Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise

news.ubc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 533 posts

Re: Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise 

#421

Post by estearum »

qsera wrote: post #405
estearum wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is absolutely good enough lol. We have effective statistical certainty in the results. Tell me: how do you know the food you eat is safe? How about the water? The air? Do you take any other medicines? All of those are less well-understood than the COVID vaccines.

> We have effective statistical certainty in the results. Only if you blindly trust the entities that is doing the studies. Seriously, I am not sure how anyone with a couple of brain cells between their ears can do that. >Tell me: how do you know the food you eat is safe? How about the water? The air? I don't. But one don't have a choice. But for other things, one certainly do.

No, you really don't need to "blindly trust" the entities doing the studies.

I work in clinical trials. I know how they work. You do not.

Re: Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise 

#423

Post by estearum »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #418
estearum wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the required data is shared. Please identify what pieces of data are missing for what specific drugs/trials.

Find me a Public health commercial or flyer that links to the VAERS/AEMS/MDR database? Can you find one that even links to the trial results?

VAERS is a super early signal self-reported database, why on earth would anyone link to it for public consumption? Should they also link to reddit.com/r/hypochondriac? VAERS should exist and researcher should (and do) pay attention to it, but it's absolutely not anything close to an actual source of actual information.

Trial results, yes, the literal vaccine recommendation bulletins link to their backing data: https://www.cdc.gov/acip/grade/covid-19-pfizer-biontech-vacc...

Re: Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise 

#424

Post by whimsicalism »

atomicUpdate wrote: post #245
qsera wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All of the Covid deaths around me in the last couple years (7 deaths) Where exactly is this?

Apparently they live in a nursing home in 2020 still, because no one else is dying of covid anymore. Especially not young or healthy people within the last few years.

im no forever masker or anything, but this is false. we just now have to live with a slightly elevated death rate due to covid

Re: Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise 

#425

Post by Henchman21 »

ethbr1 wrote: post #374
xboxnolifes wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the point of science/health communication sources is to communicate . People aren't going to spend an afternoon figuring out where to find medical trial results, learn how to read them with a bunch of unknown terms, and form a risk tolerance analysis. I know this. You know this. Everyone know this. The health and science communicators must improve how they communicate with the public.

Hence things like the US FDA's major statement / CCN standards: https://www.fda.gov/media/184312/download Providing accurate-in-effect summarized information is a difficult balance to strike. Ultimately though, if people really care, they should be parsing through study results.

> Ultimately though, if people really care, they should be parsing through study results

Absolutely hate this framing. I care but I don’t have the requisite education to understand what I’m reading. I need it explained by someone who has taken up that specialization.

But to say that because I have walked another path in life that I don’t care?!? Because I have chosen a different specialization?? Deeply insulting AND untrue AND unrealistic. Our society is based on specialization at this point. If we cannot rely on each other for these basic communication tasks, then society must be dead, eh?

Re: Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise 

#426

Post by ethbr1 »

Schiendelman wrote: post #417
ethbr1 wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the recent (Tuesday) Supreme Court overturning of Humphreys Executor^ is that it makes Congressionally-intended independent regulatory agencies (read: FDA) much more behold-to and controllable-by any current President. Which turns "fixing the regulator to use facts" back into "convincing enough people to elect a President who believes in the scientific method." ^ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphre…

If you're already at the point of thinking about national politics, you won't have an impact. If your goal is to get more people vaccinated, the best thing you can do is going to be local. Funding or volunteering at free vaccination drives. Getting vaccination science into your local school curriculum early. Asking your local health department what they are struggling with.

Yes and...

It's important, if one is able, to also push towards supporting a regulatory process that allows vaccines to be researched, productized, tested, approved, and covered by insurers.

All of which the current US administration is actively trying to attack.

I'm normally on the side of Trump et al. simply being incompetent or stupid, but the anti-vax campaign by RFK Jr. at HHS is 100% targeted and coordinated at decreasing by any means available the public's ability to access vaccines.

It's more akin to religion for those anti-science fuckers. (The ends justify any means)

Re: Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise 

#427

Post by ethbr1 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #414
ethbr1 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence things like the US FDA's major statement / CCN standards: https://www.fda.gov/media/184312/download Providing accurate-in-effect summarized information is a difficult balance to strike. Ultimately though, if people really care, they should be parsing through study results.

