> but there is nothing but acceptance that what the government says is the ONLY answer.
To be fair there is a lot of non-government and also non-media sources of information about mRNA in general and mRNA vaccines.
Understanding how things work helps me make my own decisions about the safety. This talk was one of the better ones I found. It is clearly meant for other researchers or as a university lecture[1], so if they say something you don’t know or understand do pause often (I definitely had to) and get educated about the related science.
My conclusion: Most of this stuff is relatively old science. I was even taught parts of it in high school decades ago (i.e. not politicized). The only unknowns for me are the COVID specific spike protein, and potential overproduction/overreaction by my cells. Given many people (including some friends) have now been exposed to this specific spike protein, it is clearly inert from a non-COVID perspective. And therefore overproduction/overreaction seem to be not a big deal, given the inert nature of this specific spike. And of course now we have data from many people taking the vaccine that it’s not an issue.
Anyways, I don’t distrust the media, but I subscribe to “trust and verify”. Regardless of why you want to verify, the internet allows you to become somewhat educated on most topics in about a week. And if you wanted to spend 3 months you could even become very educated[2] on that specific topic. Might as well take advantage of it for yourself.
[2] it’s even possible to become an expert over the internet, but would require multiple years and enough dedication that’s it’s probably simpler to just go to college for the subject. But it’s definitely possible, so leverage it as much as you can.
I’ll reply again: a lot. You can’t possibly expect me to summarise the vast, complex state of the art knowledge of RNA biology for a lay person here — it literally fills books. At the very least ask more specific questions, I’ll be happy to answer them, if I can.
> You clearly know nothing about the long term effects
Wrong. I’m no expert on all aspects of RNA vaccines, but I am an expert on RNA biology. What I do know allows me to conclusively exclude the possibility of the RNA in vaccines incorporating into the host genome (because that notion is simply not coherent). I’m not parroting any line here.
> people did try and explain why vaccines are safe
When? Where? I avoid vaccine debates and even so I can't help but come across all the conspiracy theories about the effectiveness of mRNA vaccines. The only counterpoint I've ever seen is "the science is too complicated for your feeble brain to comprehend, take the vaccine".
> I don't think the people who disagree with me, on this specific point, are well reasoned and are infact misled by deliberate misinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories.
If you're unwilling to see the people who disagree with you as equally intelligent, and equally capable of reasoned decisions, then what can I possibly say to change your mind? And how can you tell me that others of equal mental capacity are misled, while you yourself are untouched by misinformation? If that's what you claim, your hubris is impressive.
You've effectively insulated yourself from any counterargument.
In the chance you're willing to consider that I'm not misled, this is why I'm skeptical of the vaccine. mRNA vaccines are an extremely new technology, and very different from any previous type of vaccine; there has been no time for extensive testing, and we don't know the long-term side effects.
> Given the novel nature of the mechanism of action of RNA vaccines, and their drug delivery vehicles, little is known about the medium and longer-term side effects....Up until December 2020, no mRNA vaccine, drug, or technology platform, had ever been approved for use in humans, and before 2020, mRNA was only considered a theoretical or experimental candidate for use in humans. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RNA_vaccine&oldid... The wikipedia article about mRNA has been altered a lot in the past month, and is now much more focused on COVID-19. Last time I read or quoted from it was prior to those alterations, so that's what I'm citing. No reason to think the data has changed since then, just the interpretation.
>but your decision making process was not informed by information or probabilities in any way.
That's exactly what it is and will be informed by, and that information right now is zero. There's no evidence to support the hypothesis' conclusion, therefore I reject the hypothesis at present. That's not always going to be the case.
It's in no way comparable to conspiracy theories because it's a falsifiable premise. Statistical significance can and will exist about the long term safety eventually. The question at hand is very easily quantifiable and qualifiable: are mRNA vaccines safe in the long term and relative to the risks of the afflictions they target? The current answer is: there is no evidence supporting that they are, therefore the reasonable, rational, and scientific thing to do is maintain the baseline until sufficient evidence exists.
Yeah maybe something can go wrong in 20 years in one person. That's not the argument I'm making. I'm arguing that we don't know what could go wrong or what the probability something can go wrong is in the long term because the data literally just doesn't exist you're trying to argue that we should just assume that the probability of something going wrong is already established as infinitesimally small. That's irrational and antiscientific. It's not established at all that's my entire point. The data will exist eventually, we are not stuck in this permanent state of ignorance.
