6 ms·

There are vaccines and there are vaccines

16 points by herodotus 4y ago

COGlory 4y ago
5 paragraphs that basically say "some vaccines work better than others" with no analysis, no data presented, not even a heuristic. Somewhat pointless article.
- monkeynotes 4y ago
  Seems in keeping with most of the vaccine policy for COVID. Don't need solid data, just say "it stops the virus spreading, trust science" then roll that back laster. Science these days has become more political than fact based. Any questioning is stopped at the source and from scientist, medical doctor, or pundits get socially shunned. We truly are living in Orwellian times. Journalists more or less don't bother asking big questions, too afraid to challenge the hot pick that comes down from politicians who are so openly bought by lobbyists it's quite frankly scary. All we get in the news is political finger pointing, it's all treated like entertainment. The best I can come up with as an analogy is pro wrestling. Which isn't actual wrestling, doesn't even look like real wrestling, it's all theatre but the crowds all behave as if it's real, even though they know it's not. America has lead here, and it seems so attractive to other leaders that the rest of the world is following suit. Edit: Downvotes without a counter essentially harden my opinion of social shunning over evidence based science. We just can't have these discussions in the open without "you are a conspiracy theorist" and such.
  - bryanlarsen 4y ago
    COVID vaccines do a fabulous job of stopping vaccine spread for the 3 months after a booster.
    - linuxftw 4y ago
      Clearly the clinical trials would show that. Wait, they didn't do any.
    - monkeynotes 4y ago
      Even Fauci walked that back. So, show me your evidence. All media I've read contradicts what you are saying.
  - mizzack 4y ago
    The term for that is kayfabe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe
- CodeWriter23 4y ago
  It’s an opinion piece. Those wanting something to reinforce their belief system will find value in it. And those wanting data-driven answers to questions won’t.
  - monkeynotes 4y ago
    COVID specifically has very little data, we are literally building data as we go. That was not the narrative I received during the pandemic.
linuxftw 4y ago
There's no new information here. There is, however, some misinformation. The author makes the claim that the 'vaccines' don't stop infection and transmission due to mutations in the virus population. In fact, in the case of Pfizer, they never even tested the product to prevent transmission. Naturally, they didn't admit this at first, which allowed public officials to make unfounded claims that legitimized their coercive polices.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  I suspect once the dust settles we will learn that the vaccine net increased transmission. Without the vaccine patients suffer a more serious illness and are more likely to stay home and self isolate, if the illness is less serious that is less likely.
  - aintgonnatakeit 4y ago
    Perhaps you are forgetting that the original COVID-19 strain did not present symptoms before it became infectious. Or perhaps you don’t care as it doesn’t reflect your intention.
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    Actually, if you look at the data Pfizer give to the FDA (the stuff that was initially released), there were more 'suspected by not confirmed' cases of COVID-19 in the control group than the test group. Pfizer did not actively test each participant. It only selectively tested some patients and not others, based on symptoms. They provided no explanation of 'suspected but unconfirmed' cases. If they suspected them, perhaps they should have tested them, but they didn't.
  - gwbas1c 4y ago
    I doubt it. People were going stir crazy, and it was really, really hard to keep people home or masked in public. Most likely people would have decided they were going to live their lives, and then we'd see a lot more elderly people pass from it. I remember some lady barging through my door the day after Halloween, without a mask, because she had to give my kids treats.
frank_bb 4y ago
[dead]
debacle 4y ago
> (3) that vaccines are still not easy. Have some qualms with this one. Not all viruses are created equal. Mostly as a hobby, I did a lot of reading during the pandemic into the 50 years of work that has gone into trying to create vaccines for this class of virus. I don't believe we will ever develop a satisfactory vaccine for any coronavirus. I don't know the specific biological reasons for this, but the efficacy of vaccines for these viruses are always low and short lived.
- monkeynotes 4y ago
  If a hobbiest can draw that conclusion why didn't the top medical folks of our governments not relay that information to the public at the start of all of this?
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    I wonder: https://katv.com/news/nation-world/nih-slow-walks-disclosure-of-hundreds-of-millions-in-royalties-given-to-agency-scientists-natinoal-institute-health-adam-andrzejewski-anthony-fauci-open-the-books https://katv.com/news/nation-world/nih-slow-walks-disclosure...
  - debacle 4y ago
    We were in the midst of a terrible pandemic. It was a monumental attempt (really, dozens of them globally), and I can't blame anyone for trying. But we've been trying to vaccinate against these infrequent pandemics for a long time, and it hasn't worked.
    - monkeynotes 4y ago
      I fully support fast tracking medication in an attempt to save lives, but if you are going to say "trust the science" when there is no data only then to quietly walk back what had been said before because there was inconclusive science, that's when you lose trust. There were legitimate objections to the rubber stamp, and that should have been discussed, but instead we labelled any medical or scientific skepticism with "conspiracy theory" and got the populace to shun those people. This sort of behaviour corrupts society, it is a building block of fascism and we are seeing the fall out of that now. Saying something is true when it's not and then gaslighting everyone isn't how to run a healthy society. People lost friends over this, countries have came out broken and more divided than before. Politicians have free reign to say whatever the hell they want now, the president has been set. People follow blindly or be shunned. Journalism is dead. Not one major news org questioned any of the COVID policy for fear of being isolated and painted as right wing. This is not a healthy society by any means. It's corporate government up and down, fascism is calling out descent as fascism and we sleep through all of it as if it's never happened exactly like this before.
colechristensen 4y ago
Can we please get someone official to say out loud that for most people the risk from vaccines is very low but not zero, and also the risks from covid are very low but not zero unless you’re quite old or have issues? You get labeled as a “death shot” person for trying to say this. The promise of the vaccines has been oversold and walked back consistently. The risks, though small, have been diminished. All for “The greater good”, but this is how you get people to not believe you.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  You're implying the risks are equal by using the same words for both. Each "very low" statement is true in isolation but together they're not.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    It is indeed hard to compare and reason about very rare occurrences. It is not obvious to me that there isn’t a young age at which vaccine risk vs covid risk approaches 1:1. I personally know someone who had serious vaccine related complications who never became a statistic as he was never able to get a definitive diagnosis.
gwbas1c 4y ago
TLDR: > So it’s important to remember that (1) some of the coronavirus vaccines truly are more efficacious than others, (2) that the ones we have are only a small set of the ones that people attempted to develop, which means (3) that vaccines are still not easy. Infectious-disease vaccines have a better success rate in the clinic than most other areas of drug development, it’s true, but that just means that the chances improve from Godawful to Pretty Bad. We’re fortunate to have what we have, and that good fortune is the result of an awful lot of hard work. Basically, vaccines are hard work and we still can't just "whip one up" at the drop of a hat.

