[pattrn]

It's a shame that the mainstream has adopted the term "anti-vaxxers" to describe people who don't want to get a COVID vaccine. Many of my friends and colleagues have concerns about mRNA vaccines, but they have no issue with any other standard vaccinations. Despite this, they get labeled as "anti-vaxxers." This makes them defensive about being insulted, thereby reinforcing their existing opinions. It's a completely counter-productive cycle that may actually increase COVID vaccine hesitancy.

[whatshisface]

I think the issue with being hesitant about mRNA vaccines is that they're probably not as bad for you as an mRNA virus. The mRNA virus will definitely inject mRNA into you to make your cells do its evil bidding, and it is fairly unlikely that the vaccine, which only injects one part of the virus' mRNA into some cells, could somehow be worse than the virus, which injects everything in the vaccine plus mRNA encoding several other proteins, and replicates boundlessly to boot.

The mRNA that Pfizer puts in to the lipid nanoparticles isn't even as dangerous as the virus's equivalent - the version of the spike protein it encodes is mutated at a point to prevent it from making the conformal change that wrenches membranes open.

[rory]

To play devil's advocate, the retort to this is that if you don't get the vaccine you're some <100 percentage more likely to get the virus, but if you do get the vaccine you're 100% likely to get the vaccine.

I think the related mistake some vaccine-hesitant people make is that they greatly underestimate their likelihood to get the virus in the future. This is reinforced by some pro-vaccine people (incorrectly) claiming we can eradicate the virus through high vaccination rate.

[giantrobot]

> This is reinforced by some pro-vaccine people (incorrectly) claiming we can eradicate the virus through high vaccination rate

A high vaccination rate of high efficacy vaccine(s) can most certainly eradicate a disease. A virus can't do a whole lot without a host to incubate and spread it. If potential hosts can't meaningfully incubate or spread the virus, it stops spreading.

Once the good vaccines (80+% efficacy) became available, if they could have magically been distributed to everyone, COVID would be entirely contained by now and on the way to being eradicated in the population at large. Only the most remote reservoirs would contain the virus at transmissible levels.

That is not saying some 70% vaccination rate will eradicate the virus. It will bring the infection rates down to below pandemic and epidemic levels. If someone is unvaccinated for medical reasons but everyone around them is vaccinated the virus has a pretty huge moat to cross to infect them. Even when the vaccinated get a breakthrough infection the odds of it being serious are very low as is its transmissibility.

[rory]

It seems like you are basically agreeing with me while pretending to disagree. Of course we could eradicate the virus with a magically high vaccination rate using a magically effective vaccine. But that's not possible in our current reality.

By insinuating that we can eradicate the virus using current technology and current infrastructure, it causes vaccine-hesitant people to see their choice as a type of prisoner dilemma. When in reality, their choice is more like "do I want to get initial immunity via the vaccine, or do I want to (eventually) get it via the virus.

[giantrobot]

We can eliminate viruses with current technology and current infrastructure. We've done it with several diseases already.

The vaccine "hesitant" don't have a prisoner's dilemma. They're not understanding or being misled about probabilities.

A symptomatic COVID infection has a fairly high probability of a "long haul" case and a smaller but still relatively high probability of hospitalization. It should be painfully clear that with a high infection rate the hospitalization rate is high enough to flood hospitals and cause follow-on effects like non-COVID emergencies being unable to receive proper treatment.

Waiting to gain immunity to COVID through natural exposure has a high chance of a long haul condition, hospitalization, and death. On the other hand the vaccines have a chance of side effects so low as to be effectively none. Once vaccinated the chance of breakthrough symptomatic infection is low and the chance of long haul conditions, hospitalization, and death are extremely low.

There's no dilemma about vaccines for anyone being rational. Even if you're hesitant about mRNA vaccines (despite hundreds of millions of doses with no problems) there's viral vector vaccines readily available.

[nradov]

We cannot eliminate the SARS-CoV-2 virus with current vaccines. I would encourage everyone to get vaccinated if they can, but the virus is here to stay.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/07/who-says-covid-is-here-to-st...

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

[rory]

Again, it seems like you're basically agreeing with the trappings of argument. I am talking specifically about eradicating SARS-COV-2, not eliminating a virus in abstract. It's obvious that there are some viruses we are able to eradicate, but it is also obvious that there are some we are not.

The rest of your comment is punching ghosts. Keep in mind that most people are not rational, and empathizing with irrational people is a more effective method of influence than scorn.

[native_samples]

This is the sort of argument that causes people to reject vaccination.

1. "a smaller but still relatively high probability of hospitalization."

The risk of hospitalization for COVID is (in the UK, other countries are comparable) something like 0.1% per week for the 65-75 age range [1]. It is much lower for younger people. Ignoring the actual probability of getting infected is not legitimate - people care about overall outcomes. Claiming this is a "relatively high probability" is the sort of false claim that creates resistance to vaccination, because it makes the people promoting vaccination look mis-informed. Especially when they claim to be more rational and have better information than the people they're criticizing, this is guaranteed to piss people off and make them double down on their position. After all, someone who tried to convince them they were wrong just demonstrated an incorrect understanding of risks, and vaccination vs infection is all about marginal risks.

2. "A symptomatic COVID infection has a fairly high probability of a long haul case"

Long COVID isn't even a definable thing, so talking about it will immediately reduce your credibility with those who don't want to take a vaccine. You really have no idea what the probability is given that long COVID isn't a real disease, in the sense of having a defined set of diagnosable symptoms.

Injuries from taking the vaccine on the other hand are definable. Most countries have databases with entries describing those injuries, but they are incomplete so it's hard to know the full risk. Most pre-COVID studies suggest the under-reporting rate is anywhere from 10x to 100x, so the true numbers are certainly quite high, especially as under-reporting for COVID vaccines is clearly much higher: lots of people claim the vaccine made them sick for a day or three, but don't report this. So people who talk about the risk of long COVID but never talk about the risk of long vaccine look biased and irrational (i.e. not doing a cost/benefit analysis).

