And so it begins…the real antivaccine disinformation war against COVID-19 vaccines.
We all knew it was coming. In fact, antivaxxers launched a pre-emptive disinformation war against COVID-19 vaccines at least as far back as May. Now that two RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, one by Pfizer/BioNTech and one by Moderna, are being considered for emergency use authorization (EUA) by the FDA (with the Pfizer vaccine having already been approved by UK regulatory authorities) and several other new vaccines following rapidly behind in their manufacturers’ quest for regulatory approval, unsurprisingly the disinformation war is heating up. Indeed, I recently mentioned how antivaxxers are spreading the myth based on a willfully ignorant lack of understanding of the totality of molecular biology developed over the last 60+ years that RNA vaccines will “permanently alter your DNA” (hint: they won’t). Having seen that hoary old antivaccine myth (that vaccines will “alter your DNA”) resurrected, repackaged,m and repurposed to direct against COVID-19 vaccines made me wonder: What other disinformation are antivaxxers spreading about COVID-19 vaccines?
Before I get to that, let me just say that, even though I’m as pro-vaccine as they come, the Trump administration did not exactly fill me with confidence with respect to whether it would make sure new COVID-19 vaccines were safe before approving them, either formally through the standard FDA process or through EUA. The name for the vaccine development effort, “Operation Warp Speed,” strongly implied that the administration was emphasizing speed far more than safety. Yes, I did express concern back in May that the name Operation Warp Speed did make me concerned that we were rushing COVID-19 vaccine development, although I pushed back in my inimitable not-so-Respectfully Insolent manner against claims that the development of COVID-19 vaccines was “turning provaccine advocates into antivaxxers.” Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s political interference in the workings of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did lead me to ask whether we can trust these entities any more. That being admitted, now that the vaccines are here, what I’ve seen thus far has led me to be pretty confident that the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines, at least, will be quite effective and very safe. Heck, the hospital chain of which my cancer center is a part sent an email asking people if they were willing to take the Pfizer vaccine and asking some prescreening questions. My answer to the question of whether I would take the vaccine when available? Yes!
Which brings me back to what antivaxxers are now saying about COVID-19 vaccines.
Naturally, when seeking to get a feeling for the zeitgeist among antivaxxers regarding this question, I turned to that wretched hive of scum and antivaccine quackery, Age of Autism (a.k.a. AoA), where I found a recent post casting doubt on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines by Dr. Richard Moskovitz, who is introduced as a “friend of AoA” (not a good way for a physician to be introduced). Dr. Moskovitz, it turns out, was featured eight years ago as a believer in homeopathy, an even worse look for a physician than being a “friend of AoA”, although definitely a look that makes his antivaccine proclivities not at all surprising.Indeed, he’s author of a book entitled Vaccines: A Reappraisal, which falsely claims that vaccines cause autoimmune disease, SIDS, neurological disorders like autism and ADHD.
Let’s see what disinformation Moskovitz is peddling in his article, COVID Vaccine: Yes or No? (Gee, I wonder what his answer to the question will be…) His introduction is not what I would call auspicious:
First of all, I doubt that any of the vaccines will work very well. Since the SARS in 2002, there have been many attempts to make a vaccine against coronaviruses, and they’ve all failed, for many of the same reason that the flu vaccine has failed, because the viruses are so mutable that, by the time you make the vaccine, the virus is already different. So they do a new flu vaccine every year, and they’re probably going to do that here, too, but they often don’t fit that well.
No, that’s not the reason why developing a vaccine against a coronavirus like COVID-19 has been so difficult. In fact, COVID-19 does not mutate nearly as fast as the influenza virus does. This is not new information, either. We’ve known this at least since April. Basically, SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, has a proofreading mechanism that results in a low mutation rate compared to that of influenza.
Moskovitz is just plain wrong here. The real reasons why developing a coronavirus vaccine is so hard have little to do with the mutability of coronaviruses. In reality, part of the difficulty is that it’s inherently difficult to make vaccines against respiratory viruses, as explained here:
There are several reasons why our upper respiratory tract is a hard area to target a vaccine.
“It’s a separate immune system, if you like, which isn’t easily accessible by vaccine technology,” Professor Frazer told the Health Report.
Despite your upper respiratory tract feeling very much like it’s inside your body, it’s effectively considered an external surface for the purposes of immunisation.
“It’s a bit like trying to get a vaccine to kill a virus on the surface of your skin.”
And:
It’s hard to produce a successful vaccine if the virus isn’t activating a strong immune response.
“One of the problems with corona vaccines in the past has been that when the immune response does cross over to where the virus-infected cells are it actually increases the pathology rather than reducing it,” Professor Frazer said.
“So that immunisation with SARS corona vaccine caused, in animals, inflammation in the lungs which wouldn’t otherwise have been there if the vaccine hadn’t been given.”
Fortunately, it turns out that producing effective vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 isn’t as difficult as experts had worried it might be back in the early days of the pandemic. The reports on the phase 3 clinical trials of RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines and others coming down the pipeline, along with the low incidence of adverse reactions, tells us that. As for why we never developed a vaccine for the original SARS in 2003, the answer is simple. The virus disappeared too quickly without one, and, along with the virus, the market for a SARS vaccine disappeared.
Moskovitz’s next reason why he thinks COVID-19 vaccines won’t work made me laugh out loud. No, it really did, because it’s really, really dumb. See what I mean:
Second, they are using a new technology that’s never been used on humans before, because they can produce a vaccine much faster, without having to culture the virus, by just splicing viral RNA into the genetic material of the cell, so it will respond without having to introduce the virus from the outside, so to speak. They claim it’s only the messenger RNA of the mitochondria, not the DNA of the nucleus, so it won’t find its way into the gene pool, and turn you and your descendants into GMO’s; but I’m less sure of that, and I seriously doubt they have any clear idea of the long-term consequences of monkeying around like that, or even that they’re interested or concerned about it.
Seriously, this guy is a physician? No, really, I’m asking. For one thing, what the heck does he even mean by “messenger RNA of the mitochondria”? The mitochondrial genome only encodes encodes 2 rRNAs (ribosomal RNA), 22 tRNAs (transfer RNAs), and mRNAs for 13 polypeptides of the oxidative phosphorylation (OxPhos) system. The RNA vaccines under consideration for approval do not use mitochondrial RNA. Then he claims that the RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines involve “splicing viral RNA into the genetic material of the cell,” which is simply ludicrous. There is no “splicing.” The mRNA is taken up whole by cells, thanks to the nanoparticle liposomes (lipid-based spheres, if you will) that contain the mRNA and fuse with the cell membrane, allowing the mRNA to enter the cell’s cytoplasm and be acted upon by the ribosomes, the protein complexes in the cytoplasm that translate mRNA into protein.
Then there’s Dr. Moskovitz’s appeal to disbelief. Just because he doesn’t think that an mRNA-based COVID-19 can’t “find its way into the gene pool and turn you and your descendents into GMOs” doesn’t mean that his concern has any scientific validity. He might as well simply say that he justs doesn’t accept the science of molecular biology that tells us that it is simply impossible for mRNA like that in the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines to “find its way into the gene pool and turn you and your descendents into GMOs.” No, really, I don’t have to cite papers for this, because it’s such basic information that it just takes Molecular Biology 101 to know that what Dr. Moskovitz is peddling is nonsense. No, scratch that. It’s BIOLOGY 101. No, really, to say such things about an RNA-based vaccine betrays an incredible ignorant of some very, very basic science, and to say such things about COVID-19 vaccines that could play a major role in bringing the disease, suffering, and death from the pandemic to an end, or at least in greatly decreasing it, is medical malpractice. Of course, Dr. Moskovitz does believe in homeopathy, making him a quack of the highest order in my not-so-humble opinion; so I suppose none of this should surprise anyone.