16 points by herodotus 4y ago

5 paragraphs that basically say "some vaccines work better than others" with no analysis, no data presented, not even a heuristic. Somewhat pointless article.

monkeynotes 4y ago
Seems in keeping with most of the vaccine policy for COVID. Don't need solid data, just say "it stops the virus spreading, trust science" then roll that back laster. Science these days has become more political than fact based. Any questioning is stopped at the source and from scientist, medical doctor, or pundits get socially shunned. We truly are living in Orwellian times. Journalists more or less don't bother asking big questions, too afraid to challenge the hot pick that comes down from politicians who are so openly bought by lobbyists it's quite frankly scary. All we get in the news is political finger pointing, it's all treated like entertainment. The best I can come up with as an analogy is pro wrestling. Which isn't actual wrestling, doesn't even look like real wrestling, it's all theatre but the crowds all behave as if it's real, even though they know it's not. America has lead here, and it seems so attractive to other leaders that the rest of the world is following suit. Edit: Downvotes without a counter essentially harden my opinion of social shunning over evidence based science. We just can't have these discussions in the open without "you are a conspiracy theorist" and such.
- bryanlarsen 4y ago
  COVID vaccines do a fabulous job of stopping vaccine spread for the 3 months after a booster.
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    Clearly the clinical trials would show that. Wait, they didn't do any.
  - monkeynotes 4y ago
    Even Fauci walked that back. So, show me your evidence. All media I've read contradicts what you are saying.
- mizzack 4y ago
  The term for that is kayfabe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kayfabe
CodeWriter23 4y ago
It’s an opinion piece. Those wanting something to reinforce their belief system will find value in it. And those wanting data-driven answers to questions won’t.
- monkeynotes 4y ago
  COVID specifically has very little data, we are literally building data as we go. That was not the narrative I received during the pandemic.

linuxftw 4y ago

There's no new information here. There is, however, some misinformation. The author makes the claim that the 'vaccines' don't stop infection and transmission due to mutations in the virus population. In fact, in the case of Pfizer, they never even tested the product to prevent transmission. Naturally, they didn't admit this at first, which allowed public officials to make unfounded claims that legitimized their coercive polices.

