Oddbean new post about login | logout True, but the flu vaccine is a guessing game. Some years the efficacy has is as low as 35%. If you’re young and healthy it’s probably better from an immunological perspective to just get the flu on any given year. I personally don’t get flu shots, but might if age or illness pushed me into a risk demo where it made sense for me.
It is indeed a guessing game for influenza vaccines as the prevalence of each genera and type of flu virus varies throughout the year whilst their mutations/antigenic drifts also give rise to new strains. This highlights the beauty of the mRNA approach as it can be used to generate a protein antigen common to all the influenza variants (early dev days for that though). But I agree, if you’re young, healthy, know that you have no underlying conditions and your immune system is strong and there is clear prior understanding of the action mechanism of the virus (which is not always clear if the virus is novel) then arguably no need for a vaccination (although anyone can develop pneumonia). The anti-vax game changes if/when a novel virus evolves/mutates into one that spreads both easily with a very low survival rate across all age groups. Not beyond the realms of possibility and indeed may be one reason for species extinctions in the past.
I’m still not comfortable with mRNA, maybe that will change with subsequent generations of the technology. Right now though I think it’s wide-scale roll out during Covid 19 was one of the largest medical mal practice events in recent history.
Thank you for sharing. You can rest assured that mRNA is totally safe and harmless, IF it has FDA approval. Have a safe and healthy day!
I’m more comfortable with it as the “tech” behind it (RNA therapeutics) formed a part of my research studies in the 90s although I later focused on neuroscience and then electron microscopy/biomechanics - as a side note, I’ve prepped and viewed viruses directly so anyone (not you) saying they don’t exist highly amuses me. The roll-out was indeed quicker than before and one can argue there was a need to be quick (novel virus, how lethal was it?, transmission speed, etc) and mRNA vaccine dev is inherently quicker. Indeed, mRNA vaccines were developed for MERS and Rabies a decade ago in a very short time, too, and a lot of the efficacy and safety research/groundwork started back then. I disagree with your final statement as it ignores the prior research already done, the accelerated research and trialling that was being done, the circumstances at the time, and is made in hindsight. But we can’t agree on everything.