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FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

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Re: FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

#121

Post by unquietwiki »

_heimdall wrote: post #92
unquietwiki wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think part of why the shots became so controversial, is because the disease adapted anyway. You're basically having to decide on "less bad" vs "roll the dice" when you inevitably get COVID. People were already needing encouragement to get a flu shot; now you need two every 6-12 months? And then you had the whole sidebar discussion of getting Ivermectin, or snake oil silver supplements, or whatever else that was sug…

I can only speak to my experience in the US and Europe during the pandemic, but I didn't feel singled out because people were aware that the virus kept adapting. That was actually one of the key lessons I heard from virologists early on in 2020 - viruses like this tend to mutate quickly and escape vaccine-induced immunity. It wasn't until the vaccines were announced that the story changed and we were being told that…

I think your experience may be different than others. A lot of people are skeptical of, or can't afford, medical interventions in chronic issues and serious illness. You had anti-vaxxers posting stuff like how the shot was going to make you sterile, or even kill you disproportionately to the virus itself. Your research sounds higher-quality than what most folks even bothered with, and that makes room for the mockery you pointed out.

Re: FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

#122

Post by lossolo »

_heimdall wrote: post #117
throw0101c wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They may even go one step deeper and believe the vaccines aren't proven properly to know whether they work well enough. They may even go further still and claim that the shot causes the flu—like RFK recently did with measles: > Kennedy claimed the outbreak was likely caused by vaccines — contrary to evidence that showed low vaccination rates as the culprit. The false theory seems to stem from a misreading of a Cali…

> They may even go further still and claim that the shot causes the flu If by "the flu" you're referring to the disease rather than a specific pathogen, a vaccine can cause the flu. Its common for vaccines to cause symptoms similar to the pathogen, though those symptoms are usually more mild. Think about it for a second. A vaccine is meant to induce an immune response to allow the body to learn the pathogen before a…

A flu vaccine cannot "cause the flu". It can mimic an immune response similar to the flu, but this response is much weaker than what occurs during an actual infection, where a live pathogen is actively spreading and causing harm. The flu vaccine contains an inactivated ('dead') virus or a component of the virus, meaning it cannot replicate or cause illness in the way a live virus does.

Re: FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

#123

Post by _heimdall »

lossolo wrote: post #122
_heimdall wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They may even go further still and claim that the shot causes the flu If by "the flu" you're referring to the disease rather than a specific pathogen, a vaccine can cause the flu. Its common for vaccines to cause symptoms similar to the pathogen, though those symptoms are usually more mild. Think about it for a second. A vaccine is meant to induce an immune response to allow the body to learn the pathogen before a…

A flu vaccine cannot "cause the flu". It can mimic an immune response similar to the flu, but this response is much weaker than what occurs during an actual infection, where a live pathogen is actively spreading and causing harm. The flu vaccine contains an inactivated ('dead') virus or a component of the virus, meaning it cannot replicate or cause illness in the way a live virus does.

The assumption I started my last comment with is extremely important. I'm assuming we are referring to "the flu" as the disease not the influenza virus itself.

Disease is just a named collection of symptoms, that it. A vaccine absolutely can cause those symptoms, and when they occur together it would meet the definition of the disease. That obviously doesn't mean the vaccine caused an influence infection.

Few disease definitions actually take into account severity of symptoms. There are some examples where we have two named diseases where one is distinguished only by being more severe, but unless I'm missing something the flu doesn't fit into that category.

Re: FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

#124

Post by dekhn »

cantrecallmypwd wrote: post #107
dekhn wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no strategy here except to disempower the establishment.

They are the establishment. The goal is destruction of government for tax breaks.

No, Trump etc are not the establishment. They are effectively a foreign invader that the immune system of the establishment wants to evict. But we've reached cordyceps levels of infection at this point.

If you want to see the establishment's viewpoints, read the NY Times (the news articles, and analysis, but not the op-eds).

Re: FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

#125

Post by red-iron-pine »

dekhn wrote: post #124
cantrecallmypwd wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are the establishment. The goal is destruction of government for tax breaks.

No, Trump etc are not the establishment. They are effectively a foreign invader that the immune system of the establishment wants to evict. But we've reached cordyceps levels of infection at this point. If you want to see the establishment's viewpoints, read the NY Times (the news articles, and analysis, but not the op-eds).

the GOP has been pulling for this since the HW Bush era.

dismantling the Dept of Education, reducing spending across all areas, reducing government involvement in healthcare -- take a look at the Fortune 100 list and see how many healthcare companies are in the top ranks -- have been top priorities for decades.

they're just saying the quiet part loud now, and acting on it.

