This is emphatically false. Immunity to a specific virus does not make a person healthier and the vaccines do have a documented risk of side effects, in addition to rapidly mounting evidence of poor efficacy.

People seem to be worshipping these vaccines as some sort of mystical religious artifacts at this point.

The vaccines do not come without a cost. This is a dangerous myth, even if you think the risks are low.

Yes, but everything has a cost. That isn’t a myth, just economics. That doesn’t mean costs are bad.

>I might go worship there too

Therein lies the issue. Worship of science is a vehicle for dogma. Even if the worship is implicit. Science is not beyond reproach, and to presume that laymen are unable to notice inconsistencies or holes in official doctrine is no better than forbidding peasants from reading or interpreting scripture. The same forces are at work, at a time when covid literature is freely available, but only one consensus is socially, morally acceptable. The science is far from settled; it cannot be so quickly after development of a new and complex technology.

It took some 5 years before thalomide was found to cause birth defects. We just injected custom designed partial viral RNA into billions of people. To pretend vehemently that we've solved such a complex problem safely on the first try is hubris, and Pfizer et al are immune from legal liability, as negotiated with the US government.

You think only tobacco and petroleum companies are capable of manipulating data and publishing misleading literature in pursuit of profits? They don't need to outright lie, just gradually massage their models and constantly adjust, and look at that, 2 years into this virus 2 weeks has turned, unironically, into 3 booster shots. There's no reason to blindly trust that these vaccines are safe long term. They'd have a tough time getting approved at all without emergency authorization given the current known side effects.

People take this decision thinking it's personal but it's not, it affects many others. Your 'personal' decision to assert medical sovereignty could kill another.

Did you know that polio is survivable in 99.8% of cases and asymptomatic in 92% (up to 99% by some estimates) of cases?

So, was it worth inventing a vaccine for it? Or taking it? Risking long term effects?

About long term effect of mRNA vaccines... you know what has long term effects? Covid.

And if anyone read about mRNA technology for an afternoon it would be painfully obvious to them that whatever super long term effects covid vaccines might have, covid will virtually surely cause them as well, because mRNA vaccines don't do anything else than covid does. And don't fool yourself that you don't get covid. Unless you are planning to die of something else soon. I will not get covid is as silly as saying I won't get neither flu nor cold before I die, even asymptomatically.

> It makes more sense for individuals to evaluate their risk tolerance and circumstances to decide which trade-offs they are willing to take on.

No, it doesn't, because people actively avoid available knowledge in their personal risk estimations. So their estimation of both the risk and their willingness to take on risks is estimated wrong.

Did you hear about a single person dying in hospital from covid saying, "we'll maybe I'm dying but I'm proud of my decision to not get vaccinated, not supporting mask wearing" or whatever? Because plenty of such people recognized they were horribly wrong in their estimations.

A big part of what made polio’s vaccine acceptance easy was the graphic imagery of children being afflicted with a lifetime of paralysis. There was a certain psychological impact on society from that imagery. People evaluated the risks and decided they were better off going with the vaccine. Another boost for vaccine confidence was that the vaccines used approaches a that were already in wide use in other vaccines.

> About long term effect of mRNA vaccines... you know what has long term effects? Covid.

The risks of long term effects with COVID are very low, and their severity is very low, and in almost all cases those symptoms disappear. So why is your desire to contain one type of low risk any more important than others’ desire to contain other types of low risk?

Regarding mRNA vaccines - I don’t think you are seeing things the way the vaccine hesitant are. The mRNA vaccine can have long term effects we don’t understand. Just because we are focused on its mechanism for efficacy doesn’t meant here aren’t other possible mechanisms involved that we haven’t understood yet. Likewise, we don’t know if any of the other vaccine ingredients will have long-term effects. The mRNA vaccine doses are not solely composed of mRNA material and lipids. And certainly we’ve seen numerous products - both medical and non-medical - banned decades after their initial introduction. The risks of that are low, but it’s nonzero. And I shouldn’t have to say this, but in case it helps make my points more acceptable, I am vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine as is my entire family.

> Did you hear about a single person dying in hospital from covid saying, "we'll maybe I'm dying but I'm proud of my decision to not get vaccinated, not supporting mask wearing" or whatever? Because plenty of such people recognized they were horribly wrong in their estimations.

