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The Vaccine Thread


JennyD

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1 hour ago, BronzeTurtle said:

Wait, I somehow missed this. This explains so much to me. The stuff you're citing out of Israel hasn't been peer reviewed yet? Doesn't that make a huge difference? Why would it be arrogant to not use data that hasn't been fully vetted? It would seem more arrogant to me for them to assume that they could just do their own review process, peer review be damned. What is the reason we have peer review if not for exactly this type of thing? This clears up a lot of the confusion I had last night.

Who do you think does peer review? If the members of the committee who are making decisions that will have life or death consequences for million of Americans are not qualified to review this data, then why are they there? Why don't we get some people on the vaccine committee who are qualified to review vaccine data? Two members of the committee are biostatisticians — they certainly should be capable of understanding the statistics.

Edited by Corraleno
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13 hours ago, Corraleno said:

So I decided to look up the credentials of the members of the advisory committee — the vast majority are professors of pediatrics, not vaccine experts. Maybe that makes sense when the vaccines under review are designed for young children, but this committee was voting on boosters for adults (16+). Here are the credentials of the committee that just voted to restrict boosters to over 65s:

Professor of Pediatrics, Stanford Medical School
Professor of Pediatrics, Tufts Medical Center
Professor of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati Medical School
Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Professor of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine
Dean, Chicago Medical School, (Specialty: Pediatrics)
Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University
Medical Director, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance
Professor, Vaccine & Infectious Diseases Division, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Professor, Baylor College of Medicine (Specialty: Vaccines)
Associate Dean for Global Health, University of Maryland School of Medicine

Government Agency Representatives:
Director of Scientific Advisors, FDA
Designated Federal Officer, FDA
Committee Management Specialist, FDA
Chief Medical Officer, CDC
Director of Clinical Innovation, NIH

Industry Representatives:
VP for Medical Affairs, Seqirus
VP of Vaccine Research, Merck

I am currently watching the meeting (which is 8 hours long so I haven't gotten very far)  As these individuals are introducing themselves many are "Department of Pediatrics and Director of Vaccine Clinic"  or "specialist in immunology and allergies".

The Merck representative was an industry representatitive who did not have voting rights (I didn't cantch the Seqirus VP).  

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16 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:

I think that is a public health disaster scene.

How does the person who is taking ivermectin against fda advice not look at the person going to get a 3rd shot against fda advice and say, "See? You don't believe them either!" And we can say that this board would never do anything as stupid as the people taking ivermectin, but obviously the people who would do that are looking at things from a different angle.
 

I don’t know if you’re still reading, but I do agree with you on this point, that the optics on this are not good.  Clearly there are significant  differences, but I don’t for one minute believe that people who think the vaccine makes you magnetic or that more people have died from the vaccine than from Covid are going to understand those differences at all.  But it’s the people who are on the fence that this is most likely to cause an issue for, and they’re the only ones that there’s likely any hope of getting vaccinated anyway.

 

15 hours ago, Corraleno said:

I hope they will at least include more at risk groups (teachers, healthcare workers, essential workers, people with comorbidities, etc.), which will allow doctors a lot more leeway to prescribe boosters for those who want them. 

If they follow the recommendations of the advisory committee, then that definitely looks likely. The advisory committee did vote for them to be offered to healthcare workers, teachers, people with high risk conditions,  and others with occupational exposure.

15 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:

No, but I mean it makes sense to say that you shouldn't chastise someone for not listening to the fda in one area while you (in a general sense) are not listening to them in an area you feel comfortable ignoring them. I don't know if I'm making sense. What you're saying about your own expertise and evaluation of the data is what I've found from everyone who is wanting to make their own decisions. Everyone thinks they're right to make this individual choice for themselves.

adding: It may be retroactive now that people are going against a different sort of fda recommendation that they disagree with in order to get a shot off-label, but it sort of proves the point that individuals will always do what they think is best regardless of what the government tells them. They don't need the justification because they were going to do it any way. But it is sort of a vindication of a point that I've seen them trying to make all along.

Your posts do make sense, fwiw.  I understand the point you’re making here and I’m concerned about that as well. I do think it seems that you may not have a handle on the way this decision is based on public health factors, rather than individual ones.  They didn’t make the decision because they didn’t think the vaccine would help people avoid being infected or because they thought it would be dangerous, but because they didn’t think it would make a significant difference in the overall course of the pandemic as a whole. That doesn’t mean it wouldn’t make a difference for individuals, though. 

15 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Personally, yes, I do. Because I think in this particular case the political pressure is on the right side of the issue. 

I disagree strongly with this. I don’t want any of these decisions being made based on political pressure, from any side.  In this particular case, I don’t know how much is based on the pressure from the WHO  and how much is based on this just being a public health versus individual health decision they were making. Whatever the case,  even when facts and truth and science might align with one political side’s beliefs, it shouldn’t be the political pressure part that makes the decision.  It should be because the facts and truth and science fall on that side.

