Public health announcement: the vaccines have annoying side effects but...

... but it's not a reason not to take them.

Yes, the side effects are well-described in the Phase 1 and 2 trials that have been published, and will be too when the phase 3 trials by Pfizer and Moderna make it into the peer-reviewed journals.

Yes, we need to warn everybody of them, otherwise people won't come back for the second dose of the vaccine and won't be adequately protected. Yes, headaches, fatigue, flu-like symptoms, pain in the site of the injection, fever, nausea, muscle aches, joint pain and others have all been described, extensively, with these mRNA vaccines.

BUT and do trust me on this: they are benign and go away with no consequences. The mRNA washes out of the body in hours. These vaccines are proving to be quite harmless and quite effective. A couple of lousy days is a very minor price to pay versus contracting this EXTREMELY dangerous virus.

But yes, I'm afraid of the field day the conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers will have, when people start complaining of the side effects. This in itself can defeat the opportunity for herd immunity, and the medical community has already started to advise patients that the side effects are expected, normal, and should not be panic-inducing. I hope that patients and the public will believe us. The way misinformation is rampant, I'm not optimistic.

It's an uphill battle. But the virus is bad enough now, COMPLETELY out of control, with hospitals close to filling up to capacity (which then will result in a VERY SHARP increase in death toll, which will probably happen before the vaccines roll in (due to the Mother Of All Superspreaders a.k.a. Thanksgiving travel), that maybe this will scare enough people into taking the vaccine. I hope so, because we need to vaccinate 70% of the adult population to stop this thing.

 

I dont think "scaring" people into it is the way to go.

 

Yes. I have read that the major side-effect of getting the vaccine is a sudden desire to care about other human beings. The official name for this side effect is "empathy". Trump fans might want to avoid these vaccines at all costs.

 

I bet you can't even see your own, glaring contradiction there. Are you hoping they get the chinese virus?

 

I'm watching the virus run though the White House Staff, and I'm thinking either they don't care if they get the virus or they are too stupid to
operate a mask.

 

I don't (trust you on this). There's not been nearly enough study of either the short- or long-term effects of the candidate vaccines to label them "harmless" or "benign" or that the side effects "go away with no consequences". If we were to vaccinate 300+ million people with them, it's extremely likely that some non-zero number of them are going to have severe, adverse reactions to the vaccine, perhaps even fatal reactions.

 

Well, you should (trust me) because I've been doing this for a living for 40 years.

Please allow me to explain, although I'll be long (the matter does deserve attention, giving that it is literally a life-and-death matter and as a healthcare professional, I care for the life of my fellow human beings):

No, short term effects were covered. I have read the phases 1 and 2 papers and the press releases for phase 3 and they all look very good with no serious adverse reaction. I'm waiting for the phase 3 peer-reviewed papers but there is no reason to suspect that they will be any different from the press releases. This will indicate that in Moderna's trial with 15,000 people and Pfizer's with 22,000 (the other half of subjects being placebo subjects), no adverse reaction was seen, short-term. That's 37,000 if we pool together these two mRNA vaccines that are very similar.

Now, mRNA vaccines degrade fast. There is little reason to suspect long-term reactions, but sure, maybe there will be some. What you are talking about is post-marketing experience. But this is valid for ALL medications and vaccines known to men. You can only see post-marketing data after the vaccines or medications go to the market, right? Otherwise it would be a catch 22. If you wait for post-marketing experience before you approve a vaccine, you will never approve it because you have to approve it first so that it goes to the market.

But yes, maybe when you give the vaccine to 300,000,000 people (whoa, I'd love to see it as widely accepted, but I'm going with your numbers, for the sake of the argument) you'll see some more serious reactions.

Now, you need to compare it to the preventative effects of the vaccine. Let's run some numbers.

