[HN Gopher] CDC panel recommends resuming use of Johnson and Joh...
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CDC panel recommends resuming use of Johnson and Johnson vaccine
Author : rafaelc
Score : 114 points
Date : 2021-04-23 21:26 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| mancerayder wrote:
| Pausing like that causes, not prevents, vaccine skepticism. In an
| era of declining public trust of institutions (across both
| political aisles, even if unequally), I argue this pause was poor
| politics. Science doesn't enter much into it, unfortunately.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I think either pausing _or_ not pausing _could_ increase _or_
| decrease vaccine confidence.
|
| One could imagine pausing: "oh, they are being careful, great,
| and NOW after looking at it, they've determined it is safe."
| (The pausing is actually a consequence of the sped-up approval;
| the sped-up approval process comes with a requirement to pay
| extra extra scrutiny to any side effects reported) OR "See,
| they admit it's not safe, they paused it!"
|
| Same with not pausing: "See they rushed the approval, and now
| they are ignoring side effects" OR just nobody hears about the
| side effects without the publicity, or figures they must not be
| a big deal if they didn't even bother pausig it or whatever.
|
| Could go either way. The difference in either case is probably
| determined by building up trust over time, by transparency, and
| by having an effective communications/education/marketing plan
| (specifically for communications around the side
| effects/pause).
|
| In the USA, of course, we have none of that. So it was probably
| going to decrease confidence either way. What a country!
| Fomite wrote:
| Personally, I prefer drug safety protocols be based on science,
| not what people feel, or whether or not it's "good politics".
| mancerayder wrote:
| This is what I am arguing above. In light of this, would you
| say the pause was good science and not politics?
| Fomite wrote:
| Yes. The pause was exactly what should have been done, and
| every single vaccine specialist I know was both supportive
| and unsurprised.
| creddit wrote:
| > Personally, I prefer drug safety protocols be based on
| science, not what people feel, or whether or not it's "good
| politics".
|
| Implicit to this point is that what the CDC/FDA did was "good
| science" and not bad science.
| nickff wrote:
| There have been some studies which demonstrated that experts
| gain credibility when they express uncertainty. Amateurs on the
| other hand lose credibility when they express uncertainty. I
| don't have a citation handy, but I thought you might find the
| perspective useful.
| mancerayder wrote:
| Does the citation include the recent major skepticism of
| Astra? There are French polls that backed major skepticism of
| Astra specifically after the pause.
|
| The downvotes are puzzling. Are people capable of countering
| with reason, or is a downvote a proxy vote for how they wish
| reality to be?
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| They're perhaps downvoting because what was described was
| "studies" (not "the citation"), that were about credibility
| and uncertainly generally, and it's safe to assume they
| weren't conducted in the past 4 months and have nothing to
| do with covid vaccines, but you jump in with "well your
| study means nothing to me unless it was conducted in the
| past two months and already peer reviewed and published"
| which is not how it works.
| notatoad wrote:
| pausing causes vaccine hesitance, but finding out that the
| authorities knew about potential risks like this and _didn 't_
| pause the rollout to assess those risks _also_ causes vaccine
| hesitance, and is also poor politics.
|
| they did the safe thing, regardless of the politics. if you're
| skeptical about vaccines you should be reassured by that. and
| if a person is skeptical about vaccines but somehow isn't
| reassured by the authorities taking responsible safety
| precautions, they're probably not coming from a place of reason
| and there's not much point worrying what they think.
| passivate wrote:
| This is great news! I'm holding out for the J&J shot myself :) I
| find it to be a better product than the others.
| decafninja wrote:
| I'm the opposite. I was sort of resigned to getting the J&J but
| was hoping for the Pfizer. My wife got an appointment before I
| did and did get the J&J.
|
| Then this clotting news happened, and I subsequently got my
| appointment - Pfizer. So I guess I got what I wanted.
