2089 replies to this topic

[Daniel Cooper]

Very good point

 

It is indeed rather perplexing how members of the forum will throw any experimental untested treatment down their throats with minimal concern for possible adverse effects. Yet they baulk at the mRNA vaccines that went through all the normal clinical trials for safety testing.

 

 

 

A case in point the compound C60 (buckminsterfullerene, or buckyballs): there was a massive interest in taking C60 on Longecity. Indeed a Longecity sub-forum was set up for C60, because there were so many people here taking it. Lots of people had been taking it daily for years.

 

People were swallowing this exotic compound like there was no tomorrow, even though there was very little animal safety testing performed on this novel substance.

 

Then one Longecity member decided to give C60 to 3 mice, in a small-scale home study. The result? All 3 mice died of cancer.

 

 

A not so minor difference between these two examples - no one was being compelled to ingest C60oo. No one had their employment threatened if they did not consume it. No one had their freedom of movement or freedom of association threatened.

 

Late night television comedians did not joke about how people who refused to take C60oo should be denied access to hospitals and allowed to die if they got sick.

 

Social media platforms never censored nor outright banned people that questioned the safety and effectiveness of C60oo.

 

In other words, whether or not a person consumed C60oo was an entirely voluntary decision.

 

Not so much with covid "jabs".

[Hip]

I believe we witness a lot of so-called "vaccine hesitancy" here precisely because members of this forum don't rely on doctors to assess the safety of their life-extension and other protocols.

 

They know this burden falls upon themselves, and they habitually research things before taking them.

 

Members of this forum don't rely on doctors and rely on their own research for safety testing, you say?

 

How does this statement square with the fact that hundreds of members of this forum were eagerly taking the novel compound C60 on a daily basis for years, even though there was little to no research, neither animal or human studies, that demonstrated the safety of C60?

 

C60 is a unique spherical molecule consisting of 60 carbon atoms which human beings have never taken or encountered before. But this did not phase Longecity members. Members were swallowing this novel chemical in their quest for immortality — a bit like that Chinese Emperor who drank mercury in the belief it would confer immortality. 

 

As it turned out, C60 can become carcinogenic under certain conditions of manufacturing. One theory is that exposure to light during manufacturing turns C60 into a carcinogen. 

 

This shows that if you try something which has not gone through the normal routes of safety testing, you are taking a major risk.

 

 

Thus looking at their track record, Longecity members are poor scientific decision makers when it comes to safety, and clearly their judgement is inferior to that doctors. No doctor would ever recommend C60, given it was never assessed for safety, yet Longecity members swallowed it by the gallon.

[Hip]

In other words, whether or not a person consumed C60oo was an entirely voluntary decision.

 

Yes, taking C60 was entirely voluntary, which makes Longecity members look even more foolish! They were ingesting a completely untested novel chemical compound — one unlike any previously known chemical — just out of their own free will! And they did this even though there was little to no animal or human testing to demonstrate safety.

 

There is a great paradox that longevity seekers on this forum will recklessly try out untested chemicals on themselves because of some fable that it might increase lifespan.

Edited by Hip, 07 September 2023 - 08:45 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

Yes, taking C60 was entirely voluntary, which makes Longecity members look even more foolish! They were ingesting a completely untested novel chemical compound — one unlike any previously known chemical — just out of their own free will! And they did this even though there was little to no animal or human testing to demonstrate safety.

 

The irony and paradox of longevity seekers on this forum recklessly trying out untested chemicals on themselves because of some fable that it might increase lifespan.

 

 

Ah, you're a slippery one Hip! I'll give you that!

 

You really did do the nice two-step and avoid entirely the fact that people were pressured, compelled, and in some cases pretty much forced to imbibe a very (very) novel vaccine with minimal testing because their betters "knew what was in their own best interests".   

 

And anyone that disagreed with this plan was mocked and forced out of the public square when it came to any debate about the issue.

 

I find all of that pretty unconscionable.

 

I'm guessing that you do not.

[Hip]

And anyone that disagreed with this plan was mocked and forced out of the public square when it came to any debate about the issue.

 

I find all of that pretty unconscionable.

 

The issue of COVID vaccine coercion is one we could debate, and we have debated quite a bit already.

 

But I don't think this has much bearing when considering Longecity member's attitudes to C60 safety versus COVID vaccine safety, since I am not aware of anyone here being forced into taking the COVID vaccines; thus I think people's vaccine choices here were voluntary. 

 

Therefore you have to question why there is so much worry, concern, anxiety, etc about the COVID vaccines, whereas we saw very little concern about taking C60. The COVID vaccines have gone through phase III clinical trials, C60 did not go through any human trials at all.