Nor should his falling back on old antivaccine tropes, either:
And third, if the end result is the same, if they accomplish basically what the old vaccines did, that would be reason enough to avoid them, because of their propensity to bring about chronic, autoimmune phenomena and eventually, in many people, overt autoimmune diseases, at the very least making worse the ones that are already there, which most of us have some form or trace of.
Translation: Even if the new COVID-19 vaccine work like existing vaccines, they’re still bad because…autoimmune diseases! Never mind that there is no good evidence that existing vaccines cause chronic autoimmune, the most fervent efforts of antivaxxers to claim otherwise notwithstanding.
Then, of course, Dr. Moskovitz believes you COVID-19 vaccines won’t be as good as his preferred quackery:
Of course, it’s also true that the COVID is dangerous in several important ways, being 1) easily transmitted by asymptomatic people, 2) highly mutable, as above, and 3) capable of life-threatening pathology and even long-term complications in susceptible people, especially the elderly and chronically ill. But the truth is that the disease has been around the US for 10 months, and widely dispersed for 8, so that with the proper precautions most healthy people shouldn’t be any less likely to remain healthy than they’ve been so far. In addition, there are good treatments available for it, even if not officially approved, or even mentioned — homeopathy, multivitamins, Chinese herbs — and even without treatment the actual death rate is about the same as a bad flu season. So it’s hard to see the need for a vaccine that’s marginally effective against a disease that the vast majority recover from anyway.
Translation: Pay no attention to the more than 1.5 million deaths and counting (including over 275K dead Americans and counting) due to COVID-19, plus the more than 100K Americans right now with COVID-19 severe enough to require hospitalization. Never mind that our healthcare system is straining under the massive load of disease and death due to this disease. Never mind the unknown number of people who recover from COVID-19 but suffer longterm debilitating sequelae. You don’t need COVID-19 vaccines. You can use quackery like homeopathy!
And, no, the actual death rate is far, far worse than a bad flu season. We’re not even ten months into the pandemic in the US, and we’re already closing in on 300K deaths due to COVID-19 (and are very likely to pass that mark before Christmas). How many lives does a typical flu season claim? A really bad flu season will claim around 60,000 lives, only one fifth as many, and most years it’s around half that. Basically (and unsurprisingly) Dr. Moskovitz is peddling eugenics, the “Great Barrington Declaration,” and antivaxxer Del Bigtree’s “don’t worry, be happy, let’s catch this cold” denial of the seriousness of the pandemic.
Dr. Moskovitz finishes with this flourish:
The main reason why most people will take it, regardless, is that they fear it will be their only ticket back to a semblance of normal life, a belief that various mandates and laws will surely reinforce, but is no more likely to be true than if they had simply continued taking precautions, while the long-term problems I mentioned are most often insidious, not likely to manifest for months or even years later, and dismissed by most doctors as unrelated coincidence or hereditary predisposition. So a lot of folks will go along with it, because keeping our kids out of school and being afraid to hug those we love is indeed intolerable; so who could blame them?
This bit about COVID-19 vaccines is basically a variant of the same claim that antivaxxers make about vaccines during any outbreak, namely that the government and medical profession (and big pharma, of course!) will use the pretext of an outbreak of a disease ot frighten or even force you to accept a vaccine, not caring about all the horrible things that antivaxxers think vaccines will cause, despite the evidence that they do not cause these problems.
So, let’s boil down Dr. Moskovitz’s objections to COVID-19 vaccines:
- They won’t work because SARS-CoV-2 is so mutable. (WRONG. As explained above.)
- The RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines will reprogram your DNA. (WRONG, and super ignorant of molecular biology, as explained above.)
- COVID-19 vaccines will cause chronic autoimmune diseases. (No, COVID-19 vaccines are no more likely to cause autoimmune diseases than existing vaccines, which do not cause such diseases, as explained above.)
- COVID-19 is not that serious for most people, and you can use quackery to prevent and treat it anyway. (It’s true that being elderly and having chronic health conditions increase your risk of severe disease from COVID-19, but the disease can still be dangerous to young people and it’s impossible to protect the vulnerable while the disease is spreading unchecked through the “healthy” population. Also, homeopathy and other quackery won’t treat the disease.)
While it’s true that there are reasons to be cautious with new vaccines such as the COVID-19 vaccines, you can see the main points of disinformation that antivaxxers are spreading. There’s also a new one that I recently discovered, but discussing that particular disinformation will require a separate post. In the meantime, I’d laugh at Dr. Moskovitz for his utter ignorance of biology and medicine, but I just can’t, because too many people will believe the line of nonsense he’s laying down.
130 replies on “The antivaccine disinformation war against COVID-19 vaccines continues apace”
Nowadays, whenever I see someone comparing Covid and flu and then saying that Covid vaccine won’t work or we will have to get it every year, I start gnashing my teeth and wondering whether it is intellectual laziness or just plain intentional FUD spreading. They are not even the same family of viruses and comparing them is like comparing small pox and chicken pox because they both cause spots.
And people like this “Dr.” make me particularly angry, particularly today, because my father, who’s closer to 90 than 80, has an awful cough and is at the moment waiting for a doctor – and such people basically treat him as expendable. Well, to me he is not. And I’m scared, and hoping it’s just a bad case of bronchitis or even pneumonia. (Yeah, hoping it’s “just” pneumonia, what an irony.)
Intellectual laziness is not bothering to listen to both sides of the vaxx debate and thinking that people like Gorski – who rely on ad hominem arguments – are 100% correct.
The history of vaccination is replete both with stories of medical triumph as well as disasters and anybody who believes vaccines carry no risk is just plain naive and ignorant.
The body is a complex system and no substance works the same way in everybody.
All this unnecessary dicking around with the immune system to ostensibly protect against what are generally benign, well-handled diseases with very very low natural fatality rates smacks more of profiteering than actual concern for people’s well being.
A. Nobody denies vaccines have some risks. The evidence shows that those risks are small.
B. If you read Dr. Gorski’s post, he goes in detail, with references, into the science and explains why science-deniers are mistaken. Your description of his work suggests you did not make the effort of reading it.
And people on this blog routinely read anti-vaccine sites. That doesn’t mean we need to accept their claims, which are generally incorrect.
C. Your final paragraph suggests substantial bias. I do not think describing diphtheria, polio, and his as benign is convincing – even if we put aside smallpox. And vaccines save money, by preventing not just deaths and harms, but costs. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6316a4.htm
Better keep those straw men away from any naked flames.
And before vaccination those “generally benign, well-handled diseases” killed millions every year.
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/
https://thehill.com/news-by-subject/healthcare/528619-pfizer-chairman-were-not-sure-if-someone-can-transmit-virus-after
What’s up with that? Does he perhaps mean the interim period to some bit of time after the second dose?
Also, we are not at the point where we have no data. We have data from the clinical trials. So if he wants to say the vaccines don’t work, he actually needs to address the data that shows that they do, in fact, work. It may be preliminary, but it’s there.
We have short-term data. There are no long-term studies. The previous record for any vaccine brought to market is four years. For a virus with a 99.7% recovery rate (even higher for people my age), I think I can afford to wait for the long-term data.
On top of all that, Moderna’s and Pfizer’s vaccines weren’t even trialed to stop transmission. Tal Zaks, chief medical officer at Moderna: “Our trial will not demonstrate prevention of transmission, because in order to do that you have to swab people twice a week for very long periods, and that becomes operationally untenable.” If it won’t stop transmission, what’s the point?
