As scientific evidence accumulated about possible vaccine dangers, the usual suspects screamed "SCIENCE!" and rushed to protect AstraZeneca: David Gorski, Steve Novella, Dorit Reiss, and David Grimes.
Marcus, I've had to delete your comment linking back to Steve Novella because that piece has factual inaccuracies and multiple bits of nonsense, like linking to the American Council on Science and Health. I don't mind the meandering and Novella's inability to address a critique, but we're not allowing anonymous accounts to link back to disinformation. Please do better in the future. Thanks.
I am not sure why you have included the American Council on Science and Health in your tweet on this issue. If you look at our writing on the topic I do not believe you will find anything of concern. Science takes time to uncover causal links, far longer than associative links. The decisions to reinforce the need for a risk-benefit consideration and the decisions to restrict the AZ and now J&J vaccine to subgroups are completely consistent with science. That is what we have argued. I believe that you are confusing the facts, the numbers, and characteristics of those will acute or semi-acute adverse reactions with how individuals, like you and me, tie them together in a narrative.
The downstream effects of mRNA vaccines are not completely unknown. One notable, well-demonstrated effect is preventing most of the harms from a virus which has recently killed 3 million people, not to mention hospitalizations and a variety of known and unknown long-term health effects on millions more. Any potential risks (which so far haven't materialized) must be weighed against these very real benefits.
Marcus, I've had to delete your comment linking back to Steve Novella because that piece has factual inaccuracies and multiple bits of nonsense, like linking to the American Council on Science and Health. I don't mind the meandering and Novella's inability to address a critique, but we're not allowing anonymous accounts to link back to disinformation. Please do better in the future. Thanks.
Mr. Thacker,
I am not sure why you have included the American Council on Science and Health in your tweet on this issue. If you look at our writing on the topic I do not believe you will find anything of concern. Science takes time to uncover causal links, far longer than associative links. The decisions to reinforce the need for a risk-benefit consideration and the decisions to restrict the AZ and now J&J vaccine to subgroups are completely consistent with science. That is what we have argued. I believe that you are confusing the facts, the numbers, and characteristics of those will acute or semi-acute adverse reactions with how individuals, like you and me, tie them together in a narrative.
Charles, if you don't like a tweet, it would help to put that tweet in the comment. That way readers understand what you're talking about. Thanks.
We've seen evidence of no transcription at 14 days.
We need boosters at 28.
Clearly the mRNA isn't durably creating spike.
The downstream effects of mRNA vaccines are not completely unknown. One notable, well-demonstrated effect is preventing most of the harms from a virus which has recently killed 3 million people, not to mention hospitalizations and a variety of known and unknown long-term health effects on millions more. Any potential risks (which so far haven't materialized) must be weighed against these very real benefits.