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Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

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Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#211

Post by Jemaclus »

bitL wrote: post #122

I am eagerly awaiting my vaccine, however we are all alpha/beta testers. A real concern is about safety of those vaccines as typically they require ~3 years of testing and a single fatality aborts their use. Would you give alpha version to people you love? Why is this concern downplayed? I understand statistics but we have no clue what could go wrong in an early version of a new technology and no data on long-term im…

> I am eagerly awaiting my vaccine, however we are all alpha/beta testers. A real concern is about safety of those vaccines as typically they require ~3 years of testing and a single fatality aborts their use.

I wouldn't say alpha testers and probably not even beta testers. They did clinical trials for these vaccines in 2020 with tens of thousands of volunteers long before these were approved by the FDA and other regulatory bodies! And as I will explain in a second, these clinical trial patients were actually more like beta testers than alpha testers.

The short version is that mRNA vaccines have been around for ~40 years with pretty well identified side-effects and risk profiles. The use of an mRNA vaccine for COVID is a new application of existing technology. One comparison might be the flu vaccine. You get an annual flu vaccine that has Another comparison for the HN crowd might be that it's more like the difference between the iOS 14 and iOS 15. That is, the vast majority of the OS hasn't changed that much and has been thoroughly tested, and most of the testing is focused on the new features/major changes. You don't need 5 years of testing to uncover every bug in iOS 15 -- one year should be plenty to find the major offenders. When Apple releases iOS 15, they do so basically saying "based on our testing, this is stable enough to be a benefit to >99% of our users and we think you would be best served by upgrading from iOS 14 to iOS 15." They are not promising no bugs at all, but rather saying that the major vulnerabilities and side effects have been patched/mitigated. Similarly, the pharmaceutical companies and the regulatory bodies like the FDA are suggesting "this is safe and effective, with the risk of side effects A, B, C, D..."

(Source: my wife is a microbiologist who works on vaccines for pharma companies)

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#212

Post by gccsvv »

stavros wrote: post #145
swader999 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with the push for vaccine passports. Really gets my fur up and question why the need for heavy hands.

Because people who are in the ICU because they refuse to get vaccinated are costing the taxpayer a shitload of money. I'd be all for "you can stay unvaccinated if you like, but you won't get an ICU bed if you get severe COVID", but that's a heavier hand than a passport.

What about the giant portion of overweight Americans? Should we forcibly restrict their calorie intake?

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#213

Post by jfkgktjjj »

outworlder wrote: post #120
losvedir wrote: post #55

I'm vaccinated but I think it's hindsight bias to say the mRNA vaccines are obviously safe. We had to wait for clinical trials to show that. There has been a great deal of research and development on the delivery of the mRNA, what kind of molecule to wrap it in, for example. Additionally, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but with e.g. the Spanish Flu, the morbidity was not from the flu, per se, but the immune res…

> If that's the case, could the proteins coded by the mRNA potentially have kicked off such a response? Why would they? And more specifically, why would they cause lung issues? Because that's the main problem with COVID. The virus like to bind to cells that have a specific receptors, with the vast majority contained in lung tissue. You would expect to see major damage near the injection site if your cytokine storm th…

> If there is a mechanism that will cause side effects on mRNA vaccines, then such mechanism will also be presented in the virus.

You're forgetting about the lipids the vaccine mRNA is put into.

One big reason it took so long to create mRNA vaccines was finding a suitable lipid mix. They need to have a specific property, they need to be electrically charged in a certain way, and pretty much all lipids with that property are extremely toxic.

The equivalent lipids in the virus don't have this problem because they come from the human cell membrane and they use the spike protein to fuse. Since the vaccine doesn't have a spike protein, it needs that special charge property to be able to spill it's mRNA.

The question now is, if it took sooo long to find those lipids, just what the safety margin on them is?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27433582/

https://cen.acs.org/pharmaceuticals/drug-delivery/Without-li...

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#214

Post by blfr »

stavros wrote: post #145
swader999 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same with the push for vaccine passports. Really gets my fur up and question why the need for heavy hands.