The big fiasco of the 1976 H1N1 Swine Flu vaccine happened because it WASN'T tested in phases 1, 2, and 3, so once it was given to 40,000,000 Americans, there were some cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome. That was a BAD vaccine. But see, there is no reason to suspect that the current Covid-19 vaccines are bad like that one, because they WERE tested through phases 1, 2, and 3. And you need to realize that after the outbreak of Swine Flu that happened in 1976 at a military base in New Jersey, the surrounding population was rushed through that vaccine (authorities were afraid of a similar problem seen with the H1N1 Hong Kong Flu in 1968, so they panicked). What happened? The outbreak did NOT spread. So, yes, there were some Guillain-Barre syndromes, but remember, the next time the H1N1 came along and before a vaccine was deployed (not as fast; lessons learned), the disease killed 12,000 Americans. So who is to say that we didn't prevent thousands of deaths in 1976, while having a few Guillain-Barre cases?

Back to Covid-19: let's suppose that if we had tested it in, say, 50,000 subjects rather than 37,000, we'd find one case of a serious reaction (although there is nothing to suggest that we would have seen a serious reaction, but, for the sake of the argument).

That would mean that we'd have 6,000 of those for 300 million people. Now, let's suppose - which is absurd given that Guillain-Barre from vaccines is much rarer than that, but for the sake of the argument - that all 6,000 were Guillain-Barre cases (the worst that usually happens with these respiratory virus vaccines). Well, the mortality of Guillain-Barre is about 5.5%. So, 330 fatalities.

Now, with this pandemic still only having 14,000,000 confirmed cases in America, we are sitting right now at 276,000 fatalities. Let's say, like recent papers have proposed, that the actual number of cases in America is rather 5 times more, so, 70 million people. To get to the same proportion of 300 million people you say would be given the vaccine and thus protected, that's 4.3 times more. Now, let's multiply 276,000 x 4.3 = 1,186,800 fatalities.

Now, compare that to 330 fatalities.

Which one would you think we should pick? Having had already 276,000 fatalities, and risking having a total of 1,186,800, or risking 330???

Do observe that I used numbers that are not likely. We haven't seen 330 fatalities in vaccination programs. But just for the sake of the argument, pushing it really high to unlikely high numbers of vaccine-related fatalities, we STILL see a VAST DIFFERENCE between the fatality potential of the vaccination program and the fatality potential of the disease we're trying to prevent. This makes it a NO BRAINER.

So, the fatality rate we're looking at, for the vaccine, with the above numbers, is 0.00011%.

Compare it to the theoretical case-fatality rate for Covid-19, which is 0.65%. That means that the vaccine is 5,909 times safer than the disease (and again, it's way better than that; for this argument I used an absurdly high incidence of Guillain-Barre).

Now, think of this:

You are in a mountain with your jeep. You want to go back to civilization. Your guide book says: "You have two roads to go down to the valley; A and B. Same length, same driving time, both very scenic. But Road A has had avalanches and crumbling narrow paths, so in a month, 5,909 drivers who took it have died. Now, Road B is much safer. There's always the idiot who is drunk or something and suffers a fatal accident but in one month, of the drivers who took Road B, only 1 has died."

I ask you, which road would you pick? If you say, "it's a no-brainer; of course I'd pick road B" then I'll tell you, it's also a no-brainer that you should accept the vaccine.

 

I've seen enough incidents of experts with decades of experience in a field screwing things up in epic ways that I'm not prepared to offer you blind trust. BTW, you said you've been "doing this" for 40 years, but what exactly is "this"? You said you're a healthcare professional, but that could mean all sorts of things. Are you working directly on Moderna / Pfizer's vaccine candidates? Have you been working on vaccine research for 40 years? Are you a surgeon? General practitioner MD? Nurse? Lab tech? Physical therapist? Do you answer the phones at a Planned Parenthood office? Since you're using your decades of experience as a (fallacious, I suspect) appeal to authority, I think it's reasonable to ask what those decades of experience consist of.

