Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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Johnny Dangerous
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

PeterC wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 2:16 pm
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 7:08 am
FiveSkandhas wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 6:47 am I am a vaxxer and a masker and so on. It is difficult for me to understand why this issue has become so political. And why the arguments are so rancorous and angry. It seems to bring out the worst in people. Very curious.
It's really not that puzzling to me. First of all it legitimately brings to a head a bunch of seeming opposing things that really get people going - things like a desire for individual freedom and autonomy vs. a desire for communal good for instance. Both of those things are very important, but most of the public positions people take makes it seem like these notions are entirely mutually exclusive. They aren't, and in fact many Democracies were born through the conflict and synthesis of ideas that happened over just these sorts of tensions.

Social media (well, media generally but especially social media) conditions people to think in very narrow ways, where they habitually engage in over-generalization, black and white thinking (even more than normal), and it generally discourages real investigation of anything - and that's without even touching on the fact that there is so much pure bullshit on it. Disinformation, but also just bad information.

It then rewards the exact kind of behavior that exacerbates this stuff cyclically, literally gives you a dopamine hit for owning the libs, or for picking on the rednecks..or whatever. Now of course we even have individuals getting in on the game and monetizing the conflict. Watch the back and forth some time on Youtube between right and left wing shows. It's not all bad, and the right wingers are worse, but honestly the whole thing is just gross. The Trump years managed to weaponize a lot of the dumb, white hot rage simmering under the surface, and not just in the US, I don't think. That genie ain't going back in the bottle, whatever else happens.

I usually come down on the liberal/progressive side of the debate, but not always. Many of my loudest liberal friends and family don't actually know squat about "the science" of Covid despite obnoxiously aping talking points and finger wagging all the time, and don't consider at all lots of things they probably should as "defenders of the oppressed"; sometimes they end up reacting with the same kind of tribalism as right wingers, only in arguably smaller quantities, and I do it myself too.

I can give examples if needed but it might be too big a can of worms to be worth it.

I feel like one "side" happens to have a much more ethically justifiable, logical position overall, and in that sense seems to me to be closer to sanity, but is still full of plenty of bullshit, and the discrete "sides" themselves are a consumer product used to milk attention for money, despite the horrible consequences. The level of public discourse is as shitty as it is for a number of reasons, but these are some prominent ones from my perspective.

It's all a depressing shitshow.
It's become common to say that you don't like one side or another in an argument because you don't like the way they express themselves. That's fair, we have a right to dislike others' tone. But it's far less important than who actually has the facts on their side. Modern media spends way too much time discussing style rather than substance. That's how you get clowns like seitaka parroting buzzwords and thinking it's an argument we should even listen to.
I don’t think the sides are the same. Right wingers are much worse, particularly with COVID. Finger wagging liberals who wear masks in their cars and clean their pens or whatever annoy me personally- especially when they talk about ‘following the science’ but don’t actually look into anything.

However, I concede that antivaxx boneheads are a much more serious problem, obviously .

In my opinion though, the liberals doing this sort of thing are also a symptom of the broken dialogue, so I am not leaving them out.

Unquestionably parroting CDC talking points as if they were unchangeable gospel. - with a disease for which the data changes daily, and which the CDC doesn’t have an amazing record of modeling correctly is not ‘following the science’.

Not understanding the difference between decision made on mechanistic studies out of caution, and decisions made on large sets of data also is not following the science.

Liberals and progressives I know do this stuff constantly, and plenty of them don't know jack squat about the science behind public health decisions. It’s way less harmful because they are at least acting for others benefit generally. However, their constant appeals to authority in my opinion often add more difficulty in convincing the vaccine hesitant. Beyond that, it is not good to be completely uncritical of government entities who are not necessarily doing the most amazing job of handling the pandemic - that is not the same as "following the science" and it actually discourages valid questioning of things.

Take school closures as an example. There were serious, debatable issues there. Was it worth it on balance to close them? To me the jury is still out. The school thing was bad enough that eventually the "experts" changed their tune and decided that keeping schools open should be more of a priority, and that kids might be less of a vector than they thought. Some of the liberals I know balked and were like "what's the problem living through Zoom forever, not worth the risK" because they live bubbles where people can realistically do that, and they for some reason during this pandemic have decided that safety is the only value that has to be weighed in such decisions.

