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Vaccines are incredibly effective and definitely not connected to autism. That being said there is a rather large distrust of them after Covid. The fact that me

Vaccines are incredibly effective and definitely not connected to autism. That being said there is a rather large distrust of them after Covid. The fact that media and government both colluded to suppress information related to Covid vaccine side effects is troubling. Don’t use govt control to suppress speech on social media. It’s not conducive to any sort of trust building. Before I’m labelled a “maga/trump” talking points peddler - my kids are vaccinated (yes, including the hpv), I haven’t done covid shots more than the one required time. We do flu shots but not picky about it. Kids have had the flu (a & b) and they’ve handled it pretty well.

ulfw 11mo ago
> Don’t use govt control to suppress speech on social media. It’s not conducive to any sort of trust building. So then how do you deal with other state actors who have whole machineries spreading lies and disinformation on social networks?
tensor 11mo ago
The media was fine on the covid shots and if you're not taking them then you're doing yourself and your family harm. Yes, there are side effects. Those side effects are far far milder than the actual illness, which you are pretty much guaranteed to get. So your option are mild side effect + mild disease or severe disease.
- kypro 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - code4life 11mo ago
    They refuse to look critically at the trade offs. I don’t even know how thats possible at this point. Everything in life has trade offs. Everything.
    - worik 11mo ago
      > They refuse to look critically at the trade offs. That is a bald assertion. I do not agree. Of course it depends what you mean by "they", but medical researchers do look critically at the trade offs There were failures of communication from fear that nuance would be misunderstood as uncertainty Also for large sections of the population, many in my community, the state generally and the medical establishment in particular, have no credibility for the sadistic way they have been treated.
  - tensor 11mo ago
    The covid vaccine was not given to young adults nor children until much later iterations of the vaccine were available, and were specifically reduced in potency for that age group. If you recall, the initial strains of covid for the elderly had a side effect that could occur with shockingly high probability. That side effect was "dead." The very first vaccines were rushed and given to the elderly to prevent this. There was no "misinformation." The media reported information as it came in. Understanding of the virus and the vaccines did changes fairly quickly during that time, so I get that it could be confusing for people, but there was no secret effort to mislead anyone, and overall the covid vaccine was one of the biggest successes in our lifetime. mRNA vaccines open up huge possibilities for a range of illnesses, including cancer. The covid vaccine was developed in record time, and was overall pretty damn effective at preventing the side effect of "dead."
  - azan_ 11mo ago
    It was true, even for young adults covid vaccine is safer than covid.
    - somenameforme 11mo ago
      For the overwhelming majority of "young" (which can be interpreted rather generously) people who had significantly negative responses to COVID, there were severe preexisting conditions. By contrast vaccine induced myocarditis and similar side effects occurred at a frequency much higher in these age groups, particularly those in the male + younger side of young, than would be accepted for a "normal" vaccine. Major side effects from typical vaccines run in the 1:100k to 1:1000k range, while COVID vaccine myocarditis alone was somewhere in the 1:10k range for young males, and much higher with proactive testing for such as opposed to the 1:10k figures which relied on data from people showing up at the ER with heart issues. And obviously speaking of vaccine "OR" COVID is misleading because it turned out that the vaccines didn't stop people from getting COVID - repeatedly, spreading COVID, and even dying of COVID. It, ideally, reduced the probability of severe outcomes, in exchange for a relatively high frequency of side effects, and that was it. But lots of people got really rich off the whole thing, so there's that at least.
      - immibis 11mo ago
        Don't about 90% of Americans have a severe pre-existing condition?
        somenameforme 11mo ago
