My understanding is that mRNA vaccines were tested as a rabies vaccine not because there is a huge need for such, but because most humans are naive to the rabies virus. Meaning you wouldn’t be attributing positive results to the vaccine which were actually influenced by other factors.
In other words, the rabies vaccine study was not done exclusively for the purpose of creating an important rabies vaccine, but also to test whether or not mRNA vaccines are safe and effective. The conclusions were positive as to potential to develop this as a prophylactic rabies vaccine, but it seems that it wasn’t the sole purpose.
As a parent , if I had a child under 12, i would not be the first to line up to vaccinate them until there is more information for that age group. there is a difference between side affects on young children and adults.
in LA county if a 12 yo kid is not vaccinated by Jan 1st they will not be allowed in school. So now they attend virtual school . Who is watching attendance? We know last year with virtual school many kids never showed up, and nothing was done. Oh we are not talking btw about kids whose parents are hoping they are on a path to Harvard. Also under 18 cannot get vaccinated without parent/guardian approval, so they cant go behind their parents backs. Bored unvaccinated teens. extrapolate from there.
I am provax as mentioned before for myself and my young adults and family members. I am not pro-stick as much as most people on this thread are. They are just going to dig in their heels. And I contend that even at 90% vaccination this would not be going away. I am cautious about forcing kids to be vaccinated.
I’m not here to convince anyone to get their younger kids vaccinated. I simply asked a question of whether or not there has been a vaccine on the market and in widespread use that showed side effects that were unknown during testing and in real world practice and didn’t reveal themselves until much later (i.e. “long term effects”). You responded with an example of a vaccine which I think you meant to illustrate that such a thing had indeed happened. In reality, the opposite was true.
Per TOS, we aren’t allowed to argue, so this is the last post I’ll make concerning this specific issue because I don’t want to get a warning or suspension for “debating.”
I, as a healthcare provider don’t choose to be an early adopter for medications. The question becomes how do you know where that “early adopter” line is? For vaccines, it’s easy…6 weeks with 3 million or more doses worldwide.
The 6 weeks is solid science. No vaccine side effect, and there are vaccine side effects, has ever been reported to show up after 6 weeks, ever, for all the vaccines we’ve ever used. Anything is possible, but there’s no reason to believe these would be different.
The 3 million is something I stole from Paul Offit. One of his mentors said that he never feels comfortable until there are 3M doses in the field. With that many, you will have enough exposure to see every possible side effect, and again, they’re out there.
If side effects are rare, you weigh them with the disease effects. If not, distribution is halted, or stopped completely.
Since we have over 6 billion doses in the field worldwide, well get to 3M and 6 weeks in that age group pretty quickly.
Our local K-8 district in California has said they will require vaccination as soon as it’s FDA approved for kids 5-11. As someone who hesitated to get her son the 2nd shot (completed, but with a fair amount of angst and lots of reading–I still think it’s valid to consider that much of the world continues to hesitate about giving 2 shots to teenage boys) I have mixed feelings about this requirement. If I lived where there was a higher positivity rate or more vaccine reluctance (our R-eff is .84 with >90% 12+ vaccinated) I would be more in favor of a mandate. But given our numbers, I feel more willing to let parents of young kids have the option of waiting.
I understand what you are saying, but it may be worth considering just why the positivity rate in your area is low. Vaccinations are effective, and it seems incongruous to use the overwhelming effectiveness of vaccines as a reason to allow unvaccinated kids to attend schools.
I agree with you; vaccines are amazing and I am truly pro-vaccination for adults. If I could wave my magic wand and make all adults in the world be vaccinated, it would have happened long ago. I also don’t have a problem with both shots for girls and one shot for boys. But it would be really nice if we as a country could recognize the need for nuance (remember that word?) sometimes. It could be that one shot is enough for young kids. It could be that they need a smaller dose. It could be that we treat boys vs girls differently. And if parents want to wait until that 3M and/or 8 weeks from the last shot mark (I heard the same interview with Paul Offitt that it appears @eyemgh did) I’m ok with that.
Personally, I would vax my kids if they were young. Whether the current condition of public health in LA warrants a school mandate is a separate question.
