Why four years? Why not 40? That number seems just as arbitrary as the 10 months we've seen so far.

I think the part that seem hypocritical is that people that I know don't apply the same rigor in other parts of their life. They use recreational drugs that are sourced from who knows where with no clinical trials and a high percentage of adverse reactions even amongst our small community.

My problem with this "we just have to wait N units of time" approach is: what do we do instead meanwhile?

What's the alternative?

It's an impossible question for me to answer b/c I don't have any knowledge whatsoever of what was going on at the time. But I think the question is worth pondering for people because it may help people realize if they have politics clouding their thinking here. Not saying everyone with your opinion has their thinking clouded because of politics, but I think many do.

Those could also be long term side effects of covid. A double digit percentage of people who catch the disease end up in the hospital soon after infection compared to fraction of a fraction of a percent of vaccine recipients in the time after they get the shot.

Your priors have to be absolutely outrageous if based on the currently available data you think the risks are even within an order of magnitude.

There are an infinite number of things which could happen but there’s no mechanism or evidence making this likely. The vaccine doesn’t rewrite your DNA and it strengthens your normal immune response, which does none of those things.

I personally know 2 women who had covid, were hospitalized, had emergency c sections and then died. That is a known risk. Your risk is hypothetical.

Or in unvaccinated mothers exposed to COVID-19.

Birth defects would have been observed already if they were a side effect of the vaccine.

> I wouldn't really call that "soon after it is administered".

The median delay between vaccination and the onset of narcolepsy in that case was 42 days. Not nearly the four years magic number that sharken was waiting for. I would call that soon after it is administered. Far more people are well beyond that period after the Pfizer-Biontech vaccination than were ever administered Pandemrix.

> And the same is also true for covid's long term effects

Those long term effects are visible soon after infection. Both of your examples seem to be in support of my point.

I expect those side effects were actually seen within the first few months after being administered. It merely took that long for the company producing it to officially acknowledge it, because they are terrible.

You could argue that the same could be happening with COVID vaccines, but I think that is unlikely given the unprecedented level of worldwide scrutiny on these.

I have never heard of that, can you share a link? I would like to read more.