14 hours ago, kbutton said:

That would be cool, though I wonder if flu plus Covid will have really nasty side effects. I don't usually have any side effects from the flu except for an itchy arm (likely from sensitivity to gelatin). Covid is another story, lol! But if it's not worse than Covid alone, sign me up. Sounds great!

I read something over the weekend saying that they’ve tested flu and Covid shots together and they don’t seem to cause any increase in side effects. I’m thinking my parents should hold off a few days on their flu shots in hopes that the elderly will be able to get boosters very soon, so they can get them both together.

13 hours ago, RootAnn said:

I used to think that everyone in the US was allowed to make their own decisions and would have to live with the consequences, but this country has started to turn topsy-turvy on me. I don't know if that is going to be the case much longer. 

(Quoting messed up. Italics my response):

In all fairness, I don’t think anything about this situation has changed that. There have always been public health decisions that everyone is bound by—vaccinations for jobs and schools, clothing requirements in public, etc).  Most of us have never lived through a pandemic, so we’re not used to those requirements being so salient in our lives. 

13 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:


There's also political pressure the other way, it seems to me, if the sentiment here is any indication. Their decision can't be entirely based on the WHO and anti-vaxxers can it? They did have to look at other stuff right?  We're saying 14 out of 16 people were somehow cowed by the WHO and a minority who don't/won't take the vaccine? I guess if that is true then the advisory committee is pretty useless. I wonder if approving the vaccine and before that the eua was also politically motivated. This is making me question a lot of assumptions I had about how vaccines are approved at all. I absolutely would not have taken the vaccine without the eua even if I could get one under the radar. I assumed, maybe wrongly, that they were taking all sorts of things into account like what a given does to us medically, what the risks and benefits are, etc. I assumed the same would be true for the 3rd dose. Now I don't know what to believe about the whole process if it's all just based on perception and international pressure.

I think this discussion has confused the issue. The vaccine approval was absolutely based on safety and efficacy of the vaccine. It  would also have looked at the public health impact, but that was so overwhelmingly clear that I don’t think that part required much focus. It was the safety and efficacy data initially that was being waited for, but fortunately that turned out to be overwhelmingly clear as well. In this case, they are weighing the safety and efficacy against the much smaller public health benefit. And then I think it is true they are weighing that small public health benefit against the optics of giving third doses here when there’s still so much of the world that hasn’t had their first doses.

13 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:

I'm discussing going against fda/cdc recommendations and using a medication/getting a shot without it being fda approved.

So the advisory committee does not take safety into account when making their recommendations? I feel so dumb that I did not know all this. I thought it was like committee meets, fda takes their advice, issues approvals or disapprovals, but the committee was looking at all the things, safety, efficacy, necessity, etc. I didn't realize it was mostly a political thing for show.

See above. I think this discussion has confused the issue, because that’s not the case at all. 

2 hours ago, BeachGal said:

 

@CorralenoMy understanding is that there is some slight concern about myocarditis, that it’s occurring in 1 out of 1,000 (data gathered from an academic setting), which is higher than what VAERS showed. The myocarditis is manageable and clears up, though, and is far better than damage from a Covid infection. Have you read about this? Thoughts?

 

That’s the same that I have read.  There remains a small risk of myocarditis, mostly for young men, but it Is treatable and has been mild for almost all and has not caused any deaths. The incidence of myocarditis from Covid itself is much, much higher.

54 minutes ago, SKL said:

Actually many people believe(d) there was political motivation behind holding off the mRNA EUA until shortly after the 2020 election.

That has been a manufactured political outrage. The political pressure was to approve the vaccines early, before the 2020 election. There was never any timeline that had them out that early, thus there was no “pressure“ to hold them off. To release them early would have meant not completing the trials and study data and cutting the process short. The fact that they did not do so was not due to political pressure, but due to scientists saying no way. Just as the child vaccines are taking longer then is wanted politically, because the work has to be done properly. Fortunately, looks like the next ones are on their way soon. 

Edited by KSera
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Just now, KSera said:

Whatever the case,  even when facts and truth and science might align with one political sides beliefs, it shouldn’t be the political pressure part that makes the decision.  It should be because the facts and truth and science fall on that side.

It's not because I think the political pressure is a good way to go about things. It's because in this case, I think the Biden administration has facts and truth and science on their side!! 

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4 minutes ago, KSera said:

In this case, they are weighing the safety and efficacy against the much smaller public health benefit. And then I think it is true they are weighing that small public health benefit against the optics of giving third doses here when there’s still so much of the world that hasn’t had their first doses.

We're about to see whether they are right that it's a small public health benefit. I'm frankly pretty worried about that. Israel has had fairly high death rates recently despite most people being vaxxed. 