Obviously, it’s not the same sort of problem as people with looney ideas at all, but it I don’t think everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated is that crazy, and in those cases how people dialogue over this stuff matters.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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Dan74 wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 4:46 pm
Malcolm wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 2:17 pm
Dan74 wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 8:18 am
This is easier said than done, since science is being written on this as we speak.
The science of vaccines is settled.
I think that what is settled, is your mind, Malcolm, on a great many issues, while the science of the COVID vaccines is far from settled.
Its settled.

When it comes to the mRNA vaccines, the FDA added a warning on them about the risk of heart inflammation barely a month ago. https://edition.cnn.com/2021/06/25/heal ... index.html Does this sound settled?
Yup.
And when it comes to J&J and AZ, the lower risk of very serious blood clots is now accepted as being causally related to the vaccines.
Known issue with this technology. It has to do with the type of virus that they put the spike in.

Is anything else going to emerge? I hope not. Perhaps more minor things.

And when it comes to long term effects of the mRNA vaccines, how can we do anything other than speculate, given that they are new technology?
mRNA vaccines are unlike older vaccines, there is no live virus. The idea they alter one's genetic code is bullshit.

For full disclosure: both my wife and I are fully vaccinated (she with BionTech-Pfizer, I with Moderna).
That's the responsible approach.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

Post by Malcolm »

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 5:55 pm
Obviously, it’s not the same sort of problem as people with looney ideas, but it I don’t think everyone who hasn’t been vaccinated is that crazy, and in those cases how people dialogue over this stuff matters.
They just need to get their shit together. Anyway, the market has already decided for everyone that everyone needs to be vaccinated.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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Dan74 wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 4:55 pm
PeterC wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 3:14 pm
Dan74 wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 8:18 am

This is easier said than done, since science is being written on this as we speak. And for some folks, what they hear is doctors, even ones with serious reputations, saying the vaccine is dangerous, it's poison, etc.
Which serious doctors say that? I would question whether any doctor saying that, given the absolute mountain of information available in the public domain and studied by health authorities all over the world, is in any way credible.

Over four billion doses of various COVID vaccines have been given worldwide to date. The efficacy and after-effects of these have been studied in greater depth than any other class of vaccine ever. We know that, from the perspective of unwanted side-effects, they are safer than pretty much any common drug a doctor is likely to give you, by factors of thousands. Possible unknown side-effects are, at this stage, simply speculation, and become more unlikely by the month. The one that most serious immunologists were concerned about at the outset was the possibility that mRNA vaccines might cause some sort of unexpected auto-immune reaction - but that has been seen nowhere.

A year ago, I think there was quite credible grounds for arguing caution. But at this point, any doctor arguing against the use of COVID vaccines needs to remind themselves what the Hippocratic oath says.
Thankfully I don't find myself going down these rabbit-holes too often, but given that I do hang out at DW-T sometimes, two names spring to mind: Peter McCullough, who has serious credentials as a cardiologist and who makes extreme claims about the vaccines and Robert Malone, who is one of the inventors of the mRNA technology and who doesn't make extreme claims about the vaccine risks, but argues that given that the Delta variant is so contagious and the vaccinated people still spread it, vaccinating everyone is just going to give the virus a leg up in developing vaccine resistant variants. He also cautions about the risks for some people but is pretty circumspect about that.

I state these to show that there are doctors with serious credentials who caution against vaccinating. Depending on what eco-chambers one frequents, their voices may be dominant or not heard at all. McCullough seems to have become a partisan quack and I can't quite make out whether Malone's claim is true, it seems to depend on the numbers, since vaccinated people who get infected are likely to have few virus organisms present, hence less opportunity for nasty mutations.. But I am not sure.
The serious adverse reaction rates - beyond the usual and expected reactions of temporary flu-like symptoms - are at the level of roughly single digit cases out of millions. This is based on very high quality data from billions of cases.

Of course one can say, there is a risk of serious adverse reaction, just as there is a risk of death from crossing the road. My point is that we know the risk to be trivially low. The cost/benefit calculation is massively in favor of vaccination. This is no longer a question of opinion but of demonstrated fact.