Edited by Hip, 07 September 2023 - 08:58 PM.

[Advocatus Diaboli]

Members of this forum don't rely on doctors and rely on their own research for safety testing, you say?

 

 

No, he didn't say that. Read again what he actually said:

 

"I believe we witness a lot of so-called "vaccine hesitancy" here precisely because members of this forum don't rely on doctors to assess the safety of their life-extension and other protocols."

 

His claim was that members "...don't rely on doctors to assess the safety of their life-extension and other protocols.". The claim may or may not be true, but its content certainly doesn't even remotely suggest what you charge .

 

 You have taken a specific claim about not relying on doctors for "life-extension and other protocols" and made it into a global claim about "don't rely on doctors" with you offering no specification of scope, as he did. 

Edited by Advocatus Diaboli, 07 September 2023 - 09:45 PM.

[Daniel Cooper]

The issue of COVID vaccine coercion is one we could debate, and we have debated quite a bit already.

 

But I don't think this has much bearing when considering Longecity member's attitudes to C60 safety versus the COVID vaccine safety, since I am not aware of anyone here being forced into taking the COVID vaccines; thus I think people's vaccine choices here were voluntary. 

 

Therefore you have to question why there is so much worry, concern, anxiety, etc about the COVID vaccines, whereas we saw very little concern about taking C60.

 

Well, let's discuss that. 

 

With respect to forcing people to take the vaccine, some people in the US were absolutely forced to chose between taking the vaccine and losing their job. Now, that's not exactly having a gun put to your head, but it's also not exactly having total free will with respect to taking the vaccine.

 

Then, when Pfizer was taken to court to try to compel them to release their internal data relating to safety and efficacy, they balked citing that it would release trade secrets. Now keep in mind, that technology is all under patent protection which pretty much forces you to pick between getting a patent and holding things as "trade secrets". You are not generally allowed to do both.

 

When the judge finally ordered them to release the data, they said "No problem judge, that should take about 75 years or so for us to get all the documents out".

 

Can you really blame people for being a little antsy given that behavior?

 

Then let's add on top of that Dr. Fauci and much of the rest of the US healthcare bureaucracy various lies and prevarications. Masks don't work, yes they do, in fact you should wear two .....  There in no way at all this virus escaped from a lab in China. Yada yada yada.  These sorts of things build the impression that the public isn't being dealt with honestly. Is it any wonder that people worry about this brand new type of vaccine that was tested in record time?

 

If there is distrust in the government and the healthcare bureaucracy, they really have no one to blame but themselves.

 

And all that doesn't even address the scientific publications that have occurred in the last couple of years that do bring some aspects of the vaccine's safety into question.

 

Frankly, I'd be shocked if people weren't worried about this stuff.

[DanCG]

Very good point

 

It is indeed rather perplexing how members of the forum will throw any experimental untested treatment down their throats with minimal concern for possible adverse effects. Yet they baulk at the mRNA vaccines that went through all the normal clinical trials for safety testing.

 

 

 

A case in point the compound C60 (buckminsterfullerene, or buckyballs): there was a massive interest in taking C60 on Longecity. Indeed a Longecity sub-forum was set up for C60, because there were so many people here taking it. Lots of people had been taking it daily for years.

 

People were swallowing this exotic compound like there was no tomorrow, even though there was very little animal safety testing performed on this novel substance.

 

Then one Longecity member decided to give C60 to 3 mice, in a small-scale home study. The result? All 3 mice died of cancer.

This analogy  is weak because it relies on an assumption that may not be true. A Venn diagram would show that the set of Longecity participants includes subsets of "C60 takers" and "Covid vaccine skeptics", but we don't know if those two subsets overlap at all.

[Hip]

This analogy  is weak because it relies on an assumption that may not be true. A Venn diagram would show that the set of Longecity participants includes subsets of "C60 takers" and "Covid vaccine skeptics", but we don't know if those two subsets overlap at all.

 

I appreciate your Venn diagram point. I guess we could ask the people who are regular posters in the COVID threads whether or not they took C60 during the C60 craze. Though I expect some might not want to admit they took C60 in such a reckless manner.

 

 

But irrespective of whether there is any Venn overlap, this forum as a whole has shown massive concern over mRNA vaccine safety. An unwarranted level of worry in my view, but nevertheless, that huge vaccine apprehension has been very apparent throughout the COVID threads.

 

The question is, did this forum as a whole also raise similar concerns about C60 safety during the C60 mania period?