willcipriano 4y ago
I suspect once the dust settles we will learn that the vaccine net increased transmission. Without the vaccine patients suffer a more serious illness and are more likely to stay home and self isolate, if the illness is less serious that is less likely.
- aintgonnatakeit 4y ago
  Perhaps you are forgetting that the original COVID-19 strain did not present symptoms before it became infectious. Or perhaps you don’t care as it doesn’t reflect your intention.
- linuxftw 4y ago
  Actually, if you look at the data Pfizer give to the FDA (the stuff that was initially released), there were more 'suspected by not confirmed' cases of COVID-19 in the control group than the test group. Pfizer did not actively test each participant. It only selectively tested some patients and not others, based on symptoms. They provided no explanation of 'suspected but unconfirmed' cases. If they suspected them, perhaps they should have tested them, but they didn't.
- gwbas1c 4y ago
  I doubt it. People were going stir crazy, and it was really, really hard to keep people home or masked in public. Most likely people would have decided they were going to live their lives, and then we'd see a lot more elderly people pass from it. I remember some lady barging through my door the day after Halloween, without a mask, because she had to give my kids treats.

frank_bb 4y ago

[dead]

debacle 4y ago

> (3) that vaccines are still not easy. Have some qualms with this one. Not all viruses are created equal. Mostly as a hobby, I did a lot of reading during the pandemic into the 50 years of work that has gone into trying to create vaccines for this class of virus. I don't believe we will ever develop a satisfactory vaccine for any coronavirus. I don't know the specific biological reasons for this, but the efficacy of vaccines for these viruses are always low and short lived.

monkeynotes 4y ago
If a hobbiest can draw that conclusion why didn't the top medical folks of our governments not relay that information to the public at the start of all of this?
- willcipriano 4y ago
  I wonder: https://katv.com/news/nation-world/nih-slow-walks-disclosure-of-hundreds-of-millions-in-royalties-given-to-agency-scientists-natinoal-institute-health-adam-andrzejewski-anthony-fauci-open-the-books https://katv.com/news/nation-world/nih-slow-walks-disclosure...
- debacle 4y ago
  We were in the midst of a terrible pandemic. It was a monumental attempt (really, dozens of them globally), and I can't blame anyone for trying. But we've been trying to vaccinate against these infrequent pandemics for a long time, and it hasn't worked.
  - monkeynotes 4y ago
    I fully support fast tracking medication in an attempt to save lives, but if you are going to say "trust the science" when there is no data only then to quietly walk back what had been said before because there was inconclusive science, that's when you lose trust. There were legitimate objections to the rubber stamp, and that should have been discussed, but instead we labelled any medical or scientific skepticism with "conspiracy theory" and got the populace to shun those people. This sort of behaviour corrupts society, it is a building block of fascism and we are seeing the fall out of that now. Saying something is true when it's not and then gaslighting everyone isn't how to run a healthy society. People lost friends over this, countries have came out broken and more divided than before. Politicians have free reign to say whatever the hell they want now, the president has been set. People follow blindly or be shunned. Journalism is dead. Not one major news org questioned any of the COVID policy for fear of being isolated and painted as right wing. This is not a healthy society by any means. It's corporate government up and down, fascism is calling out descent as fascism and we sleep through all of it as if it's never happened exactly like this before.

colechristensen 4y ago

Can we please get someone official to say out loud that for most people the risk from vaccines is very low but not zero, and also the risks from covid are very low but not zero unless you’re quite old or have issues? You get labeled as a “death shot” person for trying to say this. The promise of the vaccines has been oversold and walked back consistently. The risks, though small, have been diminished. All for “The greater good”, but this is how you get people to not believe you.

bryanlarsen 4y ago
You're implying the risks are equal by using the same words for both. Each "very low" statement is true in isolation but together they're not.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  It is indeed hard to compare and reason about very rare occurrences. It is not obvious to me that there isn’t a young age at which vaccine risk vs covid risk approaches 1:1. I personally know someone who had serious vaccine related complications who never became a statistic as he was never able to get a definitive diagnosis.

gwbas1c 4y ago

TLDR: > So it’s important to remember that (1) some of the coronavirus vaccines truly are more efficacious than others, (2) that the ones we have are only a small set of the ones that people attempted to develop, which means (3) that vaccines are still not easy. Infectious-disease vaccines have a better success rate in the clinic than most other areas of drug development, it’s true, but that just means that the chances improve from Godawful to Pretty Bad. We’re fortunate to have what we have, and that good fortune is the result of an awful lot of hard work. Basically, vaccines are hard work and we still can't just "whip one up" at the drop of a hat.