If I understand correctly, your point here is that a similar vaccine was canceled for having side effects, but it is...unreasonable to worry about this one having side effects? Again, even taking all your premises as fact, the conclusion doesn’t follow at all. One study showing the absence of one side effect is not that reassuring. Many side effects take years to be discovered even in the absence of any obvious foul play by the drug companies. The myocarditis alone would have gotten any vaccine pulled from development in the pre-COVID era. Even the subjective experience of getting one of these shots (I’ve had three) is worse than any other vaccine I’ve ever seen.
And even if one takes that absolute most charitable view of COVID vaccination, the idea that refusing to get it is irrational is unsupported. Normal vaccines are in development for many years before they’re available to the general public. This was an entirely new technology, not a slight tweak of last year’s flu vaccine.
And even if it were a slight tweak of an existing safe product, many patients refuse to get immunizations of all sorts, and that decision has no effect whatsoever on whether we offer them medical treatment, including for the illness that was theoretically preventable. They also refuse all sorts of other medical interventions, and make all sorts of other decisions that lead to negative health outcomes. The argument that I’m responding to is totally off the deep end of medical ethics. As far as I know, no serious person made any such argument about any health condition before COVID-19. Refusing medical treatment to someone on the sole basis of one small and totally reasonable health decision they made is madness.
The older person you describe had the stroke “shortly”, not years, after receiving a COVID vaccine. I cited one study, there were many others looking into stroke events after vaccination and not finding an increase.
Regarding myocarditis, a study of 43 million people in the UK noted a higher number of cases of myocarditis with COVID itself compared to myocarditis with vaccination.
People are free to refuse vaccination. They are free to take their own personal risk. The argument is over whether during the midst of a pandemic, an unvaccinated person can put others at risk.
Edit to add:
There are pediatricians who refused to see children whose parents don’t allow routine childhood vaccinations. In part, to spare immunocompromised children from the risk of infection.
A study is not scientific consensus. Many other studies show worrying cardiac abnormalities, including myocarditis, at higher rates even than with the disease.
And there really isn’t much of an argument over whether in the midst of a pandemic, a person can put others at risk. The answer to that question is yes. Again, this wasn’t even a topic of discussion before COVID. Even if an Ebola outbreak were raging through the country and millions of people were dying and a vaccine was suddenly invented that completely stopped disease transmission and was 100% effective and had no negative effects whatsoever, there would still be people that would refuse to take it, there would be people that went outside to large social events and spread the disease, there would be people spreading various conspiracy theories and they would still be expected to receive all normal medical treatment by any standard of medical ethics that existed before 2020.
Look at it this way: if San Fransisco hospitals had refused to treat gay men who went to bathhouses in the 1980’s and got AIDS, it would be rightly seen as an abomination on the part of the hospitals, not on the part of the gay men (who did indeed engage in high-risk sexual behavior in large numbers even when it was abundantly clear that this might lead to them getting AIDS and dying).
I added an edit above noting that some pediatricians refuse to see unvaccinated children.
Current CDC recommendations regarding Ebola
Symptomatic people with suspected or confirmed Ebola disease or MVD should remain in isolation until they have been determined not to have Ebola disease or MVD (if suspected) or to be no longer infectious (if confirmed). Asymptomatic people with high-risk exposures to an ebolavirus or marburgvirus should remain in quarantine until 21 days after their last high-risk exposure. Quarantine or isolation may be voluntary or under public health orders, at the discretion of the health department of jurisdiction. Health departments may request use of federal public health travel restrictions for individuals with suspected or confirmed Ebola disease or MVD or with high-risk exposure, if they intend to travel before being cleared to do so by public health authorities, by contacting the CDC quarantine station with jurisdiction for the area where the person is located
In other words, people with Ebola are not denied treatment.
The decision to refer healthy children to another outpatient practice based on their vaccination status is not remotely comparable to refusing them needed medical treatment. Pediatric hospitals and emergency rooms do not decline to see unvaccinated children, unless I really missed something. It’s also not comparable in the sense that pediatric vaccinations are public health measures which reduce disease transmission, and COVID vaccination does not.
You keep bringing up these tangentially related points, but they don’t support refusing medical treatment to sick people at all.
I was countering your arguments about vaccination risks. You were arguing that Ebola patients, if not dehydrated to disability should be able to walk around freely, I disagree.
My argument was not that they should not be treated.
Admittedly I glossed over the quarantine point, simply because it almost never comes up. With Ebola, people are usually sick enough that they can’t hide it and don’t have much of a choice. I would never support a quarantine order like that for COVID (nor has one been enforced in the U.S., though other countries did). However, given how badly public health powers are abused, I would be in favor of removing many legal mechanisms of ostensible public health measures, including the quarantine orders you’re talking about. It’s not clear to me that if the situation you’re talking about actually happened, an involuntary quarantine would survive a Supreme Court challenge.
Regardless, the original point I was responding to was about declining treatment for people with an active disease process, not about all of public health.