 

Well looking through the threads of the C60 sub-forum, there is nothing there that shows the slightest concern for safety. Hundreds of forum members were guzzling this completely untested novel chemical, yet not one person raised an eyebrow about it. I see no threads in that sub-forum raising any concerns about C60 (either from people taking C60, or from those not taking it, but just observing the C60 craze).

 

 

We see from the COVID threads that there are some super-worried and super-cautious people here, who imagine all sorts of negative scenarios unfolding with the COVID vaccines (with little evidence to support their misgivings, but they worry anyway). So clearly this forum does not lack super-cautious and super-worrying members.

 

Yet where were these super-cautious members during the C60 craze? Why didn't at least one of these worrying types raise a note of concern about C60? That's really the question.

 

Why do we see all this worrying about the COVID vaccines from many people, but not one person spoke out during the time of the C60 fever?  

 

 

Edited by Hip, 08 September 2023 - 01:28 AM.

[Hip]

Then, when Pfizer was taken to court to try to compel them to release their internal data relating to safety and efficacy, they balked citing that it would release trade secrets. Now keep in mind, that technology is all under patent protection which pretty much forces you to pick between getting a patent and holding things as "trade secrets". You are not generally allowed to do both.

 

When the judge finally ordered them to release the data, they said "No problem judge, that should take about 75 years or so for us to get all the documents out".

 

Is there any evidence to suggest that the hidden (unpublished) negative issues about the COVID vaccines that Pfizer may know are any greater than the hidden negative issues associated with any other pharmaceutical drug or therapy developed by the pharma industry?

 

It's well known that the clinical trial phases I to III which are necessary to pass before a drug gets a marketing license cannot uncover all the adverse effects that the drug might cause. The final safety test only occurs post-marketing, when the drug goes on sale and is taken by millions of people. Only then do some of the adverse effects not picked up in the clinical trials come to light.

 

An example is SSRI antidepressants: it was discovered post-marketing that these drugs occasionally make depression worse rather than better, and in the case of teenagers prescribed SSRIs, this may push them over the edge to commit suicide. There are lots of teenage suicides linked to SSRIs. 

 

Once this suicide risk was discovered, the FDA required a black box warning (the strongest of all warnings) to be placed on packets of these antidepressants, stating that they may cause increased suicidal thinking and suicidal behaviour in some individuals under the age of 25.

 

Many pharmaceuticals have a similar story, of adverse effects only coming to light post-marketing, once millions of people are taking the drug. 

 

So I imagine if you forced pharma companies to open their files on all these drugs, some of these adverse effects might have been known about during the clinical trial phases I to III, but were hushed up, or were ignored because they did not reach statistical significance (in phase III trials, you only test on about 1000 people, so the power of statistical significance you get is not as great as when millions are taking the drug).

 

Thus the issues you raise about pharma company transparency might be nothing specific to the COVID vaccines, but might apply to all pharma products. 

 

Therefore, the question arises, why such a worry about the COVID vaccines in particular, and not all pharma products? After all, there are many on this forum taking all sorts of pharmaceutical drugs.

Edited by Hip, 08 September 2023 - 01:26 AM.

[Daniel Cooper]

Is there any evidence to suggest that the hidden (unpublished) negative issues about the COVID vaccines that Pfizer may know are any greater than the hidden negative issues associated with any other pharmaceutical drug or therapy developed by the pharma industry.

Of course the evidence would be in the unpublished data. When Pfizer gets around to releasing it we may find out. The fact that they have fought tooth and nail to prevent the release of that data does make you wonder if anything is there. To say nothing of their first attempt to release at a pace that would require a ridiculous 75 years to get it all out. A normal person hears that and thinks "Hummm .... what's up with that?".
 

Therefore, the question arises, why such a worry about the COVID vaccines in particular, and not all pharma products. After all, there are many on this forum taking all sorts of pharma drugs.

The reason to worry about covid vaccines in particular (specifically the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines) is because this is brand new never approved mRNA technology. And the evaluation was done in record time. Of course that would give any normal person that thought about it half a second some pause. There's nothing unreasonable about being more concerned about this vaccine than you would be about the yearly flu shot.

 

And the fact that people such as yourself ridicule that concern only makes those that are concerned more entrenched in their position. They have a perfectly legitimate issue. It's not helping anything by responding to their legitimate concern with a nonchalant dismissal. 

 

You really don't see the point that US health authorities haven't been completely forthright with the public. Fauci has straight out lied about WIV doing gain of function research that he was in part funding. He's lied about the possibility that sars-cov-2 escaped from the WIV. He lied about masks.

