US cancels funding for Moderna bird flu vaccine

> First they were supposed to prevent COVID. That turned out to not be true,

In fact, the vaccines did a fantastic job at preventing covid's spread. The problem was that they were developed for (and had clinical trial results for) the variant-free covid-classic. By the time they were widely deployed, the virus in circulation was already one of several more-easily-spread variants.

Had covid not mutated into variants, it seems very likely that widespread vaccination would have given us true 'herd immunity'.

> That turned out to not be true, so then they were supposed to lessen the symptoms.

They were also always supposed to do this, by making infection less severe and more easily fought-off. Many vaccines operate this way, including the seasonal flu vaccine.

Remember that until clinical trial results came in, we weren't sure exactly what the vaccine was going to do. Something that "merely" helped keep elderly people alive would have been good enough, and by that standard what we ended up with was a fantastic success.

> Everyone I know who still frequently gets COVID had the shot.

As phrased, you've walked right into selection bias; perhaps those people you know choose to get the booster vaccines because they recognize they're more likely to be exposed to covid.

> There were tons of surprise side effects especially relating to women’s periods getting screwed up.

Treatments have side effects, but for pandemic covid the right comparison was "vaccine plus none-to-mild covid" versus "no vaccine plus unmitigated component."

Infection with covid has plenty of 'side effects', and women frequently report disrupted menstrual cycles from infections.

> The official story was that we were trying to make COVID die out before it mutated again, but to do that would have required vaccinating all animals as well.

As far as I'm aware, every circulating covid variant that we've traced has likely come from mutations inside humans, not zoonotic intermixing.

> Despite the above, there was tremendous pressure from left wing institutions to vaccinate everyone, proving that their values were about pharmaceutical profits instead of my body my choice.

Now you're just being disingenuous. "Left wing institutions" were at the forefront of vaccine equality among nations, arguing strongly for coordinated buying approaches to ensure access to developing nations. If anything, that contributed to early politicization of the vaccine as the counter-reaction was "if this vaccine is so good, we need to have it for ourselves first."

The values involved were simply that of the common/societal good against individualist freedom, the same ones at play in lockdown/distancing rules.

> Anyone who investigated the origin story became spontaneously racist. But then later morality reversed and it was fine.

Note that this has absolutely nothing to do with vaccines.

> Everyone I know who still frequently gets COVID had the shot.

Your observation matches what I'm seeing among the many people I know. One middle-aged man in particular, who's quite active and otherwise healthy, got at least 3 of those shots back then so he could travel overseas. There were at least 2 separate international trips he subsequently went on where he got sick on the way home, tested positive once back, and then needed a week or two to recover. He still tends to get quite sick after trips now, but he ran out of those home tests, so he can't confirm the cause.

  > But Trump's Base decided for Trump about this issue. Trump leads from behind on this one.

1. The base doesn't decide out of thin air, the USA audience have been primed for decades with `government = bad` (anything `social = bad` really). We have evidence of orchestrated anti covid campaigns on Twitter, but the soil was well prepared for it.

2. Trump always leads from behind. He is allowed some personal space and he uses that for personal profiteering. He flip flops on all important issues, policy does not interest him and it is way too difficult for him anyways. He gives public performances when he thinks it buys him respect.

3. If the public stops focusing on Trump's drama, they could regain bandwidth to make a proper analysis. But they need the help of an oligarch owned press, staffed by people who, like the general public, have to unshackle some self-harming beliefs.

You just described working in cyber security. The difference is you're to blame if the disaster happens.

Think of it from this perspective: you made a claim but you don't have data to support it. It's easy for individuals to be prone to false conclusions because we often conflate weak correlations as causation, when often times, randomness is a better explanation, or "not sure if causation".