>A vaccine doesn’t necessarily need to prevent infection to be called a vaccine, prophylactic vaccines are a thing.
Perhaps we need to discuss new terminology. Let's not discuss the point of view where immunocompromised people mean a vaccine doesn't work.
>The whole “they revised the definition” thing is itself revisionist history
I will concede this. I never said this in the post you replied to, but it is something I have said previously. I will admit I was misinformed or brainbroken.
I think the point stands however. IF there's a class of vaccines which prevent infection. These are different from a vaccine which basically does nothing more than tylenol.
So what should we do? Leave vaccine as a pretty weak word that includes prophylactic vaccines or do we redefine prophylactic vaccines to be something else?
It's only half revisionism. They really did "change the definition" in some sources, but we had all accepted antigen vaccines that only prevent symptoms already. No one was saying "according to the dictionary, the tetanus shot technically isn't a vaccine!", as far as I know.
I mean, the CDC literally did change their definition. From the Miami Herald: “Before the change, the definition for “vaccination” read, “the act of introducing a vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.” Now, the word “immunity” has been switched to “protection.”
I think the issue is that before COVID we didn’t bother with vaccines unless they provided immunity. Immunity is what the vaccines largely provided until Delta came along, and now with Omicron that aspect is even worse.
The flu vaccine was always a gamble but it hoped to provide immunity - other than that I can’t think of many. The shingles vaccines, I guess?
I honestly think the vaccine developers should be getting grilled for their decision not to try and make a Delta vaccine. Their decision process is pretty clear - they’d get to sell more doses of their vaccine without any R&D costs. Maybe they figured the next variant would come along before it mattered, but they had no way of knowing if that was going to be a variant of the Delta strain anyways.
The medical definition of "immunity" is a scale rather than a switch. You can have immunity and still have some form of the disease. I think they genuinely edited that to not confuse people.
These vaccines are not sterilizing though, which is what's required to stop infection. They 100% lied about that. Cue: The Biden administration saying "if you get vaccinated you will not get Covid".
I'm honestly surprised I'm just finding this out now, the combination of lies and legitimate updates got me confused as fuck.
I can see where people are coming from with that CDC wording change, but I don’t really think “protection” vs “immunity” is inconsistent with the idea of vaccines sometimes just reducing the effects of an infection.
On the delta specific vaccine, I thought they did develop a tailored shot and go through trials? I’m not sure it really mattered, the early research on omicron specific boosters seems to be finding that they’re not any better than the original formulation: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00003-y
It sounds like we’re maybe running in to the problem of original antigenic sin? I wonder if variant vaccines that target something other than the spike protein would work better in those already vaccinated for that reason.
The flu vaccine (and other vaccines) only stimulate an IgG reaction (the immune cells that protect most of your body excluding your upper respiratory tract).
Getting the flu or any other disease your vaccinated against in your upper respiratory tract has always been a risk, but IgA cells usually knock this out of your upper respiratory tract in 1 to 3 days for viral infections, and you avoid getting an infection in the lungs which could cause pneumonia.
Perhaps we need to discuss new terminology. Let's not discuss the point of view where immunocompromised people mean a vaccine doesn't work.
>The whole “they revised the definition” thing is itself revisionist history
I will concede this. I never said this in the post you replied to, but it is something I have said previously. I will admit I was misinformed or brainbroken.
I think the point stands however. IF there's a class of vaccines which prevent infection. These are different from a vaccine which basically does nothing more than tylenol.
So what should we do? Leave vaccine as a pretty weak word that includes prophylactic vaccines or do we redefine prophylactic vaccines to be something else?