What a stupid post.
A. I don’t know your age. I do know that Covid-19 killed literally hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S., and harmed many more – including an as-of-yet unknown rate of longterm harms. Dismissing it as not dangerous is a mistake.
Further, the studies we have give us good evidence the vaccines are safe, at least to the level of tens of thousands. Further data can show us if there are risks in one per hundred thousands or millions, but that is rare. The risks of Covid-19 are higher than 1:100,000, even for the young. The risk/benefit balance is very clear.
B. The trials did not focus on preventing transmission, for the practical reasons above. We still need those studies. If your question is “if it cannot prevent transmission, what’s the point in preventing deaths and harms,” I think the answer is in the question.
I would add that from it’s not that we can say the vaccine do not decrease transmission. We just don’t have data on that yet. Actual scientists stick to the data, so they don’t address this directly. For the AstraZeneca trial there is some data on transmission. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/another-covid-19-vaccine-success-candidate-may-prevent-further-coronavirus-transmission
Do you “know” with certainty there were hundreds of thousands of fatalities, Dorit? I suppose so if you go by the new rules, i.e. the fact that back in March the CDC changed its ICD coding guidance for death certification–changes applicable only to Covid-19, incidentally– which resulted in “a very liberal approach to mortality,” according to Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. More bluntly, Illinois Department of Public Health director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said in April, “Technically even if you died of a clear alternate cause, but you had Covid at the same time, it’s still listed as a Covid death.” Excuse me?
As for relative risks per age group, you may want to consult the CDC’s own IFR estimates on their website:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html#table-1
Dorit pretty much covered it (aside from noting that the doesn’t-stop-transmission routine is classic antivaccine rhetoric for aP), but you’re an adult and can do whatever you want — what’s your point? Did you already have your Christmas cards printed up?
Ah, yes, a one-off in a news conference (which probably interrupted Jeopardy!, as the Pritzker ones often did) shall be magnified into grotesque proportions. Well, there are two sides of the same token, as it were.
Is this guy really a medic? I know that genetics isnt a strong point of general MDs but honestly. RNA is RNA, not DNA. It wont splice into the DNA of the cell. Its physically impossible. Does he not realise that most cells have about 300,000 RNA molecules in them at any one time? What do they teach at doctor university? Will these RNA molecules all splice into your DNA? And even if it were a DNA virus incorporating into the host DNA, thats been happening over the millennia. He has lots of it in his genome already and presumably he hasnt felt too bad. It doesnt make you sick. I need to gird my loins and get back onto these sites.
I’m pretty sure the difference between RNA and DNA was covered in my college intro bio class, and I’d hope as an MD that he would have had something slightly more advanced than that.
Sometimes a single phrase like that is enough to make you realise that the person in question – be it woo-meister, anti-vaxxer, or troll at RI- doesn’t know what they’re talking about. A very frequent turn of events with these people as I have learned from my explorations
/ see their theories of autism, theories of cancer, ideas about nutrition, ideas about aging, ideas about mental illness, personality, learning, education etc.
An RNA virus can splice into host cell DNA as long as it brings its own reverse transcriptase and its own integrase to the party – like HIV does. SARSCoV-2 doesn’t do that and certainly the mRNA vaccines don’t do that.
As I’ve mentioned before, SARS-CoV-2 is pretty much mRNA in a fancy wrapper that allows it to infect cells. One of the things it is going to do is get those very same ribosomes to make spike protein, just like the mRNA in the vaccines.
Thanks Doug. I bet Dr Mos had in his head splicing as cutting and inserting. To be fair to him, if he is old, none of this was known when he was training. He would have had to research it.
What a stupid post.
What a lame argument.
It means that they were testing for whether people got sick from COVID-19, not whether people were asymptomatic transmitters of COVID-19, so in theory the vaccine might have just been preventing symptomatic cases while still permitting the virus to spread. That’s not very likely, but their current test results aren’t sufficient to rule it out.
Thx, Anthony. I intend to break with tradition and become an ‘early adopter’ of this new technology {for whatever values of ‘early’; probably August around here}, regardless. I do read that it can lay one low for a day or two — Hopefully, it won’t make me narcoleptic or artistic and walk around muttering like CK* for the rest of my life.
*I never comprehended that the band StutterFish was never a real thing but this did come up instead https://youtu.be/fSu5W0BtXG8?t=1
It is mRNA vaccine, based of a part of one protein. It is not a whole virus. So it is impossible that the virus would be spred.
@Aarno
It’s not about spread from the vaccine. The thing is, it is not absolutely certain whether the vaccine grants sterilizing immunity or whether it just stops people from developing symptoms. So it is possible that someone vaccinated would not fall ill but would still be an asymptomatic spreader.
Good point, Alia. That has been an important question about the vaccines in development for several months. It’s just too hard to collect and ananlyze weekly PCR samples from 30,000+ patients. But at least one of the trials is collecting multiple blood samples at 3,6 and 12 months and 2 years. So those could be analyzed for viremia.
In practical terms we won’t really figure out until we get a significant portion of the population immunized, perhaps 20-30% ???
My guess is that the vaccines will mitigate infections even if they only prevent clinical disease or mitigate symptoms. So I hope that even the infected people won’t replicate and spread as much virus.
@ squirrelelite:
The worst case scenario might be that Covid will become a much less serious illness
We could live with that if there no ‘perfect’ vaccine that entirely eliminates it from the face of the earth in a year: my guess is that the result will be somewhere in between those two outcomes.
Anti-vaxxers though will continue to vilify it as imperfect, dangerous and deadlier than the illness. I hear/ read so much denialism like this from the usual sources.
I suppose I’m just a thrall of Fauci and Gates
/ sarcasm
@Denice,
Quite likely. I’ve heard that scenario mentioned several times on TWiV. It may take a few years before we get there, though. Having learned about the problems suffered by the long haulers, I wonder if some puzzling conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome might be due to one of those “benign” cold coronaviruses that practically everyone gets.
Sounds like Tylenol reducing the fever…. But man, that’s not freaking cure. What the F*** going on with these stupid vaccines?
Derek Lowe brought up “false side effects” on his blog, citing Bob Wachter twitter thread. He pointed out that if you waved your hand over 10 million people “you would expect to see about 4,000 heart attacks. About 4,000 strokes. Over 9,000 new diagnoses of cancer. And about 14,000 of that ten million will die, out of usual all-causes mortality. No one would notice. That’s how many people die and get sick anyway.”
And of course the anti-vaxx crowd will try to weaponise this just as everything that happens after a vaccine is the vaccine’s fault – well everything except for disease prevention.
I’m very reluctant to bring this up again , since I know you have no regard for the concerns of a mere anaesthetist . But have you any thoughts on the opinion of Dr Mike Yeadon ?
https://www.healthwire.co/covid-pandemic-is-over-no-need-for-vaccines/
https://2020news.de/en/dr-wodarg-and-dr-yeadon-request-a-stop-of-all-corona-vaccination-studies-and-call-for-co-signing-the-petition/
Ha ha…”very reluctant”…yet you did. Reading the idiocy of Yeaton’s quotes, it’s easy to see why he’s no longer at Pfizer…and hopefully nowhere else where he could do harm as well.
And there you have it . I ask for help in dealing with opinions widespread in the UK and Europe , opinions that are gaining widespread attention . All I get is more disdain .Orac clearly hates anaesthetists.
Oh boo f-ing hoo. I can’t speak for Orac, but, considering he’s a surgeon, I very much doubt that he hates anaesthetists. If he did, he would have a very difficult time in the OR.
