Should we be vaccinating 12-15 year old girls only?

[ItllBeOverByChristmas]

Another study has come out on the risks of the Pfizer vaccine. It's only a preprint and you could pick holes in the approach, but it's telling us what the JCVI have already said, that the risk for this age group of non-trivial side effects from the vaccine may outweigh the risk of harm from the disease....but only in boys.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.30.21262866v1

It's come at exactly the wrong time for the government who are about to announce that it will be rolled out for all 12-15 year olds for reasons which go beyond simple health benefits.

But if you were looking at this is a vacuum there's an obvious conclusion: give it to the children who will definitely benefit, don't give it to the ones for whom the risks might outweigh the benefits. Just vaccinate the girls.

I know it'll never happen but the politics are interesting. Why is it so unthinkable?

But your favourite thing to do is appear on all vaccine threads and state that they do reduce spread and then make sure you ask the responding poster a question at the end of your post. I’m sure you are aware of that so I don’t need to hunt down all your posts.

@Lostinacloud

But your favourite thing to do is appear on all vaccine threads and state that they do reduce spread and then make sure you ask the responding poster a question at the end of your post. I’m sure you are aware of that so I don’t need to hunt down all your posts.

How is correcting the myth that vaccines don't reduce spread, championing them "above all else and other reason"?

This is a frustrating piece of misinformation promoted by the anti-vax UK crowd (HART, usforthem etc etc) which has filtered down to MN.

People need to be able to make an informed decision about whether to get vaccinated or not, and it's impossible to do that when surrounded by floods of misinformation on SM.

Not sure why I'm not allowed to then ask anyone else questions either?

My DP had myocarditis following his second Pfizer vaccine, ended up in hospital for a few days. Was pretty fucking stressful. Ultimately he is okay but was definitely more okay after he actually had covid. He is a fit and well man in his 20s.

I don't think its something to be scoffed at. As I said DP is adult, he is capable of dealing with his health and hospital admission. I can't imagine if he 12 years old how he would have got on in. Again he is old enough to make his own decisions about risk of vaccine vs benefit, but teenagers maybe are not. You have to think of the ethics of putting children at risk when they are not yet capable of making the decision.

Yes that paper is not great, and more data is definitely needed. Perhaps a first dose only for all under 18s at the minute until we have properly analysed the data

Thing is ollyollyoxenfree- we don’t need to look at anything other than Israel to see that the vaccines really aren’t effective at controlling spread to any degree which makes indiscriminate vaccination of whole populations credible no matter what the risk. You can label previously well respected and experienced scientists and doctors as antivax as you like because they are willing to stick their head up and ask some questions but you can’t argue with real world data.

Dp says that he wouldn't be discouraging adults to not have their second jab but as I said above they are capable of making the decision.

He's not sure how happy he'd be for his teenage son have the vaccine

Need to do it to stop the non vaccinated spreading it?

It's not a "slightly" higher risk for boys. Latest report suggests it's ten times higher.

It can be both ten times higher and a slightly higher risk. Both of these statements can be true, if the initial risk is tiny.

@Lostinacloud

Thing is ollyollyoxenfree- we don’t need to look at anything other than Israel to see that the vaccines really aren’t effective at controlling spread to any degree which makes indiscriminate vaccination of whole populations credible no matter what the risk. You can label previously well respected and experienced scientists and doctors as antivax as you like because they are willing to stick their head up and ask some questions but you can’t argue with real world data.

I have no idea who you think you're arguing with because it isn't me and nor is it relevant to this thread.

Vaccines reduce infection and onward transmission. This is a fact that can be considered by people when they are deciding whether to be vaccinated or not.

At no point I have advocated for "indiscriminate vaccination of whole populations", and again, please do link to any post of mine saying that if you think otherwise.

Not sure what you're referring to about this You can label previously well respected and experienced scientists and doctors as antivax as you like, but if you're the poster who constantly quotes people like Mike Yeadon, members of the HART group, Van bossche then yes we would have had conversations about why these people are not credible sources of information.

@Lostinacloud

Thing is ollyollyoxenfree- we don’t need to look at anything other than Israel to see that the vaccines really aren’t effective at controlling spread to any degree which makes indiscriminate vaccination of whole populations credible no matter what the risk. You can label previously well respected and experienced scientists and doctors as antivax as you like because they are willing to stick their head up and ask some questions but you can’t argue with real world data.

I agree with @ollyollyoxenfree in the study's methodology needs to be approached with caution, as it has been cased on data sourced from VAERS; and it is also a pre-print, meaning it hasn't been peer-reviewed.