        Haha, well not quite 90% but many do. And I think a responsible, and transparent, government response to COVID would have been centered around this. Make it clear that there are many uncertainties but so far it seems that the people most negatively affected by the disease are those with major preexisting conditions, or the elderly. And that the ability of the vaccines to stop transmission or even infection are not clear. Instead so much of the rhetoric was based on complete lies. I think people forget just how completely dishonest "we" were. [1] And why do montages like the one I just linked to get removed from YouTube? It's not fake or fabricated in any way, shape, or fashion. Nor are those comments even taken out of context. It's simply a record of the statements made by public figures and politicians. Apparently that's against YouTube's terms of service. [1] - https://x.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192 https://x.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192
- SoftTalker 11mo ago
  Those are not the options. COVID is exceedingly mild for many people (if I've ever had it, I didn't notice), and severe only for a few. The risk needs to be evaluated in relation to each person. I rarely get sick. I haven't had flu or even a cold in at least 10 years. I don't get flu vaccines because in my estimation I don't need them. By contrast, for something like tetanus vaccines, I do get those periodically as my hobbies expose me to cuts and dirt.
  - tensor 11mo ago
    These are in fact the options. "I'm special" is common but wrong thinking. These likelihood numbers apply to you too. If you want to gamble that you'll get few side effects from covid, then great news your odds of getting side effects from the vaccine are even less!
    - whatevaa 11mo ago
      Flu and covid vacines don't prevent the illness. They just "maybe" soften their impact, but even that is not guaranteed as virus mutates fast. Don't throw them into the same bag as truly life changing polio or smallpox vaciness.
      - tensor 11mo ago
        Millions of people died from covid. It's not the flu. Vaccines don't just "maybe" reduce the impact, they DO reduce the impact. It's extremely well documented. Even now, with the milder strains of covid that are common, it still reduces your chance of hospitalization and death by 57%. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/covid-effectiveness-vaccine-university-of-waterloo-9.6970645 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/covid-effe...
epistasis 11mo ago
> The fact that media and government both colluded to suppress information related to Covid vaccine side effects is troubling. This is not a fact, and spreading this misinformation is very concerning.
didibus 11mo ago
What COVID vaccine side effects? The only one I know apart from just mild reactions in the week that follows is the minuscule increase in myocarditis in young males, and the increase in myocarditis is even higher from normal COVID exposure, so it's arguable vaccine actually lower your overall chances.
- someperson 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - gadders 11mo ago
    The other thing that made mandates controversial was the fact that the vaccine didn't stop transmission. If the vaccine only helps the person that takes it, then it should be personal choice.
    - dosethree 11mo ago
      it can assist with preventing transmission https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8112/3/10/103 https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8112/3/10/103
      - gadders 11mo ago
        This study says it likely doesn't: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39283431/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39283431/ We can swap one off studies all day, but the fact remains that there wasn't compelling enough evidence to justify making the vaccine mandated.
        op00to 11mo ago
        Given demonstrated cuts in transmission and severe disease, proven mandate effects on uptake and outcomes, and established legal grounding, the claim that evidence was insufficient to justify mandates is not supported.
JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
> Don’t use govt control to suppress speech on social media. It’s not conducive to any sort of trust building The federal government lied about masks. Local governments lied about lockdowns. Nobody lied about vaccines. The folks who can’t be fucked to not get and spread measles weren’t tipped over the edge by the mask lies because they’re the same folks who wouldn’t follow a mask mandate.
- itsoktocry 11mo ago
  >Nobody lied about vaccines. Sure they did. Go back and listen to what the media and politicians were saying about the vaccines when they were first released: you won't get COVID, you won't spread COVID. We ended up at "you'll still get COVID and spread COVID, but your symptoms will be lessened". I'm not anti-vaccine by any means, but the story around COVID vaccines changed...a lot.
  - JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