I don’t understand why you’re bringing this up. This is the exact type of anecdotal risk estimation that you call out a few sentences earlier. I could equally say that the few people who experience severe vaccine side effects may also experience regret. Or that years down the road, it is possible that all those who received [some vaccine] will regret their choice if it is found to cause cancer or something else. The thing is, we don’t really know because we are dealing with the unknown. We don’t understand either the virus or the human body fully. For this and other reasons, I feel it is legitimate for people to choose their own risk profile based on their experiences and gut. I also don’t think anyone should be obligated to undergo a medical procedure like vaccination against their will, because bodily autonomy is a fundamental civil liberty and because I don’t think here’s an obligation to have to take action to protect others against some third-party agent like a virus.

How can you possibly know that, if no person in the world contacted covid more than 2 years ago? How do you know it won't lead to lung cancer in 5 or 10 or 20 years? Or to brain tumors? This virus can linger in the body. And we know of cancers caused by viruses.

If you claim that you can't rule out long term side effects of mRNA vaccines, you can't claim that you can rule out long term effects of covid.

> So why is your desire to contain one type of low risk any more important than others’ desire to contain other types of low risk?

One is scientifically estimated to be orders of magnitude less than other. But that's not why you vaccinate. You vaccinate to avoid immediate danger of covid. Yes. It's rather survivable by young people, but not everybody is young and even youngish people have very significant risks of severe outcomes. Also you vaccinate to reduce the amount of opportunities virus has to evolve into some nastier version.

> Regarding mRNA vaccines - I don’t think you are seeing things the way the vaccine hesitant are.

I'm definitely not seeing it like them because I know enough about how cells, vaccines and viruses work.

> The mRNA vaccine can have long term effects we don’t understand.

It can have at worst the effect that a (covid) virus might have. mRNA vacc don't do anything that any virus that replicates inside human body routinely doesn't do. And viruses do way more weird DNA and RNA rewriting tricks than mRNA vaccines were ever accused of possibly having.

You have no biological reason to be afraid mRNA vaccines having long term effect than you have whenever you are exposed to one of hundreds of mild (or not so mild) viruses.

> Just because we are focused on its mechanism for efficacy doesn’t meant here aren’t other possible mechanisms involved that we haven’t understood yet.

You can say that about anything. You can't be totally sure that by exiting the window of your apartment this time you won't float gently to the ground by some not yet understood possible mechanism. It's just really unlikely.

And it's also unlikely that covid vaccines will have any long term effect that the covid itself won't have.

> Likewise, we don’t know if any of the other vaccine ingredients will have long-term effects.

I don't think the mRNA vaccines contain any ingredient that haven't been researched for what happens when it's injected into the body. It would be insane to include substance of unknown effect to be the part of this product.

> And certainly we’ve seen numerous products - both medical and non-medical - banned decades after their initial introduction.

There are larger number of sets of competent eyes on this vaccines than anytime ever on those recalled products. Because pandemic is kind of a big deal.

> The risks of that are low, but it’s nonzero.

According to quantum physics probability of rarely anything is exactly zero. Risk of taking covid vaccine is practically zero. And surely magnitudes of order lower than risk of getting in contact with sars-cov-2.

> but in case it helps make my points more acceptable, I am vaccinated with an mRNA vaccine as is my entire family.

I'm sorry but it does not. It makes it even worse, because while you are happily enjoying benefits of safe vaccine you are publishing misleading opinions that might cause someone to avoid the vaccine and be exposed to all risks of meeting sars-cov-2 without any preparation. Next time lead with that information. It should help your readers understand your position. But not make it more acceptable.

> > Did you hear about a single person dying in hospital from covid saying > I don’t understand why you’re bringing this up.

To illustrate that people are grievously wrong in their risk estimates and shouldn't be forced (or trusted) to rely on them if scientific knowledge on the subject exists. "Let everybody do their own math" is a horrible idea.

> I could equally say that the few people who experience severe vaccine side effects may also experience regret.

The thing is there are no such people because any research so far that points out to any possible side effects of mRNA vaccine is not conclusive. Which tells you something given that billions of people already took the vaccine. I'm sure there are a lot of people that experience some health issues after they took the vaccine and many might wrongly regret taking it. If the vaccine caused them, they'd have them when they contract covid too.

And those rare cases of people with anaphylactic shock often don't regret their decision to take the vaccine because it was properly informed decision.

> Or that years down the road, it is possible that all those who received [some vaccine] will regret their choice if it is found to cause cancer or something else.

