revealed opinions rightfully began to change. By all means let's point out the ridiculous partisan aspects of this debacle, or out & out screwups like initial mask guidance. But also recognize that in plenty of cases a change of stance is not partisan or contradictory, it's the rational response to new information.
Cort3z 5y ago
With this reasoning you can't know if drinking water is good for you without drinking it, so bringing vaccines into the mix has nothing to do with it.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Yes, and even after 30 years you might still say, "but what about 50? What about 70? How do we know it won't contaminate our bodies after death and leach dangerous toxins into the soil hundreds of years from now when our coffins break down?" At some point you have to decide to balance the risk in some way and make a choice. Or live your life in a perpetual state of epistemic uncertainty & indecision. In most cases people are fine doing this: very few people refuse to drive over the unlikely possibility of a fatal car accident, or live in a basement on the remote possibility that a tree or meteor will fall on their home. Unfortunately in this case, politics entered the equation. People cling to epistemic uncertainty to justify consistency with their political allegiance rather than make a decision on the basis of balanced risk, because they they have chosen a balance point that would make them an agoraphobic recluse if applied consistently across their life. I withhold that judgement for those who are reluctant due to the "emergency" approval (in the US) but plan to get vaccinated when fully approved (which Pfizer now has received). I might disagree, but I think a rational person could still balance their risk on that "emergency approval" point. So long as they also are consistent in their application of risk balancing to recognize that strong precautions to avoid infection were required in the meantime.
  - higherup 5y ago
    >very few people refuse to drive over the unlikely possibility of a fatal car accident, or live in a basement on the remote possibility that a tree or meteor will fall on their home. That is because there is no media that is fear mongering on these things by reporting 24x7 on every car accident in gruesome details, and run reports on how driving in a car is very dangerous, when there is a chance that one of the thounsand other drivers that you come across on the road might be a crazed, drunk, distracted person that could hit you, support it with "statistics", and just because you survived the last trip, does not mean that you ll survive the next. They will also run stories about these "anti-walk" persons who took a car or bike, but died in a horrible crashes. The point is, everything is a line between risk and benefits, and when the risk and benefits are a matter of perception, media has great potential to come in and set where that line is..
ineedasername 5y ago
We have a very bare minimum of knowledge for individual treatment, but only in a very few cases. There are genetic markers known, for example, to impact metabolism of specific medications, and there are tests (Genesight) to find out your own profile. So there is some very minimal progress on that front. It's a start towards personalized treatments, but we don't always know why a specific genetic marker doesn't work the same way or why an enzyme has such a large impact on things.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
higherup 5y ago
Yes, you are absolutly correct. The reason for this is that living things are evolved, rather than designed. We have seen that even in very simple hardware, when using a genetically evolved design, we end up having circuits that functions as per the requirement [1]. But it ended up being very hard to figure out how the thing actually worked, and when components were removed that seemingly did not have any purpose, the thing stopped working. And this, in my opinion, points to a very important aspect of evolved systems. We can only have a statistical assessment as you say. But no way to say for sure that, "This and this alone will be the only effect of an intervention". But we can have some idea, depending on the type of intervention. For example, we can say that something that was part of the evolution, will not interfere with its working, simply because evolution has taken it into account during the process. And here comes the concept of something being "natural" to the organism. So we can say that stuff that is taken orally, is much safer than injected stuff. All through our evolution, we have been taking stuff orally. So a Vaccine is much more like throwing a spanner into our workings, than taking something taken orally. Similarly stuff that were part of our natural environment, during evolution can be considered as safer, as opposed to stuff that were not. I think this is why mocking the concept of "natural", by saying, "Everything is natural, because it is found in nature", is embarrassingly missing the point.. [1] https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/ https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
Vrondi 5y ago
Yes, this is correct. For example, give most people most vaccines, and they will be fine. However, some vaccines will cause a few people in every 100,000 or so to develop ITP, which can mean a brief period of bruising and bleeding (as your immune system eats your blood platelets) that clears up with simple steroids, or it can mean longer term or even chronic illness, splenectomy, even death. We have zero way to predict this for any given person. The same is true of other "rare" reactions.

by jes 5y ago

dd36 5y ago

Evolution says hi. I like Kevin Kelly’s technium concept. We are merely an extension of evolution and our purpose is to continue it, which we do willingly and unwillingly.

teekert 5y ago

Not really, we can test a drug on a large population and determine it to be effective on 5% of all people. With no further info you know you have about a 5% chance of getting better. With more research we may determine that for people with a specific variant in their DNA the succes rate is 60%, so you can be part of two groups. We can keep making it better, maybe never 100% but very from “a gamble”. Would you say that hopping on a plane is an experiment in testing if it will crash? When you know it very likely will not?

Vrondi 5y ago
Your plane analogy would only work if every passenger had a unique plane due to genetics, epigentics, etc.
- teekert 5y ago
  I’d say it’s more like we have a lot of similar genetics (the plane) and then some small differences (the seat you are in) but yeah the analogy is a stretch, “similar” is not really a quantitative term but I think you are assuming we are more different then we really are. But that also varies per parameter. For example there is a reason we test drugs on mice, because they are pretty similar to us (mammals), of course there are also differences.

skulk 5y ago

It points to an interesting gap in discourse around vaccines. One side (the mainstream) claims vaccines are effective and safe. The other side, claims that no, we do not in fact know that the vaccine is safe and therefore you should not get it and take your chances with the disease. The problem is that we don't in fact know that the vaccines are truly safe for everyone, because mRNA technology (while incredible) is new, but from my personal interactions I've observed that most intelligent people see that getting the vaccine increases your expected quality of life given you've never had COVID before. However, those who don't believe this will take any claim made by the mainstream (vaccines are safe) as evidence that they are hiding something, further deepening their suspicions. This is a feedback loop; the more people that refuse the vaccine, the more the mainstream will push for more vaccinations, causing more people to refuse the vaccine. All because the nuance of "we don't know that this is as safe as taking a walk in the sun, but we have solid evidence that it improves your E[QOL]" isn't easy to communicate.