    > Go back and listen to what the media was saying about the vaccines when they were first released: you won't get COVID, you won't spread COVID You’re making the claim. Show me. I remember this debate happening online. It was stupid then as it is now. The clinical outcomes were clear as day: reduced hospitalisation. And Jonas Salk’s original polio vaccine was non-sterilising and not only not non-infecting, but actively infecting.
    - itsoktocry 11mo ago
      >You’re making the claim. Show me. The fact that you are unaware of it means you've got your head-in-the-sand. "Calling on Americans to get vaccinated against Covid-19, Biden said, “If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the ICU unit and you’re not going to die.”" Are those facts? https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn-town-hall-july https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn...
      - 11mo ago
anthem2025 11mo ago
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moralestapia 11mo ago
>and definitely not connected to autism That is not known for sure. Disclaimer for those who missed Rational Debate 101: this does not mean they are connected.
- amanaplanacanal 11mo ago
  You apparently have an idea of surety that nothing will ever reach. Unicorns could possibly exist, but I wouldn't bet on it.
SoftTalker 11mo ago
> my kids are vaccinated (yes, including the hpv), I haven’t done covid shots more than the one required time Same. The way the COVID vaccine was used as a political wedge issue contributed to suspicions. I hope lessons were learned on both sides but I doubt it.
AJ007 11mo ago
Also easy to forget how much negative sentiment, on the opposite political side, there was prior to the vaccine being approved. The NYT had an article on how it would take 10 years for the vaccine to be developed and approved! Operation Warp Speed was a project from the first Trump administration. One could rationally blame Trump for the vaccine skepticism. It's arguable it never would have been rush approved if it had been someone else in the White House! I wish I had cataloged all of the stuff I read and listened to in 2020. There are things where the references are basically impossible to find. All of it mainstream news sources. There was concern expressed in 2020 that the covid vaccine could trigger resistance to other existing vaccines, and that's exactly what happened. Also worth name dropping one of the most interesting books I've ever read: _The Pox of Liberty: How the Constitution Left Americans Rich, Free, and Prone to Infection_. Apparently so obscure that Amazon tries to auto correct the search.
- pdonis 11mo ago
  > It's arguable it never would have been rush approved if it had been someone else in the White House! I don't think so. Biden pushed the Covid vaccines even harder than Trump did. If Trump had been in the White House I don't think Covid vaccines would have been mandated.
- bdhe 11mo ago
  > Also easy to forget how much negative sentiment, on the opposite political side, there was prior to the vaccine being approved. The NYT had an article on how it would take 10 years for the vaccine to be developed and approved! I looked up that article. Nowhere does it indicate that papers like the NYT were opposed to speeding up the development, approval, and distribution of vaccines. Are you implying that if it were Democrats in the white house we would've had protracted approval? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/opinion/coronavirus-vaccine.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/opinion/coronavirus-vacci... == Vaccines often take 10 years to bring to market. We want a new vaccine as fast as possible, where each month matters. The fact is that starting from the early stages of development, most vaccines fail. We cannot afford to fail, so we need to plan for success. To do that, we must think and invest as ambitiously as we can — and that means in a Covid vaccine advance market commitment.
pdonis 11mo ago
[flagged]
- jeffbee 11mo ago
  > Covid vaccines are not [effective] Please expand on your claim here.
  - pdonis 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - jeffbee 11mo ago
      I don't know if that's a widespread definition of "vaccine". I think it might be personal to you, and you might be imagining the societal consensus around it. The Covid vaccines are thought to stave off about half of serious complications from the disease among older people. That is thought to amount to thousands of avoided deaths per year in America. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264410X25001057?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02644... The stats for the flu vaccines are about the same, despite their poor coverage. https://www.cdc.gov/flu-burden/php/data-vis-vac/2023-2024-prevented.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu-burden/php/data-vis-vac/2023-2024-pr... Without regard to your private definitions of English words, these are both inarguably "vaccines" and "effective".
      - pdonis 11mo ago
