> You cannot say it has "no long-term side effects"
What are the long-term side effects of the vaccine? Or are you saying that you expect us to discover some in the future?
What are the long-term side effects of the vaccine? Or are you saying that you expect us to discover some in the future?
Biology "certitude" is far from being as strong as a mathematical proof. Humans are different, and the complexity of interaction inside a single body are horribly complex.
I'm very surprised decades of science fiction litterature isn't enough to make people think twice.
In what way do you think millions of doctors, disease experts, and drug researchers have gotten that wrong? They have evidence that Covid is worse, but where is evidence to the contrary?
> I'm very surprised decades of science fiction litterature isn't enough to make people think twice.
Isn't it arrogant to assume that all the experts on vaccines are less informed or less cautious than you are, just because you've read sci-fi?
They didn't just think twice. They've done decades of research and testing, and they've closely monitored safety at every stage of rollout.
in general i would also be very skeptical of "scientific consensus" related by the media when you see how much bad press some doctor got for criticising public health politics (even when proved right later on).
Reminder of the Thalidomide drug:
> Thalidomide is a sedative drug discovered at the end of the 50s, which caused a worldwide tragedy. The drug has been prescribed to many pregnant women in order to relieve pregnancy nausea. It was later found that thalidomide caused irreversible damages to the fetus and thousands of children were born with severe congenital malformations. Many of them did not survive more than a few days after they were born.
Good news, then. Viral vector vaccines (like the J&J version) have been studied and tested since the 1970s, and mRNA vaccines (like Pfizer) have been studied since the 1980s[1][2].
What ingredient in Covid vaccines do you suspect will become the new thalidomide?
We know that the actual viral vector and mRNA components of the vaccines will degrade and disappear from the body in the short term[3], so it must be one of the other ingredients, right?
It's also important to weigh the completely unknown long-term effects of Covid against the well-known long-term effects of training an immune system with a vaccine.
1. https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19...
2. https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-maga...
3. https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/where-mrna-vaccines-and-sp...
If those aren’t true then the risk is probably worth it as a raging infection would almost certainly be worse for the baby. I just wish there was some nuance in our government’s recommendations.
The claim that the spike protein is dangerous in and of itself is a fixture of anti-vax disinformation online.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/08/fac...
You can't say "The spike protein absolutely does not cause damage". That's going too far. Speaking as someone who doesn't pay attention to whatever the conspiracy theory of the day is, I have nevertheless always wondered about the effect of of proteins in the blood whose sole purpose is to breach cell walls. Your comment motivated me to do a quick google. There are in fact many reputable papers hinting at unpredictable spike protein effects. Here's three:
SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Induces Degradation of Junctional Proteins That Maintain Endothelial Barrier Integrity [0]
The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein alters barrier function in 2D static and 3D microfluidic in-vitro models of the human blood–brain barrier [1]
SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins disrupt the blood-brain barrier, new research shows [2]
[0] https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcvm.2021.68778...
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096999612...
[2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/10/201029141941.h...
A little perspective - one way or another, we're all going to be exposed to this damn spike protein eventually, and the vaccine is by far the safer way. If it does do something bad, we haven't noticed it yet, which presumably means it can't be that bad. I haven't seen any reports of people getting long covid from a jab.
"While it is true that the spike protein has 'superantigen' properties, which means it has the POTENTIAL to cause adverse effects, we know that it doesn’t cause these effects in many infected patients, it doesn’t cause many of these superantigen effects in most vaccinated individuals, and the levels are incredibly low in the blood, suggesting this shouldn’t be a concern," he said."
Many, most, etc. is a pretty far cry from "absolutely does not." I already said for most people it shouldn't be an issue. Could it be developmentally harming fetuses? Maybe we'll find out 10 years from now that they'll have a slightly lower IQ than they should.
Or maybe for adults we'll see an increase in autoimmune diseases a few years from now. Or, hopefully, there will be no widespread long term effects. These things take time to suss out. I'm so incredibly sick of absolutism reigning over everything now. It should be perfectly acceptable to have a nuanced opinion over who should take the vaccine instead of everyone or noone.