Recently I spoke with two senior scientists with decades of experience who specialise in pharmacology, biology, and vaccines, who both work at high-level labs that inspect all types of drugs.
They both were extremely sceptical of the vaccine, with one being openly antagonistic towards it.
YouTube's new rules allow them to post content, but they both say they've been warned by their jobs about speaking out - that they will lose their careers if they say anything against the vaccines.
Where is the room for their opinion? Because they are the top of the tree scientifically. What the hell is going on when we are silencing senior scientists who are extremely worried about an experimental drug that we're giving to the entire world??!
To clarify - the first scientist told me that her lab is not allowed to look at or test the vaccine, even though they test every other drug that comes into the country. She has only found a report from one other non-Pfizer lab that has looked at it under a microscope. To me, that is really scary.
>If there was a problem with the vaccine we probably would have noticed something by the time a billion people got injected with it.
Not when everyone who tries to talk about their bad experiences gets treated like qanon and the morons who thought 5G caused covid-19.
Even quoting CDC or letters from a company who makes the vaccines is considered dangerous misinformation and can get you banned if what you are showing doesn't paint the vaccine in a good light.
I would venture a guess that some of that is due to the people sticking spoons to their faces, saying they were magnetized by the vaccine. Do we really need to give those people a platform?
While we are walking a fine line here, people have proven they will believe anything that is said in an authoritative enough voice, regardless of merit. At what point does the harm outweigh the good? We know social media allows these people to find each other and create echo chambers to reinforce their viewpoints and recruit others. We would have no problem if this was "white supremacy" or "terrorism", however I think this will affect many more people.
I agree. This kind of skepticism-on-theoretical-grounds might have been interesting/valuable a year ago. At this point additional evidence for the vaccine's safety mounts every day as more people receive it. Evidence for the vaccine's efficacy is also mounting[1]. Claims to the contrary would need some extraordinary evidence to back them up.
Scientist #1 said that if she mentions anything against the vaccine, there would be retribution against her. This includes publishing any data that detracts from the vaccines safety. They're essentially creating an echo chamber where all news about the vaccine is good news.
Given the number of countries and institutions involved the scope of the conspiracy here would have to be vast. And there are plenty of powerful, vaccine-skeptical institutions (like the GOP) that would welcome this kind of data and venerate someone producing it. Indeed, some have already built media or political careers on COVID vaccine skepticism.
In addition, there's the J&J vaccine which was pulled after nasty side effects were found in a small number of patients. Where was the "they" who are supposedly creating the echo chamber in that case?
You're still making bold yet vague claims and providing no evidence. Just wishy-washy "an unnamed expert I know made this significant yet unverifiable statement".
One major issue was that in the beginning of this year we started with one dose, then went to a second dose a few months later, and then a third dose is starting to be recommended now a few months after that.
There are some serious evidence to back this up. A study done around early summer found that only about 50% of those that have taken two doses had any detectable traces of a defense, which was one of the reason that a third dose had to be added. By winter we don't know how effective the 2 dose or 3 dose will be.
To me that is where the focus of skepticism should be right now.
> There are some serious evidence to back this up. A study done around early summer found that only about 50% of those that have taken two doses had any detectable traces of a defense, which was one of the reason that a third dose had to be added. By winter we don't know how effective the 2 dose or 3 dose will be.
One study, going against countless others showing that the vaccines are highly effective.
The readily available data speaks for itself. Highly vaccinated populations are experiencing much slower transmission and hospitalization rates than their poorly vaccinated counterparts.
Also, we didn't start with one dose. Both mRNA vaccines were two-dose regimens from the day they started clinical trials last summer.
We don't have countless studies on how effective the vaccines over a longer period of time, and especially for those with two doses. Most seems to been done around 3 months, through most conclusions is based on simulations from observation data gathered by other vaccines such as smallpox, measles, mumps, and rubella. The observed half-life of neutralizing titers was 65 days for mRNA vaccines.
The evidence will be found in the future when we have more data. Most expectation is that while the protection will be significant lower but that there might be some longer term benefits. Highly vaccinated populations that has taken the vaccine in the last 3-4 months are going to be currently more protected than those that aren't, but that doesn't say much if we need a new vaccination this winter, next summer or the year after that.
It would be interesting to see a study done on those early groups of people that received the last dose of vaccine in 2020 during the summer and see how much protection that they still have now this fall in 2021. Got any links to such studies?
Science changes as new information becomes available, that's why it's so great, it's self-correcting on a long enough timescale. If you want a 100% verifiable, stake-your-life-on-it-this-will-never-ever-change, answer, science is not for you. Using this inherent property of science as a way to deny it is disingenuous at best.