        > I don't know if that's a widespread definition of "vaccine". Wikipedia [1]: "A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease." One reference for that statement is the CDC's web page on "immunization basics". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine > you might be imagining the societal consensus around it. I don't think there's as much of a societal consensus around it now, because, as I said, flu "vaccines" have been around for quite a number of years (they were around for quite a number of years before Covid), and that has changed how people think of the word "vaccine". However, I think the word still has an unconscious connotation of something having a stronger effect than just "well, you have less chance of being hospitalized". See further comments below. In any case, my point is that I think using the word "vaccine" for the flu and Covid shots is broken. "Vaccine" when I was growing up and got all those shots did mean "thing that prevents you from getting the disease". That was the whole point; that was what everybody talked about when you got shots as a kid so you could go to school, or when you got shots before traveling internationally so you wouldn't catch any of the endemic diseases where you were going. When we began to encounter diseases for which we could not do that, where the best we could do was to give shots that might make them less severe but didn't keep you from getting the disease, we should have picked a different word instead of muddying the meaning of the word "vaccine". Doing that would have made it much clearer exactly what governments were trying to do by mandating Covid "vaccines". But governments traded on the unconscious connotations of the word "vaccine" to justify the mandates. Mandating something that doesn't prevent you from getting the disease, doesn't prevent you from spreading it if you have it, but might help in keeping you out of the hospital, makes no sense from a public health perspective. But that's not what people thought was being mandated, because of the word "vaccine". > "effective" They might be effective at making the disease less severe. They are not effective at preventing you from getting the disease, or preventing you from spreading it if you have it.
notmyjob 11mo ago
[flagged]
- op00to 11mo ago
  You got played, but not by scientists. You got played by pundits who turned evolving data into a culture-war slogan. Early messaging about herd immunity was based on what vaccines normally do: reduce spread enough that outbreaks die out. That worked against measles or polio, where the virus barely mutates. SARS-CoV-2 wasn’t like that. It evolved too fast, so the realistic goal shifted from elimination to control. The definition of “vaccine” never secretly changed. It was clarified to include immune responses that reduce severe disease and transmission rather than guarantee sterilizing immunity. That’s immunology, not conspiracy. Every major vaccine like flu, pertussis, rotavirus all have that same property. mRNA COVID vaccines still saved tens of millions of lives worldwide and sharply cut hospitalization rates, even after variants eroded transmission blocking. Boosters are needed because immunity wanes and variants keep changing, just like flu shots. So yes: “trust, but verify” is good advice. But the verification process already happened through global trials, regulatory review, and post-marketing data. The people misleading you are the ones pretending scientific self-correction is the same as deceit.
  - notmyjob 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - op00to 11mo ago
      Right, because real science never updates. Once an idea gets said out loud, it’s locked in forever like when doctors insisted ulcers were caused by stress and spicy food, and we definitely didn’t discover Helicobacter pylori decades later living rent-free in stomachs. Fauci’s “herd immunity” comments came before Delta and Omicron turned one virus into a family reunion. Updating that view wasn’t deceit. It was responding to evidence, something the “verify, don’t trust” crowd supposedly likes, except when the verification disagrees with their memes.
platevoltage 11mo ago
I wouldn't accuse you of being "maga/trump" purely based on the fact that he has ramped up speech suppression on social media way more than Biden could have dreamed of.
jonhohle 11mo ago
As bad as anti-vaxxers are claimed to be, people conflating someone who has concerns about novel medical treatment or general distrust of the pharma industry with people who think all vaccines are bad are far worse. They suppress actual scientific discussion and information propagation through fear, intimidation, and suppression. I’ve come to discount the opinion of anyone who earnestly accuses some of being an anti-vaxxer. They have no moral or scientific high ground and obviously do not understand nuance.

