4 ms·

> Why would you let blind trust or distrust in some political talking heads determine whether you, yourself, live or die? Very good point. I think that's also

> Why would you let blind trust or distrust in some political talking heads determine whether you, yourself, live or die? Very good point. I think that's also part of peoples argument against vaccines.

civilized 5y ago
Except the most important evidence by far wasn't from talking heads. Moderna and Pfizer both produced clinical trials that showed high effectiveness. To discredit that evidence, you have to believe that both of these companies were willing to completely throw away their reputations with the public and regulators just to make a few bucks on some snake oil vaccines. Or you have to believe that these companies trusted there would be no need to protect their reputations, because there would be a massive conspiracy to fudge the numbers and make the vaccines look effective. Either of these beliefs is QAnon-tier conspiracism.
- convolvatron 5y ago
  to be fair, these studies aren't the whole truth. they show an effect, but don't eliminate the possibility of unconsidered long-term consequences. but we do make those kinds of 'close enough' tradeoffs in medicine all the time and it seems to work out pretty well.
  - garciasn 5y ago
    This is a disingenuous statement. It ignores the fact that there have been and are likely to be more long term issues from the virus too.
    - civilized 5y ago
      You're right about what it ignores but I don't think GP was being disingenuous.
      - garciasn 5y ago
        You’re right; I meant those who make claims such as the one GP was mentioning do. My bad for not being more clear.
    - edmcnulty101 5y ago
      Not disengenuous. They make a good point. No one knows the long-term risk of the vaccine or the virus. So being skeptical of either one is a reasonable position.
      - garciasn 5y ago
        Being skeptical of both is absolutely fair; however, ignoring the virus’ potential for long-term impact is absolutely disingenuous and this is what most vaccine deniers participate in.
- peteradio 5y ago
  I looked at those trials and it did not appear to include people with prior exposure to sars-cov-2. What is a person who already had it supposed to make of it? That's great that it has high effectiveness for people without a history of exposure but its not some conspiracy to doubt its effectiveness if you already had the disease and its turned out that intuition was largely correct.
  - civilized 5y ago
    I don't have the data about incremental vaccine effectiveness for people who already had COVID. I don't think anyone does. Why are you so confident that the vaccines aren't effective for people who previously had it? It's not a one-and-done disease like chickenpox. More exposure = more immune system training.
    - peteradio 5y ago
      Sorry, I'm not suggesting that vaccines don't have a positive impact on hospitilzations/deaths for a person who has already had covid, just that its quite marginal, especially for younger populations. I'm reasonably young with young children who already had exposure, it concerned me that the messaging did not seem to be very nuanced regarding the relative risks by age and prior exposure. It very much felt like my children were going to be force vaccinated with a drug that would not benefit them. I do believe if people were not voicing their concerns we would have seen that come to pass. I struggle to see the conspiratorial thinking involved here.
      - civilized 5y ago
        I see what you're saying. My son got the vaccine because he had no prior exposure as far as we know. The other one is too young and my understanding (from NYT) is that the companies are really struggling to show effectiveness below age 5. Personally we experienced little pressure to get our kids vaxxed but I don't know what your experience was like.
- edmcnulty101 5y ago
  I think it's cult like thinking to believe these drug companies had good reputations to begin with. """Pfizer has been a “habitual offender,” persistently engaging in illegal and corrupt marketing practices, bribing physicians and suppressing adverse trial results. Since 2002 the company and its subsidiaries have been assessed $3 billion in criminal convictions, civil penalties and jury awards.""" I use Comcast and Pfizer because theyre monoplies, not becaus of their reputation. The FDA is fighting to release the data it used to authorize the vaccine and there's numerous former FDA leadership on Pfizer's board? I think the Branch Covidians might literally believe anything an authority figure tells them. It's scary to see. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC2875889/#:~:text=Pfizer%20has%20been%20a%20%E2%80%9Chabitual,civil%20penalties%20and%20jury%20awards https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC2875889/#:....
  - civilized 5y ago
    "Companies do bad things" is not the same claims as "companies are willing to do arbitrarily bad things without any limit or regard for consequences". In most cases, our distrust of institutions is nonzero but finite. See https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/bounded-distrust https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/bounded-distrust
    - edmcnulty101 5y ago
      That's abuse and cult victims language. My abuser is bad but not THAT bad. I still love him. The fact remains that they have a repeated pattern over many years of doing bad things and to claim they wouldn't follow this pattern with the vaccine is sort of cult like behavior.
- tonis2 5y ago
  The Vaccines were not really so highly effective, cause in the end people had to take like 4 doses, most basically gave up and accepted to live with corona.
  - civilized 5y ago
    1. Hardly anyone has taken four doses. Stop spouting sloppy nonsense, you quickly lose respect. 2. The latest evidence says that three doses provide a broad immune response that protects against severe disease long-term [1]. Variants may continue evading the immune system and causing symptomatic illness, but vaccine protection is still extremely meaningful if you don't want to get hospitalized or die from COVID. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/health/covid-vaccine-antibodies-t-cells.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/health/covid-vaccine-anti...

