It's very easy to believe that pharmaceutical companies employ scientists to disclaim danger. But that fact alone doesn't mean that pharmaceuticals are dangerous. We use research and evidence to make decisions about how dangerous a given product is, and we weight that against its benefits.
The same is true for any industry. I would add to your list of examples cars and social media. You will note that we continue to use cars, despite the fact that a world without cars would be safer.
I'm amazed at the bristling when the possibility that vaccines are dangerous is brought up. As it relates to your car analogy - can you imagine someone reacting similarly to the claim that cars are dangerous, car manufacturers know this and downplay it, and they could possibly be made safer?
Despite this, we are faced with this incredible resistance to them. People want to take this stuff away from us. This would kill millions. There is no legitimate reason to bring up the possibility that vaccines are dangerous anymore. Anyone who does so is either ignorant or malicious. Either way, doing your helps the people who would kill millions if they got their way.
Is it really a surprise that people bristle when you take the side of megadeaths?
This is where you're confused.
I'm not here making some big claims, adding to the body of human knowledge about how vaccines are actually bad.
I've mentioned many times that I think vaccines are a net positive, and don't want them discontinued. I myself am 3x vaccinated against covid (all mRNA), and will continue to get vaccinated in the future.
By simply mentioning skepticism in pharmaceutical companies' claims that vaccines are safe, even though we all acknowledge the dire financial incentives by which they propagate such claims, I have induced zealous attacks rivaled only by the most fundamentalist theologians.
I guess I have answered my own initial question (flagged into a memory hole) - people have adopted these beliefs in the same way that others adopt religion, and any attack on the belief is interpreted as a personal attack. The amount of ad hominems levied against me on this post here are incredible - childish, bad faith, burner account, and so on.
I remain curious and intellectually honest, I don't fault you or anyone else for their beliefs - only the way you treat others when they dare question them.
“By simply mentioning skepticism” in the face of massive evidence to the contrary, you are supporting people who want to get millions killed.
You don’t have to believe Big Pharma. There’s plenty of independent evidence that vaccines are safe.
Frankly you just come off as a self righteous asshole. Telling me my questioning isn't valid and I'm doing some shtick, I'm just here to shitpost and support RFK and want people to die. None of that is true. And you haven't done one bit of good in convincing me to not be skeptical.
Best of luck to you. My advice is: work on the way you interact with people, with a good smattering of luck you might be able to effect positive change in the world.
If you meet an asshole, they’re an asshole. If everyone you meet is an asshole, it might be you.
You are mentioning your skepticism without any evidence or any valid reason to question the existing mountain of evidence in favor of their safety and efficacy. This makes it very hard to take your claims of sincerity seriously. Yours is a ploy that is often used to call into question established facts.
For example, the oil industry loves to prop up puppets who, in bad faith, "just ask questions" of the type: "How do we know that fossil fuels really contribute to global warming? Did you know that carbon dioxide is actually really good for plants? Don't you want the weather to be a little bit warmer? Why are you believing all of the anti-oil propaganda created by big-budget climate scientists?" All of these points are easily debunked, of course, and the fact that the speaker pretends to not already know their answers is evidence that their questions are not sincere, but rather an attempt to spread misinformation.
As the other poster has already said: if you have a sincere question about vaccines, great. But in practice, the questions you're asking have already been answered. The only plausible explanation for your continued pretenses of skepticism is that you have some other agenda.
How do you think people should respond when presented with opposition to widely used, safe, effective, life-saving medications, when that opposition is completely unfounded on evidence? "Bristling" seem an appropriate response.
People would probably respond similarly if you proposed, say, to ban plumbing systems.
Beautiful strawman, bravo.
Fyi, that's not a strawman. A strawman fallacy is when I refute an argument that you didn't make. The line you responded to is an analogy.
Funny how it's always new accounts coming along with postures of extreme worldly wisdom about corporate malfeasance or misaligned incentives, but displaying complete cluelessness about the manifold institutional responses and copious public health statistics that are equally relevant. Why should I take you seriously when you only apply your critical faculties to one side of the picture and studiously ignore the other half?
I don’t say this just to be snarky, but many of us are grateful for this medical miracle, and are more likely to forgive those scientists and not be happy with anyone working on tobacco.
That's not the question I asked though.
The opposite is true of tobacco etc.
That doesn't mean there aren't dangers to vaccines, or that they could be made safer, or, that the pharmaceutical industry is complicit in masking the dangers.
I just don’t trust RFK Jr to be the person to tell us about vaccine safety. I’d personally need some pretty convincing evidence to change my mind.
For example he holds on to long debunked claims about vaccines and autism that have been repeatedly studied and refuted.
https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/safety-availabi...
There are many examples if you're willing to look.
> a post-approval U.S. studyExternal Link Disclaimer funded and co-authored by FDA and published in September 2024
So we believe it now because it was done under Biden's admin?
It's best not to make arguments from genetic fallacy when they don't actually support your claim.
This exact fact was downplayed by both Pfizer and Moderna during Operation Warp Speed (oh no, that was under Trump so can we trust it?).
A genuine desire to understand reality would lead you to examine this incongruence.
None the less:
Long-term follow-up data from a new NCIRS study have revealed low hospitalisation rates, improved health-related quality of life over time and no deaths among individuals with myocarditis associated with mRNA COVID-19 vaccination who were followed up over 18 months following their diagnosis.
