If you are not allowed to talk about vaccine's problems, how do you expect to fix them? It's all fun and games until it hits you or someone you know. Yes, anti-vaxers will use it, but so what? We are not supposed to research vaccine safety because of that?

I think you might be reading a subtext that's not there.

I agree with OP's comment. I don't see how anyone sane would agree with what you believe it implies. Ironically, if we can't talk about how an article like this one will be used by anti-vaxers, we can't meaningfully address how to minimize that harm either.

In either case, what I'd most like to see is a TL;DR / ELI5-level explanation of the article.

The best and only way to counter anti-truth is with truth, usually meaning transparency. There are always going to be non-conforming groups, you shouldn't be worried about countering their views explicitly if you're worried about general human wellness. Focus on transparency, and the natural scientific process will do the rest.

> The best and only way to counter anti-truth is with truth, usually meaning transparency.

Is that based on empirical research, or is it a statement of faith?

It depends on your definition of "best".

I'd settle for empirical research demonstrating it to be a successful strategy.

You could call it a statement of faith, but I would be very interested in any study showing that suppression of information leads to more factually correct opinions. But of course, if such studies existed, they should be suppressed, in order to lead to the correct opinion regarding the subject. The logic is self defeating.

Transparency is required so information can be processed completely. You ask for transparency of sourcing, because the statement 'truth counters anti-truth' is foundational.

It depends on the definition of "best." Countering anti-truth with truth is clearly the highest-integrity way of operating.

My personal experience is that it's also the most effective. I see a lot of countering anti-truth with anti-truth, and people can smell the BS there. At that point, they become distrustful and defensive.

For example, before someone lies to an anti-vaxer, it's easy to counter and convince with science and fact. Once someone lies to an anti-vaxer it becomes basically impossible to cross that hump.

I don't understand how you can admit you don't understand and then immediately square off against X. X being the people asking for transparency, honesty, etc.

Put another way, anti-vax is wrong but anti-you-and-rest-of-us is ok?

One word for you: FollowTheMoney

You're equating anti-vax with seeking truth, seeking honesty, asking for transparency, all in good faith. Good for you, seeing the best in people.

After the last 3 years, you'll have to pardon most people not making that identification. Loud, partisan, probably bad faith, anti-vax advocacy has ruined it for the simple, honest, good faith truth seekers. Very unfortunate.

Right or wrong, I think most normal people are a bit skeptical about being asked to take what they were told was a 95% effective vaccine for the fifth time. I wouldn’t call it bad faith.

I don’t know where you live but here in most of Europe, the vaccines are barely in the news anymore. When we hear about them it’s usually about the elderly.

Flu shot vaccines are also highly effective and you’re also recommended to take them every year. This hasn’t been a problem ever — if now it suddenly is, then it’s difficult to think that this is the group that “seeks truth and transparency”, rather than the group that seeks to stir conflict and spread bullshit for their own benefit.

Flu vaccines are only effective *if* they guess the strain that breaks out the following winter. Sure, it's an educated and necessary guess (given the necessary lead time for manufacturing and distribution) but it's still a guess.

Cardiovascular disease *continues* to kill and maim (i.e., stroke) more than Covid did and does but *no one* from NIH, CDC, WHO, etc. is in the media every other day saying,"Put down the Coke and fries and go for a long walk...". But now that there's a jab for weight reduction maybe that'll happen. Funny how that is.

Coincidentally, those with excess weight (and associated medical conditions) fared worse against Covid. At yet the weight/cardiovascular pandemic doesn't get a spotlight? Why?

The NIH, CDC, and WHO, along with the media, frequently publish PR that says "put down the coke and fries and go for a long walk". I'm not sure why you're making that claim, as it's demonstrably false.

https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/infographics/diet-and-exercis...

https://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/index.html

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/healthy-die...

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-ac...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/well/move/exercise-diet-d...

And repeated the message on the morning, noon, evening and night news? Over and over and over again? (Hint: Nah).

I have to repeat this so it sinks in...cardiovascular disease killed more and kills more than Covid.

In fact, those suffering from cardiovascular disease were more susceptible to this virus, and will likely fare not-so-well with the next, and the next and the next.

Given the numbers and the risks, the links you listed are token at best when compared to media "blitz" we received *and* continue to receive about Covid. It's not even close.

And regardless, "frequently" !== urgent.

Follow the money friend, follow the money.

Eight years. This circus was already open for business before COVID.

Shouting conspiracy isn’t seeking truth. It’s throwing a tantrum to get out of doing something you don’t want to do.

And calling something a conspiracy theory doesn't make it so simply because someone else told you to do so and you assimilated to that norm simply because you are too intellectually lazy to think thoughts that might make you uncomfortable.

