6 ms·

Serious question in good faith: what was the deal with the “calamari” (clots?) the anti-vax crowd kept talking about being found in the veins/arteries of folks

Serious question in good faith: what was the deal with the “calamari” (clots?) the anti-vax crowd kept talking about being found in the veins/arteries of folks who took the Covid vaccine?

wetpaws 3mo ago
Nothingburger like pretty much everything that antivaxers talk about
- dehrmann 3mo ago
  Dismissing people like this is part of what fuels the antivax movement. Vaccines are generally effective, but they're not perfect and have side effects, and failing to acknowledge that when someone is asking in in good faith polarizes people and makes it look like someone's trying to hide something.
  - Schiendelman 3mo ago
    It was a nothingburger. It wasn't even a side effect of the mRNA vaccines. You don't have to care about the people who aren't interested in science. Sure, you have to protect immunocompromised people from those people, and we can do that.
  - mullingitover 3mo ago
    Dismissing people who dismiss the antivax movement like this is part of what fuels the anti-anti-vax movement.
    - shermantanktop 3mo ago
      I see you’ve played knifey-spooney before!
  - jrflowers 3mo ago
    It is okay to dismiss negligible things. People sustain a lot of injuries and die in their bathrooms but it would be insane to both-sides somebody’s campaign against taking shits https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6022a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6022a1.htm
  - Freedom2 3mo ago
    Good faith isn't enough. I just reread some tweets, and there were multiple people who in completely good faith (from their point of view) were protecting their community by claiming everybody who took a vaccine would be dead by June 2026.
  - latentsea 3mo ago
    Those people are going to be polarised regardless. If you don't give them a reason to be polarised they'll invent one because they want to be polarised.
  - anonzzzies 3mo ago
    I lost friends during covid who turned into morons like that; so much so that I started to think maybe it is a side effect of the virus. One of them recently moved to the other side of the world 'because Trump is going to nuke us' (he lived in the EU). It is fine to dismiss, ignore and berate morons; they won't change their mind and must have been always like that; just before covid everyone would've laughed in your face so you would not have said any of this out loud. Now I meet a few too many people who point at vapour trails and tell me how their gov is blocking the sun and is poisoning us to keep us dumb. Dismiss and hope they won't procreate.
    - jasonvorhe 3mo ago
      I also lost friends during COVID. Some because they suddenly died of cancer in their early 30s. "vapor trails" - well, if helps you sleep better.
  - munksbeer 3mo ago
    The problem with this argument is that there are an infinite amount of "crackpot" views that then need to be "acknowledged" and engaged with.
    - ethbr1 3mo ago
      Part of it is the monkey/typewriter problem. Not saying this about parent, but am absolutely saying it about the vaccine skeptic community in general. If the barrier to asking a question is zero (i.e. someone without a high school biology education can ask a question and be listened to) but the barrier to answering any question to the community's satisfaction is high (i.e. a full study, on exactly that question, controlled for all variables, that shows a clear result) then the effort asymmetry leads to many unanswered questions. ... which the skeptic community then points to to support the belief that there are many legitimate unanswered questions.
      - munksbeer 3mo ago
        That is exactly my point.
cedws 3mo ago
IIRC the vaccines were provably linked to the death of young people who had blood clots they shouldn't have had. The common argument made is that the vaccine saved more lives than they took, but this is pretty fucked up IMO. It's the trolley problem IRL - if you force someone to get a vaccine and they die as a result, you are responsible for their death. Also, the manufacturers can never be held responsible, because they have legal immunity for the COVID vaccines.
- Waterluvian 3mo ago
  Society is the trolley problem. The balancing act between individual and collective rights is the lever being thrown every time we pass a law or make a regulation. I can absolutely empathize though. It really is fucked up to experience it in the extreme. Usually the trade-offs are much more minor or have a big time delay or are more abstract.
  - zmgsabst 3mo ago
    Lots of societies who started with some killing “for the common good” ended in atrocities. The statistics on men under 25 are still horrific and suggest this was in fact the latter category: atrocity masquerading behind that euphemism.
    - Sammi 3mo ago
      No one is "killing" anyone. That is just a gross mischaracterization. Sometimes (like this) we just choose the least bad solution, that's it.