Of the names you mention, Peter MucCullough is a cardiologist, not a virologist or epidemiologist, who was testifying to politicians that hydroxychloroquine was effective in treating covid after the emergence of conclusive studies showing that it was not. He is not credible. I’m not familiar with Malone but the argument you present for not using a vaccine because the virus will evolve resistance to it is incoherent. That’s why we have a new flu vaccine each year.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 5:39 pm Long term complications that show up years later from a vaccine is a bit of a novel idea. While it’s certainly theoretically possible, it isn’t something we have many examples of from other vaccines, and doesn’t make much sense when considering what vaccines do.
Yes. Immunologists cannot rule it out as a possibility, because autoimmune diseases are generally not well understood. But it's a bit like saying, don't use 5G (an untested technology) because aliens might implant use it to microchips into your brain and turn you into a zombie (a theoretically possible but hitherto unseen and completely improbable consequence). Which actually sounds very much like an idea the opponents of covid vaccination might believe.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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I believe in climate change but I’m mRNA-sceptical.

Someone already mentioned Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA technique, saying that mRNA vaccines hitherto have faced problems with ADE.

I think the short term side effects are not the main issue, it’s that Pharma companies are given a free rein to test a huge portion of the world population with drugs that have unknown long term effects. In the contracts that they’ve signed with all these governments, they will not be held responsible for ANY side effects.

Personally I don’t mind taking a deactivated virus vaccine like the Chinese vaccines once my country approves them, Sinopharm in particular. I’m also keeping an eye on Novavax, which has shown better results than the mRNA vaccines in terms of delta resistance and fewer side effects, and uses a traditional protein based method.

I hope these fears are all misplaced and the millions of people with mRNA vaccines turn out fine, with no mutated variants of course.

On a side note, here in Singapore it seems that it’s the “boomers” who are more reluctant to vaccinate (with mRNA). Vaccination rates among the young are very high, I’m one of the odd millennials who are not mRNA vaccinated.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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Fairly detailed article on ADE and the mRNA vaccines.

https://davidson.weizmann.ac.il/en/onli ... a-vaccines

And here's an article critical of him:

https://respectfulinsolence.com/2021/07 ... -covid-19/

I don't know anything about the veracity of his myo/pericarditis claims, but I read enough convincing takedowns of his claims on the Darkhorse podcast to make him much less credible in my eyes, personally.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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I haven't seen any concern for ADE amongst those working with COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, be they virologists, immunologists, epidemiologists, or anything else really. If ADE was an issue, it would have shown up in phase II or phase III clinical trials, or in other relevant lab tests. And that is not the case here.

The ones who talk about ADE these days as if it's something to be afraid of, are usually people posting on Facebook, and most of them failed 6th grade science, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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As far as I understand the risk of ADE would come precisely as new variants mutate among a vaccinated population, and the mRNA method in particular only teaches your cells the spike protein for a specific variant of SARS-Cov-2. That’s why it’s starting to show lower results against Delta.

I am more open to non-mRNA vaccines.

Novavax for example has shown very good results in terms of fewer, milder side effects, and better resistance against Delta. Its protein based method also just teaches your cells to recognise the spike protein, so maybe your immune system can recognise variations in the future too, I don’t know, just speculating on this.

Sinopharm and Sinovac prevent infection to a slightly lesser degree, but also prevent serious cases to the same extent as mRNA vaccines.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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PeterC wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 12:52 am
Dan74 wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 4:55 pm
PeterC wrote: Wed Aug 04, 2021 3:14 pm

Which serious doctors say that? I would question whether any doctor saying that, given the absolute mountain of information available in the public domain and studied by health authorities all over the world, is in any way credible.

Over four billion doses of various COVID vaccines have been given worldwide to date. The efficacy and after-effects of these have been studied in greater depth than any other class of vaccine ever. We know that, from the perspective of unwanted side-effects, they are safer than pretty much any common drug a doctor is likely to give you, by factors of thousands. Possible unknown side-effects are, at this stage, simply speculation, and become more unlikely by the month. The one that most serious immunologists were concerned about at the outset was the possibility that mRNA vaccines might cause some sort of unexpected auto-immune reaction - but that has been seen nowhere.

A year ago, I think there was quite credible grounds for arguing caution. But at this point, any doctor arguing against the use of COVID vaccines needs to remind themselves what the Hippocratic oath says.
Thankfully I don't find myself going down these rabbit-holes too often, but given that I do hang out at DW-T sometimes, two names spring to mind: Peter McCullough, who has serious credentials as a cardiologist and who makes extreme claims about the vaccines and Robert Malone, who is one of the inventors of the mRNA technology and who doesn't make extreme claims about the vaccine risks, but argues that given that the Delta variant is so contagious and the vaccinated people still spread it, vaccinating everyone is just going to give the virus a leg up in developing vaccine resistant variants. He also cautions about the risks for some people but is pretty circumspect about that.

