Sorry, wrong how?
These "vaccines" are MRNA snippets which hijack your body chemistry to produce proteins similar to the proteins of the disease agent. It is an entirely different mechanism, the only similarity is the needle.
Popular dictionaries actually updated their definition of a "vaccine" in 2021 to accommodate this change, but at the end of the day, just because it is administered via a needle, it is not the same and should not get the same mental associations of a hundred years of prior tech.
https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=vaccine&oldid=51...
"(immunology) A substance given to stimulate the body's production of antibodies and provide immunity against a disease without causing the disease itself in the treatment, prepared from the agent that causes the disease, or a synthetic substitute."
In this context, I think the mRNA would satisfy the definition of "synthetic substitute".
In either case, this is merely semantics and it's the "GOTCHA!" you think it is.
His entire commentary is quite interesting. [2]
Some popular dictionaries noticed their definitions were wrong. Merriam Webster's old definition excluded toxoid vaccines like diphtheria and tetanus. And anything produced from a virus.[1] Other popular dictionaries didn't say a vaccine had to be made from certain things.
Do you see the problem with your line of thinking?
That is fine, medical science is tough, but don't call it a vaccine instead of changing the definition of what outcomes vaccines historically (pre-2021) had provided.
No vaccine is 100% effective at providing absolute immunity. Not the MMR. Not Polio. Nobody has claimed otherwise.
> Now it's been changed to "provides protection, but ooops that protection can wane over time and eventually disappear".
Hmm...just like the annual flu "vaccine", right?
And did you forget that other vaccines require boosters, too? Tetanus is an example. It just happens to last several years, rather than several months like a flu or COVID vaccine.
Not all antibodies are the same. We now know that COVID-fighting antibodies last a few months. It doesn't mean the vaccines themselves are weak, it means the antibodies our bodies create don't survive long.
So yeah, not only are you simply wrong, but you're arguing nothing more than semantics as if it's a valid criticism.
Several years ago there was a flu mutation that was similar enough to a flu from the 1930s (iirc) that people who caught it back then were still immune. It’s not that we need new vaccines for the same virus each year, the virus has just mutated enough that our immune response isn’t trained to identify it.
We don’t know how long natural antibodies for Covid last. In my family, members were still immune 9 months after infection and had higher antibody counts than those who were symptomatic.
Why is there such a push to convince people that our immune system works differently for this particular virus?
The inference here is categorically false. Vaccine protection against the flu begins to wane within weeks, and the reason is not owed to mutations:
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2018/09/study-fl...
https://www.science.org/content/article/why-flu-vaccines-don...
>Why is there such a push to convince people that our immune system works differently for this particular virus?
There is no such push. You and others are just misinformed about how the immune system works and, unfortunately, spreading that misinformation--as here.
As mentioned in other comments, however anecdotal, multiple members of my household and extended family have durable immunity 9 months after their infections, without vaccination.
Sure, it's not 100% for those other vaccines, but it's close. Once you get the polio vaccine as a child, you live the rest of your life the exact same way you would if polio were eradicated, without ever having to take any special precautions against the spread of polio again.
It’s really unclear what the goal is with this campaign. My wife and son recovered last year and has not received a Covid shot. When others in our family caught it 9 months later, they didn’t get sick, as expected, and had an appropriate and measurable antibody response.
Also old vaccines do not all provide lifelong immunity. You have to get tetanus boosters regularly.
"Vaccine" when first introduced meant "of the cow", i.e. cowpox used as a weaker form of smallpox to provide immunological protection against the dangers of smallpox.
"especially : a condition of being able to resist a particular disease especially through preventing development of a pathogenic microorganism or by counteracting the effects of its products"
Getting vaccinated has never, ever, guaranteed you cannot contract an illness.