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Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

> “If you don’t believe what I believe, you listened to cranks” isn’t a terribly compelling argument.

It's a good thing that isn't the argument I made, then.

>That does not make taking a brand new COVID vaccine in the height of a hyper-politicized pandemic the same as taking the for example MMR vaccine that has been used for decades.

Yes, it kind of does. The vaccine was tested. It's safe. No, that doesn't mean there isn't risk, there is always risk, but risk doesn't mean it could be poison for all anyone knows. There was little reason to be skeptical about it (or any more skeptical than of other vaccines, which is to say not very skeptical) besides giving in to the FUD being spread by the anti-vax crowd telling people it would make them infertile or drop dead of a heart attack after a few days.

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> It's a good thing that isn't the argument I made, then.

Well it could perhaps be accused of being a reductive summary, but surely you see how it could have come off like that?

> The vaccine was tested. It's safe. No, that doesn't mean there isn't risk, there is always risk, but risk doesn't mean it could be poison for all anyone knows.

There is a vast bit of difference between no risk and poison for all anyone knows. Safe (as in unlikely to kill you or cause you lasting harm in the short term)? Yes, that’s evident. Worth the risk over the disease for those not at risk? By my reading of the data that’s far from clear. And again comparing 50 years to a few months of data.. I just don’t see how you can’t see the difference.

Again, your position doesn’t resemble anything scientific.

>Again, your position doesn’t resemble anything scientific.

The science can speak for itself. My position isn't even about the science so much as the psychology and politics of risk aversion and paranoia around this specific vaccine. I assume you take flu vaccines, maybe tetanus if you have to travel, or chickenpox. People get vaccinated against Hepatitis B at birth. None of those had 50 years of clinical trials before release, there's a new flu vaccine every year.

People act like pharmaceutical companies never encountered anything like COVID before and just started mixing beakers of random chemicals together in a mad panic and jabbing people on the street with them, but research into coronaviruses and mRNA vaccines was already going on for decades. The infrastructure and science was already there. Technology improved. The vaccine was tested, it went through blind trials, it was approved using the same process as other vaccines.

And this is the scientific position, which you could easily avail yourself of. Science isn't the reason people don't trust this specific vaccine, because science doesn't support that fear.

> The science can speak for itself.

Well you’d think so, but here we are with different views about what is a reasonable position on what it says.

You’re continuing to straw man things here, we may just be at an impasse.

> Science isn't the reason people don't trust this specific vaccine, because science doesn't support that fear.

Skepticism of mandates is fully supported by the science.

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