Ignoring that we were failed in terms of preventing the initial spread of this virus, these big pharma products are really not particularly great. But the state did fail to contain the virus, had to preserve the almighty :stonks-up: etc so just abdicated responsibility to big pharma and literally whatever shit they could pump out the fastest. So I'm sympathetic to your brother's concerns and others like his. They are somewhat correct unfortunately, though claims about it being "poison" are not. There is no long term data sufficient enough to disprove the idea that it could carry unknown harms. We do know it has plenty of potential harms for younger healthy people only, in terms setting them up for lifelong reinfection. For background, I'm a clinical data scientist, worked on hundreds of trials including many of the COVID medical products' trials.
There's a phenomenon in immunology which humans have known about for a number of decades, the Hoskins effect (or original antigenic sin, depending on how Biblical you like your terminology). Essentially the first version of a virus someone is exposed to is generally the only one that their immune system remembers during subsequent infections, no matter how many infections they have acquired subsequently. This is why someone's first influenza exposure can dictate how they handle every subsequent influenza season to a greater extent than other factor including immunization via flu vaccines.
COVID vaccines work by exposing you to a spike protein subunit, until recently this was what's called "Alpha", the one from the virus isolated at the end of 2019 in Wuhan. For some reason this was used in a rollout to the general population (not just the elderly or immune-compromised individuals). Imprinting individuals' immune memory with these moving target spike proteins essentially just sets those individuals up for recurring infections. If someone was younger and healthy, this was unnecessary.
A vaccine series targeting proteins other than the spike protein subunit would be much more effective as the drift from one mutation to the next is reduced. Additionally, leaky vaccines which don't stop transmission enhance mutagenic selection. Something mainstream sources were aware of when they could slander the Sputnik V vaccine, which ended up being more efficacious than any Western vaccine against Omicron. Sputnik V probably did create all of the risks identified at the time this article was written, but no more so than Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Janssen, BMS, Inovio, Novartis, Sinopharm, Sinovac, or any others that have been used in emergency or fully approved capacity.
Also FDA's approval for Pfizer's shot specifically is for something it doesn't do, and never did (emphasis mine):
Under this license, you are authorized to manufacture the product, COVID-19 Vaccine,
mRNA, which is indicated for active immunization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
in individuals 16 years of age and older.
I'm not sure I agree with the conclusions, but as a physician that's been accused of being a covid alarmist both IRL and on here, there is a small shred of truth to their post. The stuff about antigenic sin is completely wrong, on reread, which does lead me to believe they're lying about their qualifications.
Immunology is incredibly complex, very counterintuitive, still not fully understood, and the roll out of this vaccine was totally fucked at every step of the way. The underlying mRNA technology is an incredible advancement that's been studied for decades but never had adequate funding - don't get me wrong, I still recommend vaccination and got the most recent booster the first day it was available, but if I'm still alive when the full details come out decades later I guarantee it's gonna be bananas.
I haven't seen any specific evidence or indications that it goes beyond the normal corruption, copyright monopolies and bog standard market collusion, though, just to restate what should be clear. But as most people probably suspect, just like the incredibly confusing public health messaging, the airborne/mask deception, the vaccine testing and deployment could absolutely have been done just so much better.
2nd edit: I am happy to admit I was confused and mistaken, I thought 'original antigenic sin' was referring to antibody dependent enhancement, which is something completely different and was a much more prominent public debate earlier during covid and was a legitimate concern about the vaccine that turned out to not be an issue ultimately.
So mea culpa, I had forgotten completely about antigenic sin, but on re-reading some immunology references does show that there is again, a shred of truth there but I do not agree with the conclusion, and there is strong evidence against it. If I remember correctly (no guarantees) antigenic sin was largely discredited and thought to not be an accurate representation of how the immune system works, but there is still some debate over this, from what I can tell.
I am still suspicious that the description above of antigenic sin is the same misleading phrasing that wikipedia uses. But like I said, immunology is incredibly complex, very counterintuitive, and still not fully understood. The multiple studies by neutral parties that I have read over the last few years and pored over in detail do NOT support the conclusion that the vaccine "sets those individuals up for recurring infections." and in fact strongly supports the opposite, even for young and healthy people.
I will agree that the vaccine objectively sucks (in that it does not provide total immunity and I completely understand how a layperson got the impression it did) and was grossly misrepresented in terms of efficacy, that's an easy, lazy dunk on it.
Again - it's still worth getting, especially now that the virus (a vasculitis with substantial risk of permanent damage to a random % of your highly perfused organs, all of which are fairly fucking important) is the most contagious infectious disease known to man, now that it's passed measles.
China is absolutely the model for how we should have, and still ought to, be reacting to this biblical level plague. That's been my belief since March 2020. This could have all fucking been over years ago after a short, painful 2-3 week period, but no.
There’s a phenomenon in immunology which humans have known about for a number of decades, the Hoskins effect (or original antigenic sin, depending on how Biblical you like your terminology). Essentially the first version of a virus someone is exposed to is generally the only one that their immune system remembers during subsequent infections, no matter how many infections they have acquired subsequently. This is why someone’s first influenza exposure can dictate how they handle every subsequent influenza season to a greater extent than other factor including immunization via flu vaccines.