ulfw 11mo ago

> Don’t use govt control to suppress speech on social media. It’s not conducive to any sort of trust building. So then how do you deal with other state actors who have whole machineries spreading lies and disinformation on social networks?

tensor 11mo ago

The media was fine on the covid shots and if you're not taking them then you're doing yourself and your family harm. Yes, there are side effects. Those side effects are far far milder than the actual illness, which you are pretty much guaranteed to get. So your option are mild side effect + mild disease or severe disease.

kypro 11mo ago
[flagged]
- code4life 11mo ago
  They refuse to look critically at the trade offs. I don’t even know how thats possible at this point. Everything in life has trade offs. Everything.
  - worik 11mo ago
    > They refuse to look critically at the trade offs. That is a bald assertion. I do not agree. Of course it depends what you mean by "they", but medical researchers do look critically at the trade offs There were failures of communication from fear that nuance would be misunderstood as uncertainty Also for large sections of the population, many in my community, the state generally and the medical establishment in particular, have no credibility for the sadistic way they have been treated.
- tensor 11mo ago
  The covid vaccine was not given to young adults nor children until much later iterations of the vaccine were available, and were specifically reduced in potency for that age group. If you recall, the initial strains of covid for the elderly had a side effect that could occur with shockingly high probability. That side effect was "dead." The very first vaccines were rushed and given to the elderly to prevent this. There was no "misinformation." The media reported information as it came in. Understanding of the virus and the vaccines did changes fairly quickly during that time, so I get that it could be confusing for people, but there was no secret effort to mislead anyone, and overall the covid vaccine was one of the biggest successes in our lifetime. mRNA vaccines open up huge possibilities for a range of illnesses, including cancer. The covid vaccine was developed in record time, and was overall pretty damn effective at preventing the side effect of "dead."
- azan_ 11mo ago
  It was true, even for young adults covid vaccine is safer than covid.
  - somenameforme 11mo ago
    For the overwhelming majority of "young" (which can be interpreted rather generously) people who had significantly negative responses to COVID, there were severe preexisting conditions. By contrast vaccine induced myocarditis and similar side effects occurred at a frequency much higher in these age groups, particularly those in the male + younger side of young, than would be accepted for a "normal" vaccine. Major side effects from typical vaccines run in the 1:100k to 1:1000k range, while COVID vaccine myocarditis alone was somewhere in the 1:10k range for young males, and much higher with proactive testing for such as opposed to the 1:10k figures which relied on data from people showing up at the ER with heart issues. And obviously speaking of vaccine "OR" COVID is misleading because it turned out that the vaccines didn't stop people from getting COVID - repeatedly, spreading COVID, and even dying of COVID. It, ideally, reduced the probability of severe outcomes, in exchange for a relatively high frequency of side effects, and that was it. But lots of people got really rich off the whole thing, so there's that at least.
    - immibis 11mo ago
      Don't about 90% of Americans have a severe pre-existing condition?
      - somenameforme 11mo ago
        Haha, well not quite 90% but many do. And I think a responsible, and transparent, government response to COVID would have been centered around this. Make it clear that there are many uncertainties but so far it seems that the people most negatively affected by the disease are those with major preexisting conditions, or the elderly. And that the ability of the vaccines to stop transmission or even infection are not clear. Instead so much of the rhetoric was based on complete lies. I think people forget just how completely dishonest "we" were. [1] And why do montages like the one I just linked to get removed from YouTube? It's not fake or fabricated in any way, shape, or fashion. Nor are those comments even taken out of context. It's simply a record of the statements made by public figures and politicians. Apparently that's against YouTube's terms of service. [1] - https://x.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192 https://x.com/ITGuy1959/status/1581034815700488192
SoftTalker 11mo ago
Those are not the options. COVID is exceedingly mild for many people (if I've ever had it, I didn't notice), and severe only for a few. The risk needs to be evaluated in relation to each person. I rarely get sick. I haven't had flu or even a cold in at least 10 years. I don't get flu vaccines because in my estimation I don't need them. By contrast, for something like tetanus vaccines, I do get those periodically as my hobbies expose me to cuts and dirt.
- tensor 11mo ago
  These are in fact the options. "I'm special" is common but wrong thinking. These likelihood numbers apply to you too. If you want to gamble that you'll get few side effects from covid, then great news your odds of getting side effects from the vaccine are even less!
  - whatevaa 11mo ago
    Flu and covid vacines don't prevent the illness. They just "maybe" soften their impact, but even that is not guaranteed as virus mutates fast. Don't throw them into the same bag as truly life changing polio or smallpox vaciness.
    - tensor 11mo ago
      Millions of people died from covid. It's not the flu. Vaccines don't just "maybe" reduce the impact, they DO reduce the impact. It's extremely well documented. Even now, with the milder strains of covid that are common, it still reduces your chance of hospitalization and death by 57%. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/covid-effectiveness-vaccine-university-of-waterloo-9.6970645 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/covid-effe...

epistasis 11mo ago

> The fact that media and government both colluded to suppress information related to Covid vaccine side effects is troubling. This is not a fact, and spreading this misinformation is very concerning.

didibus 11mo ago

What COVID vaccine side effects? The only one I know apart from just mild reactions in the week that follows is the minuscule increase in myocarditis in young males, and the increase in myocarditis is even higher from normal COVID exposure, so it's arguable vaccine actually lower your overall chances.

someperson 11mo ago
[flagged]
- gadders 11mo ago
  The other thing that made mandates controversial was the fact that the vaccine didn't stop transmission. If the vaccine only helps the person that takes it, then it should be personal choice.
  - dosethree 11mo ago
    it can assist with preventing transmission https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8112/3/10/103 https://www.mdpi.com/2673-8112/3/10/103
    - gadders 11mo ago
      This study says it likely doesn't: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39283431/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39283431/ We can swap one off studies all day, but the fact remains that there wasn't compelling enough evidence to justify making the vaccine mandated.
      - op00to 11mo ago
        Given demonstrated cuts in transmission and severe disease, proven mandate effects on uptake and outcomes, and established legal grounding, the claim that evidence was insufficient to justify mandates is not supported.

