If the association between Pandemrix and narcolepsy is because it caused narcolepsy (as with Guillain-Barré it's also plausible the problem is that this is an auto-immune problem and so the vaccine wasn't actually the problem it just highlighted a problem you already had) then the incidence rate was estimated at like 18k patients per case.
So if you give the entire US population a vaccine like that, less than twenty thousand of them develop narcolepsy. As a reminder a quarter million of them already died from COVID-19 and more are dying every day - not to mention the tens of thousands whose cause of death isn't listed as COVID-19 but would not be dead if not for an ongoing pandemic.
Cutter screwed up. No amount of prior safety testing can fix that. Their Polio vaccine had Polio virus in it (to be clear: The traditional Oral Polio Vaccine is supposed to have a "live" virus in it, but the injected vaccine Cutter were selling is not). Obviously nobody is going to test "What happens if we inject children with the Polio virus" because the answer is "Some of them get Polio. Duh" and so no test could have prevented Cutter from screwing up.
I have no idea what you meant by "Gullah barre" the Google results I get are all about Guillain-Barré syndrome, which I mentioned above. Guillain-Barré is not a vaccine, it's a weird auto-immune disorder, and arguably even where it's listed as very rare side effect of a vaccine, that's misleading because it's also a side effect from getting viral infection, so if you avoid vaccination but do get the virus you may get GBS as a result anyway. The human immune system is pretty inscrutable.
> less than twenty thousand of them develop narcolepsy. As a reminder a quarter million of them already died from COVID-19 and more are dying every day
I assume the concern is that an unknown unknown means it could cause/trigger/amplify some other disease/condition that may be comparable/worse than the problem it solves.
Cause/effect and morals are hard. Add to the mix a general statistical innumeracy, and some general suspicion about authorities, and it makes it really hard for the general populace to actually weigh the two different options.
I don't think we should dismiss these concerns as just stuff for nutjobs. I've seen otherwise reasonable people having trouble making up their minds about that.
The association in Sweden is strong enough to say “it does”.
And yes, the mechanism is likely that Pandemrix activated a predisposition. But it was not activated in statistically equivalent kids who did not get Pandemrix.
Why is it so hard to acknowledge that not all vaccines are perfect, and that there’s a risk involved? I am not avtivax. I am pro vaccination. I am anti religious “a vaccine can never be bad” thinking which seem to be prevalent among otherwise rational scientific people.
covid risk varies wildly depending on socioeconomic factors. Educated, WFH, small family, stable or low IRL social interaction: pretty low risk. Low-education, multiple in-person jobs, lots of casual social interaction, large family: very high risk. We've seen it very starkly in England. When entire communities are being ravaged by exponentially-growing transmission, it's hard to argue that a vaccine might be worse, because the chances are really minimal.
So if you give the entire US population a vaccine like that, less than twenty thousand of them develop narcolepsy. As a reminder a quarter million of them already died from COVID-19 and more are dying every day - not to mention the tens of thousands whose cause of death isn't listed as COVID-19 but would not be dead if not for an ongoing pandemic.
Cutter screwed up. No amount of prior safety testing can fix that. Their Polio vaccine had Polio virus in it (to be clear: The traditional Oral Polio Vaccine is supposed to have a "live" virus in it, but the injected vaccine Cutter were selling is not). Obviously nobody is going to test "What happens if we inject children with the Polio virus" because the answer is "Some of them get Polio. Duh" and so no test could have prevented Cutter from screwing up.
I have no idea what you meant by "Gullah barre" the Google results I get are all about Guillain-Barré syndrome, which I mentioned above. Guillain-Barré is not a vaccine, it's a weird auto-immune disorder, and arguably even where it's listed as very rare side effect of a vaccine, that's misleading because it's also a side effect from getting viral infection, so if you avoid vaccination but do get the virus you may get GBS as a result anyway. The human immune system is pretty inscrutable.