Covid vaccine

[planesick]

I am not looking for a fight, I am looking to be educated.
If a vaccine is produced, how will we know it is safe? Don't new vaccines and drugs normally go through rigorous testing to see if there are long term effects before they get into the population?
Is anyone else worried that giving a vaccine that has been rushed through is a bit like playing Russian Roulette?
What if it is made compulsory? Do I break the law and protect my child or give her the vaccine and who knows what could happen?
Like I said, I would like to be educated by any scientist who is on MN, it might calm my brain down a bit. Thanks.

It will go through stringent safety tests. However, we can never guarantee anything is 100% safe.

I doubt a vaccine would ever be made compulsory.

However, not having it could impact your ability to fly, travel, access schools, etc.

The risk would hardly be greater than the risk of getting it. But it will be up you you, ultimately.

It's not being rushed through. There are trials happening, my sibling volunteered to be given it & was given either it or the placebo

However, not having it could impact your ability to fly, travel, access schools, etc.

That is the same as compulsory.

By definition any long term side effects haven't and can't be studied with this vaccine. The anecdote above is that the researcher's triplets are fine so far. Too soon to say if there will be any longer term effects.

Also often by definition you can't get a medical exemption until you're already vaccine damaged from a previous one. Vaccine damage can and does happen, see the vaccine damages fund and the Pandemrix incident with the swine flu vaccine.

I'm sorry you've had some chippy replies on here - I'm afraid it's a topic where asking questions isn't well received. Asking questions doesn't make you anti-vax, it just means you ask questions.

As sirfred says, everything is a balance of risks. If you're at high risk of catching it and developing complications, the balance of risks is probably such that it's a good thing for you. If you're unlikely to catch it and if you do, at low risk of complication, maybe the risks of the vaccine outweigh the benefits for that individual.

The long term studies will be done as post-marketing surveillance - it's not possible to detect autoimmune diseases, cancer, fertility issues etc in short term studies.
As mentioned previously the swine flu vaccine was accelerated - no-one cares about all the children whose lives were devastated by narcolepsy.
(Not anti-vax, fully vaccinated)

Bubbles, it won't end the company, the government indemnifies them.

Compulsion, even by the back door as described above, is the thin end of a very dangerous wedge in my opinion. The government should demonstrate it is safe and effective, and by doing so, people are likely to be convinced, especially if they're fully open about the potential risks and benefits so that people can understand the trade off.

Hey OP. I've wondered the same and I'm not anti-vax. There is no possible way we can know if there are any long term issues associated with any Covid vaccine that is produced.

I will be waiting to see what is developed and how the roll-out will be managed. I assume people over 70 and the vulnerable will be offered first bit like flu. But at some stage there will need to be herd immunity so they will need a certain proportion of the population to be vaccinated for it to be effective.

I'll put the standard disclaimer on here so that my comments aren't disregarded out of hand: not anti vax, in fact fully vaxxed, just like to be able to have the data to risk assess things that go into my body.

Restriction on travel may not be from our own government.

Other countries may refuse entry without the vaccine.

I'd have it. I don't believe they'd be rolling it without good certainty it's safe.

But nothing is 100% safe. Not even going out if your front door.

And no we can't be 100% sure of any long term issues. But they are aware from current patients that covid itself has some really awful long term effects.

Probably greater than the virus.

Vaccine not virus 🤦🏼‍♀️

Agreed, but it's a relative safety question. What's my probability of being damaged by covid vs my probability of being damaged by a vaccine? I would hope the government will be fully open about both of those statistics.

The new vaccine, if they get approved, will have been subjected to the exact same safety testing regime as all other vaccines. It’s quicker because money is literally being thrown at it and volunteers are quiet up, so they are not facing the same delays.

Long term affects we won’t know. But we never would for a new vaccine. And there is already evidence that the virus can cause devastating long term affects.

But we never would for a new vaccine.

Which is why vaccines are normally rolled out slowly, MMR was developed in 1971 but UK kids weren't given it routinely for 17 years.

(I feel very bad for writing like some anti-vax nutjob here, but it is the case that you cannot achieve the same amount of confidence in absence of side effects without that time)

I doubt there will be a successful vaccine for this. There seems more confidence that the ‘vaccines’ would be able to reduce symptoms but that just creates more asymptomatic spreaders so not necessarily what you want.