My personal opinion? The risk of myocarditis is boys from the vaccine is much, much lower than COVID infection itself.

I don't feel comfortable vaccinating any 12-15 year olds.

There is a concern about its safety already. Already. I'm not entirely stupid, I know there is the very slight chance of complications in rare cases of Covid in children but they are very rare but we wouldn't be choosing for them to get Covid. We would be choosing for them to have this vaccination.

I can deal with the potential risks of getting a relatively untested new vaccine for myself, which I have, but this is very different.

It seems like the cases of myocarditis is way more common after infection compared to vaccine. So I am quite happy for my ds 13 to take vaccine if it's offered.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133462-800-myocarditis-is-more-common-after-covid-19-infection-than-vaccination/

@Lostinacloud

But your favourite thing to do is appear on all vaccine threads and state that they do reduce spread and then make sure you ask the responding poster a question at the end of your post. I’m sure you are aware of that so I don’t need to hunt down all your posts.

As yours is to peddle misinformation and anti-vax rhetoric

[quote illuyankas]It seems like the cases of myocarditis is way more common after infection compared to vaccine. So I am quite happy for my ds 13 to take vaccine if it's offered.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133462-800-myocarditis-is-more-common-after-covid-19-infection-than-vaccination/[/quote]
Exactly.
The cherry-pickers who only stop to say that myocarditis is more of a risk to vaccinated boys tend not to bother with the caveat that THAT IS TO BE EXPECTED AS MYOCARDITIS AFFECTS MORE BOYS ANYWAY and the risk itself of myocarditis from the vaccine is tiny. Oh, and that most cases of myocarditis from the vaccine haven't even been hospitalised.

What's the risk to that same cohort of covid itself? In the general population, incidence of myocarditis is greater in those with covid than following vaccination, therefore potentially that age cohort need the vaccination more.

The risk of heart issues from covid remain higher for boys than from the vaccine don't they?

@cheeseismydownfall

biological makeup of the genders

There's a word for that - sex.

Oh really? Well thanks for that 🤦‍♀️ I was referring to the terms used by the nhs or other healthcare providers, so I used those words instead of the word “sex” as I’ve seen it as “biological gender at birth” on a patient questionnaire (bupa) and “gender at birth” (nhs)

At the moment, the comparison between having covid and the vaccine isn't entirely valid. If the risks from a bout of covid and the vaccine were the same then you wouldn't vaccinate as a proportion of people won't catch covid. But that then depends on the prevalence of covid.

tanglyrose

“but we wouldn't be choosing for them to get Covid. We would be choosing for them to have this vaccination. ”

I know what you mean tanglyrose, but with the complete relaxation of rules, schools back and heading into winter (when we’re indoors more), I think we are choosing for them to get covid now.

Delta is so, so much more contagious and it only took off towards the very end of last term. Children have not been in school alongside relaxations with Delta before.

I think all school aged children who haven’t previously had covid will have had it by Christmas.

I agree. I think it will be rare for schoolchildren not to have had the virus by Christmas.

As an aside, this is why we need to protest against the fiction that people can now change sex just by saying so. If gender ideology is accepted it will skew medical data and result in harmful outcomes. We're already seeing this in crime figures with "women's" violent crime rates soaring but the increase is due to transwomen being recorded by the police as women. Even worse outcomes if we let this fiction skew vital medical data.

@Justajot

Do they still give teenage girls a rubella booster? If they can do that then they can have different vaccine regimens for girls and boys.

It would seem odd to deny girls the vaccine because of the risk to boys.

No they don’t. Both sexes get MMR at 1 and 3.5.

The Telegraph is suggesting that they will offer just one dose to all.

I wondered about this - it's clear the risk-benefit calculation is different for boys and girls. Although aren't girls also at lower risk from Covid, so maybe it cancels out (if you see what I mean)? I'm actually quite surprised that they didn't look at boys and girls separately as the risks (of both Covid and vaccine) are clearly very different.

It's not unprecedented - HPV used to be only for girls, and I think rubella was only offered to girls to start with (years and years ago).

I listened to a radio discussion where a scientist was suggesting that astra zeneca should perhaps be aimed at males (as the blood clot issue seemed to hit younger women more significantly) and the pfizer/moderna aimed at females (due to increased myocarditis risk with males). Personally I think its good to hear acknowledgement of the need for specific-sex based targeting of medications.....for years women have drawn the short straw as traditionally drugs and treatments were often tested on young white males so treatments/doses etc weren't always optimal for women.

I think the long covid risk is higher in girls (women)