|
| My wife is perfectly fine though, no side effects. If given the
| J&J vaccine, I would have taken it too.
| servercobra wrote:
| Can you explain why you think it's a better product? Genuinely
| curious as I haven't done much comparison myself.
| raphlinus wrote:
| Speaking for myself (team J&J), single dose is definitely
| more convenient. Anecdotally, reactions seem to be less
| severe than for the mRNA vaccines. And, while it's only a
| minor speed bump to our gold-plated healthcare delivery
| system, the fact that it doesn't need an extreme cold chain
| means it's logistically much easier to handle.
| passivate wrote:
| Because of their confidence (and the FDAs confidence) in
| their single-dose immunogenicity data, and also the fact that
| they ran trials in regions (brazil, SA, US) at times when new
| variants were prevalent.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Adenovirus-based vaccines have existed a while, so it is not
| as new-and-untested as mRNA vaccines are.
| neither_color wrote:
| I was holding out too but the opportunity to get Pfizer part 1
| came up this week and I figured "this indefinite suspension
| could take months might as well get this out of the way now."
| Oh well. Im always wrong about these things. Either way in
| three more weeks I'll be done doing the "needful."
|
| No side effects for me besides my arm sore to the touch the day
| after, but not painful. Similar to the day after a
| weightlifting workout.
| aaronbrethorst wrote:
| Same for me on Monday. Oh well.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I got confused as the same thing was reported in Oxford
| Astrozenica vaccine recipients. I wasn't sure if they're the same
| vaccine (they're not). So I read up a bit.
|
| The same sort of clots occur in people who have been given
| heparin (a blood thinner). It's even called "heparin induced" in
| people using heparin.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-vaccination_embolic_and_t...
|
| People on either vaccine have been found to have an immune
| response to "platelet factor 4" (PF4). PF4s job is to moderate
| substances like heparin.
|
| I wonder if PF4 is similar to spike protein somehow?
|
| I wonder how long the immune response lasts?
|
| I guess it's not super useful as it wouldn't make sense to give
| people a blood thickener (a coagulant?) prophylacticly. Maybe we
| need to consider whether this is appropriate for people on
| Heparin or similar medications? I'm no doctor so don't take this
| as discouragment, I'm just musing. I have Oxford AZ (1 dose so
| far) and it was fine.
| loceng wrote:
| In-depth talk with a virologist who believes that all of these
| vaccines currently be dangerous - and that we should perhaps stop
| all of them, please watch it before you assume you understand the
| reasoning:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNyAovuUxro - DarkHorse Podcast
| with Geert Vanden Bossche & Bret Weinstein
| Igelau wrote:
| I googled him to see if I could find the gist of his claims. I
| can't find a single thing from him, but I can find a ton of
| takedown pieces tearing apart this episode.
|
| (Bret Weinstein is leaning hard into the IDW thing. DarkHorse?
| Really?)
| seriousquestion wrote:
| It's worth listening to. Bret Weinstein was early on the lab
| leak hypothesis, when it was taboo to even ask the question.
| graton wrote:
| Counter point to Geert Vanden Bossche
|
| https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/03/26/geert-vanden-bossche/
|
| Seems like he has financial interest in claiming the vaccines
| are dangerous.
| root_axis wrote:
| Can you summarize the argument? The video is almost 2 hours.
| grej wrote:
| Both my wife and I got the J&J shot before it was cancelled. We
| both had a period about 12 hours afterwards where we felt like we
| had a mild flu for about another 12 hours, then it was over and
| we've felt fine. Very happy with this decision.
| hcurtiss wrote:
| If we're doing anecdata, I too had the J&J shot right before it
| was cancelled. Literally no symptoms whatsoever. Very happy
| with the "one and done" relative to my wife who will go in next
| week for the second Pfizer shot.
| [deleted]
| ardit33 wrote:
| Damage is done... NYC saw a drop in vaccine appointments right
| after the original ban on J&J happen.
