I met one of those "I'm not putting that in my body"

[Toorapid]

people this week. I didn't think they really existed.

It was at a (virtual) networking thing. Professional people who are in a category where some LAs are vaccinating us and some aren't. Most people in the "room" had already had the vaccination, except this one very vocal woman.

An educated woman, 40ish, in a position of responsibility, working in a sector supporting vulnerable people (hence the access to vaccines). I've met her before and she always seemed very switched on, socially responsible and very capable in her role.

As I said, I thought these people were a bit of an internet myth, but if they did exist, I didn't expect them to be people like this.

Have you met any?

@TooSensibleOfMyDefects yes that level of individualism is also not one I subscribe to and thankfully the majority of people in this country.

@southeastdweller we know the side effects of Covid. They are evident. There are no evident side effects of the vaccine. And yet you would still put your faith in catching Covid. Interesting risk analysis.

I think the reason that vaccinated people are getting angry at those who refuse the vaccine is that a large enough proportion of unvaccinated people in the population will allow the virus to continue to spread and thus cause further mutations.

Depending on the mutation, it's possible for the virus to change in a way that would allow it to infect people who have already been vaccinated. Kind of like the flu does.

@Blessex have just realised I used ascribe incorrectly and you have correctly used subscribe in your reply. Lockdown is melting my brain

@WhoWants2Know

I think the reason that vaccinated people are getting angry at those who refuse the vaccine is that a large enough proportion of unvaccinated people in the population will allow the virus to continue to spread and thus cause further mutations.

Depending on the mutation, it's possible for the virus to change in a way that would allow it to infect people who have already been vaccinated. Kind of like the flu does.

Yep, and this is why, even if your personal risk of Covid is low, you do get some benefit from vaccination. New strains that escape the vaccines (and also any natural immunity in the background population) will send us right back to square one in terms of the containment measures required.

Oops posted too soon:

The fewer people vaccinated, the higher background infection levels will be and therefore the likelihood of strain mutation is increased. Every vaccinated person helps to protect against this and reduce the likelihood of further containment measures.

@Lifeispassingby glasses can be risky! pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16510343/

I don’t really understand the thinking of these people. What do they find so much less scary about active covid infection entering their body with no immunity from vaccination? No one knows what that will do to them and absolutely no one knows what the long term effects of that could be, even on the milder/asymptomatic cases. Viruses often do have long term effects, vaccines apparently don’t tend to...they tend to have immediate side effects if they are going to have any.

@WhoWants2Know

I think the reason that vaccinated people are getting angry at those who refuse the vaccine is that a large enough proportion of unvaccinated people in the population will allow the virus to continue to spread and thus cause further mutations.

Depending on the mutation, it's possible for the virus to change in a way that would allow it to infect people who have already been vaccinated. Kind of like the flu does.

I wish the vaccine also stopped people being angry as well as protected against the virus!

According to this article in Science, it looks as though most of the Covid vaccines have been developed using cloned embryonic cells, as was mentioned upthread.

science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/368/6496/1170.full.pdf

It's somewhat off topic perhaps, but I'd be interested to know if the women involved are aware that their embryos' cells have been used this way. Is the consent of the pregnant woman required, or can the embryos be stored and used without her knowledge?

That is interesting, if I had to guess I would say that at some earlier point the women signed off on that kind of thing, probably without really realising what it might actually involve.

I have had IVF and the paperwork around embryo storage, future use of any egg, sperm or embryo is substantial. This is a very regulated area.

@Rocaille, @Inkpaperstars

It's somewhat off topic perhaps, but I'd be interested to know if the women involved are aware that their embryos' cells have been used this way. Is the consent of the pregnant woman required, or can the embryos be stored and used without her knowledge?

Sadly, my understanding is that consent was not given. In the case of HEK-293 cells, these were taken from a single aborted fetus kidney many decades ago (the 70s?) and have been cultured (cloned) in the laboratory since then from that single fetus. Still, it made my stomach churn to think that this was done at any point in our history. Even if the mother had gaven permission, the fetus could not, and that makes me feel very sad.

To clarify, embryos are not stored. A few cells were taken and these were grown and propagated in cell growth medium. These cells divide and so on, and form a cell line that has been used in research. The cell line is decades old now, now, an amazing thing in itself, were it not for the circumstances of how it was obtained.