The vaccines we have for COVID are very safe and very effective. That said, there are multiple unanswered things that require a level of nuance. It’s not that people aren’t asking the questions. It’s that they have yet to be studied and studies take time and money.
I don’t think anyone would argue against any mRNA vaccine for a young man. The questions are does the 1:50K risk of myocarditis change with the number of doses given? Can young, otherwise totally healthy young men get sufficient immunity from a single dose or multiple smaller dose? The best I know, no one knows.
I also don’t think anyone would argue that wild type infection immunity lasts forever. It’s well known that infection plus vaccination leads to a sort of bulletproof immunity, but would one dose be the same?
It all gets back to risk and reward, insufficient data or not. Right now, I think I’ll get a heterologous boost in November. I work very closely with patients, albeit, generally healthy ones. I don’t think I’d recommend my 25 year old, double mRNA dosed son do the same. His risk based on age and exposure is far lower.
I wasn’t trying to address your personal views on vaccinating children, but rather was addressing your claim that a mandate (and thus a higher vaccination rate in schools) may not lower the positivity rate. As explained in the link, experts not only disagree with your claim, they also list a number of other reasons why vaccinating school aged kids would have a number of other positive impacts.
I apologize if I came off snarky in my earlier statement re: nuance; that wasn’t my intention. I agree with everything you posted (not just what I quoted). Perhaps I just want some of those questions answered (re: decreasing risk). I guess we all do.
Vaccinating against any disease is a good idea, however, that doesn’t address whether it is warranted to mandate it for young children in the interest of public health. We don’t demand Hep A or HPV vax to attend school, though those are beneficial vaccines too. Given the apparently healthy conditions in LA now, is such a mandate really needed? I am not surprised some parents disagree
The answer may only be known in hindsight. Winter travel and family gatherings will be a test (not just in Los Angeles County).
Los Angeles County appears to be close to the state average in cases and deaths per 100,000 population. It was somewhat worse than the state average before vaccines were available.
Usually we require vaccines for school children for diseases threatening them (like polio) or for which they are the major source of transmission to a vulnerable population ( like rubella transmitted to pregnant women). If neither is the case in LA, why are children expected to assume this burden? Make the vax mandatory for adults, who both spread and suffer more.
About an hour ago, D got her flu vaccine. Her employer has required this for MANY years. If you don’t get it, you are gone, medical exemptions notwithstanding.
I have no doubt that there have been employees at her workplace over the years who quit or were fired for their “sincerely held religious beliefs”. Isn’t an essential tenet of most religions about putting others before yourself? About taking care of others? The “sincerely held religious belief” is selfish when your belief can make others sick and die. Religion isn’t about me me me. It’s about caring and love and uniting for a common goal, most often the preservation of the community to which they all belong.
A lot of vaccine reluctant people are uninformed, or scared, or mislead by lies. If someone gets covid naturally and is refusing to vaccinate, I logically can’t put them in the same bucket as those who refuse, lie about covid and vaccines, make up bogus religious excuses, etc… I understand that a lot of people need more information. At this point, however, most people in this country who aren’t vaccinated probably don’t want to be.
I am fed up with people saying that because many of us are upset about this, we call them ALL pariahs. NO, that’s not the case. At this stage, mostly anyone can find information online, or through family, or can find a way to get vaccinated. If you are choosing not to, it’s most likely because you don’t want to. That’s the truth.
Maybe you are scared or whatever, but unless you’ve been under a rock or are an active denier, you know covid is real and you know you can get a vaccine. You know this. EVERYONE knows this. It would be great if everyone with a reluctant family member or friend did their utmost to educate their friends or family and make them aware that they can easily do the right thing.
I thought the kid dose is a smaller dose? I don’t have young kids so haven’t followed that part except through headlines. Does someone else know?
I’ve told my youngest and his wife the same. If having the vax, then getting Covid turns out to be better than boosters, then they might be better off that way. They have time to wait. My older son sometimes works directly with Covid patients in the hospital - ventilators and all. He’s happily already had the booster along with everyone he knows who he works with. How much exposure one gets seems to make a difference in good/bad cases - though I’m not sure if that is absolutely known or just theorized.
