Are MRNA vaccines any riskier than other vaccines?
Are MRNA vaccines any riskier than other vaccines?
I have a friend who is anti mRNA vaccines as they are so new.
Are they?
The approved mRNA vaccines went through the same approval process as any vaccine. And once approved, they are monitored for safety like any other vaccine. Between pre-approval testing and post-approval monitoring, we would have detected any issues. So the proof is in the pudding — lots of countries have approved them and none have found risks that are worse than the disease they protect against (currently only COVID but there are more mRNA vaccines in the works).
There's also no reason to fear the way they work. Other vaccines introduce antigens (molecules that your body doesn't like and produces antibodies to attack) in various ways — sometimes with a weakend virus, sometimes with a dead virus, sometimes just the antigens themselves. mRNA is just another way to introduce antigens so your body learns to fight them. For a little while your body follows the instructions in the mRNA to produce the antigens, and then your body learns to attack those antigens. It's not all that different from the way other vaccines work. mRNA breaks down pretty quickly in your body so it's not even in your system for very long, and there's no mechanism in the body for mRNA to produce lasting changes. So it's a lot like you got a cold: for a little while the cold makes your body produce molecules, then your body fights it all off, and then in the end there's no permanent change except your body learned to fight off that particular antigen.
Thanks, that's what I thought. They always point to the recorded side effects and I always counter with the fact that the disease is a lot lot worse than the cure, and that it's a classic trolley problem. If the equation is kill one to save a million, you always kill one.
Or am I missing something?
and that it’s a classic trolley problem
that's not a trolley problem. The trolley problem is an ethics debate about whether it's more ethical to allow multiple people die or take the action of saving that multiple people, condemning another to die instead. Not taking action, however, is itself an action- a choice- that is being made and the problem is entirely disconnected from real life...
The question of "vaccinate or not vaccinate" is an entirely different question. the question is, should you take an exceedingly small probability of manageable risks (allergic reactions, sore arms) to mitigate a rather high probability lethal risk (long term hospitalization, coma, death. death like symptoms.)
in the moderna vaccine, There's a 10% chance your arm is going to have swelling/redness/soreness. 1.2% chance that the area effective is large enough to even really notice. and for the more severe risk of alergic reactions, that's 2.5 cases per million doses, and is easily managed simply by maintaining the 15 minute observation after injection. (during which time staff are on hand to deal with the anaphylactic shock, which makes it substantially unlikely to cause permanent harm.)
the pfizer-biontech vaccine has similar mild reactions, that usually clear up in a single day, and a whopping 11 cases per million doses for allergic reactions (and 80% of those cases happened to people with an already diagnosed hypersensitivity to the PEG.)
this is compared to the probability of, you know, dying, from being unvaccinated. Per the CDC... yes, the vaccine is highly effective and extremely safe.
Also be a little wary of the 'recorded side effects'. In the UK (and I'm sure its not alone), the NHS asked people to record any medical event that happened for a period post-vaccination that could conceivably be a side effect, in an abundance of caution - the idea that they could then sift the data for any actual side effects.
People often quote this raw data 'look n people had heart attacks after vaccination' - without factoring the expected number of heart attacks if that cohort had not been vaccinated. There's some great stuff in the raw data like people who suffered twisted ankles. Reasonable to record, as say a statistically significant increase in twisted ankles could (say) suggest balance problems were a side effect (they aren't)
The trolley problem is a bit different because its result depends on what kind of person you are.
People who think logically will always pick the option that kills less people. Some people who are emotionally driven hate the idea that manipulating the lever means you are first hand causing the death of said one person, whereas the 5 people, while who could be saved, didnt die outright because of a situation you as the person created.
Deaths were not mentioned at all.
Your friend is an idiot. MRNA vaccines are not new. Scientists have been working on a vaccine since SARS, which is similar to COVID (aka SARS-CoV-2). One of the reasons why medication can take so long to reach the public is that it takes money, which likely come from grants, which take time and have limited amounts to go around. When the pandemic broke out, countries around the world threw money at these labs. Everything else pretty much stopped, so they didn't have to wait for an understaffed and underfunded FDA to approve it.
Getting the vaccine is much better than slowly suffocating because the virus destroyed your lungs. Herd immunity only works when enough people have been vaccinated and clearly we haven't reached that yet since people are still getting infected, reinfected and dying.
Messenger RNA, or mRNA, was discovered in the early 1960s; research into how mRNA could be delivered into cells was developed in the 1970s. So, why did it take until the global COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 for the first mRNA vaccine to be brought to market?
It sounds like the research isn't new, but there hasn't been any widely available vaccine since COVID. And given that mRNA vaccines aren't the only option, it seems safer to stick with a more traditional vaccine.
You're correct on everything but the last part. Herd immunity doesn't mean its erraticated. Just means the majority won't get infected. Which is the case.
