5 ms·

Blind rage against anti-vaxxers causes blindness to real risks.

ceejayoz 5y ago
So does blindly reading the headline and not the whole article. > However, according to the EMA, the benefits of both mRNA shots in preventing COVID-19 continue to outweigh the risks, the regulator said, echoing similar views expressed by U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization. "Take Pfizer over Moderna if you're under 30" isn't the anti-vax position.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  If you said a week ago that Moderna may be a bit more dangerous for under-35s, most people would have called you an anti-vaxxer as a knee-jerk reaction.
  - enumjorge 5y ago
    I mean we’re having this discussion today aren’t we? Did something magically shift in people’s mindset over the last week? No, we just have more data from credible sources. If you want to blame something for the unhealthy state of public discourse around vaccines, blame anti vaxxers. It is their anti science stance during a health crisis that is both irrational and has removed all nuance from healthcare discussions.
  - simion314 5y ago
    >If you said a week ago that Moderna may be a bit more dangerous for under-35s, most people would have called you an anti-vaxxer as a knee-jerk reaction. Only idiots, rational people would say for sure the risk for vaccine A is not exactly equal with B for each individual, and that person would ask for real data and not some speculation for a youtubger that bearly finished high-school or some fake news website shared on Facebook. Just to remind people, the risk for X complication is just a number , you always need to remember that the risk might be smaller for you (or larger) but it might be much larger for someone in your family/friends so don't forget the otehrs when you try to pretend you know how to calculate your own risks,
  - Splendor 5y ago
    It would appear that the difference between your hypothetical scenario and this one is the introduction of scientific data. Interesting huh?
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      My vaccine-hesitant family has been saying Moderna is more dangerous for young people for months now. Which is why this slight admission, though slight, hits home.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
zibzab 5y ago
What blindness? Analysing all angles and making informed decisions is sort of the exact opposite of pushing your head in the sand.
arenaninja 5y ago
> the benefits of both mRNA shots in preventing COVID-19 continue to outweigh the risks, the regulator said, echoing similar views expressed by U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization I'm not so sure about that. I think there's valid healthy skepticism about the mRNA shots but the loudest people protesting are firebreathers with no coherent argument or thought
- peter422 5y ago
  Yes billions of data points showing the safety and efficacy of the mRNA shots just isn’t enough. We need tens of billions otherwise you just can’t trust those things.
  - bongcloud420 5y ago
    The safety is being called into question and the vaccines aren't any where even kinda close to effective as they purported to be when they were released. I find it extremely strange to see more or less this exact post over and over again in response to people's concerns for long-term side effects. Number of people !== time. Every single person on the planet could get the vaccine and we still would have precisely 0 long-term data. It's even more interesting that the same people making this mistake and telling everyone to "follow the science" seem completely unable to accept that not only are there very real health concerns, but that it's entirely possible if not probable that more negative effects will be found in the future.
  - landemva 5y ago
    In addition to data points, safety determinations also take time. Prior to 2020, it took 4-10 years (though sometimes longer like chicken pox shot) for vaccine approval in USA. When did we have discussions and thoughts and reasoned policy change on the _time_ aspect of safety testing? While some things like asbestos have uses, safety concerns can take years to be discovered.
    - peter422 5y ago
      The past vaccine timeline was driven mostly by monetary concerns and not safety ones. Companies did not want to risk spending tons of money on large trials until they were sure all the smaller ones were bulletproof. Once you get to the point of doing the large phase 3 trial the timeline for these vaccines was much less compressed. Also much easier to test a vaccine when the virus is spreading all over the place quickly. Also there just aren’t historical examples of vaccines having “hidden” long term effects. All side effects that happen after 6 weeks also happen much more frequently before 6 weeks.
uniformlyrandom 5y ago
You are right. Anti-vaxxers have some valid points - admittedly, introducing a foreign substance into human body always carries some risks. The problem with risks and probability is that human brain does not process probability numbers well, so it is all or nothing. Anti-vaxxers point of view: I do not understand what 0.0001 is, round it up to 0.5 - OMG vaccines kill. Vaxxers point of view: I do not understand what 0.0001 is, let us round it down to 0. Vaccines are harmless. Second point is way more rational, although of course also incorrect.
- enumjorge 5y ago
  > Vaxxers point of view: I do not understand what 0.0001 is, let us round it down to 0. Vaccines are harmless. I’m not sure where you are getting this characterization of people who are pro vaccines but it doesn’t apply to anyone I know who took the vaccine. Yes, there’s some risk of side effect as with most medicines. But you still take them because the benefits far outweigh the risks. Pretty sure the average person who took the vaccine is able to wrap their head around that concept.
- seneca 5y ago
  Not saying you're wrong, but that's not really how people who refuse the COVID vaccine I know think. They think "I do not understand the risks of the vaccine, and I don't trust the people telling me it's safe, so I'm not getting it". That's quite different. Most people are not Bayesian thinkers. They mostly react based on how they feel about things. I think what people fail to understand is that this isn't a one time problem. It's not bad math being done. It's one of the first major displays of an on going collapse of trust in Western institutions.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    To be honest, consider if you owned a small business, say a restaurant. These are the same people who said two weeks to slow the spread, then proceeded to lockdown for months and put your business into flip-a-coin odds for insolvency. It doesn’t matter how many credentials are next to their names - you are never listening to them ever again. And neither will your family who depended on your business or saw you lose your business.

