6 ms·

Can you really blame people for being sceptical of the vaccines when you read stories like this everyday? As a lay person, how do I know that the vaccine reall

by yarcob 5y ago

Can you really blame people for being sceptical of the vaccines when you read stories like this everyday? As a lay person, how do I know that the vaccine really is as safe as everyone says? I mean, if you told people in 1995 that you won't take the pills that the doctor prescribed because they just want to get you addicted, people would have looked at you funny. How do we know it's different this time?

MisterBastahrd 5y ago
Yes? The opioid is not the problem. It's the way it was marketed and prescribed. Nobody is getting addicted to vaccinations.
- thechao 5y ago
  This is a great concept for a near-future sci-fi short story, though.
- zepto 5y ago
  That’s not the issue. The issue is that it’s legitimate to distrust medicine as a whole because there are numerous good examples of it being untrustworthy at every level from public health officials, drug manufacturers, down to individual physicians. I don’t think it’s good sensemaking to be generically anti-vax, but I think the lack of trust in medicine is a systemic problem and not one that can so easily be blamed on the people who don’t trust it.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    Distrust is different than "downright reject" and lumping the two together, painting it as a picture of "reasonable distrust," is being extremely favorable to those who simply have stopped engaging. Nobody who disagrees with them (that Covid is real, that masks have value, that the vaccine is worth getting...) is trustworthy by definition. That's not "distrust," that's not something that can be addressed simply by "oh I talked to some more people and now I believe that this isn't a case of the system abusing us." Rejecting the vaccine because you don't even understand it's described mechanism and so you fall victim to nonsense claims about "viral shedding" or "gene editing" is not being skeptical, it's being gullible.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > Distrust is different than "downright reject" and lumping the two together, painting it as a picture of "reasonable distrust," is being extremely favorable to those who simply have stopped engaging. I agree that there are level of distrust, but these are not separate categories. > Nobody who disagrees with them (that Covid is real, that masks have value, that the vaccine is worth getting...) is trustworthy by definition. Why is it relevant to attack people who disagree with mainstream views as ‘untrustworthy by definition’? Being wrong or misguided doesn’t make someone untrustworthy. > That's not "distrust," that's not something that can be addressed simply by "oh I talked to some more people and now I believe that this isn't a case of the system abusing us." It’s not clear what point you are making here. > Rejecting the vaccine because you don't even understand it's described mechanism and so you fall victim to nonsense claims about "viral shedding" or "gene editing" is not being skeptical, it's being gullible. Now you are changing the goalposts. Skepticism is not the same as distrust and not something I have mentioned.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    It is exactly the issue. The best guidance we have about these things are from the CDC. While they don't always get it right, they usually have a good explanation for their error when they don't. It's a gigantic gulf to go from "they're wrong some of the time" to "I'm not going to get vaccinated, but if I do get sick, I'm going to go inject myself with horse paste because I trust whackjob talking heads on the internet more than licensed medical experts in the field." The VAST majority of people who are resistant to masks and vaccinations are not doing this because they don't believe in the science. They're doing it because talking heads instructed them that to accept them as normal is an affront to their freedom.
    - zepto 5y ago
      > The best guidance we have about these things are from the CDC. Why not the WHO? The CDC lied to us that masks were useless when in fact they believed that masks were helpful but they wanted to keep the supply for medical professionals. > While they don't always get it right, That wasn’t a matter of not getting it right. It was a deliberate lie that was harmful to the health of those who followed it. > they usually have a good explanation for their error when they don't. It wasn’t an error, and the explanation was that they lied in order to manipulate public behavior. > It's a gigantic gulf to go from "they're wrong some of the time" to "I'm not going to get vaccinated, but if I do get sick, I'm going to go inject myself with horse paste because I trust whackjob talking heads on the internet more than licensed medical experts