> I'm sure plenty of people would be a lot less conspiracy-minded if the vaccine was just a run of the mill recombinant protein particle one, even if we needed boosters 2-3x a year.
I’d be surprised if it made a difference. Most people, myself included, have literally no idea what the relevant differences are between a protein vaccine and an mRNA vaccine (I’ll look them up after writing this, of course), let alone what S1/S2/N/E protein vaccines are.
I trust the medical establishment for much the same reason I trust our civilization in general, but people like my mum who thought they knew better are unlikely to start trusting them regardless of the names of the technical methods involved.
> The mRNA vaccines by now have more evidence on their record than most vaccines when the become available.
Not longitudinal evidence.
I’m not advocating hesitancy. I personally have been vaccinated. The only point I’ve argued for is not mandating vaccination. I strongly oppose mandatory medical treatment of any kind, and that has to include vaccination.
However it is also still true that these vaccines have not received approval, and although widespread use certainly may be better even in terms of lives
lost than the economic damage, that is definitely a very bad reason to mandate medical treatment.
> I would offer you a bet that the side effects are less than 1,000th of the effects a corona infection.
For most people, you may be right. I’m happy for that case to he made, openly, with data. What I object to is forcing people on the basis of that data.
> I agree. Please shut me up and post the links to long term human mRNA vaccine safety.
Please shut me up and give me any reason to believe that there would be long term effects.
You're asking me to prove a negative, to prove there's no god. It's the wrong question to ask. The question to ask is why you would think there is one in the first place.
The first vaccine was given almost a year ago, how long do we need to wait to placate your nebulous fear? Two? Ten? Twenty more? What basis do you have for selecting this timeframe?
The long-term data we do have is the 30 years of mRNA vaccine research.
>>> But mRNA vaccine skepticism has to be the stupidest "skepticism" and falsehoods I have ever seen of a new technology.
To be fair the media and government are more to blame. By attacking and trying to silence the skeptics during COVID only proved to make what you said worse.
You wont make a very attractive product by shaming, deriding, or forcing someone into taking said product that deals with their health.
> For example in recent weeks a whole lot of people were surprised to see the lab leak hypothesis go straight from "debunked conspiracy theory" to Biden ordering it to be investigated, apparently without any intermediate points.
I absolutely believe this was from a lab leak and I also closely follow the science.
The question is, why would you want a potentially man-made virus (via gain of function research) in your system at all?
With the vaccine, you teach your immune system to see Covid-19 right away and take care of it at first sight.
Without it, you have to GET Covid-19, have it embed itself inside all of your vital organs, then have your immune system hopefully slowly learn and take care of it. Meanwhile it is sitting in your heart, liver, lungs, kidneys and pancreas doing damage that is coming to light in more and more studies.
Your an adult. Your choice, but in my mind this is a poor choice.
> I had the same experience. I wanted to know whether the “vector vaccines alter your DNA” claims had any truth to them, given that “dna altering virus” is definitely something that exists. As far as I can tell, this is (probably) false, but it was really hard to find any evidence beyond “prof. dr. X says this is a conspiracy theory, now get your vaccine they are safe and effective ™”. It was really frustrating; I’m not surprised that many people feel like they are being tricked.
This is a really frustrating perspective to hear.
> I heard this bogus claim about something I don't understand and wanted to know if it was true
> All I could find was doctors saying it was nonsense
> How could I know what the truth was?
I suspect it's a common form of reasoning. It's committing so many mistakes all at once.
* Refusal to acknowledge that you might be considering nonsense and thus perceiving anyone saying it's nonsense as malicious
* Complete refusal or certainty in your inability to do basic research on things that are well documented by many organizations and easy to find BUT STILL SAYING ITS HARD TO FIND
* Not just lack of trust, but certainty of distrust for authority figures. Anything they say has negative value.
It's far more upsetting to me than hearing people with malicious political agendas being assholes.
> I sincerely hope the people who devised this vaccine know what they are doing.
I think we all hope this. I can say that I sincerely believe the people who devised the vaccine know a hell of a lot more than just about anyone else on the planet.
I don't trust experts in economics or socio-politics, but I do trust experts in virology. Not to say their information is perfect, but they know so much more than other people in a field where expertise is connected to outcomes.
> You are probably asking questions to which we don't have answers.
I've been pleasantly surprised by the qualifications of people who post on Hacker News. Who knows; perhaps there's a stray immunologist among the visitors.
