Not all the laws are going to be popular. I'm sure not everybody is thrilled about schools requiring all children be vaccinated. People can object to it and express concerns about, and you can even try to change it through legislation. But the majority will prevail.
Regarding your statement: "You might make the argument that anti-vaxxers are endangering others' health by being out in public without a vaccine, but that's only a claim." It's a claim backed by stats. On an individual level, it may be discriminatory to accuse an anti-vaxxer of endangering others without specific proof. But in aggregate, unvaccinated people are more likely to be infected and also spreading disease unknowingly. At least until the Delta variant came along, and now the officials have revised guidelines to ensure everyone wears mask.
Do I think it was premature to let vaccinated people go without mask? Sure. It wasn't my call. But nobody has a crystal balls into the future. So we adapt.
In the long run, operating this fashion has served us well.
For me, it was three or four at least, and until some genuinely inimical people decided vaccines were a good way to get famous at the expense of the body politic, nobody cared.
There have been mRNA vaccines in human clinical trials for around 10 years and they have been studied for around 30 years. There are countless examples of other non-controversial medicines developed and studied for far shorter lengths of time.
I trust you will stop just-asking-questions at that time?
And no approval. In other words, this is a dangerous class of drug that has failed to obtain a single human-use approval in 30 years. Thanks for the info!
Did you ever need proof of a polio vaccine to get into Equinox?
Further, I am also asserting that the fearmongering to the contrary is foolish and worth immediate discount. And given that literal disinformation ops are trying to recruit YouTubers to take a ninety degree swerve from tech or whatever they normally do to talk very seriously about the just asking questions about vaccination, I am okay with being pretty damned hard on this.
Thanks for asking!
While I can't give you an "actual pathway to a long-term problem" by which I assume you mean a mechanism of action I will note science is hard, scientists can't always predict what will happen, and serendipitous discoveries happen daily. The long term risk is unknown. I think if you're at risk for serious infection you should get vaccinated, if you're not really at risk it's more difficult to weigh the relative risks.
Source: Interview with head of German vaccination recommendation commission.
Also long term side effects have been documented in other mammals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine-associated_sarcoma#:~:....
Given the increased focus on the Covid vaccines, correlations as these would have already been found.
Also, narcolepsy is hard to diagnose?
It thought that narcolepsy much as fatigue is something that is easily missed when showing weakly. Tired kid?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/history/narcoleps...
Bullshit and demonstrably false. The first gen rotavirus vaccine was pulled post-marketing because it destroyed the intestines of infants. Was on the market for a year.
lol, no. You know that not a single vaccinated vs unvaccinated population study has ever been conducted, right?
VAERS is designed to detect acute, recent reactions and only acute, recent reactions. If it's not an accute, recent reaction, it probably never makes it into VAERS. That notion that long-term effects could even be reasonably detected today without a vaccinated vs. unvaccinated population study is highly questionable. The CDC refuses to do a vaccinated vs unvaccinated comparison study of overall mortality and disease prevalence. Don't believe me? Go on YouTube and you can find videos of Melinda Wharton making excuses to not do it. Sad, laughable excuses.
Also, you mentioned a German specialist: are you only considering vaccine rollouts in high HDI nations? Because DTP is absolutely associated with increase overall mortality in developing nations. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15082643/
There's also evidence that DTP yields higher mortality in girls: https://academic.oup.com/trstmh/article/110/10/570/2548939
Worth noting that DTP was the reason why the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act was lobbied for and passed in the first place. Vaccines were so "safe", that they couldn't be brought to market for a profit because injuries and lawsuits were so frequent. So, the government indemnified the manufacturers, capped the max injury settlement at $250k, made a special court for vaccine injury where all documents are under seal, and had HHS (taxpayers) make all the payouts. Sounds safe to me!
The side effects that are able to be actually substantiated by credible sources have been generally quite mild and very, very rare.
mRNA isn't new and we do know how it works. There is no mRNA left after the process. It breaks down and is evicted. If what you describe was going to happen, it would have happened already.
If you can find anyone who has studied mRNA academically (let's draw a line of "has contributed to or reviewed a paper on the topic", I can't think of a better one?) willing to put their credentials on the line to buttress this concern I'd be honestly amazed, because I can't find one and I have looked.
The reason why thalidomide was never stopped before approval is because a fetus is only susceptible during a certain growth phase. And in rats (where the teratogenicity was tested) that period is hours, not weeks like humans.
We know how mRNA works. We know what protein is being coded. We know that it codes that protein correctly. We know that the mRNA flushes when it's done. I'm not asking for a smoking gun. I'm asking you to substantiate even the possibility of it with actual peer-reviewed science and not hyperventilating, middlebrow fearmongering.
