4 ms·

But they aren’t in the same magnitude - for example, incidences of peri/myocarditis is 30x (at a minimum) greater in someone who has COVID vs someone vaccinated

But they aren’t in the same magnitude - for example, incidences of peri/myocarditis is 30x (at a minimum) greater in someone who has COVID vs someone vaccinated; and vaccination leads to shorter milder breakthrough infections which (should - I can’t claim to have seen a study) lead to a lower incidence compared to someone who was unvaccinated and infected

yunohn 5y ago
Yes, that’s my doubt as well. Until we have more unbiased studies coming out, we can’t determine the impact of these side effects. The problem with pro-vaccine propaganda is that it tells you to blindly listen to the science. The problem with that is “the science” is controlled by commercial interests and profit margins. It’s like telling everyone democracy is the One True Way and we end up in last-stage capitalism.
- nicoburns 5y ago
  > The problem with that is “the science” is controlled by commercial interests and profit margins. Is it? A good proportion of academia is funded by states, non-profits, and tuition from undergraduate students, and researchers generally operate with a great degree of autonomy. Of course there is corrupt research out there, but I see little evidence that it's pervasive.
  - yunohn 5y ago
    I don’t think it’s reasonable to live in 2022 and argue that academia isn’t influenced by capitalistic interests. This is so backwards of a viewpoint that I don’t have the time to argue further.
    - nicoburns 5y ago
      "influenced" is a much weaker claim than "controlled". Yes, there's a commercial influence, but does that prevent studies that are against those commercial interests from being conducted or those commercial studies from being criticised: no it doesn't.
      - yunohn 5y ago
        I did not intend to weaken my claim - I actually do believe that most of research is controlled by commercial interests in one way or another. Governments and corporations alike allocate capital towards research that they think benefits the populace or shareholders. This is measured with a dollar value, like most things in life (thank you last stage capitalism). While the influence on certain topics might be lesser, it is definitely stronger for other topics. The vaccines are a good example of the latter, since it’s a highly profitable venture with a TAM of the entire global population. You can see this in broad daylight where Pfizer wanted to make their data public only after 75 years (1). Surely good science doesn’t need secrecy? If this doesn’t invoke skepticism into how most research is influenced similarly, I’m not sure what to say. (1) https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importance-judge-orders-fda-hasten-release-pfizer-vaccine-docs-2022-01-07/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importanc...
        nicoburns 5y ago
        > You can see this in broad daylight where Pfizer wanted to make their data public only after 75 years (1). Surely good science doesn’t need secrecy? Indeed it doesn't, and it seems that was upheld by the courts which made sure that there wasn't such secrecy. To me this is evidence that while they are powerful forces with ulterior motives, there are also powerful forces fighting for the common good. And that a good proportion of the time they are successful.
        yunohn 5y ago
        I would still beg to differ, but I can see that you’re infinitely more positive than I am. Going to court to release such important data, should be a last resort. The elites and rulers should be happy to enforce this upfront. This only shows that there’s something to hide, and as we’ve seen before - they could easily fake/hide/destroy the evidence by the time they end up releasing it. Do note that it hasn’t been released yet.
- robbiep 5y ago
  Well - I’m not sure I have doubts but I remain open to the possibility. As a doctor and public health advocate I think the vaccines are miracles and have saved already millions of lives. Our society is already fundamentally changed by the damage wrought by the virus. There are over 140,000 ORPHANS that have been created by COVID in the last 2 years in the US alone [0]. The vaccine is safe and effective, if unfortunately not sterilizingly effective. We could not have sat on our hands for 2 years waiting to see what happened to the 40,000 people in the initial trials. If there is another chapter to the vaccine story it will come out, because ‘the science’ is not controlled by commercial interests and profit margins, ‘the science’ is something done by thousands of doctors and researchers scattered all over the planet, with access to huge troves of data that are not necessarily all entertained with corporate interests like in the US, and these people care about 2 things : the truth, and the people they care for every day. I don’t want to get into a grinding debate about the commercial interests behind the vaccines - I am ready to accept that they quite often work in ways that would fail the smell test. But that is not science, science is the process of developing a better resolution of the truth and whilst it may be subverted by corporations it can not be stopped 0- https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1007-covid-19-orphaned-children.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1007-covid-19-orpha...