Herd immunity means it's effectively eradicated, meaning that enough people are protected from it that the virus cannot readily find new hosts and basically "dies out" in the areas in which herd immunity is reached. That's why severely immunocompromised people, eho often cannot get vaccines or cannot mount a response even if they do get vaccines, do not get, e.g., polio. If only the majority didn't get the virus, those who are susceptible (the minority) still would, but this doesn't really happen (in places where herd immunity is reached). Other places around the world may still have the virus floating around, but after a while at the herd immunity level in a location/ country, it is effectively eradicated.
On top of what Legge said, herd immunity is for people who cannot get vaccines because of things like autoimmune diseases. who need to rely on the vast majority of people to be vaccinated to prevent the spread to them. It's not for people who 'just don't like vaccines' but have no medical reasons to avoid them
They are not really all that new. The research for mRNA vaccines began over 50 years ago.
mRNA vaccines are among the safest vaccines ever made. There is nothing in an mRNA vaccine that can make you sick. What they are is instructions for your immune system on how to recognize certain viruses when it sees them. You can literally email the mRNA sequence to a different lab and, provided they have the right equipment, they can make the vaccine without ever needing a sample of the virus.
The mild symptoms some people get is the immune system activating and building the viral antigens specified by the mRNA vaccine, but there is no danger of getting Covid-19 or any other disease from the Covid-19 vaccine.
One side note: while I know you are using the medical definition of "mild symptoms", please be aware that this doesn't match the colloquial definition. You can be absolutely miserable for several days (and a number of people are) and still be considered mild. Unless you get into symptoms like difficulty breathing or hospitalization, it still counts as mild.
Fully agree with everything you wrote.
LOL, I was gonna say. Called in sick 2-days in a row after shot #2, and I work from home. Couldn't even pretend to be working.
3D printable vaccines. mRNA is the 3D CAD file.
Something I found interesting is why it took 50 years (which is a detail anti-vaxxers never seem to know) for a usable result to reach the open market. There have been a ton of studies and trials trying to get a useful vaccine, but very little of it (historically) was successful. This wasn't because of any health risks, but rather because they weren't effective enough. The mRNA simply broke down too fast for your immune system to react.
If you are concerned about safety, you should be applauding mRNA over the older methods.
There is nothing in an mRNA vaccine that can make you sick.
I'm curious about this, because I recognize that to be true, but some folks (like my father) moan about how every COVID booster they get makes them feel terrible for a day or two. Just what is causing this reaction? It certainly means we have to push my father harder to get him to stay up to date, and that gets more difficult each time
The immune response can be bad for some people. There are risks and side effects. They just happen to be massively outweighed by the benefits.
The vaccine does not cause illness but an inappropriate immune response can. The symptoms can be bad but generally are milder than the equivalent response to covid. Those at higher risk to vaccine side effects seems to be a similar cohort to those at risk of more severe reaction to covid.
mercury that crosses blood brain barrier is not amazing in general, even if it's renamed to something else
Depends on the molecule. The ones used in vaccines are nit dangerous. See for example https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202100244467/
Oh better not have the salt then, lest they explode within you or give you poisoning if you survive.
The question you should be asking is "are mRNA vaccines riskier than getting the diseases they're intended to prevent"
Both questions are legitimate and worth asking, preferably in order: are they risky? Is the benefit better than not taking it?
Your question is a good response to the people who ask "Should I get the covid vaccine?".
Their question is a good response to the people who say "I'm not anti-vaccine, I'm anti-THIS-vaccine".
No. They are actually incredibly safe, much safer than the vaccines from last century. The big scandal from 1955, where an improperly killed polio vaccine gave polio to 40,000 kids, leaving 51 paralyzed and 5 dead, is literally impossible with mRNA vaccines.
As a doctor, I consider mRNA vaccines to be one of the most exciting developments in vaccine history. It has the potential to make vaccines something that a developer can encode, much like a programmer writing a computer program. The possible applications of this are insane.
Is your friend stuck in 2021?
The covid vaccines are three years old now. Millions of people have had 3 or 4 shots, or even more.
In what world are they "new".
Context: I'm fully vaccinated with 4 mRNA shots, I volunteered at a vaccination hub during the first lockdown.
It could be argued that they are still new in that we don't know of any long term affects that might crop up in 20 years time.
Conversely of course any long term affects of a fukll-blown Covid infection that could crop up in 20 years time are likely to be considerably worse.
Yes, you could argue that, but it would be an extraordinary claim.
I might still get indigestion from that taco I ate in 1999.
But it's really unlikely, since that Taco cleared my system way back then.
mRNA also clears the body quite quickly.
So to have side-effects after so many years, one would need to explain a mechanism.
Otherwise it's really just very speculative. Might as well believe 5G causes cancer. After all, it's new technology.