 

The reason you don't see this is as an issue is you believe two things simultaneously:

 

1.) The public should in general trust health authorities virtually completely. It is not the place of mere lay people out there in the unwashed masses to question their well credentialed betters.

 

2.) It's ok for health authorities (or indeed anyone in government/authority) to lie to the public as long as they believe they are doing it for their own good.

 

For some reason you don't understand that those are at the end of the day, mutually exclusive positions. You can believe one or the other but not both. The only way that both work simultaneously is for the public to never figure out they've been lied to. Unfortunately from your perspective, the public isn't quite as stupid as you imagine. Lies are usually found out in the long run.

 

Once the public figures out they've been lied to, you can't really expect them to believe whatever they are told without question. That's just the way the world works. Credibility is a precious commodity, not easily regained once spent.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 08 September 2023 - 02:21 PM.

[Hip]

The reason to worry about covid vaccines in particular (specifically the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines) is because this is brand new never approved mRNA technology. And the evaluation was done in record time. 

 

Every pharmaceutical drug released is effectively a brand new technology, because every chemical substance interacts with body receptors and pathways in multiple ways, some known and others unknown. 

 

There is just as much risk of serious adverse effects that might arise in the next drug released. And these adverse effects cannot be predicted in advance. Take the drug Vioxx: being just a simple NSAID anti-inflammatory in the same category as ibuprofen, it seemed innocuous, but it ended up killing around 40,000 in the US alone.

 

Therefore my question is why all the fuss over the COVID vaccines, and not over the dozens of new drugs released each year (not to mention the thousands of drugs already marketed).

[Empiricus]

Very good point

 

It is indeed rather perplexing how members of the forum will throw any experimental untested treatment down their throats with minimal concern for possible adverse effects. Yet they baulk at the mRNA vaccines that went through all the normal clinical trials for safety testing.

 

A case in point the compound C60 (buckminsterfullerene, or buckyballs): there was a massive interest in taking C60 on Longecity. Indeed a Longecity sub-forum was set up for C60, because there were so many people here taking it. Lots of people had been taking it daily for years.

 

People were swallowing this exotic compound like there was no tomorrow, even though there was very little animal safety testing performed on this novel substance.

 

Then one Longecity member decided to give C60 to 3 mice, in a small-scale home study. The result? All 3 mice died of cancer.

 

One difference between c60oo data and the COVID mRNA data is that we have a study showing some c60 fed rats lived almost twice as long as regular rats.  By contrast, in the animal study done on the mRNA vaccine, the scientists destroyed the rats shortly after vaccination.  So we don't know when the vaccinated rats would have died.  Who knows? Maybe the COVID vaccine shortened their lifespan.

 

COVID Vaccine Test Animals Were All Killed Shortly After Vaccination

https://www.igor-chu...als-were-killed

 

Given the animal study data at hand, is it really all that surprising that life extension enthusiasts would be more prone to experiment with c60 than mRNA?  

Edited by Empiricus, 08 September 2023 - 10:36 AM.

[Daniel Cooper]

Every pharmaceutical drug released is effectively a brand new technology, because every chemical substance interacts with body receptors and pathways in multiple ways, some known and others unknown. 

 

There is just as much risk of serious adverse effects that might arise in the next drug released. And these adverse effects cannot be predicted in advance. Take the drug Vioxx: being just a simple NSAID anti-inflammatory in the same category as ibuprofen, it seemed innocuous, but it ended up killing around 40,000 in the US alone.

 

Therefore my question is why all the fuss over the COVID vaccines, and not over the dozens of new drugs released each year (not to mention the thousands of drugs already marketed).

 

This assertion is of course preposterous.

 

mRNA vaccines are unique in that they inject genetic information into the cell that causes it to turn out copies of a specific protein. No other pharmaceutical on the market uses the cell's genetically driven machinery to "make things" in the body.

 

Now I understood the basics of how mRNA normally functions in the body to make specific proteins as required by the cell. And I was pretty confident and there were many public assurances that mRNA doesn't modify nuclear DNA. So in theory the mRNAs should run off maybe a few hundred copies of the spike protein then degrade and disappear. That didn't sound unreasonable to me, assuming that the spike protein wasn't itself damaging to the body which also turns out to probably not be the case in all people.

 

But then we had a paper come out that seems to show that under very specific circumstances mRNA can get transcribed back into nuclear DNA which was a surprise and then we've got this study that seems perfectly sound that is finding the specific vaccine spike protein (which is not exactly the same as made by the virus and therefore distinguishable) up to 6 months after the vaccine. That was not an expected result and may be explained by the vaccine mRNA get transcribed back into the cell's nuclear DNA. 