Bring something real to the table. For once. Any of you.
Again, would such a mechanism have been possible to show for thalidomide? Can you point to any peer-reviewed science that shows any danger of thalidomide, that's dated before the birth defects actually started happening? If your standard of unsafety couldn't be met for something that we now know for sure is unsafe, it's obviously a bad standard to use.
And as a good example, please explain why COX-2 inhibitors increase the risk of heart attacks? Oh, you can't? That's because we don't know the mechanism, but have data to prove they are harmful.
Using VAERS as proof of anything is a literal demonstration that the person in question has no idea what he's talking about.
In other words, VAERS data should be treated as at most a "this may be worth looking into," and certainly nowhere near a level of "this is a definitive proof something goes wrong." Especially in a time when tens of millions of people are getting vaccinated with the same vaccine at the same time, you're going to get lots of reports of people falling ill with something just by sheer coincidence.
My spicy hot take: this shit is fantastically complicated. At the very least, I think it has to be acknowledged that accurate medical reporting at scale is apparently a Hard Problem and not at all as solved as we would like to think. I don't know how you're defining sources with a "credible tether to reality," but I'd point to the problem with establishing such things _as itself a problem_. VAERS is a perfect example of such a problem. Despite all the hubris in this thread acting like they've blown the case wide open, VAERS folks are well aware that their data is trash.
When the contrary position is not generally the position of either genuine goddamned loons or the much more unfortunate case of people given historically very valid reasons for hesitancy that in this case no show sign of being true, there might be a reason to re-evaluate that stance.
Right now? I'm good.
As someone who works in drug development, the FDA would laugh you out of the room if you said this. Nobody gives a shit what your theories are. Drugs are approved based on hard data, not theories and handwaving about what could or couldn't go wrong. Way too many drugs have been pulled off the market for reasons nobody could predict.
Bextra, a COX-2 inhibitor used for arthritis, was approved in 2001 and wasn't withdrawn until 2005 when it was found to increase the risk of heart attacks. It took 4 years and millions of people dosed before they found that long-term effect.
Now, I'm not saying people shouldn't get vaccinated against. I'm vaccinated. But playing it off like the risk of long-term complications is zero is just foolish.
I mean, compulsory vaccination is a thing in many countries, and I think it's a net good for the world?
For what it’s worth, I’m vaccinated and wear a mask in every public encounter until I’ve discussed the risks with whoever I am dealing with whether required to or not.
However I strongly disagree with mandatory medical treatment of any kind.
I could imagine a law for emergency vaccinations that I would find acceptable, but it would need to have a lot of safeguards.
First, that's not what the GP said. It's also not what I'm saying.
Second, where I live the vaccine I got [1] went through a well-defined process designed explicitly to safely but swiftly approve medicine for emergency use, eg. during pandemics [2].
[1] - https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/comirnaty
[2] - https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/marketing-auth...
You said this, and we are referring to a vaccine that is not FDA approved.
‘Well defined’ doesn’t mean anything. The vaccines have not been approved according to normal medical standards.
Except they have. They've literally been approved using medical standards developed to handle time-critical medicine approval, which is as much of an approval process as the standard non-fast-tracked system. The studies are there, they're just taken from much earlier in the development process of the medicine than usually, and the approval is granted for a shorter period with continuous close monitoring and repeated follow up reviews.
The reason this accelerated approval isn't used for all medicine is not because it's less safe, but because it's more expensive and more effort consuming for all parties involved. Things are less sequential and more parallel, but all the important steps are still there.
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/publi...
Compare:
Fast-tracked: https://www.ema.europa.eu/sites/default/files/timeline_-_fas...
Standard: https://www.ema.europa.eu/sites/default/files/timeline_-_sta...
They haven’t.
> The reason this accelerated approval isn't used for all medicine is not because it's less safe
How do you known it isn’t less safe? There are no studies comparing the safety of the methods. Only arguments to that effect.
No? Like, no, this is not a sound argument, and is fallacious to the point where I'm not even going to attempt to argument against it.
> How do you known it isn’t less safe? There are no studies comparing the safety of the methods. Only arguments to that effect.
How do you know the non-fast track process is safer? There are no studies comparing the safety of the methods. Only arguments to that effect.
Considering both processes are established by the same public health organization, and that I'm not a health specialist myself to be able to prove otherwise, I see no reason to trust one but not the other.
We can’t be 100% sure it is.
> There are no studies comparing the safety of the methods. Only arguments to that effect.
Clever try. This is also true, but a fallacy nonetheless.
We have a long history of the safety of the non-fast track process and no history for the fast track process. We therefore have high confidence in then safety of the non-fast track process and low confidence in the fast track process.