|
| They could have issued a warning first, with the group ages/sex
| that they were seeing the clots (it was mostly women). Now they
| are scaring the 'indecisive' part of the population, and just
| making sure the pandemic will keep going.
|
| Both the CDC and the FDA have completely dropped the ball during
| this pandemic. They are acting like typical bureaucrats, with the
| 'you don't fired if you buy IBM' type of mentality, and instead
| of being aggressive, they are just acting in a way so they don't
| get fired.
|
| They should have done challenge trials back in April last year,
| and ask for military style of mobilization on productions,
| instead of just doing the normal/usual trails.
|
| It would have speedup the vaccine rollout even more, and perhaps
| save at least 200k lives or more. (mask requirements on the
| Federal level, would have saved another 100-200k people).
| elliekelly wrote:
| Doesn't a drop in vaccine appointments make sense given the
| (presumably) reduced supply of total available vaccines when
| J&J was paused?
| Vecr wrote:
| I think a mask mandate on the federal level would have required
| using more emergency presidential powers than most people would
| have been comfortable with. A president exercising martial law
| or something similar that would allow increased power over the
| states during a presidential election might not be helpful for
| people's view of the procedures and result.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's unclear that federal mandates would even have been
| constitutional and compliance, even in blue states in
| situations like people walking at comfortable distances
| outside are pretty spotty. There's a lot of faith in the idea
| that different top-level policies would have made a big
| difference short of truly sealing borders and having them
| totally shut even now.
| shadowofneptune wrote:
| Vaccines take multiple years to develop normally. How much
| faster can you get for vaccine development? I certainly did not
| expect there to be more than one, or any, good options for
| vaccination by the beginning of this year. The trials also
| helped make it clear that the Pfizer-BionTech and Moderna
| vaccines were safe, something that will help convince people to
| take the vaccine in the long term.
| thrower123 wrote:
| The rapidity of vaccine development is one of those things
| that makes me look at the lab-leak hypothesis and raise an
| eyebrow exaggeratedly.
| sp332 wrote:
| Polling shows that pausing the J&J vaccine did not make people
| more hesitant to get vaccinated.
| https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/04/poll-shows-jj-pause-...
| It might have made the locations and times less convenient, or
| people might be waiting for a one-shot vaccine.
| clarkevans wrote:
| J&J is starting a 2-dose clinical study
| (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04614948), perhaps to see
| if it could have comparable effectiveness as the 2-dose mRNA
| Moderna and Pfizer protocols.
|
| Unfortunately, the control arm for this study is a placabo
| instead of a single dose, which I would expect to be the standard
| of care.
| nostromo wrote:
| Now maybe the US can finally approve the AstraZeneca vaccine and
| put our 20 million (!) doses on hand to good use.
|
| Or not! But if we're not going to use them, we should send them
| to another country like Canada or Mexico or Australia or the UK
| or EU, all of which have approved it and administered millions of
| doses.
|
| Sitting on 10s of millions of vaccines during a pandemic is
| inexcusable.
| dawnerd wrote:
| 100% agree we should send them elsewhere. It seems we've
| reached the point where we're manufacturing enough to just
| about meet demand and our neighbors are struggling.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Excellent news.
|
| The unfortunate thing is the level of ignorance today mistakes a
| very careful effort make sure the vaccine is safe with a wanton
| ignoring of some danger.
|
| Beyond talking about the fact that they determined this was safe,
| at some point educating people on danger in statistical terms is
| going to be necessary. But I'm not sure how that happens -
| addiction to headline-logic and single-heart-pulling-events is a
| huge part of the news industry.
| andrew_v4 wrote:
| I think it's a direct consequence of media and government
| trying to remove free will from the equation and present taking
| the vaccine as the only choice people have. If you're going to
| essentially force people to do it, a statistically meaningless
| side-effect becomes more important as reason for people to push
| back (and the media to drum up false fears).