3. "It should be painfully clear that with a high infection rate the hospitalization rate is high enough to flood hospitals"

There are quite a few countries have got through prior waves in which nobody was vaccinated without hospitals being overloaded. Switzerland for example publishes long term data on hospital capacity. As you can see [2], at no point did the country run out of beds or even come close. In fact ICU beds have been decommissioned over the past year because there were too many, and regular hospital beds were never more than 10% COVID occupied. Therefore, this is not painfully clear, especially as you're using vague terms like "flood" and "high".

4. "Waiting to gain immunity to COVID through natural exposure has a high chance of a long haul condition, hospitalization, and death"

The COVID IFR estimates published by the WHO is ~0.2%. This is not "a high chance ... of death".

5. "There's no dilemma about vaccines for anyone being rational"

You have just demonstrated that you don't understand the actual risk levels involved with COVID, so it would be wise to refrain from criticizing other people's rationality.

[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan...

[2] https://www.covid19.admin.ch/en/hosp-capacity/icu

[Ancapistani]

AFAIK, it’s generally accepted that this particular virus has multiple animal reservoirs.

In the US, even white-tailed deer can be carriers: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/newsroom/stakeholder-info/s...

Unless I’m missing something here, 100% vaccination of human beings with a 100% efficacy vaccine would not eliminate COVID-19.

[giantrobot]

Animal reservoirs are usually only meaningful if there's significant interaction with those animals and humans and a meaningful ability for the virus to spread between species. Most people don't snuggle up next to a white tailed deer every night so the chance of catching COVID from one is pretty low.

Even if clusters emerged from animal reservoirs, a vaccinated human population would help keep the r0 value below one and allow for containment. COVID had an r0 above one and little meaningful mitigations against its spread early on so it quickly got to epidemic and then pandemic levels.

[rory]

The claim being debated is eradication, so containment is a serious goalpost shift.

[codycraven]

I don't know the stats behind it, but I've heard from news that those with the vaccine do still host the virus when exposed and even continue to pass it along (although they experience lesser/no symptoms).

If vaccinated people do become infected at the same or similar rate to unvaccinated (and a whole lot of other assumptions), it almost seems like there is a scenario where the vaccine could be worse than the virus because we're essentially creating many Typhoid Marys that continue to host and spread the virus unaware that they're contagious, giving the virus a massive pool to mutate within.

[giantrobot]

> If vaccinated people do become infected at the same or similar rate to unvaccinated (and a whole lot of other assumptions)

They do not though. You getting sick from any virus is a function of your particular immune system, the viral load you're exposed to, the virus' infection mechanisms, and your manner of exposure.

Vaccines affect the first two points. They train your immune system to recognize the virus as something its seen before and it has ready antibodies to fight. Your immune system responds more efficiently to the virus and neutralizes it faster meaning that any point during your "infection" you've just got fewer virus particles to shed and spread to others.

If you're exposed to a high viral load you might become symptomatic, your white blood cells can only work so fast, with a breakthrough infection but since your immune system is pre-trained for the virus it'll be a shorter and likely a less severe infection than if you were unvaccinated.

The Typhoid Marys you're describing are the massive pools of completely unvaccinated people getting sick. The unvaccinated remain infected longer and end up producing more copies of the virus from their infected cells. If the virus generates a beneficial mutation (named variant) after a trillion replications and each unvaccinated person produces a billion replications (made up round numbers) then we'd expect a variant every thousand people infected. If a vaccinated person only produces a million replications then it'll take far longer for a vaccinated population to generate a variant. You may never even see a variant emerge if the infection rate drops below pandemic and epidemic levels.

[whatshisface]

That's not a retort, that's a question. "Do the odds of getting the virus attenuate its expectation value enough to make it equal to the expectation value of the vaccine?"

The answer to the question is related to the question of how many people are going to get this thing before it stops spreading. From what I've heard we're looking at 70-80% based on herd immunity estimations, which is not a lot of risk attenuation on the virus side. If someone wants to chime in with a better-justified estimate, I'd appreciate that.

[nradov]

Those herd immunity level estimates were based on R0 estimates for earlier variants. The Delta variant is so contagious that there will be no significant herd immunity effect to protect unvaccinated people. Almost all of us will eventually be exposed no matter what we do, but fortunately the vaccines are very effective at preventing deaths.

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

[SkyMarshal]

True, and also keep in mind that expectation value incorporates not just relative odds of occurrence, but relative harm as well.

The immediate harm of getting the vaccine is much lower than the immediate harm of contracting the virus, and furthermore the vaccine reduces both the odds and harm of the virus.

All that is factored into the comparative E(V) too.

[rory]

No, it's not a question, because vaccine-hesitant people generally aren't doing the math like you are. They're just saying "<100 is better than 100, so I'll go with the option that might be fine."

[SkyMarshal]

> This is reinforced by some pro-vaccine people (incorrectly) claiming we can eradicate the virus through high vaccination rate.

Considering we’ve eradicated other diseases with vaccinations, this is not an inherently incorrect assessment.

[nradov]

We eradicated smallpox and (almost) polio because there were no animal reservoirs and the vaccines were highly sterilizing. Those criteria do not obtain with SARS-CoV-2. Many other mammal species can catch and spread the virus. The original bats which presumably transmitted it to humans are still out there. And vaccinated people can also still catch and spread the virus; there is probably some reduction in contagiousness but the magnitude is unclear.

[rory]

Inherently, no. Currently, yes.

[hammock]

What about the 100+ million in the US with natural immunity to the mRNA virus?

Edit: 40+ million

Edit 2: perhaps it is 100+ million when counting estimated unreported cases- I do recall getting this 100+ number from the CDC itself

[whatshisface]

Well, there are two groups roughly speaking of people with natural immunity. One group, those who have already had the virus, seem to be fairly well protected according to that one Israeli study. Obviously, going out and getting the virus to protect yourself from the virus is an idea straight out of Catch-22, so I assume you're talking about the other group. ;)

As for people with natural immunity but who haven't had it, that's everyone. Every person has what are called "naive B-cells," covered in random antibodies. One of them probably binds to coronavirus in some way, and that would be how your body would get started fighting the infection if you got it. However, the fact that people have some natural ability to fight it off explains why not everyone dies from it (every virus would kill you if you had no immune response, that's why HIV is deadly), but it's of little consolation to the people who found out too late that their natural immunity wasn't enough.

