Is it ok to ask about the ramping up of vaccine side effects stories?

[SparklingJam]

I’m generally pro vaccines, but I’m starting to question the effects of the covid jab, and wonder if it’s possible to have a discussion about it. Apologies if this has been done to death, or isn’t an accepted topic.

I’ve been seeing more information about deaths of young men, how the vaccine isn’t very effective against covid, and hearing all about dreadful side effects, to the point where some people won’t have the jab because they “know” they’ll die.

I can fully accept that there are side effects, but the talk of increased deaths (apparently 1300 excess deaths per week, coupled with videos of supposed undertakers saying they are 50-100% busier now) is making me question things and worry.

Having said that, in my extended circle of friends, family and colleagues, I know many people who are mostly vaccinated, and apart from a day or 5 of feeling fluey they all have no side effects and haven’t died.
At the same time through the same extended group, I know a couple who have died of covid and several who still have long covid which has disabled them to varying degrees.

It would be logical to think that the excess deaths are a catch up to lock down and lack of hospital treatment, plus the current issues many have with seeing a gp or calling an ambulance, but I am assured by certain people that the excess deaths are solely due to the vaccine.

@leafyygreens
Once again, the inference of an agenda appears. You know nothing about me, nor I about you. The predictability of your replies are yet to fail. Wouldn't it be beneficial to remove the presumptions from your posts and reply neutrally? For example, your point about infant deaths existing only in one specific area is valid. Were the vaccine to be established as a causative factor, this tragic pattern would need to be documented worldwide.

This is a tad defensive - haven't commented on your or your opinions at all.

I'm just pointing out it seems to be the latest thing for disinformation accounts to share - have seen it all over twitter etc.

@leafyygreens

"Personally I take issue with anyone trying to use these poor family's tragedies as part of an anti-vaccine agenda."

You wrote the above in direct reply to me. This is the presumption I was referring to, quite a vile motivation to assign in my opinion.

This was in relation to the people who are doing this, as I explained in my post.

I genuinely didn't mean it in relation to you personally, and happy to get MN to edit my post if it seemed like that to you.

@peppathe3rd just want to say I think you're making some very good points. Thank you.

@SocialConnotations @leafyygreens
Thank you both for your messages. Much appreciated. No need to edit your message @leafyygreens, although your offer to do so was very kind. Phew!!! Maybe we could succeed in bridging our gaps a tad? That is my motivation, by the way.

Did anyone see the questioning of Pfizer at the European Covid Committee yesterday?

they admitted they didn’t actually test the effect on transmission of the vaccine. This was in response to a question by a Dutch MEP, Rob Roos

I am gobsmacked by this admission. gobsmacked. the impact on transmission was behind the mandates and the vaccine schemes. I’m in Scotland you needed two jabs and a passport even to attend a rugby match or large function or night club. I believe it was behind the decision
to vaccinate children.

and yet it wasn’t actuality tested to see if it did this? She said there wasn’t the time….

I wish people would take some time to look behind these claims.

Transmission (i.e., how likely it is a breakthrough infection in a vaccinated person is to be passed to another person) was never aimed to be tested in trials. There is documentation that proves this. Instead safety and efficacy was tested - because if you do not become infected with COVID, you cannot pass it on.

It's also blindingly obvious, given that firstly it would have been impossible to test this in RCTs due to statistical power (think how effective the vaccines were & how few people actually contracted COVID) and because it is not a necessary endpoint.

Instead safety and efficacy was tested - because if you do not become infected with COVID, you cannot pass it on.

This is why the vaccines were offered once these endpoints were sucessfully completed, and why breakthrough transmission has been investigated in population-based studies instead.

Why again this focus on Pfizer? Why not AZ/moderna/J&J - they didn't test breakthrough tranmission either? It does make you wonder about the agenda behind this.

@BeethovenNinth

It would have been literally impossible to test efficacy on onward transmission in trials. Everyone was aware of this and was widely documented.

The pfizer vaccine was 95% effective their RCT - over a total of two months there were only 8 COVID cases in the vaccine arm.

Maybe if they'd run they'd extended the RCT by another year they would have had enough statistical power to look into this.

Surely you get why it would make no sense to delay offering vaccination, during a pandemic, purely to collect data on breakthrough transmission? When we knew it was effective in preventing infections in the first place, thus making it impossible to pass on?

Instead authorization was granted, and data was collected in larger samples to establish if vaccinated people were less likely to pass an infection on (which they were in the case of earlier variants, and less so as the virus became more and more genetically different)

That may be the case but it wasn’t the message behind the mandates or the sacking of health workers or the passports in Scotland. These passports were even more extensive in much of Europe.

there is no agenda other than millions of people who felt coerced into taking something and at least the European inquiry allowed the question

No I don’t think it made sense. It made no sense at all. People should not have been sacked for this!!!! And children? given it to prevent transmission in schools? Do you not understand the anger here?

Isn't it a bit more complicated than that though?