      - zmgsabst 3mo ago
        If you do something to a person and they die after, you killed them. If you can’t admit you’re killing people you absolutely lack the ethics to compel actions for others, as in your case here. COVID vaccines and their mandates absolutely did kill people — and you can believe that is justified, but if you cannot admit the fact, it’s a clear indication you’re not behaving ethically.
Torn 3mo ago
> Now an international team, led by Flinders University, have found that in a small number of people, the immune system can accidentally confuse a normal adenovirus protein with a human blood protein termed platelet factor 4 (or PF4). Seems to have been a legitimate, very rare, side effect https://www.flinders.edu.au/research/articles/covid-vaccine-blood-clots https://www.flinders.edu.au/research/articles/covid-vaccine-...
- tjohns 3mo ago
  It's worth clarifying that the adenovirus-based (viral vector) vaccines that article is discussing were a completely different technology from the mRNA vaccines.
  - marcosdumay 3mo ago
    The mRNA vaccines also had a cloth problem (as in, it was extremely rare), that practically disappeared with a change on the application procedure.
    - moralestapia 3mo ago
      Can you elaborate? What was the change?
      - atomicnumber3 3mo ago
        I am quite curious too. I had heard that, despite arm vascular being very consistent among individuals, it does still vary. And I think for most vaccines I guess it doesn't matter if you hit something other than muscle. Maybe for the mRNA vaccines it does matter? I'm baselessly speculating though. Wish other person hadn't been so vague.
      - Sammi 3mo ago
        Not 100% sure but I think it was this: Never inject into a vein. Always inject into a muscle.
nn43tzl 3mo ago
[dead]
M95D 3mo ago
COVID itself causes blood clots. In fact, pulmonary embolism with blood clots is frequent in COVID patients. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/should-you-be-worried-about-blood-clots-with-covid-19 https://health.clevelandclinic.org/should-you-be-worried-abo... https://www.ejinme.com/article/S0953-6205(20)30349-6/fulltext https://www.ejinme.com/article/S0953-6205(20)30349-6/fulltex... https://ashpublications.org/blood/article/140/Supplement%201/5647/490775/Accuracy-and-Prediction-of-D-Dimers-for-Pulmonary https://ashpublications.org/blood/article/140/Supplement%201...
jasonvorhe 3mo ago
[flagged]
- phendrenad2 3mo ago
  It's hard to tell "dangerous misinformation" from "thing someone made up for tiktok views". The difference is facts and evidence. I'm still waiting to see either.
- Sammi 3mo ago
  Please show me the data. If embalmers all over the world are seeing this, then there surely should be some data, right?
- jasonvorhe 3mo ago
  Down votes are expected. I'm sure these people are just sooo anti-vax that they'd fake all this to scare people: https://andrewjchapman.substack.com/p/what-the-embalmers-are-seeing https://andrewjchapman.substack.com/p/what-the-embalmers-are... Don't follow the link if you're screamish.
  - picofarad 3mo ago
    Squeamish *
rstuart4133 3mo ago
> the anti-vax crowd kept talking about being found in the veins/arteries of folks who took the Covid vaccine? "The deal" is the clot issue was a problem for Astrazeneca. Astrazeneca is not an mRNA vaccine. It came out first, and was offered to a lot of people - until the clots started showing up. Australia's response (where I live) was to withdraw the Astrazeneca vaccine and go into lockdown instead. They exited lockdown once a safe replacement vaccine was manufactured and could be mass administered, which happened many months later. The safe replacements were predominantly mRNA vaccines. From memory the final statistics were Astrazeneca, which was only available for a month or two killed 1 in every 1 million doses, the mRNA replacements which now have been used for years have caused about 1 death for every 55 million doses. You wouldn't want to be the unlucky 1 in 55 million, but you would not want to miss out on taking the mRNA vaccines either - they saved 1000's of lives. In the high risk groups, Astrazeneca turned out to be worth its risks in over-60s in Australia, but killed more people than it saved in the lower risk groups. But Australia was among the best countries to manage the COVID pandemic. In countries like Mexico where the death rates from COVID were far higher, taking Astrazeneca increased your chances of surviving the pandemic, despite the higher complication rate. The meme that mRNA causes clots seems to be remarkably common, despite being wrong. It is why to this day many people are vaccine hesitant. It's unfortunate. I think the underlying cause of the large number of people with clots was the mass roll out of Astrazeneca as soon as it passed testing. Normally the take up of a new medicine is gradual. The high prices of the early batches mean they are only given to people who stand to benefit most. The less common side effects are caught in that phase. The phase didn't happen for Astrazeneca.