endgame 5y ago
More precisely, "the other side" claims that we do not in fact know the vaccine is safe, and points to all the other times "the mainstream" side lied to us as reasons to be skeptical: the US Surgeon-General told us "masks don't work", lying to manage supply, now they're critical; Biden said "get vaccinated, or wear a mask until you do", now the masks are going back on; Kamala Harris said she wouldn't take a Trump vaccine, now there's a big fight over mandates and passports; Fauci kept dangling a vaccine target just beyond what the country was tracking towards (there are articles where he's quoted as saying "I can nudge this up a bit"); Cuomo was hailed as some great leader despite sending covid-positive people into old people's homes (it was his sexual misconduct that finally sunk him). Hesitancy around covid vaccines isn't the antivax of the previous generation, and responding as if it was won't help anything. Actually having an honest conversation with the public that you're more likely better off with a vaccine is not an easy concept to communicate (as you correctly point out), but it would be a good first step in trying to rebuild that lost trust.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  It has definitely become partisan, but not all of it is inconsistent. For example Biden said "wear a mask until you do" before the massive rise of Delta and our knowledge that it causes breakthrough infection. Once we knew that, it made sense to start wearing masks again because we found out that vaccines will be less effective against Delta. Cuomo was held up as a great example when it looked like he had done a good job, but then when screwups were revealed opinions rightfully began to change. By all means let's point out the ridiculous partisan aspects of this debacle, or out & out screwups like initial mask guidance. But also recognize that in plenty of cases a change of stance is not partisan or contradictory, it's the rational response to new information.

Cort3z 5y ago

With this reasoning you can't know if drinking water is good for you without drinking it, so bringing vaccines into the mix has nothing to do with it.

ineedasername 5y ago
Yes, and even after 30 years you might still say, "but what about 50? What about 70? How do we know it won't contaminate our bodies after death and leach dangerous toxins into the soil hundreds of years from now when our coffins break down?" At some point you have to decide to balance the risk in some way and make a choice. Or live your life in a perpetual state of epistemic uncertainty & indecision. In most cases people are fine doing this: very few people refuse to drive over the unlikely possibility of a fatal car accident, or live in a basement on the remote possibility that a tree or meteor will fall on their home. Unfortunately in this case, politics entered the equation. People cling to epistemic uncertainty to justify consistency with their political allegiance rather than make a decision on the basis of balanced risk, because they they have chosen a balance point that would make them an agoraphobic recluse if applied consistently across their life. I withhold that judgement for those who are reluctant due to the "emergency" approval (in the US) but plan to get vaccinated when fully approved (which Pfizer now has received). I might disagree, but I think a rational person could still balance their risk on that "emergency approval" point. So long as they also are consistent in their application of risk balancing to recognize that strong precautions to avoid infection were required in the meantime.
- higherup 5y ago
  >very few people refuse to drive over the unlikely possibility of a fatal car accident, or live in a basement on the remote possibility that a tree or meteor will fall on their home. That is because there is no media that is fear mongering on these things by reporting 24x7 on every car accident in gruesome details, and run reports on how driving in a car is very dangerous, when there is a chance that one of the thounsand other drivers that you come across on the road might be a crazed, drunk, distracted person that could hit you, support it with "statistics", and just because you survived the last trip, does not mean that you ll survive the next. They will also run stories about these "anti-walk" persons who took a car or bike, but died in a horrible crashes. The point is, everything is a line between risk and benefits, and when the risk and benefits are a matter of perception, media has great potential to come in and set where that line is..

ineedasername 5y ago

We have a very bare minimum of knowledge for individual treatment, but only in a very few cases. There are genetic markers known, for example, to impact metabolism of specific medications, and there are tests (Genesight) to find out your own profile. So there is some very minimal progress on that front. It's a start towards personalized treatments, but we don't always know why a specific genetic marker doesn't work the same way or why an enzyme has such a large impact on things.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

higherup 5y ago

Yes, you are absolutly correct. The reason for this is that living things are evolved, rather than designed. We have seen that even in very simple hardware, when using a genetically evolved design, we end up having circuits that functions as per the requirement [1]. But it ended up being very hard to figure out how the thing actually worked, and when components were removed that seemingly did not have any purpose, the thing stopped working. And this, in my opinion, points to a very important aspect of evolved systems. We can only have a statistical assessment as you say. But no way to say for sure that, "This and this alone will be the only effect of an intervention". But we can have some idea, depending on the type of intervention. For example, we can say that something that was part of the evolution, will not interfere with its working, simply because evolution has taken it into account during the process. And here comes the concept of something being "natural" to the organism. So we can say that stuff that is taken orally, is much safer than injected stuff. All through our evolution, we have been taking stuff orally. So a Vaccine is much more like throwing a spanner into our workings, than taking something taken orally. Similarly stuff that were part of our natural environment, during evolution can be considered as safer, as opposed to stuff that were not. I think this is why mocking the concept of "natural", by saying, "Everything is natural, because it is found in nature", is embarrassingly missing the point.. [1] https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/ https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/

Vrondi 5y ago

Yes, this is correct. For example, give most people most vaccines, and they will be fine. However, some vaccines will cause a few people in every 100,000 or so to develop ITP, which can mean a brief period of bruising and bleeding (as your immune system eats your blood platelets) that clears up with simple steroids, or it can mean longer term or even chronic illness, splenectomy, even death. We have zero way to predict this for any given person. The same is true of other "rare" reactions.