If I understand correctly, your point here is that a similar vaccine was canceled for having side effects, but it is...unreasonable to worry about this one having side effects? Again, even taking all your premises as fact, the conclusion doesn’t follow at all. One study showing the absence of one side effect is not that reassuring. Many side effects take years to be discovered even in the absence of any obvious foul play by the drug companies. The myocarditis alone would have gotten any vaccine pulled from development in the pre-COVID era. Even the subjective experience of getting one of these shots (I’ve had three) is worse than any other vaccine I’ve ever seen.
And even if one takes that absolute most charitable view of COVID vaccination, the idea that refusing to get it is irrational is unsupported. Normal vaccines are in development for many years before they’re available to the general public. This was an entirely new technology, not a slight tweak of last year’s flu vaccine.
And even if it were a slight tweak of an existing safe product, many patients refuse to get immunizations of all sorts, and that decision has no effect whatsoever on whether we offer them medical treatment, including for the illness that was theoretically preventable. They also refuse all sorts of other medical interventions, and make all sorts of other decisions that lead to negative health outcomes. The argument that I’m responding to is totally off the deep end of medical ethics. As far as I know, no serious person made any such argument about any health condition before COVID-19. Refusing medical treatment to someone on the sole basis of one small and totally reasonable health decision they made is madness.
The older person you describe had the stroke “shortly”, not years, after receiving a COVID vaccine. I cited one study, there were many others looking into stroke events after vaccination and not finding an increase.
Regarding myocarditis, a study of 43 million people in the UK noted a higher number of cases of myocarditis with COVID itself compared to myocarditis with vaccination.
https://www.heart.org/en/news/2022/08/22/covid-19-infection-poses-higher-risk-for-myocarditis-than-vaccines
I have had three Moderna vaccines with no issues.
People are free to refuse vaccination. They are free to take their own personal risk. The argument is over whether during the midst of a pandemic, an unvaccinated person can put others at risk.
Edit to add:
There are pediatricians who refused to see children whose parents don’t allow routine childhood vaccinations. In part, to spare immunocompromised children from the risk of infection.
A study is not scientific consensus. Many other studies show worrying cardiac abnormalities, including myocarditis, at higher rates even than with the disease.
And there really isn’t much of an argument over whether in the midst of a pandemic, a person can put others at risk. The answer to that question is yes. Again, this wasn’t even a topic of discussion before COVID. Even if an Ebola outbreak were raging through the country and millions of people were dying and a vaccine was suddenly invented that completely stopped disease transmission and was 100% effective and had no negative effects whatsoever, there would still be people that would refuse to take it, there would be people that went outside to large social events and spread the disease, there would be people spreading various conspiracy theories and they would still be expected to receive all normal medical treatment by any standard of medical ethics that existed before 2020.
Look at it this way: if San Fransisco hospitals had refused to treat gay men who went to bathhouses in the 1980’s and got AIDS, it would be rightly seen as an abomination on the part of the hospitals, not on the part of the gay men (who did indeed engage in high-risk sexual behavior in large numbers even when it was abundantly clear that this might lead to them getting AIDS and dying).
I added an edit above noting that some pediatricians refuse to see unvaccinated children.
Current CDC recommendations regarding Ebola
Symptomatic people with suspected or confirmed Ebola disease or MVD should remain in isolation until they have been determined not to have Ebola disease or MVD (if suspected) or to be no longer infectious (if confirmed). Asymptomatic people with high-risk exposures to an ebolavirus or marburgvirus should remain in quarantine until 21 days after their last high-risk exposure. Quarantine or isolation may be voluntary or under public health orders, at the discretion of the health department of jurisdiction. Health departments may request use of federal public health travel restrictions for individuals with suspected or confirmed Ebola disease or MVD or with high-risk exposure, if they intend to travel before being cleared to do so by public health authorities, by contacting the CDC quarantine station with jurisdiction for the area where the person is located
https://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/vhf/interim-guidance-risk-assessment.html#:~:text=Asymptomatic%20people%20with%20high%2Drisk,the%20health%20department%20of%20jurisdiction.
In other words, people with Ebola are not denied treatment.
The decision to refer healthy children to another outpatient practice based on their vaccination status is not remotely comparable to refusing them needed medical treatment. Pediatric hospitals and emergency rooms do not decline to see unvaccinated children, unless I really missed something. It’s also not comparable in the sense that pediatric vaccinations are public health measures which reduce disease transmission, and COVID vaccination does not.
You keep bringing up these tangentially related points, but they don’t support refusing medical treatment to sick people at all.
I was countering your arguments about vaccination risks. You were arguing that Ebola patients, if not dehydrated to disability should be able to walk around freely, I disagree.
My argument was not that they should not be treated.
Admittedly I glossed over the quarantine point, simply because it almost never comes up. With Ebola, people are usually sick enough that they can’t hide it and don’t have much of a choice. I would never support a quarantine order like that for COVID (nor has one been enforced in the U.S., though other countries did). However, given how badly public health powers are abused, I would be in favor of removing many legal mechanisms of ostensible public health measures, including the quarantine orders you’re talking about. It’s not clear to me that if the situation you’re talking about actually happened, an involuntary quarantine would survive a Supreme Court challenge.
Regardless, the original point I was responding to was about declining treatment for people with an active disease process, not about all of public health.