I state these to show that there are doctors with serious credentials who caution against vaccinating. Depending on what eco-chambers one frequents, their voices may be dominant or not heard at all. McCullough seems to have become a partisan quack and I can't quite make out whether Malone's claim is true, it seems to depend on the numbers, since vaccinated people who get infected are likely to have few virus organisms present, hence less opportunity for nasty mutations.. But I am not sure.
The serious adverse reaction rates - beyond the usual and expected reactions of temporary flu-like symptoms - are at the level of roughly single digit cases out of millions. This is based on very high quality data from billions of cases.

Of course one can say, there is a risk of serious adverse reaction, just as there is a risk of death from crossing the road. My point is that we know the risk to be trivially low. The cost/benefit calculation is massively in favor of vaccination. This is no longer a question of opinion but of demonstrated fact.

Of the names you mention, Peter MucCullough is a cardiologist, not a virologist or epidemiologist, who was testifying to politicians that hydroxychloroquine was effective in treating covid after the emergence of conclusive studies showing that it was not. He is not credible. I’m not familiar with Malone but the argument you present for not using a vaccine because the virus will evolve resistance to it is incoherent. That’s why we have a new flu vaccine each year.
Peter, regarding the cardiac inflammations, the most recent study reports the incidence of 57 in 2 million: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2782900, so not quite single digits. Then in some age groups or risk groups this might be much higher.

Regarding the clotting, the most recent Australian advisory I read was 3.2 in 100 000 among the under 50's. https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-up ... -july-2021 Again, likely much higher in some groups.

The cost/benefit needs to look at the individual risk and benefit, which is very different across age groups, unless you mean overall social benefit when 70% or more get vaccinated. And just as a year ago we knew nothing about long COVID, now we still know nothing about the long-term adverse reactions, if any, even from these cardiac inflammations.

Which brings us to the claim that the science on mRNA vaccines being settled... I guess Malcolm should tell all those hundreds of researchers still working in the field, to pack up their labs and move on, since they've missed the memo.

Seriously though, this is such a preposterous claim that not even the scientists who are the greatest fans of this technology would make it. For instance, we don't even know why the antibodies stay only about 6 months, while in traditional vaccines, they persist much longer. This is such a fundamental aspect of the mechanism. And then there are hundreds of other unanswered questions, like the safety in children, effect on the foetus, when administered in pregnant women, that we are only beginning to get some early data on.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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Which brings us to the claim that the science on mRNA vaccines being settled... I guess Malcolm should tell all those hundreds of researchers still working in the field, to pack up their labs and move on, since they've missed the memo.

Seriously though, this is such a preposterous claim that not even the scientists who are the greatest fans of this technology would make it. For instance, we don't even know why the antibodies stay only about 6 months, while in traditional vaccines, they persist much longer. This is such a fundamental aspect of the mechanism. And then there are hundreds of other unanswered questions, like the safety in children, effect on the foetus, when administered in pregnant women, that we are only beginning to get some early data on.
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Sure, what most of them claim is that the risks of getting the vaccine are likely much, much smaller than the risks of getting the virus, given what we know about Covid and what we know about the mRNA vaccines currently, and what can reasonably be inferred based on past experience and understanding of immunity.

In that sense, it is "settled" in a functional sense, in the longer term sense these things are rarely if ever permanently "settled", and shouldn't be.

Re the Myocarditis:

Unless this is some unusual, never before seen form of myo or pericarditis - which at this point is is not, there is no mystery about whether there are "long term" effects from that, it is a well understand and not particularly uncommon form of inflammation, not some unusual or new condition. Unless there are complications there is no reason to expect long term effects from it, years down the line or something.

Of course there is a risk/benefit analysis with different demographics, and that is directly factored into the debates around the vaccines, if you follow them.

Just by the by, I have had an antibiotic resistant bacterial infection for a year now, it's been miserable. I have been on 5 or 6 different antibiotics and finally now I am on Cipro.

If you are not familiar with it, it's some crazy stuff, and can cause permanent tendon damage, all kinds of crazy cardiovascular stuff, etc. The risk rates for the sides are way worse than these vaccines, it's been around a while, and people take it all the time. I have no other choice other than intravenous treatment with even worse stuff if it fails, so I hope it works.