This is exactly my point. It may be all well and good to make the claim that, while the vaccine may kill or maim a small percentage of people, not taking the vaccine stands to kill more people. That may even be a true claim, but it's not the claim you made originally. You claimed that the side effects of the vaccine "are benign and go away with no consequences." It would be like, to refer back to your "two roads" analogy, to claim that Road B is "harmless" and that there's no risk there. That's not true. There is some risk there, just, we think, less risk than Road A.

Do you now see how your original claim was inaccurate? You've now backpedaled from it to a (more defensible, I think) position that yes, there are some consequences, and they're not always benign, but they're generally less severe and less frequent than the consequences of not taking the vaccine. Making deceptive / inaccurate claims like you did originally undermines your credibility. That's obviously not a good thing if you want people to "trust you".

 

BTW, if it helps you understand where I'm coming from, I'm not really anti-vaccine. For example, I've got two kids, a two-year-old and a one-year-old, who have both received all their vaccines according to the CDC's recommended vaccine schedule. I'm more of an anti-deceptive/inaccurate-claims kind of a person.

 

Were these vaccines also tested on people with pre-existing medical conditions, or just fit as fiddles volunteers? I'm 66 yrs old, 2yrs in trying to bring my blood pressure under control, and 2mos. ago diagnosed with A-Fib. Guess what I'm NOT gonna be taking any time soon.

 

same symptoms as the standard flu shot, these are normal and expected

 

I said early on that Trump supporters would turn anti-vax as they want this virus to go on and on now that Trump will not be President

 

Can you believe these people who can't reply to ANYTHING without tossing in Trump? Must be a lonely existence, I imagine anybody who knows them run like jackrabbits when they see them coming.

 

Once again, I'm not "anti-vax", I'm just anti-deceptive/inaccurate-claims.

 

Sigh, Trump, Trump, Trump, ad nauseum! "I had bacon and eggs for breakfast today".... "BUT TRUMP...". What in the name of God are some people gonna do with themselves 2 months from now!?!

 

Look at my thread "The State of the Vaccines" and take a good guess, if the level of expertise demonstrated there is compatible with someone who is answering phones at a Planned Parenthood office.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/the-state-of-the-vaccines.576983/

I'm an MD/PhD, that is, a medical scientist with both an MD degree and a PhD degree in one of the medical sciences. I both see patients and do research. Sorry if I can't give you the smallest details, which wouldn't be conducive of the desirable privacy in an anonymous public Internet forum. As you might realize, I have no interest in being identified in real life, because while I post MOSTLY on Covid-19, its vaccines, its prevention, and its treatment, I ALSO post about politics and I know very well how adversarial this can get. I've seen naïve colleagues getting ousted by political opponents in forums, doxxing them, including a quite prominent and well-known scientist who had his name, address, and pictures of his two daughters posted on a forum (sure, the person who did it via a sock, got the sock banned and the posts deleted but not before the damage). So, I'm sorry that I won't give you the smallest details about where I work and doing what. When one discloses too much personal information, it piles up - because in the middle of other discussions I've at times disclosed some other details, like marital status, children, how many languages I speak, citizenship, etc., so when you started adding this and adding that at one point a persistent observer may get to identifying information.

But hey, you don't need to believe me. It's your health, not mine. But I'll regret it if you don't, because I mean well. You talk about a fallacious appeal to authority as if I'm posting here to score some points and get the upper hand in discussions. No, I'm posting here about vaccines simply because I care. I consider it a public health announcement; part of my mission in life. But you can take the advice or leave it. It's up to you.

The side effects ARE benign and go away with no consequences, as far as these 37,000 subjects go, which is not a negligible number. What you need to realize is that we are ALL IN AWE of the mRNA vaccines. They may be single biggest breakthrough in vaccine technology of the last several decades. Do you realize how spectacular this is? We got 100% of prevention of serious disease with the Moderna vaccine, and 94.5% prevention of infection. NOBODY including we medical scientists, expected such a GREAT result in less than one year. And then, with no serious adverse reaction, and transient side effects! Yes, I'm very enthusiastic about it.

