Anyone thinking about skipping the latest booster?

[WoolyMammoth55]

I've had 3 jabs in total so far, and the last one made me REALLY poorly - couldn't get out of bed for a few days, crazy fever, hallucinating.

They didn't stop me getting Covid, which I've had 2 positive tests for since the first jab, and which was mild compared to how bad I was after the last booster!

I've been invited for the next booster and just can't see why I'd get it. I've had 3 jabs already so must have some protection, right? And since I keep getting it despite the jabs, I'm fairly likely to get it again in the next 6 months whether I do or don't get jabbed?

I can't see the upside.

I'm studying hard for a career change and have 2 little kids. If I had a reaction like last time I'd really struggle to keep all the balls in the air...

I'm being offered the booster because of my high BMI but don't have any co-morbidities, blood pressure good, not pre-diabetic, generally well.

Curious to know what others are thinking?

Actually the annual flu jab now includes swine flu. So most people have and the previous poster is posting nonsense

My travel insurance will only cover for covid if your covid jab history is fully up to date . So yes I will.

I'm 55 so not being offered it this year. I really want it as I've had Covid twice and have been really poorly both times.

The covid vaccine floors people and is contagious?

I went to work the following day. Had it at 5pm in the Thursday and was in work at 8am the next morning and was on a day out and then a concert on the Saturday night. My arm was sore for a day, but not much more than the arm which had this years flu vaccine in.

No idea how a vaccine can be contagious though.

PARKER231.

""The doctor who wrote this article is a known anti vaxxer. Tried to sue a US police department over their vaccine mandate""

Can you direct me to any proof, that Dr Risch is as you claim.

Objecting to mandates is hardly what you claim it to be.

notanothernana · Today 07:58

I'm 55 so not being offered it this year. I really want it as I've had Covid twice and have been really poorly both times.”

Hear, hear. Such short-sightedness.

This.

My brother became unwell a few days after his second Covid vaccine with a headache, chest pains and general malaise - it was put down to a virus, but he is adamant it was the vaccine (his second one was the much discussed AZ). He recovered perfectly after a week or so, but he refused to have any further boosters.

I'm sure there's hundreds of people who have experienced similar and have also blamed the vaccine, when it all likelihood it probably WAS a virus or bug that they would have contracted anyway, with or without the vaccine.

I had my flu jab yesterday and felt a bit rubbish last night - when I sat and thought about it, I probably felt no worse than I normally do on a Saturday night after working my socks off for the previous 72 hours. But because I'd had 'some unregulated poison' injected into me a few hours previous, I was quick to assume that was the cause!

I'm a full-time carer to very elderly and terminally ill parents who now live with me. I am going to take every vaccine offered to me, as are they. We've bought Covid into the house once already and both myself and DH were pretty ill with it, and that was after 2 vaccines, I often wonder how much worse it MIGHT have been without them, and the fear of passing it on to Mum and Dad was horrible (we didn't, thankfully). DH and I both fall into the vulnerable category ourselves anyway (asthma, T1 diabetes and polycythemia between us), so for us it's a no-brainer.

Just as an aside, we all our had Covid boosters earlier this week at a pharmacy, as our GP practice wasn't sure if they would be getting the vaccine in on time to have with our scheduled flu shots yesterday. We all had very red, swollen and sore arms for several days following the Covid shot, mine was still pretty bad yesterday and the GP who did my flu shot had a look at it. She rolled her eyes and tutted - apparently, a lot of practitioners are injecting too low down on the arm which is causing the problem. She said that they should be injecting higher up towards the shoulder, away from the site of the much larger muscle below. Worth noting if anyone else has noticed a much sorer, redder and lumpier arm than normal.

All of this is pointless given that there is absolutely no evidence behind the statements he's making about cancer and SARS-COV-2 vaccines. This is just a single man's opinion, against the tens of thousands of experts who are confident in safety @gloria1980

All countries with post-marketing surveillance systems are monitoring for spikes in health issues & investigating where appropriate. This is how side effects related to clotting, carditis, and the menstrual cycle were identified.

In contrast, absolutely no increase in cancer incidence, compared to background, in those vaccinated versus unvaccinated.