Re: FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

#126

Post by _heimdall »

fabian2k wrote: post #112
_heimdall wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this meeting is cancelled, we would expect the vaccine to be less effective and would see greater impact (simply because it wasn't tailored to the be the most likely effective vaccine), but due to all the variables I mentioned it could even appear that "things got better after we did this" (post hoc ergo propter hoc). There is an alternative here - a population left to fight an outbreak through natural immunity…

We know how many people died before we had vaccines, especially children. There is no argument here. We eradicated or almost eradicated a whole bunch of terrible diseases with vaccines. What you're proposing here is simply murder. We know what would happen, many more people would die.

> Measles mortality fell markedly (>90%) from the 19th century to mid-20th century prior to introduction of measles vaccine or the widespread use of antibiotics for secondary bacterial infections [1][2] This story is similar for most infections we now vaccinate for, death rates were dropping dramatically years before vaccines were introduced.

[1] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-inf... [2] https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Measles+mort...

Re: FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

#127

Post by _heimdall »

fabian2k wrote: post #112
_heimdall wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If this meeting is cancelled, we would expect the vaccine to be less effective and would see greater impact (simply because it wasn't tailored to the be the most likely effective vaccine), but due to all the variables I mentioned it could even appear that "things got better after we did this" (post hoc ergo propter hoc). There is an alternative here - a population left to fight an outbreak through natural immunity…

We know how many people died before we had vaccines, especially children. There is no argument here. We eradicated or almost eradicated a whole bunch of terrible diseases with vaccines. What you're proposing here is simply murder. We know what would happen, many more people would die.

What would make it murder?

I wouldn't propose that people should be stopped from taking a vaccine if they want it.

I'm a strong supporter of informed consent. In this context that simply means that people need to know the pros and cons of a vaccine, what isn't known or scientifically studied yet, and they can make their own mind up.

Re: FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

#128

Post by fabian2k »

_heimdall wrote: post #127
fabian2k wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We know how many people died before we had vaccines, especially children. There is no argument here. We eradicated or almost eradicated a whole bunch of terrible diseases with vaccines. What you're proposing here is simply murder. We know what would happen, many more people would die.

What would make it murder? I wouldn't propose that people should be stopped from taking a vaccine if they want it. I'm a strong supporter of informed consent. In this context that simply means that people need to know the pros and cons of a vaccine, what isn't known or scientifically studied yet, and they can make their own mind up.

We know more people would die without vaccines. There is plenty of data on the classic vaccines. If you tell people something else you're lying.

And herd immunity protects those that can't be protected by vaccines, your "experiment" would put them at risk as well.

Re: FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

#129

Post by _heimdall »

unquietwiki wrote: post #121
_heimdall wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only speak to my experience in the US and Europe during the pandemic, but I didn't feel singled out because people were aware that the virus kept adapting. That was actually one of the key lessons I heard from virologists early on in 2020 - viruses like this tend to mutate quickly and escape vaccine-induced immunity. It wasn't until the vaccines were announced that the story changed and we were being told that…

I think your experience may be different than others. A lot of people are skeptical of, or can't afford, medical interventions in chronic issues and serious illness. You had anti-vaxxers posting stuff like how the shot was going to make you sterile, or even kill you disproportionately to the virus itself. Your research sounds higher-quality than what most folks even bothered with, and that makes room for the mockery…

Oh there was absolutely crazy information being shared around, we definitely agree there.

I had a coworker try to explain how 5G caused covid. Granted there is no technical reason why an EMF couldn't cause similar symptoms, there just wasn't any well founded research showing that and a much more simple explanation already had better scientific support (the novel virus).

Mockery is a tricky one though. Mocking any particular idea seems reasonable enough. Most people at the time were lumping in anyone that chose not to get the vaccine as an anti-vaxxer, wacko, conspiracy theorist, etc.

Re: FDA meeting to pick next winter's flu shot is canceled, in ominous sign for US

#130

Post by seanmcdirmid »

_heimdall wrote: post #120
orwin wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not following what CDC said as I'm not from the US, but in my country we had early warning of a big flu season. Poultry farmers were advised to get the flu vaccine in October last year (it's decentralised in my country so it might only have been a local directive), so I doubt a scientific paper ever said 'mammals can't catch this strain'.

My point wasn't that transmission had been scientifically disproven though. My point was that the CDC itself was saying that this avian flu couldn't jump to humans - they no longer say this but the earlier commenter claimed that only a quack would say human transmission hasn't been proven. Where I would expect a scientific paper to come in is to provide a controlled study show transmission from an infected bird to a…

> My point was that the CDC itself was saying that this avian flu couldn't jump to humans - they no longer say this but the earlier commenter claimed that only a quack would say human transmission hasn't been proven.

Almost all medical research is in the field, and they don't do controlled studies on humans anymore to see if they can get bird flu or not by being in contact with infected birds (can't get it passed the ethics board). It feels like I'm arguing with someone on the spectrum, who states that "we didn't think it was this way before, but now we think it? Impossible!" It is an exhausting argument and I really don't think it is worth our time, except that guy is now president - sigh.

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