The Moderna vaccine can cause immune-mediated hepatitis • Hacker News Board

Re: The Moderna vaccine can cause immune-mediated hepatitis

#31

Post by dekhn » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #30

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if 10 people suffer permanent consequences from Covid because they didn't push vaccines, then are they justified in pushing the vaccines? Mind you, I'm not claiming that they are justified. Just that pro-vax side of the question is a lot more than "but bars are now open".

I am not against pushing vaccines. But if hiding/lying is the way they are doing, is it worth it? Will the public ever trust them again? Let's say (as an experiment) we know that 10% of people will have life-long problems if they take the vaccine, BUT hiding this fact means that 90% of the population will probably take the vaccine and thus, 'saving' a lot of people. Is it ok to 'sacrifice' 10% for the remaining 90%?…

Unfortunately, I don't think we can have a truly utilitarian discussion about health care policy in the US. Here's the problem in a nutshell: if you propose that we carefully look at the likely outcomes for patients who need surgery and conclude that some will almost certainly die and instead save the resources for a patient who is more likely to survive, your opponent just has to say "death panels" and immediately, the whole debate is shut down.

My general belief is that the US's inability to address its public health costs in a utilitarian manner will ultimately bankrupt the country. Just today I was reading about how stanford spent millions of dollars to speed up a genomic sequencing pipeline to more rapidly identify rare diseases in infants (ostensibly, so they can be sent to the NICU). Problem is, those millions could also have been spent on covid patients, or covid reasearch, or heart disease research and cancer research (those are the two things that kill the most people in the US) and likely had a greater total outcome! Babies who survive and make it to the NICU bear tremendous costs on the health system, both in the NICU and throughout their lives. But, people love babies so we're willing to spend enormous, illogically enormous amounts of money to save them.

Re: The Moderna vaccine can cause immune-mediated hepatitis

#32

Post by creato » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 11:09 PM UTC

odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #4

dekhn wrote: post #2

I have trouble understanding why people post articles like this. IE, what's the ulterior motive? Is your goal to reduce trust in vaccines? A good faith attempt to show that there are a very small but detectable number of adverse outcomes from vaccines? Whatever it is: a paper like this doesn't demonstrate anything like that. It's a case observation with n=1 and it actually shows nothing of the sort. It's as close to…

Not the op, and didn't read the link, so no clue what it's validity. BUT will say again, I am pro vaccines and vaccinated, but I still think the possible side effects are being downplayed in the media/state. I posted in another thread, but after one month, I am still having issues that are for sure linked to my booster shot. No-one told me about any of these possible side effects, but after suffering from them, and t…

> I posted in another thread, but after one month, I am still having issues that are for sure linked to my booster shot. No-one told me about any of these possible side effects, but after suffering from them, and talking openly about it with many peopkle, I found others had exactly the same issues as I have after their shots (Pfizer if it helps anyone).

I went and found your post.

Your symptoms could just as easily be explained by a viral infection (not necessarily COVID). That happens to people periodically, conservatively say once every 5 years. 2 weeks / 5 years is 0.7% of time. After billions of vaccine doses administered, that's millions of people that will attribute a random viral infection to a vaccine side effect...

I think the "official" side effects are a true best estimate of what the side effects really are, and tracking side effects like you are trying to do is very prone to various biases. You can't possibly understand vaccine side effects without looking at data from large numbers of people. That's why these random anecdotal stories of "vaccine -> ailment" are problematic. The question is if those ailments are happening more frequently after vaccination than before, and no individual can possibly answer that question.

The classic example of this is the vaccines -> autism issue. Thousands of parents were convinced that vaccines caused autism because autism appeared immediately after getting vaccinated. But now we know, decades later after massive population scale study, that this was just statistical noise.

