Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by feistypharit 1616 days ago
Don’t forget the placebo effect works both ways. All the antivax people that got the vaccine even though they may not have wanted to, are going attribute everything weird that then happens to the vaccine.

This is all going to take years to sort out and figure out what’s real and what’s not. And we’ll never know 100%. The bigger issue is whether we’ll be able to trust our present or future leaders to let science do its job.
4 comments
parkingrift 1616 days ago
> This is all going to take years to sort out and figure out what’s real and what’s not.

This is usually sorted out before mass vaccination. We rolled out completely novel technologies and skipped the medium and long term safety steps.

If these negative outcomes turn out to be true, there will be no going back from this. The future of mRNA will be circling the drain, and vaccination in general may go down with it. Distrust in science and government will soar and it may take decades to fix.

link
perlgeek 1616 days ago
> If these negative outcomes turn out to be true, there will be no going back from this.

I really hope that we can have a sensible discussion about safety and relative risks with 90% of the population.

(Naive, I know...)

link
parkingrift 1616 days ago
That seems incredibly unlikely. People who have been hesitant to get the vaccine have been mocked and ridiculed for months. I honestly can’t even imagine what will happen if it turns out that they were right to be hesitant.

There are no caveats to all the statements that the vaccines are safe and effective.

Speaking personally, they’ll need to do an amazing job quantifying the risks and performing further long-term studies before I would consider an additional booster shot.

link
taf2 1616 days ago
One thing IMO - that would help our leaders is if they recognize “science” is not a person or a thing… it’s a process. Away if thinking that allows for the discovery of both positive and negative outcomes. It is a process. /2cents
link
giantg2 1616 days ago
"This is all going to take years to sort out and figure out what’s real and what’s not."

It shouldn't have to if the system actually works. The problem is VEARS sees significant under reporting. In theory, you should report every little thing that has an unknown cause. Then researchers can view the data and eliminate symptoms by comparing them to the population baseline occurrence.

link
raxxorrax 1616 days ago
We have unvaccinated control groups in countries that don't get a vaccine, so we probably will know at some point.
link