As a lowly pathologist, I can clearly state that I do not hate anaesthetists.
Fools, on the other hand…
JAQing off isn’t asking for “help.” Here: Two fucking minutes.
But the earlier cases were bona fide, right? Enquiring minds, and all that.
Thank you for the link , it looks very helpful . But I don’t understand this American need to be rude about everything . Masturbation ? Really ?
Anyway if anybody has any comment relating to the petition to ban Covid vaccine testing I would be most grateful . (I’d prefers it came without insults , but I’ll take what I can get)
I got a bad vibe off of Mansfield Park recently. Deal with it.
Good grief ! What is the matter with you people ? I read this blog regularly and find it extremely useful . Yet I come to the comments section for a little advice and get nothing but abuse.
Advise on prof Dolores Cahill opinions , dismissed.
Advise dealing with people who claim SarCov2 has never been isolated , I’m told I’m incredibly ignorant .
Now I ask for help dealing with Dr Yeadons claims and I’m called a wanker !
So again , what is wrong with you people ?
Well, I’m Canadian, and I have an obligation to uphold a reputation for politeness.
However, I cannot abide whininess.
Sorry for my outburst.
“but I’ll take what I can get” https://youtu.be/LKwW8PNZpOQ?t=1 https://youtu.be/2X86u4MMpnE?t=1
@Nigel Dennis: Well I’m British so here’s a protip for you: Learn how to phrase your questions so that you don’t come across as a disingenuous arse.
Go read up if you need more help.
Thank you has for those 2links . At least they explain the extreme hostility , though not the instant assumption of bad intent. Thank you Narad for he helpful link and thanks to Cloudskimmer also .
I’ve found answers to my question about the petition here
https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/mrna-vaccine-myths-anti-vax-pseudoscience-on-covid-19-vaccines/
and the link in that article
https://www.deplatformdisease.com/blog/are-covid-19-vaccines-going-to-cause-infertility
So all’s well that ends well , I suppose ?
All the best , but I beg of you , please try to be a little kinder to visitors in the future .
Some of us just want to know a little more .
Interestingly, the only place I’ve ever heard about Yeadon and Cahill ** was at PRN.fm: the chief mis-informer there used their objections to solidify his own position
As I mentioned above, sometimes only a phrase or a position will tell you that the proselytiser is not SB- despite their protestations to the contrary:
if you say you support public health and then disparage vaccination for VPDs because vaccines are an integral part of PH – many examples of this like Jake Crosby, various woo-meisters, trolls at RI.
It’s like those who will NEVER accept meds for hiv/ aids No one says meds are perfect but they are sometimes the only way to preserve life or quality of life’
-btw- I’ve heard woo-meisters object to meds for CV issues as well- there are herbal treatments they say Same for SMI, cancer etc.. No meds EVER is their default position.
** he doesn’t mention Martin who is in the same league. Many videos/ audios of Cahill at rallies in Dublin Easy to find on the net.
I am Australian and being rude is the default position. Especially when people turn up with questions that 2 minutes of Googling would answer. A quick search would have indicated that Yeadon was talking nonsense on COVID-19.
@Denice Walter:
A whole lot of good that did my father. He scoffed at blood pressure medications and statins, until the day he had a stroke that paralysed half his body and left him with the mental faculties of a small child. The science-based physicians I had treat him after that found that his cholesterol and blood pressure were ridiculously high: this despite the fact that he had been a strict vegetarian for more than twenty years and was physically fit since he taught martial arts for a living. Apparently I am just like him and most of our relatives in this respect: our genetics have us synthesising more cholesterol than we ought to no matter what we eat. It seems only way any of us are going to be in reasonably good health much past sixty it seems is if we take statins and similar meds to control it, sort of like type I diabetics needing to take insulin.
Of course, the attitude of many of these people is that since our genetics are flawed we deserve to die anyway. My mind reels with sarcastic replies.
Try this:
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/dec/02/blog-posting/former-pfizer-employee-wrong-coronavirus-pandemic-/
The first source is a secondary link but it quotes Dr Yeadon as saying
And in the second link,
It’s rather disingenuous of Yeadon to complain about not having tests on human subjects and then call for cutting off those very tests!
We have been doing safety and effectiveness tests on vaccines for over 60 years and have evolved a 3 phase protocol to start with a small number of subjects and then expand to larger and larger groups followed by ongoing passive and active surveillance of the immunized population to look for lower frequency (1 in 100,000) side effects.
Judging from the safety profile of recently developed vaccines like the HPV vaccine which is extremely safe and the rotavirus vaccine which has a slight risk of intussusception, this protocol is working fairly well. If Dr Yeadon knew of an important way to improve it, he should have advocated for doing so while he was a vice president at Pfizer.
In the second link, they advocate for Sanger sequencing instead of normal PCR.
https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/technical-documents/articles/biology/sanger-sequencing.html
But Sanger sequencing seems to be a more elaborate form of PCR. And since the safety studies are mainly looking for clinical disease and physical side-effects and not (AFAIK) doing routine PCR testing, this is just an exercise in moving the goalposts seasoned with the Nirvana fallacy.
As for their four objections, ADE (antibody-dependent enhancement) is a possibility as seen in the Dengue vaccine. But we need to let the studies run, not cut them off in mid-stream to see if this problem shows up. By now we are just monitoring people who have already been vaccinated, so why not continue monitoring them? And I don’t see how further animal studies could rule out such an effect in humans.
Infertility is a concern, which is why initial studies like this are not done with pregnant women. But as the Skeptical Raptor article pointed out, this is a stretch argument with no evidence to support it.
Polyethylene glycol is used to inactivate the flu virus in some flu vaccines and has been used as an adjuvant in the hepatitis B vaccine. Exact ingredients in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines aren’t available yet, but PEG wasn’t even mentioned in a UK article I found which discussed them.
Swine flu narcolepsy is one of those 1 in 100,000 effects I mentioned. It has only been found in a specific vaccine used with a Scandinavian population. And we would need 1 million test subjects, not just 30,000 to detect effects of that order. Also an EUA is not full approval for distribution to the full, normal population. It may muddy the waters on completing the studies in progress long enough to detect effects like ADE. But it will also increase the number of people vaccinated and followed in post-marketing surveillance and perhaps expedite discovery of lower frequency effects.
FWIW, I volunteered for one of the U.S. trials, but never got a reply. I am considering signing up for the Johnson and Johnson single dose vaccine trial which is being run through our local VA hospital. But due to some personal events in the last six months, I will probably forgo that and get one of the mRNA vaccines when they are available.
@ Anonymous Coward:
I suspect that the anti-vax position and the anti-meds position are closely alligned ( but I’ll add, although not entirely 100% in synch before a troll claims that they accept meds) because they seek out ‘natural’ solutions that involve foods, herbs and supplements ( so very natural to ingest a handful of capsules daily) as well as exercise, meditation etc because – for the most part- they can’t prescribe anything. They tend to be (not SB) nutritionists, herbalists. homeopaths, naturopaths, “Oriental” medicine doctors etc.
So the rants about pharma are obvious ( although many supplements- which they often sell- are made by pharma companies).Most of them downplay the benefits of meds whilst exaggerating their risks (just as they do for vaccines). Conditions like your family’s illustrate that not everything can be controlled without meds.-btw- my own father lived to an extremely advanced age despite CV issues because he used a simple CV/ BP med almost until his last year when he required additional meds.. Similarly, they downplay inherited factors and claim that they can change/ repair genes. or that genes don’t matter- it’s all epigenetics or energy!