Re: The Moderna vaccine can cause immune-mediated hepatitis

#33

Post by AnimalMuppet » Thu, Jan 13, 2022, 11:27 PM UTC

odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #30

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if 10 people suffer permanent consequences from Covid because they didn't push vaccines, then are they justified in pushing the vaccines? Mind you, I'm not claiming that they are justified. Just that pro-vax side of the question is a lot more than "but bars are now open".

I am not against pushing vaccines. But if hiding/lying is the way they are doing, is it worth it? Will the public ever trust them again? Let's say (as an experiment) we know that 10% of people will have life-long problems if they take the vaccine, BUT hiding this fact means that 90% of the population will probably take the vaccine and thus, 'saving' a lot of people. Is it ok to 'sacrifice' 10% for the remaining 90%?…

I'm actually with you: Tell us the truth about what you're asking us to do. I think anything else is immoral.

And I think that the last sentence of your first paragraph is critical: They had accumulated trust over decades, and they set all of that on fire. Was Covid a big enough emergency to make that worth it? I think not, even if you buy the "it's for the greater good that we mislead people" idea (which I don't). I think what they did was short-sighted, even within that moral framework.

All I was saying is that, if you are in that moral framework, it's not killing people with vaccines in order to open the pubs. It's killing people with vaccines in order to save more people. I still think it's immoral, and I think that because they destroyed their credibility they're killing more people in the long run, but I think you significantly mis-stated their actual moral calculus.

Re: The Moderna vaccine can cause immune-mediated hepatitis

#34

Post by yucky » Fri, Jan 14, 2022, 4:15 AM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #6

odshoifsdhfs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the op, and didn't read the link, so no clue what it's validity. BUT will say again, I am pro vaccines and vaccinated, but I still think the possible side effects are being downplayed in the media/state. I posted in another thread, but after one month, I am still having issues that are for sure linked to my booster shot. No-one told me about any of these possible side effects, but after suffering from them, and t…

The issue of side effects being downplayed by the media is entirely a response by public health and media to the large amount of disinformation about vaccines. It was a calculus that was identified and decided on quite some time ago- the reasoning being most people need to hear a simple, straightforward and consistent message to be compliant. The media and public health leadership has to work on a very thin "knife's…

>the reasoning being most people need to hear a simple, straightforward and consistent message to be compliant.

I notice the word "accurate" wasn't included in what people need to hear from their public health professionals.

I think that's the problem.

Re: The Moderna vaccine can cause immune-mediated hepatitis

#35

Post by raxxorrax » Fri, Jan 14, 2022, 8:17 AM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #16

throw10920 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue of side effects being downplayed by the media is entirely a response by public health and media to the large amount of disinformation about vaccines. That's your personal belief that may or may not be representative of reality. Another possible belief that one might have, that you can find evidence for in reality, is that side effects are being downplayed in order to push vaccine mandates through as a way…

If downplaying side effects had an overall greater outcome, would it be unethical and "obviously wrong"? Nothing is truly obviously wrong. In fact many things we think are obviously wrong, aren't. The ethics of these sorts of things are truly nontrivial. If you're suggesting we have hte vaccine policies we do so that pfizer etc profit, well I doubt I am going to convince you otherwise. I work in pharma, have a pretty…

Yes, it would be wrong because you don't have informed consent and you cannot really prove your assertion that compliance would be higher if adverse information did not get suppressed. In fact I think this had a negative influence on overall compliance for those that became aware of any framing. Neglecting the severe trust issues some have in official channels, this can even mean an overall bad outcome for health if you do not play with open cards.

I agree with your assertion about the medical industry otherwise. Still, dynamics of vaccines propose that their customers buy a minimum amount of dosages for the venture to be profitable. You create countless incentives to apply as much of them as possible and medical reasons slip into the background.