  - yunohn 5y ago
    You wrote a very long reply, but didn’t really address my argument directly. I am fully vaccinated, but I’m not blind to capitalistic interests and corruption. The “science” in this case are vaccines produced by pharmaceutical corporations that have the ability to dictate that developing countries pledge their sovereign assets to cover their exorbitant pricing. (1) All vaccine companies are fighting over patents and ownership. And there’s innumerable other scandals. (2) You appear to trust authorities way more than I do, so we probably won’t ever see eye to eye on this. (1) https://www.fdanews.com/articles/202403-pfizer-stops-demanding-south-africa-provide-sovereign-assets-as-indemnity-for-covid-19-vaccine-lawsuits https://www.fdanews.com/articles/202403-pfizer-stops-demandi... (2) https://www.transparency.org/en/press/covid-19-vaccines-lack-of-transparency-trials-secretive-contracts-science-by-press-release-risk-success-of-global-response https://www.transparency.org/en/press/covid-19-vaccines-lack...
  - 5y ago
- jyounker 5y ago
  @robbiep wasn't agreeing with you.
- mellavora 5y ago
  I'm responding with anger, thus I ask for mercy and understanding. I used to be one of the authors of that science. I spent 7 years of my life working on it. For this my take-home pay was close to the poverty line. I was qualified for a ~500K/year job at FANG. That's a heavy sacrifice, not commercial interest and profit margins.
  - yunohn 5y ago
    Your anger is misplaced. You assume I’m talking about individuals; I’m blaming capitalist corporations. Science is not a person, it is a process that involves innumerable functions of people - only one of which are the actual scientists. A great example is the Boeing MAX scandal, where management ignored the engineers and pushed ahead. To be clear, I’m accusing Pfizer et all of corruption. And given their history, I don’t think I’m too off the mark. Underpaid scientists like you should be angry at the corporations and administrations that stole your money.
    - alexvoda 5y ago
      Yunohn, you are the one who used the term "the science" which you consider controlled by corporate interests. Mellavora's anger at your comment is justified since at the very least you were directly accusing them of being complicit. You are weaseling out. Pfizer, can be corrupt, and price gouge, and be the perpetrator of various other evils. That does not change the fact that the vaccine they are mass producing based on research done by BioNTech, is ammong the most effective and safest of the 20+ vaccines. And that all of the available vaccines are vastly safer than the disease.
      - yunohn 5y ago
        > You are weaseling out. Thanks for telling me what I meant. But I did not mean that, and the square quotes were intentional. It’s a way of speaking that’s quite widely accepted, and referring to a phenomenon rather than individuals. Surely this is not new to you? Like when someone criticises an authority’s decision, the blame is on the decision makers, not the line workers. Not much to respond to the rest of your comment - I wasn’t telling people to not get the vaccine, and I’m fully vaccinated myself. I’m emphasising the value of skepticism and questioning authority. Cheers!
- alexvoda 5y ago
  If you would of made this comment in the 70's or 80's you would have been called a commie bastard. You manage in just two sentences to conflate 3 different notions into one single "bad thing ™": science, capitalism and democracy. Democracy does not equal/result in/require/corelate with/mean the same as/etc. capitalism. Before Marx, the very vast majority of non-democratic regimes have been capitalist. There is no such thing as "the science" to people engaged in doing science. "The science" is only a concept for people who stay away from scientific pursuit. There is a thing called scientific consensus that means the collection of knowledge scientists widely agree best describes reality at a given moment in time. The scientific consensus is not controlled by commercial interests for many reasons. Among those reasons here are just two: plenty of science is publicly funded and the scientific consensus is global therefore being beyond the capabilities of any single entity to direct. Individual scientists may be biased, but that bias is not coherent in the population of scientists. In the case of Covid vaccines, even if "the science" was controlled by commercial interests, that would still not result in a conspiracy. There are 20+ vaccines and each manufacturers commercial interest would be to discredit competitors and sell more of their own. The scientific consensus is pro-vaccine because vaccines have been prooven repeatedly in the past 100+ years to result in higher quality and longer duration of life. There is no consensus on which vaccine is better (for various definitions of better). But there is consensus that covid vaccines are the best tools humanity has for the foreseeable future to fight against the pandemic. And there is consensus that they are orders of magnitude safer than the disease. Also, there is no blind single mindedness. The very reason you know about all of the side effects that have surfaced so far is because science was done. If "the science" was controlled, the featured article would not exist. We have known about the existence of side effects of vaccines since the start. Side effects were predicted and expected since before the vaccines existed, because all medication has side effects. They have been measured, and continue to be measured. This study is just one step on our quest to ever more precisely measure those side effects. So, yes, the impact of the side effects has been sufficiently determined to conclude that at the very least vaccination against covid is orders of magnitude safer than the risk of covid itself. The the confusion you display by corelating such different notions in your comment, shows you have bought a narrative peddled by some grifters, hook, line and sinker. The same as all the people deceived to believe that the MMR vaccine causes autism. Be sincere with yourself and admit that, at this point in time, the only studies you will consider unbiased are those that will confirm your own bias, namely that you consider the side effects of covid vaccines to be too risky.