|
| If you treat people like adults and let them consult their
| doctors and make their own decisions, the bar is much lower for
| safety (by lower I mean from impossibly high to reasonable).
| People willingly take much more risky medicines and treatments
| all the time and are fine with it. But if you try and force
| something in them, it's not surprising they push back on
| anything that isn't guaranteed to be perfect.
|
| (So my point is, I think demand would be higher and concerns
| lower if you just made it available and let people make their
| own choice. But the whole pandemic has been more about forcing
| people to do things than about trying to do things that
| actually solve the problem)
|
| [Edit- it's funny how any presence of giving people control
| over their bodies evaporates in a situation like this. And re
| the strawman that "nobody is forcing you" - if the consequence
| is severe limits on what you are allowed to do, that doesnt
| really hold up]
| jdavis703 wrote:
| No one is being forced to take vaccines. It's already
| announced there will be no federal vaccine passport, and many
| states are banning passports.
| option wrote:
| at least here, in California, you can not chose which one
| you get when making the appointment or when arriving at the
| vaccination site. Also CSU and UC will require vaccinations
| for return to on-campus. (Though I'm not sure that they
| will be able to do so until vaccines are under "emergency
| use" authorization, not a regular one)
| void_mint wrote:
| It's true that you can't choose, but lots of places are
| listing what vaccines they're doing on specific days. You
| can "choose" by booking an appointment at a location that
| has the one you want, or by avoiding locations that have
| ones you don't want.
|
| As an example, I booked my appointment specifically at a
| location that only carried Pfizer.
| option wrote:
| yeah, when I went (and got Moderna), I saw many people
| (who booked the appointment) asking staff "Is it Pfizer"
| and leaving when the answer was No.
| void_mint wrote:
| My personal take was just to avoid J&J in favor of mRNA
| vaccines, but only because of my vague obsessive anxiety.
| arsome wrote:
| That seems like a really weird decision because both
| Moderna and Pfizer are using very similar technologies
| and haven't had much negative press coverage.
| option wrote:
| yes, and a waste of appointment slot
| tzs wrote:
| Here in Western Washington, I've not seen any site mixing
| vaccines. One Walgreens might have Moderna and another
| Pfizer, but any given day any particular store will only
| have one of them.
|
| Most places say when you sign up which they will have for
| your appointment, but if they do not you can often tell
| by looking at the eligibility. If they are offering
| appointments to people age 16+, they are using Pfizer. If
| 18+, Moderna.
|
| Most places here also tell you on the signup form that
| your second appointment will be the same time and place
| exactly N weeks after the first. If N = 3, they are using
| Pfizer. If N = 4, Moderna.
| neither_color wrote:
| Domestically that's the case but if you have(had) to travel
| abroad often for work or family reasons that won't be the
| case. I regularly(used to) visit and have family ties to a
| country that allows vaccine records in lieu of negative
| tests for entry. I'd say that's reasonable.
|
| https://www.traveloffpath.com/countries-open-for-
| vaccinated-...
| void_mint wrote:
| Right, but are you seeing how allowing vaccine records in
| lieu of other documentation is not the same as requiring
| vaccination?
| neither_color wrote:
| None of this has made sense for months I'm just going
| with the flow. We get x-ray scanned through our clothes
| every time we fly what's dignity? It's just another
| airport document as far as Im concerned.
| void_mint wrote:
| I'm sorry, I can't really tell how your comment is
| related to my comment? What does verifying that you took
| precaution to prevent the spread of covid have to do with
| dignity?
| neither_color wrote:
| My mistake. I misread your response as requiring one or
| the other being the same as forcing. Some people find
| having to show a negative test or vaccination record for
| international travel as invasive, and to them I'd say
| that the real violation of privacy happens at the TSA
| line.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| You mean you'll have to fulfil certain legal requirements
| in order to be permitted entry to a foreign country?
| Surely that's unprecedented!
