This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Yesterday’s conspiracy theory is today’s quiet admission
Bare link post: The Federalist covers the latest CDC admission about the vaccine: the myocarditis risk among the young and healthy is larger than official sources claimed.
Along with the recent addition of Ivermectin to the list of possible effective treatments, I believe this vindicates the front-line doctors and makes mass murderers of the censors, as well-intentioned as those who smashed sparrows for Mao.
Taking the federalist (please don't link to political/general news websites about science/study stuff, they're universally terrible sources) at their word for the moment - "[...] within a week of receiving the “Dose 2 Primary Series” of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, there were 14 verified cases of myocarditis or pericarditis among the 102,091 males aged 16-17 who got the shot. Among the nearly 206,000 12-15-year-old males [...] 31 cases were confirmed within a week". This comes out to a rate of 1.3/10k for 16-17 and 1.5/10k for 12-15. Using a relatively recent table of the age distribution for approximate numbers, and just multiplying that number by the 10-19 population, and just assuming they all got vaccinated, gives 3135 cases of (using their claims) vaccine-induced myocarditis or pericarditis.
From another study - In COVID-19 mRNA-vaccine-associated myocarditis, >90% of patients will functionally completely recover, usually after a chest pain syndrome (see Supplementary information). To date, only eight deaths owing to COVID-19 mRNA-vaccine-associated myocarditis have been reported (>99% survival) (see Supplementary information)." (1-.99) * 3135 = 35 deaths. Which is less than the number of covid deaths in the '5-18' age group (which i'm guessing is mostly the 10-19 age group) - 910 - by quite a bit. The supplementary information was just a list of case reports or studies, and the ones that include fatalities were: (i may not be interpreting this correctly fyi) were "27yo male with trisomy 21", "22yo male with fatal outcome, from Korea", "351 cases (8 fatal", "62yo female with fatal outcome", "42yo male (fatal)", "Case series of 136; one fatal; rate 150/million after 2nd dose in 16-19yo males, in Israel", "70yo female with fatal outcome", "18 post vaccine deaths ... 1 myocarditis", etc, and a many more studies with no deaths. I'm not sure where precisely they got 99% from given the SI is just a big list of references but if you add up all of the studies they present, 99% seems accurate. There are also a bunch of studies evaluating risk/benefit for covid vaccines for adolescents, most claiming it's worth it but a few claiming it is not. (in practice, i'm not sure it matters either way, given the very low risk of both covid harm and myocarditis harm. also, covid itself causes myocarditis, probably at a similar rate to the vaccine in young people, but idk). There's also a funny withdrawn article, "Case series of 32 patients in Canada. Although case series was clinically valid, initial estimate of rate was inflated by using denominator of 30,000 instead of 800,000".
It also has "By contrast, the incidence of COVID-19-associated cardiac injury or myocarditis is estimated to be 100 times higher (1,000–1,400 per 100,000 people with COVID-19) than that of COVID-19 mRNA-vaccine-related myocarditis7. Moreover, in contrast to the overall mild presentation and good outcome of vaccine-associated myocarditis, COVID-19 is associated with a major risk of cardiovascular complications8. Among patients with COVID-19, 10% of outpatients and 40% of hospitalized patients have clinically significant myocardial injury, mostly in the absence of clinically significant coronary artery disease8. Advanced age and pre-existing comorbidities (obesity, diabetes mellitus, hypertension or renal dysfunction) are the main predisposing factors for cardiovascular complications in patients with COVID-19".
For people under 20 specifically - for myocarditis from covid infections - here we get "Results: For the 12-17-year-old male cohort, 6/6,846 (0.09%) patients developed myocarditis overall, with an adjusted rate per million of 450 cases (Wilson score interval 206 - 982). For the 12-15 and 16-19 male age groups, the adjusted rates per million were 601 (257 - 1,406) and 561 (240 - 1,313).". This is higher than even your estimate of 1.5/10k. Now, this is comparing 'covid cases' to 'covid vaccination recipients' - which obviously aren't the same, if only 1 in 100 adolescents ever got covid (or, if they all got covid but only the severe cases were counted as 'cases'), that'd mean the vaccine was worse (again assuming those numbers are fine). But they probably are given the large-scale testing etc.
I haven't triple-checked all the math estimate stuff and very likely one or more of them is wrong. But this isn't "mass murder". Healthcare has plenty of disgusting parts - giving obese people pills mildly improving QALYs while they're fattened by well advertised corn, wheat, sugar, and oil paste, unnecessary surgeries, spending tens of thousands on cancer treatments that extend life by like a month, or not at all, pumping all sorts of treatments into barely alive old people to prolong their painful, pointless end, etc. This isn't one, afaict, the effectiveness of vaccines compared to their cost (one shot per year vs one pill per day?) is an outlier for most of medicine.
The choice isn't between getting the vaccine and getting Covid, even if you're vaccinated you're almost certainly going to get Covid eventually. So why does this matter at all? It does nothing to show that e.g. getting the vaccine will meaningfully reduce your chances of cardiac injury if you do get Covid, especially if you're young.
I'd strongly expect it to do so in the same way that 'natural immunity' does, though. I don't have any evidence it does that in adolescents, but it intuitively makes sense that it does.
Either way, all of these numbers are just low. Adolescents getting vaccinated doesn't matter much. Either for their covid death risk or their myocarditis risk. Any 'public health' effort focused on that and not mcdonalds or packaged muffins is hilariously wasted.
More options
Context Copy link
If you have a specific study on the effects of vaccination on post-Covid cardiac injury, especially among e.g. young men, then please share it.
The effects of the Covid vaccine in reducing the likelihood of infection are distinctly time-limited, and the reduction in symptoms and severity likewise seems to fade with time, but more slowly. The real question is whether the time-averaged reduction is enough to compensate for whatever increase in risk of cardiac injury the vaccine itself induces. And it seems like a legitimate question whether the vaccine helps with cardiac injury if that’s the primary adverse effect it tends to cause. It’s not like there are a bunch of other Covid symptoms the vaccine is associated with too.
No, it's not. Large-scale studies, e.g. from Qatar, have found that protection against infection rapidly wanes to around 20% within 6 months. That's negligible. Raw CDC data is totally inadequate, it has no cohort-matching, no time-matching, and no controls.
We agree here.
What I said is perfectly compatible with Covid vaccines offering some reduction in your chances of cardiac injury. But the vaccines themselves pose a risk of cardiac injury, so the question is what the combined risk ends up being. And no one in this thread, especially not you, has given any data on that question. This is especially salient because the demographic at most risk of cardiac injury from the vaccine, young men, are among the least at risk from severe Covid symptoms.
Oh, silly me, it's an inflammation response. Well, everyone knows that only heart tissues can get inflamed, so that perfectly explains things!
If a vaccine messes with a particular tissue that the virus it's supposed to stop also messes with, why should I take that as a positive indicator in favor of its protecting that tissue from the virus, especially if it doesn't induce symptoms of the virus in general besides that?
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Just dropping in to say that after the last 2 years I don't think using the CDC as a source has the punch you think it does.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Thank you for putting numbers to what I was thinking.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link