Edited by Not_a_Number
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2 hours ago, BronzeTurtle said:

You don't think so? The rich, greedy US keeps a lot of developing nations from getting ahead in various ways. I can't imagine vaccines would be an exception. Maybe principles of equity should apply here.

I still think if someone who had no doses was standing in front of me wanting one dose and I was offered a 3rd, I'd give mine to the person with 0. That's to answer your earlier hypothetical about giving away a medical procedure meant for myself. I actually thought about it as I was falling asleep last night. I would rather more people get at least one dose than me getting a 3rd, if that is the choice you were offering, especially since I'm likely to be spared severe disease, hospitalization, and death with my 2 doses even with waning of antibodies over time. 

Giving up your booster will not somehow magically get that dose into the arm of someone in Africa. For one thing, the US is not going to buy and donate millions of extra doses now, and then buy millions more when they finally decide we do need boosters. It just means we'll wait and do boosters later — after many more people will have gotten sick unnecessarily. The idea that if the US doesn't use the doses right now then poor people will get them also ignores the enormous issues with lack of infrastructure in poor countries. Hundreds of thousands of doses that were sent to Africa were destroyed because they couldn't get them into arms before they expired.

Edited by Corraleno
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5 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

You probably don't have a husband who spends a significant chunk of his life doing peer review/chasing down other people to do peer reviews, lol. Peer reviews are great. But it's not like people doing them are never sloppy or always take a lot of care or otherwise don't make mistakes. 

I'm not against peer review, obviously. I think it's a really, really, really valuable step. But is it sensible to wait on that during a pandemic in which many people may die?? Why wouldn't you examine the damn data yourself? What, are they not supposed to be "peers" in this case? Do they somehow not have the expertise that would have allowed them to review this?? 

I think it's more sensible to not be hasty in a pandemic, maybe more than just in normal times. A lot of medicines have started off, in pre-print, looking great for treatment. And then they are decidedly NOT great after review and further study.  How many pre-prints turn out to have mistakes or confounders that the authors didn't think of? How many don't make it through peer review because of whatever reason? I can't imagine it is zero. 

I don't know if they have the expertise or not. They did not seem to think they could conduct a review on the fly for purposes of this vote. That hardly seems arrogant in any case. I honestly would assume they would only use peer-reviewed and vetted papers to come to their decision.

On one hand you're saying they're arrogant, and then complaining they won't take it upon themselves to be the arbiters of the peer-review process. I feel like it would be some sort of conflict of interest for them to review the data that also informs their votes. Definitely it should be reviewed outside of the process of using it to determine what course of action should be recommended, from my view.

You also seem to be saying above that even after something is peer reviewed we can't necessarily consider it to be error free. All the more reason to be cautious, then, no?

No, I don't have a phd in probability, no I don't have a husband involved in the peer review process for this stuff. I have said many times in this thread that I don't have this expertise of you or corraleno. If you only want to talk about this with people who do, or only want perspectives from people who do, then I think maybe you could put me on ignore? I don't mean that maliciously, I just don't think I'm the person you want to talk things out with because I cause you to have a feeling of your head banging against the wall.

 

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38 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I saw that study, it involved 32 cases in Canada, all of whom fully recovered within a few days with no complications. On the other hand, estimates of post-covid myocarditis range from 2% to 20%, depending on the severity of the illness.

The Big 10 conference requires that any varsity athlete who has had covid must undergo comprehensive cardiac testing before they can return to practice. Using the same diagnostic technique (CMR) that they used in the Canadian study, they found myocarditis in 2.3% of athletes who had covid. That's 1 in 43 —  in super fit young people — vs 1 in 1000 in the general population. And in Israel it was 1 in 18,000, and only 1 in 2.8 million for booster doses. There is no question that the risk of myocarditis is vastly higher in people who get covid vs people who get the vaccine.

Yes, it’s the Canadian study.

I did not realize myocarditis from Covid was that high. Yikes.

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6 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

It's not because I think the political pressure is a good way to go about things. It's because in this case, I think the Biden administration has facts and truth and science on their side!! 

So political pressure should be used in situations where one personally thinks the ends justify the means? Anyone using political pressure to do things obviously thinks the facts and truth are on their side. This is totally begging the question, lol. No one is using political pressure on the fda to do things they think are wrong unless they are evil.
 

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7 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Giving up your booster will not somehow magically get that dose into the arm of someone in Africa. For one thing, the US is not going to buy and donate millions of extra doses now, and then buy millions more when they finally decide we do need boosters. It just means we'll wait and do boosters later — after many more people will have gotten sick unnecessarily. The idea that if the US doesn't use the doses right now then poor people will get them also ignores the enormous issues with lack of infrastructure in poor countries. Tens of thousands of doses that were sent to Africa were destroyed because there was no distribution system.


You asked me if I would give away a medical procedure. In the case of the vaccine, the answer is yes, I would give away a 3rd dose to someone who had not had their first. Now you're shifting goal posts to say that if I gave it away it would go into the trash. Well, no I would not give it away for it to be thrown away. But:

 

Hmm, the West sending aid that doesn't get used or gets misappropriated so they can then claim they shouldn't even bother. I think I've heard this story before somewhere.

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39 minutes ago, wathe said:

Definitely true.

But the calculus here is risk of myocarditis from third dose vs risk of myocarditis from covid in a fully (double) vaccinated person combined with the risk of catching covid as a fully vaccinated person in the first place.  I don't know how those numbers work out.  It will depend on the local covid prevalence and what other public health measures are in place.

Yes, and further what I’m wondering is the way myocarditis from vaccine could potentially be played up by anti-vaxxers. The general public does not seem to understand that some of the problems caused by vaccines also can be caused by the infection.

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17 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Who do think does peer review? If the members of the committee who are making decisions that will have life or death consequences for million of Americans are not qualified to review this data, then why are they there? What don't we get some people on the vaccine committee who are qualified to review vaccine data? Two members of the committee are biostatisticians — they certainly should be capable of understanding the statistics.

Peer review includes much more than reviewing data.  It includes considering study design and it is usually an iterative process.  The reviewers come back and ask the authors of a study to also calculate X, Y, or Z or include a, b, and c.  

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21 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

We're about to see whether they are right that it's a small public health benefit. I'm frankly pretty worried about that. Israel has had fairly high death rates recently despite most people being vaxxed. 

FWIW,  well Israel is more highly vaccinated than the US, they’re not as vaccinated as a lot of people think. They started early, but their coverage is at 64% of their population right now. Chart below.

14 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

So political pressure should be used in situations where one personally thinks the ends justify the means? Anyone using political pressure to do things obviously thinks the facts and truth are on their side. This is totally begging the question, lol. No one is using political pressure on the fda to do things they think are wrong unless they are evil.
 

No, in matters related to health, I don’t think it should be. There are some issues which I guess are political in their very nature, but the less science is, the better. At its foundation, there’s nothing political about science, it’s only what people do to make it so. Healthcare is political as far as how it is provided, but not as far as what makes for better health. 

3D6FA974-21D8-4AF3-B988-405A68F3C0FB.jpeg

Edited by KSera
Forgot the chart
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13 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

So political pressure should be used in situations where one personally thinks the ends justify the means? Anyone using political pressure to do things obviously thinks the facts and truth are on their side. This is totally begging the question, lol. No one is using political pressure on the fda to do things they think are wrong unless they are evil.
 

I’d much rather we didn’t need political pressure to keep people safe, frankly.

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Just now, BronzeTurtle said:

You asked me if I would give away a medical procedure. In the case of the vaccine, the answer is yes, I would give away a 3rd dose to someone who had not had their first. Now you're shifting goal posts to say that if I gave it away it would go into the trash. Well, no I would not give it away for it to be thrown away. But:

You totally misunderstood my point. I never suggested that you forgoing a medical procedure meant that procedure would go to some other person. I said if your friends and relatives told you not to get the procedure because they wanted you to give them the money you would have spent on the procedure, would that make you think the procedure was unsafe. The point is that there is a clear conflict of interest in people recommending that you not get something that will help you because they want you yo give them the money instead.

 

Just now, BronzeTurtle said:

Hmm, the West sending aid that doesn't get used or gets misappropriated so they can then claim they shouldn't even bother. I think I've heard this story before somewhere.

You're suggesting that the countries who donated all those doses knew they would be destroyed, and did it just so they could use it as a n excuse not to send more??? That is serious tin foil hat territory. Those doses were distributed by the WHO and by the African Union. 

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Just now, Not_a_Number said:

That’s everyone, right? Not just adults. 

Yes. Percent of total population. I believe Israel has a larger young population of the US, so that affects things. But as we’ve seen, the virus spreads extremely well in the young, so from an epidemiological curve perspective, it makes the most sense to see what percentage of the entire population is vaccinated, not just what percentage of those eligible.

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9 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

So political pressure should be used in situations where one personally thinks the ends justify the means? Anyone using political pressure to do things obviously thinks the facts and truth are on their side. This is totally begging the question, lol. No one is using political pressure on the fda to do things they think are wrong unless they are evil.
 

The reason people are exasperated with you is that the same questions have been repeatedly asked and answered.

No one here believes political pressure should be used to manipulate the scientific data or to approve medications (vaccines included)n that are not demonstrably shown to be safe and effective. Full stop.

In matters of public health policy--which involves judgement calls on how to act (or not act) on the evidence--there will be input and pressure. The WHO has put heavy pressure on first world countries not to give their citizens (and residents) third doses while much of the world has not been vaccinated. Their reasoning, which one can sympathise with, is flawed--as delaying boosters here will not result in more vaccines flowing overseas. The USA--as has been explained repeatedly--is on the forefront of purchasing vaccines for poor countries.

Public health policy is a "policy."