I'll tell ya though, being on it really brings home relative risk. I have a 1/3000 chance of permanent damage (including tendon rupture- ack!) to my tendons, and some not insignificant chance of cardiovascular and other issues. I have to take it twice a day, so unlike a vaccine, which is out of your body quickly, I am continually bombing my system with this stuff. Like I said, it puts things in perspective a a little.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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Johnny Dangerous wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 6:40 am
Which brings us to the claim that the science on mRNA vaccines being settled... I guess Malcolm should tell all those hundreds of researchers still working in the field, to pack up their labs and move on, since they've missed the memo.

Seriously though, this is such a preposterous claim that not even the scientists who are the greatest fans of this technology would make it. For instance, we don't even know why the antibodies stay only about 6 months, while in traditional vaccines, they persist much longer. This is such a fundamental aspect of the mechanism. And then there are hundreds of other unanswered questions, like the safety in children, effect on the foetus, when administered in pregnant women, that we are only beginning to get some early data on.
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Sure, what most of them claim is that the risks of getting the vaccine are likely much, much smaller than the risks of getting the virus, given what we know about Covid and what we know about the mRNA vaccines currently, and what can reasonably be inferred based on past experience and understanding of immunity.
For a healthy 18-year-old, I'm not at all sure this is true. A while back I have done a back of the envelope risk comparison for an Australian friend, estimating also the risk of catching COVID there within a year and comparing to the risk from the vaccines (AZ there). It's different according to where you are, of course, and it is hard to know what one's risk of catching COVID is long term, since the situation may change, so it's drawing a long bow to compare the certainty of a vaccine with a certainty of COVID, IMO. When the needle is in your shoulder, the vaccine is being delivered to your bloodstream. Being in a pandemic, the risk of catching the disease is quite a different story and depends on one's movements and the prevalence of the disease in your area.

Johnny Dangerous wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 6:40 am In that sense, it is "settled" in a functional sense, in the longer term sense these things are rarely if ever permanently "settled", and shouldn't be.
You mean settled enough for us to make an informed choice? Perhaps somewhat. Time will tell, which to me indicates that it's not settled. As many say now, Delta is a gamechanger. How's that for settled?
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 6:40 am Re the Myocarditis:

Unless this is some unusual, never before seen form of myo or pericarditis - which at this point is is not, there is no mystery about whether there are "long term" effects from that, it is a well understand and not particularly uncommon form of inflammation, not some unusual or new condition.

Of course there is a risk/benefit analysis, and that is directly factored into the debates around the vaccines, if you follow them.
No idea, to be honest. Politico writes that long term effects are unclear: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/2 ... zer-495717 Pericarditis may cause scarring, I read. Like a lot of things, they are probably of varying intensity in different people.

Look, like I said overall the vaccines seem to be effective, at least for 5-6 months and lower hospitalisations significantly. For now. In order to stop the virus, we need a new strategy though. A vaccine that can effectively stem the spread of all the current variants administered at a high rate globally and still a period of restrictions. Otherwise it seems the virus will keep circulating and evolving new variants, some likely vaccine-resistant.

But my post in this thread was originally to say that for some folks, depending what socio-political bubble they inhabit, the science may sound very different. And one does not have to be a moron to feel confused, since some serious people are putting out seriously confusing signals. What their motivation for doing so may be is another matter.

For me, I try to see the shades of grey, but I am no expert and have very limited time to invest in keeping up with the findings. So I take my own opinion with a grain of salt. FWIW.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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Dan74 wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 6:03 am Peter, regarding the cardiac inflammations, the most recent study reports the incidence of 57 in 2 million: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2782900, so not quite single digits. Then in some age groups or risk groups this might be much higher.

Regarding the clotting, the most recent Australian advisory I read was 3.2 in 100 000 among the under 50's. https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-up ... -july-2021 Again, likely much higher in some groups.

The cost/benefit needs to look at the individual risk and benefit, which is very different across age groups, unless you mean overall social benefit when 70% or more get vaccinated. And just as a year ago we knew nothing about long COVID, now we still know nothing about the long-term adverse reactions, if any, even from these cardiac inflammations.

Which brings us to the claim that the science on mRNA vaccines being settled... I guess Malcolm should tell all those hundreds of researchers still working in the field, to pack up their labs and move on, since they've missed the memo.