You are talking about a HYPOTHETICAL serious reaction in post-marketing phase, one we HAVEN'T seen (I can only talk about what we HAVE seen - which is a very safe vaccine). WHEN and IF it happens, let's talk again. But see, this vaccine doesn't introduce a whole virus, attenuated or inactivated (which is usually what causes Guillain-Barré given the multitude of antigens involved there). It introduces an instruction for the human cell to make the S-protein; very specific and narrow. Once it does its job and the human cells do produce the S-protein, it degrades. See, it's just messenger RNA. It's make of the natural building blocks of any RNA: ribose (which is a sugar molecule), phosphate groups, adenine, uracil, cytosine, and guanine. All harmless. So, maybe we WON'T ever see a serious adverse reaction; we certainly haven't, so far. ALL serious reactions we've seen so far, were in the other platforms, not the mRNA one (the adenovirus vector ones were the ones who caused problems, so far). And the size of the phase 3 trials was appropriate; usually when we have a stinker, the issues do manifest in phase 3. And when you think how flexible the mRNA platform is, given that it is synthetic and doesn't require egg or cell line cultivation, it is not only much FASTER to produce, but also more ADAPTABLE in case the virus mutates. We are all very excited about it. It opens a huge field for therapeutics, for example, for cancers.

No, not really. With the CURRENT data, these two mRNA vaccines look darn effective and darn safe. I went along with YOUR claim, like I said, for the sake of the argument, that is, IF we see post-marketing problems, it would STILL be a good idea to take it. Much more, if there AREN'T any.

Now, the thing is, yes, I'm used to people trusting me, so maybe as a knee-jerk I said "trust me."... they actually PAY me for my opinion, haha. I don't need or seek the validation. I have enough of it in my real life. But when I post here and try to work on a lot of misinformation, again, it's because I care. So yes, IN THIS SENSE I would like people to trust me, so that they don't commit the very unreasonable decision of refusing this vaccine. Many who refuse it, will die, or will get maimed (like I've been saying forever here and Fauci said today, we are seeing up to 30% of long-term consequences of the NATURAL infection by the SARS-CoV-2). People focus on the death toll which is relatively small (although I regret every single one of them, of course), but there is a huge additional chunk of people who survive it, but come out of it with permanent lung fibrosis and chronic shortness of breath, renal (kidney) insufficiency, strokes, cognitive deficits, a hyper-coagulation state that makes them prone to DVT and pulmonary embolism, and scariest of all, chronic inflammatory myocarditis of the kind that spells trouble; the kind that could result, in a few years, in heart failure (seen in 60% of survivors in a German study). Fauci said 20% to 30%. I've been saying 10% to 20%. Even if it is only 10%, we'd now be moving into an unbelievable territory. In our calculations above we were talking about 1 million and change dead... can you imagine, 10% of your 300 million people having dire health consequences of the natural infection? That's 30 million people.

Why do I care, and why do I ask people to trust me on this and take the vaccine? Because polls are showing that 58% of Americans don't want the vaccine. That's very unfortunate. People who don't need to die, will die, or will get their life expectancy, productivity, and quality of life forever changed by a bad consequence of the infection by the SARS-CoV-2. I'm trying to change that.

Look, when we post about politics here, we're all at each others' throat. But do realize that wen I talk about Medicine and Virology, it's not my intention. I don't want to win an argument... I just want people to be safe.

So, again, take it or leave it, I can't force you to believe me. But frankly, you'd be better off if you did.

 

I didn't issue anything deceptive or inaccurate. See full explanation above. And I never implied that you are an anti-vaxxer. I've seen many people, even very well informed ones, very suspicious of these vaccines, and it's unfortunate. It's part of the regrettable politicization of this whole Covid-19 issue. But when I post here about it, I'm posting from the standpoint of my professional experience, not from the standpoint of politics. I never even liked the political angle of this. It gets in the way. This is a matter of public health, not a matter of partisan politics. This virus hits progressives, moderates and conservatives alike, Democrats, independents, and Republicans alike.

