Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

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The problem I've had with MRNA vaccines is that we decided a lengthy multi-year trial protocol was necessary to ensure vaccines are safe and effective.

Then COVID hit, and suddenly we decided to rush MRNA [1] vaccines into mass production without those protocols. Moreover, at one point they wanted to force [2] them on the population.

The thing that bothered me most is the government passed a law to prevent people from suing for damages if they're hurt by COVID vaccines [3]. If the vaccine really is safe and effective, why was the waiver necessary?

[1] If the made the COVID vaccine the same way they've been making them since polio, I'd be less uneasy -- if you made 25 vaccines with the process and they all worked okay, saying "it should be fine" for the 26th one is backed by some evidence.

But given MRNA vaccines were brand-new with the COVID ones, until then they'd made 0 vaccines with the process; saying "it should be fine" for the 1st one seems to be rather irresponsible.

[2] In my opinion, "you're being forced to do X" is a fair description of the situation if you have to show proof you did X if you want to get a job, get an education, or get on an airplane. Around the time of the first vaccines getting rolled out, these policies were being discussed very seriously.

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/covid-vaccine-side-effects-c...

One factual note here: mRNA vaccines were not brand-new with the COVID ones. The first human clinical trials using an mRNA vaccine were conducted in 2013.

The right's "rushed into production" talking point is especially amusing given their other messaging about cutting through government red tape. It's all just vibes.

We had a disease killing 10000s (if not 100000s) people in the country and you think government shouldn't adjust their regulatory framework to it? I would be very unhappy if they did not, government suppose to be conservative, but not that conservative. Calling this "just vibes" is very hypocritical in my opinion.

Right, my point is that we did appropriately cut through red tape when it became important to do so. Which (1) weakens arguments that complain about red tape and (2) exposes hypocrisy about claiming to oppose government red tape but then taking a bad faith stance about the vaccine being "rushed".

Gotcha, so you were criticizing right's hypocrisy on "rushed to production". I misunderstood you and got it opposite way.

> The problem I've had with MRNA vaccines is that we decided a lengthy multi-year trial protocol was necessary to ensure vaccines are safe and effective.

I, actually, agree on this. It was hard balancing act of protecting the population (quite successfully I will note) vs lack of perfect certainty about safety. I've read there've been clinical trials of other mRNA vaccines in mid 2010s so there've been some research data available.

Now, on other hand, we have a lot of data to dig into and seemingly to prove safety of the vaccines.

> Moreover, at one point they wanted to force [2] them on the population.

Yeah, I think this wasn't a good idea. Especially after it was clear we're not getting full protection and covid turning to be endemic.

> If the vaccine really is safe and effective, why was the waiver necessary?

Balancing act mentioned above protecting suppliers, won't be surprised if it was part of negotiations between government and vaccine manufacturers.

I think we can see mRNA vaccine are mostly safe (and we'll get even better certainty about it as time passes) which is given how cool the technology is opens up a lot of opportunities.

The thing I wish was more understood in anti-mRNA vaccine circles was how mRNA vaccines work vs traditional vaccine platforms.

Personally, I feel safer taking mRNA vaccines. (And definitely an apples-to-apples novel mRNA vs traditional vaccine!)

Simpler and consumed, so fewer chances for things to go wrong via adverse immune system reactions.

> The thing I wish was more understood in anti-mRNA vaccine circles was how mRNA vaccines work vs traditional vaccine platforms.

My experience actually looking at these groups is they did understand it better than most. The various studies people are pulling up in this thread today, showing more research is needed? They were sharing and talking about similar studies in 2021 and 2022 during the period everyone else was blindly repeating the "safe and effective" mantra.

Quick edit for an example of one of these earlier studies they were sharing: https://www.mdpi.com/1467-3045/44/3/73

HN isn't representative of the general population.

Very few people who I talked to outside of HN could give me a coherent definition of a randomized controlled trial.

I'm all for people being curious, but the catch in modern society is that people also need to be honest about their own ignorance.

Because faux curiosity being used to mask discomfort in ignorance is a recipe for bad outcomes.

Yeah, mRNA vaccines to old style vaccines are similar to hardware + software vs analog machines of the past. Cool and "simple" tech. However there might be unintended consequences we need to study - for example from a comment above: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.adg7327

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