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US agencies call for pause in Johnson & Johnson vaccine

bbc.co.uk

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

#671

Post by JoshuaDavid »

josephcsible wrote: post #453
FabHK wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I have my numbers approximately right, getting the J&J vaccine is a bit safer than taking a plane trip, while getting COVID is about as safe as taking a trip in the space shuttle.

Your chance of dying from COVID is heavily dependent on your age and any preexisting conditions, so any comparison that uses a single probability for everyone is totally wrong for a very large number of people.

One person, out of the 6.8 million who have gotten the J&J vaccine, died from blood clots. A second is in critical condition.

Yes, your risk of dying from COVID varies with age, but not to that extent. Even among children, the death rate for COVID is an order of magnitude over the 0.000015% to 0.000030% chance of death it would have to be for the decision to stop using the J&J vaccine to make sense, based on the numbers we're making that decision based off of. Among the people who are actually being blocked from getting the J&J vaccine (e.g. mostly 20s/30s/40s adults), the decision looks much worse.

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

#672

Post by panopticon »

hinkley wrote: post #489
javagram wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Serious question, how many of those people would have died in the past 12 months if they didn't get COVID? The number is most likely not 500,000, but it also probably isn't 0. This can be answered using “excess mortality” data. Studies have shown during that time period, about 600,000 more people died than would have been expected compared to deaths in the previous year. The official covid death count is likely an…

There are also people not experiencing death by misadventure because people are doing fewer outdoor activities and most especially not hanging out with or showing off for the bad influences in their lives. Also offset by excess deaths over the next few years due to long term effects of a sedentary lifestyle, stress, and all the overcompensating we are likely to see next year with people trying to “make up for lost ti…

Many national parks set monthly visitation records last year, campground reservations are at all-time highs, and SAR operations across the country are stretched thing. What else was there to do when other vacation and travel activities are closed?

I'm not sure how outdoors-y fatalities will be impacted by all of this, but people are definitely not "doing fewer outdoor actives" right now.

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

#673

Post by vmladenov »

arcticbull wrote: post #656
hamadj wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is a disservice to outright label people as anti-vaxers simply for questioning the risk-calculus of vaccines. The (1/7 million) is the current, unconditional and empirically observed adverse effect of the vaccine - this is a somewhat noisy measure of the true prevalence of this issue. It is okay to be cautious and there are legitimate concerns, and quite frankly, I trust the FDA have good reason to pause t…

> The (1/7 million) is the current, unconditional and empirically observed adverse effect of the vaccine - this is a somewhat noisy measure of the true prevalence of this issue. It is okay to be cautious and there are legitimate concerns, and quite frankly, I trust the FDA have good reason to pause this if Moderna/Pfizer are readily available anywy. How many injections do you personally need to feel comfortable? Seve…

This comment is a prime example of why we’re in this mess with vaccine denial in the first place. You’re either not allowed to say anything negative about vaccines, or you’re an anti-vaxxer who thinks your kids will get autism and 5G chips. It’s so cult-like.

We should be honest about the (low) risks and benefits of vaccination without turning it into a political campaign of shame and bullying, and trust people to make the right choice for them and the public.

Perhaps you also think the US government is anti-vaxxer, as it runs a publicly funded National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program - https://hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html

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

#674

Post by Izkata »

joelfolksy wrote: post #304
hn8788 wrote: 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…

Suicides decreased in 2020, btw: https://www.axios.com/suicide-decreased-in-2020-pandemmic-me... .

The CDC only tracks actual suicides, not attempts. Suicidal thoughts and attempts are up: https://www.aappublications.org/news/2020/12/16/pediatricssu...

Besides, in the CDC table, "unintentional injuries" is up by way more than suicides are down. This includes things like car accidents, and is a little suspicious, like suicidal behavior led to a death that wasn't classified as suicide. Also note that the table is "deaths with covid or presumed covid", not "deaths by covid": https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234

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

#675

Post by jonplackett »

primitivesuave wrote: post #626
jonplackett wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just made this website to show you how really, really small the risks are for the AstraZeneca vaccine which also has this ‘issue’. It compares the risks of dying from a blood clot after the AZ vaccine (about 1 in a million) to the risks we happily take every single day. http://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 is brilliant, I manage IT systems for hospitals and clinics and hear the front desk staff using analogies like this to put the risk into perspective. For something like this it shouldn't matter if you're even an order of magnitude off, the point is to help the non-mathematically-inclined general population understand how low the risks are in a context they understand (and anecdotally I'd say this strategy works…

That's really great to hear. Someone I know who works in as a volunteer in the vaccination centre said the same kind of thing as that too.

