[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”.