Seriously though, this is such a preposterous claim that not even the scientists who are the greatest fans of this technology would make it. For instance, we don't even know why the antibodies stay only about 6 months, while in traditional vaccines, they persist much longer. This is such a fundamental aspect of the mechanism. And then there are hundreds of other unanswered questions, like the safety in children, effect on the foetus, when administered in pregnant women, that we are only beginning to get some early data on.
These are numbers higher than the ones I've been cited. But let's assume they're right. Even if there are adverse reactions at that rate, that's still much lower than most common drugs, even many common vaccines given regularly as a condition of attending schools.

The calculation society has to do is pretty simple. Unless you happen to live on the Marshall Islands, it's almost certain that you will get exposed to the current (and future) variants of COVID. When you look at the risk reduction from the vaccines vs. the risk increase from adverse side effects, it's obvious that everyone should take the vaccine. Now some people might say, due to non-quantitative arguments on bodily autonomy, deeply held religious beliefs, purity of essence or whatever that they refuse. That is again absolutely OK. But they cannot then participate fully in society - just as we require people to wear seatbelts in cars, take certain vaccines to attend schools, wear safety gear on construction sites, etc. This is coming - first in more rational societies, eventually in the US.

One of the basic premises of experimentation is that data acquisition is costly - in this case, the cost is time, and what happens in the time that you're waiting for information. You never make a decision about usage of medicine based on full information. (Drug regulators probably spend more time approving expansions of usage for already-approved medicines on new data than they do approvals of new medicines.) The argument that we don't know everything is not, of itself, a good argument. At this point, we know enough.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

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PeterC wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:06 am
Dan74 wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 6:03 am Peter, regarding the cardiac inflammations, the most recent study reports the incidence of 57 in 2 million: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2782900, so not quite single digits. Then in some age groups or risk groups this might be much higher.

Regarding the clotting, the most recent Australian advisory I read was 3.2 in 100 000 among the under 50's. https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-up ... -july-2021 Again, likely much higher in some groups.

The cost/benefit needs to look at the individual risk and benefit, which is very different across age groups, unless you mean overall social benefit when 70% or more get vaccinated. And just as a year ago we knew nothing about long COVID, now we still know nothing about the long-term adverse reactions, if any, even from these cardiac inflammations.

Which brings us to the claim that the science on mRNA vaccines being settled... I guess Malcolm should tell all those hundreds of researchers still working in the field, to pack up their labs and move on, since they've missed the memo.

Seriously though, this is such a preposterous claim that not even the scientists who are the greatest fans of this technology would make it. For instance, we don't even know why the antibodies stay only about 6 months, while in traditional vaccines, they persist much longer. This is such a fundamental aspect of the mechanism. And then there are hundreds of other unanswered questions, like the safety in children, effect on the foetus, when administered in pregnant women, that we are only beginning to get some early data on.
These are numbers higher than the ones I've been cited. But let's assume they're right. Even if there are adverse reactions at that rate, that's still much lower than most common drugs, even many common vaccines given regularly as a condition of attending schools.
Do you have data to back this up, Peter?
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

Dan74 wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:53 am
PeterC wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:06 am
Dan74 wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 6:03 am Peter, regarding the cardiac inflammations, the most recent study reports the incidence of 57 in 2 million: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2782900, so not quite single digits. Then in some age groups or risk groups this might be much higher.

Regarding the clotting, the most recent Australian advisory I read was 3.2 in 100 000 among the under 50's. https://www.health.gov.au/news/atagi-up ... -july-2021 Again, likely much higher in some groups.

The cost/benefit needs to look at the individual risk and benefit, which is very different across age groups, unless you mean overall social benefit when 70% or more get vaccinated. And just as a year ago we knew nothing about long COVID, now we still know nothing about the long-term adverse reactions, if any, even from these cardiac inflammations.

Which brings us to the claim that the science on mRNA vaccines being settled... I guess Malcolm should tell all those hundreds of researchers still working in the field, to pack up their labs and move on, since they've missed the memo.

Seriously though, this is such a preposterous claim that not even the scientists who are the greatest fans of this technology would make it. For instance, we don't even know why the antibodies stay only about 6 months, while in traditional vaccines, they persist much longer. This is such a fundamental aspect of the mechanism. And then there are hundreds of other unanswered questions, like the safety in children, effect on the foetus, when administered in pregnant women, that we are only beginning to get some early data on.
These are numbers higher than the ones I've been cited. But let's assume they're right. Even if there are adverse reactions at that rate, that's still much lower than most common drugs, even many common vaccines given regularly as a condition of attending schools.
Do you have data to back this up, Peter?
I just told you about the Cipro. I don't know what the mortality rate is like, but 1/3000 can have life-altering injury...that ain't nothin. More people probably die and have serious complications every year from NSAIDS than from vaccines, probably including these new ones once we have more data. Just ask a doctor if you dispute the general notion. AFAIK it's entirely accurate.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16086703/

https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/new ... death-risk

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28103324/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-risk ... 6120070509

There's some random examples if you want them, but this is basic, many vaccines are in the main much safer than drugs that people commonly take. To the best of my knowledge, that is not controversial.
Meditate upon Bodhicitta when afflicted by disease

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Meditate upon Bodhicitta when suffering occurs

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Dan74
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

Post by Dan74 »

JD, I missed your story with Cipro. I'm sorry, man.

I'd say that it's a very different case, given the circumstances, but yeah, does make the issue of risk very personal.

The first link you posted was for Aspirin and as far as I can make out 5 in 100 000 people get hospitalised after low dose use, they report. It's similar to the J&J and AZ clots, that stats. It's more than I would've guessed, but there was this talk of Aspirin being fairly risky for stomach issues and Ibuprofen has largely supplanted it for that reason. I ask myself (not having delved into their methodology at the moment) how do they know how many people take low doses of Aspirin in Spain? Even if they have reliable numbers on the number of packages sold, how to estimate that reliably??

I looked at the WHO data on childhood vaccines and that after many years of studies and serious adverse effects appear extremely rare, in the single digits per million.

In any case, this is getting off-topic here.
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 8:14 am
Dan74 wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:53 am
PeterC wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:06 am

These are numbers higher than the ones I've been cited. But let's assume they're right. Even if there are adverse reactions at that rate, that's still much lower than most common drugs, even many common vaccines given regularly as a condition of attending schools.
Do you have data to back this up, Peter?
I just told you about the Cipro. I don't know what the mortality rate is like, but 1/3000 can have life-altering injury...that ain't nothin. More people probably die and have serious complications every year from NSAIDS than from vaccines, probably including these new ones once we have more data. Just ask a doctor if you dispute the general notion. AFAIK it's entirely accurate.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16086703/

https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/new ... death-risk

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28103324/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-risk ... 6120070509

There's some random examples if you want them, but this is basic, many vaccines are in the main much safer than drugs that people commonly take. To the best of my knowledge, that is not controversial.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

Post by Malcolm »

PeterC wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:06 amThe argument that we don't know everything is not, of itself, a good argument. At this point, we know enough.
Hence, settled.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

Post by Dan74 »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 1:09 pm
PeterC wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:06 amThe argument that we don't know everything is not, of itself, a good argument. At this point, we know enough.
Hence, settled.
There are several issues here. Firstly, the argument that the science is not settled was advanced to support the position that one has grounds for being cautious about getting vaccinated. It may well be that on the balance the right decision is indeed to vaccinate, but this doesn't mean that everyone who doesn't see it that way is an idiot. In addition, there is a lot of confusing stuff being put out but a few qualified people and a lot of unqualified ones. I mean when it becomes clear that we know enough is very much dependent both on the info at hand and how one processes it. Both have become heavily politicised unfortunately.

As to the actual question "do we know enough", three months ago when we got vaccinated, I thought so. Since then the cardiac inflammation stuff came out, but didn't significantly alter my view, but now we get some worrying data from Israel and the US, pointing to the current vaccines lasting for a short time and potentially offering no protection insofar as getting infected and spreading the virus is concerned. It seems to me that we could be heading into the antibiotic disaster-like situation. Antibiotics were being overprescribed and as the result drug-resistant bugs were able to develop. Now with nearly a billion people receiving one shot of the vaccine, if they still catch the virus, that's a lot of opportunity for the virus to evolve vaccine resistant variants. I might be seeing it wrong, but there seems to be a danger there. If the vaccines are no longer effective at stemming the spread, but only the severity, then they are only a temporary stopgap, until a new resistant variant that might be very hard to vaccinate against evolves.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

Post by Malcolm »

