Talk:COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and hesitancy

Antibody dependent enhancement

New information suggests ADE can in fact occur with SARS-cov2 depending on antibody levels and more so with variants such as omicron (pre-booster) See Nature article from September 2022

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-19993-w

Newer omicron variants in last few months( autumn 2022) have more immune escape and are not well-covered by the recent booster , which theoretically could make ADE more of a problem.

For reference, i am a Harvard and Yale trained MD, and i am vaccinated x3 but chose not to get the recent booster as this new information came out. I have never stopped masking with N95. I am not anti-vax or COVID-denier. I am interested in the full truth, which I believe to be that the vaccine has been important but is not enough, and our reliance on it and abandonment of NPIs such as masks will be our downfall.

Meanwhile there is another error in the article: “when infected by a second closely-related virus, due to a unique and rare reaction with proteins on the surface of the second virus.[60][61] ADE has been observed in vitro and in animal studies with many different viruses that do not display ADE in humans.” This quote is misleading and makes it sound like there is no ADE in humans. On the contrary. ADE is not that rare, there are notable viruses that employ it (consider dengue). Just read the Wikipedia page on ADE, for example. Also a “second closely related virus” is misleading. Sometimes (as with dengue), it is the SAME virus, but with a mutation— in other words a variant. And COVID produces NUMEROUS variants. An antibody that fit the original variant well, but now, because of viral mutations, fits the newer variant less well, is a prime candidate to perform ADE.

So I am not taking a position on the vaccine being good Or bad. I would simply like to see the full updated truth here rather than the current post which implies the whole ADE discussion is an irrelevant non-issue. It’s not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by KirbyJan (talk • contribs) 22:34, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

The new paper is not a reliable source; see WP:MEDRS. Bon courage (talk) 07:13, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Why not? Because it is a primary source, as opposed to secondary or tertiary? DonaldPayne (talk) 19:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes. And it's also in a slightly iffy journal to compound issues. Bon courage (talk) 20:29, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

The journal Nature is "slightly iffy"? The journal that published the seminal paper on monocolonal antibodies in the 1970s? What absolute nonsense. 204.145.225.74 (talk) 05:13, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe take a closer look in which journal at was published, not the url of this link. Scientific Reports Cannolis (talk) 01:29, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

—== "government/experts said the vaccinated can't get covid" ==

One of the most common current examples of disinformation on covid on social media and elsewhere is the claim that the government or medical or pharmaceutical experts lied about the effectiveness of the vaccines in preventing infection and transmission. I couldn't find any info on this disinformation in this article or in the one on transmission (and not much elsewhere online). Instead, i found and corrected disinformation in that article's section on effectiveness that wasn't noticed and/or reverted despite being an edit from more than 3 months ago by an unregistered editor. We need more effective patrolling of that and this article and others on covid.

In the past there were plenty of headlines by journalists and other laypeople similar to It's official: Vaccinated people don't spread COVID-19 (behind a paywall, so perhaps only the title is so misleading) that did accidentally or sloppily spread incorrect or exaggerated enthusiasm about effectiveness in preventing infection and transmission (during the first vaccinations), but experts were almost always careful and reported actual scientific knowledge correctly based on studies like https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7013e3.htm?s_cid=mm7013e3_w , which reported 90% effectiveness, at least for the first variants.

I spent quite a bit of time searching on WP and elsewhere online, but Google search results are mostly about the disinformation about the related but very different issue consisting of the naively or deviously claimed dishonesty of experts concerning the vaccines not being tested for transmission reduction before mass vaccination. I do remember reading that the director of the CDC talked about reduction of infection and transmission in a too optimistic way and in wording that was too absolute and that the CDC had to correct those claims. I found a source for that sloppiness, but probably other experts were sloppy too, so we need to report on those too to help explain where the misinformation and later disinformation came from. We also need to report on similar sloppy exaggerations of infection/transmission reduction by Biden and other government officials.

I'm adding this probably not quotable article about the slow or non-existent public education campaigns to counteract antivaccination and antigovernment propaganda. This info seems to also be missing here. --Espoo (talk) 13:10, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

I came here also looking for this information, and was surprised not to see any of the misinformation about the effectiveness of the vaccines in the article. This is a key point now looking back at many of the mandates and their impact on civil liberties. Mr Ernie (talk) 20:13, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

The majority of public consensus about the protection the vaccine would supposedly provide was delivered ad nauseam via the various dominant 24 hour news networks. Fauci, Biden, other officials as well as every news anchor spoke at length about how the vaccine would “stop the spread,” “Make transmission impossible” and “prevent you from giving covid to others” - the fact that you searched Google & WP and somehow found nothing, yet are for some reason unable or unwilling to document information from any not-yet-dead mediums like TV News (as opposed to print/e-journalism, which immediately remove and revise outdated propaganda without any trace or consequences) is disturbing and baffling. 2607:FB91:51B:C32E:D5F9:62A8:B44:696A (talk) 14:55, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