 

This was not an assumption that mRNA vaccines were built upon.

 

So to say that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are no different than any other pharmaceutical on the market and don't carry the potential for addition risk is frankly ludicrous.  

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 08 September 2023 - 02:20 PM.

[Hip]

So to say that the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are no different than any other pharmaceutical on the market and don't carry the potential for addition risk is frankly ludicrous.  

 

I think I have to disagree with you there. Any pharmaceutical product can cause dangerous or fatal side effects when one of its unknown mechanisms of action in the body cause trouble. It does not matter if the pharmaceutical product is a simple chemical molecule, or a complicated product such as these messenger RNA vaccines; in both cases, the potential for an unknown mechanism of action which causes harm is always there.

 

Any new pharmaceutical product brought to the market always carries risk. We only uncover these risks once the product has been taken by millions of people for many years. 

 

I am simply talking from a statistical basis here. If you were to Google for a list of pharmaceutical products which have caused the most harm from unknown adverse effects over the last 100 years say, I bet you would find that there is no relation between the complexity or novelty of the mechanism, and the emergence of adverse effects.

 

 

 

Of course anything new does tend to raise more worries, and this is fair enough. 

 

Look at the rollout of the cellular telephone system based on microwave radio communications: cellular telephones became widespread from around the 1990s, and there was a great deal of public concern about unforeseen adverse effect. Some of the doomsayers were predicting that the entire world population would grow cancerous tumours on their temples, the place where they held their phone to their head. As it turned out, there appear to be no major health disasters associated with cellular microwave communications. Although there are studies indicating that people living within 400 metres of a cellular base station may suffer more insomnia. 

 

 

Personally, I am more concerned with the widespread use of pesticide compounds, such as organophosphate chemicals. Many studies have linked these to developmental disorders such as autism. In the 1970s and 80s, I remember that pesticides were always in the newspapers, and people were very worried about them, because they were new at that time, and as I said, anything new raises worries.

 

But nowadays, the public and the media seem to have forgotten about the danger of pesticides; however, these chemicals are known to increase the risk of a number of chronic diseases, and even tiny exposures can damage the foetus during pregnancy, resulting in developmental disorders.

Edited by Hip, 08 September 2023 - 04:38 PM.

[Mind]

The FDA and CDC continue to hide data about adverse events related to the COVID injections, this time about how they changed their evaluation method.

 

 

[DanCG]

I think I have to disagree with you there. Any pharmaceutical product can cause dangerous or fatal side effects when one of its unknown mechanisms of action in the body cause trouble. It does not matter if the pharmaceutical product is a simple chemical molecule, or a complicated product such as these messenger RNA vaccines; in both cases, the potential for an unknown mechanism of action which causes harm is always there.

 

Any new pharmaceutical product brought to the market always carries risk. We only uncover these risks once the product has been taken by millions of people for many years. 

 

I am simply talking from a statistical basis here. If you were to Google for a list of pharmaceutical products which have caused the most harm from unknown adverse effects over the last 100 years say, I bet you would find that there is no relation between the complexity or novelty of the mechanism, and the emergence of adverse effects.

 

 

 

Of course anything new does tend to raise more worries, and this is fair enough. 

 

Look at the rollout of the cellular telephone system based on microwave radio communications: cellular telephones became widespread from around the 1990s, and there was a great deal of public concern about unforeseen adverse effect. Some of the doomsayers were predicting that the entire world population would grow cancerous tumours on their temples, the place where they held their phone to their head. As it turned out, there appear to be no major health disasters associated with cellular microwave communications. Although there are studies indicating that people living within 400 metres of a cellular base station may suffer more insomnia. 

 

 

Personally, I am more concerned with the widespread use of pesticide compounds, such as organophosphate chemicals. Many studies have linked these to developmental disorders such as autism. In the 1970s and 80s, I remember that pesticides were always in the newspapers, and people were very worried about them, because they were new at that time, and as I said, anything new raises worries.

 

But nowadays, the public and the media seem to have forgotten about the danger of pesticides; however, these chemicals are known to increase the risk of a number of chronic diseases, and even tiny exposures can damage the foetus during pregnancy, resulting in developmental disorders.

Yes, it is true that any pharmaceutical can have unpredicted harmful effects. This has happened many times in the past. I think you will find, though, that in the majority of cases there really was no basis for predicting the harm. As you say, the risks were uncovered after many people had taken the drug for many years. I would add that in the meantime basic science progressed and new mechanisms were uncovered.