Besides that, mrna tech started to be developed in the 1970's with the first labrat trials in the late 80's or early 90's.
Clinical trials on humans, to test their safety and effectiveness in combating various diseases and viruses have been ongoing for the past decade.
And as you said, the first several widely used vaccines based on mrna tech have been deployed to literally billions of people.
This is an incredibly gigantic sample size for data and there have been very few issues for the past 3 years.
And what bernieecclestoned brings up about herd immunity simply means the people they are talking to are, like most antivaxxers, blithering idiots that know some catch phrases and not a single meaning behind them.
You only obtain herd immunity with minimal casualties through hardening the herd with vaccines and then hope the immune systems of the herd adjust to further combat the disease. If data doesn't show that new variants are easily countered by the immune systems of the herd, you know you need to develop more vaccines.
If you try to obtain herd immunity by letting a brand new disease like COVID run its course, you will probably obtain it eventually, but instead of 7 million dead worldwide (and lord knows how many with long covid or other long term disabilities due to the disease), you'll have 70 million or more.
Herd immunity doesn't mean you should just let shit hit the fan and see who's left standing. If you miscalculate the severity of the disease, you can have another situation like with the plague where it killed over 25 million out of the 180 million people on earth.
In todays numbers that would mean like 1.1 billion people die. Probably far more since we're extremely more connected than people were in 400AD.
And you'd think that the better general healthcare and hygiene these days would lessen it, but the sheer increase in how we're connected would easily wipe that advantage off the board.
And the mRNA technology has been in progress for 50 years. That’s why it didn’t take long to create a COVID vaccine
Ok just going to make the counter argument if that's ok?
They are new compared to traditional vaccines like polio and smallpox
Their view is that vaccines are now unnecessary because of herd immunity, (I've got them to concede that hospitals or the economy would have collapsed without vaccines), and that they are just being used up because govts signed contracts.
Their view is that the side effects risk is now higher than the benefit.
Anecdotal, I'll admit, but I've had 6 shots now. And I plan on getting one every 6 months because I can't take the risk of getting sick. The only side effects I've suffered is a sore arm for a day or so afterwards. The other side effect is that I haven't gotten Covid yet, or if I did then it was so mild I didn't notice most likely thanks to those vaccines.
Your friends are being short sighted. mRNA vaccines have been around for a long time, almost but not quite as long as polio or small pox vaccines, but still a long time. The only thing that changed for Covid, if you take the time to research the vaccine, is that the message protein was changed. This protein can't hurt you or give you Covid in any way. All it does is present a foreign protein for your immune system to begin fighting. For most people, they don't even notice. Mostly because our immune system is fighting off something actually infectious pretty much every day, but you don't get sick. These vaccines are a valuable tool in fighting infections, specifically because of the way new updates to the vaccines can be created quickly. To deny this is being willfully blind to their benefits.
Something tells me mRNA is irrelevant. It's a common talking point among anti-vaxxers, and is typically nothing more than an excuse. It's also a form of gish-galloping, where they pile a bunch of bullshit on you and make you defend it.
Ask them some follow-up questions like these. I suspect the trend will become clear.
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What are your thoughts on the more traditional non-mRNA covid vaccines, such as the ones from J&J or Novavax (or whatever you have in your area)?
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When was the last time you got any vaccine, including a flu shot?
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If you had the choice today, would you get the well-established vaccines such as polio or measles, mumps, rubella (MMR)?
Once you have these answers, you'll know if they are truly concerned about mRNA being new or if it's something else.
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Scientists have been working on them for decades, they are fine. Your risk of dying or getting injuries from not getting the vaccines is way, way higher.
They've been given to billions of people at this point and with a sample size that large it's surprising how safe they are.
Why, are they OK with other vaccines?
Listening to an antivaxxer is a mistake - every time.
The risks of any specific vaccine must be judged against the risk of actually getting whatever disease. If the vaccines for whatever disease were as/more likely to fuck you up than the disease, then there wouldn't be any point, and they wouldn't get approved.
The fear for some is because of how fast tracked the mrna vaccine was, but mrna research by any means is not new. The idea has been in the air for decades and saw very limited trials when the Ebola outbreak happened, but due to it not spreading, there was no need to mass create mrna vaccines at the time at a commercial/global scale.
It wasn't exactly "fast tracked," a little misleading phrase (not helped by the official name of the operation called "warp speed") that I think makes people more nervous than they need to me. This kind of implies they didn't go through the same testing as other vaccines. They have gone through the same stringent criteria as any other vaccine at this point. A lot of what was done to speed things up was the government subsidizing and risk guaranteeing, so multiple steps in vaccine testing and deployment could be done in parellel rather than in series. Normally you wouldn't be mass producing experimental vaccine doses or medications before you know they work, or else you've wasted a ton of money. To speed things up the government basically said they would cover the losses on the vaccines if they ended up being useless. This allowed production of these vaccines to start being distributed as soon as the research was complete. Otherwise they wouldn't have been churning out millions of doses already with a lot already stockpiled and giving doses of it to icu staff only three days after it got emergency authorization (full formal approval would follow about nine months later).