This is a problem with relying on "natural immunity" and repeatedly getting exposed to covid, also. Not just a potential problem with vaccinations.
Ignoring that we were failed in terms of preventing the initial spread of this virus, these big pharma products are really not particularly great. But the state did fail to contain the virus, had to preserve the almighty :stonks-up: etc so just abdicated responsibility to big pharma and literally whatever shit they could pump out the fastest. So I'm sympathetic to your brother's concerns and others like his. They are somewhat correct unfortunately, though claims about it being "poison" are not. There is no long term data sufficient enough to disprove the idea that it could carry unknown harms. We do know it has plenty of potential harms for younger healthy people only, in terms setting them up for lifelong reinfection. For background, I'm a clinical data scientist, worked on hundreds of trials including many of the COVID medical products' trials.
There's a phenomenon in immunology which humans have known about for a number of decades, the Hoskins effect (or original antigenic sin, depending on how Biblical you like your terminology). Essentially the first version of a virus someone is exposed to is generally the only one that their immune system remembers during subsequent infections, no matter how many infections they have acquired subsequently. This is why someone's first influenza exposure can dictate how they handle every subsequent influenza season to a greater extent than other factor including immunization via flu vaccines.
COVID vaccines work by exposing you to a spike protein subunit, until recently this was what's called "Alpha", the one from the virus isolated at the end of 2019 in Wuhan. For some reason this was used in a rollout to the general population (not just the elderly or immune-compromised individuals). Imprinting individuals' immune memory with these moving target spike proteins essentially just sets those individuals up for recurring infections. If someone was younger and healthy, this was unnecessary.
A vaccine series targeting proteins other than the spike protein subunit would be much more effective as the drift from one mutation to the next is reduced. Additionally, leaky vaccines which don't stop transmission enhance mutagenic selection. Something mainstream sources were aware of when they could slander the Sputnik V vaccine, which ended up being more efficacious than any Western vaccine against Omicron. Sputnik V probably did create all of the risks identified at the time this article was written, but no more so than Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Janssen, BMS, Inovio, Novartis, Sinopharm, Sinovac, or any others that have been used in emergency or fully approved capacity.
Also FDA's approval for Pfizer's shot specifically is for something it doesn't do, and never did (emphasis mine):
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I'm not sure I agree with the conclusions, but as a physician that's been accused of being a covid alarmist both IRL and on here, there is a small shred of truth to their post. The stuff about antigenic sin is completely wrong, on reread, which does lead me to believe they're lying about their qualifications.
Immunology is incredibly complex, very counterintuitive, still not fully understood, and the roll out of this vaccine was totally fucked at every step of the way. The underlying mRNA technology is an incredible advancement that's been studied for decades but never had adequate funding - don't get me wrong, I still recommend vaccination and got the most recent booster the first day it was available, but if I'm still alive when the full details come out decades later I guarantee it's gonna be bananas.
I haven't seen any specific evidence or indications that it goes beyond the normal corruption, copyright monopolies and bog standard market collusion, though, just to restate what should be clear. But as most people probably suspect, just like the incredibly confusing public health messaging, the airborne/mask deception, the vaccine testing and deployment could absolutely have been done just so much better.
2nd edit: I am happy to admit I was confused and mistaken, I thought 'original antigenic sin' was referring to antibody dependent enhancement, which is something completely different and was a much more prominent public debate earlier during covid and was a legitimate concern about the vaccine that turned out to not be an issue ultimately.
So mea culpa, I had forgotten completely about antigenic sin, but on re-reading some immunology references does show that there is again, a shred of truth there but I do not agree with the conclusion, and there is strong evidence against it. If I remember correctly (no guarantees) antigenic sin was largely discredited and thought to not be an accurate representation of how the immune system works, but there is still some debate over this, from what I can tell.
I am still suspicious that the description above of antigenic sin is the same misleading phrasing that wikipedia uses. But like I said, immunology is incredibly complex, very counterintuitive, and still not fully understood. The multiple studies by neutral parties that I have read over the last few years and pored over in detail do NOT support the conclusion that the vaccine "sets those individuals up for recurring infections." and in fact strongly supports the opposite, even for young and healthy people.
I will agree that the vaccine objectively sucks (in that it does not provide total immunity and I completely understand how a layperson got the impression it did) and was grossly misrepresented in terms of efficacy, that's an easy, lazy dunk on it.
Again - it's still worth getting, especially now that the virus (a vasculitis with substantial risk of permanent damage to a random % of your highly perfused organs, all of which are fairly fucking important) is the most contagious infectious disease known to man, now that it's passed measles.
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That's fair.
China is absolutely the model for how we should have, and still ought to, be reacting to this biblical level plague. That's been my belief since March 2020. This could have all fucking been over years ago after a short, painful 2-3 week period, but no.
This is a problem with relying on "natural immunity" and repeatedly getting exposed to covid, also. Not just a potential problem with vaccinations.