civilized 5y ago

Except the most important evidence by far wasn't from talking heads. Moderna and Pfizer both produced clinical trials that showed high effectiveness. To discredit that evidence, you have to believe that both of these companies were willing to completely throw away their reputations with the public and regulators just to make a few bucks on some snake oil vaccines. Or you have to believe that these companies trusted there would be no need to protect their reputations, because there would be a massive conspiracy to fudge the numbers and make the vaccines look effective. Either of these beliefs is QAnon-tier conspiracism.

convolvatron 5y ago
to be fair, these studies aren't the whole truth. they show an effect, but don't eliminate the possibility of unconsidered long-term consequences. but we do make those kinds of 'close enough' tradeoffs in medicine all the time and it seems to work out pretty well.
- garciasn 5y ago
  This is a disingenuous statement. It ignores the fact that there have been and are likely to be more long term issues from the virus too.
  - civilized 5y ago
    You're right about what it ignores but I don't think GP was being disingenuous.
    - garciasn 5y ago
      You’re right; I meant those who make claims such as the one GP was mentioning do. My bad for not being more clear.
  - edmcnulty101 5y ago
    Not disengenuous. They make a good point. No one knows the long-term risk of the vaccine or the virus. So being skeptical of either one is a reasonable position.
    - garciasn 5y ago
      Being skeptical of both is absolutely fair; however, ignoring the virus’ potential for long-term impact is absolutely disingenuous and this is what most vaccine deniers participate in.
peteradio 5y ago
I looked at those trials and it did not appear to include people with prior exposure to sars-cov-2. What is a person who already had it supposed to make of it? That's great that it has high effectiveness for people without a history of exposure but its not some conspiracy to doubt its effectiveness if you already had the disease and its turned out that intuition was largely correct.
- civilized 5y ago
  I don't have the data about incremental vaccine effectiveness for people who already had COVID. I don't think anyone does. Why are you so confident that the vaccines aren't effective for people who previously had it? It's not a one-and-done disease like chickenpox. More exposure = more immune system training.
  - peteradio 5y ago
    Sorry, I'm not suggesting that vaccines don't have a positive impact on hospitilzations/deaths for a person who has already had covid, just that its quite marginal, especially for younger populations. I'm reasonably young with young children who already had exposure, it concerned me that the messaging did not seem to be very nuanced regarding the relative risks by age and prior exposure. It very much felt like my children were going to be force vaccinated with a drug that would not benefit them. I do believe if people were not voicing their concerns we would have seen that come to pass. I struggle to see the conspiratorial thinking involved here.
    - civilized 5y ago
      I see what you're saying. My son got the vaccine because he had no prior exposure as far as we know. The other one is too young and my understanding (from NYT) is that the companies are really struggling to show effectiveness below age 5. Personally we experienced little pressure to get our kids vaxxed but I don't know what your experience was like.
edmcnulty101 5y ago
I think it's cult like thinking to believe these drug companies had good reputations to begin with. """Pfizer has been a “habitual offender,” persistently engaging in illegal and corrupt marketing practices, bribing physicians and suppressing adverse trial results. Since 2002 the company and its subsidiaries have been assessed $3 billion in criminal convictions, civil penalties and jury awards.""" I use Comcast and Pfizer because theyre monoplies, not becaus of their reputation. The FDA is fighting to release the data it used to authorize the vaccine and there's numerous former FDA leadership on Pfizer's board? I think the Branch Covidians might literally believe anything an authority figure tells them. It's scary to see. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC2875889/#:~:text=Pfizer%20has%20been%20a%20%E2%80%9Chabitual,civil%20penalties%20and%20jury%20awards https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC2875889/#:....
- civilized 5y ago
  "Companies do bad things" is not the same claims as "companies are willing to do arbitrarily bad things without any limit or regard for consequences". In most cases, our distrust of institutions is nonzero but finite. See https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/bounded-distrust https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/bounded-distrust
  - edmcnulty101 5y ago
    That's abuse and cult victims language. My abuser is bad but not THAT bad. I still love him. The fact remains that they have a repeated pattern over many years of doing bad things and to claim they wouldn't follow this pattern with the vaccine is sort of cult like behavior.
tonis2 5y ago
The Vaccines were not really so highly effective, cause in the end people had to take like 4 doses, most basically gave up and accepted to live with corona.
- civilized 5y ago
  1. Hardly anyone has taken four doses. Stop spouting sloppy nonsense, you quickly lose respect. 2. The latest evidence says that three doses provide a broad immune response that protects against severe disease long-term [1]. Variants may continue evading the immune system and causing symptomatic illness, but vaccine protection is still extremely meaningful if you don't want to get hospitalized or die from COVID. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/health/covid-vaccine-antibodies-t-cells.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/health/covid-vaccine-anti...