You might want to be a bit more flexible than that. Some of the most game changing cancer treatments in decades have been developed very recently. The way they work is actually not all that dissimilar to vaccines, in that they modulate your immune system too.
The vaccines | vaxxed boosted unvaxxed? New poll
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You might want to be a bit more flexible than that. Some of the most game changing cancer treatments in decades have been developed very recently. The way they work is actually not all that dissimilar to vaccines, in that they modulate your immune system too.
I'll look into that when I get cancer. And if I do find them to be unusually recent, with no information on possible emergent side effects years down the line, having been developed in a global pharmaceutical arms race with various motivations driving it beyond just curing the malady, I will decide on that. For now I don't think you're destroying my point like your dunk would suggest to you.
In what way did they walk free? They got an $8 billion fine, the owners/executives face criminal liability and the owners will lose their stake in the company with the company being dissolved.
they got to pull all of their assets out of the company that was issued that 8bn fine. they won't pay a penny. they will keep their wealth. they will walk away from this scot free. there is little to no impact on them beyond the bad press. they got away with murder.
I’ve no interest in destroying your post. I don’t even care if you take the vaccine or not. I just think the stuff in bold is a bit naive, bordering on conspiracy theory thinking. The motivation for developing new drugs has always been financial. Just like the development of any other new technology. That’s capitalism for you. And the reason that proper regulation is incredibly important.
I would struggle to think of any other industry that has more effective and well policed regulations than pharma. Unless you can think of one?
Yeah, a better question would be will you encourage your parents/grandparents to get vaccinated? I definitely will. This pandemic has been fecking miserable for my parents and an effective vaccine could make a massive difference to their quality of life.
Are there many examples of vaccines that have been removed from use after a longer term (1+ year) evaluation? Is there a reason why we should be particularly worried about covid vaccines, or this specific mRNA vaccine? Are there any examples of vaccines causing frequent negative effects “long-term”?
I think your sentiment is probably understandably shared by a decent number of people, but is there evidence to suggest it might be a problem? I think the answer to that is probably no.
This review finds that of the 57 vaccines approved by the FDA from 1996 to 2015 only one was removed from market after passing its phase III (RotaShield). https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-2726
fair enouh pogue. i know you're usually at least charitable to other side beliefs. I'm not antivax or whatever. I just don't trust this vax, unprecedented in history in its demand and rush to be made, to be without flaw. as I'm not someone who goes out and exposes the population to the virus anyway, I dont see a need for me to go taking it until then.
Fair enough. Full transparency. I work in pharma. So I see the diligence and hard work that goes into drug development. It is absolutely financially motivated, at the end of the day, but there’s also a huge focus on making sure every possible precaution is taken and the data generated is robust and thorough.
As per @Tony Babangida ‘s post above yours, the result of all this care is that modern medicines in general (and vaccines in particular) are typically extremely safe and very rarely withdrawn because of safety problems discovered late in the day. This wasn’t always the case, mind you. The regulatory side of things has come a long way.
Wonder how far down that list we'll have to get before things return to (relative) normality?
Realistically I couldn't care less if/when I get the vaccine. It's when people who are actually at risk get it that matters.
You don’t know something is going to happen until it happens. Again let me reiterate, I’m not going to discourage anyone from getting this vaccine. Should one of my patients ask for my opinion I would not tell them don’t get the vaccine, especially if they’re in a high risk group. This is strictly for me personally. Everything we practice is evidence based, and I fully agree with you that there’s nothing in the literature that says there is any excessive risk involved here, but it’s just my own personal take, for my own personal health.
I have an incidental exposure to covid, without full ppe, around once every two weeks. I want there to be some light at the end of this tunnel, but at the same time I’m always wary of things that haven’t been around long enough to know what they do in the long term.
Let me give you another example. If I were a smoker, I would prefer to continue smoking actual cigarettes rather than e-cigarettes. Destructive as they are, you at least know what cigarettes are doing to you. You don’t know what vaping will do in the long term. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t advise a patient that is a chronic smoker to try it to cut down on their smoking. What I practice is completely based on the evidence. What I do as a person is influenced by my own personal feelings, thoughts and concerns.
