Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Thank you for the thoughtful response! When we get to this level of analysis, I am of course willing to admit that there are many unknowns, and that the data is not sufficient for strong and clear conclusions on mRNA vaccine safety, although I would argue that there are clear indications that serious concerns exist. But it is the lack of willingness to investigate these worrying signals from the data and the blind repetition of the "safe and effective" mantra that is my main cause for concern. If you refuse to look for problems, you won't find any, right?
VAERS, the main monitoring system for vaccine safety, indicates a massive, and I mean MASSIVE, concern regarding the relative safety of COVID vaccines. I phrased my comment on VAERS carefully - it's definitely not 100% reliable, but it shows a massive relative difference in reported vaccine-related deaths since the introduction of COVID vaccines. Is this not cause for concern? Even if only 3% of the post-COVID VAERS reports are real and 97% are bogus, COVID vaccines still cause as much death as all other vaccines put together (per year instead of in 30 years combined). So even if 97% of post-COVID VAERS reports are trash (and the "increased awareness" argument is a huge stretch to support such a strong claim), the COVID vaccines are still more dangerous than all other vaccines put together, "just" causing more deaths that all other vaccines put together per year instead of more deaths than all other vaccines in 30 years. And if VAERS is complete and utter trash, as you say, isn't that even MORE cause for concern? In that case, we have NO population-level vaccine safety monitoring system of note at all. If you refuse to look for problems, you won't find any, right?
As for the second study I broguht up (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37163200/), I agree that the clinical trials used to approve the COVID vaccines, which are the only large clinical trials that have been run on them, were not designed to assess all-cause mortality risk from the vaccines, and the sample showing no effect on overall mortality is very small, yes. So where's the follow-up? VAERS is trash, and the trials were not designed to assess overall mortality risk. If you refuse to look for problems, you won't find any, right?
Your position on the severe adverse events risk study is not entirely clear to me based on your response. It's not about pediatric populations, it's that they found a greater increase in severe vaccine-related side-effects (that land you in the hospital) than the reduction in severe COVID events compared with the control group. The COVID vaccines cause more hospitalization-level adverse events than the hospitalizations they prevent from COVID, according to that study (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X22010283). The authors call for a harm-benefit analysis for mRNA COVID vaccines, which has never been done. But if you refuse to look for problems, you won't find any, right?
Finally, we have the Nature article finding that the mRNA vaccines produce random proteins. Which ones? What are their effects? Surely Pfizer and Moderna tested whether their vaccines were actually producing what they were supposed to, at some point? Or was this a total surprise, and we "could not have known at the time"? Of course, if you refuse to look for problems, you won't find any.
You requested other sources, so here's the BMJ (top medical journal) desperately calling for follow-up studies on COVID vaccine safety: https://www.bmj.com/content/379/bmj.o2527?fbclid=IwAR3e8Rv7UdOUjx60Vf7CnrtZAcM7rCVxl5IRpT76ngyTokkALHVCbiO3Naw
And I wonder how long the spike protein produced by COVID vaccines keeps being produced? Here's a study finding that it's still being produced 60 days after vaccination: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8786601/ I thought the vaccine cleared out in a week or two, as I was told? Does it keep producing (these random) proteins longer than 60 days? How long are these vaccines active in the body? Who knows! If you refuse to look for problems, you won't find any.
Here's COVID vaccines causing myocarditis (perhaps because production of random proteins by the vax causes an autoimmune response in the heart in those unlucky to have the wrong random proteins produced by the vax?): https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/44/24/2234/7188747?login=false
Here's COVID vaccines causing vaginal bleeding: https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj-2023-074778 How? Why? Who knows! There's plenty more studies like this showing worrying signals. Modifying immune response in unknown ways for unclear reasons? Sure: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.29.23296354v1.full.pdf Causing seizures in children? Yup: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.10.13.23296903v1.full.pdf
Yes, you can pick apart any of these studies. They are all limited at least by being fairly small given the relative rarity of these events. None of them are proper clinical trials. But that's because these studies are the only ones that have been done. If you also dismiss population-level monitoring systems like VAERS, you can claim that there is no clear evidence, sure. If you refuse to look for problems, you won't find any. But we do now know that vaccines remain active for 60+ days and that they produce random proteins they are not supposed to (these are lab studies on how the vax works). And various data sources, flawed as they are, indicate strong safety concerns. Nevermind that this should have been investigated before giving these vaccines to billions (or coercing people into taking them). The companies are shielded from liability, and politicians will point to the medical community missing or ignoring these issues and say "we could not have known" (although scientists previously considered credible tried to raise concerns, but were sidelined or ostracized). But could we not at least look carefully at the potential issues NOW, before continuing to use this technology that was never deployed in humans before?
Anyway, I hope I've offered some insight on the anti-COVID vax position here. I'll shut up now unless there's something I really need to respond to, since this is the small-scale questions thread :)
The issue with VAERS is both that it doesn't vet data, had massive signal boosting, and more importantly, was signal boosted heavily in the vaccine-skeptical crowd. I expect a great deal more spurious claims, both because of intentional and disingenuous reporting, as well as people being on edge and willing to attribute a natural death or one from COVID itself to the vaccine that preceded it.
I mean, it's both possible for people to be irrationally averse to vaccination in general or the COVID one in particular and the vaccine to be dangerous (or at least worse than the disease), it's just unlikely.
I'm not against better studies, but until they happen, I reserve judgement, or at least hold the null hypothesis. There's publication bias both from the vaccine manufacturers and their pharma affiliates who would prefer not to demonstrate harm and hundreds or thousands of small-time researchers who would love to make a name by demonstrating clear and obvious harm. The latter aren't deplatformed, you did link to multiple weak/inconclusive studies after all.
"Random proteins" aren't really that big a deal. The human body handles probably quadrillions of misfolded proteins or even those produced by point/frameshift mutations every day. When the original study you cited makes no claim that it causes harm, I expect more evidence to back up that claim, including obvious increases in all cause mortality that can be retroactively attributed to mRNA vaccines.
In the specific case of children, my point is that the CFR for them is so minuscule that it wouldn't be worth vaccinating them even if the vaccine was perfectly safe. Certainly not when vaccine stocks were short of requirements in the early/middle pandemic.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link