There are a bunch of randomized studies comparing different vaccines, and a few comparing getting or not getting a vaccine. I’m not sure what kind of study you are looking for, though.
Basically I’m looking for work or studies being done on the effect of repeated dosing. How is the immune system changed over time? What is the effect of stimulating the immune system in this way 6 or 7 times over a 2 year period? How are other systems and organs affected?
It seems like it would be important to know these things.
I mean, yes. There are lots of studies looking at what happens when people get multiple doses. Mostly they look at the production of antibodies (because that’s cheap to study) but there have also been studies of the production of various types of white cells, of changes to the lymph nodes, etc.
Yes, but beyond the immediate and direct effect of injections.
Is the immune system fatigued from repeated stimulation? Any increased risk of OAS? Is response to other pathogens affected? What is the immune response to Covid if boosters are discontinued and protection from the most recent booster has diminished significantly? Any accumulation in organs?
Are there people whose work you would trust saying, “Just to be on the safe side, let’s look for evidence of stuff we didn’t expect going wrong. Our trials were set up to study a 2 dose treatment but we’re 6 or 7 doses in now for some patients. Is there an unanticipated cumulative dose risk? We know the med doesn’t stay in the deltoid like we thought, at least for a subset of patients, so are we looking closely at what’s happening in the body when there’s systemic distribution? Is the reproductive capacity of young people affected? How about hearts and brains? Are they okay?”
I’m asserting nothing here, but I don’t get the sense from PH that questions like these are being investigated seriously. Hopefully they are and I’m just unaware of the work being done. I thought some of y’all might know. I really don’t want to find out that we’re in a “don’t measure what you don’t want to know” situation.
1 Like
You understand that all vaccines are monitored, right? There’ve been dozens of studies just in the US of the overall impact to health of these vaccines, and they’ve gotten a pretty clean bill of health. International studies have produced pretty much the same results (Astra Zeneca is a bit riskier than the US vaccines, and I haven’t followed the others.) There are the same short-term issues that are common with vaccines (which includes short-term menstrual issues, something that’s generally under-studied because it doesn’t happen to men) but the only significant risks that have popped up are allergies and myocarditis – that latter is an even greater risk with the virus, fwiw, and is a fairly common issue with vaccines. (You can’t get the mpox and covid vaccines too closely together because they can both cause myocarditis, and the combination has not been adequately studied and might be excessively risky.)
Reproductive: Women who were vaccinated were much less likely to miscarry than unvaccinated women, due to covid producing blood clots, which can be fatal to the fetus if if affects the placenta. I don’t believe any effects have been reported either way for men.
Heart: Myocarditis is a known risk, especially for young adult males.
Brains: A number of studies have found that covid damages the brain and reduces intelligence. It’s associated with rapid-onset dementia. (Something that affected both my uncle and my mother.) But no issues have been found with the vaccine.
Symptoms of people who’ve had a lot of doses of vaccines have been monitored, and nothing unusual has been found.
I’ve read a huge number of studies recently. I think your concerns have been covered. (In fact, I’m thinking of buy a subscription to the NEJM, because their non-covid articles are paywalled, and a lot of them look interesting.)
3 Likes
Keep fighting the good fight, Lucy!
1 Like
Oh, and if your immune system doesn’t take out one of the cells “infected” with artificial mRNA from the vaccine, the mRNA degrades anyway. It has a very short half-life. That’s why those vaccines need to be stored so cold, the stuff is incredible fragile, and cells routinely break it down and refuse the pieces.
I went looking for the precise half life in your cells, and couldn’t find the original work on these vaccines (i did find a lot of other studies of the half life of mRNA in various contexts. It seems to generally be a few hours, and i found numbers from a few minutes to 16 hours for different systems, etc.) but i did find this, which directly answers a bunch of your questions about these vaccines
Oh, and it seems that covid, like mumps, can enter the testes and reduce male fertility.
I doubt it’s common that it does enough damage to leave men totally infertile, though, or there would be a lot more news about it.
If one of the effects of COVID were impotence, there would be a lot less resistance to the vaccine.
Are there reasons why you are asking those specific questions?
1 Like
@Lucy, thank you for your responses.
Yes, there are reports supporting the statements you’ve laid out. There are also reports that run contrary to those statements (safety tracking, fertility, excess deaths, heart disease, pseudouridine substitutions and mRNA decay, etc.).
@The_President I’m asking these questions to gauge what the current thinking is here about Covid and Covid vaccine risk. It’s part of what I do to keep my own confirmation bias in check. I started out as a supporter of the Covid vaccines and very nearly got them a couple of times, but changed my position as time moved on.
There is a lot of pressure that this very large undertaking be judged successful, safe, and effective, and that missteps and failures be minimized. Society has in the past rightly been skeptical of and pushed back against powerful entities like the MIC, Big Auto, Big Tobacco, Big Oil, Big Finance, and Big Pharma. I think that continued skepticism is warranted.
I genuinely want to be proved wrong about the safety of these new medical products. I don’t want family, friends, and online acquaintances injured or worse.
2 Likes
Whereas i started out anxious about new, unproven vaccine technology, but after reading scores of medical studies, i changed my position and have become a fangirl. Watching my mother and uncle die horribly from covid, and reading studies about the outcomes of covid only reinforced that.
1 Like
Why did your mother dying from COVID reinforce that when your mother was vaccinated, but died anyway?
My mother had a severally compromised immune system, so the vaccine was probably irrelevant. And it was still an example of “this is what this disease can do to you.” Her progression was extremely similar to that of my uncle, who caught covid before vaccines were available.
A good friend in Canada also died, tragically at a point when Americans were breathing a sigh of relief, but before young adults could be vaccinated in Canada. He was in his 40s.
I am sorry for your losses. We have a long enough online relationship that I trust you accept my sincerity. I’ve lost people too.
I too have read many studies and have come to different conclusions. There’s a lot we don’t know with certainty.
1 Like
I am vaccinated plus 1 booster and 1 Covid. I might not ever get another Covid booster. It totally depends on the progression of the coronavirus. If I was older, I might get another booster at some point, but this is very much an age-dependent decision for me. My behavior has not yet reached “pre-Covid” levels, but I never really liked massive crowds.
Anyway, I believe in the vaccine and the technology within. But I struggle with the guidelines regarding children, especially when no longer experiencing Covid levels that are crushing the health care system. My tolerance/trust level is such that I can endorse 1 vaccine dose to children between X and Y years of age, but not below age X and not a series of boosters for children. Not yet.
Are there peer reviewed studies showing the vaccines are risky? Or chatter online?
Every time someone famous dies or near-dies, there is a claim that it was caused by COVID vaccines.
Each one of those claims is a data point. And it all adds up. Can’t fight data!
[/s for the challenged]
1 Like
Fatiguing the immune system and accumulation in organs are oddly specific questions. I have heard of the risks with heart issues that are no where near as common as similar issues from catching COVID, but I wouldn’t think the immune system would be fatigued by well spaced out vaccines, or I wouldn’t even think to come up with that as a possible risk.