When this time comes I’ll weigh up the risks/benefits and decide. Like I said in previous posts, if it is mandatory for international travel, I’ll get it without hesitation. If my government says I need to get it to continue working I’m not going to try to find any way to oppose that, I’ll go along with it. I’m just not planning on getting it unless I have to, until more time has passed.
I'd get it, know a couple of people wh
That is s hugely important issue. My Mum is just into her 80s and being stuck around the house has hurt her a little. Not massively but she's never got over losing my Dad and now she can't go and see friends and family so she's stuck with me and my son plus my brother - which is a lot more than some have I get that but I don't think for a second she would refuse a vaccine if it meant she can go about her business again and I don't blame her at her age.
So the chances to have parties/festivals/weddings next Summer (like we are used to it, non socially distanced) are still pretty much non-existant?
I’ll take a vaccine if needed but being a healthy 27-year old without any underlying conditions, I don’t think I’ll get one in 2021. Just happy by the thought of having a “normal” life again in (hopefully) a few months.
So the day we will be injected with nano bots and dance on Bill Gates' strings is finally here.
I for one am ready for my software update.
I for one am ready for my software update.
I think the probability of you getting COVID approaches 1 given 12-18 months of time. Predicated on that that, I think for people like my parents with other medical conditions, the probability of a severe illness from covid is substantially higher than an adverse effect from a vaccine. I would definitely be advising my parents to get vaccinated.
Absolutely. While I wouldn’t get it, I would definitely want my parents and grandparents to get it.
That is how I feel , it will be great for the elderly and more vulnerable to go out and socialize a bit, visits to care homes and also hopefully ease the load for the doctors and nurses as hospital admissions should decrease.
Question for all your medical experts/anyone with a brain out there. Can vaccinated people still act as carriers and spread the virus to others?
Will we have to deal with all those selfish non young people wandering around without masks as soon as they get vaccinated and the rest of us wait in fear for our turn, forever trapped indoors and eating packets of ketchup?
Will we have to deal with all those selfish non young people wandering around without masks as soon as they get vaccinated and the rest of us wait in fear for our turn, forever trapped indoors and eating packets of ketchup?
@Cloud7 That’s fair enough. But you should realise that when you say “As a doctor” your opinion carries a lot of weight. So that opinion really needs to be backed up by evidence as people will listen to what you have to say! There is a lot of worry around this vaccine and at the same time widespread vaccination will be very important. I think it is important to reassure people that once vaccine candidates pass phase III they have excellent safety records.
Good question, we don’t know yet. Some vaccines provide sterilising immunity and some protective immunity. Have to wait for more data before we know, although it is perhaps likely to be the latter. Raises the problem that you could have a vaccinated healthcare workforce become protected but still able to spread. Which is where frequent testing will become very important.
Agreed! But this is an online forum where no one knows who I am, so I'm just sharing my unfiltered thoughts with respect to my own personal opinion here. I'm absolutely not going to say any of this to my patients, and I wouldn't expect anyone to take the opinion of one person on an internet forum that seriously so as to decline getting the vaccine, when that one person has made it clear they're not basing this choice on anything logical or evidence based, but purely emotion.
A little worrysome reading the replies here. People saying that they won’t take it because they’re young and healthy completely miss the point. The vaccine is most helpful if it reduces the spread and to accomplish that a big portion of the population should get it, not just the elderly and vulnerable.
Just out of interest, where do you practice?
Redcafe is where all the smart people go for medical advice! Sorry I’m just very sensitive to this stuff as there is a pervading unwarranted vaccine skepticism on the internet.
I'm 50 next month. Good timing. Seriously though I won't mind waiting if it works and is safe a few more months of this is trivial compared to the bigger picture in my position.
Hopefully I will look back and say at least it made me give up smoking - been over 6 months now am never going back to that shit.
For me it depends somewhat on the state of the world when it becomes available to my age group. If things are looking considerably better I can see myself trying to squirm my way out of getting it due to having a bad phobia of needles/medical equipment. I know I should do my bit and get it though.
