Hacker Timesnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

"Vaccine trial protocols do not typically monitor for major adverse events for more than 7 days"

I am stunned by this. Seven days? Is there really no reason to think that a vaccine candidate might have adverse effects more than a week later?



Important to note that longer-term studies happened before full FDA approval:

> More than half of the clinical trial participants were followed for safety outcomes for at least four months after the second dose. Overall, approximately 12,000 recipients have been followed for at least 6 months.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr...

But also "Phase 4" clinical trials are where the study of long-term effects occur. Moderna, Pfizer, and J&J are all doing those today. Here's a Jan 2022 paper that has some information on current-ish specifics: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8665991/


Given that the vaccine itself is out of your system within a few days, and if effective begin triggering an immune response, I don’t think there’s not much reason to monitor for safety beyond that point.


Thalidomide is out of your system by your first grandchild.


Thalidomide caused birth defects because it is in your system during pregnancy. Thalidomide is still in use to treat leprosy. Thalidomide does not cause second-generation birth defects.


>Thalidomide does not cause second-generation birth defects.

That's exactly what the parent commenter said. Your children are affected, but your first grandchildren should be safe.


The poster I responded to wrote: "Thalidomide is out of your system by your first grandchild." Actually, Thalidomide is out of your system within days. Quite a bit less time than it takes to have a grandchild.

The poster implies that there could be unknown long term effects of a vaccine, and conflates long term effects with birth defects, which, of course, appear only after a fetus has developed enough to spot defects in a sonogram or other imaging. It's a scare tactic.


You call it a scare tactic because you believe in medical interventionism. I respectfully point out one of the massive numbers of unexpected side effects of medical interventions.


Believe what you like. A thoughtfully considered medical intervention rescued my health. While patients need to be vigilant for errors and the best treatment is sometimes a matter of good fortune. there is no such things as "belief" in "medical interventionism." It makes as much sense as "weather forecastism" or "speed limitism."


Maybe you should understand what medical interventionism means, before typing out a meaningless and unrelated argument.


So if you break your arm…


... you go to a doctor to have it set and casted. Unless the break is so minor that you can self-treat with RICE. You don't have to be a passive recipient of a medical treatment flowchart.


Is it though?


It is a permanent change to your immune system which lasts forever. There is no "undo" button to getting these vaccines.

Remember when it was claimed the spike protein is out of your body in 48 hours? This study found the spike protein persists in the body for at least 16 days and the antigen can be found for at least 60 days.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00076-9

Thats longer than if you actually contract COVID.

So now knowing this, would you monitor for safety longer?


If you studied for more than seven days, you might find problems preventing your mass rollout, and then where would you be


You'd be billions of dollars poorer.


Yes, that too


[flagged]


I find this hard to believe. It’s beneficial for everyone including manufacturers for their products to be proven safe.

If we assume manufacturers are intentionally malicious, what prevents them from outright submitting a dummy saline shot for testing instead of the real thing, guaranteeing absolutely zero side-effects?


>It’s beneficial for everyone including manufacturers for their products to be proven safe

Yes, and to many on here, "they were"...and the company benefited from that. Make sense?

It would also benefit the company to cut corners, do as much as they can but not stop the rollout for more, which would take years to be "proven" beyond some threshold as safe.

Much of this proof would require long term testing, impossible to do up front so they would benefit from just releasing them anyways.

>what prevents them

Perhaps there is some optimal range, within which they benefit from best-effort (in a given period of time) attempt at producing what they think does something, what they think doesn't do bad things, and then releasing in full volume to cash in. Everything I'm saying doesn't require them to be nefarious either, even just a little negligence can result in "not actually safe".

If they have cover from government, media, and a willing populace ready to assume safety and efficacy, then what do they have to lose?


It's not so much lying as it is a nefarious combination of motivated reasoning, plausible deniability, blind compliance, responsibility dispersion, greed-motivated short-term thinking, etc.


>I find this hard to believe. It’s beneficial for everyone including manufacturers for their products to be proven safe.

The world does not work that way unfortunately.

>what prevents them from outright submitting a dummy saline shot for testing instead

Perfectly possibly.


When the company has legal immunity... well I think you can answer your own question.


> If they tested for longer, they'd be less likely to sell their products

Clinical trials do, indeed, last for longer: https://www.pfizerclinicaltrials.com/about/how-clinical-tria...

Here's a good overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsfPOpE-GEs


Exactly, yes. Through phase 3 according to your link would have been about 2 to 6 years. Testing for covid vaxes was nothing of the sort, additionally millions of people have received multiple doses as the drugs are in wide release, whereas normally Phase 2 would be maybe a few hundred and Phase 3 several thousand.

And every step of the way through those layers of filters, many drugs are rejected. Exactly what I was getting at.

It is certainly not your contention that COVID vaccines went through 3 or 4 phases of long term (years) of limited FDA trials is it lol?

1000s in 6 years = millions in 6 months? I think not, and I don't think you do either.

Having been able to circumvent long term FDA trials, obviously.... obviously.... It made it more likely than it otherwise would have been for the drugs to be approved.


> It is certainly not your contention that COVID vaccines went through 3 or 4 phases of long term (years) of limited FDA trials

It seems like you're changing the goalposts here, right? You said "if they tested for longer [than 7 days], they'd be less likely to sell their products." I don't think that holds water.

> additionally millions of people have received multiple doses as the drugs are in wide release, whereas normally Phase 2 would be maybe a few hundred

Each Phase has different goals in mind. Moderna, J+J, and Pfizer are all in Phase IV now. FDA approval for Pfizer came after 6 months of study of tens of thousands of vaccine recipients.

I'm not sure what you're claiming anymore.




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: