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As you note, the VAERS database is voluntary and probably misses many conditions that aren't associated with a vaccine when undergoing treatment. I accept that

As you note, the VAERS database is voluntary and probably misses many conditions that aren't associated with a vaccine when undergoing treatment. I accept that taking medicine, any medicine, imposes risk for adverse events. What's crazy to me is we just underwent widespread inoculation of a brand new type of vaccine technology that has never been used in humans before, meant to inoculate us against a disease that never existed before, and it _feels_ like the powers that be just don't want to ask certain questions. Let's say the vaccine is great, it causes no one harm (this is true if no vaccine, but I pose it for the sake of argument). It would still increase confidence and dispel paranoia if it and its possible harms were studied in a much more direct way than having to look at secondary metrics, like voluntary vaers data, all cause mortality, this state vs that state, etc, when the confounding factors make it impossible to be certain of anything. COVID was never very dangerous for young people. Many didn't even want to take the vaccine. Even if the patient wasn't blinded, why couldn't we have at least kept control groups and monitored them and been fully transparent about the outcomes? For me I can't help but conclude that an agenda was pushed here; I think it was well intentioned. The people pushing it may have even been right, but I'll never be able to trust them like I did before.

justsomeadvice0 4y ago
Nit: mRNA vaccines were used in human trials for cancer immunotherapy starting in 2001, rabies in 2013, ebola, zika, influenza, cytamegalovirus, etc followed. It's not accurate to say the technology had "never been used in humans before" COVID19; but the US FDA had never approved widespread use of it until then.
- incrudible 4y ago
  This raises the question of why, despite being trialed for twenty years, the technology never was deemed ready for primetime until the emergence of COVID. Part of the reason is safety issues. https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/ https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/ We assumed that the vaccine doses are low enough to not cause any unacceptable health risks, but after finding these vaccines do cause cardiac complications, particularly in youth, we are hesitant to consider that these vaccines may in fact do more harm than good in some cases.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
    I’m confused by your link. It describes Moderna trying to use a drug to produce a liver enzyme and that was never safe, so Moderna ended up lowering their expectations with the safer and less profitable vaccines. If anything it shoes vaccines are the way to go with mRNA and the primary issue is profit.
    - incrudible 4y ago
      Again, it was just an assumption that vaccines would be "safe enough", despite no mRNA vaccine having ever been rolled out at scale. The "profit" issue disappeared with COVID vaccines. You now have the FDA proposing annual COVID boosters and combined mRNA-COVID/Influenza shots for everyone, whereas European countries are age-restricting COVID boosters. If that doesn't smell like regulatory capture to you, you might suffer from COVID-induced anosmia.
      - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
        You’re saying a lot to dodge the fact you made a claim using a source that doesn’t actually back your claim. You claimed this article showed mrna vaccines weren’t widely distributed because they weren’t considered safe. But this article isn’t saying that and all, and you’re misrepresenting it.
        incrudible 4y ago
        I never made this claim. I said the technology had safety issues, which the article supports. In the following paragraph, I claim that mRNA vaccines were assumed to be safe enough due to the lower dosage. Again, the article supports this.
      - Timon3 4y ago
        > Again, it was just an assumption that vaccines would be "safe enough", despite no mRNA vaccine having ever been rolled out at scale. Why is this a criterium we should pay attention to? If you never roll anything out, you'll never have data about a roll out. So instead we do studies and statistical analyses. Are you aware of any studies that "normal"/previous vaccines had to go through, which mRNA COVID vaccines did not? If so, could you please share them?
- landemva 4y ago
  > approved widespread use This conflates 'approved' with the ongoing emergency use authorization. Long term studies will help determine if it can be approved for normal use and effectiveness is part of that determination.
  - xcrunner529 4y ago
    [dead]
  - justsomeadvice0 4y ago
    good point
- arghnoname 4y ago
  Fair enough, I overstated my case, thanks. I hope the intention, that they are an untested technology compared to traditional vaccination, is not lost though. This vax technology is super impressive and promising. I would like to see it succeed, hopefully in a way that some of the loss in public trust can be restored.
autoexec 4y ago
> is we just underwent widespread inoculation of a brand new type of vaccine technology that has never been used in humans before If you're referring to mRNA vaccines here, then this simply isn't true. They had been used in humans before. For example they were given to humans in trials of a rabies vaccine in 2013. (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w) mRNA vaccines are a more recent tool, but not something that is untested or one that has never been used before. > and it _feels_ like the powers that be just don't want to ask certain questions. Is it worth asking yourself why it feels that way when readily available evidence shows otherwise? > It would still increase confidence and dispel paranoia if it and its possible harms were studied in a much more direct way than having to look at secondary metrics, like voluntary vaers data, Not all the research looking into the safety of these vaccines is dependent on VAERS data. Research on the safety of these vaccines has been going on starting long before they were ever used on a human, and before the release of the covid vaccines trials (with controls and monitoring) were done to look for safety issues. The very article we're commenting under is about research that didn't depend on voluntary vaers data or all cause mortality stats. This is how science detects problems with medications and vaccines. By doing research and trials for years, then following all of the data we have available to reach the most likely conclusions. > COVID was never very dangerous for young people. That is very much unclear. The fact remains that we're still learning about the risk that getting infected has on everyone, young and old alike. This takes time. We already have evidence to suggest there may be long term or even permanent damage from prior infection even in cases where the symptoms were mild or even undetected. Lots of people didn't want the vaccine, but there were many many reasons for that and not all of them held up to facts and reason. At least here in the US, people were strongly encouraged to take it, but ultimately still had the choice and there are many who are not vaccinated to this day. According to the best data we have right now, it appears that those people are dying and getting seriously ill at a rate not seen in the vaccinated population. > For me I can't help but conclude that an agenda was pushed here; this is very broad, and speculative, but I'm inclined to agree with you. I think that agenda was most likely promoting what the best information we had at the time indicated was the best available options we had at the time to combat a new virus that devastated our economy and our way of life. Of course governments and those in power wanted people to take them. Wouldn't they all be hoping it would help things return to normal as quickly as possible? > The people pushing it may have even been right, but I'll never be able to trust them like I did before. This I also agree with you on, although probably for different reasons. I've lost a great deal of faith that the CDC will be honest with the public and in our government to make sure that the American people are well cared for in times of crisis. It may still turn out that the vaccines were a terrible mistake. Maybe everyone who took it will suddenly drop dead in 20 years time, but today there's no evidence to suggest that might be the case. I try to make the best choices I can with the information I have currently available. I accept that I may have screwed myself over, but I'm putting my money on avoiding getting infected at all if I can, and using the best medications and vaccines available to minimize the harm that an infection would cause me if I fail at that.
null_object 4y ago
> COVID was never very dangerous for young people… An ex-colleague who is now 31 (or 32) who was running the Stockholm marathon in 2018 and 2019, got Covid very early in 2020, and suffered a massive pulmonary embolism which took him months to fully recover from. This was before the vaccines were available, of course.
- dham 4y ago
  I think they were saying from a statistics standpoint not a one off anecdote. You can find these stories with the the flu too. Any virus you get from a toddler to your 20's to your 70's is no joke and should be taken seriously.
- landemva 4y ago
  > got Covid very early in 2020 Was that determined by a blood test for developed antibodies, or by swabbing around and amplifying whatever was picked up?

justsomeadvice0 4y ago

Nit: mRNA vaccines were used in human trials for cancer immunotherapy starting in 2001, rabies in 2013, ebola, zika, influenza, cytamegalovirus, etc followed. It's not accurate to say the technology had "never been used in humans before" COVID19; but the US FDA had never approved widespread use of it until then.

incrudible 4y ago
This raises the question of why, despite being trialed for twenty years, the technology never was deemed ready for primetime until the emergence of COVID. Part of the reason is safety issues. https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/ https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/ We assumed that the vaccine doses are low enough to not cause any unacceptable health risks, but after finding these vaccines do cause cardiac complications, particularly in youth, we are hesitant to consider that these vaccines may in fact do more harm than good in some cases.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  I’m confused by your link. It describes Moderna trying to use a drug to produce a liver enzyme and that was never safe, so Moderna ended up lowering their expectations with the safer and less profitable vaccines. If anything it shoes vaccines are the way to go with mRNA and the primary issue is profit.
  - incrudible 4y ago
    Again, it was just an assumption that vaccines would be "safe enough", despite no mRNA vaccine having ever been rolled out at scale. The "profit" issue disappeared with COVID vaccines. You now have the FDA proposing annual COVID boosters and combined mRNA-COVID/Influenza shots for everyone, whereas European countries are age-restricting COVID boosters. If that doesn't smell like regulatory capture to you, you might suffer from COVID-induced anosmia.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
      You’re saying a lot to dodge the fact you made a claim using a source that doesn’t actually back your claim. You claimed this article showed mrna vaccines weren’t widely distributed because they weren’t considered safe. But this article isn’t saying that and all, and you’re misrepresenting it.
      - incrudible 4y ago
        I never made this claim. I said the technology had safety issues, which the article supports. In the following paragraph, I claim that mRNA vaccines were assumed to be safe enough due to the lower dosage. Again, the article supports this.
    - Timon3 4y ago
      > Again, it was just an assumption that vaccines would be "safe enough", despite no mRNA vaccine having ever been rolled out at scale. Why is this a criterium we should pay attention to? If you never roll anything out, you'll never have data about a roll out. So instead we do studies and statistical analyses. Are you aware of any studies that "normal"/previous vaccines had to go through, which mRNA COVID vaccines did not? If so, could you please share them?
landemva 4y ago
> approved widespread use This conflates 'approved' with the ongoing emergency use authorization. Long term studies will help determine if it can be approved for normal use and effectiveness is part of that determination.
- xcrunner529 4y ago
  [dead]
- justsomeadvice0 4y ago
  good point
arghnoname 4y ago
Fair enough, I overstated my case, thanks. I hope the intention, that they are an untested technology compared to traditional vaccination, is not lost though. This vax technology is super impressive and promising. I would like to see it succeed, hopefully in a way that some of the loss in public trust can be restored.