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

#676

Post by arcticbull »

vmladenov wrote: post #673
arcticbull wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The (1/7 million) is the current, unconditional and empirically observed adverse effect of the vaccine - this is a somewhat noisy measure of the true prevalence of this issue. It is okay to be cautious and there are legitimate concerns, and quite frankly, I trust the FDA have good reason to pause this if Moderna/Pfizer are readily available anywy. How many injections do you personally need to feel comfortable? Seve…

This comment is a prime example of why we’re in this mess with vaccine denial in the first place. You’re either not allowed to say anything negative about vaccines, or you’re an anti-vaxxer who thinks your kids will get autism and 5G chips. It’s so cult-like. We should be honest about the (low) risks and benefits of vaccination without turning it into a political campaign of shame and bullying, and trust people to ma…

IMO, no - I'm saying that folks risk management is completely out of wack. The chance the disease kills you is 1 in 100. The chance that the vaccine kills you is 1 in 7 000 000. One is bigger than the other. By, like, a lot.

The government's response is to pacify anti-vaxxers.

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

#677

Post by pionar »

MockObject wrote: post #357
cujo wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect a lot of folks learned (in the US) is that if you have a president who politicizes a pandemic and shits the bed on leadership, the populous is screwed. Let's not pretend that rational discourse was ever an option, and the media isn't the place for blame.

I don't know. Seems like a sane, sober, professional, mature, and objective media would go quite far in moderating the overheated partisan rhetoric from politicians.

No, in the age of social media and the internet, the media is no longer a check or filter on partisan rhetoric from politicians.

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

#678

Post by koolba »

arcticbull wrote: post #665
heywherelogingo wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, I've had all other vaccines, but this batch is rushed, experimental, and not necessary for me - labelling people such as myself "anti-vaxers" is just dishonest, bitter, childish, name calling. Very few people in my area of London have bothered with the so-called lockdown (too much was open to be called a lockdown), masks, etc - I expect I've had all variants, and apparently my immune system is on top of it, i…

> Agreed, I've had all other vaccines, but this batch is rushed, experimental, and not necessary for me - labelling people such as myself "anti-vaxers" is just dishonest, bitter, childish, name calling. No, it's not. That's a misunderstanding of how the vaccine development process works and what takes time. What takes time in the normal course of development is testing the vaccine, yes. Specifically, determining how…

Nine women cannot work together to produce a baby in one month.

Similarly, while wider population testing for safety and efficacy would likely correlate with long term safety, it’s not a total substitute.

I think it could be completely rational for young, healthy, low BMI people to delay vaccination till they’re more comfortable with any potential long term issues.

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

#679

Post by klebe »

I must say, the general state of discourse on HN has severely deteriorated over the past year (mostly in line with other online platforms, I suppose)

COVID is the single worst thing to happen to civil discussion in my lifetime. The virus is obviously a risk. So are the vaccines. Acting any other way is just downright disingenuous.

At the end of the day, any person with a working brain is free to calculate those risks on their own. No persuading, name-calling, or outright rudeness is needed. (Yes, the top 5 comments I'm talking about you)

In times like this, I'm reminded of most historical calamities...in which a small minority stood on one side, another small minority on the other, but the vast majority simply stood in the middle and thought "Please let this end"

Please upvote this if you're just an average person waiting in the middle.

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

#680

Post by pvarangot »

throwaway8581 wrote: post #536
fastball wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly sure what procreation has to do with anything. Also pretty sure risk of death outweighs literally any possible long-tail risk, so still seems sensible for the young to get the vax. Also don't think the long-tail risk of an mRNA vaccine can be worse then COVID's long-tail risk.

We have never deployed an mRNA vaccine before. We don't know what effect it might have on gametes.

Probably none, the tricky part is how it affects an embryo because that's an known unknown of a lot of this molecular biology/medicine things. It's already counter-indicated for pregnant women though.
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