Good that you're keeping your children well-vaccinated. Way to go.

 

Yes, phase 3 does include people with pre-existing conditions. It's the point of phase 3, to widen the groups and include older and sicker people. Including, much older. The data we got so far shows that the vaccine remains protective and harmless for those populations, too. Now, I can't even start understanding your reasoning. So you are 66, you have hypertension and A-fib, and you DON'T want to take this very safe and very protective vaccine??? Look, at age 66, with hypertension and A-fib, your odds of DYING of Covid-19 if you catch it are VERY significant. You have ALL THE REASONS IN THE WORLD to be first in line to get this vaccine AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!

The way this winter surge is going, we estimate that 30% of the US population will catch Covid-19 in the next 30 days. The odds that it will get eventually to you are VERY HIGH, and the odds that then you will die of it are VERY SIGNIFICANT! YOU of all people really need this vaccine, man! What exactly are you afraid of?

Especially someone with a weak heart! The SARS-CoV-2 has a special predilection for the heart muscle fibers, and causes myocarditis in 78% of people who SURVIVE the infection! Do you really want that? There is no vaccine risk that gets even remotely close to the risk YOU are exposed to, if you catch this virus. Here, read this paper:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/2768916

 

Yes. Transient. No permanent damage at all. Very safe vaccines. And very efficacious.

 

Yes, there is no need to politicize the issue of vaccines. They are a matter of public health, and a life-saving one. Let's beat this virus, united as a nation.

 

That whole post is quite good, and I wish we saw more posts of similar quality here. It probably deserves a longer response than I have time, but please allow me to hit some high points:

I can appreciate your desire for anonymity (I share it). I think your post did a fair job of outlining your medical experience, thanks for that.

I largely agree, at least up to my level of understanding, that the vaccine candidates appear to be quite breathtaking accomplishments in record time. Those who have worked to make them a reality deserve our commendation and thanks.

I also agree that people generally are at greater risk from harm by not taking the vaccine and risking infection than by taking the vaccine and assuming whatever risk / consequences (likely minimal) that are entailed in doing so. That's, I think, the key message that needs to be communicated to people.

The portion of your post I've quoted above seems to be the crux of our (rather limited) disagreement. I felt like a portion of your earlier post (stating that the side effects "are benign and go away with no consequences") seemed to foreclose any possibility of serious harm from the vaccine. I think that's too bold a claim to make still. We haven't yet seen serious harmful effects, and the trials / testing that's been done so far give us good reason to be hopeful that there may not be any, but there's a possibility we'll uncover something in the "post-marketing phase" that we didn't recognize in the smaller samples during the trials. It's an unknown, not a known non-risk. That was my point.

Anyways, I'm happy to leave it at that, as I think we'll just be beating a dead horse by going back and forth on this. Feel free to have the the last word to share any clarifying comments you wish.

 

yep!



just do what Trump tried to do - deny it away

 

There is ALWAYS a possibility of a serious side effect and this is why trials are usually conducted over a much longer time frame but the world and particularly America does not have the luxury of time

 

I agree with all of that. The first half of it is, in fact, the very point I was making. And I don't disagree that the urgency of the situation calls for taking some calculated risks.

 

It goes deeper than that because often the Anti-vaxxers are over represented in the Young college graduate because they are the ones who have been led by social media to these disinformation sites like “natural news” (who I have a REAL beef with - not saying I wish them harm but I can dream of fitting punishment along the lines of stakes and anthills)

These disinformation sites often have pseudo scientific names and have the surface appearance of legitimate scientific journals. It is only when you check the references and find that it is to “research” published by them and appearing nowhere else that you realise it is an AstroTurf site. Not al lot of people look past the facade of legitimacy and fewer people, sadly understand enough about scientific integrity and process to realise they are being duped