> Didn't the J&J vaccine use a more traditional approach? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janssen_COVID-19_vaccine

Not really. This was the first widely deployed modified adenovirus vaccine. Not the first developed, but if I'm remembering correctly, none of the others made it out of trials.

> This seems like a ridiculous thing to say; both useless _and_ damaging? Even if one of these things were true, they can't _both_ be true.

Of course they can: useless at preventing disease, damaging to the social development of children.

> Minimizing the spread of covid.

Did it?

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed

The result: injections sold as vaccines that don't do what you expect a vaccine to do: stop transmission.

> Also, people tried repurposing drugs (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin#COVID-19).

Individuals did, not the government, and the former were punished by the latter for it.

"noun 1. a substance used to stimulate immunity to a particular infectious disease or pathogen"

Vaccines activate immunity against specific pathogens, reducing infection severity and transmission risk. COVID-19 vaccines decrease disease severity and transmission probability.

This whole thing of "they arent vaccines" is bologna and everyone knows it

With such a broad definition, sneezing on somebody would be considered vaccination.

This is actually not too far off from how rudimentary vaccines work.

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

"Vaccine" is actually a pretty broad term and loses usefulness in these conversations outside of its use as a rhetorical tool. Yes MRNA vaccines are vaccines and yes they are different from other types of vaccine such as Live-attenuated vaccines, conjugate vaccines and others.

They're also by design inferior to other vaccines since they only target one specific antigen, rendering them useless very quickly against highly mutagenic viruses (like coronaviruses).

The quick adaptability of mRNA vaccines to new variants is a key advantage, not a weakness.

Their rapid development and adaptability make them probably the best type of vaccine for fighting quickly mutating viruses. This is shown by the rapidity and relative ease of development and deployment of bivalent vaccines. mRNA vaccines are one of the great technological triumphs of the American industry and science apparatus.