SBM often advises diet and exercise as a first- but not only- step.AS usual they mislead by claiming doctors don’t make use of nutritional guidelines or other life style changes.
The weirdest thing I experience is people who are against a Covid-19 vaccine, downplaying the ilness, complaining about Big Pharma and are of course in favor of natural remedies and homeopathy, who are still promoting HCQ.
And I keep thinking: “Isn’t HCQ a product of Big Pharma as well?”
@ Renate:
I think that HCQ is acceptable to them ONLY because
— if it works, no one really needs vaccines
— it’s an old drug and cheap ( so Pharma won’t earn much for its use unlike vaccines, new meds and higher tech treatments)
— SBM claims it’s not effective and they’re contrarian to the core
Well, I think if HCQ would work, Big Pharma would be capable to find a way to monetize on it. It happened before if some drug found a new use. Perhaps by combining HCQ and zinc in one tablet (because to some the addition of zinc is really the magic bullet).
But yes, anti-vaxxers and the ‘natural is good’ crowd, is contrarian to the core. Look for instance at the support of MMS in those circles, although that is also not really natural.
@ Renate / Denice
Re: HCQ and more generally all propositions of a magical bullet.
I agree, and one more dissonant thing is that their proponents (like Raoult) are generally simultaneously arguing that
– the Covid infection is No Big Deal for most people (an exaggerated claim, but with some grain of truth),
– and that, if it was not for their wonder drug, their patient cohort would have suffered an hecatomb (“I treated 2000 people and had zero death”)
@ Renate/ Athaic:
Right. Pharma companies will always find ways to profit, even from natural substances : there is highly refined Omega 3 (EPA) made from sardines available by prescription only ( I won’t do an advert for them by naming it) that is currently only approved for high triglycerides but will probably also be approved for other CV conditions soon.
No one ever said that these companies are paragons of virtue or not profit-oriented but often they are the only way to help people preserve life or quality of life. Also, if someone with a serious condition bought supplements of EPA/DHA , they can’t be sure that the product is not adulterated or contains what it is labeled as and still, someone else profits off of their sale. Supplements are Big Business too**
As a side note, I looked over my SO’s mutual fund’s fine print and learned that it included both Moderna and Zoom! So I imagine he will profit off of the pandemic***
/ sarcasm
** however woo-meisters present themselves as not profit minded at all ( I have many stories about their “charities”)
*** however those stocks combined only amount to less than 0.2% of the investment
so he can buy a nice shirt or something
.
Dr. Richard Moskovitz is a “homeopathic physician.”
Isn’t that an oxymoron? Besides, what oath would such a “doctor” take? Do no harm OR good (e.g. do nothing with each and every patient)?
Friend. I do not think that word means what AoA thinks it does. Would a friend confirm in writing that your website is unencumbered by the thought process? Nope, he isn’t AoA’s friend, he’s more a symptom of their motivated reasoning/science denial.
Okay Orac, call me incorrigible when it comes to not giving up, but even the worst medical students I ever tried to remediate could respond though it helped to go back to basics. With that in mind here is what may help Dr Moskovitz: a site that explains mRNA for children (https://www.ducksters.com/science/biology/proteins_and_amino_acids.php).
It’s a start…
And here I thought Moskowitz was dead; instead he’s still expelling drivel in his late 80s (but he’s a Harvard-trained physician!).
Moskowitz, in addition to his book “reappraising” vaccines, has also authored two must-read books on homeopathy – “Homeopathic Medicines For Pregnancy And Childbirth” and “Resonance” (don’t forget that unlike you, Moskowitz is a Harvard-trained physician, from Harvard.
I ran across Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg (who Nigel invoked) in connection with the latest social media fooferaw concerning a low-grade celebrity who promoted a nonsensical Covideo. Wodarg is a purported “lung expert and epidemiologist”* who during the H1N1 affair accused the WHO of drumming up a faux crisis so its pharma allies could sell vaccines. Now Wodarg is attacking the concept of RNA Covid vaccines as creating “a genetic modification” in recipients.
Wodarg also says “glyphosate is to fields as antivirals are to humans”, and if that’s food for thought I’d rather be a breatharian.
Wasn’t it in O Brother Where Art Thou? that them syreens used an RNA vaccine to turn Pete into a toad?
*Wodarg also has a doctorate. His dissertation was entitled “Mental Diseases of Seafarers”. No one here can boast a CV like _that_.
“They loved him up and turned him into a horny toad.” Only, that is not a toad but a leopard frog.
“So again , what is wrong with you people?”
Well, in my case, I suspect allergy shots (immunotherapy), ritalin, and cannabis prohibition.
This week’s winner in the Shut The Barn Door Long After The Rabid Horses Escaped category is Amazon, for removing the movie “Vaxxed” from its offerings.
You can still however purchase “Vaxxed and Vexxed”, advertised as a collection of “beautiful poetry in rhyme” about the dangers of vaccination. Sample from the poem Mercury Rising:
Heavy metals
thud thud thud,
intellectual infections
under the cranium hood
Deep.
Ah! Beating the Vogons at their own game, I see.
This is neither a pro vax or anti vax.
I just pose this question and it is a serious question.
Is is really smart/wise/intelligent to first vaccinate ALL the health care workers first?
These vaccines have only been tested for about 6 months (not sure if they work or not, that is not part of my question, I repeat that is NOT part of my question).
What if there are long term issues with the vaccine, (like people who take the vaccine, grow horns or switch genders or switch race or go blind or vote for democrats or republicans, limbs quit working etc), you pick the reaction and the time frame. All vaccines have side effects, some are minor some are not.
My question, is it wise to vaccinate ALL heath care workers first? In my state they are telling the front line health care people, a 10 day to two week time frame for all health care worker to get the vaccine.
We are putting our WHOLE heath care industry at risk, ALL AT ONCE, or what every group is second or third on the list to get “THE” shot. Other companies and even the military don’t risk the people who are mission critical in the same airplane, FOB, sometimes in the same city and certainly not the same office.
Just a question from a guinie pig.
…nurses and orderlies living together… Oh, shit; U might be onto something. I, for one, wouldn’t want my gay, brown, Jamacian hunk of man-meat tending to me to flip to some dainty Asian chick with three arms going uWu whilst saying “your PSA levels are good today”, adjusting my drip, and marking my chart all at the same time. 3 ARMS. That’s just what some of them say they wanted all along. God, forbid. Someone put a stop to this before it gets out of hand (or three).
“We are putting our WHOLE heath care industry at risk”
What risks do you think apply to health care workers exposed to large numbers of COVID patients?
If you’re panicked about newly-vaccinated physicians and nurses suddenly becoming autistic and unable to do their jobs, I’d say you’re overreacting a wee bit.
A tertiary parse is weighted toward that he is more panicked over the possibility of people switching pronouns {though I might agree that PC has gotten slightly out of hand}, masturbation (“go blind”), and voting after suddenly becoming black.
My list of people was a tongue in cheek, If I would have put exact issues but Mr. Baconator or Tim would have pounced on those as improbable, and is exactly what Baconator did. The risk to health care workers from Covid is a concern, however the risk from death from Covid in those groups (age) is very low, our medical people have learned how to fight this virus which has brought the deaths down (in relative terms compared to the numbers of people who catch Covid)
You need to look no further than the Cantor Fitzgerald company who had 1,600 employees, they were a very powerful finanical services company head quarted in the world trade center. On 911 the company lost 658 people or 68% of their work force (that were in the building) in the attack. And was the reason why major companies now have policies in place that prevent such a consentration of people in one office or in one airplane
Just look at the thalidomide case, where the issues didn’t show up for 6 months or so (until the baby was born).
what if the issue is persistant numbness in hands or arms or some other, neurological issue, maybe a sight issue and what if it effects only 3-5% of those receiving the shot(s). That is a lot of health care workers taken out of the fight all in the same time frame. The CDC maintains a list of problems with past vaccines (bad batches). Baconator you have a tendenicy for the reductio ad adsurdum ( your comparsion of the anit vaxxers with the autism dig did not go unnoticed) so I am sure you are going to post something to dismiss my concerns, with an snarky comment.