‘This is the longest and most comprehensive prospective follow-up study of individuals diagnosed with myocarditis following mRNA COVID-19 vaccination to date that includes direct assessment of the individuals’ clinical progression and health-related quality of life.’
‘Our study suggests that while a proportion of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine-associated myocarditis cases remained symptomatic at 12–18 months, they were clinically mild compared with myocarditis caused by viral infections – including SARS-CoV-2 – and the subsequent impact on health-related quality of life was also mild,’ concluded Dr Deng.
From Australia, a country of ~ 25 million where ~ 98% of the population were triple vaccinated for COVID with pre-existing comprehensive population wide medical records going back to at least the 1970s.
Despite the "flood" of vaccine there was no significant increase of myocarditis in the population before | after mass vaccination.
A genuine desire to understand reality would lead you to examine this incongruence.
I don't have blind faith in big pharma, I don't know anyone who does.
I do trust the epidemiologists I've personally met and worked with, I do see the many separate and independent studies across multiple countries that all conclude mRNA myocardial risk is real but minor, not deadly if addressed, and associated with one class of mRNA vaccine (not all), and conclude that vaccine risk is less than no vaccine risk.
Given Australia ceased using the specific mRNA vaccine that demonstrated a correlation with a very slight increase in hospitalization is moot in any case.
Anything credible that refutes their position inevitably results in them claiming that nothing has been proven and that more research is required. It's clearly bad faith and obvious that there is no amount of evidence that will close the book on the subject for them.
It's all just exhausting, and if it wasn't for the growing outbreaks of preventable diseases I would encourage people to break the cycle and stop arguing with them.
What is more likely,
(1) the scientists/doctors in the world genuinely believe vaccines are safe AND we see in front of our own eyes routine, safe vaccination. The odd medical issue that happens at the same time is actually mostly coincidence - autism is often diagnosed at the same age that routine childhood vaccination happens.
Or
(2) these scientists are all in cahoots with Big Pharma and a disease happening rarely at the same age as vaccination is NOT coincidental. All the supposed vaccine safety boards that try to find safety issues are corrupt and we can’t trust them.
Add to (2) oh but we can trust this guy over here RFK Jr.
My prior would be (1) and I would need a lot of evidence to move to 2.
I think a lot of people fall for the Cynical Genius illusion where non trusting people look smarter
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/trust-games/202111/t...
The weird thing for me reading this is that I have never, ever defaulted to assuming that cynical people are smart(er). I grew up reading WIRED cover to cover, back when that meant something, and if anything I was slightly on the side of naive optimism so I tend to perceive cynics as having an unsettling vibe.
Anyhow, I feel like your hot take is generally reasonable. I have very little patience for people who say "question everything" but in reality they only seem to question things that tend to have fringe conferences in airport hotels. Again: exhausting, and the older I get, the more inclined I am to just let them die of dysentery on the trail.
Pharma companies behaving like tobacco companies does not imply that vaccines are dangerous and should be withdrawn. Those are two separate questions. Thinking vaccines are amazing lifesaving inventions doesn’t imply thinking pharma companies are saints.
I don't think I said that anywhere, did I?
Also, describing anyone supportive of modern medicine as “pharmacist sympathizers” is reflective of quite a bit of bias of your own, no?
I’d be somewhat more amenable to the idea that the pharma corps were the bad guy here, I think my post history shows I’m solidly anti corporate, but I can’t get past all the logical inconsistencies and errors in the anti vax crowds side.
Like look at RFKs critique here. The study was on weather or not vaccines cause autism in children. RFK critiqued this because they excluded dead children who were the “most likely to be harmed”(paraphrase).
That is a logical error, he’s complaining that the study didn’t study things the study wasn’t studying. Why am I supposed to take people seriously when the bedrock of their arguments are ludicrous?
> The exclusion included all children who died before age two, those diagnosed early with respiratory conditions, and an astonishing 34,547 children — 2.8% of the study population — whose vaccination records showed the highest aluminum exposure levels.
> ... The authors, without explanation, deemed these high exposures “implausible,” even though those implausibly high exposures are routine for American children who follow the recommended immunization schedule.
I'm not arguing the study should be retracted, but asking why those high exposure children were excluded seems reasonable. Also, the children who died presumably died at some point after receiving vaccinations. Excluding them entirely seems like it could miss potential harm and seems relevant to the studies purpose of links to chronic disease.
I agree with you that vaccines are beneficial. It still makes sense to understand the tradeoffs and ask reasonable questions about potential harms.
https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/flawed-science-bought-conclu...
I'm just curious about how many intelligent people take pharma company statements, or conclusions they've paid researchers for, as gospel.
(I'm being rate limited, as you noticed in your other comment. Yes I am here in good faith, no I am not ragebaiting. I don't have permanent accounts on HN to avoid doxxing, thanks for your concern, hope you can drop the ad hominems and focus on the discussion at hand)
Anyway, we’re not taking the pharma company’s word as gospel, that’s why people are looking at scientific studies which can be analyzed and falsified in a reproduction. The alternative in this situation is either doing nothing, in which case what is there to discuss, or taking RFKs word as gospel and he is historically a crank, his argument is logically flawed, and critically, he’s brought no counter evidence or science on his side.
He just doesn’t like the results of the study and wants it to go away
-Asks a question that seems innocuous but could be rage bait
-you ignore thought out responses to your question and respond to the comment taking the rage bait
Ah, you’re just here to cause problems, not discuss in good faith. Have a good day