yunohn 5y ago

Yes, that’s my doubt as well. Until we have more unbiased studies coming out, we can’t determine the impact of these side effects. The problem with pro-vaccine propaganda is that it tells you to blindly listen to the science. The problem with that is “the science” is controlled by commercial interests and profit margins. It’s like telling everyone democracy is the One True Way and we end up in last-stage capitalism.

nicoburns 5y ago
> The problem with that is “the science” is controlled by commercial interests and profit margins. Is it? A good proportion of academia is funded by states, non-profits, and tuition from undergraduate students, and researchers generally operate with a great degree of autonomy. Of course there is corrupt research out there, but I see little evidence that it's pervasive.
- yunohn 5y ago
  I don’t think it’s reasonable to live in 2022 and argue that academia isn’t influenced by capitalistic interests. This is so backwards of a viewpoint that I don’t have the time to argue further.
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    "influenced" is a much weaker claim than "controlled". Yes, there's a commercial influence, but does that prevent studies that are against those commercial interests from being conducted or those commercial studies from being criticised: no it doesn't.
    - yunohn 5y ago
      I did not intend to weaken my claim - I actually do believe that most of research is controlled by commercial interests in one way or another. Governments and corporations alike allocate capital towards research that they think benefits the populace or shareholders. This is measured with a dollar value, like most things in life (thank you last stage capitalism). While the influence on certain topics might be lesser, it is definitely stronger for other topics. The vaccines are a good example of the latter, since it’s a highly profitable venture with a TAM of the entire global population. You can see this in broad daylight where Pfizer wanted to make their data public only after 75 years (1). Surely good science doesn’t need secrecy? If this doesn’t invoke skepticism into how most research is influenced similarly, I’m not sure what to say. (1) https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importance-judge-orders-fda-hasten-release-pfizer-vaccine-docs-2022-01-07/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importanc...
      - nicoburns 5y ago
        > You can see this in broad daylight where Pfizer wanted to make their data public only after 75 years (1). Surely good science doesn’t need secrecy? Indeed it doesn't, and it seems that was upheld by the courts which made sure that there wasn't such secrecy. To me this is evidence that while they are powerful forces with ulterior motives, there are also powerful forces fighting for the common good. And that a good proportion of the time they are successful.
        yunohn 5y ago
        I would still beg to differ, but I can see that you’re infinitely more positive than I am. Going to court to release such important data, should be a last resort. The elites and rulers should be happy to enforce this upfront. This only shows that there’s something to hide, and as we’ve seen before - they could easily fake/hide/destroy the evidence by the time they end up releasing it. Do note that it hasn’t been released yet.
robbiep 5y ago
Well - I’m not sure I have doubts but I remain open to the possibility. As a doctor and public health advocate I think the vaccines are miracles and have saved already millions of lives. Our society is already fundamentally changed by the damage wrought by the virus. There are over 140,000 ORPHANS that have been created by COVID in the last 2 years in the US alone [0]. The vaccine is safe and effective, if unfortunately not sterilizingly effective. We could not have sat on our hands for 2 years waiting to see what happened to the 40,000 people in the initial trials. If there is another chapter to the vaccine story it will come out, because ‘the science’ is not controlled by commercial interests and profit margins, ‘the science’ is something done by thousands of doctors and researchers scattered all over the planet, with access to huge troves of data that are not necessarily all entertained with corporate interests like in the US, and these people care about 2 things : the truth, and the people they care for every day. I don’t want to get into a grinding debate about the commercial interests behind the vaccines - I am ready to accept that they quite often work in ways that would fail the smell test. But that is not science, science is the process of developing a better resolution of the truth and whilst it may be subverted by corporations it can not be stopped 0- https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1007-covid-19-orphaned-children.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p1007-covid-19-orpha...
- yunohn 5y ago
  You wrote a very long reply, but didn’t really address my argument directly. I am fully vaccinated, but I’m not blind to capitalistic interests and corruption. The “science” in this case are vaccines produced by pharmaceutical corporations that have the ability to dictate that developing countries pledge their sovereign assets to cover their exorbitant pricing. (1) All vaccine companies are fighting over patents and ownership. And there’s innumerable other scandals. (2) You appear to trust authorities way more than I do, so we probably won’t ever see eye to eye on this. (1) https://www.fdanews.com/articles/202403-pfizer-stops-demanding-south-africa-provide-sovereign-assets-as-indemnity-for-covid-19-vaccine-lawsuits https://www.fdanews.com/articles/202403-pfizer-stops-demandi... (2) https://www.transparency.org/en/press/covid-19-vaccines-lack-of-transparency-trials-secretive-contracts-science-by-press-release-risk-success-of-global-response https://www.transparency.org/en/press/covid-19-vaccines-lack...