Adverse events from a vaccine, even if it’s 1 in 10,000 add up to a lot of people if it’s given worldwide. I would rather take my chances with the virus than this rushed vaccine. Also the fact pharma companies are talking about being indemnified by governments doesn’t fill me with confidence.

I am pro vaccine usually as well.

Vaccines are generally very very safe - decades of research on existing vaccines has proven this. They are very clever in that they trigger the immune system to do the right thing in case of infection, without affecting the organs, causing autism or whatever other people worry about. I think the mechanism of what they do - and don’t do - is very clear to people working on the vaccine, and hopefully all of that data will be publicly available then.

As people above said, they will have at least several months of data on how the body of different people reacts to the new Covid vaccine(s), before they are available to the public. I’m not a medical professional but as I understand it’s unlikely that the body is absolutely fine within 9 months since the vaccine and then 5 years later there are “surprise” significant changes from it. Even in this very unlikely case, looking at increasing number of people still recovering from Covid 3 months after the infection, I’d personally take the very hypothetical vaccine risk over the very known and serious Covid risks for me and my family.

I would view the vaccine process as being streamlined rather than rushed. The biggest bottlenecks of getting something from the lab into human trials is the filing of paperwork, securing funding and securing the medication/vaccine in suitable quantities for testing and battling for priority against other trials. Other trials have all but stopped and covid trial are getting a lot of investment. This has meant their ducks in a row right at the start rather than thinking about how to fund the next step only when the previous step has been fully completed.

There are 4 phases to getting medications to market. Phase 1 is it safe? Test in healthy volunteers. Phase 2 does it work? Test in small numbers. Phase 3 how does it work best? How does it compare to other options? Phase 4 comes after it has been approved and doesn't end, safety is continually reviewed.

The Oxford trial that was in the news a few weeks ago was a phase 1/2 trial. As the intended recipients of the vaccine are also healthy volunteers they could test whether it did what they intended at the same time as testing if it was safe. This has saved time. The report in the news was an interim report into the trial, they have monitored the recipients for 2 months and will continue this until 12 months. In a lot of trials it would only be after 12 months that these results will be reported. They have now been able to start planning the second stage a phase 2/3 trial another time saving. In the next trial they will increase the number or recipient and vary the frequency of the vaccination. Is one dose sufficient? If two are needed at what frequency etc? How long does the effect last? These are all steps that every trial has to go through. The vaccine trials are no different the difference is they are being able to move quickly from one stage to the next without pause points for paperwork, resources and funding.

In regular circumstances it can take 6 months - 2 years to get the paperwork, funds and materials in place to start a phase 1 trial because you can't usually secure funding until its been approved and without funding you can't finance the materials.

Some of my friends who work in healthcare have volunteered for the Oxford vaccine and have already had it (it's double blind with a placebo, so they don't know if they've actually had the covid one or not). They are being asked to do a home swab test once a week, and have their blood taken every couple of months to check for antibodies. The trial goes on for a year. I also work in healthcare and am thinking of applying, but am a bit apprehensive about it.

This explains it quite well:

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/jul/30/coronavirus-vaccine-tracker-how-close-are-we-to-a-vaccine

The long term studies will be done as post-marketing surveillance - it's not possible to detect autoimmune diseases, cancer, fertility issues etc in short term studies.
As mentioned previously the swine flu vaccine was accelerated - no-one cares about all the children whose lives were devastated by narcolepsy.
(Not anti-vax, fully vaccinated)

This is what worries me. Also i was amongst the first girls to get the hpv vaccine in schools. At the time it was 3 jabs and now ten years later my neice just had it and its 2 jabs. So in ten years the vaccine has been changed.

So in ten years the vaccine has been changed.

Why does that disturb you? I don't understand it. Medical science is a fast moving field.

@pointythings because a vaccine was brought out and given to thousands and in just a ten year period they discovered it wasnt good enough and changed it. Hardly a good thing for all those who had the original not good enough vaccine.

What if it is made compulsory? Do I break the law and protect my child or give her the vaccine and who knows what could happen?

It won't be made compulsory. Johnson and Hancock may think they can do what they like, but that one would be a step too far.

RyanBergerasTeeth how much do you actually know about science and research? Because what happened with that vaccine doesn't mean what you think it means. The HPV vaccines (both of them) were followed up after being licensed for use, and one was found slightly better than the other. That does not mean the other does not work, just that the other is a bit better and only two doses are needed, not three. DD1 was in the same boat as you. She is not bothered and neither should you be. Science is not set in stone and the fact that things change does not mean they were bad before.