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Comment by holonomically | Hacker News Reader

Which specific drugs and therapies are you talking about? I followed the development of the vaccine and it was clear from day 1 that this was the safest vaccine that scientists had ever managed to develop. It's really a marvel of biological engineering. The same techniques are now being utilized to develop therapies for cancer and HIV. [1]

1: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28101688/

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I'm referencing drugs, and scientific theories, in the past, not specifically these vaccines:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_withdrawn_drugs

Here also is a CNN article titled "Past vaccine disasters show why rushing a coronavirus vaccine now would be 'colossally stupid'" from just a year ago (prior to the election) listing several instances of vaccines-gone-wrong:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/01/health/eua-coronavirus-vaccin...

> The CNN article is about rushing approval before there was data available

Or, it was about spreading FUD before the election, the very same FUD they'll crucify you for today. (For the record I agree with the article. But the bias is clear given the context regarding when it was released.)

> The example given in the article is about vaccines with attenuated viruses and mRNA vaccines are not attenuated viruses which removes a whole bunch of safety issues, hence why these vaccines are the safest form of viral therapy that has been developed by biologists and virologists.

And, yet, what they all have in common is they're vaccines, made by human beings, who are not infallible. Hence the reticence by many in the general public, including myself, to rush to go get one. We're not really disagreeing here, but I'm giving you a window into the mind of those who aren't as quick to endorse an injection into their body as you are, or as I was after waiting half a year.

I never said I rushed to get the vaccine. I had been infected twice in the first few waves so I knew I was immune. I just got the vaccine because I knew it was safe and it would give me a boost against the oncoming future waves of infection since it was also clear that there would not be enough vaccine uptake for herd immunity and I wanted to hedge my bets and make sure I was immune to whatever variant the vaccine was designed for.

The CNN article is about rushing approval before there was data available to show that it was safe for large scale deployment. Following the development of the vaccine convinced me that the folks working on Project Warpspeed [1] went above and beyond in making sure everyone was following strict protocols in gathering data to verify safety and efficacy. The example given in the article is about vaccines with attenuated viruses and mRNA vaccines are not attenuated viruses which removes a whole bunch of safety issues, hence why these vaccines are the safest form of anti-viral immune therapy that has been developed by modern science.

1: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-319

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