Re: The Moderna vaccine can cause immune-mediated hepatitis

#36

Post by dekhn » Fri, Jan 14, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

raxxorrax wrote: post #35

dekhn wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If downplaying side effects had an overall greater outcome, would it be unethical and "obviously wrong"? Nothing is truly obviously wrong. In fact many things we think are obviously wrong, aren't. The ethics of these sorts of things are truly nontrivial. If you're suggesting we have hte vaccine policies we do so that pfizer etc profit, well I doubt I am going to convince you otherwise. I work in pharma, have a pretty…

Yes, it would be wrong because you don't have informed consent and you cannot really prove your assertion that compliance would be higher if adverse information did not get suppressed. In fact I think this had a negative influence on overall compliance for those that became aware of any framing. Neglecting the severe trust issues some have in official channels, this can even mean an overall bad outcome for health if…

informed consent is for health trials, not approved medical products.

Re: The Moderna vaccine can cause immune-mediated hepatitis

#37

Post by Jimmc414 » Fri, Jan 14, 2022, 6:13 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #2

I have trouble understanding why people post articles like this. IE, what's the ulterior motive? Is your goal to reduce trust in vaccines? A good faith attempt to show that there are a very small but detectable number of adverse outcomes from vaccines? Whatever it is: a paper like this doesn't demonstrate anything like that. It's a case observation with n=1 and it actually shows nothing of the sort. It's as close to…

I wish people would stop censoring information needed to make informed consent. If the study is non scientific then point that out, don't try to censor the post. You hurt your own cause by hiding information from intelligent people because that is what makes them suspicious.

Re: The Moderna vaccine can cause immune-mediated hepatitis

#38

Post by Jimmc414 » Fri, Jan 14, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

dekhn wrote: post #16

throw10920 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue of side effects being downplayed by the media is entirely a response by public health and media to the large amount of disinformation about vaccines. That's your personal belief that may or may not be representative of reality. Another possible belief that one might have, that you can find evidence for in reality, is that side effects are being downplayed in order to push vaccine mandates through as a way…

If downplaying side effects had an overall greater outcome, would it be unethical and "obviously wrong"? Nothing is truly obviously wrong. In fact many things we think are obviously wrong, aren't. The ethics of these sorts of things are truly nontrivial. If you're suggesting we have hte vaccine policies we do so that pfizer etc profit, well I doubt I am going to convince you otherwise. I work in pharma, have a pretty…

The ends justify the means is right out of the Machiavelli's The Prince. All sorts of bad things have happened for a greater good. With that logic you can pretty much justify anything.

Re: The Moderna vaccine can cause immune-mediated hepatitis

#39

Post by jfengel » Fri, Jan 14, 2022, 7:37 PM UTC

Jimmc414 wrote: post #37

dekhn wrote: post #2

I have trouble understanding why people post articles like this. IE, what's the ulterior motive? Is your goal to reduce trust in vaccines? A good faith attempt to show that there are a very small but detectable number of adverse outcomes from vaccines? Whatever it is: a paper like this doesn't demonstrate anything like that. It's a case observation with n=1 and it actually shows nothing of the sort. It's as close to…

I wish people would stop censoring information needed to make informed consent. If the study is non scientific then point that out, don't try to censor the post. You hurt your own cause by hiding information from intelligent people because that is what makes them suspicious.

Intelligent people, trying to form their own opinions, aren't doing so from the random assortment of articles that appear on popular web sites. They're reading the primary literature directly, rather than letting the Web pick and choose the articles that it finds interesting.

The vast majority of people aren't capable of that. They're usually taking secondary or tertiary sources, as collected by their favorite aggregators. That's not informed consent, regardless of the conclusion they come to.

Intelligent people recognize that they're not surveying the primary literature. They instead have to trust some informed source. That source must, among other things, pick things that inform rather than mislead. It can't feature every scrap of data -- you might as well just go to the primary sources.

So what makes me suspicious is people claiming "censorship", because most of the time it means "here is a thing that confirms my biases, and I'll ignore all of the things that contradict my biases even though I'm not as expert as I imagine I am".

If you want the facts, they're out there on the NIH web site. If you want HN to pick and choose facts for you, then you're welcome to, but do not fool yourself into believing that it informs consent.