Serious question in good faith: what was the deal with the “calamari” (clots?) the anti-vax crowd kept talking about being found in the veins/arteries of folks who took the Covid vaccine?

wetpaws 3mo ago

Nothingburger like pretty much everything that antivaxers talk about

dehrmann 3mo ago
Dismissing people like this is part of what fuels the antivax movement. Vaccines are generally effective, but they're not perfect and have side effects, and failing to acknowledge that when someone is asking in in good faith polarizes people and makes it look like someone's trying to hide something.
- Schiendelman 3mo ago
  It was a nothingburger. It wasn't even a side effect of the mRNA vaccines. You don't have to care about the people who aren't interested in science. Sure, you have to protect immunocompromised people from those people, and we can do that.
- mullingitover 3mo ago
  Dismissing people who dismiss the antivax movement like this is part of what fuels the anti-anti-vax movement.
  - shermantanktop 3mo ago
    I see you’ve played knifey-spooney before!
- jrflowers 3mo ago
  It is okay to dismiss negligible things. People sustain a lot of injuries and die in their bathrooms but it would be insane to both-sides somebody’s campaign against taking shits https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6022a1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6022a1.htm
- Freedom2 3mo ago
  Good faith isn't enough. I just reread some tweets, and there were multiple people who in completely good faith (from their point of view) were protecting their community by claiming everybody who took a vaccine would be dead by June 2026.
- latentsea 3mo ago
  Those people are going to be polarised regardless. If you don't give them a reason to be polarised they'll invent one because they want to be polarised.
- anonzzzies 3mo ago
  I lost friends during covid who turned into morons like that; so much so that I started to think maybe it is a side effect of the virus. One of them recently moved to the other side of the world 'because Trump is going to nuke us' (he lived in the EU). It is fine to dismiss, ignore and berate morons; they won't change their mind and must have been always like that; just before covid everyone would've laughed in your face so you would not have said any of this out loud. Now I meet a few too many people who point at vapour trails and tell me how their gov is blocking the sun and is poisoning us to keep us dumb. Dismiss and hope they won't procreate.
  - jasonvorhe 3mo ago
    I also lost friends during COVID. Some because they suddenly died of cancer in their early 30s. "vapor trails" - well, if helps you sleep better.
- munksbeer 3mo ago
  The problem with this argument is that there are an infinite amount of "crackpot" views that then need to be "acknowledged" and engaged with.
  - ethbr1 3mo ago
    Part of it is the monkey/typewriter problem. Not saying this about parent, but am absolutely saying it about the vaccine skeptic community in general. If the barrier to asking a question is zero (i.e. someone without a high school biology education can ask a question and be listened to) but the barrier to answering any question to the community's satisfaction is high (i.e. a full study, on exactly that question, controlled for all variables, that shows a clear result) then the effort asymmetry leads to many unanswered questions. ... which the skeptic community then points to to support the belief that there are many legitimate unanswered questions.
    - munksbeer 3mo ago
      That is exactly my point.

cedws 3mo ago

IIRC the vaccines were provably linked to the death of young people who had blood clots they shouldn't have had. The common argument made is that the vaccine saved more lives than they took, but this is pretty fucked up IMO. It's the trolley problem IRL - if you force someone to get a vaccine and they die as a result, you are responsible for their death. Also, the manufacturers can never be held responsible, because they have legal immunity for the COVID vaccines.

Waterluvian 3mo ago
Society is the trolley problem. The balancing act between individual and collective rights is the lever being thrown every time we pass a law or make a regulation. I can absolutely empathize though. It really is fucked up to experience it in the extreme. Usually the trade-offs are much more minor or have a big time delay or are more abstract.
- zmgsabst 3mo ago
  Lots of societies who started with some killing “for the common good” ended in atrocities. The statistics on men under 25 are still horrific and suggest this was in fact the latter category: atrocity masquerading behind that euphemism.
  - Sammi 3mo ago
    No one is "killing" anyone. That is just a gross mischaracterization. Sometimes (like this) we just choose the least bad solution, that's it.
    - zmgsabst 3mo ago
      If you do something to a person and they die after, you killed them. If you can’t admit you’re killing people you absolutely lack the ethics to compel actions for others, as in your case here. COVID vaccines and their mandates absolutely did kill people — and you can believe that is justified, but if you cannot admit the fact, it’s a clear indication you’re not behaving ethically.