- 5y ago
jyounker 5y ago
@robbiep wasn't agreeing with you.
mellavora 5y ago
I'm responding with anger, thus I ask for mercy and understanding. I used to be one of the authors of that science. I spent 7 years of my life working on it. For this my take-home pay was close to the poverty line. I was qualified for a ~500K/year job at FANG. That's a heavy sacrifice, not commercial interest and profit margins.
- yunohn 5y ago
  Your anger is misplaced. You assume I’m talking about individuals; I’m blaming capitalist corporations. Science is not a person, it is a process that involves innumerable functions of people - only one of which are the actual scientists. A great example is the Boeing MAX scandal, where management ignored the engineers and pushed ahead. To be clear, I’m accusing Pfizer et all of corruption. And given their history, I don’t think I’m too off the mark. Underpaid scientists like you should be angry at the corporations and administrations that stole your money.
  - alexvoda 5y ago
    Yunohn, you are the one who used the term "the science" which you consider controlled by corporate interests. Mellavora's anger at your comment is justified since at the very least you were directly accusing them of being complicit. You are weaseling out. Pfizer, can be corrupt, and price gouge, and be the perpetrator of various other evils. That does not change the fact that the vaccine they are mass producing based on research done by BioNTech, is ammong the most effective and safest of the 20+ vaccines. And that all of the available vaccines are vastly safer than the disease.
    - yunohn 5y ago
      > You are weaseling out. Thanks for telling me what I meant. But I did not mean that, and the square quotes were intentional. It’s a way of speaking that’s quite widely accepted, and referring to a phenomenon rather than individuals. Surely this is not new to you? Like when someone criticises an authority’s decision, the blame is on the decision makers, not the line workers. Not much to respond to the rest of your comment - I wasn’t telling people to not get the vaccine, and I’m fully vaccinated myself. I’m emphasising the value of skepticism and questioning authority. Cheers!
alexvoda 5y ago
If you would of made this comment in the 70's or 80's you would have been called a commie bastard. You manage in just two sentences to conflate 3 different notions into one single "bad thing ™": science, capitalism and democracy. Democracy does not equal/result in/require/corelate with/mean the same as/etc. capitalism. Before Marx, the very vast majority of non-democratic regimes have been capitalist. There is no such thing as "the science" to people engaged in doing science. "The science" is only a concept for people who stay away from scientific pursuit. There is a thing called scientific consensus that means the collection of knowledge scientists widely agree best describes reality at a given moment in time. The scientific consensus is not controlled by commercial interests for many reasons. Among those reasons here are just two: plenty of science is publicly funded and the scientific consensus is global therefore being beyond the capabilities of any single entity to direct. Individual scientists may be biased, but that bias is not coherent in the population of scientists. In the case of Covid vaccines, even if "the science" was controlled by commercial interests, that would still not result in a conspiracy. There are 20+ vaccines and each manufacturers commercial interest would be to discredit competitors and sell more of their own. The scientific consensus is pro-vaccine because vaccines have been prooven repeatedly in the past 100+ years to result in higher quality and longer duration of life. There is no consensus on which vaccine is better (for various definitions of better). But there is consensus that covid vaccines are the best tools humanity has for the foreseeable future to fight against the pandemic. And there is consensus that they are orders of magnitude safer than the disease. Also, there is no blind single mindedness. The very reason you know about all of the side effects that have surfaced so far is because science was done. If "the science" was controlled, the featured article would not exist. We have known about the existence of side effects of vaccines since the start. Side effects were predicted and expected since before the vaccines existed, because all medication has side effects. They have been measured, and continue to be measured. This study is just one step on our quest to ever more precisely measure those side effects. So, yes, the impact of the side effects has been sufficiently determined to conclude that at the very least vaccination against covid is orders of magnitude safer than the risk of covid itself. The the confusion you display by corelating such different notions in your comment, shows you have bought a narrative peddled by some grifters, hook, line and sinker. The same as all the people deceived to believe that the MMR vaccine causes autism. Be sincere with yourself and admit that, at this point in time, the only studies you will consider unbiased are those that will confirm your own bias, namely that you consider the side effects of covid vaccines to be too risky.