Following NetBSD, DragonFlyBSD Now Has "COVID"

[curfew]

What study suggests the covid vaccines are perfectly safe? Cuz they didn't properly test 'em, but anyway...

"Perfectly safe" is a useless term. There are many people who cannot be vaccinated with anything due to their physical conditions, not for covid, not smallpox nor measles nor any disease. An older study spanning from 1980s to 1990s suggested that even a common MMR vaccine from that time caused severe side effects at a rate of around 3-in-100,000.

So if you want to argue that covid vaccines are "unsafe", then you have to show that they are considerably less safe than other common vaccines that most people would get for their kids without a blink of an eye. Not even the annual influenza shots are completely rid of similar adverse reactions, although often it is hard to prove in one way or another how much the vaccination was to blame over unknown factors.

Blood clots are common side effect to any kind of inflammation, actually. Not specifically related to covid nor covid vaccines. You could read about that too.

[curfew]

Biology in high school. How mRNA works has been well understood for half a century now. Any decent introductory biology textbook will explain it.

School text books contain a dumbed down version of decades of scientific studies condensed into a couple of paragraphs. The information in there is never 100 % "foolproof". There are always exceptions and complications and unlikely-yet-possible scenarios that get filtered out from the biology 101.

It's similar to how Newtonian physics describe common earthly phenomena accurately yet break down when we start to look at planet-size objects or the tiniest of subatomic particles.

This practise has the adverse side effect that some arrogant kiddies think they know everything after they completed a class of biology in HIGH SCHOOL. Ffs!

[Gonk]

This practise has the adverse side effect that some arrogant kiddies think they know everything after they completed a class of biology in HIGH SCHOOL. Ffs!

Watch the videos and tell us where they are wrong. Provide a link to something explaining the mechanism by which mRNA can enter the cell nucleus and supposedly alter DNA. The 'mRNA vaccines are bad' crowd sounds just like the 'cellphones/wifi/5G cause brain cancer' crowd: baseless hysteria.

[microcode]

Traffic in FUD, much? You sound like a delightful person to have at a party.

Edit: this explains why specifically mRNA is believed not to modify DNA:

https://www.deplatformdisease.com/bl...ffect-your-dna

BTW, only two of the vaccines are mRNA-based. People can still get vaccinated, even if they don't want to take a mRNA vaccine.

mRNA vaccines and adenovirus vectored vaccines are gene therapies, they are described as such by their inventors. AFAIK all current emergency use authorized vaccines are gene therapy based; there is one in development right now that isn't based on gene therapies though, Novavax (or more accurately, the gene therapy is on a moth, and the immunogens are then extracted from the moth and attached to little blobs of fat).

Personally I don't think most or many of the issues we are seeing and will see with these vaccines have to do with the specific mechanisms though, I think we are more likely to see complications due to the choice of the spike protein (which, while being an understandable target, is not the only choice for COVID vaccines).

[microcode]

So if you want to argue that covid vaccines are "unsafe", then you have to show that they are considerably less safe than other common vaccines that most people would get for their kids without a blink of an eye.

That's actually not the relevant comparison here: the relevant comparison is related to the risk ratio between the control group, the most successful intervention group, and the vaccine group for each of these diseases. In the case of COVID, there are non-vaccine intervention groups with promising risk reduction, and the control group is not actually in much peril on average (unless they have significant known comorbidities).

You can talk about population level risks or whatever, but if we are applying the standards we apply to other medicines we administer to children, the MMR vaccine actually makes a whole lot more sense in the context of children than the COVID vaccines do.

[curfew]

That's actually not the relevant comparison here: the relevant comparison is related to the risk ratio between the control group, the most successful intervention group, and the vaccine group for each of these diseases. In the case of COVID, there are non-vaccine intervention groups with promising risk reduction, and the control group is not actually in much peril on average (unless they have significant known comorbidities).

No there isn't. You also don't seem to understand the difference between vaccination and medication. Medication is used to treat a person who is already infected, while vaccines serve two totally other purposes: 1) prevent the disease in the first place 2) provide "herd immunity" for the total population.

You can talk about population level risks or whatever, but if we are applying the standards we apply to other medicines we administer to children, the MMR vaccine actually makes a whole lot more sense in the context of children than the COVID vaccines do.

Covid vaccines aren't even recommended for children as of now, so this remark is completely pointless.

[microcode]

Medication is used to treat a person who is already infected, while vaccines serve two totally other purposes: 1) prevent the disease in the first place 2) provide "herd immunity" for the total population.

Prophylactic chemotherapy (PCT) is the practice of using drugs to prevent disease, vaccines are drugs, and drugs can be prophylactic (i.e. "prevent the disease in the first place"). Furthermore, vaccinations can expire, so the real practical difference between PCT and vaccination in practice is a lot more vague than you might think: if you are taking weekly drugs with a lifetime complication rate similar (or superior) to a vaccine for the same disease, and that vaccine requires boosters, do the PCT and the vaccine really have different clinical roles?

Covid vaccines aren't even recommended for children as of now, so this remark is completely pointless.

You may be lucky to live in a jurisdiction that isn't pushing it, but in Canada and the U.S. there are governments really pushing the idea that children (the second least affected group) and adolescents (the least affected group) should be vaccinated aggressively. Some of my young relatives have already been pressured into being vaccinated.