Are government officials, like goveners or their health departments held to similar standards? I think this was the direction of their desire.

Yes. That's the entire multi-stage FDA approval process, including in EUA cases.

Re: Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise 

#428

Post by ethbr1 »

Henchman21 wrote: post #425
ethbr1 wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence things like the US FDA's major statement / CCN standards: https://www.fda.gov/media/184312/download Providing accurate-in-effect summarized information is a difficult balance to strike. Ultimately though, if people really care, they should be parsing through study results.

> Ultimately though, if people really care, they should be parsing through study results Absolutely hate this framing. I care but I don’t have the requisite education to understand what I’m reading. I need it explained by someone who has taken up that specialization. But to say that because I have walked another path in life that I don’t care ?!? Because I have chosen a different specialization?? Deeply insulting AND…

Turn that around: you're asking for someone to make something understandable to you despite your not having the background to make an informed decision.

That process, by definition, in the perfect case, includes someone summarizing/simplifying concepts.

And that process is extremely difficult to do without bias, summarization being an information-loss activity, etc.

So essentially, you're asking for an impossible standard of communication.

Additionally, I'd point out that the basics^ of biology, immunology, pathology, and epidemiology aren't that complicated, if you're a reasonably intelligent person.

Grasping the basics of mRNA transcription, viral fragment encoding, immune system functioning, and the purpose and effects of various common vaccine adjuvants is ~20 hours of internet research.

Which is one of the reasons it really gets my goat when so many anti-vaccine folks appear not to have made any educational effort before crystalizing their loud opinions.

^ As distinct from the details, which require a lifetime to comprehend

Re: Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise 

#429

Post by trimethylpurine »

cogman10 wrote: post #409
trimethylpurine wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point being made here is that the risk decision should be up to the recipient of the treatment.

It always is. Nobody was forced to take the vaccine and when these first rolled out there was a brochure of potential side effects.

For many, they could choose to lose their jobs and let their families go hungry, tantamount to being forced.

Re: Global review confirms mRNA vaccines are safe, effective and full of promise 

#430

Post by trimethylpurine »

tuesdaynight wrote: post #370
croon wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Norwegian study landed on 4.5 cases per 100k from vaccinations [0]. Unvaccinated occurance was 200 per 100k [1]. [0] https://www.oslo-universitetssykehus.no/en/departments/hjert... [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38262150/

It's so sad to see that you are the first one with any kind of source in your comment. The rest are only saying scary stuff and you are supposed to argue with that. They are saying stuff like "my friend died because of the jab" and you come with studies links, which can sound unfriendly. And we are on HN, for fuck's sake.

The articles are fantastic, it's the unscientific claim that the data implies safety that's at issue. You can't post research about the fact that people misinterpret research right? But it's factually true. Most of the people on HN are not trained in doing or reviewing research. And not just on HN. Everyone can purchase an ad that claims to be the arbiter. Everyone can say they represent the consensus.

But the people with more money can buy more ads just like Google can stomp out any competitor, because they control the data channel.

It's a logical problem. Should we start requiring a license to hold an opinion about research? Who would we trust to govern that licensing process?

It's not really so simple as finding a source to back your claim. You need to be able to defend your interpretation of that source.

Bottom line "safety" is subjective. That's the critical argument. Compared to what is it safe?

Vaccine with a guarantee of infection, maybe the vaccine is safer.

Vaccinating everyone? Well, we didn't really study that. How do you study people in larger numbers with a guarantee that they don't get infected?

They didn't. They just assume everyone is infected and that number makes the research look valid and safe.

In fact, it's not.

The average person is more likely to have negative outcomes from vaccine than natural infection combined with non-infection.

So is it safe for someone who won't be infected at all? What about for someone that won't exhibit symptoms?

No. It's far less safe for those people.

300x-30,000x less safe. Depends on your estimation of asymptomatic and uninfected subjects in the real world.

It's more safe for someone in their 70s, with cancer, or whatever. Fine. But say that clearly. Don't try to bury that in summaries that obfuscate what you really studied.

Doing so destroys trust in science.

Not advocating for or against this vaccine platform, though. I'm advocating for laws about what meets and doesn't meet scientific rigor, as are most scientists right now.

Post reply on HN