If there was a test to see in advance who would fight off the coronavirus without realizing they had it, I guess that would be a way to save some money and inconvenience giving them shots, but since we don't know for sure in advance who will or won't have an easy case, that's why we have to get vaccinated.

[mjevans]

It would probably cost less to just administer a proven safe and effective vaccine anyway than it would to test that person even once.

3 shots of Pfizer ~ 60 USD < -- VS -- > 100+ USD ~ Single test to see if someone's infected, surely a test to see if someone is naturally immune at best costs this or more.

#

Pfizer seems to cost about 20 USD per dose, so even with the three dose regime (2 initial shots plus a later booster) is expected to cost under 100 USD; most of the other shots cost less.

https://www.biospace.com/article/comparing-covid-19-vaccines...

As there is no currently known technology to reliably test if someone is immune I'll grab data for the next closest similarity: a test to see if someone is presently infected. Nearly all of those tests cost in the range of 100 to 200 USD, with some rare outliers above and beneath.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/from-our-experts/q-and-a-how-muc...

https://www.talktomira.com/post/how-much-does-coronavirus-co...

[jcranmer]

The actual case counts for the US appear to be about 40 million right now, not 100 million.

I also wonder how many people who claim to have natural immunity actually have that natural immunity. The tale of Manaus is cautionary here.

[nradov]

Case counts are meaningless because most infections were never tested. The CDC estimates that 120M Americans have been infected as of July 2021.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

[s1artibartfast]

The official CDC estimate is 100 million plus, based one estimated unreported cases and serology testing.

[mthoms]

“Natural” immunity? You’ve been politely asked before to stop using this misleading phrase.

Your insistence on using it is telling.

What you really mean is disease-induced immunity.

[whatshisface]

You have some natural immunity to viruses before you get them, that's why you can survive viruses. That's little consolation to anyone in the ER, of course.

[mthoms]

Of course, but the context was 100 million people (or however many) are "immune".

He's referring to people who've had the virus.

[lamontcg]

They already beat the mRNA from the actual real "live" replicating virus. They have very little to fear from the mRNA in the vaccine.

Infection followed by an mRNA vaccine also acts as a boost which provides broad neutralization against mutated spikes and possibly some pan-sarbecovirus immunity.

[grayhatter]

what about them? Just that they exist?

[rejectedandsad]

The vaccine generalizes better without the annoyance to deathly consequences of actually contracting the virus.

[mikeyouse]

A recent study had a great chart:

https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/jour...

(Figure 4 here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110475)

For essentially all 'side effects' of the vaccine - you're substantially more likely to experience them if you get Covid. Not only is the notion of avoiding the vaccine to avoid the side effects misguided, it's actively increasing your chances of getting those very same side effects.

[hvocode]

Oh come on. Even before the pandemic your typical anti-vaccine person also wasn’t universally against all vaccines. They usually had some subset that represented their favorite rationale for not getting it: those containing substances they don’t like, those developed with a process that had a fetal cell line somewhere nearby, those given in clusters in early childhood instead of spread later on, etc. Anti-mRNA vaccine sentiment is just another instance of the same thing. Sorry if they feel sad for having that label, but it’s the same behavior.

[nomoreplease]

If they aren’t universally against all vaccines, then why is the term “anti-vaxxer” applied in deragatory ways? I was under the impression it meant they were afraid of all

Portions of what you mentioned seem like reasonable concerns to the average layperson

[YossarianFrPrez]

The Johnson and Johnson shot is not an mRNA vaccine, is freely available, and undergoing the same vetting process as the mRNA vaccines. The reason people are being labeled as "anti-vaxx" is because there aren't a lot of reports of the "anti-mRNA" crowd lining up to get the J-and-J shot.

[pattrn]

I know quite a few people who got J&J due to their hesitancy about Pfizer and Moderna. It's anecdotal, I know, but so are all of my personal experiences :) .

[YossarianFrPrez]

That's a valid response to being mRNA hesitant. But my impression is that those people aren't being called "anti-vaxx."

The concern I share with many other people is not as much about people who prevaricate about mRNA and get J&J, but about those who are armchair quarterbacking their way into believing things like science / all scientists are corrupt, we have no expert / collective knowledge of the various mechanisms by which vaccines work, there is a nebulous "they" that don't want you to know things, etc.

[scotu]

sure, but nobody is going around calling them anti-vaxxers, right?

[tzs]

> The Johnson and Johnson shot [...] is freely available

It may be more accurate to say was freely available. It has become hard to get in many places in the US.

[1] https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/once-all-the-rage-...

[bondarchuk]

We will see what happens when Sinopharm and/or Valneva become available in the EU. J&J is not mRNA but it's also not an old style inactivated virus vaccine. As far as I can tell viral vector vaccines are just a little bit older than mRNA, having only been used against ebola since a few years ago (2018?).

[goda90]

How much scientific evidence for mRNA vaccines being safe and effective would need to be gathered for continued concern and hesitancy to count as "anti-vaxxer" thinking?

[mig39]

Whatever that goalpost is, it will be moved once it's met.

[hammock]

Which goalpost? Two weeks to slow the spread?

[belltaco]

You mean the two weeks that not many followed because of propaganda like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAh4uS4f78o

Recipient of the highest civilian honor in the US with 15 million highly engaged listeners told them covid was just a cold hyped up to hurt the then POTUS politically.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/25/rush-limbaug...

Wuhan did slow the spread very very much with a few weeks of shutdown btw.

[grayhatter]

no the goalposts that marks the amount of evidence proving safety. no matter how much evidence demonstrating safety somebody who doesn't want to get the vaccine will always demand more and then when they get that more they will demand even more. it's constructing and demanding evidence to fit a preseason idea not adjusting your ideas based on evidence

[ryandrake]

Exactly. Remember when the goalpost was "Bbbbbut it's not FDA approved!" The exact day that a vaccine became FDA approved, nearly every "hesitant" person suddenly moved the goalpost, so that they had some other excuse to be hesitant. These are not people with legitimate concerns. They already have their minds made up, and plan to keep cherry picking concerns such that they never have to change their minds.