 

In contrast, some experts were putting forth plausible mechanisms whereby the mRNA vaccines could be harmful from the beginning. Evidence for potential harm, such as accumulation of spike mRNA, spike protein, and/or lipid nanoparticles in the heart and ovaries, was found in the preclinical animal studies, but this was hidden from the public. The points made by Daniel Cooper in post 1364 are entirely valid.

 

I also agree that there are many dangers in the world, such as organophosphates, that deserve more public awareness. I am all in favor of learning what we can do corporately and individually to mitigate the risks. But there is only so much an individual can do.

 

I do, however, have some some control over whether a needle goes into my arm.

 

As for myself, I believed that the vaccines would behave as expected. I was aware that some people were predicting harm, but I also believed the now-discredited figures for case-mortality rates for people my age (68 at the time). So I reasoned that I had a choice between a real danger now vs. a hypothetical danger in the future and I went along with the first round of shots. I seem to have gotten away with it so far, but time will tell. Having studied the matter further since then, I have determined that I will not take another shot and I will discourage anyone who will listen from taking the shots.

 

Edited by DanCG, 08 September 2023 - 09:11 PM.

[Dorian Grey]

News Flash: FDA Vaccine Advisor Paul Offit says...  Don't bother with the new booster, unless you're already quite sickly or geriatric (75+).  

 

https://www.dailymai...da-vaccine.html

 

FDA vaccine adviser Dr Paul Offit says healthy young people don't need another Covid booster - despite new BA.2.86 variant pushing virus rates up

 

• Dr Paul Offit told DailyMail.com that healthy under-75s don't need the booster

Most Americans don't need another Covid booster shot, according to one of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) top vaccine advisers.

Dr Paul Offit, who advises the FDA on a range of shots for infectious diseases, told DailyMail.com middle-aged and younger Americans who do not have chronic diseases already had strong enough immunity through previous Covid vaccines and infections to prevent severe illness this winter.

His recommendation comes as the FDA prepares to approve new updated Covid boosters made by Pfizer and Moderna designed to target new variants. 

 

[Dorian Grey]

News Flash: Great Britain is restricting new COVID boosters to seniors 65+, and those with limited special considerations.  

 

https://www.bbc.com/...health-55045639

 

Who can have an autumn Covid booster?

 

The government has confirmed which groups will be entitled to an autumn booster:

 

• Residents in a care home for older adults
• All adults aged 65 years and over
• People aged six months to 64 years in a clinical risk group
• Frontline health and social care workers
• People aged 12 to 64 who are household contacts of people with weakened immune systems
• People aged 16 to 64 who are carers and staff working in care homes for older adults

In autumn 2022, all over-50s were offered an extra dose, but the government's advisers on vaccines recommended that only over-65s should automatically be included this year.

 

[Hip]

News Flash: Great Britain is restricting new COVID boosters to seniors 65+, and those with limited special considerations.  

 

Very interesting. 

 

I wonder to what extent the cost of the COVID vaccines came into play in that decision? By my calculation, shifting the eligibility age from 50 to 65 will save the UK $1.3 billion, if we assume a vaccine dose now costs around $100 (Pfizer quadrupled the vaccine price).

[Hip]

Having studied the matter further since then, I have determined that I will not take another shot and I will discourage anyone who will listen from taking the shots.

 

I've so far not come across anything that I found good evidence for harm caused by the COVID mRNA vaccines, apart from the fact that the COVID vaccines can sometimes trigger ME/CFS (as can most other vaccines too). This ME/CFS risk I consider the most serious adverse effect issue arising from any vaccine.

[Dorian Grey]

Very interesting. 

 

I wonder to what extent the cost of the COVID vaccines came into play in that decision? By my calculation, shifting the eligibility age from 50 to 65 will save the UK $1.3 billion, if we assume a vaccine dose now costs around $100 (Pfizer quadrupled the vaccine price).

 

There seems to be lots of cash for migrants, asylum seekers and Ukraine; it's amazing they'd risk a sharp spike in excess deaths among their citizens to save a few bob.  Perhaps after careful consideration, they realized vaccinating healthy young & middle aged was a bit pointless & futile, and wouldn't spike excess deaths if they skipped this cohort?  

[joesixpack]

Interesting that they are not requiring "migrants" to take the covid vaccine, just citizens.

