#83

Wrong. Vaccines to prevent influenza in healthy adults | Cochrane

#84

Do you think the 2024-2025 flu vaccine has a RCT?

#85

No. But the past RCT’s provide information about clinical endpoints. Like COVID, influenza mutates, and there is always an issue of vaccine matching (the fall COVID vaccine is likely a poor match for current strains).
Further, all but the very young have encountered some strain of influenza (and the rest past vaccines). This is not the case with COVID 19 (some minor cross-reactivity with other similar viruses notwithstanding).

However, I can at least look at the data, and say “gee, there seems little evidence that flu vaccines change hospitalizations or deaths”… and decide.
In the case of COVID vaccine, I can only say that in a virus/vaccine naive adult population, during Delta, 10 of ~21000 got severe disease with placebo, vs 1 with Vaccine.
That was then (I actually got 3 doses). Now, I expect the same level of evidence as for influenza… because we all have encountered COVID at least once.
We need to update our model of reality given… reality, not living in the past that is obviously different than now.
Do you agree/disagree with any of these points?

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#86

What is your symmetry breaker? As the COVID vaccines have past RCT’s too, just the original Moderna and Pfizer RCT’s have 70,000 participants together.

#87
  1. mRNA does not alter you genome
  2. Most of the URI virus infection involved inserting mRNA in to your cells for the past 80 years of your life
  3. There are actual DNA carrying viruses that can and probably already integrated in to your genome

I am not strongly for or against COVID vaccination but your stated reasons are not the reasons to fear it.

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#88

There are no long-term safety studies. I don’t care if they have studied 10 million cases.
There are no long-term safety studies and there is evidence that something detrimental to our health may be lurking only to show up years afterward. Since current reports state that Covid is now no more dangerous than a mild cold, I see no compelling reason to take it.

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#89

Published yesterday.

image

https://x.com/AviBittMD/status/1828178880185725426

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#90

Not to mention that a very minuscule amount of serious adverse reactions get attributed to the vaccine.

#91

What do you mean symmetry breaker. I know what they did during Delta, in a virus and vaccine naïve population. 1:~20,000 cases of severe covid reduced to 0.1:~20,000. That’s clinically important (for an old guy like me), so I happily got the vaccine.
Today, everyone I know has had it repeatedly (including those who have had every possible booster).
How likely is severe COVID today in a population where essentially everyone has encountered and mounted an immune response to at least the spike protein.
Nobody knows. Not you, not me, not the CDC, not Pfizer, not anyone. Thus, we have zero idea what the boosters “might” do.
I am an empiricist. I taught EBM for my entire career.

People can of course choose… but in my view, the CDC should not be “recommending” therapies for which they do not have good evidence. They simply don’t have it. Ideology has no place here.

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#92

What is making you reject covid vaccines but accept flu vaccine? What’s the difference?

#93

Because the flu vaccines are not mRNA-based and have decades of safety records.
Covid vaccines do not.

“On April 13, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, recommended providers pause on administering the Johnson & Johnson/Janssen COVID-19 vaccine after more than 6.8 million people in the United States received the one-dose vaccine. It comes after six women who received the vaccine experienced blood clots in the brain within two weeks after vaccination”

Many of these drugs weren’t recalled until many years on the market because the drug companies did not want to admit to the negative side effects.

Valdecoxib (Bextra)Pemoline (Cylert) …
Bromfenac (Duract)
Levamisole (Ergamisol)
Isotretinoin (Accutane)
Sibutramine (Meridia)
Terfenadine (Seldane)
Efalizumab (Raptiva)
thalidomide

Vioxx, 2004
"Vioxx, also known as Rofecoxib, was a painkiller often prescribed to treat arthritis pain. More than 20 million people used the drug at its peak, earning $2.5 billion in annual sales for Merck & Co.

Then researchers discovered Vioxx increased the chance of heart attack and stroke. One Vioxx report estimated that up to 140,000 people suffered from coronary heart disease after taking it. Merck voluntarily recalled Vioxx in 2004."

However, subsequent reports suggested that both Merck and the FDA had ignored evidence of dangerous side effects for years before Vioxx was recalled. In 2006, Merck sponsored a report on Vioxx, which many criticized for being self-serving. The company spent $21 million for legal help to publish the report, which determined that Merck acted in good faith.

Eventually, Merck settled all Vioxx-related litigation for $4.8 billion. The Vioxx recall is considered one of the largest drug recalls in United States history.

“How did thalidomide pass all the drug tests? During early testing, researchers at the company found that it was virtually impossible to give test animals a lethal dose of the drug (based on the LD50 test). Largely based on this, the drug was deemed to be harmless to humans.”

From our old friend Pfizer: (I am not saying that Pfizer has not produced some great drugs. I am saying they are not to be trusted. Much like Boeing, profit before safety)

Bextra, 2005
Pfizer manufactured and marketed Bextra as an anti-inflammatory drug. Physicians prescribed the drug to treat inflammatory disorders and arthritis. However, researchers found that the drug was to blame for heart and stomach problems and could cause severe skin conditions. But that was far from the whole story.
Researchers learned that one of the skin conditions caused by Bextra was Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS), a reaction that causes blistering on the skin and internal organs. SJS has a high fatality rate, with 1 in 10 cases resulting in death. Some SJS cases result in toxic epidermal necrolysis, which has a 50% fatality rate.
In response, the FDA blocked the sale of Bextra in 2005.

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#94

If that’s the symmetry breaker, what’s stopping you from taking Novavax if you take the flu vaccine?

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#95

I would consider taking it if I thought that Covid was currently a significant threat to me.

But then again it’s nothing with a proven safety record.

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#96

So you don’t take the flu vaccine? Or what’s the difference between the flu and covid?

#97

I do take the flu vaccine because I have taken it for decades with no side effects and I have never gotten the flu since I started taking the vaccines.

Unlike Fauci and Biden who have taken multiple doses of COVID-19 vaccines and still get covid (more than once), which speaks to the ridiculous efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines.

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#98

Yikes, I guess this really is political for some people.

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#99

Well Trump got it too … the virus isn’t political, it’s perfectly happy taking down whomever … sadly it was unsuccessful in some cases. You can guess which ones…

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#100

Why do you think it’s political because the very people who touted its efficacy caught COVID? It’s not political, it’s irony.

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#101

It’s not irony if you understand how vaccines work. For all we know, they could both be dead right now if they had not been vaccinated/boosted. Vaccines are much more effective at decreasing risk of severe outcomes and death than they are at preventing symptomatic infection. Haven’t you been reading the thread? Scroll up.

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#102

You have no facts that the COVID-19 vaccine did anything for them. All you have is the claims from the same people who said the vaccines were 90% effective in preventing COVID-19. saying, “Well, if they hadn’t had the vaccines it would have been a lot worse.” No, we don’t know anything of the kind.

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