[ycombinete]

For me? A couple of years. There have been plenty of “safe” new medicines that revealed horrific side effects a long way down the line.

I was vaccinated with Sinopharm 6 months ago, preferring the older vaccine technology; now I’m being vaccinated with Pfizer, because I need to travel to countries which don’t accept Sinopharm. I’m still uncomfortable with MRNA vaccines, and feel a bit like a beta tester.

[saalweachter]

Good news! Phase 1 trials on the Pfizer vaccine began about 18 months ago; only six months to go for the two year mark.

[Exmoor]

When people use the term "medicine" or "drugs" when referring to vaccines it's a good indicator they're either being disingenuous or don't know what they're talking about.

The way drugs interact with your body is incredibly complex and difficult, if not impossible, to fully monitor. You're putting some molecules in your body and hoping they'll end up doing x without knowing what else they might be effecting. Throw in another drug or medical condition that might interact with the first and it gets very crazy very fast. This is why most drugs require prescriptions.

Vaccines on the other hand are very straight forward. They mimic a the natural process of a foreign virus or bacteria entering your system and being found and eventually neutralized by your immune system, training it to know what to look for in the future in the process. It's inherently vastly less complicated with essentially no long term risk that could crop up out of nowhere.

If a knowledgeable person was truly concerned about a vaccine causing long term issues, they'd be absolutely terrified of every virus or bacteria entering their system since those have had no previous testing and will multiply many, many times more than the contents of a vaccine.

[nradov]

Vaccine adjuvants are not at all straightforward. The mechanisms of action are complex and poorly understood.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41573-021-00163-y

Despite the unknowns, approved adjuvants are very safe and the presence of adjuvants isn't a reason to avoid vaccination.

[lamontcg]

A vaccine isn't a "medicine". You only are exposed to about 25-100ug of payload which is an incredibly small dose, once or twice. That doesn't compare to taking 100s of mg of something once or twice a day for weeks/months/years. Neither does it compare with eating whatever you buy off of grocery shelves that might be synthetic, which is going to be higher doses and more chronic.

The mRNA sticks around for a day or three and then its all effectively gone and the 'infected' cells are disassembled by the immune system. The only thing that remains is the immune reaction, and the side effects (other than the rare immediate anaphylaxis) will be autoimmune reactions triggered by exposure to the antigen.

And we have 250 years of experience with vaccines and we've studied autoimmune conditions for many years, and there's a whole field of medicine devoted to it. And based on all that experience we know what kinds of side effects there could be and that they all show up within 3 months of exposure to the antigen. That is why vaccines don't need more than 3-6 months of a trial in order to determine safety (they often need much longer to determine efficacy).

If you get sick 6+ months after getting vaccinated then it wasn't the vaccine.

I also would take the mRNA vaccine over the Sinopharm, there's far more antigens in Sinopharm or viral vector vaccines that your body has never been exposed to. There's much less different types of antigens in the mRNA vaccines to trigger autoimmune effects. You're likely thinking about the risks backwards. The worrisome thing isn't the american pharmaceutical industry, the bigger issue is the entirely alien (to your body) proteins in the pandemic virus.

[mikeyouse]

There has never been a recorded side effect from a vaccine that occurred more than a month after it was given.

[desine]

There have never been mRNA vaccines widely distributed

[frumper]

Good thing we have approved non-mRNA vaccines for you to choose from.

[anoonmoose]

For example? I'd prefer one from my lifetime (30-40 years)

[simonsarris]

Ranitidine (Zantac) was an extremely commonly prescribed and OTC acid reducer in the US since the 1980's, and was withdrawn in April 2020 because it was found to spontaneously break down into the carcinogen N-nitrosodimethylamine. Only discovered after someone bothered to test. It started with recalls as the carcinogen was detected in some brands, and then a total removal of the product. 40 years of carcinogens. Lots of people still have this in their medicine cabinets.

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-u...

Alatrofloxacin (Trovan) was approved in 1997 and withdrawn in 2001 (USA) or 2006 (worldwide) because of serious hepatotoxicity leading to liver transplant or death.

[lamontcg]

neither of which are vaccines.

i also probably ingested a million times more ranitidine than there is mRNA in a vaccine, and the ranitidine still hasn't killed me.

[simonsarris]

You did not ask about vaccines. The parent comment you replied to said medicine.

The Rotavirus vaccine RotaShield was approved in 1998 and withdrawn in 1999 due to risk of intussusception (telescoping intestine).

[ycombinete]

Thalidomide

[cygx]

That happened in the 50s and was uncovered in the 60s...

[anoonmoose]

And the US FDA quite famously rejected it at the time

[ycombinete]

What’s your point?

[HN_Morons]

This much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox#Continuum_fall...

[blitz_skull]

About 20 years of long-term safety data. How about we start with that before we even think twice about making anything mandatory?

It blows my mind that people only seem to be thinking about “does the vaccine kill you within a week”. That’s literally the least of your worries. How the vaccine affects your heart, brain, or reproductive facilities 20 years from now is what I’m concerned about. And I’ve heard nothing to address that concern. So as far as I’m concerned, until this vaccine has a track record as proven as measles, it’s still experimental and still worth being skeptical.

[mjevans]

Coincidental variables are a major problem. If any vaccine or medication had side effects the only way it'd be noticed over that duration of time is if it occurred in a majority of recepients and not much at all in anyone else.

Most trial studies only follow subjects for about 6 to 12 months for the bulk of the study, and at longer intervals only to determine if already known good / bad differences between active an placebo populations persist and to what degree.

The number one thing that changes with X years of "long term" study data is the number of study participants.

Around the world we have seen an unprecedented 'Phase 4' trial in response to a global pandemic. In the USA alone over 100 million have been vaccinated with the new mRNA technology and most of us for far longer than it would take for new symptoms to show.