EDIT: but yes, there is certainly an overlap between those who loudly opposed COVID suppression policies and those who make up crap about vaccines

There are numerous articles about his claims and he has been discredited by many virologists.

Dr. Risch, who previously has been noted to make incorrect claims re: Covid-19 (he made claims to Steve Bannon that hydroychloroquin is effective against the Covid virus). This current claim was made in conjunction with the Centner Center—a virulent anti-vax outfit.
Risch’s claim is that ‘clinicians’ have told him 60% of their cases of Covid-19 are from vaccinated people. He cannot document this claim. Since he doesn’t personally claim this is true, and since no one can prove or disprove he was told this, we can’t say he is lying.
However, he is egregiously incorrect. CDC data shows the correct current rate is 0.008%—quite a difference.
So Risch can be proven to be total bullshit.
Why? I have no idea, except his previous behavior shows him prone to make incorrect statements about the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Note that his field of training/expertise is NOT in virology. It is in the molecular biology of cancer.
Still he has more than enough knowledge to know a turd when he smells one.
He is too young for “Rudy Giuliani’ disease.
I would guess he has some personal bias about the issue.
This example points out the problems of accepting unproven statements, even from people who appear to be knowledgeable.

Just as an aside, we all our had Covid boosters earlier this week at a pharmacy, as our GP practice wasn't sure if they would be getting the vaccine in on time to have with our scheduled flu shots yesterday. We all had very red, swollen and sore arms for several days following the Covid shot, mine was still pretty bad yesterday and the GP who did my flu shot had a look at it. She rolled her eyes and tutted - apparently, a lot of practitioners are injecting too low down on the arm which is causing the problem. She said that they should be injecting higher up towards the shoulder, away from the site of the much larger muscle below. Worth noting if anyone else has noticed a much sorer, redder and lumpier arm than normal.

Thats so interesting @Atticustheaardvark , the nurse when I had mine yesterday was super super careful to make sure she'd accurately identified the deltoid and was getting the jab right in the middle. It makes sense if there are reactions to giving it lower down.

Okay - I wouldn't know and I certainly am not but is he against all vaccinations or just the mRNA ones?

people actually still get their boosters 😂😂 i've never had one covid jab EVER !! mad how people just blindly follow the government n get themselves injected with god knows what on a regular basis just because you've been told to 😳🐏🐏🐏🐏

Prof Angus Dalgleish is a professor of oncology at St George’s,uni of London,worked for the institute of cancer research,made important contributions to HIV research and is also a founder of a biotech company developing cancer vaccines…so not an anti vaxxer! Somebody noticing patterns of recurrence in stable patients post-booster who is theorising on why this might be is not someone who we can outright dismiss!

Hello! Epidemiologist here who has read original trial data and keeps fairly up to date with emerging research on COVID, vaccines, and other treatments.

Never one for blindly believing anything the media nor the government reports, but the worlds experts recommended vaccination in 2020, and boosters for certain demographics now, because of the robust evidence showing better outcomes when vaccinated versus remaining unvaccinated.

No need to get vaccinated if you don't want to, but it's silly to suggest anyone who does is wildly uninformed.

I would gently suggest that, at this point, if you're still repeating things that anti-vaccine accounts are posting instead of looking at the wealth of evidence for yourself, you're probably the one not thinking for yourself @etherealfae

This thread is so illogical .

Most people won't be eligible for the next booster, so whether or not they would take it, is irrelevant .

@henlee - so given Prof Dalgleish is undoubtedly a cancer expert - regardless of his politics - are his observations on changing disease patterns etc valid do you think given it is obviously going to take to see such changes and patterns emerging? Is there anything in his warnings?

Not baiting you here just interested in your opinion.

Take time!

This term gets thrown around so much.

Dalgleish has repeatedly said things about vaccines that use mRNA technology that are not true, and that he does not have robust data to base these statements on.

There is no good evidence for what he's currently claiming, thus I think it's pretty irrelevant to go into whether he is or not an "anti-vaxxer" - currently he's not making any kind of helpful contribution specifically when it come to the safety profile of these vaccines.