I’m not sure if the risk of death for healthcare workers is that low.
Besides, even if it is low, they still can get ill and not able to work, which is also a bad thing, in a time they are needed most. And there are also the long term effects.
Vaccines are different from medicines and they have higher safety standards. At least I suppose so.
@Scott Allen As always, you forget possibility that that health workers could infect others.
Vaccine consists a part of coronavirus spike protein. It may cause similar issues that virus itself, so there is a longer test period than you may think.
You lose, Scottinator.
@Scott: “Just look at the thalidomide case, where the issues didn’t show up for 6 months or so (until the baby was born).”
Actually before thalidomide was even thought to cause major birth defects it was know to cause nerve damage. And the company that made it covered it up, insisting it was the safest thing ever made. They also ran essentially no safety studies, unless you count giving a 20X dose to developmentally disabled children without their or their parents’ knowledge or consent (one child went blind, 2 died, but “it wasn’t the drug”).
So, no, these vaccines won’t be like thalidomide because they are actually being tested for safety in a very hostile environment.
(If anyone would like to learn more about thalidomide, and spend a lot of time shouting in rage, check out episode 59 of This Podcast Will Kill You. Be prepared to be utterly horrified.)
“Other companies and even the military don’t risk the people who are mission critical in the same airplane, FOB, sometimes in the same city and certainly not the same office.”
All jibbing aside, Scott is correct about this.
Yes, I have a tendency to present facts inconvenient for antivaxers to acknowledge.
Scott: “The risk to health care workers from Covid is a concern, however the risk from death from Covid in those groups (age) is very low”
Scott has a touching image of physicians all resembling the cast of ER, but the reality is that there are a lot of older docs, including those working on the “front lines” of health care.
“Forty-three percent of all physicians are age 55 or older. Specialists are on average older than are primary care doctors. For example, 73% of pulmonologists and 60% of psychiatrists are age 65 or older, compared with 40% of internists and 38% of family practitioners”
http://healthleadersmedia.com/strategy/us-physician-workforce-getting-old-fast
Even the younger docs bear a risk not only of death, but also serious illness and lasting complications from Covid-19. Most (with the added spur of hospital regulations mandating vaccination) will gladly consent to COVID-19 vaccination, to protect themselves, their families, and their patients.
Baconator you really need to read what I wrote and not make assumptions.
I am in the clinical trials, I have had the vaccine (I believe, as I had a slight fever and aches after the first shot, but they haven’t informed my group as of yet). This was not my first clinical trial, that I have participated in.
As for your assumption as to my view of only young doctors in the front line is at best a foolish assumption. My roomate is an ER nurse and is 2 years younger than I am, and she was a nurse in Viet Nam, do the math.
You have valid argument as far as age of doctors etc. and maybe they should get the vaccine first (as they fit two groups that need protection, age and health care worker). But your list of the ages of professions is a standard across just about any professional group in the US, as about 42% of the population is between 55 and 70 years old. That means over 40 % of plumber, electricians, truck drivers, air line pilots, bankers, auto workers, etc, are over the age of 55, so your use of that number is pretty meaningless, and was a failed attempt at using statistics.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/241488/population-of-the-us-by-sex-and-age/
And yes they could infect patients if the health care workers have covid but that is mitigated because of daily test taken by health care workers and availability of PPE.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.html
My question still stands
“Is is really smart/wise/intelligent to first vaccinate ALL the health care workers first?”
I’m somewhat mesmerized by this instance of deduction.
Don’t take this wrong, but I view this concern as coming from the “zombie vaccine apocalypse” scenario. Given the 10’s of thousands of volunteers who’ve received the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in the stage 3 trial, if something utterly armagedonnic was going to happen it should have…and it did not. Physiologically HCWs are the same as everyone else. If there have not been severe adverse reactions in the 3 stages of trials, it’s incredibly unlikely we’ll see any when HCWs receive the vaccine en masse.
… I spent 5 days in the hospital over Thanksgiving with COVID-19 pneumonia and asthma. Not fun, it was very scary, and I’m very thankful I’m getting better but oh-so-slowly. But I’m going to get the vaccine when offered because natural immunity (of uncertain duration) is not guaranteed with infection, and because my lungs are at about 1/4 of what they were before this and I damn sure don’t want COVID-19 again. And of course I’m still masking and distancing and washing hands as well. Before this infection I could ride 16 miles on my bike in an hour easy; right now I can ride about 1 mile at 7 mph before I have to quit and rest to suck wind and rest weakened muscles.
It’s good that Scott now acknowledges there are many older physicians, after first dismissing docs’ vulnerability to Covid-19 on the basis of “age”.
He’s the second antivaxer here who wants us to think that being in (or at least saying you’re in) a Covid-19 vaccine trial gets you a get-out-of-jail-free card for spreading antivax misinformation (Jay Gordon being the other).
and we have the same percent of plumber, carpenders, electricians that are in the same age group, are they not just as vulnerable (plumber even more so, as some peer reviewed papers suggest that the toilet may spread viruses). You use of the 43% of doctors are between 55 and 70 is still meaningless, as 42% of the people in the US are in that age range.
I am just stateing the obvious, is it not a wise decision to vaccinate one sector of our workforce (that is vital/critical) at the same time. If as you suggest we vaccinate the 43% of our doctors at the same time and 6 months or a year down the road something has gone wrong and we loose 43% of our doctors because we had to vaccinate them all at the same time…… it the law of unintended consquences.
Businesses don’t risk their critical employees in the same plane or office, professional sports teams don’t fly their whole team in the same plane, the military doesn’t expose their critical people in the same plane or FOB, college teams don’t all ride in the same plane or bus, heck even high school sports teams don’t all ride in the same bus.
None of what I posted has anything to do with antivax, it has to do with common sense, something you lack. You have typed ‘anitvax’ on your computer so much you have probably worn off the ‘A’, ‘N’, ‘I’, ‘T’, ‘V’ and ‘X’ of you keyboard.
But you are the Baconator, I just can’t figure out, if you are the Wendy’s version, once in a while is ok but too much is not healthy, or the Pringles version, one chip or one post, all look alike or the Ron Popeil version that cooked the bacon but would catch fire and burn your house down.
And to no Nards. “Scottinator” really, that’s the best you could do?
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”
Oscar Wilde
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”
A great Scottcatenation, only using INT when CHAR would suffice.
That’s a keeper.
Plane crashes that killed entire sports teams:
https://youtu.be/OiIiyOx8x54?t=1
https://youtu.be/SAYvv7GeSSE?t=94 Too soon??
They probably do consider that now, it’s billions of dollars on the line, but I’m sure it was never all the hookers and blow distracting the ‘pilots’.
Yes, it’s misplaced argument by aphorism again. Hooray!
Attestation, if you would. The intent is, ah, impressive.
@scott: “same percent of plumber, carpenders, electricians that are in the same age group, are they not just as vulnerable”
No, they aren’t because their job doesn’t involve being in the immediate proximity of sick people, specifically people with COVID, all day. Their exposure risk is lower.
