4 ms·

> The CDC claims they redefined it away from the word “immunity” towards the word “protection” because no vaccine grants perfect immunity. Personally I find tha

> The CDC claims they redefined it away from the word “immunity” towards the word “protection” because no vaccine grants perfect immunity. Personally I find that to be a bad answer. By taking a weighty word like “vaccine” and redefining it, the expectations of risks and benefits the public holds were exploited. This isn't anything new though. Vaccines have always had varied amounts of effectiveness. While some, like the polio vaccine are essentially 100% effective, other common ones like the MMR vaccine (components range from 30-90% effectiveness) and flu vaccine (40-60% effective based on year) are about as effective as the covid vaccines, and its never been controversial to call them vaccines.

StanislavPetrov 5y ago
>and its never been controversial to call them vaccines. They've never been mandated by law before (let alone a unilateral executive order). That it was done by executive fiat rather than legislation makes it especially troubling. If the president can unilaterally mandate a forced medical procedure, what can't they do? This isn't a question about vaccines or vaccine effectiveness, its a question about law, Constitutional rights and executive power.
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  You're making a different argument than the one I was replying to, which was precisely about vaccine effectiveness and semantics related to that. But you're also wrong. The mmr vaccine is mandated if you want to attend k-12 public schools or federally funded public universities, and the ability to do that is uncontroversially in executive purview (for universities). Also note that this EO has a testing option, so calling it a vaccine "mandate" is a stretch, unlike the EO that applies to federal contractors which is a mandate and is uncontroversially constitutional.
  - gfodor 5y ago
    It’s fairly obvious that a mandate connected to taxpayer funded schools is a totally different thing than one governing all employers in the US. That’s not to defend the former so much as to point out that the set of arguments justifying it are on a whole different level of sanity than these executive fiats governing the entire labor market.
  - StanislavPetrov 5y ago
    We aren't talking about public schools or federally funded universities. This isn't an issue of linking the use of public facilities or federal funds to conditions issued by the government - that's entirely different. We're talking about a unilateral executive action that mandates private citizens to undergo medical procedures to conduct their own private affairs. The fact is that there is no legal or Constitutional authority for the President to unilaterally issue laws or mandates. Whether vaccines are beneficial or not is entirely irrelevant. We either have a system of laws that we all live by, or we don't.
pdonis 5y ago
> other common ones like the MMR vaccine (components range from 30-90% effectiveness) That's not what the CDC says. The CDC says [1]: "One dose of MMR vaccine is 93% effective against measles, 78% effective against mumps, and 97% effective against rubella. "Two doses of MMR vaccine are 97% effective against measles and 88% effective against mumps." Very different from either flu vaccines or COVID vaccines. Especially since, when talking about any vaccines except flu and COVID, when the CDC says "effective", they mean "prevents you from getting the disease at all or being able to transmit it to others". The people who could still get the disease or transmit it to others are the few percent for whom the vaccine is not effective. Whereas, when the CDC talks about COVID vaccines, reducing the severity of illness or reducing (not eliminating) the chance of passing it on to others are what you get if the vaccine is "effective" for you. So not only has the meaning of "vaccine" been changed, the meaning of "effective" has been changed as well. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html
- joshuamorton 5y ago
  My understanding is that the 88% number for mumps is the upper end of the effective range: > MMR vaccine is very safe and effective. The mumps component of the MMR vaccine is about 88% (range: 32-95%) effective when a person gets two doses; one dose is about 78% (range: 49%−92%) effective. Per https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mumps/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mumps/index.html > Whereas, when the CDC talks about COVID vaccines, reducing the severity of illness or reducing (not eliminating) the chance of passing it on to others are what you get if the vaccine is "effective" for you. So not only has the meaning of "vaccine" been changed, the meaning of "effective" has been changed as well. If we're talking this definition got covid vaccines, then the covid vaccines are much more effective than flu vaccines (and probably on par with MMR). If we're using a consistent definition of effectiveness, then covid vaccines are probably slightly less effective than the flu vaxes.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    The page you reference is very weird because it's the only vaccine page on the CDC website that gives a range for the effectiveness numbers; all the others just give a percentage. I'm not sure what the range means, unless it's a 95% confidence interval or something like that; but I have great difficulty in believing that 95% confidence intervals would be that wide after decades of usage of the vaccine. But in any case, it looks like "effectiveness" has been used differently for the mumps vaccine (or the mumps component of the MMR vaccine) for some time. IIRC, there was a mumps outbreak in Ontario in 2011 that raised some doubts about the effectivness of the mumps component of the MMR vaccine; possibly the ranges are from studies done of that outbreak. But again, if the ranges are 95% confidence intervals (and I can't imagine what else they could be), they are atrociously wide for a disease and a vaccine that has been around this long. It is possible, I suppose, that almost all vaccines really are that uncertain in their effects; but if that's true, it should make us much, much less confident about the wisdom of vaccine mandates in general, and COVID vaccine mandates in particular. If we can still be that uncertain about a vaccine that has been around for decades, how much more uncertain should we be about one that was only discovered last year?