 

Nice touch. They terminated the swine flu vaccine, after 50 deaths in the 70's. They are now encouraging everyone from 6 months, to 65+ to take it, an untested shot, with an EUA, after thousands have died, today. Disgusting. And it is up to $180.00 US now, if my recollection is correct.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Daniel Cooper]

I think I have to disagree with you there. Any pharmaceutical product can cause dangerous or fatal side effects when one of its unknown mechanisms of action in the body cause trouble. It does not matter if the pharmaceutical product is a simple chemical molecule, or a complicated product such as these messenger RNA vaccines; in both cases, the potential for an unknown mechanism of action which causes harm is always there.

 

Any new pharmaceutical product brought to the market always carries risk. We only uncover these risks once the product has been taken by millions of people for many years. 

 

I am simply talking from a statistical basis here. If you were to Google for a list of pharmaceutical products which have caused the most harm from unknown adverse effects over the last 100 years say, I bet you would find that there is no relation between the complexity or novelty of the mechanism, and the emergence of adverse effects.

 

 

 

Of course anything new does tend to raise more worries, and this is fair enough. 

 

Look at the rollout of the cellular telephone system based on microwave radio communications: cellular telephones became widespread from around the 1990s, and there was a great deal of public concern about unforeseen adverse effect. Some of the doomsayers were predicting that the entire world population would grow cancerous tumours on their temples, the place where they held their phone to their head. As it turned out, there appear to be no major health disasters associated with cellular microwave communications. Although there are studies indicating that people living within 400 metres of a cellular base station may suffer more insomnia. 

 

 

Personally, I am more concerned with the widespread use of pesticide compounds, such as organophosphate chemicals. Many studies have linked these to developmental disorders such as autism. In the 1970s and 80s, I remember that pesticides were always in the newspapers, and people were very worried about them, because they were new at that time, and as I said, anything new raises worries.

 

But nowadays, the public and the media seem to have forgotten about the danger of pesticides; however, these chemicals are known to increase the risk of a number of chronic diseases, and even tiny exposures can damage the foetus during pregnancy, resulting in developmental disorders.

 

I can't think of another drug that was fundamentally new technology that went from approval (or in this case a EUA) to over 1 billion uses in the space of 12 months. That's a rather startling fact if you'll pause to contemplate it.

 

Normally a new drug ramps naturally over time. So that when you start to see issues you can usually catch it before it's been given to say 15% of the entire population of the planet. 

 

This very rapid rollout was of course always the plan and in fact the authorities wish that they had given out more doses than what has actually occurred. 

 

There was always the risk if the mRNA technology fundamentally has issues or if these particular implementations of mRNA vaccines have issues, you will have given it to an enormous number of people before you figure it out. Which would argue in favor of a certain amount of conservatism in picking the vaccine.

 

This was always a high risk path that was chosen. Maybe things will work out ok. Maybe not. But this particular path that was chosen always had a foolhardy aspect to it.

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 11 September 2023 - 04:11 PM.

[Dorian Grey]

Step right up...  Bring the babies...  EVERYBODY gonna get BOOSTED!  

 

https://www.dailymai...ction-fall.html

 

FDA approves new Covid booster vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna for every American - including babies -

 

• The updated boosters have been approved for everyone over six months old 

[Daniel Cooper]

 

Step right up...  Bring the babies...  EVERYBODY gonna get BOOSTED!  

 

https://www.dailymai...ction-fall.html

 

FDA approves new Covid booster vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna for every American - including babies -

 

• The updated boosters have been approved for everyone over six months old 

 

 

Madness. 

 

This isn't science. This seems more like a religious fanaticism towards vaccines combined with corporate greed.

Edited by Daniel Cooper, 11 September 2023 - 09:56 PM.

[Gal220]

Dr Makary on the boosters

Biden Waves Through Another Covid Booster - WSJ

 

"There was plenty of time for Pfizer/Moderna to run a randomized trial to prove their new boosters work. Moderna's trial (of just 50 people) began~4 months ago &only reported 14-day side effects. Why didn't they enroll more ppl & report 3 mo. effectiveness?"

 

[Hip]

I can't think of another drug that was fundamentally new technology that went from approval (or in this case a EUA) to over 1 billion uses in the space of 12 months. That's a rather startling fact if you'll pause to contemplate it.

 

Normally a new drug ramps naturally over time. So that when you start to see issues you can usually catch it before it's been given to say 15% of the entire population of the planet. 

 

Yes, you have a point there. 

 

Though if you were the one making the decision, would you have cancelled the rollout of the mRNA and adenovirus vector COVID vaccines on these grounds?

 

On the one hand you have the possible adverse effects of these two new vaccine technologies; and on the other hand, you have millions of older or vulnerable people that COVID may kill if they do not receive this vaccine protection.