In random news, Del Bigbooté et al. are savaged in this week’s episode of “On the Media.”
“No nards”
The Patriols own their own airplanes (they are a really rich team and owner). A pair of 777-767, two years ago, the planes were dubbed/nicknamed Brady and Garoppolo (i would bet the names changed since Brady left)
The rest of the NFL, (the owners are too greedy) flies in rent a wrecks aka; charters, but similiarly equipt.
The players and coaches all have FIRST CLASS “extra wide seats” and a team travels with 150 to 200 players, coaches, trainers, doctors, electrical technitions, videographers (12 of those, one for each position plus field ), equipment managers, communitions persons, etc.
Plus public relations personel, news media, owners and general hangers on. In all it could be over 250 people.
One 777 can seat about 320 (with a crew of 15) people but that is if they all fly coach (you think a lineman that weights 350 pounds and is 6 foot 8 inches, can fit in a 16 inch seat coach seat, maybe one leg). Thats why the bigger first class extra wide seats and an added 6-10 inches between seats/leg room is necessary.
The normal configuration for a 777 is 2-4/5-2. for a total of 8 to 9 seats in a row. The NFL version is 2-2-2 for a total of 6 seats in a row, then add the extra leg room per row, do the math. You can’t get the whole team in one plane even if you wanted to.
WOW! Oh, wait, I just flew in D on a 738.
Argues that “professional sports teams don’t fly their whole team in the same plane”
Then presents a sport league which owns their own two planes and fill them to the brink with the whole team.
OK, fine, they are using two planes. It seems to me it’s because a single plane was not big enough.
Um, and using “rent-a-wreck” does little to support the initial assertion that sport teams managers are security-minded.
If it turns out that the risk of a serious side effect of an approved Covid-19 vaccine is equivalent to the risk of a commercial jetliner crashing, then 99.999% of the rational populace will rush to get vaccinated at the very first opportunity.*
*there’s no accounting for the .001%.
**but do we really want the entire country getting on the same flight at the same time? Oh nooooooooooo………….
Nary Nads and the Hardly Boys in The Case of The Mysterious Shrinking Airplane Occupancy and Seats; streaming now on HULU tv.
“…I’ve got a raging clue; I think it is pointing this way”
“…I’m starting to get a clue to; I’ll follow your clue”
“…You were right, that is the most solid clue ever”
“… Yea!, we just blew the most Scottapulous clue goo all over this case”
Scott Allen is right.
Mass vaccination of healthcare workers could result in mass serious adverse reactions rendering our medical workforce unemployable. During a pandemic.
Wanting for vaccines to be so safe that you deny this could happen means you want it too much. You are too biased. The reality is that there have been serious problems with vaccines before & there could be with this one too.
Stripping away the conditionals, I’d ask what you would like to wager. Legal tender only.
Narad- if there is to be a wager could you include me in on some easy money. The scaremongering knows no boundaries.
….yeah, at about the same odds of seeing a unicorn fly over farting Skittles and rainbows for breakfast. Geez, just let your stupid go.
Wanting so badly for Covid-19 vaccines to fail that one disregards safety and efficacy studies signals biases of the worst kind.
Comments about prospective vaccines from pro-immunization folks here have reflected cautious optimism along with skepticism about the virtues of promoting “warp speed” development. Antivaxers on the other hand are deep into brain-dead fearmongering. Then there’s long-time antivaxer Jay Gordon calling on everyone to get a particular Covid vaccine on the basis of his alleged participation in a not-yet evaluated vaccine trial, a move evidently designed to obfuscate his overall antivaccine activities.
If there would be mass serious adverse reactions to the vaccines, they would have been discovered in the phase 3 tests. On the other hand there are enough cases of healthcare workers being unemployable, because they got Covid-19, not to mention those who died from it, or still suffer nasty consequences.
[…] vaccines being waged by antivaxxers. Sadly, more than a few of these disinformation spreaders are physicians, with some of the usual antivax physician suspects jumping on the COVID-19 denial grift train so […]
The CDC ACIP slides from Decembers meeting regarding vaccine distribution. This presentation recommends staggering healthcare personnel and making allowances for time off after vaccination if needed for post vaccination reactions. Now entering the 4th phase of clinical trials. God bless and good luck. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2020-12/COVID-03-Oliver.pdf
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/slides-2020-12.html
@ Natalie,
Thank you for the link. It appears Scott Allen’s concerns were on point.
The vaccines are known to cause transient reactions – local reactions, and flu like symptoms – that last a day or so. That’s what this is referring to.
Most people understand the difference between unpleasant but temporary reactions and longterm harms. Trials in tens of thousands showed that the vaccines will not cause widespread serious harms – though there may be very rare ones. They also did show that we can expect high rates of temporary (1-2 days) unpleasant reactions.
Those people at the CDC are such anti vaxxers, you can never trust anything they do or say.
“Consider staggering vaccination of personnel from similar units or positions.” What an outragious position for a US govenment agency to take. We need to vaccinate every health care worker on the same day.
“If there would be mass serious adverse reactions to the vaccines, they would have been discovered in the phase 3 tests” (phase 3 of the test was a little over 4 weeks ago, you do know they haven’t tested on pregnant females, to NoNards, that was what happened in the Thalidomide case)
“disregards safety and efficacy studies signals biases of the worst kind.” (that CDC was showing it’s biases”)
“yeah, at about the same odds of seeing a unicorn fly over farting Skittles and rainbows for breakfast. Geez, just let your stupid go.” (yes the CDC saw the rainbow and the unicorn)
If poster like the “Baconator” and “NoNards” would do even a modicum of research as opposed to knee jerk reactions and thinking that everyone who post anything negative about vaccines or medical decisions is/are an anti science/anti vaxxer wing nuts.
Seems the answer to my question was answered before I posed it. If posters like the Baconator or Nonards were fish, they would bite on a bare hook.
Eh, I needed all of this straw! Stop building strawmen.
Yeah, of course. This is exactly what we were advocating for.
Go jump in a fire with your strawman.
Um, nope. There was this study, on pregnant mice, which was mostly ignored by us smart Europeans, but which caught the eye of this Canadian-born physician who worked at the time at the FDA…
Seriously, are you arguing that ALL healthcare workers are pregnant and will suffer some unknown side-effect from the vaccine, not revealed so far?
Because it’s the only way I can parse your rejection of my colleagues’ argument about phase III trials being done.
IOW, you are just JAQing off to look smart.
Go jump in a fire with your strawman.
Scott A.- there is no valid comparison or analogy
, as already commented on, between Thalidomide and a Covid or any other well researched vaccine.
When someone is reduced to lame takes on other posters’ usernames, it’s obvious his ability to pose a logical argument has sputtered out.
*on the other hand, maybe we should start referring to Scott Allen as Scatterbrained Alien, as it’s past time for him to be beamed back up to his home planet.
“I really think it was more the Flying Bonobo Squad’s trying very incompetently to start a land war in Asia, Christine.”
“you have the choice of being pointed and laughed at, or told to fuck off all the way home to Fuckoffsville and die in a fire.”
“just how STUPID are you?”
“you snivelling little rat-faced git”
“IOW, you are just JAQing off to look smart.
Go jump in a fire with your strawman.”
……Why are poster to this site obsessed with fire
these are but a few of the things that have been used against posters on this site
And the “Baconator” is snivelling that someone made fun of his “sock puppet”
but then tries (and fails) to imitate me.
Athaic
WOW that is a lot of hostility you have inside, did the NIH just turn down your grant proposal or the EIH (European Institute for Health).
