3 ms·

Since Herpes Zoster reoccurrence can be triggered by stress, or many other environmental factors, the base rate is that there would be some reoccurrence after a

Since Herpes Zoster reoccurrence can be triggered by stress, or many other environmental factors, the base rate is that there would be some reoccurrence after a vaccination. In fact if this number was 0, that would be it's own paper and a PhD waiting for someone righ there. The base-rate fallacy drives a lot of 'but the vaccine did X'. Plus it's publish or perish you know.

hnbad 5y ago
FWIW in Germany the vaccination center I was at had ads for a free official app for tracking symptoms post-vax in scheduled intervals. The app explicitly insisted you list all symptoms even if you believe them to be unrelated. If you got the flu a week after your shot or get digestive issues from the all you can eat two days later, those symptoms go in the app. Since the base rate is generally unknown, it's safer to track everything and then list side-effects based on frequency. This is all normal and unconcerning. The only thing unusual is how much data we have on the vaccines because we have literally billions of people vaccinated world-wide and an intense public and political interest in observing the outcomes.
- tialaramex 5y ago
  Most advanced countries have surveillance in place for all medical interventions. In the UK we have the "Yellow card scheme". Most submissions are by medics but patients can write up their own reports too. Lying doesn't really matter because they're looking for patterns, so a few people writing nonsense doesn't trip the process up (but of course, please don't lie). However, we don't have good baseline data. One thing that surprised me was, for the HPV vaccine which was initially being given specifically to teenage girls, they didn't have baseline menstruation symptom data. So, does having the HPV jab tend to make your period late? early? heavier? How often? We have no idea because we had no baseline data. Maybe the reports you get are actually normal - prompted only by the recent vaccination. Or maybe they aren't. If you were going to pick a group of patients likely to freak out because of minor and inconsequential menstrual changes you would pick teenage girls, but nobody had this data. Not just in the US, everywhere doesn't have this data. For easy stuff like "Do people drop dead when they take this vaccine?" we know long before authorisation if there's a big problem. But for subtle effects it's invisible until surveillance and without a baseline we have to guess what's important unless the numbers are overwhelming.

hnbad 5y ago

FWIW in Germany the vaccination center I was at had ads for a free official app for tracking symptoms post-vax in scheduled intervals. The app explicitly insisted you list all symptoms even if you believe them to be unrelated. If you got the flu a week after your shot or get digestive issues from the all you can eat two days later, those symptoms go in the app. Since the base rate is generally unknown, it's safer to track everything and then list side-effects based on frequency. This is all normal and unconcerning. The only thing unusual is how much data we have on the vaccines because we have literally billions of people vaccinated world-wide and an intense public and political interest in observing the outcomes.

tialaramex 5y ago
Most advanced countries have surveillance in place for all medical interventions. In the UK we have the "Yellow card scheme". Most submissions are by medics but patients can write up their own reports too. Lying doesn't really matter because they're looking for patterns, so a few people writing nonsense doesn't trip the process up (but of course, please don't lie). However, we don't have good baseline data. One thing that surprised me was, for the HPV vaccine which was initially being given specifically to teenage girls, they didn't have baseline menstruation symptom data. So, does having the HPV jab tend to make your period late? early? heavier? How often? We have no idea because we had no baseline data. Maybe the reports you get are actually normal - prompted only by the recent vaccination. Or maybe they aren't. If you were going to pick a group of patients likely to freak out because of minor and inconsequential menstrual changes you would pick teenage girls, but nobody had this data. Not just in the US, everywhere doesn't have this data. For easy stuff like "Do people drop dead when they take this vaccine?" we know long before authorisation if there's a big problem. But for subtle effects it's invisible until surveillance and without a baseline we have to guess what's important unless the numbers are overwhelming.