Again. If people who took covid vaccine will ever get cancer because of it, then people who contracted covid will get double cancer because their bodies experienced the same thing that vaccinated bodies did, only may times stronger plus additional viral proteins that vaccine didn't contain the mRNA for.

> The thing is, we don’t really know because we are dealing with the unknown. We don’t understand either the virus or the human body fully.

Yes. Especially with covid. We don't fully understand how it does all the things it does though we understand quite a bit already. And we can only hope that we will be able to mitigate the harm.

But we shouldn't throw hands in the air, reject what we already know about virology, immunology, vaccinology and exclaim that "nature works in mysterious way". New things might be dangerous, that's why we gather knowledge. To estimate risks properly.

If we wanted to eliminate all the risks we wouldn't use agriculture yet because who knows what harm eating intentionally grown food might do in the long run.

> I feel it is legitimate for people to choose their own risk profile based on their experiences and gut.

It's a legitimate recipe for disaster. People don't have knowledge or skill to arrive at better decision this way instead of just listening to a knowledgeable person.

> I also don’t think anyone should be obligated to undergo a medical procedure like vaccination against their will, because bodily autonomy is a fundamental civil liberty

That's a good sentiment, and I wish we are able to keep it wholesale. But unless more people will make correct decision out of their properly informed free will vaccinations in times of pandemic become an exception to this bodily autonomy.

Also other people civil liberty and bodily autonomy would mean that they shouldn't be required to take additional risks by interacting with people that refuse to get vaccinated. Same way you have right to refuse dining in a place where people with hepatitis prepare the meals.

> I don’t think here’s an obligation to have to take action to protect others against some third-party agent like a virus

Virus is not an agent. It's just a part of our environment.

In my country you are legally required to help traffic accidents victims. I just read that in USA there is no such obligation unless you caused the danger or are in some relation to people in danger. What's more you can get sued for honest attempt at helping. Which is just bizarre.

And, claiming that the worst _possible_ effect of the vaccines are cold-like symptoms is outright deception. The numbers are a small minority, but there are bad possible effects like ITP and other immune reactions, myocarditis, and other clotting issues, which are happening to _some_ people. We have no way to predict this. Just as we have _zero_ way to predict how severe any individual's infection with COVID-19 will actually be.

It is this tendency to obviously outright lie that makes a lot of people who would not otherwise be "anti-vax" mistrust the current massive push to force everyone to take these new vaccines. Most particularly for those of us who have had the bad luck to have one of these rare reactions to a vaccine in the past. The world dismisses us, but "the minority" still exists, even if they are not you. Every time someone like you blows off these truths, they create more anti-vaxxers out of people who have had a bad reaction to a vaccine or know someone who has.

> How can you possibly know that, if no person in the world had the MRNA vaccine more than 2 years ago?

That's what antivaxxers are asking. I'm not one of them. I ask, how can you know that the fact that you were exposed to covid won't cause cancers or strokes in few years or whatever if nobody had it more than two years ago? And you can skip arguments like it's just a flu because it isn't or that it's natural therefore not that bad as artificial vaccine because it makes your body do way more things it shouldn't do.

> The numbers are a small minority, but there are bad possible effects like ITP and other immune reactions, myocarditis, and other clotting issues, which are happening to _some_ people.

As I said, research whether vaccine raised the probability of those events occuring for those people is inconclusive (because numbers are so small that it's very hard to tell the signal from the noise) and even assuming vaccine had some role in some of these cases there's exacly zero proof that they wouldn't just got the same event or worse once they contracted covid.

> It is this tendency to obviously outright lie that makes a lot of people who would not otherwise be "anti-vax" mistrust the current massive push to force everyone to take these new vaccines.

Nobody lies about this, same way I'm not lying when I say you will not a win a grand prize in powerball lottery. Even though some people do, you won't, and more people die in traffic accidents when they drive to buy their lottery ticket so you have a better chance of that happening.

> Every time someone like you blows off these truths, they create more anti-vaxxers out of people who have had a bad reaction to a vaccine or know someone who has.

Everytime someone pays inordinate amount of attention to such extremely rare cases, when someone got some issue after they took vaccine even though there's no proof it had anything to do with that beyond possible faint correlation, even though there's no possible mechanism of vaccine causing anything that the virus itself wouldn't cause ... whenever you do that you are creating thousands of antivaxxers and cause people to make very bad decisions for themselves, their loved ones and everybody else.