[coder]

Ivermectin is administered to entire countries on a regular basis, about four billion doses have been administered over roughly 40 years, and only 16 deaths have been associated with it; compare that to paracetamol or aspirin, two exceedingly safe drugs that are over-the-counter almost everywhere, which have a higher rate of associated fatality.

It isn't administered to everyone, though. It has contraindications, adverse effects, and cannot be combined with certain common medications that are likely to be taken by some of those most vulnerable to Covid-19.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iverme...traindications

However, even if we had an effective treatment, vaccines would still be a net life-saver, because not everyone has easy access to medical care and no treatment is going to be 100%.

[microcode]

It isn't administered to everyone, though. It has contraindications, adverse effects, and cannot be combined with certain common medications that are likely to be taken by some of those most vulnerable to Covid-19.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iverme...traindications

You link to the "contraindications" section on the Wikipedia article for Ivermectin, which is conspicuously missing all of the things you said about it. What medications can it not be combined with? I'm aware of several classes of medication which change the dosing, and a meningitis contraindication, and yeah sure it has “adverse effects” but they are rare and minor; and when you compare any of these considerations to the equivalent considerations for the current COVID vaccines, it just seems like you're saying whatever you can think of without considering the tradeoffs.

All of the known Ivermectin drug interactions, of which there would be plenty of documentation due to its widespread use, are considered moderate or minor https://www.drugs.com/drug-interacti...tin-index.html and most of them result in different plasma concentration of elements of Ivermectin, or a known modulation of the effect of the interacting drug, which is relatively simple to work around (by changing the dosing, or by monitoring).

And for comparison, the Warfarin interaction with “food” (related to various interactions between common food nutrients and warfarin, causing fluctuations in dose response [the same hazard as combining with Ivermectin, but less predictable since it is your diet and not a drug]) is rated as Moderate, the same rating as the interaction between Warfarin and Ivermectin; and the patient advice relating to that moderate interaction is not to stop taking either medication without consulting your doctor.

And then for further comparison, here is the drugs.com index of interactions for Aspirin https://www.drugs.com/drug-interacti...rin-index.html which includes 47 major interactions, where Ivermectin has no major interactions. Aspirin also has considerably more severe disease interactions. Similarly, though not to the same extent, paracetamol https://www.drugs.com/drug-interacti...mol-index.html has 8 known major drug interactions.

This comparison to over-the-counter medications is apt, because people in the broad public will pop a bunch of aspirin or paracetamol without a second thought, despite both of these drugs having a greater number of known interactions, many of which are more severe than the most severe known interactions with Ivermectin.

And then let's say that, since you are so concerned about drug interactions in high risk groups, we only administer the prophylactic chemotherapy to the portion of the population not in high risk groups, and only to those people who are uninterested in the vaccine for one reason or another; can you then justify your objections?

However, even if we had an effective treatment, vaccines would still be a net life-saver, because not everyone has easy access to medical care and no treatment is going to be 100%.

If Ivermectin were that effective prophylactic, it is both an order of magnitude cheaper (or two, depending on who packages it), and dramatically safer, than the vaccines. Ivermectin doesn't require coldchain storage, it is light weight, it doesn't need to be injected and can be administered safely at home by illiterates, and it is produced in bulk by literally dozens of companies worldwide (and many more pharmaceutical chemical manufacturers have the equipment and knowledge to manufacture it). I'm not going to discourage somebody from taking the vaccine if they have access to it, and they are comfortable and informed of the potential hazards of the current vaccines for COVID, particularly the unknown unknowns; but the idea that it is somehow easier to administer any of these vaccines than to administer Ivermectin is beyond laughable.

And notice how I say prophylactic and you keep going back to "treatment". There is no particular reason that somebody who would be comfortable with treating with Ivermectin, should avoid prophylaxis (at least if the campaign is just a few months). Furthermore, Ivermectin has a clinical history literally 50x longer than any COVID vaccine, and has fewer reported severe adverse effects over that entire history (wherein many times more people were administered the drug than have ever been administered these vaccines) than those vaccines have over a clinical history figured in months instead of decades. The later you start treating a viral respiratory infection, the less effective the treatments will be; so how about we take our strongest indication and do prophylaxis instead of early or late treatment. Furthermore, once you're in the treatment stage, you should consider a wider array of drugs, including ones that are not as safe over long periods.

[curfew]

Prophylactic chemotherapy (PCT) is the practice of using drugs to prevent disease, vaccines are drugs, and drugs can be prophylactic (i.e. "prevent the disease in the first place"). Furthermore, vaccinations can expire, so the real practical difference between PCT and vaccination in practice is a lot more vague than you might think: if you are taking weekly drugs with a lifetime complication rate similar (or superior) to a vaccine for the same disease, and that vaccine requires boosters, do the PCT and the vaccine really have different clinical roles?

Red herring much? You are still implying that covid vaccines have such adverse side effects that even taking pills for the rest of your life would be better an option. And what is this nonsense about "clinical roles"? Single vaccination is much easier to organize than distribution of pills for daily or weekly consumption. The claim of a weekly dose you pulled out off your ass. For example PrEP medication for HIV should be taken daily. You are a serious antivaccer.