I agree with you and my concerns has to be more about the lack of information. Everything is so preliminary and for what I had been reading, is a very new technology. As I said, I am far from antivaxxer and I vehemently discussed with them about that, but this is a special case and if everything made on a rush can be more susceptible to fail, imagine on a vaccine, not only nailing the formula but production composition, well storage distribution and so on. Not saying I am not gonna have it, but I want to know more
By that standard you would never take a flu shot.
The flu vaccine has been around since the 1940's, even if it changes somewhat each year depending on the strains of influenza it's still by and large the same thing. I get the flu vaccine every year.
Long term effects of anything are by definition something that you don't find out until the long time has passed. How many years do you want to wait? That said, it's unlikely that a vaccine, taken once (or in two shots) will be found to have ill effects that only emerge years later.
What are a lot more common in drug development (talking about single dose products, not those where people are taking things daily for months/years) are side-effects that only emerge when you increase the number of people taking it . That's when drug interactions, pre-existing conditions, genetics, and manufacturing or handling issues come into play. But that's not a timing thing, it's a matter of numbers/breadth of population taking it - in other words there are some things that might only be noticed once the drug has been used on millions of people with a multitude of other conditions/lifestyles etc.
If you're young and not in an at risk group then I can see the advantage of delay - but there will be a delay anyway, so by the time it's offered you should know quite a lot. If you're over 60 then the calculation is different - I'd take it, but then I'm registered as willing to take part in the clinical trials so that's probably a sign of the fact I don't want another year stuck in zoom meetings, avoiding people, staying away from family and limiting travel - and I don't think the adverse reactions gamble of a drug that's passed its Phase 3 trial is too big for that.
Feck the side effects jab me arse right now. I miss getting sloshed in clubs and getting rejected by multiple women every weekend.
How long do you think the vaccine will provide immunity for?
Will this become like the influenza in that every year a different strain comes along?
Humans are terrible at judging comparative risk. We happily jump into a car to drive to the beach but are terrified of sharks even though the risk of death or injury from the car journey is far higher.
In this case the minuscule chance of you suffering a serious side effect, only found by post licensure assessment, is hugely less than the chance of getting covid and suffering serious side effects or death.
I'd have happy taken it as part of testing so I'd certainly get it ASAP once it passes Phase 3 trials. And the sooner everyone gets it the sooner we can get back to some semblance of normal. If we don't get mass take-up we won't geet back to normal and it will be the fault of those who are reluctant and want others to take the risk for them, be it those who take the vaccine or those who die or get severe long-term symptoms because we don't get to HIT.
Don’t know and hopefully not. Influenza mutates a hell of a lot more quickly/often.
We don't know for sure yet but we have seen reports that antibodies have been detected months after the original infection and the same goes for t-cells, which is the main hope for long-term immunity.
The main reason flu vaccines need to be annual is because functionally flu isn't one thing so you need to take an educated guess as to which strains to put in the annual flu jab and influenza also evolves relatively quickly.
Coronaviruses seem to evolve slowly and unless this incident with the minks turns out to be a problem it looks like this won't be an issue.
It should also be noted that mutations that thrive are usually (but not always) less harmful as killing your host reduces the spread. Another bit of good news is that survivors of infection with other coronaviruses have seen long term protection.
With this coronavirus there is a suggestion that people with the most severe symptoms get the strongest immune response and a vaccine will be aiming to mimic this level of effectiveness.
The last 2 post-phase 3 adverse events I remember involved a flu vaccine - one where one particular vaccine caused seizures in kids and another where there was a slightly elevated incidence of GBS - which we decided to accept as the flu itself causes this even more often. New strains evolving in effect require a new vaccine and they don't need to go through 5 years of testing.
That will be very important at least for the immediate future. Assuming Pfizer passes the last tests and approval and the numbers they cite are correct then we're in for a long haul yet. 15-20million vaccines by the end of the year is not many of course - especially if by the time they produced more to cover the majority - that immunity has since worn off on the early ones.
Exactly