| ghaff wrote:
| Yellow Fever vaccinations in particular have been
| commonly required for a variety of countries, hence WHO
| yellow vaccination book.
| elliekelly wrote:
| > So my point is, I think demand would be higher and concerns
| lower if you just made it available and let people make their
| own choice.
|
| That's already how it works, though. Everyone is free to
| decide for themselves whether or not they'd like to be
| vaccinated.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| To an extent. Presently, you won't be thrown in jail if you
| don't get it. But you can't go to NYU. You can't go to a
| wedding. You can't go to a concert, or a football game, you
| can't fly Qantas...
| histriosum wrote:
| Yes. You are free to make a choice, not free from the
| consequences of that choice.
| chillacy wrote:
| How does one balance that with the counter desire to not
| want to go to a wedding, concert, football game, or plane
| with unvaccinated people?
| ibejoeb wrote:
| That's a strange desire because what does it matter? If
| you were worried, you would have gotten vaccinated, and
| unless you don't believe the vaccine works, you would be
| protected.
|
| It's also something that is impossible to know because
| you don't have the right to inspect someone's medical
| records.
| andrew_v4 wrote:
| It's a big shift because we have never as a society
| catered to the most cowardly before. Personal
| responsibility used to mean if you cared about something
| it was on you, now its shifted to forcing it on other
| people. This is really antithetical to western values.
| aphextron wrote:
| >"Presently, you won't be thrown in jail if you don't get
| it. But you can't go to NYU."
|
| You also can't go to NYU if you've never had an MMR.
| What's your point?
| jonplackett wrote:
| I made a website recently to try and do what I think you're
| talking about.
|
| http://whatoneinamillionmeans.com
|
| The idea is to compare the risk of death from the AZ vaccine
| from blood clots (1 in a million so far) with the risks we take
| all the time without worrying.
|
| For there J+J vaccine, it's also a 1 in a million risk, but
| just of getting the clots, not dying.
|
| The point is to show the fallacy of comparing the risk of the
| vaccine with a perceived current zero risk - you are not at
| zero risk ever, there's a base-risk we as society and
| individuals have decided we are OK with, because without it we
| can't even get out of bed in the morning, let alone get into a
| car or do anything else interesting, and the risk from these
| vaccines is a lot lower than that.
| alderz wrote:
| I am not sure why you got downvoted. The website makes the
| point well.
| eloff wrote:
| I fully agree, and made this point many times to my vaccine
| skeptical parents. Thankfully they've come around and got the
| vaccine since.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| The most important comparison is the risk of getting severe
| covid and/or dying from it if _unvaccinated_.
|
| It's tricky cause it depends on what you _do_ (you get to do
| more once you are vaccinated), as well as the ever-changing
| rate of infection in the community where you are (which will
| change as more people get vaccinated among other things).
|
| But in general, your risk of having severe complications from
| covid if unvaccinated is far more than your risk of
| complications from the vaccine.
|
| And on the population level, we can say if say 1 million
| people get the vaccine, X will have blood clot complications
| (about 1)... if 1 million people go two months without being
| vaccinated, how many will get covid and have severe
| complications? (more than X). So if using the J&J gets a
| million people vaccinated two months earlier, it's a win.
|
| Of course, ALL of this is an embaressment of riches when the
| USA has access to large quantities of _three_ effective and
| safe vaccines, when much of the planet still has _zero_.
| zamalek wrote:
| Medications (not necessarily vaccines) are universally risky,
| even a Tylenol. Doctors weight the risk of you dying or
| suffering from symptoms against the risks involved with taking
| the medication. Chemotherapy is a good example: the risks and
| side effects are horrific, but on the other hand it's dealing
| with cancer.
|
| > Beyond talking about the fact that they determined this was
| safe
|
| And so there is a miniscule risk associated with J&J - that is
| the truth, or the half-truth. The whole truth is that your odds
| of catching and dying from COVID-19 are significantly higher
| than an adverse reaction to the J&J vaccine.
