Hacker News Reader

Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

The problem with articles of this nature is that anecdotes are not data.

Clearly if you choose to take a vaccine there's risk. It's easy to get someone to have a story of "I did this. That happened".

Maybe the two things are related. Maybe they're not. Maybe the science data is fudged. Maybe there is short-term gain for long-term pain. Maybe this, maybe that.

Now sure, we have study protocols. We collect data, analyse statistics. All very dry, and easily dismissed ("that's what they -want- you to believe.)

You cannot logic someone out of a position they weren't logicd into. You cannot fight emotion with science. Ultimately we all just make a choice. Whatever choice we make, we live, or die, with the consequences.

At this point I choose to be vaccinated. It's not risk free. My mate chooses not to. That's not risk free either. Honestly right now I'm not interested in arguing about it anymore. We all gotta die of something.

View on HN

> We collect data, analyse statistics. All very dry, and easily dismissed ("that's what they -want- you to believe.) You cannot logic someone out of a position they weren't logicd into. You cannot fight emotion with science. Ultimately we all just make a choice. Whatever choice we make, we live, or die, with the consequences.

This literally has nothing to do with the reality of the situation as discussed in the article. The article talks how it's so difficult to submit something to VAERS that people are discouraged from doing so. A science-based vaccine event system should probably allow people to submit events.

VAERS is a voluntary reporting system. It's right there, in the name. That, in itself, is not a problem. But you can't do science unless you can -- as you say -- collect data and analyze statistics.

From a population perspective, it’s vital that people get to choose. If it turns out there’s something fatally wrong with the vaccine, at least some of us will survive.

"The problem with articles of this nature is that anecdotes are not data."

That could be an issue with this specific article (doesn't really seem like it to me). However, pubmed is filled with studies about how junky and underreported the data is. Basically, the system is only intended to find gross trends and it still largely does that with the junky data. It won't capture the extremely rare stuff though.

Any individual observation is an anecdote.

Enough anecdotes become data.

Generally agree, but want to add that it depends on how those anecdotes are tracked. They knight not end up as data, bit rather stereotypes (founded or unfounded) if not recorded properly. Take the experiences and opinions of vaccine injury lawyers.

Well put. At the end of the day, it's a personal choice—a choice that is up to you and you only. Not sure how we fell into this erroneous belief that we need tell others that they shouldn't or should be vaccinated.

> Not sure how we fell into this erroneous belief that we need tell others that they shouldn't or should be vaccinated.

If you'd like the answer, the belief originally stems from watching hundreds of millions of people die of smallpox

https://historyofvaccines.org/blog/timeline-of-vaccination-m...

The difference is that the smallpox vaccine is close to providing sterilizing immunity, unlike the Covid 'vaccines'. In fact there is a lot of data to suggest now that the number of vaccine doses a person has is correlated to an increased risk of catching covid (and therefore spreading it).

Statistics agencies have to massage the raw data very significantly in their models to make it look like vaccinated individuals catch covid less often than unvaccinated people.

If anything, vaccine is a misnomer for the Covid shots. Maybe prophylactic is more accurate?

Vaccines can be prophylactic, or therapeutic (to fight a disease that has already occurred, which also includes some cancer treatments). Only some vaccines offer full sterilising immunity.

Thank you for sharing.

I get your premise and it's true for a lot of stuff, but the equivalent is saying that following the rules of the road white driving is a personal choice. When choices start effecting those around you it's a different animal.

No, I don't believe it is. Personal health choices and driving laws are two very different things.

When one drives recklessly, we know the result, bodily harm to themselves and or others. When one takes a new vaccine with limited testing and emergency approval, we don't know the result(s), yet.

By that logic, every set of choices one could have that affects others should be regulated or overseen?

Moreover, that comparison is predicated on the belief that vaccines prevent transmission. There has been no sufficient data (to my knowledge) that backs up the claim of them doing so.

The problem is that it wasn't a personal choice for a lot of people who were effectively coerced.

Agreed.

Indeed. There are zero reports in VAERS of people who took no vaccine and died of a preventable disease. There are plenty of reports of people who took a vaccine against a respiratory disease and then caught a different respiratory disease soon after. If one evaluates risk only from the VAERS dataset, vaccines will look quite risky.

What's your point? VAERS was never intended or documented to be used for risk analysis or individual healthcare decisions. If some people are misusing it that is an entirely different issue and off topic from the article.

That is not a problem with the article. The article correctly points out that we lack data exactly because of flaws in VAERS. Funding should be increased and those flaws should be fixed so that we can have higher quality data to inform public policy, medical guidelines, and individual decisions.

>The problem with articles of this nature is that anecdotes are not data.

If enough anecdotes differ from data, you need a different way to measure the data.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com