You really need to go back to English class and brush up on the use of sarcasim in a conversation/post, I didn’t think that I needed to type ‘sic’
behind each quotation I used, I would think that in this group that they would understand.
Since you obviously didn’t, here is a “quote” from a big book with lots of words and what they mean.
Sarcasim
“A cutting, often ironic remark intended to express contempt or ridicule.”
“a satirical remark uttered with some degree of scorn or contempt; a taunt; a gibe; a cutting jest.”
I am suprise you didn’t say anything about the CDC seeing unicorns or a rainbow of skittles……
And I am guessing if men can have “periods” then men can get pregnant (heck even they even have a prenant version of “Barbie” so if she can get pregnant..) and the vaccines haven’t been tested on pregnant women then …….
https://www.thedailybeast.com/yes-men-can-have-periods-and-we-need-to-talk-about-them
in your use of mice as an argument you really need to go to twitter and find the twitter page called
“JUSTSAYSINMICE”
or
“JUSTSAYSINRATS”
It’s humor is probably over your head as it is filled with “sciency” stuff with a good deal of sarcasim.
And it would probably be a good idea for you to get back on your meds.
r/ScottfidentlyIncorrect Here; Do me*…It might be easier with this one: Timoteo
*not like that, I’m a top.
“And I am guessing if men can have “periods” then men can get pregnant (heck even they even have a prenant version of “Barbie” so if she can get pregnant..)”
After finding out that I was only a ‘Ken doll’ for my ex to show off to others; Scottacular observation, on your part.
Funny.
My point was that a study was done, showing deleterious effects of Thalidomide in pregnant mice.
That would have warranted some caution, and some more studies in human. We Europeans didn’t thought so. We paid a high price for that.
Oh, this is true. Yesterday, I was on the low point of my cycle. Suicide ideation, the work. Feeling better today, thanks for your concerns.
What’s you excuse?
Nice dib at trans people BTW
My excuse, I’ve had to put up with know nothing liberals.
Again you missed the point, I was not making fun of trans people, I was making fun of your colleagues who claim there are 57 genders. Either you got parts or you don’t got parts. Works pretty much the same for most other species on this rock.
“Either you got parts or you don’t got parts.”
You don’t got parts.
Scott, you are getting sex and gender mixed up.
Ah, but some people don’t have “parts”. Not functional ones, anyway.
I will be charitable and assume you agree that females do have parts, just not the same as males.
Some people are unlucky enough to be born with both parts. Again, generally not fully-functional.
And this is only when considering primary sexual characteristics.
Now, if you add all the other biological stuff, down to the neurological development and the societal imprinitng… Biology can get very fuzzy and messy
Well, of course, if we don’t look where it’s not working this way, then it’s obviously working for everyone. The ones who count, anyway.
Also, you seem to define “working” by “able to have offspring”. That’s a slightly limited expectation of what to expect of life. Especially when considering the “working” of a social species.
scott, that’s not what “sic” means.
If you want to mark your comment as sarcastic the general internet symbol is /s.
“sic” is a shortening of the Latin phrase “sic erat scriptum” meaning “thus was it written”. It is used in brackets in a quotation to indicate that a misspelling or grammatical error was in the original that is being quoted.
Now you know!
And knowledge is half the battle.
“snivelling [sic] little rat-faced git” — Graham Chapman (host), Terry Jones (Mr. Git), Michael Palin (John)
Hey, that’s pretty classic, Scottaphroditimous Allflatworman!
John: Do … do you live round here?
Mr. Git: Yes, we live up the road, number 49 – you can’t miss it. We’ve just had the outside painted with warm pus.
John: ( with increasing embarrassment ) Oh.
Mr. Git: Yes. It’s very nice actually. It goes nicely with the vomit and catarrh we’ve got smeared all over the front door.
https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/ce6d6081-6c0a-41eb-93db-2c34df9c55f0
Scott: “You really need to go back to English class and brush up on the use of sarcasim”
Gaudere’s Law strikes again.
To the Baconator, did you forget get that “gaudere” was the illegitimate spawn of Muphry.
To justatech
“iron law of nitpicking”
“Murphy was an optimist” — Peter O’Toole
RIP, SN8.
tiny tim,
you probably thunked I mspelled Muphry
and really you can do better than “scott n eight”
I would have done something in the “Star Trek” mode.
So now they are telling pregnant females not to get the vaccine.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/pregnant-women-told-not-coronavirus-23102417
— The mirror?
— It is a Scottacular fuck-all, captain — a distortion field never before scottountered..
— How long to break through, Scottscatty?
— Two scotthurs
— Really?
— I would not be known as a scottiracle worker if I was completely scottuciary about scottimelines, now would I??
— Scottahnnn!!!
https://youtu.be/k6Lb3kFwJRQ?t=1
I do wonder about what was causing the allergic reactions. PEG?? The trials specifically discluded people with known hypersensitivities.
Ok. Mistakes were made.
Named for a moderator at the Straight Dope Message Boards, Gaudere’s Law states:
“Any post made to point out a spelling or grammar error will invariably contain a spelling or grammar error.”
The test went pretty much better than anyone expected. The flop, the glide, the flip, and then came the part that someone had one job.
‘Low pressure in methane header’. Those motors are revolutionary in being ‘full-flow, staged combustion’* and part of how that works is that one turbopump is oxygen-rich and the other methane rich. This norminaly keeps both halves cool. The green flame was the last Raptor burning copper as it was starved of fuel — Manley describes it as “engine-rich exaust”, because it was ingesting itself. The way that pressure is generated is by heating some liquid fuel to become vapor and, I guess, it did not do that fast enough… May go to pressurized bladders.
https://youtu.be/egHxiX40eJY?t=1
The guidance and avionics were spot on as there was a nosecone left standing dead center of the landing pad.
The cost of the craft, labor, fuel, and test? 22 million. Dead cheap. This is the way.
*The ruskies developed one of these ‘holy grail’ engines years ago but it never flew.
[…] The antivaccine disinformation war against COVID-19 vaccines continues apace […]
[…] April, anti-vaccine activists and their new best friends at QAnon have spread all kinds of outrageously false rumors about the COVID-19 vaccine candidates: They’re the “Mark of the Beast”. They “cause […]
Speaking of the Mark of the Beast, Happy Friday from Ken and Snarky Puppy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h81FDppb9IE
“Holy Crap, what a great ‘sync’ “, I was thinking. Just imagine my dissapointement to find out he wrote the song to Ken’s antics. Why have you done this??
The Dark Side of Oz:
https://youtu.be/NtExVJlgEC0?t=290
A very good one on YT ~2006(?) was Horton Hears the Who — it was the original animated alonside Won’t Get Fooled Again (I think); it was one of the first videos that I remember getting a copywrite takedown.
@ Tim – Two of my favorites – together! I’ve heard about it but not seen it : )
Are you a fan of Les Claypool and Primus? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4OhIU-PmB8
Jillys on Smack is another favorite of mine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubv6ZpRP-KM
? ? ? ?
I’m going to go with… no? {except for that custom instrument on the second one}
Primus sings the theme song to South Park. I didn’t now if you were aware. I know how you feel about South Park.
Cheers!
Oh…I forgot to reply, the instrument is a stand up bass. He’s famous for the way he plays the bass guitar. The style is definitely not easy listening.
Well, I do now and am currently scrubbing all my sensory organs out in light of this new revelation. Stuff ‘Kenny’ is saying in the openings might be found on wikipedia — it is not for prudes or the slight of heart.
[…] the same sort of nonsense is now being peddled about the two COVID-19 vaccines that have just been made available by emergency use authorizations issued by the FDA, the vaccine […]