in the field." It might be for you and me who have background knowledge about vaccines and viruses, but in the absence of that, why would trust the CDC who you know for certain have been lying? Medical licenses didn’t prevent that. Also, it’s not horse paste. That’s a lie in itself. It happens to be used in horses, but it is also approved for use in humans as are many medicines also used in animals, for example Ketamine. Do you think ketamine is ‘horse paste’. Calling it horse paste shows contempt for those who think it’s a useful medicine. Why would anyone trust someone who is contemptuous of them? Remember there are hundreds of licenses medical professionals who recommend ivermectin for covid. Some of them are the very people you are calling “whackjob talking heads”. Deepak Chopra has a medial license and has written 91 books! It doesn’t seem like a medical license is sufficient to tell who is a “whackjob”. I don’t think ivermectin is effective, but that’s based on my own calculus of how to integrate the various different opinions, none of which are all that trustworthy.
- beardyw 5y ago
  >It's the way it was marketed and prescribed. Can you explain to me, a simple Brit, what you mean. Here doctors are very reluctant to prescribe anything addictive even for a short time. What are the forces behind this?
  - solomonb 5y ago
    This is literally what the book being reviewed in the linked article (and summarized in the linked article) is about.
  - kadoban 5y ago
    In a word: money.
fighterpilot 5y ago
Look how many countries the vaccines have been deployed in. Are they all in some kind of conspiracy to suppress deaths and side effects, or to fabricate high efficacy numbers?
spoonjim 5y ago
I don't blame anyone for skeptical of the pharmaceutical industry. The US federal government and American large corporations have not earned the benefit of the doubt. However, I only think it's only legitimate to reject the advice of the government if you actually go out and do your own research. If you do that, in a rationalist way, you will likely come to the conclusion to get the Covid vaccine, unless you 1) are willing to completely isolate, or 2) have particular blood or immune conditions. The safety of the vaccine compared to the safety of Covid has been conclusively demonstrated.
- qq4 5y ago
  > The safety of the vaccine compared to the safety of Covid has been conclusively demonstrated. I agree with this, but it I find it hard to find a single repository of good information on Covid. Maybe I am ignorant. Is there something you can share with me? I know many people still on the fence and I would like to offer them some evidence.
  - octonion 5y ago
    You have access to the internet, yet claim you can't find good information about Covid? Please don't troll about a virus that's already killed millions of people, including my own mother.
  - majormajor 5y ago
    This sounds disingenuous. If you agree with it, wouldn't that mean you've seen sources of information you accept to lead you to agreeing? And then you could share those sources? This sounds like a "no offense intended, but" approach to misinformation.
nonameiguess 5y ago
If your attitude is "information source X has ever put out information that was false, therefore I will trust no information it ever puts out," since every possible value of X has put out false information at some point in its existence, especially multi-century institutions like "western medicine," you're left with an inability to ever believe anything. They call this "epistemic learned helplessness" and it's an extremely unfruitful way of evaluating information. Instead, recognize that all human knowledge is probabilistic in nature. The vaccine trials were all published publicly. Review them and scrutinize the methods if you think the conclusions are likely to be wrong. It's perfectly fair to see that studies have been entirely falsified in the past, but understand also this is why the vaccine was developed in such a way that no single vendor has a monopoly patent on it. Coordinated fraud on the part of multiple researchers funded by multiple vendors in one of the most scrutinized public processes ever conducted is a lot less likely than when all of the information is being generated by a single source.
mbrodersen 5y ago
As a lay person, how do you know that the milk you drink, the beef that you eat, the eggs that you eat, the water you drink is safe? The answer is: you don’t. You only trust it because it hasn’t made you sick yet.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  We've had cows, chickens, and water a lot longer than we've had mRNA vaccines. If milk, beef, eggs, or water caused long-term side effects, we'd know about them by now.
  - mbrodersen 5y ago
    The cows and chicken you eat are pumped full of growth hormones, anti-biopics etc. Nobody knows what the long term effects will be.

