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

US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

federalregister.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 108 posts

Re: US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

#81

Post by joshuamorton »

merlincorey wrote: post #78
joshuamorton wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my edit. You're trying to use the definition of long term side effect to show that we need long term studies before we can deem things safe. But that doesn't follow. If the prevalence of some potentially chronic condition is low enough after a month to be safe, that it might be even safer doesn't really matter. Right like to recap but remove the word "long term" entirely, you said that there might be issues that…

> You're trying to use the definition of long term side effect to show that we need long term studies before we can deem things safe. This is not my position and I have made no such statements. You are unfortunately projecting an argument onto me. > But that doesn't follow. Quite! > you said that there might be issues that develop after years without warning I absolutely did not -- maybe you have me mistaken with som…

> You are unfortunately projecting an argument onto me.

As are you, I never used the term "long term" until you did. My initial comment was "Can you give a coherent biological mechanism by which the vaccine would have health impacts that aren't detectable over the course of say 3 months?"

So now that I've attempted to clarify, let's ask the related question:

if we agree that any side effect (short-, or long-term) would be initially detectable in a month or two, and given that the vaccine already meets the bar for safety, what is the point of a long term study? You're not going to detect any new side effects, and the only thing you may find is that existing side effects might be less serious.

What reason should I (or you) have to care about "long-term" studies?

Re: US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

#82

Post by Amezarak »

joshuamorton wrote: post #26
imperio59 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've only had mRNA vaccines for two years. Also there are starting to be plenty of companies requiring boosters. Do you want to get a new experimental vaccine whose long term effects are poorly known every few months?

The booster is the same as the original vaccine but in a lower dosage. This may change with future boosters, but I also get a flu vaccine every year (and have for a decade). Those are "new" each year but aren't generally considered dangerous and experimental. > Do you want to get a new experimental vaccine whose long term effects are poorly known every few months? Can you give a coherent biological mechanism by which…

https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/

One of the main reasons Moderna pivoted to vaccine development was because the liquid nanoparticles used to deliver the mRNA are toxic, and the necessary dosages for a therapeutic dose were dangerous. Fortunately, vaccines require smaller doses, and were originally thought of as one-shot deals, so accumulation wasn't a concern.

> Yet Moderna could not make its therapy work, former employees and collaborators said. The safe dose was too weak, and repeat injections of a dose strong enough to be effective had troubling effects on the liver in animal studies.

At any rate, we have very poor understanding of the body and biology in general. I don't care what models say about long-term safety - this is an exactly backwards way to look at it, and why technological development has had devastating impacts on the ecosystem and on human health. We don't know what we don't know. And we very often don't worry too much about what we don't know when a "solution" presents itself, especially if someone can profit off that solution, whether it's trans-fats, DDT, or Vioxx.

I care about what long-term safety records say about long-term safety. For similar reasons, I decline to take nearly all medication unless my life is in imminent danger or the expected benefit is very large and the known risks have been tracked for decades. (So - pretty much just antibiotics when I have a severe infection that is not getting better.)

Re: US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

#83

Post by azinman2 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #7
azinman2 wrote: post #3

I wonder if even a majority of people who file one have a legitimate religious objection instead of abusing this ability to get out of mandates.

If one is young and already had Covid before vaccines were available, there is an ethical argument to be made that you should be allowed to give up your spot in line to the poor who are still waiting all around the world. If you want other people to make your ethical decisions for you when it comes to your own body, we know where that leads.

There is no global waiting list, so whether one in the US takes a vaccine or not isn't going to result in someone else being able to get that same vaccine.

Societies make decisions about health of its members all the time in many ways. Which, by the way, has nothing to do with religion and the topic on hand.

Re: US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

#84

Post by imperio59 »

beecafe wrote: post #17
imperio59 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the governments enforcing mandates have a legitimate reason to enforce them. There FTFY.

Government actions are legitimate by definition, being them who defines what is legit.

You have a serious lack of understanding of the US Constitution and the philosophy that lies behind it.

