> The J & J vaccine was approved at the time, but was later banned for causing chronic health effects.

That's not what happened. Authorities received rare reports of a clotting disorder and paused it for 11 days to investigate. That pause was lifted but the panic caused a crash in demand and J&J withdrew it from the market. Source: https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/06/j-fda-revokes-authori...

This highlights what’s so difficult with science communication.

Right here on what should be a technical minded forum, people don’t understand what science is or how it works. Or what risk is. And they don’t even challenge their own beliefs or are curious about how things actually work.

If the “smart” people can’t or won’t continuously incorporate new information, what are our chances?

> Originally, the proponents claimed that getting the vaccine would stop you from getting covid entirely

Some people don’t understand how vaccines work, so may have claimed that, but efficacy rates were very clearly communicated. Anyone who listened in high school biology should know that’s not how they work.

> I think in most countries you're more likely to get polio from a polio vaccine than in the wild. On the one hand, that is a success of the polio vaccine. On the other hand, the vaccine is clearly dangerous and liable to cause chronic health problems.

In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_eradication#2025 I count 2 countries with the will type and 17 with the vaccine derived type (and like 160 without polio!)

There are two vaccines, the oral that has attenuated ("live") virus and the inyectable that has inactivated ("dead") virus.

* The oral version is not dangerous for the person that recibes it [1], but the virus can pass to other persons and after a few hops mutate to the dangerous version. The advantage is that the immunity is stronger and it also stops transmission.

* The inject able version is also not dangerous [1], it doesn't stop transmission, but it also can't mutate because the virus is totally dead.

Most fist word countries, and many other countries with no recent case use only the inyectable version. (Here in Argentina, we switched to only inyectable like 5 years ago :) .)

Countries with recent case of other problems use a mix, to reduce transmission. (I think the inyectable one is also cheaper and easier to store.) (Also, a few years ago they dropped globally one of the strains from the oral one, because that strains is eradicated. The inyectable one has that strains just in case, but it can't escape.)

[1] except potencial allergic reactions, that are rare, but I also remember big signs with instructions for the nurse explaining in case of an emergency what to do, what to inject, where to call ... The risk is not 0, but very low. I wonder if the trip to the hospital to get the vaccine is more dangerous.

> Cancer is such a catch all that we can pretty much guarantee there will be some evidence that vaccines cause cancer. Everything causes cancer. Drinking tea is known to cause cancer.

I'm reminded of the Prop 65 signs everywhere in California warning "this might cause cancer"

People have the right to believe things that could get them killed and the right to share their beliefs with others.

Allowing the debate to be shut down is undemocratic and unscientific (science without question is nothing more than religion).

Not allowing people to come to different conclusions from the same data is tyranny.

Pfizer hid a lot of the damage done as did the others. A lot of people can die by the time books come out. [1] That's one of the many reasons I held off and glad I did.

[1] - https://www.amazon.com/Pfizer-Papers-Pfizers-Against-Humanit...

Shouting "fire" in a crowded theater being illegal was used to make it illegal to oppose the draft (Schenck v. United States). So actually, since opposing the draft is legal, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater is legal too.