Here's an example:

"...But so far private companies Pfizer and Moderna are the only ones that have succeeded in making them. And both companies have refused to share their patents and their manufacturing know-how..."

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/07/13/1111137...

Now let that sink in...we were told time and again. It's a pandemic (i.e., worldwide) and that a variation in Country X has the potential to kill *everywhere*. But share the technology? To save lives?? Technology the US taxpayer paid for?? No way!

Yeah, no big deal. There weren't that many people living in Brazil anyway.

Or what about the fact long term safety was promised...based on what? A time machine?

Or what about the fact that it was revealed mid-pandemic that those disposable blue masks weren't capable of filtering out things the size of a virus? (Read: They were effectively *useless*) When out of left field Faucci tried to push wearing two masks? Simple question: How could the CDC and a world renown "expert" *not* know that??

I get it. They've manipulated your scarcity brain and its biases and you can't help but to keep blowing the horn for them. But that doesn't make anything outside the dictacted narrative a conspiracy theory. It never has. It never will.

Again: follow the money.

p.s. Cardiovascular disease *continues* to kill and maim (i.e., stroke) more than Covid did and does but *no one* from NIH, CDC, WHO, etc. is in the media every other day saying,"Put down the Coke and fries and go for a long walk...". But now that there's a jab for weight reduction maybe that'll happen. Funny how that is.

Coincidentally, those with excess weight (and associated medical conditions) fared worse against Covid. At yet the weight/cardiovascular pandemic doesn't get a spotlight? Why?

Other way around. It is seeking truth if there is actually a conspiracy. How many so-called "conspiracy theorists" said there was a risk that the shots would alter your DNA, and were then shouted down by people who blindly repeated The Science without engaging with the debate. It's not possible, they said, only uneducated Trump voters could believe that, they said. The Science says the shots can't alter your DNA because mRNA can't do that and anyone who objects should be blasted off the face of the internet, have their bank accounts seized, be forced to take the vaccines to keep their jobs and be prevented from seeing their families.

Only, whoops, mRNA isn't the only thing in the vials, and what is there is the sort of thing that can change your DNA. And the pharma companies must have known that, the regulators turned a blind eye, and testing the vials externally to find out what was in them was forbidden by law (hence why the doctors who blew this open had to test residues from preserved empty vials).

So, yet another win for the so-called conspiracy theorists.

BTW basically everyone has realized this by now. Boosters are still being advertised and promoted but uptake is near zero and Pfizer/Moderna stock prices have disconnected from the rest of the pharma industry, going much lower. Investors are getting worried.

> and what is there is the sort of thing that can change your DNA

How? Describe the mechanism.

The blanket term anti-vaxxer is extremely problematic. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for intelligent people to question the risk-benefit of the coronavirus vaccines without being anti-vaccine in general. They're novel, no long term testing, powerful vested interests, rushed out when society was hysterical, did little to stop transmission, etc. Please stop turning this into more tribal, politicized us vs. them bs.

And do you expect those people to use this information as fodder? Or the idiots?

Is the information correct,because of it is a concern to the scientific community it says something about blind trust "pro-vaxxers" have if long term harm is even higher

I expect different people to use the fact to the limits of their cognitive abilities. And I wouldn't call them all idiots. To me personally, the idiots are the people who don't realize how much propaganda they're being exposed to, and don't realize they've been intentionally trained to conflate doubting one vaccine with doubting all vaccines or science in general.

You’re honestly doing yourself a disservice by using terminology like that. At the time it was a way to generalize a hysterical population in a hysterical time but nowadays, after science has had its time to do it’s thing, multiple studies have come out that have shown there were additional risks with the vaccine itself, also showing it wasn’t everything they had hyped it up to be, and the fact that it was basically forced upon the population as a doomsday cure - people were right to question what was happening.

Now that the dust has settled, people are more willing to come out and say they didn’t take the vaccine or are more honest in their opinions about what happened then, and you would be surprised at the amount of well educated, well respected individuals who decided to wait, or decided to avoid the vaccine but follow all other protocols but were afraid to speak up because of the absolute outrage coming from people who were generalizing everyone as crazy anti-vaxxers.

A functioning democracy needs people who question the official line, even just to stir the conversation. A healthy functioning democracy needs the freedom for people to speak up against, or at least question the official line and during COVID times, we didn’t have that.

Just remember, this us vs them mentality you have in your mind is all fabricated and depending on which “channel” you were tuned in to, all the news was pointed towards hating the other side more. We could all use a reminder to appreciate our many commonalities and not our few differences of our fellow humans.

> multiple studies have come out that have shown there were additional risks with the vaccine itself

Citation?