Bill

 

 

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1 minute ago, KSera said:

Yes. Percent of total population. I believe Israel has a larger young population of the US, so that affects things. But as we’ve seen, the virus spreads extremely well in the young, so from an epidemiological curve perspective, it makes the most sense to see what percentage of the entire population is vaccinated, not just what percentage of those eligible.

I do agree that Israel isn't really more vaccinated than the Northeast, for example. But it's quite similar vaccinated to the Northeast, and this didn't prevent a really big spike. When the spike started, they immediately started boosters and tamped things down. I think they are currently claiming the boosters made a really big difference... and yet even with the booster, they had a lot of deaths. 

So what I'm worried about is that we're going to have a similar spike as Israel did, without the prompt response on the part of our government 😕 . I don't want things to get bad here again. I'm worried about my in-laws. I'm worried about other people we know who are not that young and who are DONE being careful. 

What I want most of all is to feel like the FDA is right, OK? I wish I felt safe with their decision. And I really don't. I don't have faith that they did the right thing. 

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Just now, Corraleno said:

 

You're suggesting that the countries who donated all those doses knew they would be destroyed, and did it just so they could use it as a n excuse not to send more??? That is serious tin foil hat territory. Those doses were distributed by the WHO and by the African Union. 

No, I'm saying that the West is very bad about claiming that places like Africa don't deserve help or aid in any form (monetary or otherwise) because they are too simple (for lack of a better word) to handle the aid properly. That claim has been made by rich countries for a long time. We just can't help them because, look, the warlords take the food, or they can't handle that much money, or they don't have the infrastructure for distribution. Meanwhile organizations like the UN actively sabotage and pillage in those places they claim to be trying to help, or drop a bunch of food aid in places they know are volatile and then claim no responsibilty for its misuse and then turn around and blame some other problem. This is not tinfoil conspiracy. It actually happens. I'm sure these vaccine initiatives are much the same. No, you can't send vaccines to places without refrigeration and staff to distribute because they will go bad. If that was done it was either deliberate or really, really stupid. Obviously. This is probably another subject for a different thread though.

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6 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I do agree that Israel isn't really more vaccinated than the Northeast, for example. But it's quite similar vaccinated to the Northeast, and this didn't prevent a really big spike. When the spike started, they immediately started boosters and tamped things down. I think they are currently claiming the boosters made a really big difference... and yet even with the booster, they had a lot of deaths. 

So what I'm worried about is that we're going to have a similar spike as Israel did, without the prompt response on the part of our government 😕 . I don't want things to get bad here again. I'm worried about my in-laws. I'm worried about other people we know who are not that young and who are DONE being careful. 

What I want most of all is to feel like the FDA is right, OK? I wish I felt safe with their decision. And I really don't. I don't have faith that they did the right thing. 

Do you think they really tamped things down with boosters? Because their latest wave looks like the same 2-month cycle that covid always go through in a wave.

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44 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Who do think does peer review? If the members of the committee who are making decisions that will have life or death consequences for million of Americans are not qualified to review this data, then why are they there? What don't we get some people on the vaccine committee who are qualified to review vaccine data? Two members of the committee are biostatisticians — they certainly should be capable of understanding the statistics.

Well first of all the roles are completely different.  And secondly, it would be a conflict of interest for a panelist to make public recommendations based on his own work.

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47 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yes. And there'd be another 200 at the pharmacy that would probably be tossed anyway! 😛 We aren't having a shortage here. 

OK but if boosters became the standard for everyone, as you seem to want, how exactly do you expect that to be funded?  At that point we're talking about hundreds of millions of new doses distributed and administered around the whole country (and probably elsewhere).  Are we also prepared to fund that third dose for the entire developing world, or is it only US citizens who deserve that?

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2 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

No, I'm saying that the West is very bad about claiming that places like Africa don't deserve help or aid in any form (monetary or otherwise) because they are too simple (for lack of a better word) to handle the aid properly. That claim has been made by rich countries for a long time. We just can't help them because, look, the warlords take the food, or they can't handle that much money, or they don't have the infrastructure for distribution. Meanwhile organizations like the UN actively sabotage and pillage in those places they claim to be trying to help, or drop a bunch of food aid in places they know are volatile and then claim no responsibilty for its misuse and then turn around and blame some other problem. This is not tinfoil conspiracy. It actually happens.

No one said they don't "deserve" help. The US provides $8.5 billion in aid to sub-Saharan Africa every year.  We are donating half a billion doses of vaccine, more than the entire EU combined.

 

2 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

 I'm sure these vaccine initiatives are much the same. No, you can't send vaccines to places without refrigeration and staff to distribute because they will go bad. If that was done it was either deliberate or really, really stupid. Obviously. This is probably another subject for a different thread though.

Most of the 450,000 vaccines doses that were destroyed were Astra Zeneca, which doesn't have unusual storage requirements. If you think the distribution was "stupid" or a "deliberate" attempt to sabotage African counties, then blame the WHO and the African Union, not the US.