autoexec 4y ago

> is we just underwent widespread inoculation of a brand new type of vaccine technology that has never been used in humans before If you're referring to mRNA vaccines here, then this simply isn't true. They had been used in humans before. For example they were given to humans in trials of a rabies vaccine in 2013. (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w) mRNA vaccines are a more recent tool, but not something that is untested or one that has never been used before. > and it _feels_ like the powers that be just don't want to ask certain questions. Is it worth asking yourself why it feels that way when readily available evidence shows otherwise? > It would still increase confidence and dispel paranoia if it and its possible harms were studied in a much more direct way than having to look at secondary metrics, like voluntary vaers data, Not all the research looking into the safety of these vaccines is dependent on VAERS data. Research on the safety of these vaccines has been going on starting long before they were ever used on a human, and before the release of the covid vaccines trials (with controls and monitoring) were done to look for safety issues. The very article we're commenting under is about research that didn't depend on voluntary vaers data or all cause mortality stats. This is how science detects problems with medications and vaccines. By doing research and trials for years, then following all of the data we have available to reach the most likely conclusions. > COVID was never very dangerous for young people. That is very much unclear. The fact remains that we're still learning about the risk that getting infected has on everyone, young and old alike. This takes time. We already have evidence to suggest there may be long term or even permanent damage from prior infection even in cases where the symptoms were mild or even undetected. Lots of people didn't want the vaccine, but there were many many reasons for that and not all of them held up to facts and reason. At least here in the US, people were strongly encouraged to take it, but ultimately still had the choice and there are many who are not vaccinated to this day. According to the best data we have right now, it appears that those people are dying and getting seriously ill at a rate not seen in the vaccinated population. > For me I can't help but conclude that an agenda was pushed here; this is very broad, and speculative, but I'm inclined to agree with you. I think that agenda was most likely promoting what the best information we had at the time indicated was the best available options we had at the time to combat a new virus that devastated our economy and our way of life. Of course governments and those in power wanted people to take them. Wouldn't they all be hoping it would help things return to normal as quickly as possible? > The people pushing it may have even been right, but I'll never be able to trust them like I did before. This I also agree with you on, although probably for different reasons. I've lost a great deal of faith that the CDC will be honest with the public and in our government to make sure that the American people are well cared for in times of crisis. It may still turn out that the vaccines were a terrible mistake. Maybe everyone who took it will suddenly drop dead in 20 years time, but today there's no evidence to suggest that might be the case. I try to make the best choices I can with the information I have currently available. I accept that I may have screwed myself over, but I'm putting my money on avoiding getting infected at all if I can, and using the best medications and vaccines available to minimize the harm that an infection would cause me if I fail at that.

null_object 4y ago

> COVID was never very dangerous for young people… An ex-colleague who is now 31 (or 32) who was running the Stockholm marathon in 2018 and 2019, got Covid very early in 2020, and suffered a massive pulmonary embolism which took him months to fully recover from. This was before the vaccines were available, of course.

dham 4y ago
I think they were saying from a statistics standpoint not a one off anecdote. You can find these stories with the the flu too. Any virus you get from a toddler to your 20's to your 70's is no joke and should be taken seriously.
landemva 4y ago
> got Covid very early in 2020 Was that determined by a blood test for developed antibodies, or by swabbing around and amplifying whatever was picked up?