[DiogenesKynikos]

> vaccines take years to test not months

This is because of money, not because of fundamental scientific issues.

This time, there was a financial backer (the government) that was willing to fund development of a whole bunch of vaccine candidates, without any preconditions. That's never happened before.

Normally, if you want to develop a vaccine, you have to go to investors, and convince them that your vaccine has a high probability of succeeding, not only technologically but financially. If you're lucky, you find someone to fund phase-1 trials. After those trials are done, you analyze the results, and then go try to convince investors to fund phase-2 trials. You have to finish those trials, analyze the results, and then go try to convince investors to fund phase-3 trials, which are extremely expensive.

If there's someone who guarantees funding for all three phases up-front, you can go a lot faster, without sacrificing scientific integrity at all. You can begin recruiting people for the phase-3 trials before phase-1 trials even begin. You can immediately begin the next phase of the trials once you know the vaccine passes the requisite safety threshold, even if the previous trials are still returning data.

Normally, these things are done strictly in order in order to minimize financial risk. If there is no financial risk, you can do a lot of things in parallel.

> And now it is acknowledged to not protect you or prevent the spread of COVID.

The vaccines reduce your risk of serious disease or death by orders of magnitude. That's extremely strong protection. They reduce your chance of infection and transmission by a bit (more in the first few months after vaccination), but not as much as they protect your health.

> How can you claim any social good here? it has bad side effects and does not work.

The vaccines have likely saved more than a million lives in the US. The worst side effects are extremely rare, and are caused at a higher rate by the virus itself.

[laverya]

> > vaccines take years to test not months

> This is because of money, not because of fundamental scientific issues.

This is not at all true. There is only so much you can parallelize things, as every software dev should know. It will always take 9+ months to figure out what the effects are for a mother that was vaccinated before conception, for instance. (Does this trigger autoimmune issues? Birth defects, like thalidomide did? And some birth defects - mental ones in particular - might not become apparent for years!)

> They reduce your chance of infection and transmission by a bit (more in the first few months after vaccination), but not as much as they protect your health.

There's a decent bit of data now saying that having been vaccinated in the past increases your chance of infection after 12+ months.

> The vaccines have likely saved more than a million lives in the US. The worst side effects are extremely rare, and are caused at a higher rate by the virus itself.

One problem is that the lives saved and the side effects happen in different and only slightly overlapping populations, and long-term side effects (for both covid and the vaccines) are not yet known or knowable.

[DiogenesKynikos]

> It will always take 9+ months to figure out what the effects are for a mother that was vaccinated before conception, for instance.

A couple of things. First, pregnant women are generally excluded from vaccine trials - this isn't something specific to the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

Second, what is the scientific basis for thinking that vaccination before pregnancy will affect women at the end of their pregnancy (that is, 9+ months later)? When you propose a possible harm, there should be a scientifically plausible basis for it. Is there one in this case?

> There's a decent bit of data now saying that having been vaccinated in the past increases your chance of infection after 12+ months.

I haven't seen anything to suggest this.

> One problem is that the lives saved and the side effects happen in different and only slightly overlapping populations

CoVID-19 was one of the leading causes of death across a wide range of ages. The idea that only the elderly suffered from it is not true.

> long-term side effects (for both covid and the vaccines) are not yet known or knowable.

Long-term side-effects of vaccination are very much knowable. There is no known mechanism that could lead to these vaccines causing long-term side-effects, and there are very good biological reasons for believing that they do not cause any long-term side-effects. Vaccine side-effects occur within months of vaccination, for reasons that are understood. They do not arise years afterwards (also for reasons that are understood). Saying that there may be side-effects years from now is simply FUD.

[laverya]

> First, pregnant women are generally excluded from vaccine trials - this isn't something specific to the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

This is perhaps not an argument in favor of the proven safety of vaccines for pregnant women.

> Second, what is the scientific basis for thinking that vaccination before pregnancy will affect women at the end of their pregnancy (that is, 9+ months later)? When you propose a possible harm, there should be a scientifically plausible basis for it. Is there one in this case?

We fundamentally do not understand the human body. We do not know why many common medications work, and many of the reasons we think others work are likely wrong. And we know that many chemicals carry future risks of birth defects.

> CoVID-19 was one of the leading causes of death across a wide range of ages. The idea that only the elderly suffered from it is not true.

This is because people in their 20s and 30s are so unlikely to die outside of accidents and malice, not because covid was a large absolute risk. The risk of death for someone over 65 was iirc 100x that of someone under 55.

When you limit the group to "otherwise healthy people under 40" the risk ratio skews even further. This is normal. But it means that those people receive a much lower benefit from vaccination.

> There is no known mechanism that could lead to these vaccines causing long-term side-effects

Spike protein accumulating in cardiac tissue leading to myocarditis. Antigen fixation, leading to reduced protection against future variants. The immune system identifying the mRNA delivery vector as a threat, preventing the use of future mRNA treatments.

"But those aren't proved" is really not convincing to me. For an EUA for at-risk populations, ok. For mandates? Heeeelll no, go cross those Ts first.

> and there are very good biological reasons for believing that they do not cause any long-term side-effects.

The whole point of a vaccine is to cause long term effects. That intended effect is immunity to disease.

"Nothing else could possibly persist" smacks of hubris to me.

> Vaccine side-effects occur within months of vaccination, for reasons that are understood. They do not arise years afterwards (also for reasons that are understood). Saying that there may be side-effects years from now is simply FUD.

This is medicine we're talking about, a bit of uncertainty and doubt is very much justified - especially when the process has been politicized.

[DiogenesKynikos]

> We fundamentally do not understand the human body.

This is not true. We understand a great deal about the human body. What's relevant here is that we understand the mechanisms that cause serious vaccine side-effects, and we understand why those side-effects appear within a few months.

> Spike protein accumulating in cardiac tissue leading to myocarditis.

Myocarditis occurs soon after vaccination, not long afterwards. It's also a very rare side-effect (it actually occurs more often from the virus itself).

> The whole point of a vaccine is to cause long term effects. That intended effect is immunity to disease.

What does this have to do with long-term adverse side-effects? The types of changes that a vaccine causes in the immune system are understood, and the reasons why those changes sometimes cause adverse side-effects are also understood. The mechanisms do not spring into action years later. The side-effects begin within months, at the latest.

> "Nothing else could possibly persist" smacks of hubris to me.

You're just dismissing immunology out-of-hand, based on vague statements about science not knowing how the body works.

> especially when the process has been politicized.

The politicization was on the side of the vaccine "skeptics." One of the most infuriating aspects of the pandemic has been how the most effective single tool for saving lives, a tool that has minuscule risks, has been subject to so much FUD. This tool is safe enough and beneficial enough that I would have absolutely no problem with mandating it for participation in society, the same way that seat belts and airbags are mandated.