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8 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

Do you think they really tamped things down with boosters? Because their latest wave looks like the same 2-month cycle that covid always go through in a wave.

Yes. I'm absolutely sure they tamped things down with boosters. They've had data coming out on booster efficacy for the last month. 

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21 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

What I want most of all is to feel like the FDA is right, OK? I wish I felt safe with their decision. And I really don't. I don't have faith that they did the right thing. 

Weren't you saying just last week that you'd be worry free and back to normal once your kids could be vaccinated?

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7 minutes ago, SKL said:

OK but if boosters became the standard for everyone, as you seem to want, how exactly do you expect that to be funded?  At that point we're talking about hundreds of millions of new doses distributed and administered around the whole country (and probably elsewhere).  Are we also prepared to fund that third dose for the entire developing world, or is it only US citizens who deserve that?

The same way we are paying for the far more expensive monoclonal antibody treatments.

Who will pay for extended ICU hospitalizations and the devastation  of Covid deaths?

Are you remotely serious?

Bill

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1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yes. I'm absolutely sure they tamped things down with boosters. They've had data coming out on booster efficacy for the last month. 

But what about places where their cases declined without boosters? Within the same sort of time frame relative to the start of the wave? You're making a claim of causation of booster efficacy being the reason their wave declined, no? Do we know that the efficacy of boosters is the reason their wave peaked and then went down I guess is what I'm asking. And if we know that, why do other waves seem to ebb and flow at a similar rate without boosters?

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10 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

 

No one said they don't "deserve" help. The US provides $8.5 billion in aid to sub-Saharan Africa every year.  We are donating half a billion doses of vaccine, more than the entire EU combined.

 

Most of the 450,000 vaccines doses that were destroyed were Astra Zeneca, which doesn't have unusual storage requirements. If you think the distribution was "stupid" or a "deliberate" attempt to sabotage African counties, then blame the WHO and the African Union, not the US.

Exactly!

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18 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Israel currently has the best data, because they vaccinated the earliest. We simply don't have enough US data just yet, since most people got vaccinated in the spring. I'm sure we'll have more data once Delta hits the Northeast and lots of older folks start getting sick due to waning immunity and the cold weather forcing people to be indoors 😕 .

When I listened to Shane Crotty last week I believe he said the Israeli data had not been peer reviewed yet, unless that changed in the last few days, and I think he may have even said that it wasn’t fully available to be reviewed yet. So how do we know the Israeli’s have the best data? 
I’m kind of holding my fire on this one still, in terms of thinking we have definitive answers yet.

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6 minutes ago, TCB said:

When I listened to Shane Crotty last week I believe he said the Israeli data had not been peer reviewed yet, unless that changed in the last few days, and I think he may have even said that it wasn’t fully available to be reviewed yet. So how do we know the Israeli’s have the best data? 
I’m kind of holding my fire on this one still, in terms of thinking we have definitive answers yet.

It was peer reviewed and published in advance of the vote by the New England Journal of Medicine. I posted the link upthread.

Bill

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29 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

But what about places where their cases declined without boosters? Within the same sort of time frame relative to the start of the wave? You're making a claim of causation of booster efficacy being the reason their wave declined, no? Do we know that the efficacy of boosters is the reason their wave peaked and then went down I guess is what I'm asking. And if we know that, why do other waves seem to ebb and flow at a similar rate without boosters?

You can compare the rates of COVID in people who did and didn't get boosters for that. They've done that. 

As for a similar rate, they have a lower death rate than almost anywhere in the US. 

You've asked a lot of questions here. My question is whether you've given any thought to what kinds of answers you'd find convincing or acceptable. Like, what would convince you that boosters made a difference in Israel? How would you check the hypothesis that they didn't? 

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19 minutes ago, TCB said:

So how do we know the Israeli’s have the best data? 

They have the best data by definition because 

(a) They vaccinated with the mRNA vaccines the earliest 

and 

(b) They have national healthcare, meaning they have a good compilation of data to begin with. 

Now, could that paper have screwed up this goldmine somehow? Yes, it could have. I don't expect it has, though. 

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1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

We're about to see whether they are right that it's a small public health benefit. I'm frankly pretty worried about that. 

Yeah, the peak of vaccine uptake in the US was in April, when everyone under 65 became eligible in every state, so there is going to be a huge number of people hitting that 6-8 month mark, when data suggest that vaccine efficacy will have dropped to 30-40% or less, just as the holidays hit. I fear we may see another big spike this winter, and the FDA will be sitting there going "wow, who could have possibly predicted this?"

 

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2 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Yeah, the peak of vaccine uptake in the US was in April, when everyone under 65 became eligible in every date, so there is going to be a huge number of people hitting that 6-8 month mark, when data suggest that vaccine efficacy will have dropped to 30-40% or less, just as the holidays hit. I fear we may see another big spike this winter, and the FDA will be sitting there going "wow, who could have possibly predicted this?"