StanislavPetrov 5y ago

>and its never been controversial to call them vaccines. They've never been mandated by law before (let alone a unilateral executive order). That it was done by executive fiat rather than legislation makes it especially troubling. If the president can unilaterally mandate a forced medical procedure, what can't they do? This isn't a question about vaccines or vaccine effectiveness, its a question about law, Constitutional rights and executive power.

joshuamorton 5y ago
You're making a different argument than the one I was replying to, which was precisely about vaccine effectiveness and semantics related to that. But you're also wrong. The mmr vaccine is mandated if you want to attend k-12 public schools or federally funded public universities, and the ability to do that is uncontroversially in executive purview (for universities). Also note that this EO has a testing option, so calling it a vaccine "mandate" is a stretch, unlike the EO that applies to federal contractors which is a mandate and is uncontroversially constitutional.
- gfodor 5y ago
  It’s fairly obvious that a mandate connected to taxpayer funded schools is a totally different thing than one governing all employers in the US. That’s not to defend the former so much as to point out that the set of arguments justifying it are on a whole different level of sanity than these executive fiats governing the entire labor market.
- StanislavPetrov 5y ago
  We aren't talking about public schools or federally funded universities. This isn't an issue of linking the use of public facilities or federal funds to conditions issued by the government - that's entirely different. We're talking about a unilateral executive action that mandates private citizens to undergo medical procedures to conduct their own private affairs. The fact is that there is no legal or Constitutional authority for the President to unilaterally issue laws or mandates. Whether vaccines are beneficial or not is entirely irrelevant. We either have a system of laws that we all live by, or we don't.

pdonis 5y ago

> other common ones like the MMR vaccine (components range from 30-90% effectiveness) That's not what the CDC says. The CDC says [1]: "One dose of MMR vaccine is 93% effective against measles, 78% effective against mumps, and 97% effective against rubella. "Two doses of MMR vaccine are 97% effective against measles and 88% effective against mumps." Very different from either flu vaccines or COVID vaccines. Especially since, when talking about any vaccines except flu and COVID, when the CDC says "effective", they mean "prevents you from getting the disease at all or being able to transmit it to others". The people who could still get the disease or transmit it to others are the few percent for whom the vaccine is not effective. Whereas, when the CDC talks about COVID vaccines, reducing the severity of illness or reducing (not eliminating) the chance of passing it on to others are what you get if the vaccine is "effective" for you. So not only has the meaning of "vaccine" been changed, the meaning of "effective" has been changed as well. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html

joshuamorton 5y ago
My understanding is that the 88% number for mumps is the upper end of the effective range: > MMR vaccine is very safe and effective. The mumps component of the MMR vaccine is about 88% (range: 32-95%) effective when a person gets two doses; one dose is about 78% (range: 49%−92%) effective. Per https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mumps/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mumps/index.html > Whereas, when the CDC talks about COVID vaccines, reducing the severity of illness or reducing (not eliminating) the chance of passing it on to others are what you get if the vaccine is "effective" for you. So not only has the meaning of "vaccine" been changed, the meaning of "effective" has been changed as well. If we're talking this definition got covid vaccines, then the covid vaccines are much more effective than flu vaccines (and probably on par with MMR). If we're using a consistent definition of effectiveness, then covid vaccines are probably slightly less effective than the flu vaxes.
- pdonis 5y ago
  The page you reference is very weird because it's the only vaccine page on the CDC website that gives a range for the effectiveness numbers; all the others just give a percentage. I'm not sure what the range means, unless it's a 95% confidence interval or something like that; but I have great difficulty in believing that 95% confidence intervals would be that wide after decades of usage of the vaccine. But in any case, it looks like "effectiveness" has been used differently for the mumps vaccine (or the mumps component of the MMR vaccine) for some time. IIRC, there was a mumps outbreak in Ontario in 2011 that raised some doubts about the effectivness of the mumps component of the MMR vaccine; possibly the ranges are from studies done of that outbreak. But again, if the ranges are 95% confidence intervals (and I can't imagine what else they could be), they are atrociously wide for a disease and a vaccine that has been around this long. It is possible, I suppose, that almost all vaccines really are that uncertain in their effects; but if that's true, it should make us much, much less confident about the wisdom of vaccine mandates in general, and COVID vaccine mandates in particular. If we can still be that uncertain about a vaccine that has been around for decades, how much more uncertain should we be about one that was only discovered last year?