What depresses me quite a bit is that discussions in public forums regarding vaccines never seem to move past a high-school science lesson in physiology and cell biology. Which tends to leave people with a rather superficial understanding of what a vaccine does, yet with a high degree of confidence in that they understand how it works.
>but not with the many safe, effective vaccines and medications we all benefit from throughout our lives.
Because mRNA is a novel technology and that people obliviously make this argument is a testament to the effectiveness of the "safe and effective" propaganda.
>Have you always felt this way about the medical profession? Have you any specific reasons to doubt the medical profession and it’s institutions, across many nations and accreditation agencies, now in particular?
There were numerous reasons to be skeptical before covid - regulatory capture and the replication crisis in particular. Suddenly bringing these up gets you branded an anti-vaxxer. Wr shouldn't be blindly trusting our modern institution, it has strayed increasingly far from clean science over the years, now you have influences from industry and unrelated politics, in addition to the pressures that come with sticking close enough to orthodoxy to maintain a career and receive funding for grants.
When I was younger I also had much more trust in our institutions, but with age and experience I have grown to recognize how imperfect they are, and none of those imperfections disappeared when the president decided he wanted a new vaccine yesterday; in fact many of those problems were enormously amplified.
> WHY??? Why do they distrust the vaccine?? Anything? Any possible reason? It's probably the safest vaccine ever made. I. DON'T. GET. IT.
I'm getting my 2nd shot this week, but both mRNA and modified adenovirus vaccines have never been used for mass vaccinations before. The history of medicine is litered with interventions that were seen as totally safe and wonderful and lead to terrible consequences after some time. Push towards massive adoption of an intervention sets off my alarm bells.
All that said, personally, it seems the unknown long term risks of vaccination outweigh the more or less known risks of covid both on an individual level (I don't want to get it) and a community level (I'd rather like community spread to stop, so I can go back to being a hermit by choice); but if community spread wasn't happening near me, I would be happier not trying new medicine within a year of development.
>I know basically nothing about virology, but I remember hearing a podcast a million years ago talking about mRNA vaccines, and I remember after it was over thinking "if this is even half as cool as it sounds to a lay person, the implications of this are huge".
Sounds like scientism. A guy on a podcast said these are promising and you said for a whole year, without understanding anything about virology, that it was really important and good to pour time and resources into these things?
I mean, maybe you are not wrong, but this is a terrible way to determine priorities for spending and work...
> a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases, prepared from the causative agent of a disease, its products, or a synthetic substitute, treated to act as an antigen without inducing the disease
But to be fair, at this point, I don't know why we discuss mRNA vaccines, there's been traditional vaccines available for people to take as well such as J&J and Novavax. So even if you don't want to take risk with mRNA since its a newer mechanism to use for vaccines, one can take J&J or Novavax instead.
> I am pro science, but science doesn't claim that all vaccines are safe
Indeed. But science does claim that Pfizer, Moderna, etc COVID-vaccines are safe and you are un-scientific if you claim otherwise. They went through proper trials, and were accepted independently* by many countries.
* not completely independently I’m sure, but my point is that even if you don’t trust your country at all, several other ones decided univocally that it is safe
To be fair there is a lot of non-government and also non-media sources of information about mRNA in general and mRNA vaccines.
Understanding how things work helps me make my own decisions about the safety. This talk was one of the better ones I found. It is clearly meant for other researchers or as a university lecture[1], so if they say something you don’t know or understand do pause often (I definitely had to) and get educated about the related science.
My conclusion: Most of this stuff is relatively old science. I was even taught parts of it in high school decades ago (i.e. not politicized). The only unknowns for me are the COVID specific spike protein, and potential overproduction/overreaction by my cells. Given many people (including some friends) have now been exposed to this specific spike protein, it is clearly inert from a non-COVID perspective. And therefore overproduction/overreaction seem to be not a big deal, given the inert nature of this specific spike. And of course now we have data from many people taking the vaccine that it’s not an issue.
Anyways, I don’t distrust the media, but I subscribe to “trust and verify”. Regardless of why you want to verify, the internet allows you to become somewhat educated on most topics in about a week. And if you wanted to spend 3 months you could even become very educated[2] on that specific topic. Might as well take advantage of it for yourself.
[1] https://youtu.be/tVh1s06H_nw
[2] it’s even possible to become an expert over the internet, but would require multiple years and enough dedication that’s it’s probably simpler to just go to college for the subject. But it’s definitely possible, so leverage it as much as you can.
reply