What I worry about is that they'll wait until the TOP of the spike to even do anything. They'll assemble a panel that meets on the usual schedule, and then everything will proceed at the usual glacial pace... while people are getting sick and dying all over the place. 

I also worry about whether older folks will get their booster. Right now, things are looking so equivocal that people may very well absorb the mixed messages and decide they don't REALLY need it 😕 . 

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5 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

Yeah, the peak of vaccine uptake in the US was in April, when everyone under 65 became eligible in every state, so there is going to be a huge number of people hitting that 6-8 month mark, when data suggest that vaccine efficacy will have dropped to 30-40% or less, just as the holidays hit. I fear we may see another big spike this winter, and the FDA will be sitting there going "wow, who could have possibly predicted this?"

 

The thread will be here in January.

I'd love to be wrong (really, really, really) but with waning immunity, a breakdown of caution, winter weather and increased indoor activities, combined with the holidays, I strongly suspect we will experience another surge.

One we could have fended off. Feels to me like watching a slow motion train wreck.

I think that in January (if not sooner) public health authorities in this country will be begging people to get their boosters. The cost will be needless death and long term illness. Damn shame.

Bill

 

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Just now, Spy Car said:

One we could have fended off. Feels to me like watching a slow motion train wreck.

Same here. 

Really, I agree with your entire post. I think you're right and I wish you weren't. 

Of course, I could be wrong. So far, school has been going OK in places that take precautions, so it's possible I was wrong about that! (I'm still wondering what'll happen when the rates of community transmission are higher, though. But so far, I'll note I was wrong.) 

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I think you guys are being too pessimistic.  I think they're approving the higher risk people knowing that kids will be eligible soon and that the data from the higher risk people will be helpful in deciding on boosters for younger people.  For example, if kids and high risk people are vaxed and boosted, the risk/benefit may no longer support boosting a 16 year old male.  They can always say a month later that there is sufficient evidence at that point.

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37 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I do agree that Israel isn't really more vaccinated than the Northeast, for example. But it's quite similar vaccinated to the Northeast, and this didn't prevent a really big spike. When the spike started, they immediately started boosters and tamped things down. I think they are currently claiming the boosters made a really big difference... and yet even with the booster, they had a lot of deaths. 

So what I'm worried about is that we're going to have a similar spike as Israel did, without the prompt response on the part of our government 😕 . I don't want things to get bad here again. I'm worried about my in-laws. I'm worried about other people we know who are not that young and who are DONE being careful. 

What I want most of all is to feel like the FDA is right, OK? I wish I felt safe with their decision. And I really don't. I don't have faith that they did the right thing. 

Goodness knows I don’t want another spike here either. I haven’t looked Enough at the Israel data, I need to do some more in order to have more definitive thoughts on their situation there. It’s hard to compare because their overall numbers are so many orders of magnitude less than ours. If I’m calculating right from quick numbers, their current spike has had a lower rate of death per population than our current spike. I don’t doubt the boosters are helping, I would think particularly by boosting those who are older and at high risk. Which we will be doing as well. I need to look at that more later. 
 

Again, I’d love a booster and will take one of offered (I might qualify under high risk, but depends how they define). 

14 minutes ago, BronzeTurtle said:

But what about places where their cases declined without boosters? Within the same sort of time frame relative to the start of the wave? You're making a claim of causation of booster efficacy being the reason their wave declined, no? Do we know that the efficacy of boosters is the reason their wave peaked and then went down I guess is what I'm asking. And if we know that, why do other waves seem to ebb and flow at a similar rate without boosters?

We do have separate data showing that the boosters have been effective in reducing illness and death, without relying on a decrease in their overall case numbers at all.

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1 minute ago, Syllieann said:

I think you guys are being too pessimistic.  I think they're approving the higher risk people knowing that kids will be eligible soon and that the data from the higher risk people will be helpful in deciding on boosters for younger people.  For example, if kids and high risk people are vaxed and boosted, the risk/benefit may no longer support boosting a 16 year old male.  They can always say a month later that there is sufficient evidence at that point.

I hope so. I hope they actually approve Pfizer for kids soon and don’t drag their feet.

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2 minutes ago, Syllieann said:

I think you guys are being too pessimistic.  I think they're approving the higher risk people knowing that kids will be eligible soon and that the data from the higher risk people will be helpful in deciding on boosters for younger people.  For example, if kids and high risk people are vaxed and boosted, the risk/benefit may no longer support boosting a 16 year old male.

Getting vaccines approved for children will be huge--assuming parents are not anti-vaxers. And let's hope the final FDA guidelines are pretty broad for adults who are at risk either due to high exposure on the job or due to underlying conditions.

*If* there is widescape immunization of children and the booster requirements are broad, I'd be more optimistic about the prospects of the vaccinated. 

