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1) That's not really a convincing response. There were only two viral vector vaccines ever approved for human use before 2020, both for ebola I believe, and therefore probably not widely administered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_vector_vaccine

2. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[Full disclosure: I have had one shot of BioNTech and am waiting for my second.]

> 1) That's not really a convincing response. There were only two viral vector vaccines ever approved for human use before 2020, both for ebola I believe, and therefore probably not widely administered.

So the concern isn't mRNA or is it?

> 2. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Sure, but it also means you need some sort of empirical or a priori starting point.

There isn't even a hypothesis to gather evidence for except "this vaccine might cause something spooky to happen in the future". What is that spooky thing? Let's gather evidence.

I'm only guessing based on my personal interpretation of azangru, but I think the concern is delivery mechanisms that have never, or only rarely, been used before.

Regarding evidence for "spooky things", well, by their nature there is no or little evidence for them. They are black swans and the means by which they are addressed is the precautionary principle. In particular, by their nature, there can be no evidence about presence or absence of long term effects of novel delivery mechanisms.

Personally speaking, I suspect I'm a lot better off being vaccinated than not but some of the credulity around vaccines is rather surprising to me (especially the fact that many people don't seem to know that J&J uses a novel delivery mechanism too).

> I think the concern is delivery mechanisms that have never, or only rarely, been used before.

What is this concern based on? That it's new or rarely used? Why would you have prior concern one way or the other?

> Regarding evidence for "spooky things", well, by their nature there is no or little evidence for them. They are black swans and the means by which they are addressed is the precautionary principle. In particular, by their nature, there can be no evidence about presence or absence of long term effects of novel delivery mechanisms.

This runs into the same problem. And it's even worse because you have a known risk (COVID-19) and a future, unknown and unquantifiable risk with no prior reason to believe such a risk exists and you're opting to defend against that risk instead.

It's like never investing in the stock market because one day something might happen and cause something to happen. It doesn't make any sense.

> Personally speaking, I suspect I'm a lot better off being vaccinated than not but some of the credulity around vaccines is rather surprising to me (especially the fact that many people don't seem to know that J&J uses a novel delivery mechanism too).

Sure, but to be fair not a single one of these people ever questioned any other vaccine delivery mechanism they were getting. Questioning this stuff is new, and it's a deliberate disinformation campaign.

> > I think the concern is delivery mechanisms that have never, or only rarely, been used before.

> What is this concern based on? That it's new or rarely used? Why would you have prior concern one way or the other?

I didn't originate this conversation so I can't speak for the original commenter, but it seems to me it's worth pausing for thought when a billion people are due to receive a medical intervention of a type that has never been used before.

> This runs into the same problem. And it's even worse because you have a known risk (COVID-19) and a future, unknown and unquantifiable risk with no prior reason to believe such a risk exists and you're opting to defend against that risk instead.

I'm not opting to defend against that risk but nor do I think the calculus is as obvious as you are making out. On the one hand I am very, very glad the vaccines are available because they seem to be significantly suppressing infection numbers and keeping people out of hospital. On the other hand I believe that individuals should not be coerced by their employer into receiving a vaccine.

> Sure, but to be fair not a single one of these people ever questioned any other vaccine delivery mechanism they were getting. Questioning this stuff is new, and it's a deliberate disinformation campaign.

Which people? People have been questioning the safety of vaccine delivery mechanisms for at least 20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine#False_claims_about...

> I didn't originate this conversation so I can't speak for the original commenter, but it seems to me it's worth pausing for thought when a billion people are due to receive a medical intervention of a type that has never been used before.

Sure... but what makes you think the scientific and medical community haven't done the equivalent of this?

> I'm not opting to defend against that risk but nor do I think the calculus is as obvious as you are making out.

Then how would you describe the calculus? I know what COVID-19 infection numbers and statistics are, at least within some +-% differential.

But I have no knowledge or evidence of any future problem with the COVID-19 vaccine. Why would I accept a known and severe risk against an unknown risk with unknown severity?

So, could you expand on the less obvious aspects of the calculus here? If there's knew information I want to know.

> On the one hand I am very, very glad the vaccines are available because they seem to be significantly suppressing infection numbers and keeping people out of hospital. On the other hand I believe that individuals should not be coerced by their employer into receiving a vaccine.

I think it's a tough subject, but just as someone shouldn't be coerced by their employer into receiving a vaccine, I'm not sure others should be coerced into having to share space with someone who is willingly unvaccinated from a contagious disease. How do you reconcile that?

> Which people?

Take the total number of people who are now anti-vax, subtract those who became anti-vax before 2020. That remaining population.

> People have been questioning the safety of vaccine delivery mechanisms for at least 20 years.

And what has come of it? Billions of people around the world have received vaccines, untold lives have been saved, we've eliminated insane diseases like SmallPox and Polio... but now I'm supposed to side with the anti-vax people because why exactly? What did the medical and science community do to lose my trust? I guess you could argue the funding of gain of function research in Wuhan (where the virus almost certainly originated from), but that's not going to undo the cumulative history of medicine that has been wildly successful for me.

makomk 1792 days ago

The mechanism of action of the Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca vaccines is DNA, which is effectively like mRNA but with a couple of extra steps with their own risk attached. I think there's some suspicion that the blood clotting issues with the AZ vaccine were due to errors in the DNA to mRNA transcription causing erroneous and dangerous proteins to be produced. There's not really any traditional inactivated vaccines in widespread use against Covid at the moment.

So are you suggesting that the risk of Covid-19 vaccines is blood clotting?

What’s the incidence rate? How does that compare against the risk of getting Covid-19?

azangru 1792 days ago

> Do you have any evidence to suggest a risk with the mRNA delivery vehicle?

My point is, an appeal to history does not work when you are dealing with something new.

By the way, how long have we had vaccines based on adenovirus vectors?

> My point is, an appeal to history does not work when you are dealing with something new.

I'm not appealing to history. I'm appealing to the science of creating vaccines. Do you take no vaccines? You could apply the same argument to the measles or flu vaccine. Nobody did until now.

> By the way, how long have we had vaccines based on adenovirus vectors?

Can you articulate in a scientific manner why an adenovirus would be treated differently as it relates to the creation of vaccines and the body's response to them?

> Can you articulate in a scientific manner why an adenovirus would be treated differently as it relates to the creation of vaccines and the body's response to them?

For whatever reason that is not the prevailing method when it comes to regulating new medical interventions.

I'll take that as a no.

You're welcome to. However, I'm curious why your question is relevant. I can't articulate a scientific reason that thalidomide caused birth defects, for example.

> You're welcome to. However, I'm curious why your question is relevant. I can't articulate a scientific reason that thalidomide caused birth defects, for example.

You're admitting that you don't know or understand the science of either COVID-19 vaccines or thalidomide-caused birth defects (really it's going to be for lots of other medical things too let's face it), so why are you questioning only COVID-19 vaccines and not other things?

Why aren't you waking up tomorrow and saying smoking doesn't cause cancer? Why aren't you skeptical of that claim too?