Honestly people get way more nervous about vaccines than they really need to be. Some of the lowest risk things we use in all of medicine. Though not that they shouldn't be, since they're deployed on such a mass scale.
They been around for some time. Sped up testing significantly during COVID but with COVID they have a massive data set to verify it's safety. Likely factors more then most drugs. I am personally pretty confident in the usage of RMA proceedures.
Nope
No on the contrary, mRNA is really brilliant, in my very limited understanding, instead of injecting you with a weakened disease, you get the learning process against it instead. This is actually a lot safer than other types of vaccine, and many times safer than getting the virus without having the vaccine.
I live in Denmark, and Denmark chose to use mRNA exclusively because they are both the safest and provide the best protection, Denmark is also one of the countries that have had fewest problems with COVID in the world, because we have very high rate of mRNA vaccinated people.
So you don't have to experiment yourself, it's already been done on a massive scale, and the result is clear.
I listened to a podcast 2 years ago that explained the history of covid/vaccines and where covid came from. I really wish I could remember what it was called but it was fantastic, I sent it to my family members who were anti-vax
This Podcast Will Kill You
They did a whole series on Covid including the history of development of vaccines
Your body creates and uses RNA all the time. If there was a problem it would show up nearly instantly. Anything else is something all vaccines do, so we can look to smallpox vaccines which are more than 200 years old for those effects. If there is anything else life itself wouldn't be possible as RNA is critical to how life functions.
Unless the friend has training as a microbiologist or something similar their belief is inconsequential. And even then they would be in the vast minority in their field (like a geologist that believes oil doesn't come from the heat and compression of ancient organic matter).
A lot of people are afraid of new things they don't understand. The hope is that people realize that the fear is irrational and listen to experts in the relevant field.
A lot of people are afraid of new things they don’t understand. The hope is that people realize that the fear is irrational and listen to experts in the relevant field.
That would be me, highly reluctant to try the new possibly risky thing until many other people have done it. But I DO realize my fear is (mostly) irrational, so after a bit I gather my courage and do the thing anyway. For covid mRNA vaccines, I skipped the first round, and watched the news carefully for word of people dropping dead. It didn't happen, so I caught the second round of vaccines in my area about a month later. I was still afraid, but considered it my civic duty to reduce the spread to the greatest degree in my ability. And since then I've got every "booster" I was eligible for. As an old person, I'm eligible among the first, lol.
I'm not convinced there aren't some under reported risks to the vaccine. But I still consider it my civic duty to help prevent the spread of something much riskier, covid.
Even if risks are under-reported (plausible, but unlikely, given the amount of scrutiny), it's definitely the case that the risks from getting COVID are still not fully understood. Long COVID is a major issue that is still under investigation. So by your own metric - "highly reluctant to try the new possibly risky thing" - the vaccine is important. Because "the new possibly risky thing" in this case is getting COVID. You definitely don't want to "try" that.
@bernieecclestoned@sh.itjust.works @stinerman@midwest.social Every time I hear someone saying people are afraid of change, I always suspect they're just butthurt because they get inordinate benefit from that change. People actually love change, and enthusiastically embrace it, when it's a change for the better. Nobody is afraid to unwrap their birthday presents! People aren't afraid of change; they're afraid of marketing bullshitting them, of charlatans with yet another form of exploitation who are all whining in chorus about how much people fear change.
So... don't worry about being reluctant to take risks, I say. It might be irrational, but it also might not be wrong. Try to do what's best for you. If vaccines are less risky than covid, then you'll fear them less than covid, assuming these vaccines even prevent covid in the first place. If I want to convince you to take a vaccine, it's on me to give you the power to determine for yourself whether I'm full of shit. Just demonizing you as a redneck luddite and blaming you for making people sick isn't going to accomplish anything.
Your friend is dumb. Get smarter friends. Sorry to be blunt, too many years dealing with ignorance celebrated as though it's a desirable trait.
Unfortunately I'm at the age where more friends are dying than I'm making new ones lol
I see.. in that case you probably can't actually do anything except cut them out. Many if not most older people get stuck mentally in a very real physical way. They literally cannot change their minds.
The logical issue your friend is ignoring is that the disease (covid) is proven to be highly dangerous. The vaccine might be slightly dangerous (depending on who you believe). But clearly there are no remotely credible claims of hordes of people dropping dead of mRNA vaccines like there are for covid. So just from a lesser risk stand point, your friend should get the vaccine.
No. It’s too late in the game for your friend to be that stupid. Maybe find smarter friends.