So does blindly reading the headline and not the whole article. > However, according to the EMA, the benefits of both mRNA shots in preventing COVID-19 continue to outweigh the risks, the regulator said, echoing similar views expressed by U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization. "Take Pfizer over Moderna if you're under 30" isn't the anti-vax position.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
If you said a week ago that Moderna may be a bit more dangerous for under-35s, most people would have called you an anti-vaxxer as a knee-jerk reaction.
- enumjorge 5y ago
  I mean we’re having this discussion today aren’t we? Did something magically shift in people’s mindset over the last week? No, we just have more data from credible sources. If you want to blame something for the unhealthy state of public discourse around vaccines, blame anti vaxxers. It is their anti science stance during a health crisis that is both irrational and has removed all nuance from healthcare discussions.
- simion314 5y ago
  >If you said a week ago that Moderna may be a bit more dangerous for under-35s, most people would have called you an anti-vaxxer as a knee-jerk reaction. Only idiots, rational people would say for sure the risk for vaccine A is not exactly equal with B for each individual, and that person would ask for real data and not some speculation for a youtubger that bearly finished high-school or some fake news website shared on Facebook. Just to remind people, the risk for X complication is just a number , you always need to remember that the risk might be smaller for you (or larger) but it might be much larger for someone in your family/friends so don't forget the otehrs when you try to pretend you know how to calculate your own risks,
- Splendor 5y ago
  It would appear that the difference between your hypothetical scenario and this one is the introduction of scientific data. Interesting huh?
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    My vaccine-hesitant family has been saying Moderna is more dangerous for young people for months now. Which is why this slight admission, though slight, hits home.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

zibzab 5y ago

What blindness? Analysing all angles and making informed decisions is sort of the exact opposite of pushing your head in the sand.

arenaninja 5y ago

> the benefits of both mRNA shots in preventing COVID-19 continue to outweigh the risks, the regulator said, echoing similar views expressed by U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization I'm not so sure about that. I think there's valid healthy skepticism about the mRNA shots but the loudest people protesting are firebreathers with no coherent argument or thought

peter422 5y ago
Yes billions of data points showing the safety and efficacy of the mRNA shots just isn’t enough. We need tens of billions otherwise you just can’t trust those things.
- bongcloud420 5y ago
  The safety is being called into question and the vaccines aren't any where even kinda close to effective as they purported to be when they were released. I find it extremely strange to see more or less this exact post over and over again in response to people's concerns for long-term side effects. Number of people !== time. Every single person on the planet could get the vaccine and we still would have precisely 0 long-term data. It's even more interesting that the same people making this mistake and telling everyone to "follow the science" seem completely unable to accept that not only are there very real health concerns, but that it's entirely possible if not probable that more negative effects will be found in the future.
- landemva 5y ago
  In addition to data points, safety determinations also take time. Prior to 2020, it took 4-10 years (though sometimes longer like chicken pox shot) for vaccine approval in USA. When did we have discussions and thoughts and reasoned policy change on the _time_ aspect of safety testing? While some things like asbestos have uses, safety concerns can take years to be discovered.
  - peter422 5y ago
    The past vaccine timeline was driven mostly by monetary concerns and not safety ones. Companies did not want to risk spending tons of money on large trials until they were sure all the smaller ones were bulletproof. Once you get to the point of doing the large phase 3 trial the timeline for these vaccines was much less compressed. Also much easier to test a vaccine when the virus is spreading all over the place quickly. Also there just aren’t historical examples of vaccines having “hidden” long term effects. All side effects that happen after 6 weeks also happen much more frequently before 6 weeks.

uniformlyrandom 5y ago

You are right. Anti-vaxxers have some valid points - admittedly, introducing a foreign substance into human body always carries some risks. The problem with risks and probability is that human brain does not process probability numbers well, so it is all or nothing. Anti-vaxxers point of view: I do not understand what 0.0001 is, round it up to 0.5 - OMG vaccines kill. Vaxxers point of view: I do not understand what 0.0001 is, let us round it down to 0. Vaccines are harmless. Second point is way more rational, although of course also incorrect.

enumjorge 5y ago
> Vaxxers point of view: I do not understand what 0.0001 is, let us round it down to 0. Vaccines are harmless. I’m not sure where you are getting this characterization of people who are pro vaccines but it doesn’t apply to anyone I know who took the vaccine. Yes, there’s some risk of side effect as with most medicines. But you still take them because the benefits far outweigh the risks. Pretty sure the average person who took the vaccine is able to wrap their head around that concept.
seneca 5y ago
Not saying you're wrong, but that's not really how people who refuse the COVID vaccine I know think. They think "I do not understand the risks of the vaccine, and I don't trust the people telling me it's safe, so I'm not getting it". That's quite different. Most people are not Bayesian thinkers. They mostly react based on how they feel about things. I think what people fail to understand is that this isn't a one time problem. It's not bad math being done. It's one of the first major displays of an on going collapse of trust in Western institutions.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  To be honest, consider if you owned a small business, say a restaurant. These are the same people who said two weeks to slow the spread, then proceeded to lockdown for months and put your business into flip-a-coin odds for insolvency. It doesn’t matter how many credentials are next to their names - you are never listening to them ever again. And neither will your family who depended on your business or saw you lose your business.