Ask HN: Am I wrong to have honest concerns with the upcomming Covid-19 vaccine? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Am I wrong to have honest concerns with the upcomming Covid-19 vaccine?

4 pointssigmaprimus3 comments

First off I am not an "Anti Vaxxer", I usually get a flu shot, I believe in the benifits of the MMR vaccine, I have my pets and livestock vaccinated.

My concerns with the promising Pfizer Covid vaccine is primarily based upon the myriad of current class action legal advertisments recruiting people to join their lawsuits, who have become ill from other government approved drugs and products that have also gone through the "rigorous" approval processes and peer reviewed trials, such as Zantac, Oxycodin, Round Up, Baby Powder etc. Going all the way back to Thalydamide or even Bayer's Heroine.

My understanding is that the Pfizer vaccine is using a new game changing method involving nano technology that allows the active molecules to pass through some sort of cellular barrier that was previously unpassable.

Is it really wise to be dosing such a large percentage of the population with something like this so quickly?

Like I said I DO believe in the benifit of vaccines, but have what I feel are reasonable concerns regarding how quickly the Covid vaccines are being promoted and eventually distributed to so many people around the world.

Worst case scenario might be the only ones not hurt could be the actual anti science, "anti vaxxer" conspiracy theorists left to make policy decisions regarding current and future medications.

Am I just being parinoid or is it reasonable to have these concerns?

You're not wrong. Don't let yourself be gaslit into doing stuff you aren't sure about. You don't have to eat the bugs. You don't have to just let them do whatever they want to you, just because "trust the science" and "trust the experts". Just a while ago, the experts openly lied to the American people about masks to protect the supply of masks for medical experts.

That's what I think.

You're not wrong to be concerned. You just have to weigh that concern against the concern of a pandemic.

This vaccine is being put on rush. That doesn't mean cutting corners, but it does mean that it won't have the decades of experience we have with the childhood vaccinations and flu vaccination (which is new each year but based on long-tested technologies).

That's a different calculus from the anti-vaxxer, who is ignoring mounds of evidence collected over many years, in favor of opinions from non-experts or agenda-driven fraudsters.

You do need to consider that there is both good evidence for it working safely, and solid theory why it should. It's not snake oil: you can't rule out unexpected interactions, but you do know that it's not just guessing or fakery.

I'd love for there to be more data than that, but there is no way to develop a vaccine with techniques that have a proven record without millions of people dying in the process. And tens of millions more suffering debilitating mental and physical illnesses, perhaps for the rest of their lives. These are the known effects of the disease.

As so often in life, you will have to make an important decision based on insufficient information. The best you can do in this case is to defer to people who have more information than you do. If the large consensus of the immunology community is that it's reasonably safe, that should carry considerably more weight than premature class-action lawsuits. You're right to be uneasy, but it would shift the balance to a belief that it's a risk worth taking over the known dangers of a disease.

Finally, since it's a worldwide test, it's less likely that it could be covered up or promulgated for local political ends. (Regardless of how you feel about the outcome of the US election, it is at least over.)

Fortunately, and grimly, the odds are the vaccine will have many months more of testing before it gets to you. It will be in very widespread use and side effects will almost certainly make themselves known.

It’s extremely reasonable to be concerned with what goes in your body. It also doesn’t place you in the anti-Vaxxer bin.

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