Its true that there are plenty of people who seem well qualified who have done this throughout the pandemic, for a variety of reasons.

IMO, no, I don't think there is anything in his warning and I find his language obviously over dramatic and trying to fuel the fire - which doesn't take much in the highly politicised landscape of vaccines @Mytholmroyd

There are clinicians who are experts in their particular field who have gone down this road - e.g., Malhotra, McCullough et al - so I don't find the fact that he is cancer expert particularly compelling.

Whether these vaccines could cause cancer or worsen cancer in those that have already been diagnosed is obviously something that must be robustly examined - which is why it is so carefully monitored.

There is no reason to believed that 10,000+ other oncologists worldwide have either not noticed, or are participating in a huge cover up. Or that post-marketing surveillance was somehow able to identify carditis and other issues as a side effect, but not cancer.

I had my flu and COVID boosters this week (5th COVID). Sore arms for a day, nothing else. I've been floored by COVID twice so want as many boosters as possible to make it less severe. The worst I've had from one of the vaccinations is 2 or 3 days of feeling under the weather. COVID makes me lose a week to laying in bed shivering and hallucinating followed by 2 weeks of extreme fatigue, so getting the booster, which only really protects you for 3-6 months I was told by the pharmacist, seems beneficial to me as I don't want COVID again and if I do get it I don't want it to be any more severe than the 2 times I've already had it.

How do you think evidence is accrued?? It takes time and often it’s people in clinical practise who notice trends that may -or may not- be ultimately backed with evidence. There are so many things in my clinical career - treatments, drugs - that once were in regular clinical use and were later withdrawn because further evidence has emerged and the negative impact was greater than the positive . The majority of dr’s still advise continued boosters for the elderly and vulnerable population because we know that vaccines reduce the risks of Covid significantly but that doesn’t mean research into negative consequences shouldn’t continue.

My brother became unwell a few days after his second Covid vaccine with a headache, chest pains and general malaise - it was put down to a virus, but he is adamant it was the vaccine (his second one was the much discussed AZ). He recovered perfectly after a week or so, but he refused to have any further boosters.

I'm sure there's hundreds of people who have experienced similar and have also blamed the vaccine, when it all likelihood it probably WAS a virus or bug that they would have contracted anyway, with or without the vaccine.

Perhaps it's a little too much to repeat the same ”it's just coincidence” canned answer, even now in 2023. Your brother was sensible to refuse any boosters, since the Covid vaccines really did kill and maim people, as these victims and their families have managed to prove:
https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-politics-2023-3-uk-pays-out-nearly-4m-in-covid-19-vaccine-damages/

Or maybe when it comes to these vaccines, people still have to ”soldier on” with a Soviet mentality, like this sister of a vaccine victim?
https://nypost.com/2021/04/08/sister-of-man-who-died-after-astrazeneca-shot-wants-people-to-get-vaccine/

Where did I ever say research should not continue into vaccine safety and effectiveness across different demographics, clinical groups etc? @ilovemyholidaysssss

In the pyramid of evidence, clinician anecdotes (i.e., even if they are formally done - case studies and case series) are the weakest, for good reason.

He is reporting something that he believes he has observed, which should be noted has not been flagged by other oncologists, and how many of those do you think are practising in the UK? Worldwide?

In contrast, the claims he are making, for which he does not have evidence, are not backed up by population level data and post marketing surviellance, which is how we detect safety signals and identify causal associations.

Side effects are thankfully incredibly rare. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, 52 people in England and Wales have died from the Covid-19 vaccine, whereas around 160,000 have died from Covid-19 between March 2020 and December 2022.
I hate to think what the numbers of deaths would have been without the vaccine.

To add to this @ilovemyholidaysssss he is making ridiculous statements like "all mRNA vaccines must be halted and banned now once and for all".

No thank you - based on the evidence we have I'd very glad my pregnant sister recieved her booster, nor do I want the choice removed from my grandparents or CEV nephew.

Equally, I very much want research to continue into other vaccines (e.g., those targeted against specific cancers) that use this technology

It's a bonkers, ignorant, inflammatory statement which is not based on any kind of evidence and just shows he is not working in good faith.