Contrast with placebo patients who shun the vaccines: They're overflowing hospitals right now causing real deaths to OTHERS who need emergency medical care for non-pandemic reasons. Those who survive are at risk of 'long haul COVID' symptoms at a greatly increase rate of occurrence and severity compared to the vaccines. Needless to add, the risk of death from the vaccine is far lower as well; even the J&J / AZ vaccines are still better than the risk of Delta (the variant that ravaged India).

[blitz_skull]

Well, for standard side-effects, you'd be right. But we aren't talking about a normal viral-vector vaccine. We're talking about an mRNA vaccine. A delivery-method which "temporarily modifies turns the cells in a localized area into protein-producing machines". (A fairly non-scientific excerpt I found online)

But the big question (at least for me) is, can this actually modify my DNA? Because if so, that's potentially a Big Deal™ that we should be able to object to or at least discuss, right? But while the CDC is busy telling everyone that RNA cannot possibly ever change DNA, a group of scientists at Harvard and MIT accidentally found out—oops, maybe it can.[0]

Now look, there's still a lot of squinting and determining to be done here. By no means should we halt everything. But as long as there's still questions like this out there, there can be no reasonable mandate.

[0]: https://sciencewithdrdoug.com/2021/02/15/breaking-study-shed... [0]b: (The link to the actual study): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33330870/

[grayhatter]

correct me if I'm wrong but the live virus is capable of killing you within a week right?

what level do you have certainty would you require before you think making something mandatory would be appropriate?

do you have any reason to believe any of those concerns are even rational or theoretically reasonable? or you just afraid of them because they might happen?

[blitz_skull]

Further fodder for discussion: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33330870/

If a vaccine can modify your DNA, is it still ethical to mandate it? Can we still bypass 20-year safety studies?

[grayhatter]

do you actually want me to answer this question or are you just trying to stir up shit? I'm going to give an abbreviated answer below but I can actually explain where your misconception comes from if you're not trying to stir up shit

The short answer is yes a vaccine's ability to modify DNA doesn't weigh very heavily on the ethics of it becoming mandatory because nothing has been said about if it's a good or bad modification.

and I'm not sure what "can we still bypass 20-year safety studies" means because I don't think anyone has advocated or believes bypassing any safety study should happen or will happen.

[blitz_skull]

Well making a vaccine which doesn't reduce your infectiousness, and doesn't reduce your ability to contract the virus mandatory is asinine.

Literally the only thing the vaccine does is boost your own immune system's response to COVID. It doesn't protect others in any way shape or form. So making it mandatory is a terrible idea in general.

[grayhatter]

> Well making a vaccine which doesn't reduce your infectiousness, and doesn't reduce your ability to contract the virus mandatory is asinine.

I agree that the vaccine does not prevent all infections. but disagree that's the only thing that would give it value. the world of infectious diseases is not binary and attempting to evaluate or imply that a binary anything other than 100% efficacy is the only thing of value is either dishonest or negligent.

> Literally the only thing the vaccine does is boost your own immune system's response to COVID. It doesn't protect others in any way shape or form. So making it mandatory is a terrible idea in general.

Full disclosure I agree with the idea that mandatory vaccines are problematic. but I disagree with your argument about why it's problematic. and reject your assertions about the quality and usefulness of the vaccine. You define the vaccines capabilities as only improving an individual's immune system and then go on to assert that that doesn't protect others. Which is either a malicious argument or a gross misunderstanding of reality. if I have a vaccine that turns an infection from 2 weeks to 1 week I'm also infectious for half the time. thus in reality I would only be capable of infecting reasonably half the number of people.

you seem to me under the misunderstanding that because the vaccine doesn't prevent all infections and infectiousness that it doesn't prevent some infections and infectiousness. generally speaking the infection rate of a virus is low. as an example and hypothetically speaking for any virus one person will infect 1.01 people Which means the virus will spread if you could lower the infectivity rate of that virus by 2% you go from having a virus that spreads to one that dies out. so if the covid vaccine could lower the infectivity rate below one it would die out. and that's the average rate so if covids infectivity rate was 1.5 and the vaccine could lower it by half the impactivity rate would be 0.75 in other words it would die out in fact if only 70% of the population got the vaccine it would still die out. (assuming those number, I'm too lazy to look up the real infectivity rate from my phone)

[learc83]

1. My wife is currently seeing 25 year-olds in her pediatric ER because the adult side of the hospital is too full of unvaccinated adults.

2.Other study findings suggest that fully or partially vaccinated people who got COVID-19 might be less likely to spread the virus to others. For example, fully or partially vaccinated study participants had 40 percent less detectable virus in their nose (i.e., a lower viral load), and the virus was detected for six fewer days (i.e., viral shedding) compared to those who were unvaccinated when infected. In addition, people who were partially or fully vaccinated were 66 percent less likely to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection for more than one week compared to those who were unvaccinated. While these indicators are not a direct measure of a person’s ability to spread the virus, they have been correlated with reduced spread of other viruses, such as varicella and influenza.

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/p0607-mrna-reduce-ri...

If I didn't think that the ensuing violence would kill more people than it would save, I would absolutely vote for some level of mandatory vaccination.

[drcongo]

You can't use facts to refute superstition I'm afraid.

[tzs]

It may not necessarily reduce you infectiousness while you are infected, but it does reduce how long you are infected compared to a person who is not vaccinated and has not had a prior infection. That will reduce how likely you are to spread your infection to others.

[frumper]

Why stop at 20 years? What makes that a magic number. Your kids, if vaccinated, will be concerned about heart, brain or reproductive issues in 30 years. It's funny you mention measles as there are many people that still don't trust the track record of the measles vaccine.

[blitz_skull]

Well I said 20 because I DO trust the measles record. My kids aren't going to be worried about it if it's been around for 20 years. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[amanaplanacanal]

Since the vaccine only does a small subset of what the live virus does, why would you think it is safer getting the virus rather than taking the vaccine?

[blitz_skull]

Is modifying DNA safer than letting natural immunity do what it does? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33330870/

[desine]

The proteins generated by the mRNA vaccines are shown to spread throughout the body, compared to the virus, which is mostly respitory and vascular.

