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Comment by insane_dreamer | Hacker News Reader

> It's amusing to see the early signs of the anti-vax movement here.

Not surprising. I look at vaccines the same way as I look at any new medication: has it been tested long enough to know what the long-term effects of it are, and do the benefits outweigh the risks. I don't have a problem with MMR, TB and other common vaccines, that have been around for decades. If I'm traveling to East Africa I'm going to get a yellow fever vaccine. I also don't have a problem with the COVID vaccine because it was clear that the risk of not getting vaccinated was significant. But I have never gotten a "flu shot" in my life because the benefit of it is rather low relative to the risk of influenza given my demographics and health. If that makes me an anti-vaxxer, so be it. Don't really care.

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This encapsulates a misunderstanding of how vaccines work. They do not float around in our bodies for years. They work by (hopefully) training an immune response from our own bodies. The vaccines themselves rapidly breakdown. They do not last because there's no need for them to. As a result, vaccine testing - for all vaccines - pretty much only needs to cover that period. While side-effects (ranging from minor to serious and rare to common) from the vaccines themselves do occur, what's not clear to me is how well we understand/appreciate the second order effects of an altered immune system response e.g. "my body now knows to attack X, but in attacking X, it also impacts Y" - kind of thing. Where Y may be something that only becomes apparent much later.

Speaking for myself, having lived and worked in SE Asia for a while, I've had almost every vaccine known to man (the only one I'm sure I haven't had is the HPV). I've had 5 COVID shots (got COVID once in 2021) and get an annual flu-shot. The only side-effect I've ever had (that I'm aware of), is a sore arm at the injection site. I have no idea what that says about me. My mum reacts badly to most (not all) vaccines - especially the flu shots. People vary and I suspect our immune system (which I believe is poorly understood) has complex effects on the response to some vaccines.

> vaccines themselves rapidly breakdown. They do not last because there's no need for them to

The effects of the vaccines linger, by design. (Granted, in a generally productive way.)

I didn't say that the vaccine itself persists. But the effects of its interactions with the body, do persist by design.

I had 3 COVID shots; no issues with the first two. But 2 years later, my arm is still quite sore to the touch where I got my shot (and I can feel mild discomfort there even without touching it). So obviously a long-term change there.

Have you talked to your doctor about that?

> But I have never gotten a "flu shot" in my life because the benefit of it is rather low relative to the risk of influenza given my demographics and health. If that makes me an anti-vaxxer, so be it.

That seems like reasonable risk assessment to me. It’s a minor chore to get but the benefit to you is also pretty minor. Lots of people skip the flu vaccine for those reasons.

But some folks skip the flu vaccine because they are convinced that the vaccine itself will harm them. I hate the term “anti-vaxxer” but if I were to apply the concept, it’s mostly to that unbalanced risk assessment.

It’s an interesting question why some folks develop such an unbalanced assessment. And I dislike “anti-vaxxer” because I think is dismissive and derogatory, and leads away from trying to understand each other.

> It’s a minor chore

It's not just that. I generally avoid taking medications unless I need to (when prescribed), which so far in my life has been extremely rare. It may not be "harmful", but I don't want to put any chemicals in my body if I don't have to. Most medications come at some cost, in that besides doing what they are designed to do, they also interact with other cells or systems in ways that may not be desirable. Vaccines are no different in that respect.

> If that makes me an anti-vaxxer, so be it. Don't really care.

I'm pretty sure setting a personal bar/risk tradeoff that lets you take a significant number of vaccines doesn't make you an anti-vaxxer.

That's the rational response, but in practice what we saw is that anyone who questioned the Covid vaccine was instantly labeled anti-vax. It didn't matter if they were fine with all other vaccines. It didn't matter if they just had Covid or had a complicating pre-existing condition. Anything less than full acceptance was shut down as anti-vax. They ruined the anti-vax label which was previously useful.

I think anti-vaxxer is painted with a much wider brush than that, and somehow become automatically equivalent to "anti-science"; there is overlap but there's also a lot of non-overlap. Somehow vaccines have become an "all or nothing" proposition which is just as stupid as saying that all medications are created equal.

But in any case, I'm not going to live my life by what labels others put on me.

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