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US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

bbc.co.uk

221–230 of 1001 posts

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people keep posting this nonsense? Who cares how many clots birth controls produce? What matters is the outcome compared to the thing birth controls prevent - pregnancy. Do you get more blood clots from being pregnant or from being on the pill? It's order of magnitudes more from being pregnant, therefore if you're sexually active it's safer to be on the pill compared to not. How is this the top post? People ha…

> What matters is the outcome compared to the thing birth controls prevent - pregnancy. Same with the vaccine. > Do you get more blood clots from being pregnant or from being on the pill? Again, same with the vaccine. COVID itself causes clots, in a very substantial percentage of hospitalized patients. "The benefits of this medical intervention are worthwhile, despite the risks, given the alternative" is precisely th…

> Same with the vaccine.

No, because there are other vaccines that don't give you blood clots at all. Your entire point is moot. Pausing temporarily to investigate is hardly controversial. The comparison with birth control is nonsensical.

A vaccination for COVID is not the same as getting birth control. Even if it was, why would you get J&J if you could get Pfizer that doesn't have the same issue?

If all vaccinations had the same blood clotting issue then perhaps you and the original poster would have a point. Given a huge disparity between them with regards to blood clotting taking a moment to investigate this is simply prudent. Making nonsensical comparisons to birth control, well, is not.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying your calculus is wrong but this does make an assumption that all clots are created equal and I don't believe that is the case. The specific issue being observed is "cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST)" in combination with "low levels of blood platelets (thrombocytopenia)" per the Joint CDC and FDA statement (1). Low blood platelets means anti-clotting treatments can pose a substantial bleeding incr…

And we know adenoviruses interfere with the coagulation cascade through FX binding, so it’s well worth taking a pause and taking a closer look into what’s going on. With two well-tolerated and safe mRNA vaccines in the market, we can afford — to a degree! — to put Ad-based vaccines through additional scrutiny, especially since they’re likely to be the primary vaccine type on a global level.

I agree if you're in the US or in any other place with abundant supply of other vaccines. If you're in a place like the EU, like myself, every single dose counts and a setback can seriously screw things up.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#223
post #2

Six cases in seven million administered doses. One death. Meanwhile, hormonal birth control causes clots in 1/1,000 women. No one blinks an eye. The vaccine hesitancy this engenders is likely gonna kill more than that one person. https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1381936112311148548 > Public health bureaucrats have some weird habits in how they reason under uncertainty and how they communicate to the public. I…

Also, and perhaps more relevant, covid kills about 0.5% of people. Presumably whoever set this policy divided things out, and decided that’s about 1 in a million.

I honestly don’t understand how we’ve managed to put people that demonstrate this level of incompetence in charge.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#224
post #91

So this past year the government has been willing to let unemployment, suicides and drug overdoses jump due to isolation and loneliness caused by lockdowns, child abuse to skyrocket and mental health to plumment due to schools being kept closed, all because we needed to stop covid at any cost. Now one person dies out of almost 7 million who received the vaccine, and we need to stop administering the J&J vaccine "out…

Government over-reactions to COVID19 have been disastrous. There would have been an economic hit for sure but things would have returned to near normal by August 2020 if they had respected freedom (or if people had disobeyed in mass).

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point he’s trying to make is that if you’re in a low risk group (let’s say under 30 for example) maybe it’s a better idea to just skip the vaccine.

Wait, that doesn't sound quite right: the benefit of taking the vaccine goes not only to you, it's also to the people you would have otherwise infected by spreading the virus yourself.

And if they get infected, they will also become immune (and likely a better immunity than the vaccine).

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#226
post #3

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Agreed, anti-vaxxers are already using this for their propaganda efforts. The core problem is that statistics isn't something that's well taught in schools, and so people can't understand effects of scale. 330M people means that (assuming an 1:1M incidence and a 80% vaxx rate) there will be 264 people dying from thrombosis. Which is bad, but nowhere near as bad as the millions that would die from an actual covid19 ca…

The bigger problem is that many people no longer trust the institutions providing the data. As such, they can understand statistics but will mistrust the conclusion as the data could be bunk.

Lying through statistics is easy, easy, easy.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#227

I just made this website to show you how really, really small the risks are, and how they compare to risks we happily take every single day. whatoneinamillionmeans.com If you're not willing to take 1 in a million chances, it's gonna be pretty hard for you to get out of bed today. This vaccine seems to have about the same rate, which makes sense as I think it uses the same technology.

I'll gladly accept additional micromorts (I do dangerous things often) but it must come with an appreciably worthwhile reward. My chances of dying from COVID (if you include the risk of catching it weighted by dying from it) isn't large enough to make the "gap" worth it. It may not be pro-social but there's no requirement in society to be pro-social.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#228
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a doctor, but from what I've heard from immunologists, vaccines in general are incredibly unlikely to have long-term side effects on the scales that you think about. When an immunologist talks about "long-term side effects" of a vaccination, they're usually considering time ranges on the order of 6-8 weeks. Meanwhile, the 10000s of patients from the big Phase 3 trials have been vaccinated for 6-9 months, so the u…

> Not a doctor, but from what I've heard from immunologists, vaccines in general are incredibly unlikely to have long-term side effects on the scales that you think about. Fair enough, but the comment I responded to said: "We know that there are no side effects that are common enough to be of real concern." Given this statement is not qualified for timescale, I want to know what the basis for it is. How does the pers…

mRNA has a short life span. It merely tricks the body into producing the spike protein. It breaks down in the body fairly rapidly. What long term effects would you anticipate from this?

There is a good chance for long term effects from covid. Completely the opposite for the vaccine.

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#229
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it’s closer to 4 in 200 [1] Second, there’s evidence that even if people don’t die, there can be long term neurological effects [2]. Third, even if we accept your number, 1 in 200 would still be 1.5 million Americans dead, not even considering the rest of the world. I am personally not comfortable doing nothing to stop that number. I agree that being super worried about a 1 in a million blood clot might be sho…

It's absolutely disingenuous to use CFR to drive home a point about absolute deaths rates in a population. People with asymptomatic infections (which are the majority of them) do not have any reason to get tested, so they do not count as "cases".

It's also similarly absolutely disingenuous to use any other number that's not based on measured (or measurable) facts. CFR is the only one we have right now, what else do you suggest?

Re: US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

#230
Okay so I want to make something very clear here. The rule is to put it very very simply, is you can ship any drug that is approved but you have to list the side effects. This drug was approved under an emergency order and this side effect was not listed. This will get paused long enough for the side effects to be updated and then used again. The arguments about “well the birth control pill has a higher risk” are using a fact that while it is true, is not relevant as that data has no relationship to the rules that have to be followed. The valid argument would be, those that issue the emergence order for use to should amend the order to acknowledge the issue but not block use immediately.
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