US cancels funding for Moderna bird flu vaccine • Hacker News Board

Re: US cancels funding for Moderna bird flu vaccine

#81

Post by immibis » Sat, May 31, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

nailer wrote: post #36

jghn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First they were supposed to prevent COVID This was never the case. That's not how vaccines work. > There were tons of surprise side effects especially relating to women’s periods getting screwed up. citation from an actual health study that this actually caused health risks? > when children were not in any serious danger. Again, citation needed? > Anyone who investigated the origin story became spontaneously racist…

> > First they were supposed to prevent COVID > This was never the case. That's not how vaccines work. Vaccines aren't supposed to prevent disease? That's a very bold claim - what are your supporting arguments?

The reality is that the process is meant to look like this:

1. Give the vaccine to everyone. 2. The disease goes away.

There's nothing deeper - they're not "meant" to make any individual stop having symptoms or stop spreading or whatever. They were just "meant" to make the disease go away, and before COVID, we'd never really looked at it in more detail than that.

Re: US cancels funding for Moderna bird flu vaccine

#82

Post by ethbr1 » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 3:18 AM UTC

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #71

ethbr1 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vaccine skepticism (and the broader medical skepticism) is a weird one though. Because it's patently counterproductive -- modern medical science saves lives. So what you really have is a bunch of people getting riled up about something because they don't currently need it, then making dumb choices at critical moments, then denying their actions caused consequences if they have bad luck. A partner was a critical care…

> Vaccine skepticism (and the broader medical skepticism) is a weird one though. I don't think we have effective language to talk about this stuff. You saying "vaccine skepticism" (or the real boogey man, anti-vaxxer) could mean anything from person who thinks the Jews are injecting microchips into us all, all the way to a person who has gotten all sorts of vaccines except for specifically the mRNA ones. Obviously, t…

By vaccine skepticism, I mean biologically-ignorant people who latch onto vaccines as their cause du jour.

Yes, there are educated people and educated reasons to be skeptical of vaccines.

But in practice, at least in America, that represents a small portion of the entire vaccine skeptical community.

Skeptical seems an accurate description too, as most of them couch their beliefs in "Well, I'm just asking the question"ism.

Through and through anti-vaccine people are a smaller group.

Re: US cancels funding for Moderna bird flu vaccine

#83

Post by ethbr1 » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 3:23 AM UTC

Izkata wrote: post #68

ethbr1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I wish was more understood in anti-mRNA vaccine circles was how mRNA vaccines work vs traditional vaccine platforms. Personally, I feel safer taking mRNA vaccines. (And definitely an apples-to-apples novel mRNA vs traditional vaccine!) Simpler and consumed, so fewer chances for things to go wrong via adverse immune system reactions.

> The thing I wish was more understood in anti-mRNA vaccine circles was how mRNA vaccines work vs traditional vaccine platforms. My experience actually looking at these groups is they did understand it better than most. The various studies people are pulling up in this thread today, showing more research is needed? They were sharing and talking about similar studies in 2021 and 2022 during the period everyone else wa…

HN isn't representative of the general population.

Very few people who I talked to outside of HN could give me a coherent definition of a randomized controlled trial.

I'm all for people being curious, but the catch in modern society is that people also need to be honest about their own ignorance.

Because faux curiosity being used to mask discomfort in ignorance is a recipe for bad outcomes.

Re: US cancels funding for Moderna bird flu vaccine

#84

Post by ifyoubuildit » Tue, Jun 03, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #82

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vaccine skepticism (and the broader medical skepticism) is a weird one though. I don't think we have effective language to talk about this stuff. You saying "vaccine skepticism" (or the real boogey man, anti-vaxxer) could mean anything from person who thinks the Jews are injecting microchips into us all, all the way to a person who has gotten all sorts of vaccines except for specifically the mRNA ones. Obviously, t…

By vaccine skepticism, I mean biologically-ignorant people who latch onto vaccines as their cause du jour. Yes, there are educated people and educated reasons to be skeptical of vaccines. But in practice, at least in America, that represents a small portion of the entire vaccine skeptical community. Skeptical seems an accurate description too, as most of them couch their beliefs in "Well, I'm just asking the question…

> biologically-ignorant people

What does this mean? People who don't know a lot about biology? That's effectively everyone who isn't a biologist (and probably even some who are), which is effectively everyone.

> who latch onto vaccines as their cause du jour

That sounds like more than skepticism to me.

> But in practice, at least in America, that represents a small portion of the entire vaccine skeptical community.

I have no way of evaluating whether this is true beyond gut feelings. Do you?