> Considering both processes are established by the same public health organization, and that I'm not a health specialist myself to be able to prove otherwise, I see no reason to trust one but not the other.
Ok, so you have just declared that you don’t trust yourself to analyze this for yourself and are going to trust the authorities. That’s fine but it renders your analysis moot.
It also invalidates your argument so far since the authorities you trust have not given approval of the new vaccines only emergency use authorization. The authorities you trust agree with me that we can yet trust the vaccines the way we do those that have undergone full testing.
We were overcautious with the vaccines, it has cost us hundreds of billions in economic damages.
We don’t know the side effects.
I almost consider your talk about side effects fear mongering when the overwhelming evidence is pointing to a safe and effective vaccine. The mRNA vaccines by now have more evidence on their record than most vaccines when the become available. That should count for something. Vaccine hesitancy will cost us dearly.
Like, after the million of administered doses I would offer you a bet that the side effects are less than 1,000th of the effects a corona infection.
Not longitudinal evidence.
I’m not advocating hesitancy. I personally have been vaccinated. The only point I’ve argued for is not mandating vaccination. I strongly oppose mandatory medical treatment of any kind, and that has to include vaccination.
However it is also still true that these vaccines have not received approval, and although widespread use certainly may be better even in terms of lives lost than the economic damage, that is definitely a very bad reason to mandate medical treatment.
> I would offer you a bet that the side effects are less than 1,000th of the effects a corona infection.
For most people, you may be right. I’m happy for that case to he made, openly, with data. What I object to is forcing people on the basis of that data.
One last point: some countries have formally approved the vaccines already. So your focus on an US FDA approval is a little strange. The European union for instance did not use an emergency approval (which would put liability on the governments) but chose a regular approval with conditions, which put the liability on the manufacturer.
Somehow I think there will be a major shifting of goalposts by the anti-vax camp around that time.
I don't think it's the "anti-vax camp" who's behind the major shifting of the goalposts here.
> https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/04/fda-approval-pfizer...
That is not information, explicit or implicit, that is in that article.
> So your hang up is the FDA giving full approval?
Perhaps they will but could you save the strawman arguments for then as well.
Under the NYC "mandate", No one is required to be vaccinated. I'll say that again: no one is being required to be vaccinated.
While I disagree with the DeBlasio administration's new policy (WRT bars, gyms, etc.), both because it will be almost impossible to enforce and because the benefits (via increased vaccinations) will likely be marginal at best, no one is forcing anyone to do anything.
I'd much prefer (as an increasing number of restaurants, theaters and other venues and businesses are doing) that requiring patrons and staff to be vaccinated be a decision taken by the specific business involved.
Those businesses that only allow vaccinated people in their establishments will gain some folks and lose others -- and vice versa.
Regardless, and I'll say it one more time: the "mandate" from the NYC government doesn't force anyone to get vaccinated, nor does it restrict anyone from public spaces.
NYers aren't stupid (or at least not in any greater amount than anywhere else) and most will (and have) take appropriate precautions.
That said, the new requirements won't be all that effective because they're essentially unenforceable unless the business' owners are fully on board -- if they are, then they'll (as many have already done) require their staff and patrons to be vaccinated.
If a business' owners aren't on board with this, they won't require it, whether it's mandated or not.
A ball of cells and flesh that cannot survive outside of another human does not and should not have human rights. Otherwise we gotta start considering the human rights of cancerous growths.
If so, we can apply the same logic to coronavirus and pregnancy. If not, you're just drawing a false parallel.
We've had mandatory vaccinations for over a century, certainly since Roe V. Wade, and yet abortion is still legal.
Half the US believes abortion is murder and a sin against God and yet as far as I know, never has anyone tried to use the existence of vaccination laws as a pretext for making abortion illegal. That wouldn't even make sense.
The whole point of civil society is to solve coordination problems and deliver public goods like sanitation and health. If it can't accomplish something as basic as vaccination then it is blatantly unfit for purpose. Absolutely, jettison it! The truly crazy idea here is that we would retain and bear the costs of a civil society which is so incompetent at its bread and butter job.
We don't leave the water mains to gush into the street, we don't leave the sewers to back up into the toilets, and we don't leave the viruses to circulate in the bars.
It doesn't matter if you think the vaccine is more or less dangerous than the coronavirus. It goes back to basic human dignity and human rights. You wouldn't want strangers mandating injections into your body that you don't want. No one would be okay that, unless they are insane.
You might make the argument that anti-vaxxers are endangering others' health by being out in public without a vaccine, but that's only a claim. Lots of people make claims about others infringing their rights all the time, and a nontrivial number of those are baseless. A huge number of assumptions about medical science and constitutional law would need to be tested in court for it to hold any weight, unless you're willing to jettison the entire process of civil society.