This is perhaps not an argument in favor of the proven safety of vaccines for pregnant women.
> Second, what is the scientific basis for thinking that vaccination before pregnancy will affect women at the end of their pregnancy (that is, 9+ months later)? When you propose a possible harm, there should be a scientifically plausible basis for it. Is there one in this case?
We fundamentally do not understand the human body. We do not know why many common medications work, and many of the reasons we think others work are likely wrong. And we know that many chemicals carry future risks of birth defects.
> CoVID-19 was one of the leading causes of death across a wide range of ages. The idea that only the elderly suffered from it is not true.
This is because people in their 20s and 30s are so unlikely to die outside of accidents and malice, not because covid was a large absolute risk. The risk of death for someone over 65 was iirc 100x that of someone under 55.
When you limit the group to "otherwise healthy people under 40" the risk ratio skews even further. This is normal. But it means that those people receive a much lower benefit from vaccination.
> There is no known mechanism that could lead to these vaccines causing long-term side-effects
Spike protein accumulating in cardiac tissue leading to myocarditis. Antigen fixation, leading to reduced protection against future variants. The immune system identifying the mRNA delivery vector as a threat, preventing the use of future mRNA treatments.
"But those aren't proved" is really not convincing to me. For an EUA for at-risk populations, ok. For mandates? Heeeelll no, go cross those Ts first.
> and there are very good biological reasons for believing that they do not cause any long-term side-effects.
The whole point of a vaccine is to cause long term effects. That intended effect is immunity to disease.
"Nothing else could possibly persist" smacks of hubris to me.
> Vaccine side-effects occur within months of vaccination, for reasons that are understood. They do not arise years afterwards (also for reasons that are understood). Saying that there may be side-effects years from now is simply FUD.
This is medicine we're talking about, a bit of uncertainty and doubt is very much justified - especially when the process has been politicized.