[maxerickson]

Your vascular system goes all over your body...

[blitz_skull]

Yeah, as the other commenter mentioned—it's not a subset of the virus. They've already proven the vaccine doesn't stay local. That alone is concerning. Besides, I've already gotten COVID. Way before any vaccines were available. So I'll trust in my own natural immunity, and I should have the freedom to do that.

[amanaplanacanal]

Where do you live that you don't have the freedom to do that? I'm trying to get a read on what mandates various people are seeing in various locations.

[blitz_skull]

I do have the freedom to do that. For now.

I’m worried about the precedent of “safety” undermining human rights because “we’re in this together”.

[r00fus]

I'm not surprised. When your unvaccinated loved ones die or get sick because large portions of the population are choosing to not get vaccinated, it becomes a visceral response.

Vax hesitancy has a social cost. This is part of the price to pay. That it's not "totally efficient" is debatable.

[nradov]

I encourage everyone to get vaccinated if they can, but the Delta variant is so contagious that there will be no significant herd immunity effect to protect your unvaccinated loved ones. Everyone can expect to get exposed.

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

[babyshake]

Do these people have criteria for what evidence it would take for them to consider mRNA vaccines to be safe? I see a lot of FUD but nothing that seems to define what would invalidate or confirm these concerns.

[pkphilip]

The mRNA vaccines have been out for about a year or so. What evidence is there to indicate that it is safe even in the medium term (>2yrs) let alone long term?

[frumper]

In 2009, researchers conducted the first-ever trial on cancer immunotherapy using mRNA-based vaccines in human subjects with metastatic melanoma. The results of the trial showed an increase in the number of vaccine-directed T cells against melanoma (Weide et al., 2009).

https://the-dna-universe.com/2021/04/15/the-history-of-mrna-...

[lamontcg]

Because autoimmune reactions to antigens either show up in 3 months or they don't.

Vaccines are tiny and you don't take them chronicially. They aren't like medicine.

The bad side effects are entirely your body attacking itself.

And there's a well-studied branch of medicine dealing with that. There's no autoimmune disease which emerges only >2 years after exposure to an antigen. In all of medicine that phenominon doesn't exist in order for to happen after an mRNA vaccine.

[seattle_spring]

No. The previous criteria was FDA approval, but the goalposts predictably moved once that happened.

[angelzen]

A 20 year track record that the virus doesn't eventually mutate to bypass the narrow protection offered by mRNA vaccines, and subsequent infections aren't worse compared with natural immunity gained after an initial infection. In particular when first infection occurs early in life, like is the case for other human coronaviruses that subsequently become an afterthought.

[daveslash]

Re >> "This makes them defensive about being insulted, thereby reinforcing their existing opinions."

This is often the same mechanism that reinforces actual anti-vaxxers... and other beliefs that many of us would consider "out there" (e.g. Birtherirm, the Big Lie, etc...)

[rejectedandsad]

This is the coddling of the American mind, unfortunately.

[swader999]

It goes further, the media labels those opposed to vaccine passports as anit-vaxxers, many of which have had these shots.

[notriddle]

Then use a viral vector COVID-19 vaccine instead?

[pattrn]

Absolutely. A lot of my friends who were hesitant about Pfizer and Moderna did just that.

[TrevorJ]

It seems as if the single-shot viral vector is not universally considered adequate to be considered 'vaccinated'.

[dxf]

The Johnson and Johnson and AstraZenica vaccines are not mRNA; they are a more traditional "standard" vaccination (adenovirus vector). Are your friends willing to get one of those?

[SkyMarshal]

> they are a more traditional "standard" vaccination (adenovirus vector)

Are viral vectored vaccines “more traditional” and “standard”? They’re relatively new too aren’t they?

It’s a genetically engineered virus that injects its DNA into the cell nucleus which instructs the cell DNA to produce mRNA that instructs the cell to produce virus spike proteins.

By comparison, mRNA vaccines at least skip the cell nucleus step and inject mRNA directly into the outer cytoplasm, no need to interact with the DNA in the nucleus.

It seems the only really traditional and standard vaccines are the inactivated virus ones like Sino that inject dead viral material. Those are the type we’ve been using for decades.

[pattrn]

Some of them did just that. (I've said this a few times -- not sure if it's considered spam to keep posting the same thing on different threads. Sorry if that's the case!)

[mehphp]

> Many of my friends and colleagues have concerns about mRNA vaccines

I'm curious if you know why?

[lenkite]

(Fully vaccinated). I am so glad my nation doesn't use an mRNA vaccine. mRNA vaccines have side-effects that are currently still under investigation.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

[UncleMeat]

The anti-vaxx movement has always had folks like this. Even freaking Andrew Wakefield only claimed that the MMR vaccines were bad and was personally involved in marketing an alternative.

IMO, "I don't hate all vaccines" is just ideological cover. Regardless of your opinion of other vaccines, resistance to the Covid vaccines is foolishness. End of story.

[b0sk]

You are against (anti-) taking a vaccine (-vaxxer).

(The concern is just some internet dude on Facebook claiming he's discovered something really evil about Big Pharma)

[pattrn]

That definition doesn't make sense. If someone doesn't like steak, it doesn't make them anti-meat, and if someone doesn't like mint flavor ice cream, it doesn't make them anti-ice cream. That's the entire problem with the word -- its old definition meant anti-all-birth-vaccines (which made more sense). This new definition conflates people who are anti-all-vaccines with people are anti-just-COVID-vaccines.

[chrismcb]

There is a huge difference between not wanting to take one vaccine versus not wanting to take any vaccine.

[scotu]

I'd like to know their stance on the J&J vaccine since it's not mRNA

[rejectedandsad]

Why should we coddle these peoples delusions?

[1MachineElf]

I can count the number of times I've been sick in the past 10 years on one hand. I've only had a few vaccines during that time. I take supplements that benefit my immune system, call it a day, and that seems to have done well enough.

Oddly enough, the people in my life who are vocal about getting vaccines and booster shots on a regular basis all get sick much more frequently than I do.