Torn 3mo ago

> Now an international team, led by Flinders University, have found that in a small number of people, the immune system can accidentally confuse a normal adenovirus protein with a human blood protein termed platelet factor 4 (or PF4). Seems to have been a legitimate, very rare, side effect https://www.flinders.edu.au/research/articles/covid-vaccine-blood-clots https://www.flinders.edu.au/research/articles/covid-vaccine-...

tjohns 3mo ago
It's worth clarifying that the adenovirus-based (viral vector) vaccines that article is discussing were a completely different technology from the mRNA vaccines.
- marcosdumay 3mo ago
  The mRNA vaccines also had a cloth problem (as in, it was extremely rare), that practically disappeared with a change on the application procedure.
  - moralestapia 3mo ago
    Can you elaborate? What was the change?
    - atomicnumber3 3mo ago
      I am quite curious too. I had heard that, despite arm vascular being very consistent among individuals, it does still vary. And I think for most vaccines I guess it doesn't matter if you hit something other than muscle. Maybe for the mRNA vaccines it does matter? I'm baselessly speculating though. Wish other person hadn't been so vague.
    - Sammi 3mo ago
      Not 100% sure but I think it was this: Never inject into a vein. Always inject into a muscle.

nn43tzl 3mo ago

[dead]

M95D 3mo ago

COVID itself causes blood clots. In fact, pulmonary embolism with blood clots is frequent in COVID patients. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/should-you-be-worried-about-blood-clots-with-covid-19 https://health.clevelandclinic.org/should-you-be-worried-abo... https://www.ejinme.com/article/S0953-6205(20)30349-6/fulltext https://www.ejinme.com/article/S0953-6205(20)30349-6/fulltex... https://ashpublications.org/blood/article/140/Supplement%201/5647/490775/Accuracy-and-Prediction-of-D-Dimers-for-Pulmonary https://ashpublications.org/blood/article/140/Supplement%201...

jasonvorhe 3mo ago

[flagged]

phendrenad2 3mo ago
It's hard to tell "dangerous misinformation" from "thing someone made up for tiktok views". The difference is facts and evidence. I'm still waiting to see either.
Sammi 3mo ago
Please show me the data. If embalmers all over the world are seeing this, then there surely should be some data, right?
jasonvorhe 3mo ago
Down votes are expected. I'm sure these people are just sooo anti-vax that they'd fake all this to scare people: https://andrewjchapman.substack.com/p/what-the-embalmers-are-seeing https://andrewjchapman.substack.com/p/what-the-embalmers-are... Don't follow the link if you're screamish.
- picofarad 3mo ago
  Squeamish *

rstuart4133 3mo ago

> the anti-vax crowd kept talking about being found in the veins/arteries of folks who took the Covid vaccine? "The deal" is the clot issue was a problem for Astrazeneca. Astrazeneca is not an mRNA vaccine. It came out first, and was offered to a lot of people - until the clots started showing up. Australia's response (where I live) was to withdraw the Astrazeneca vaccine and go into lockdown instead. They exited lockdown once a safe replacement vaccine was manufactured and could be mass administered, which happened many months later. The safe replacements were predominantly mRNA vaccines. From memory the final statistics were Astrazeneca, which was only available for a month or two killed 1 in every 1 million doses, the mRNA replacements which now have been used for years have caused about 1 death for every 55 million doses. You wouldn't want to be the unlucky 1 in 55 million, but you would not want to miss out on taking the mRNA vaccines either - they saved 1000's of lives. In the high risk groups, Astrazeneca turned out to be worth its risks in over-60s in Australia, but killed more people than it saved in the lower risk groups. But Australia was among the best countries to manage the COVID pandemic. In countries like Mexico where the death rates from COVID were far higher, taking Astrazeneca increased your chances of surviving the pandemic, despite the higher complication rate. The meme that mRNA causes clots seems to be remarkably common, despite being wrong. It is why to this day many people are vaccine hesitant. It's unfortunate. I think the underlying cause of the large number of people with clots was the mass roll out of Astrazeneca as soon as it passed testing. Normally the take up of a new medicine is gradual. The high prices of the early batches mean they are only given to people who stand to benefit most. The less common side effects are caught in that phase. The phase didn't happen for Astrazeneca.