|
| So, even with the blot clot risk (which can be caught/treated),
| you should absolutely have the J&J vaccine if you have the
| chance to.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I just read the linked Axios article, so perhaps there is more in
| the CDC decision, but seems like it would make the most sense to
| just recommend against the J&J vaccine for anyone at higher risk
| of clot (e.g. all 6 of the people who had clots were women of
| childbearing age). With 3 good vaccines available, seems like
| there is plenty (or shortly will be plenty) to go around even if
| the J&J vaccine only goes to those at low clot risk.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| It's worth noting that young-to-middle-aged women are also
| over=represented (relative to the general public) among
| healthcare workers, who have been a primary target for the
| early rounds of vaccination.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| God the downvotes on this site piss me off so much. They are SO
| mindless.
|
| This is what the UK is doing with AstraZeneca, for the exact
| same problem! Only suggesting it to people over 30! Stop
| downvoting the suggestion which is literally expert advice!
| sp332 wrote:
| I don't think the usual risk factors for clotting apply here.
| These cases were rare enough to stand out at just 1 per
| million. The clotting seems to be a specific immune response
| similar to some people who clot when given heparin.
| medicineman wrote:
| .03%
| sjm wrote:
| Just makes sense. The benefits far outweigh the risks at six
| cases of blood clots out of over 6.8 million doses, especially
| when there's a high risk of blood clots following COVID-19
| hospitalization. Not to mention rates of blood clots caused by
| the pill are more like 1 in 3000.
|
| Hopefully if anything the pause has shown anti-vax folks that the
| safety of these vaccines is being taken seriously.
| sp332 wrote:
| It was 6 cases when the pause was announced, but it's up to 15
| cases (plus one that J&J went back and found in the phase III
| data) now that we've had an extra week for cases to develop and
| reports to come in. I expect that cases will continue to
| happen, but hopefully patients and doctors will be more
| prepared to deal with it.
| barbazoo wrote:
| I agree with you that the risk of getting Covid-19 far outweigh
| the risk of blood clots associated with some vaccines, however,
| I've read this comparison with birth control related blood
| clots many times and it just doesn't seem to be comparable.
|
| https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-comparing-blood-clot-r...
|
| > Indeed, government health officials are investigating a type
| of blood clot called a cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST)
| among the J&J recipients. These clots formed in the draining
| veins of the brain, combined with a low platelet count,
| essentially causing a stroke. Hormonal birth control pills, on
| the other hand, raise the risk of blood clots in the leg that
| can break off and travel to the lung, causing a pulmonary
| embolism that blocks blood flow to part of the lung. The latter
| clots can be treated with anticoagulants, while the J&J clots
| cannot.
|
| One seems to be far more deadly than the other.
| passivate wrote:
| There is the potential for (rare) harmful side-effects from
| taking many pharmaceuticals. Its all the stuff that they
| speak at 2x speed after the ad. People (especially the media)
| are understandably hyper-focused on COVID.
| void_mint wrote:
| > Hopefully if anything the pause has shown anti-vax folks that
| the safety of these vaccines is being taken seriously.
|
| The anti vaxx community is uninterested in science. This won't
| change anything.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| As ever, the thoroughly anti-vax community are going to be
| unconvinceable, but there is real progress to be made on the
| margins. There are a large number of people who are not
| inherently opposed to vaccination who are hesitant (for a
| wide variety of reasons) to take this vaccine.
|
| I know people who have gone from "The US government has a
| long history of medical experimentation on people with my
| skin tone" to vaccination evangelists over the last few
| months. This _isn 't_ yet quite one of those issues where
| people are locked in to a narrow bimodal distribution.
| void_mint wrote:
| It may be splitting hairs, but I wouldn't really call most
| vaccine skeptics "anti vaxxers". The legitimate "anti vaxx"
| community are legitimately uninterested in science. These
| people will never get vaccinated, regardless of data.