It's the same situation with my girlfriend. Both of us rarely get sick and we are apparently more confident in our immune systems than this relatively vocal group of people. I don't think our lifestyle choice makes us deserving of the "anti-vaxxers" slur and the animosity that comes with it.

It's not like I'm on social media posting evil "anti-vaxxer" content. It was actually a 2014 broadcast on WPFW 89.3 that made me aware of facts that many seem to be ignorantl of or actively suppress:

- The similarities between 19th/20th century recorded symptoms of polio sickness and similar symptoms of lead/arsenic poisoning.

- Lead/arsenic pesticides were used on crops back then, lead contaminated many things ingested by people, and people did in fact get paralyzed as a result of these things.

- Polio was declared an infectious disease on a very flawed experiment where spinal fluid from a paralyzed cadaver was injected into a monkey that subsequently became paralyzed.

- The resulting vaccines from this research resulted in more paralysis and deaths.

- Many scientists believed toxins were the cause of polio, but their voices were suppressed by the US government when national vaccine trials began in the 1950s.

- The government-approved polio vaccines caused paralysis and deaths.

One would be correct in saying that the foundations for government-run vaccine programs are shaky at best. The fact that 100 years later, researchers are still trying to nail down the polio virus, might make one wonder that the elusiveness of a solution is a product of a made-up problem. Yes, polio viruses have been "identified", but no one can say for sure how many of of those who were paralyzed before were the result of poisoning vs. a random virus.

Then you have Bill Gates experimenting on India's people with his polio vaccine investments - is an equal amount being invested to research toxins as the cause of polio-like symptoms there too?

Anyways, please excuse me for waiting a some months to get my COVID vaccine. I suppose it's been enough time to watch the antibody-dependent enhancement (ADE) risk play out. Next week I'm due for my 2nd Moderna shot. My girlfriend already has hers due to a questionable job requirement. Don't fault me for feeling uneasy about it, seeing how in Japan last month, Moderna doses were found to be contaminated.

[YossarianFrPrez]

You seem like someone who appreciates new information. You might find some new-to-you information here, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio, here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_polio, or in the citations for these articles. Polio pre-dates 20th-century pesticides by thousands of years. Polio vaccines are estimated to have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Having a nutritious (and/or well-supplemented) diet and healthy lifestyle are important. No one doubts that. But medical records and studies have shown that that only gets you so far w/r/t to things like the Delta Variant. The only way to tell if your immune system is up to that particular task is to see how it responds to being infected. Lots of people have made the mistake of overestimating just how much their immune response is under their control. The subset whose immune systems proved unequal to the task are the ones in emergency rooms.

Given that Salk gave away the Polio vaccine for free, you have to ask what the financial incentive would be to gin up a made up virus.

[rsynnott]

Huh, _polio_ denial is a new one on me.

[jimbob45]

There's no legitimate reason to doubt the safety or the efficacy of these vaccines such that the benefits of immunity don't vastly outweigh the reason.

You seem like you're trying to normalize some midpoint between vaccine acceptance and anti-vaxxing to radicalize individuals here. Reddit went ahead and banned anything resembling your post to avoid anti-vaxx wolves amongst sheep. I hope HN does the same here too.

Edit: I’m okay with all the anti-vaxxers in this thread. I think you’re all arguing in good faith and I’m more than happy to compare information with you. You’re all to be commended for engaging in the marketplace of ideas. It’s just the guy I was replying to that I think is a bad-faith actor trying to perniciously sway otherwise moderate people to his side by misrepresenting his initial position on the topic to be more moderate than it actually is.

[lhorie]

I mean, they're still working on getting data on efficacy/safety on children, it's not like they have years of data to point to. I can kinda understand why some people might be wary, even when faced with extremely rare odds of complications; mechanically it seems very similar to the sort of belief that leads people to play lottery games, despite the obviously low odds of winning.

What the GP is saying is that us-vs-them rhetorics have a tendency to make parties illogically double down on doubts (not just with vaccines, but with literally every topic under the sun). If one wants to claim the intellectual higher ground, not taking this phenomenon into account seems like a pretty big blind spot, especially if we're on the topic of method efficacy.

[ErikVandeWater]

> There's no legitimate reason to doubt the safety or the efficacy of these vaccines such that the benefits of immunity don't vastly outweigh the reason.

This doesn't apply to all age groups, even if you trust the FDA implicitly. The vaccines are not approved for children under 12 because the proven benefits do not exceed the risks. The benefit of the vaccine slides dramatically with existing health and age; 12-17 year olds that are healthy will receive virtually no benefit from the vaccine.

[dbt00]

There's no evidence of any risk of mRNA vaccines at all. The only issue so far has been extremely rare blood clot issues with the adenovirus vaccines (AstraZeneca & J&J).

The vaccines are not approved for children under 12 because the risks to young children from the virus are the lowest of any population group, so older groups were prioritized for efficacy and safety testing. It is being tested now in that age group (I know people with kids in the trial group) and will hopefully be approved shortly.

If this virus worked the way the flu does, doing the most damage to children and the elderly, then the vaccine would have been tested on children much sooner and would have been available to that group sooner. In that world, that's not because the vaccine was more dangerous to 25 year olds.

[nradov]

That is incorrect. The CDC believes that mRNA vaccines have caused myocarditis and pericarditis, mainly in young males. The risk is very low (possibly lower than the risk of getting those symptoms from a viral infection) but not zero. I'm not suggesting that anyone avoid vaccination for this reason but let's be honest about the risks. False claims that there is no evidence of any risk just leads to public mistrust.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/my...

The UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) currently doesn't recommend universal COVID-19 vaccinations for healthy children ages 12-15 because the health benefits are marginal. That guidance may shift as more data comes in.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-issues-updated-advic...

[lenkite]

What is your opinion on these articles ? These are just some of many deaths and health issues immediately after mRNA vaccination which barely get any media attention.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58380867

https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2021/08/24/national/soc...

https://www.freep.com/story/news/2021/07/02/jacob-clynick-pf...

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/nz-myocarditis-dea...

[ErikVandeWater]

> There's no evidence of any risk of mRNA vaccines at all.