by yarcob 5y ago

MisterBastahrd 5y ago

Yes? The opioid is not the problem. It's the way it was marketed and prescribed. Nobody is getting addicted to vaccinations.

thechao 5y ago
This is a great concept for a near-future sci-fi short story, though.
zepto 5y ago
That’s not the issue. The issue is that it’s legitimate to distrust medicine as a whole because there are numerous good examples of it being untrustworthy at every level from public health officials, drug manufacturers, down to individual physicians. I don’t think it’s good sensemaking to be generically anti-vax, but I think the lack of trust in medicine is a systemic problem and not one that can so easily be blamed on the people who don’t trust it.
- majormajor 5y ago
  Distrust is different than "downright reject" and lumping the two together, painting it as a picture of "reasonable distrust," is being extremely favorable to those who simply have stopped engaging. Nobody who disagrees with them (that Covid is real, that masks have value, that the vaccine is worth getting...) is trustworthy by definition. That's not "distrust," that's not something that can be addressed simply by "oh I talked to some more people and now I believe that this isn't a case of the system abusing us." Rejecting the vaccine because you don't even understand it's described mechanism and so you fall victim to nonsense claims about "viral shedding" or "gene editing" is not being skeptical, it's being gullible.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > Distrust is different than "downright reject" and lumping the two together, painting it as a picture of "reasonable distrust," is being extremely favorable to those who simply have stopped engaging. I agree that there are level of distrust, but these are not separate categories. > Nobody who disagrees with them (that Covid is real, that masks have value, that the vaccine is worth getting...) is trustworthy by definition. Why is it relevant to attack people who disagree with mainstream views as ‘untrustworthy by definition’? Being wrong or misguided doesn’t make someone untrustworthy. > That's not "distrust," that's not something that can be addressed simply by "oh I talked to some more people and now I believe that this isn't a case of the system abusing us." It’s not clear what point you are making here. > Rejecting the vaccine because you don't even understand it's described mechanism and so you fall victim to nonsense claims about "viral shedding" or "gene editing" is not being skeptical, it's being gullible. Now you are changing the goalposts. Skepticism is not the same as distrust and not something I have mentioned.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  It is exactly the issue. The best guidance we have about these things are from the CDC. While they don't always get it right, they usually have a good explanation for their error when they don't. It's a gigantic gulf to go from "they're wrong some of the time" to "I'm not going to get vaccinated, but if I do get sick, I'm going to go inject myself with horse paste because I trust whackjob talking heads on the internet more than licensed medical experts in the field." The VAST majority of people who are resistant to masks and vaccinations are not doing this because they don't believe in the science. They're doing it because talking heads instructed them that to accept them as normal is an affront to their freedom.
  - zepto 5y ago
    > The best guidance we have about these things are from the CDC. Why not the WHO? The CDC lied to us that masks were useless when in fact they believed that masks were helpful but they wanted to keep the supply for medical professionals. > While they don't always get it right, That wasn’t a matter of not getting it right. It was a deliberate lie that was harmful to the health of those who followed it. > they usually have a good explanation for their error when they don't. It wasn’t an error, and the explanation was that they lied in order to manipulate public behavior. > It's a gigantic gulf to go from "they're wrong some of the time" to "I'm not going to get vaccinated, but if I do get sick, I'm going to go inject myself with horse paste because I trust whackjob talking heads on the internet more than licensed medical experts in the field." It might be for you and me who have background knowledge about vaccines and viruses, but in the absence of that, why would trust the CDC who you know for certain have been lying? Medical licenses didn’t prevent that. Also, it’s not horse paste. That’s a lie in itself. It happens to be used in horses, but it is also approved for use in humans as are many medicines also used in animals, for example Ketamine. Do you think ketamine is ‘horse paste’. Calling it horse paste shows contempt for those who think it’s a useful medicine. Why would anyone trust someone who is contemptuous of them? Remember there are hundreds of licenses medical professionals who recommend ivermectin for covid. Some of them are the very people you are calling “whackjob talking heads”. Deepak Chopra has a medial license and has written 91 books! It doesn’t seem like a medical license is sufficient to tell who is a “whackjob”. I don’t think ivermectin is effective, but that’s based on my own calculus of how to integrate the various different opinions, none of which are all that trustworthy.
beardyw 5y ago
>It's the way it was marketed and prescribed. Can you explain to me, a simple Brit, what you mean. Here doctors are very reluctant to prescribe anything addictive even for a short time. What are the forces behind this?
- solomonb 5y ago
  This is literally what the book being reviewed in the linked article (and summarized in the linked article) is about.
- kadoban 5y ago
  In a word: money.

fighterpilot 5y ago

Look how many countries the vaccines have been deployed in. Are they all in some kind of conspiracy to suppress deaths and side effects, or to fabricate high efficacy numbers?

spoonjim 5y ago

I don't blame anyone for skeptical of the pharmaceutical industry. The US federal government and American large corporations have not earned the benefit of the doubt. However, I only think it's only legitimate to reject the advice of the government if you actually go out and do your own research. If you do that, in a rationalist way, you will likely come to the conclusion to get the Covid vaccine, unless you 1) are willing to completely isolate, or 2) have particular blood or immune conditions. The safety of the vaccine compared to the safety of Covid has been conclusively demonstrated.

qq4 5y ago
> The safety of the vaccine compared to the safety of Covid has been conclusively demonstrated. I agree with this, but it I find it hard to find a single repository of good information on Covid. Maybe I am ignorant. Is there something you can share with me? I know many people still on the fence and I would like to offer them some evidence.
- octonion 5y ago
  You have access to the internet, yet claim you can't find good information about Covid? Please don't troll about a virus that's already killed millions of people, including my own mother.
- majormajor 5y ago
  This sounds disingenuous. If you agree with it, wouldn't that mean you've seen sources of information you accept to lead you to agreeing? And then you could share those sources? This sounds like a "no offense intended, but" approach to misinformation.

nonameiguess 5y ago

If your attitude is "information source X has ever put out information that was false, therefore I will trust no information it ever puts out," since every possible value of X has put out false information at some point in its existence, especially multi-century institutions like "western medicine," you're left with an inability to ever believe anything. They call this "epistemic learned helplessness" and it's an extremely unfruitful way of evaluating information. Instead, recognize that all human knowledge is probabilistic in nature. The vaccine trials were all published publicly. Review them and scrutinize the methods if you think the conclusions are likely to be wrong. It's perfectly fair to see that studies have been entirely falsified in the past, but understand also this is why the vaccine was developed in such a way that no single vendor has a monopoly patent on it. Coordinated fraud on the part of multiple researchers funded by multiple vendors in one of the most scrutinized public processes ever conducted is a lot less likely than when all of the information is being generated by a single source.

mbrodersen 5y ago

As a lay person, how do you know that the milk you drink, the beef that you eat, the eggs that you eat, the water you drink is safe? The answer is: you don’t. You only trust it because it hasn’t made you sick yet.

josephcsible 5y ago
We've had cows, chickens, and water a lot longer than we've had mRNA vaccines. If milk, beef, eggs, or water caused long-term side effects, we'd know about them by now.
- mbrodersen 5y ago
  The cows and chicken you eat are pumped full of growth hormones, anti-biopics etc. Nobody knows what the long term effects will be.