Another famous cell line people may not have heard of is the HeLa cell line. These cells were derived from a cervical cancer tumour from a woman named Henrietta Lacks, back in 1951. She was a black Afro-American woman. She didn't give permission for her cells to be taken, that just didn't happen back then, but they were. You could argue that they have contributed amazingly to scientific research, but I do think without permission this is again a very grey area. These cells are immortal and in a way Henrietta lives on.

Thanks @CrunchyCarrot and @Inkpaperstars for taking the time to write these really interesting replies.

Ooh yes I read the book about Henrietta Lacks. Horrifying.

@southeastdweller we know the side effects of Covid. They are evident. There are no evident side effects of the vaccine

I'm getting quite fed up of this now. There ARE side effects and they are recorded here by the government. There are 49472 reactions recorded and 107 fatal reactions recorded in a little over a month. For one vaccine.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/958616/COVID-19_mRNA_Pfizer-_BioNTech_Vaccine_Analysis_Print.pdf

All countries are recording these reactions and fatalities and the collective figures are alarming.

People really now need to stop with the mocking and bullying and suggestions to do some research. Some of us do. I'm sick to death of being called an anti vaxxer or conspiracy theorist.

[quote JamieFrasersAuntie]**@southeastdweller we know the side effects of Covid. They are evident. There are no evident side effects of the vaccine

I'm getting quite fed up of this now. There ARE side effects and they are recorded here by the government. There are 49472 reactions recorded and 107 fatal reactions recorded in a little over a month. For one vaccine.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/958616/COVID-19_mRNA_Pfizer-_BioNTech_Vaccine_Analysis_Print.pdf

All countries are recording these reactions and fatalities and the collective figures are alarming.

People really now need to stop with the mocking and bullying and suggestions to do some research. Some of us do. I'm sick to death of being called an anti vaxxer or conspiracy theorist.[/quote]
@JamieFrasersAuntie you do realise that the vast majority of these reported events were likely not directly caused by vaccination? Adverse event reporting systems just record anything that occurred within a particular time frame of vaccination

For instance, sunburn and thermal burns appear on that list. In people who just happen to have experienced these things around the time of vaccination.

DH’s colleague called today, working from home, to tell him not to have the vaccine. DH recently turned 65. Apparently the vaccine has a protein and therefore it reacts with the proteins in our bodies and that’s why it’s killing people in care homes. This is a person who went to Italy when infection rates were high but before they put restrictions on movement. He caught COVID-19.

JamieFrasersAuntie you do realise that the vast majority of these reported events were likely not directly caused by vaccination? Adverse event reporting systems just record anything that occurred within a particular time frame of vaccination

I'm not getting into what's "likely"because the fact is that you don't know, the government doesn't know and the vaccine manufacturers don't know either. Clearly there needs to be much more data gathered.

@JamieFrasersAuntie

JamieFrasersAuntie you do realise that the vast majority of these reported events were likely not directly caused by vaccination? Adverse event reporting systems just record anything that occurred within a particular time frame of vaccination

I'm not getting into what's "likely"because the fact is that you don't know, the government doesn't know and the vaccine manufacturers don't know either. Clearly there needs to be much more data gathered.

It's an inherent problem with VAERS in general @JamieFrasersAuntie

Usually it's because reporting is voluntary so not all adverse events are picked up, and there's no easy way of calculating a denominator as uneventful outcomes are not recorded. However, if we take a leap and assume that what you've posted accurately captures all AES, that's a tiny amount given the millions of doses that have now been administered, particularly given that the first groups of people given the vaccine were already at inherently high risk of ill health and death due to their age

Im personally not willing to assume or take leaps regarding my health. The information is there and people can decide what to do with it. My issue is with the claim that there are no known side effects.

@Nerdygirl

Maybe she has weighed up the risk of covid versus unknown over a time period of the vaccine and thinks that the balance of risk for her is low. If people she works with are vaccinated then they are protecting themselves and should only get a very mild illness apparently so she has a choice based on her own risk appetite

^^ this.

@JamieFrasersAuntie

Im personally not willing to assume or take leaps regarding my health. The information is there and people can decide what to do with it. My issue is with the claim that there are no known side effects.

@JamieFrasersAuntie Well yes, but you are sharing a list of 'side effects' many of which are very likely not. I think that needs clarification.

The risks of Covid long-term are also unknown.

The absolute nutters on here are the ones that expect doctors to ignore their Hippocratic Oath and not treat someone because they haven’t had the vaccine.