JumpCrisscross 11mo ago

> Don’t use govt control to suppress speech on social media. It’s not conducive to any sort of trust building The federal government lied about masks. Local governments lied about lockdowns. Nobody lied about vaccines. The folks who can’t be fucked to not get and spread measles weren’t tipped over the edge by the mask lies because they’re the same folks who wouldn’t follow a mask mandate.

itsoktocry 11mo ago
>Nobody lied about vaccines. Sure they did. Go back and listen to what the media and politicians were saying about the vaccines when they were first released: you won't get COVID, you won't spread COVID. We ended up at "you'll still get COVID and spread COVID, but your symptoms will be lessened". I'm not anti-vaccine by any means, but the story around COVID vaccines changed...a lot.
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago
  > Go back and listen to what the media was saying about the vaccines when they were first released: you won't get COVID, you won't spread COVID You’re making the claim. Show me. I remember this debate happening online. It was stupid then as it is now. The clinical outcomes were clear as day: reduced hospitalisation. And Jonas Salk’s original polio vaccine was non-sterilising and not only not non-infecting, but actively infecting.
  - itsoktocry 11mo ago
    >You’re making the claim. Show me. The fact that you are unaware of it means you've got your head-in-the-sand. "Calling on Americans to get vaccinated against Covid-19, Biden said, “If you’re vaccinated, you’re not going to be hospitalized, you’re not going to be in the ICU unit and you’re not going to die.”" Are those facts? https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn-town-hall-july https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/politics/fact-check-biden-cnn...
    - 11mo ago

anthem2025 11mo ago

[dead]

moralestapia 11mo ago

>and definitely not connected to autism That is not known for sure. Disclaimer for those who missed Rational Debate 101: this does not mean they are connected.

amanaplanacanal 11mo ago
You apparently have an idea of surety that nothing will ever reach. Unicorns could possibly exist, but I wouldn't bet on it.

SoftTalker 11mo ago

> my kids are vaccinated (yes, including the hpv), I haven’t done covid shots more than the one required time Same. The way the COVID vaccine was used as a political wedge issue contributed to suspicions. I hope lessons were learned on both sides but I doubt it.

AJ007 11mo ago

Also easy to forget how much negative sentiment, on the opposite political side, there was prior to the vaccine being approved. The NYT had an article on how it would take 10 years for the vaccine to be developed and approved! Operation Warp Speed was a project from the first Trump administration. One could rationally blame Trump for the vaccine skepticism. It's arguable it never would have been rush approved if it had been someone else in the White House! I wish I had cataloged all of the stuff I read and listened to in 2020. There are things where the references are basically impossible to find. All of it mainstream news sources. There was concern expressed in 2020 that the covid vaccine could trigger resistance to other existing vaccines, and that's exactly what happened. Also worth name dropping one of the most interesting books I've ever read: _The Pox of Liberty: How the Constitution Left Americans Rich, Free, and Prone to Infection_. Apparently so obscure that Amazon tries to auto correct the search.

pdonis 11mo ago
> It's arguable it never would have been rush approved if it had been someone else in the White House! I don't think so. Biden pushed the Covid vaccines even harder than Trump did. If Trump had been in the White House I don't think Covid vaccines would have been mandated.
bdhe 11mo ago
> Also easy to forget how much negative sentiment, on the opposite political side, there was prior to the vaccine being approved. The NYT had an article on how it would take 10 years for the vaccine to be developed and approved! I looked up that article. Nowhere does it indicate that papers like the NYT were opposed to speeding up the development, approval, and distribution of vaccines. Are you implying that if it were Democrats in the white house we would've had protracted approval? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/opinion/coronavirus-vaccine.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/opinion/coronavirus-vacci... == Vaccines often take 10 years to bring to market. We want a new vaccine as fast as possible, where each month matters. The fact is that starting from the early stages of development, most vaccines fail. We cannot afford to fail, so we need to plan for success. To do that, we must think and invest as ambitiously as we can — and that means in a Covid vaccine advance market commitment.