Dan74 wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 2:04 pm
Malcolm wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 1:09 pm
PeterC wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 7:06 amThe argument that we don't know everything is not, of itself, a good argument. At this point, we know enough.
Hence, settled.
There are several issues here. Firstly, the argument that the science is not settled was advanced to support the position that one has grounds for being cautious about getting vaccinated. It may well be that on the balance the right decision is indeed to vaccinate, but this doesn't mean that everyone who doesn't see it that way is an idiot.
Yeah, they pretty much are.
As to the actual question "do we know enough", three months ago when we got vaccinated, I thought so. Since then the cardiac inflammation stuff came out, but didn't significantly alter my view, but now we get some worrying data from Israel and the US, pointing to the current vaccines lasting for a short time and potentially offering no protection insofar as getting infected and spreading the virus is concerned.
No. The mRNA vaccines are still effective after six months:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmc2103916

As for cardiac inflammation:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/heal ... ccine.html
For every one million Americans immunized with a coronavirus vaccine, about 60 develop temporary heart problems, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal JAMA Network.

The complications were all short-lived, the researchers found. And these heart problems are far more common among patients who develop Covid-19, outside experts noted.
It seems to me that we could be heading into the antibiotic disaster-like situation. Antibiotics were being overprescribed and as the result drug-resistant bugs were able to develop. Now with nearly a billion people receiving one shot of the vaccine, if they still catch the virus, that's a lot of opportunity for the virus to evolve vaccine resistant variants.
Part of the settled science behind vaccines is not allowing virus to spread uncontrolled so they can evolve vaccine-resistant varieties like Lambda. That is settled science. The nice thing about evolution is that it is governed by mathematical probabilities, so such variants can also be predicted.

I might be seeing it wrong, but there seems to be a danger there. If the vaccines are no longer effective at stemming the spread, but only the severity, then they are only a temporary stopgap, until a new resistant variant that might be very hard to vaccinate against evolves.
When people cast doubt on vaccines, they increase vaccine hesitancy. When vaccine hesitancy increases, more unvaccinated people become infected, and increase the possibility of mutations. At base it comes down to public health vs. personal health. The idea that people have a right to not take vaccines (barring a demonstrable threat to their health that overrides the public interest) has already been settled by the supreme court in the USA in the 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts decision:

“The good and welfare of the Commonwealth, of which the legislature is primarily the judge, is the basis on which the police power rests in Massachusetts,” Harlan said “upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members.”

The issue of compulsory vaccinations for attendance of school was settled in 1922, Zucht v. King.

https://constitutioncenter.org/interact ... lic-health

So, not only is the science settled, so is the law.
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Re: Anti-vaxx sentiment in western sanghas

Post by PeterC »

Malcolm wrote: Thu Aug 05, 2021 2:25 pm 1905 Jacobson v. Massachusetts
Harlan really was one of the best opinion writers SCOTUS has seen: he made everything sound extremely simple and straightforward, usually because when the facts were seen clearly, it was.

"...the legislature of Massachusetts required the inhabitants of a city or town to be vaccinated only when, in the opinion of the Board of Health, that was necessary for the public health or the public safety. The authority to determine for all what ought to be done in such an emergency must have been lodged somewhere or in some body, and surely it was appropriate for the legislature to refer that question, in the first instance, to a Board of Health, composed of persons residing in the locality affected and appointed, presumably, because of their fitness to determine such questions. To invest such a body with authority over such matters was not an unusual nor an unreasonable or arbitrary requirement. Upon the principle of self-defense, of paramount necessity, a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members.

Looking at the propositions embodied in the defendant's rejected offers of proof, it is clear that they are more formidable by their number than by their inherent value. Those offers, in the main, seem to have had no purpose except to state the general theory of those of the medical profession who attach little or no value to vaccination as a means of preventing the spread of smallpox, or who think that vaccination causes other diseases of the body. What everybody knows, the court must know, and therefore the state court judicially knew, as this court knows, that an opposite theory accords with the common belief and is maintained by high medical authority. We must assume that, when the statute in question was passed, the legislature of Massachusetts was not unaware of these opposing theories, and was compelled, of necessity, to choose between them. It was not compelled to commit a matter involving the public health and safety to the final decision of a court or jury. It is no part of the function of a court or a jury to determine which one of two modes was likely to be the most effective for the protection of the public against disease. That was for the legislative department to determine in the light of all the information it had or could obtain. It could not properly abdicate its function to guard the public health and safety."

All eminently sensible. Yet here we are, over a century later, and people are still presenting the same sort of arguments that Jacobson offered at the turn of the last century.
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