ANd what did the doctors say? Slatersteven (talk) 15:00, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

So?Slatersteven (talk) 16:12, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Why is this information not presents on this page? The fact that journalists, the CDC, & Anthony Fauci claimed that the vaccine stopped the spread of the virus and never retracted those statements or issued corrections. Many of these reports are still active on their original official accounts 107.195.140.198 (talk) 16:32, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

"Not a gene therapy"

If you have a look at the Gene therapy, most "gene therapies" including the first one approved, and the modern one's that deal with genetic disorders do not really change a cell's DNA (excepting the incidental rate genome integrations of AAV vectors). The whole "not a gene therapy" appears to be made up pro-vaccine propaganda by ill-informed health communication experts because "gene therapy" sounds scary. I'm very tempted to change the reference to gene therapy in the article to do "modify a cell's DNA" to get rid of this absurdity that is at odds with basically an entire body of academic research. Of course... this would be a bit of an editorial decisions to exclude a source based on its content.. which is a little sketchy. I guess I could add material saying "20% of gene therapy trials were run on treatments that used Ad vectors. Ad vectors do not modify the genome" directly next statement. I've contacted a few sources who appear to be selling this narrative... but it might be rather late for them to backtrack on a year and a half of lying to the public during a pandemic. Talpedia (talk) 00:47, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

So I followed up on the source for the claim. Firstly it's a blog post - so I could just delete it potentially. However unfortunately similar claims are coming out of fact checkers, newspapers who quote fact checkers, and one publication by NHS. However in the comments on the blog, the author helpful linked to a paper discussing the definition of gene therapy (where the author suggests a more restrictive definition). But following the citers of the work gave me this: http://doi.org/10.1089/hum.2022.29223.aas. Unfortunately I don't seem to be able to download this paper, but the abstract gives the tantalising

But people in academia did not react to this anti-scientific information uniformly, as some insisted on the idea that mRNA vaccines are not considered gene therapy to avoid the spread of anti-vaxxers's disinformation, whereas others emphasised the idea that mRNA vaccines are considered gene therapy because they introduce genetic materials into cell

.

I think I might just replace the current source with this - though I would interested in getting a full copy of the paper - since I think it might give us a nice definition of the history of the term Talpedia (talk) 02:02, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 August 2023

Please add the petty partisan vaccine hesitancy fueled by Democrat Party leaders. Here is Kamala Harris stating she would not take the vaccine, simply because of Trump:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0 116.255.1.118 (talk) 00:51, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

 Not done: Maybe rewatch and pay closer attention to the first part of Harris's response Cannolis (talk) 01:04, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Evidence to disprove the possibility of a worldwide conspiracy

Does this page contain enough body of sources to ensure that it is near-impossible to mastermind a conspiracy of injecting the world population with harmful material on COVID-19 vaccines? It would strengthen the point of view represented in this article that everyone from those who produce these vaccines to those who examine them are reliable. What could constitute a good enough proof that nobody in world is strong enough to orchestrate such thing? Yuzerneim (talk) 14:35, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

No this article does don't "contain enough body of sources to ensure that it is near-impossible to mastermind a conspiracy of injecting the world population with harmful material on COVID-19 vaccines" as we are not trying to do this (nor can we as we can't disprove something done in secret).

Yes we do use only wp:rs.

You can't prove or disprove a conspiracy theory, but the onus would be on those wishing to prove it, After all can you prove you are not a small cat that just got lucky on the keyboard? Slatersteven (talk) 14:44, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

1- You can however at least prove whether such thing is practically possible.

2- Also the second statement was not a question regarding "what sources you use", but it was just that, a statement, a piece of honest opinion.

3- Last but not least, you can say that I am not a cat based on the fact that cats are practically incapable of using a keyboard, and prove that they are indeed not, but can we do the same with questions regarding the vaccine safety? What should you say had someone asked whether are the people behind the vaccination process capable of such conspiracy? Yuzerneim (talk) 15:06, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Prove what is practically possible that Wikipedia ensures that a "conspiracy of injecting the world population with harmful material on COVID-19 vaccines can't be carried out"?, that is not wikipedias job.

This talk page is for discussing ways to improve the article, not for your opinions of it (or the sources).

I would say, look at the actual medical evidence as published in peer-reviewed medical journals. As has been said about many many conspiracies (and going back Rr}we GOP by what RS say, not some bloke on the internet. My cat point is to illustrate the problem, you can't "prove" something that by its nature has no proof to start with.

Thus WP:ONUS is on you to poove you have a valid point, not for us to prove you do not. Slatersteven (talk) 15:17, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd talk about this a bit further but as now I realise that ONUS stuff, I see no point and therefore I cease it here. For your information, I wanted to know, not to convince. Have a nice day, stranger. Yuzerneim (talk) 15:31, 4 September 2023 (UTC)