You need to add "short run" since these vaccines have not been tested long term. Not to say it is likely at all since other mRNA vaccines have not had long run issues, but to say there is "no evidence" is cheap when long run studies have not been conducted.

[mjevans]

Extraordinary claim: Vaccines cause negative side effects that can't be detected until years later.

Please cite a case where this extraordinary claim has held true. Where a vaccine has caused a side effect not noticeable within the first year.

Globally hundreds of millions have been vaccinated and we've had enough data to get really precise numbers on even the absolute rarest of side effects; which are vanishingly rare and pale in severity and incidence to the disease in the wild.

[bondarchuk]

With all due respect there seems to be some rhetorical sleight of hand involved in transforming the claim "we don't know about the possible long-term effects of mRNA vaccines" into the extraordinary claim you wrote. The sleight of hand consists in not acknowledging the fundamental novelty of mRNA vaccines compared to traditional vaccines, which allows you to conflate them and use the proven long-term safety of the one as an argument for the long-term safety of the other. Not everyone agrees with this conflation, because the mechanism of action is quite different.

[geofft]

Are there actually concrete risks to children, or is this a political pressure thing (if the vaccine hurts children, then it will blow up badly in the FDA's faces if they approve it, so they're being hesitant)?

That is, are the "risks" real scientifically-documented complications (either from a clinical trial, or from solid arguments about mRNA vaccines and children), or are the "risks" just unknown-unknowns and a lack of sufficient data?

I don't trust the FDA. I believe they're subject to a bunch of nonsense political pressures. I believe they employ a bunch of good people trying to do the best job they can within a US federal bureaucracy and all the confines of that (including the inability to compete on salary with the private sector for skilled/experienced candidates). I have no reason to believe they're more competent than, oh, the DoD. So my distrust of the FDA doesn't extend to believing that they approve the vaccine, it's because they really want to implant microchips in us, but it absolutely extends to believing that if they don't approve the vaccine, it may well be for reasons entirely unrelated to its scientific merit.

[benmmurphy]

if a child does not have an existing health issues the risk of covid itself is so low that even if the vaccine had no complications the cost of the vaccine itself would probably outweigh the individual benefits conferred to the child. it's very difficult to justify a medical intervention when the risk is so low. if you are taking a more utilitarian view then it is certainly better to be sending vaccines that would be given to children to other countries that currently have a shortage of vaccines for at risk groups.

the UK had a vaccine committee that authored a report on the benefit and risks of giving a vaccine to children. they concluded the benefits outweigh the risks but the benefits are so small that it is impossible to justify taking action.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/jcvi-statement-se...

[ryandrake]

The COVID-related risks around children are not to themselves, but to the families they will bring the disease home to. The benefit of administering COVID vaccines to children is not that it will significantly save their own lives, but that it will help save the lives of their older family members.

[ErikVandeWater]

Prescribing a medication that puts one at risk to save another would violate medical ethics.

[mwint]

Wait, did you just argue that there is zero room for dissent?

[geofft]

That is generally how arguments about claims of fact work, yes. If you genuinely believe that, say, the earth is round, then your position isn't going to be that the earth is probably round but there are valid reasons to believe otherwise, or that you can have the opinion that the earth is flat, or whatever. It's fundamentally not a matter of opinion, and part of your belief is that it isn't a matter of opinion.

[TrevorJ]

What you are describing is explicitly not science. It's dogma.

[mwint]

I find this specific example a bit amusing. Remember when authority thought the earth was at the center of the solar system, and that was a fact and there wasn’t room for dissent?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

> Heliocentric books were banned and Galileo was ordered to abstain from holding, teaching or defending heliocentric ideas.

Sounds familiar.

I don’t say that vaccines are bad, or unhealthy. I do say that banning one side of the conversation, even if they’re crazy, is a great way to end up on the wrong side of history.

[giantrobot]

> Remember when authority thought the earth was at the center of the solar system

Authority? Oh, you mean a church who espoused having a divine mandate and a monopoly on truth and therefore the only path to a good afterlife? The Catholic Church's fortunates were literally derived from common people and nobles giving them money and resources.

The Church's persecution of Galileo was about maintaining its monopoly position, it didn't actually concern itself with truthfulness. Maybe at some levels there were the extremely pious that actually believed Galileo was professing literal heresy but the actions of the Church were entirely about defense of their monopoly position.

But yes, other than all the details of the situation, anti-vaxxers, 9/11 truthers, COVID deniers, and all the other Dunning-Kruger conspiracy theorists are just like Galileo using detailed and falsifiable experiments to bolster their claims. They're being persecuted for their science and unflinching devotion fo truth!

[geofft]

That's my point exactly. Do you think Galileo thought there was room for dissent about whether the earth moved? Did he famously say "Eppur si muove, forse"?

There's no room for dissent. There's room for argument, and by all means we should argue about it and not ban one side of the conversation. But only one of the sides can be right.

[hermitdev]

What do you think argument is, but dissent? Science doesn't progress if there isn't dissent. If there is no dissent from the status quo, there's no reason to do any research.

Galileo also thought the orbits of the planets were circular, but he was wrong about that. It doesn't matter what he thought or said at the time. Newton's laws of motions worked well... until they didn't and Einstein gave us something better. We also don't think Einstein is 100% correct, either, because relativity breaks down in some important corner cases. But it's the best explanation we have at the time.

Science is fundamentally built upon the principle of falsifiability. Without falsifiability all you have is belief and dogma. It's also why there's a fundamental difference between a scientific theory and a scientific law.

Your "argument" that we should all just shut up and walk the line is, ironically, the true anti-science position.

[desine]

Telling people their concerns are not valid also does not help

[risedotmoe]

Well good thing this isn’t reddit. I’m not sure why you would ever use reddit as an example on what good moderation looks like.

[question000]

Truly anti-vaxx behavior is a mental illness. They are being a danger to themselves and others and should be locked up.

I just want to live. This is not a political argument. People who purposely spread deadly diseases are criminals. It's just the same as firing a loaded gun at someone and pretending you don't know what a gun is. I don't care about what argument you're making anymore if I'm ending up shot either way.