You’ve got it backwards. It’s precisely because science is ever-changing that censorship of specific views is harmful. See, for example, the Soviet Union’s bet on Lysenkoism.
I'm not really sure what you're trying to say here, it doesn't seem relevant to my comment.
My point is that using the fact that science changes as new information comes in, thus the answer science gave us yesterday may be different from the answer science gives us today.
The parent comment is using the changing conditions around vaccines, the fact that they said 1 shot, then 2 shots, now there is talk of boosters, as evidence that it was irrelevant and should be ignored. My point is that must expect any answer science provides to potentially change. If people want an answer that is unchanging, science cannot give it to them.
I never said vaccines should be ignored, but the fact that we do know that the neutralizing titers for mRNA vaccines has a half-time, which is known to be correlated to the effectiveness of the vaccine. People who sells those vaccines as a final solution is not following what the research actually say. The big unknowns is how much of a falloff the protection has, how quickly, and if there will be any lasting protection after the neutralizing titers are gone.
I find it a bit interesting that in about 3000 comments, very few if any are from actually doctors or researcher that advocate in favor of the block. In general it seems to be quite few that are even advocating it as a final solution to the pandemic, but rather as a tool to reduce symptoms for people who later catch the virus.
Much more nuance that the original post, makes sense. I don't think you conveyed this in the original comment, which I conflated with effectively "They keep changing what they say, therefore they are lying, therefore I am not getting vaccinated". Granted you didn't say that, I believe that's the way I interpreted it due to hearing the same argument from a bunch of different folks. Thanks for the clarity!
> What the hell is going on when we are silencing senior scientists who are extremely worried about an experimental drug that we're giving to the entire world??!
What exactly is “experimental” about a vaccine that has not only been through very robust phase III clinical trials, but has also had literally billions of doses deployed?
The first scientist told me that practically no non-Pfizer labs have looked at it. That is not robust. Usually this stuff gets reviewed by everyone, but in this case, technical info is not available to other scientists who wish to learn more about the vaccine - according to her.
The room for their opinion is in peer reviewed medical journals. Short of conducting their own study, they could, for example, write a dissenting letter to the editor, or submit what's known as a "brief report." Posting to Youtube for clicks and views is to not take seriously their own knowledge. Covid-19 is a very serious issue; on the chance that your two senior scientists have information that the world needs, the appropriate venue is in the medium scientists and doctors use to communicate with each other.
Also, what does it mean to be "skeptical" of "the" vaccine? There are several vaccines. Were they skeptical of mRNA? Viral vector vaccines? All of them? Do they think that the covid-19 vaccines secretly don't work?
They both said they feel immense pressure not to speak out against the vaccine or publish anything against it. So the regular channels of dissent have been removed.
If they had significant data a journal would pick them up. There is no one silencing them but themselves, because they know they don't have good evidence and their sources also don't have good evidence. The lancet, one of the most prestigious journals in the world, took up an article that vaccines might be related to autism, because at the time the authors had significant data (that later turned out to be fraudulent but at this point pandoras box had already been opened, and now decades later people believe vaccines cause autism). So if they did have this smoking gun data that said the vaccines are something to be worried about, it would have been published by now in a huge journal.
Great points. In particular, that one original source of anti-vax anxiety comes from a study published in a top medical journal. If one thinks that the medical establishment is corrupt or self-censoring, or should not be trusted, etc., then does that also not apply to articles published in The Lancet?
I hope they have published their critique of the mRNA technology in the last decade because the technology has been around for a long time. It was just adapted for COVID-19 in the last year.
My guess is they have not said a peep about mRNA until this became political.
They said they feel immense pressure not to say anything negative, and that they feel they have been silenced. They're not even allowed to ask basic questions about the vaccine as part of their work, even tho that's what they do for a living.
Then she hasn't bothered looking into it from legit sources at all, or when she does find a legit source she assumes that since it goes against whatever conspiracy website she reads that its in on the conspiracy and therefore wrong. Here are your ingredients:
They both were extremely sceptical of the vaccine, with one being openly antagonistic towards it.
YouTube's new rules allow them to post content, but they both say they've been warned by their jobs about speaking out - that they will lose their careers if they say anything against the vaccines.
Where is the room for their opinion? Because they are the top of the tree scientifically. What the hell is going on when we are silencing senior scientists who are extremely worried about an experimental drug that we're giving to the entire world??!
To clarify - the first scientist told me that her lab is not allowed to look at or test the vaccine, even though they test every other drug that comes into the country. She has only found a report from one other non-Pfizer lab that has looked at it under a microscope. To me, that is really scary.