[Dorian Grey]

You have a point there too Hip.  My thoughts are...  You've simply got to admit & reveal any and all downsides to the vaccines, and allow the people to choose whether the risk/reward ratio appeals to them...  Or not!  

 

Rolling out the vaccines, & saying mandates are necessary, as this is the only way to "end the pandemic" was a dumpster fire of a way to introduce them.  What ever happened to science?  Risk vs Reward; & freedom to choose?  

 

I'm retired, so I don't give a rats a$$ about the stupid mandates, but I'll never forgive the prohibition on outpatient treatment, during the dark days of 2020/21.  I had to learn how to use bitcoin, & get simple over the counter meds from India, just to have something to take if I got sick.  I about fell to my knees when they arrived in the post.  

 

When I did get sick, I took the forbidden fruit, & guess what...  I didn't die!  But I did live happily ever after. 

 

We need to start learning to live & let live.  Wear masks if you want to...  Get vaccinated if you like...  Access outpatient plague treatment if it makes you feel better (IT DID!).  

 

What's all this "New Way" of coercion and mandates?  It's a shite way to treat your fellow man.  

 

[Daniel Cooper]

Yes, you have a point there. 

 

Though if you were the one making the decision, would you have cancelled the rollout of the mRNA and adenovirus vector COVID vaccines on these grounds?

 

On the one hand you have the possible adverse effects of these two new vaccine technologies; and on the other hand, you have millions of older or vulnerable people that COVID may kill if they do not receive this vaccine protection.

 

If I were the one making the decisions I'd want someone to give me a damned good reason why this vaccine needed to be developed with this mRNA technique. 

 

At the end of the day, you had four major vaccines in the West - Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, and Oxford/AstraZeneca. 

 

The J&J vaccine got pegged pretty early for causing clotting issues. But, ultimately all the vaccines were found to have clotting disorders as potential side effects and that may simply be inherent in using spike protein at the vaccine target.  J&J was always a distant 3rd place in the US and was ultimately withdrawn, but I think if you look carefully at the adverse risks you'll see it was actually similar to Moderna/Pfizer with respect to clotting which was only admitted as a side effect of those vaccines later.

 

Oxford/AstraZeneca was never approved in the US, but was used in the UK and the EU with success. It also had the issues with some patients clotting the same as J&J and the rest.

 

So you had two mRNA vaccines and two adenovirus vaccines. Had Moderna and Pfizer pursued something besides mRNA we would of course had other non-mRNA options.

 

My issue with the mRNA vaccine is that it is clear this was not the only viable technique. So why did two major drug companies pursue it? Because both of them had been trying to move mRNA vaccines out of the lab and into the field for almost 20 years without success. And the fact is, the normal rules frequently get thrown out the window in an emergency. You can do things in a crisis that you can never do in a normal time.

 

So I think Pfizer and Moderna both saw an opportunity to get an mRNA vaccines widely deployed which would break the log jam on getting approval on all the other mRNA applications they have in mind. And it worked. Other mRNA vaccines (mostly for oncology) are now moving fairly swiftly through the process. So I understand their motivation.

 

What I don't understand is why the FDA would play along with this gambit.  They well knew that this vaccine was going to get a very quick evaluation and would swiftly be used on 100's of millions and then billions of patients.  And they chose this very risky path when it was clearly not the only path. From a scientific point of view, from a risk assessment point of view, I don't think it ever made sense. But, given the revolving door between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry and Moderna/Pfizer's desire to move this technology out of development hell, it makes perfect sense.

 

Let's hope it pays off. Let's hope there are no long term issues with these vaccines and this technology. If that turns out to be the case, then we will reap a bounty for all the other applications of mRNA technology.

 

Let me close with the real irony here - Those 20 odd years that mRNA cancer vaccines languished in the lab due to the FDA's normally extremely high degree of risk aversion - that's exactly when this vaccine should have been trialed. They should have been doing trials on patients with cancer types with a very poor prognosis and giving them the option of having access to these vaccines. If you were just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, trying this new unproven technology is potentially a really good deal for you and the downside risks are almost none, as you're going to be dead from cancer in less than a year anyway.  So when 2020 rolled around and covid popped up, we should have had a good decade of experience with mRNA vaccines in numerous trials.

 

Instead, because the FDA is so normally risk adverse they refused to give access to mRNA technology to limited numbers of people that had already had potentially terminal diagnosis. Which then perversely lead them to throw caution to the wind and give these vaccines to a billion people that might get covid and might have a 0.1% chance of dying from it. 

 

Just think on that a bit.