Because people who are in the ICU because they refuse to get vaccinated are costing the taxpayer a shitload of money. I'd be all for "you can stay unvaccinated if you like, but you won't get an ICU bed if you get severe COVID", but that's a heavier hand than a passport.

That's ridiculous. We don't expect people to get flu vaccines before extending medical care. We don't even expect basic sexual hygiene and extend extremely expensive HIV treatments to people who have tempted fate much, much more seriously than skipping a vaccince.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#215

Post by notatoad »

macksd wrote: post #15

Absolutely agree with everything Linus says here. But I'm almost equally concerned that there's an awful lot of people on the pro-science bandwagon who don't actually support science, but simply don't tolerate dissent or questioning, and that's unscientific and potentially harmful too. I scanned most of the Pfizer trial and was wondering why we expected the immunity after the vaccine to last longer than natural immun…

If you have academic curiosity about that vaccines that's fine, but it is irresponsible to be voicing that in a way that could discourage people from getting a vaccine in the middle of a global health emergency.

Qualified people agree that the vaccines save lives. People should get them. Unqualified people expressing their curiosity about the details is something like the guy in the backseat of a crashing car loudly wondering how brakes work. It's an interesting question, but now is not the time for it. If you aren't helping, keep it to yourself. And if you don't have any relevant knowledge or background in a related field, you should assume you aren't helping.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#216

Post by Blikkentrekker »

walrus01 wrote: post #138
IvyMike wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a LOT of anti-vaxxers who disingenuously couch their advocacy as "I'm only asking questions". It's no surprise when you've seen a 10:1 ratio of bad actors to good (or worse), one might get a little exasperated. In any case, I've recently been reading Lauren Sompayrac's "How the Immune System Works", and it's a technical overview of the immune system. It's not going to make you into a full blown immunologist…

> There are a LOT of anti-vaxxers who disingenuously couch their advocacy as "I'm only asking questions" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealioning

One of the thousand unfalsifiable “troll” accusations.

There is no way to differentiate a troll from either a fool, an extremist, or simply one who happens to not share the opinion of the reader.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#218

Post by cnq102 »

CompMan411 wrote: post #114
gameswithgo wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

9 out of 10 times when someone claims people have been dogmatically unwilling to consider ideas that run counter to scientific establishment, those people were just responding to profoundly insane anti-science ideas (earth is flat, covid is fake,global warming is just the sun etc). Their responses may seem glib, because they don't feel the ideas are deserving of serious discussion, but usually they understand things…

Let’s not forget microchip tracking and Jewish globalist overlords.

Originally it was about storing the vaccination history on the person's skin:

https://news.mit.edu/2019/storing-vaccine-history-skin-1218

Who turned that into microchips? Either the anti-vaxxers or people who want to discredit the anti-vaxxers.

In any case, the original idea is repulsive enough.

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#219

Post by haswell »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #178
zamalek wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The mRNA in this case has chromosomes that cannot be replicated by nature. You might try researching the mRNA vaccine.

This is very wrong. You mean nucleotides, not chromosomes – but they don't need to be replicated, so long as the codons are. The custom not-found-in-nature nucleotide is equivalent to a natural one, for all purposes except being detected by the immune system. The mRNA is at no point transcribed into DNA. I think this is what you meant – but it might help if you researched the mRNA vaccine before posting internet comm…

I don't really understand the science here, so I'm hoping you'll clarify for the lay-people like me.

Setting the technical issues aside, what's the bottom line? I think OP's general point was: "This is not dangerous in the way some people believe it to be dangerous".

Do any of your corrections change that outcome/conclusion in a meaningful way?

(I'm not asking to call your comment into question, but because I don't know how to adapt my understanding based on these two comments).

Re: Linus Torvalds on mRNA Vaccines

#220

Post by H8crilA »

cblconfederate wrote: post #191

Even the term antivaxxer in this case is divisive and kind of presupposes that everyone should be a provaccer. Since we are not going for herd immunity, everyone should assees their own chances before making an informed decision, which in the vast majority of cases will be to vaccinate themselves. But there are specific sideeffects in specific groups that have been documented

Uh, we're definitely going for herd immunity. The bar for that is actually quite close to being met in some countries, including the US (if you combine past infections and vaccinated people).
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