They were very clear at the time that there was no evidence that it prevented transmission. Which is essentially 'we haven't looked for the evidence'. But at that stage in the pandemic it didn't matter too much. We were in a situation where reducing the severity of the disease without reducing transmissibility was a huge improvement that would allow things to open up more while reducing pressure on healthcare systems. As it turned out post marketing it was pretty good at reducing transmission in wild type and alpha. Better than they could have hoped for.

The reason it is less good now is basically the evolution of the virus. Even if they had done the research in 2020 it would tell us nothing about how effective it is against whatever we're now calling omicron.

What do you mean it may be the case?

If hardly anyone in the vaccine group is getting COVID (n=8), obviously you can't test whether vaccinated people with COVID are less likely to pass the infection on.

The message behind mandates holds - vaccination reduced liklihood of infection (by >90% to begin with). If you do not have COVID you cannot pass it on, hence why the claims of reducing transmission are correct.

I completely disagree with mandates for a variety of reasons, but this weird "revelation" I'm seeing all over social media is anything but!

Yes agreed but that was never the message. Never. Even Biden said “if you take these vaccines you won’t get covid”. “No jab, no job” said Javid.

I am but a simple lawyer and no scientist but have always believed these will be looked on as very dark times in terms of medical ethics and human rights and I see nothing to sway me from that.

I am afraid I view it very differently. I don’t think anyone who listened to the messaging realised how testing on transmission had not been done.

Even Biden said “if you take these vaccines you won’t get covid”.

Yes - I was incredibly ragey about this & all the policitians who drastically overstated the benefits of vaccination.

This is sadly a product of our times, where scientists will carefully convey information with all sorts of caveats which the media & those in charge completely ignore.

But doesn't it logically follow?

Some sub-studies were reporting 100% efficacy - i.e. no-one at all got COVID.

Surely it goes without saying that if you have a vaccine that is preventing almost 100% of infections, no-one can look into onward transmission.

Right, so it's always been acknowledged that it was an unknown - the studies were underpowered to look at transmission. Fine - I agree. So why were policies/social messaging strategies not based around this understanding? Why the coercion and frank bullying? Why the job losses? I know personally someone who took a jab for this reason (would never had had it for their own sake - it was only for the alleged benefit to others) and they died. They were in their 30s. Rare as it is, this was a big, big issue. Others lost their jobs, friends, livelihoods, reputations. It's insulting to these people to minimise what happened and to now say "it's everyone's choice" (and acknowledge that the benefit was solely to the individual) as if this has always been the attitude portrayed in the mainstream media - and, in fact, on this site. People were coerced in a way which directly contradicts the NHS definition of Informed Consent. The data were never there to back this. It is far from trivial.

The logic behind mandates holds - vaccination reduced likelihood of infection (by >90% to begin with). If you do not have COVID you cannot pass it on, hence why the claims of reducing transmission are correct.

Two months of reduced infection risk is simply not enough for what was done

as said above - consent wasn’t granted. It was forced.

Even given everything, I'm really surprised you'd still claim the logic behind mandates "holds". You are clearly not a fool, so why would you continue to claim this? The phrase used so regularly here - "false claim" - to shut down the dissenters applies so directly to what you're saying.

@SocialConnotations

Vaccine efficacy was being constantly updated during a fast evolving situation.

At the time mandates were being proposed, vaccination still offered a high level of efficacy - you were far less likely to be infected if you were vaccinated, compared to those who were unvaccinated.

At the time, we also had good quality data to show vaccinated people were less likely to transmit if they did have a breakthrough infection.

This was the rationale behind implementing mandates for things like large gatherings - on a population level it would significantly reduce transmission.

I have already said I completely disagree with vaccine mandates, but claiming there was no logic to them is not true.

Honestly, I think it is impossible to translate real time updates of vaccine effectiveness into policy when the mutation rate is so high - things change too quickly.

Indeed.

I'm glad to see this being discussed here. Like pp, I don't think it's a revelation that the vaccines don't stop transmission. They don't stop you getting it, so logic dictates they don't stop transmission.

I had two vaccines from sheer fear of being excluded from certain jobs, from daily activities. What happened in other countries was terrifying. Well, lockdown here was terrifying too. My mental and physical health have been affected to the point of not recovering. There is no point living in a world where any of this is okay.

I don't feel the need to have it again, though I don't know what other countries are doing now. I think in NZ it's still lose your job in some trades?

I had my second vaccine after one contact died - coroner confirmed - from the vaccine, and one friend developed Guillame Barre and was surprised - wut? - and two friends had heart problems. But the way things were, yes, I was that scared because European countries had the tyrannical green pass, look at Canada, Australia etc.

I am booked in for my flu vaccine tomorrow but might cancel as I am so suspicious of everything now. I got in the habit of having it because of not wanting to risk sick days after a long period of sick leave (spinal injury). I gather it's not very effective anyway.

The thing is @foliageeverywhere , there were always well educated people questioning the quality of the supposed evidence used to justify this, right from the start. They really were shut down. As a jabbed, general vaccine-enthusiast who was eagerly reading the research papers and different analyses of publicly available data, I remember it well. The evidence was never strong enough for mandates. At no point. For a mandate, you would need (at least in my opinion) really good indications of justification, and to mandate on the basis of even the most promising data at this stage was just wrong.