health

Q&A: Where are we in the COVID-19 vaccine race?

6 Comments
By Carl O'Donnell

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© Thomson Reuters 2020.

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6 Comments
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Very informative and substantiated, unfortunately lot of people will keep repeating misinformation in an effort to erode trust in the safe and effective health intervention that vaccines are. For some their cult like belief cannot be ever disproved, no matter how much evidence and data are collected and presented.

The usual myths and lies are well known and have been refuted endlessly times, but people will keep repeating them, even when knowing they are not true, just to impose their personal belief. For example.

"Coronavirus kills only a few people, so no need of vaccine" For that very costly measures need to be put in place, if the option is a safe and effective vaccine the choice is logical. Also, every single vaccine in use today have a much lower rate of complications or death than the pandemic.

"Good drugs are being hidden to push for profit with unnecessary vaccines " No, drugs that have not proven to be any advantage are being discarded, because they are not useful, effective drugs (like dexamethasone) are well recognized as useful because it can be proved scientifically, even if they are extremely cheap. Also, treatment is much more profitable than vaccines and health professionals do get themselves and their family and friends sick of the pandemic, it is not believable they will hide effective drugs that could save everybody.

"The vaccine is rushed", there are current vaccines that had 6 months of phase III trials, this amount of time is enough to accurately predict if there is any realistic change the vaccine is not a much safer option than the natural infection.

"Vaccines have no long term studies of safety" COVID-19 has no long-term studies either, but at least the vaccines are studied in detail in the short and medium term, and introduce to the body a tiny fraction of the antigens that are produced in an infection, so a vaccine is still a much safer option, hugely less likely to produce unintended effects.

"Vaccine companies are free of liability" False, vaccines are well monitored and tested in the developed world, precisely because companies have to respond to any irregularity detected by specialized scientists from the different governments, nobody gets a free ride.

"vaccines poison/kill a lot of people but there is a world conspiracy to hide it, for profit" Easily proved as false, since every scientists, doctor and nurse in the world could easily see if their patients were getting important adverse reactions or dying, choosing to hide it (and keep vaccinating their own family and friends) for profit that is not even for themselves is not a rational nor believable possibility.

"The media is using fear to the pandemic to push for the vaccine". Again false, since every association of medical professionals in the world are the ones that say that the pandemic is a serious problem that requires effective measures. Not only vaccination but social distancing, development of treatments etc. The disease kills and produce long lasting sequelae in many people, it is worth taking care of not spreading it by any of the many means available to do it.

In a perfect world where people listened to objective, scientific data, the information on the article would be enough to get a good idea of what is coming in the near future with the vaccines, but unfortunately there will be people that consider more important their personal pride than the health of others, and will push for their mistaken beliefs using dishonesty without even feeling bad about it.

6 ( +8 / -2 )

"vaccines poison/kill a lot of people but there is a world conspiracy to hide it, for profit" Easily proved as false, since every scientists, doctor and nurse in the world could easily see if their patients were getting important adverse reactions or dying, choosing to hide it...

Look up the negative reactions to HPV vaccines reported by VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System).

As of 7/14/2018:

2773 disabled

430 dead

...

Also, according to a study (Harvard study?) only a very small fraction of complications have been reported to VAERS, and the above numbers should be increased at least 10-fold.

You are just pushing the usual pharma talking points. More people would take you seriously if you at least appear to be unbiased.

"Coronavirus kills only a few people, so no need of vaccine"

Actually, what many rational educated people are saying is that the coronavirus kills very few healthy people, so no need to risk taking a relatively untested vaccine (no long term tests), some of which will contain unwanted products from the monkey, human fetal, or insect cells that are used to produce them. The focus should instead be on improving our health: eating well, sleeping well, increasing our vitamin D...

-5 ( +2 / -7 )

Look up the negative reactions to HPV vaccines reported by VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System).

As of 7/14/2018:

2773 disabled

430 dead

I have already corrected you about this, VAERS includes every king of thing that happens to a person that is vaccinated, so the importance is to compare it with what happens to the general population and see if it is different or not. So if out of 5 million vaccinated people 500 die, and out of 5 million unvaccinated people 600 die, then it is completely obvious that it is not the vaccine the one that is producing the problems but living a normal life.

A detailed study has already been done for HPV vaccines including the information on VAERS, the conclusion is exactly that, there is no appreciable increase of risk for a vaccinated person when compared with non vaccinated people.

Why insist in an argument you know it is false? are you purposefully using mistaken information to mislead people?

Actually, what many rational educated people are saying is that the coronavirus kills very few healthy people, so no need to risk taking a relatively untested vaccine (no long term tests), 

People's education is irrelevant, unless they can prove the infection is less risky than the vaccine then their point is mistaken. Specially because this is a hugely untested disease that has only been with us for a year. No vaccine available right now is even as risky as the lowest estimates for COVID-19. (no, not even vaccines for senior people that die with or without the vaccine in the same degree, except for the prevented disease).

some of which will contain unwanted products from the monkey, human fetal, or insect cells that are used to produce them. 

Same as everything you eat and drink if it was examined with the extremely sensitive tests that are used to corroborate the purity of vaccines. If you think very low levels are enough a reason to reject the vaccine the only logical thing would be to reject also every kind of food or drink you may take.

The focus should instead be on improving our health: eating well, sleeping well, increasing our vitamin D...

And still not a single professional association of scientists and health workers coincides with you or your mysterious "educated people" without name nor data to support what they say. There is not a single one that say that a vaccine without rush (as in approved next year) is in any way replaceable with what is being done already.

5 ( +7 / -2 )

Same as everything you eat and drink if it was examined with the extremely sensitive tests that are used to corroborate the purity of vaccines. If you think very low levels are enough a reason to reject the vaccine the only logical thing would be to reject also every kind of food or drink you may take.

Did you really just suggest that because human and monkey fetal material is in many consumer products that it's ok

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Did you really just suggest that because human and monkey fetal material is in many consumer products that it's ok

No, I suggested that because human fetal and monkey materials are in everything you consume it is illogical to refuse only one thing and consume everything else happily. Either you are grossed out by faint traces or make a blind eye to them, else you are just having double standards. It is all about feelings since there is no inherent danger in having those traces from one source instead of another.

2 ( +3 / -1 )

We're pretty close to a vaccine now thanks to President Donald Trump's leadership.

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

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