Re: US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

#85

Post by salawat »

rtkwe wrote: post #69
CrazyStat wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really freedom of religion then, is it? "You can be Muslim (/Sikh/Mormon/etc.), but you can't wear the clothing prescribed by your religion", a la French secularism, is a weak accommodation that allows people to be a little different as long as they aren't too different. It is far short of actual freedom of conscience.

There are various ways around that issue; no prohibitions of purely religious activities, a clause about limiting that no exceptions to laws about health/security etc.

Someone inevitably becomes responsible for making that judgement call, and a record is thereby built up of the "State's interpretation of your religion"

Ergo, you have freedom of whatever the State decides your religion is... which is not compatible with Separation of Church and State.

These constitutional matters are so much thornier than they appear at first glance. I tell people this often.

Re: US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

#86

Post by salawat »

antihipocrat wrote: post #73
dragonwriter wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If anyone can offer a reason as to why this system is beneficial to public health, safety or security Because without it, the PSA can't know which of its employees do and do not have approved exemption requests. > I can only see a detriment to each if this law was put into effect. It's not a law, it's an internal employer data system for tracking workforce (employer, contractor volunteer, etc.) exemption requests u…

You are absolutely correct and I was mistaken, it's not a law. I believe my point still holds as it's more concerned about the system being implemented. You could substitute the word 'law' with 'system', and my meaning and intent is completely unchanged. Regarding the record keeping argument as being a benefit. I agree there is some value there if there was no existing record to keep track of numbers of exemptions. W…

The point is to provide legal something to refer back to in case a manager gets swapped out and becomes frustrated when the employee says no to doing something they have an exemption for.

Organizations aren't static and change over time, necessitating persistent state.

Re: US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

#87

Post by salawat »

arcticbull wrote: post #38
antihipocrat wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if we assume that there is benefit in this specific case, the utility of this law extends well beyond vaccine mandates. It may sound great, until a government comes into power with very different world views to your own, and suddenly you're on a similar list.

Sure, I agree, and when we have a bad list we can have that conversation. Tools can be used for good or bad, and that alone shouldn't preclude the use of the tool. I'm not sure the existence of a good list makes a future bad list any more - or any less - likely.

>Tools can be used for good or bad, and that alone shouldn't preclude the use of the tool.

Might I ask your views on guns?

I ask as I tend to see people making this argument apply it inconsistently between contexts. I've even caught myself doing it, which is why I'm quite sensitive to it.

Just curious.

Re: US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

#88

Post by hash872 »

salawat wrote: post #85
rtkwe wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are various ways around that issue; no prohibitions of purely religious activities, a clause about limiting that no exceptions to laws about health/security etc.

Someone inevitably becomes responsible for making that judgement call, and a record is thereby built up of the "State's interpretation of your religion" Ergo, you have freedom of whatever the State decides your religion is... which is not compatible with Separation of Church and State. These constitutional matters are so much thornier than they appear at first glance. I tell people this often.

I mean, judges in developed countries make these kind of judgement calls all the time, probably dozens of times a year in a country the size of the US. There's tons of well-developed common law around what is a legitimate expression of religion, what isn't, etc. Easily over 30 Supreme Court cases on this over the last couple of centuries. If I assert that I have a religious exemption to stop signs, taxes, gun laws, anti-discrimination laws, securities laws, etc. etc. judges can & do 'decide [what] your religion is', as you put it.

Unless you assert that literally zero laws apply to the religious, there's just no way around judges actually making these decisions

Re: US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

#89

Post by merlincorey »

joshuamorton wrote: post #81
merlincorey wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're trying to use the definition of long term side effect to show that we need long term studies before we can deem things safe. This is not my position and I have made no such statements. You are unfortunately projecting an argument onto me. > But that doesn't follow. Quite! > you said that there might be issues that develop after years without warning I absolutely did not -- maybe you have me mistaken with som…

> You are unfortunately projecting an argument onto me. As are you, I never used the term "long term" until you did. My initial comment was "Can you give a coherent biological mechanism by which the vaccine would have health impacts that aren't detectable over the course of say 3 months?" So now that I've attempted to clarify, let's ask the related question: if we agree that any side effect (short-, or long-term) wou…

My original reply to you quoted your sentence which I will requote here:

> In other words, the only vaccine side effects possible after a month or so are a strict subset of covid side effects.