You're honestly doing yourself a disservice expecting citations for such obvious helpful information gosh

> A functioning democracy needs people who question the official line

But that's not what's going on. What's going on is people questioning logic itself. At the time, we just had no better options, based on the knowledge so far. This being uncomfortable is a far cry from questioning the 'official line', it's just choosing to respond to feeling rather than logic, which is problematic.

Nobodg felt good about Covid and any of it's solutions. They were merely the least worst. Antivaxxers would do well to understand how logical reasoning works, and stop attributing choice, emotion, officialdom, whatnot, where there is none. It's a classic case of projection: because they think so, doesn't mean it's how everyone thinks.

Not doing the logical thing is always inferior thinking and should be recognised as such.

I dunno, hanging on every word from the group of people who’ve been handling AIDS in Africa with little oversight for the past few decades seems pretty illogical. I can now see why their methods may cause a lot distrust.

You can’t sit around arguing about emergency procedures in the middle of an emergency. That’s not democracy, that’s stalling for disaster.

Sort these things out ahead of time. If you have a problem, that’s when to complain. But people couldn’t be arsed, to the point that a certain future felon cancelled the program meant to deal with things like this.

If by people handling Aids in Africa you mean various church groups preaching abstinence (by number the largest group active on the subject), then yes, they indeed require immensely more oversight.

Please stop picking out the factoids from their contexts; you seem to be missing large parts of the picture.

There is a simple and scientific question: does this "leaked" DNA in COVID vaccines have adverse effects? Enough to revise vaccination policies, vaccine purification, or the vaccines themselves?

No people and no methods are relevant, the only enemy to be concerned with is a virus.

For me, the logic went as follows:

The elderly, the sickly, and the obese were the most at risk.

Being young and healthy, the risk to me was negligible.

The covid vaccines did not prevent transmission, so getting jabbed would not help eradicate the virus.

Because of the limited benefits the vaccine would provide to me and its non-sterilizing nature, I decided not to get vaccinated against covid.

In the end I got covid, was sick as a dog for a few days, then I was fine. I'm happy with my decision. But I would never suggest to anyone who got the covid vaccine that they made the wrong decision, it's an individual choice to make.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say: the vaccines did not prevent transmission. Getting a shot makes it less likely for the virus to reproduce in your body, so any aerosoles you emit will have fewer or no virus content, which is precisely how it helps reduce transmission, does it not?

He means 100% prevention.

But what intervention promises that?

I know, I agree. Maybe the media and scientists set expectations too high? Vaccine == Immune? Not sure.

I'm surprised you two are going on like this as if the purpose of vaccination hasn't been to provide immunization.

It's the first time I meet someone that seems to think immunity is binary, not what it AFAIK is: a fraction, usually quite near 100% but never it.

You are fortunate you did not acquire any of the long covid symptoms.

And yes, it turns out that some people have some innate immunity that we were unable to identify early in the pandemic. But nobody knew if they had that or not.

Your rolled some dice and came up lucky.

If you don't want to take the vaccine for the betterment of all then fine, lots of other things you can do to help. Stay home. Mask up. Do more to help stop the spread.

COVID isn't over. And it's because people wouldn't do what was needed to make spaces safe again from such a contagious thing. That is still spreading, disabling, and killing.

I think we’re a little past taking the vaccine being for the betterment of all. Almost everyone I know has had COVID, vaccinated and unvaccinated alike. It may help you get through it easier but the vaccine doesn’t do much to stop the spread. I’ve known two separate families that were all vaccinated and one person brought it home and the rest all got it.

People need to continue their lives. You can’t honestly expect people to “stay home” for 3 years. They need to work, and live. It’s not going away, and nearly everyone has had it by now.

> Almost everyone I know has had COVID

The data certainly leans more towards your experience, but I find that shocking from my own experience. Of the people that I know whether or not they have had it (and obviously knowing positive is easier than negative), only about 50% have had it (and so far I am on the 50% that has not yet tested positive).

> the vaccine doesn’t do much to stop the spread

In fact, studies have shown that vaccines (as well as prior infection) does reduce, but not eliminate, the likelihood of infecting others.

One example: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2022/12/424546/covid-19-vaccines-p...

> Vaccinated residents with breakthrough infections were significantly less likely to transmit them: 28% versus 36% for those who were unvaccinated. But the likelihood of transmission grew by 6% for every five weeks that passed since someone’s last vaccine shot.

Excuse me if I'm not wowed. As annoying as anti-vaxers as a whole are, the other side where the vaccines are viewed as an absolute panacea might've actually made us even worse off. I feel like there wasn't much of a political push to get better vaccines made because that would be admitting what we have isn't that great.