I found that article very interesting, and think describing the pushback as PR threats from conspiracy theorists oversimplifies just a bit.

Aa mentioned in the article, it's very possible the vaccine triggers a rare, genetically associated autoimmune disorder normally caused by Lyme disease. It was also released roughly concurrently with at least one vaccine that was legitimately withdrawn for safety reasons.

Compared to, say, the covid-19 vaccines, or the MMR vaccines, I find the public hesitation more understandable. It's not like a disease with an especially high mortality rate or one that's spread person to person.

Not saying the push to shame it out of existence was right, since it sounds like the benefits outweighed the risks at least for some people, but there's a lot to unpack. Definitely worth a read.

The argument I've always read is that it should be made available to people who live in areas with lots of ticks, not that it should be pushed on everyone.

Yes, kind of like how you should get shots for yellow fever or tropical diseases when going on some trips.

But if you begin saying you need shots to go in Poland, it's maybe not going to be accepted as easily as for tropical countries...

BTW the side effects of the shots we give to go to French Guyane is something to behold. Roommate was literally covered with red dots and it itched like hell.

Autoimmunity is so scary. It sucks that pathogens evolve to hide by exploiting the body's friendly fire avoidance.

Btw. the molecular mimicry of the spike protein may cause autoimmunity as well. Time will tell if that only applies to SARS2 or the vaccine as well.

No source: There was a paper on a model for cross reacting to normal cell proteins in /r/COVID19, but I am on mobile and blocked reddit everywhere now. Should be easy to find.

Some serious theories to explain chronic Lyme precisely suggest that it is an autoimmune reaction caused by the bacteria biofilm proteins. That would explain both why the chronic Lyme can persist even after the bacteria have seemingly been eradicated, and the effects of the vaccine sometimes observed.

In this case the vaccine's purpose is defeated, as the real life-spoiler is the chronic Lyme. Acute Lyme is well treated by the antibiotics.

This is misrepresenting the real limitation of the vaccine that dampened demand...

> First, the vaccine efficacy of <80% meant that 20% of fully vaccinated individuals could still get Lyme disease [20]. Second, achieving full protection required three vaccine doses given at the time of the initial dose and 1 month and 12 months after the initial dose. Third, the vaccine safety and efficacy database lacked tests in young children, a population at high risk of developing Lyme disease [3]. Also the vaccine was effective only against the predominant North American Borrelia strain without necessarily conferring protection against international subspecies [16, 22]. Finally, uncertainty about the length of vaccine-induced immunity implied that recipients might need booster vaccine doses as often as every year to prevent waning immunity.

The real underlying malicious behavior here was from the lawyers who actively recruited and fomented anti-vax culture...

> The final agreement included over 1 million dollars in legal fees for the prosecuting lawyers, but provided no financial compensation to the ‘vaccine victims’.

Isn't that exactly what the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is supposed to prevent, by isolating vaccine makers from liability in exchange for a 75-cent tax that funds a no-fault compensation program?

I expect that the fear here would be that it'd be a PR disaster for the manufacturer, not a legal/financial one.

It's very odd that dogs can get vaccinated for Lyme but not humans...

We can also have dogs "put to sleep" but not people. You can also keep a dog on a leash. If a dog dies, there's no need for a coroner's report. It's not _that_ odd that human and dog medicine are held to different levels of testing and safety.

> We can also have dogs "put to sleep" but not people.

It's not like this is without controversy; it's an active political battle.

I think this was rather implying we put down dogs, if they break too expensive to fix. The vaccine was probably grinding through loads of "pets" in development.

Very different than "putting down" terminally ill people on their own choice and action.

Tho, maybe similar to the eugenic endeavors of the past. I hope you're not implying that's what's in debate again.

> We can also have dogs "put to sleep" but not people.

Depending on where you live, you can have humans "put to sleep" as well.

It is legal in 9 US states, Canada, parts of Australlia, and probably otherplaces as well.

> You can also keep a dog on a leash.

Some people keep their children on a leash as well.

I think in most of those places you have to ask the human first.

No, people just put their kids on leashes in public. It’s... well, wild but the opposite.

Agreed.

I wonder about the trolley problem that is medical testing requirements.

It seems like we, as a society, would tend to never want to pull the lever to save more at the cost of risking a few. Social and contractual liability makes it a bad trade.

Acceptable risk is very low which can, paradoxically, cause more death and discomfort.

It would be nice to see a greater awareness of the tradeoffs. These things tend to get emotional, though, so not much gets done.

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

You can't make trolley problem tradeoffs when there's enough uncertainty involved in all the steps.

Older medicine is filled with supposed cures to issues that cause issues down the road. We also have countless medical trials that show no positive effects on the disease it's trying to cure, and outright ill effects (both short term and long term).

If we _did_ have visibility and a good understanding of the effects of stuff, you would think that Covid, of all things, would push at least some people more down this argument you are making.

But basically everyone involved (including many many people who had extreme incentives to push a vaccine through) stuck to the trial discussions.

I do understand the "Extenuating circumstances" argument. But this sort of massive generality reeks of Dunning-Krueger.

A problem is it's not really the trolly problem because the punishments if things go wrong accrue to different people than the rewards if they go right.

Theoretical question here: Do you want to be the one sacrificial lamb that dies, in order for the rest of us to live?

If you want to play Jesus here, then I’m sure the rest of society will support you.

It isn't that stark though. There are current policy choices that result in statistical deaths. Other policy choices are quite likely to result in fewer statistical deaths, but you've somehow decided that the current policy is not even up for discussion.

Pets are considered property in all fifty states (Although in CA there are laws being proposed or even passed to change some of that). Any injuries or death to a pet only requires replacement cost.

You can orally actually vaccinate the reservoir species (mice) in targeted areas as well to disrupt the enzootic cycle.

We've also have coronavirus vaccines for dogs for a long time. More tolerance for side effects means easier approval means more vaccines which haven't been proven safe to the standards we demand for use in humans.