pdonis 11mo ago

[flagged]

jeffbee 11mo ago
> Covid vaccines are not [effective] Please expand on your claim here.
- pdonis 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - jeffbee 11mo ago
    I don't know if that's a widespread definition of "vaccine". I think it might be personal to you, and you might be imagining the societal consensus around it. The Covid vaccines are thought to stave off about half of serious complications from the disease among older people. That is thought to amount to thousands of avoided deaths per year in America. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0264410X25001057?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02644... The stats for the flu vaccines are about the same, despite their poor coverage. https://www.cdc.gov/flu-burden/php/data-vis-vac/2023-2024-prevented.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu-burden/php/data-vis-vac/2023-2024-pr... Without regard to your private definitions of English words, these are both inarguably "vaccines" and "effective".
    - pdonis 11mo ago
      > I don't know if that's a widespread definition of "vaccine". Wikipedia [1]: "A vaccine is a biological preparation that provides active acquired immunity to a particular infectious or malignant disease." One reference for that statement is the CDC's web page on "immunization basics". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine > you might be imagining the societal consensus around it. I don't think there's as much of a societal consensus around it now, because, as I said, flu "vaccines" have been around for quite a number of years (they were around for quite a number of years before Covid), and that has changed how people think of the word "vaccine". However, I think the word still has an unconscious connotation of something having a stronger effect than just "well, you have less chance of being hospitalized". See further comments below. In any case, my point is that I think using the word "vaccine" for the flu and Covid shots is broken. "Vaccine" when I was growing up and got all those shots did mean "thing that prevents you from getting the disease". That was the whole point; that was what everybody talked about when you got shots as a kid so you could go to school, or when you got shots before traveling internationally so you wouldn't catch any of the endemic diseases where you were going. When we began to encounter diseases for which we could not do that, where the best we could do was to give shots that might make them less severe but didn't keep you from getting the disease, we should have picked a different word instead of muddying the meaning of the word "vaccine". Doing that would have made it much clearer exactly what governments were trying to do by mandating Covid "vaccines". But governments traded on the unconscious connotations of the word "vaccine" to justify the mandates. Mandating something that doesn't prevent you from getting the disease, doesn't prevent you from spreading it if you have it, but might help in keeping you out of the hospital, makes no sense from a public health perspective. But that's not what people thought was being mandated, because of the word "vaccine". > "effective" They might be effective at making the disease less severe. They are not effective at preventing you from getting the disease, or preventing you from spreading it if you have it.

notmyjob 11mo ago

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op00to 11mo ago
You got played, but not by scientists. You got played by pundits who turned evolving data into a culture-war slogan. Early messaging about herd immunity was based on what vaccines normally do: reduce spread enough that outbreaks die out. That worked against measles or polio, where the virus barely mutates. SARS-CoV-2 wasn’t like that. It evolved too fast, so the realistic goal shifted from elimination to control. The definition of “vaccine” never secretly changed. It was clarified to include immune responses that reduce severe disease and transmission rather than guarantee sterilizing immunity. That’s immunology, not conspiracy. Every major vaccine like flu, pertussis, rotavirus all have that same property. mRNA COVID vaccines still saved tens of millions of lives worldwide and sharply cut hospitalization rates, even after variants eroded transmission blocking. Boosters are needed because immunity wanes and variants keep changing, just like flu shots. So yes: “trust, but verify” is good advice. But the verification process already happened through global trials, regulatory review, and post-marketing data. The people misleading you are the ones pretending scientific self-correction is the same as deceit.
- notmyjob 11mo ago
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  - op00to 11mo ago
    Right, because real science never updates. Once an idea gets said out loud, it’s locked in forever like when doctors insisted ulcers were caused by stress and spicy food, and we definitely didn’t discover Helicobacter pylori decades later living rent-free in stomachs. Fauci’s “herd immunity” comments came before Delta and Omicron turned one virus into a family reunion. Updating that view wasn’t deceit. It was responding to evidence, something the “verify, don’t trust” crowd supposedly likes, except when the verification disagrees with their memes.

platevoltage 11mo ago

I wouldn't accuse you of being "maga/trump" purely based on the fact that he has ramped up speech suppression on social media way more than Biden could have dreamed of.

jonhohle 11mo ago

As bad as anti-vaxxers are claimed to be, people conflating someone who has concerns about novel medical treatment or general distrust of the pharma industry with people who think all vaccines are bad are far worse. They suppress actual scientific discussion and information propagation through fear, intimidation, and suppression. I’ve come to discount the opinion of anyone who earnestly accuses some of being an anti-vaxxer. They have no moral or scientific high ground and obviously do not understand nuance.