|
| A much larger group of people is skeptical of the
| government and vaccines. These people might get vaccinated,
| and every piece of information that comes out in favor of
| vaccination has the possibility to sway some of them.
|
| My post was about the first group, not the second.
| miked85 wrote:
| I am not sure it is about "anti-vax" folks so much in this
| case. Many are wary of getting a vaccine with < year of
| testing, not to mention relatively new technology (mRNA). That
| isn't entirely unreasonable, though I did end up getting the
| Moderna shot.
| dawnerd wrote:
| JnJ isn't mRNA just in case that's what you were implying.
| miked85 wrote:
| Thanks for clarifying. I didn't mean to imply that.
| GrifMD wrote:
| That's fair, but I'd prefer to get the vaccine over something
| developed by bats https://xkcd.com/2397/
| Sebguer wrote:
| >Hopefully if anything the pause has shown anti-vax folks that
| the safety of these vaccines is being taken seriously.
|
| The vast majority of skeptics will not be convinced by this,
| because their skepticism is not rooted in the science.
| tldrthelaw wrote:
| Not targeting you on this, just an observation: we should be
| careful with the terms we use. I don't think "skeptic" or
| "skepticism" applies to anti-vaxxers.
| Sebguer wrote:
| I guess you can tell the AP to stop using it?
| https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-vaccine-skepticism-
| wh...
| passivate wrote:
| I think it should fall under basic common sense, not science.
| In reality, only a handful of people in the world understand
| in detail all the intricacies of the various ways our body
| interacts with drug substances. This group varies based on
| the drug in question.
|
| The rest of us are just parroting them. Yes you can try to be
| informed and read-up but at the end of the day they're still
| a layperson.
|
| I work in biotech (vaccines), and outside of my little niche,
| I'm just your average lay person, just slightly more
| informed.
| benchaney wrote:
| > In reality, only a handful of people in the world
| understand in detail all the intricacies of the various
| ways our body interacts with drug substances.
|
| That is not science, and it is not what is meant when
| people talk about trusting the science. Science is
| empiricism. The science that supports the efficacy of
| vaccination is the data from the trials that shows a
| reduction in cases. The science supporting safety is
| similar. This data is something anyone can understand with
| sufficient knowledge about probability and statistics. That
| level of knowledge is somewhat rare, but nowhere near as
| uncommon as the theoretical knowledge you are describing.
| passivate wrote:
| We're not really in disagreement. Let me explain a bit
| more. Science is a process/methodology of
| exploring/understanding our natural world/natural
| phenomenon, Yes? And as such, there is good science,
| there is average science, and there is junk science.
| They're all under the same 'Science' umbrella.
|
| >The science that supports the efficacy of vaccination is
| the data from the trials that shows a reduction in cases.
| This data is something anyone can understand with
| sufficient knowledge about probability and statistics.
|
| Yes you have a bunch of numbers, but this doesn't tell
| you whether the study protocol was good, nor does it tell
| you about the qualitative aspects like how well the study
| protocol was adhered to, how tight the controls were,
| etc. Naturally, this is not a new problem, and we have
| various safeguards already in place at various levels.
| You also need a third party like say the FDA to audit and
| examine what was done.
|
| >This data is something anyone can understand with
| sufficient knowledge about probability and statistics.
|
| Yes, but that is not all. People need to understand how
| clinical trials are conducted, and how for e.g. efficacy
| numbers can't simply be used to trivially compare two
| vaccine candidates.
| _wldu wrote:
| I had Covid in March 2020. It almost did me in. Was in ICU for a
| while.
|
| Had the J&J shot three weeks ago. Did not feel a thing. My arm
| was slightly sore at injection site. Nothing else. I guess my
| body was used to it and just sort of shrugged it off.
|
| Some of my friends who got J&J were sick for a few days, but
| rebounded quickly after that.
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