At this point you're just talking past me -- and maybe I am talking past you as well.

I don't personally hold any particular view about short or long term studies, but I do enjoy logic and engaging in discussion.

> if we agree that any side effect (short-, or long-term) would be initially detectable in a month or two, and given that the vaccine already meets the bar for safety, what is the point of a long term study? You're not going to detect any new side effects, and the only thing you may find is that existing side effects might be less serious.

The CDC maintains a list of Historical Vaccine Safety Concerns[0] and at least two of those have long term studies attached to them.

In 1976, a Swine Flu vaccine was provided to people. This caused an increase of 1 in 100,000 cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) and when 40,000,000 people had been vaccinated, the government stopped vaccinations to prevent this.

> The Institute of Medicine (IOM) conducted a thorough scientific review of this issue in 2003 and concluded that people who received the 1976 swine influenza vaccine had an increased risk for developing GBS.

This is a very long term study and I think we needed it, personally.

Similarly, in 2009 and 2010 there was an H1N1 Influenza Vaccine distributed in Europe which produced an increased rate of narcolepsy. While the first cases started showing up in 2010, it wasn't until 2012 and later that this link was shown to be significant. The rest of the CDC text focuses on the subsequent testing of other H1N1 vaccines to show that they do not increase the risk of getting narcolepsy, but that should not detract you from the findings that the oil-in-water emulsion adjuvant called ASO3 that was present in Pandemrix is somehow related.

Even with all of that, we still don't know why AS03 seemed to increase the incidence of narcolepsy, but we don't give that vaccine to people since 2011 or so because of it.

> What reason should I (or you) have to care about "long-term" studies?

*Conclusion*: I agree that side effects will generally be seen early on, but I believe we can benefit from "long term" studies because there is a large amount of complexity in the way the human body responds to various chemicals and some of those responses aren't able to be understood even after months or years of study... so we should keep studying them

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history....

Re: US Fed – Employee Religious Exception Request Information System

#90

Post by salawat »

woodruffw wrote: post #50
lotsofpulp wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will dissuade people who don't hold legitimate religious beliefs forbidding vaccination (there are substantially zero of them) from using religious exemptions. There is no such thing as a legitimate or illegitimate religious belief, assuming there is separation of church and state. If I want to make up a religion (aka a set of assumptions) this second that contradict societal mandates, then my set of assumptions…

> There is no such thing as a legitimate or illegitimate religious belief, assuming there is separation of church and state. I don't understand the conjunction you're creating between these. The separation of church and state protects the state's independence and autonomy from the church, not vice versa. The state is under no particular obligation to protect or enshrine as religious any ridiculous thing you can dream…

You are incorrect.

In fact, religious freedom was originally rooted in protecting religious minorities from State mandated religions. If you look at early American history, many made the original immigration to escape religious prosecution by their former state's religion. The Anglican Church being an example. Religious freedom/separation of church and State were both intended to synergize. You are free to pursue whatever object of worship you please, and the State may not pick and choose anyone's particular target of worship over anyone else's, or force any aspects thereof upon anyone else.

Correspondingly, it also keeps political heavyweights (say the Pope) out of the picture as far as lawmaking goes without going through the proper channels (i.e. getting the populace on board enough for legislators to champion the cause).

Your understanding of separation of church and State actually has a degenerate aspect to it, in that it basically makes secularism the State religion. Which infringes on religious freedom if the State is free to ignore your religious tenets.

The Constitution is a byproduct of getting a large number of the most brilliant minds that could be mustered at the time all in the same room, writing up something to act as a foundation for an entire nascent nation; an undertaking that all present would be willing to be bound by it, and all understanding they'd have to head home and get buy I. From everyone else to ratify it.

I'd caution against underestimating the rigor of the shaking out this language was put through in the drafting. Such a work of drafting is... astounding, to be honest, given the difficulty we all seem to have doing the same thing with just laws nowadays.

Post reply on HN