Bill

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8 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I hope so. I hope they actually approve Pfizer for kids soon and don’t drag their feet.

I will feel a lot better when the elementary school kids can get vaxxed.

Two weeks into school, it doesn't seem to be an unmitigated disaster yet (there is a mask mandate in school, but they're off for lunch).  Reports by the end of the last week are that there are about 1400 school cases statewide, with about 1200 of those being kids, the rest adults.  I cannot find the stats broken down by age (I would love to know if those are mostly among the kids too young to be vaxxed), nor what they're doing about any possible quarantining.  Which is annoying.  I am less and less impressed with our governor's handling of things as time goes on.  

People here at least don't seem to be shy about getting their kids vaxxed.  The percentage of kids 16-19 who have the vax is actually higher than any age group under 75 (it's 95+%), so I feel pretty good about high schools...  the lower age group (12-15) is less fully vaxxed, but over 90% have their first dose, so I'm thinking that's partly a timing thing.

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35 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

 

No one said they don't "deserve" help. The US provides $8.5 billion in aid to sub-Saharan Africa every year.  We are donating half a billion doses of vaccine, more than the entire EU combined.

 

Most of the 450,000 vaccines doses that were destroyed were Astra Zeneca, which doesn't have unusual storage requirements. If you think the distribution was "stupid" or a "deliberate" attempt to sabotage African counties, then blame the WHO and the African Union, not the US.

I definitely did not see the "blame Africa for problems with aid from the West" argument coming. Definitely got the impression that people here were more progressive than that. I don't have the energy for a different thread though. I will say that in my opinion, providing aid means making sure our half a billion doses get into arms. Providing 450k vaccines is not providing aid if the doses don't get into arms. Same with the US providing half a billion. It is a meaningless figure without them actually being used. In any case, this is very far off your original question.

 

6 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

You can compare the rates of COVID in people who did and didn't get boosters for that. They've done that. 

As for a similar rate, they have a lower death rate than almost anywhere in the US. 

You've asked a lot of questions here. My question is whether you've given any thought to what kinds of answers you'd find convincing or acceptable. Like, what would convince you that boosters made a difference in Israel? How would you check the hypothesis that they didn't? 

You're asking how I would prove a negative? Or how I would prove causation with many, many confounders? I would look at Israel's wave in the context of other countries waves and compare them, for one. I would look at places that vaxxed more recently that don't have waning immunity yet. THis is all hypothetical, of course, because I don't know from research, but I think even the biggest brains have trouble with correlation, causation, and proving negatives. "I'm not sure it was the boosters that cause the wave to decline looking at waves of covid in other places," "But how do you know it *isn't* boosters?" Okay, you've got me there. You've already said you're willing to get a 3rd shot regardless for yourself. As many have pointed out, I guess we all just have to make the best decisions for ourselves as individuals based on what we view is right. That works for me. I think individuals will always do what they think is in their best interest anyway. I was initially surprised that people here were willing to write off the fda advisory panel, but I think I sort of get it now. 

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They are talking about approval for kids coming around Halloween, which means the very first kids to line up for the shots will be getting the first dose in early November and the second in early December, and full immunity kicks in 2 weeks after that. Any kids who aren't vaxxed right away in early November are not going to have immunity by Christmas.

 

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1 hour ago, BeachGal said:

The general public does not seem to understand that some of the problems caused by vaccines also can be caused by the infection.

Frustratingly true. A lot of people do not understand that damage from viruses can be cumulative as well, so if you've had the flu multiple times, for instance, that your body could be primed for that one next thing (virus, illness, stress, vaccine) could put you over the top for some kind of complication. 

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14 minutes ago, KSera said:

 

We do have separate data showing that the boosters have been effective in reducing illness and death, without relying on a decrease in their overall case numbers at all.

Yes, but the people who are at high risk for severe illness and death from covid are being recommended boosters in the US too, right? That was the recommendation of the committee? It's not like the fda said boosters shouldn't be given to anyone. Just that you likely don't need one if your immune system functions normally and you already got 2 shots.

To me it makes sense. But then again, the 1 dose regimen the uk is recommending for young men 12-15 also makes sense to me, and I bet I'm in the minority here for that as well.

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5 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Right. Whereas the data suggests that they are effective and safe. 

DH said he read the meeting minutes and they basically discounted the Israeli data because it's not peer-reviewed yet 😕 . I don't see why they couldn't have done some kind of review process themselves... that seems so arrogant. 

I am currently watching the meeting recording.  It is 8 hours long so I am not to any conclusions or any possible comments of discounting the Israeli data in final analysis.

However, I have watched about 45 minutes of presentation and questions and answers regarding the Israeli data.  So, the individuals on the committee did look at, consider, and raise questions regarding the data.  I don't see how one could conclude that they were being arrogant.  In an eight-hour meeting, when they are presented on the spot with the data, there is only so much review process that they can do.  

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