"However, according to the EMA, the benefits of both mRNA shots in preventing COVID-19 continue to outweigh the risks, the regulator said, echoing similar views expressed by U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization."
The first sentence of the article is a lot better (emphasis mine):
"France's public health authority has recommended people under 30 be given Pfizer's Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine when available instead of Moderna Inc's Spikevax jab, which carried comparatively higher risks of heart-related problems."
"...Boys between 16 and 19 years of age had the highest incidence of myocarditis after the second dose, according to a second study in the journal. The risk of heart problems in boys of that age was about nine times higher than in unvaccinated boys of the same age..."
Edit: The article above has a quote that I find fascinating
"Myocarditis is among the concerns that may have led the Food and Drug Administration to ask Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to enroll more children in their vaccine trials. Potential side effects are likely to dominate the discussion when agency advisers meet next week to review the evidence for a vaccine in children aged 5 to 11 years."
What kind of person voluntarily enrolls their children in vaccine "trials"?
Saying the French recommend one vaccine over the other for a given age group won't get the clicks and attention of a skirting-around-antivaxxer headline, and the comment engagement generated by drawing in antivaxxers to conflict with pro-vaccine commentators will further amplify its signal.
Since there seems to be a lot of assumptions rather than data, I wanted to post this as a top-level comment: the risk is super low (~.014%) even in teens [1]
> The myocarditis risk difference between the first and second dose was 1.76 cases per 100,000 people (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.33 to 2.19), or less than a 0.002% incidence. The largest difference was among male recipients 16 to 19 years, who had 13.73 cases per 100,000 people (95% CIs, 8.11 to 19.46)—but even that level amounts to only a 0.014% incidence.
> In other words, compared with unvaccinated people, vaccinated people had a 2.35 rate ratio of myocarditis 30 days after the second dose (95% CI, 1.10 to 5.02). Vaccinated young males had an 8.96 rate ratio (95% CI, 4.50 to 17.83).
> Almost 95% of vaccine-linked myocarditis cases were mild, but one fulminant (sudden and quickly escalating) case was fatal. Surveillance occurred from the vaccine's market introduction, Dec 20, 2020, to May 31, 2021.
I'm curious what the mechanism is for it being more dangerous for a 25 year old than a 35 year old. What about the ostensibly healthier person's body is different?
Well, reading the article states that there's a slim chance of the vaccine causing myocarditis, and a source linked to from wikipedia [0] (don't @ me, I'm no scientist) states that young people are more affected by myocarditis [1]
The recommendations are simply based on estimates of the observed incidence rate by age.
We don't even yet know for sure the mechanism by which the vaccine can cause myocarditis. There are various theories, a number of them related to the spike protein itself.
Figuring this out should be of the highest priority given that public health officials around the world are basically moving towards a boost every 6 for the foreseeable future position.
There's a lot that changes in your body as you age. One that seems to be important for covid is that your immune response gets weaker as time goes on.
Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart and is believed to be caused by the immune system's response to the virus. It maybe that it's less likely to happen in 30+ because their immune response tend be more muted.
I'm not sure of any direct scientific evidence supporting this, but I believe it has to do with the vaccine entering the blood stream.
The serum is meant to be administered at an intramuscular site, but injections have a chance of hitting a blood vessel upon insertion.
I am not a medical professional, but the advice I've read is that practitioners should "aspirate" the needle (pull back on the plunger) before delivering the vaccine, to see if they've hit a blood vessel.
This theory somewhat matches the observations because young people are likely to have more, larger blood vessels in their arms compared to older demographics.
This also explains why men experience myocarditis more than women.
Could be an increased efficiency towards a negative outcome. Older peoples bodies maybe have different uptake of the serum. Maybe that means there should be a spectrum of dosages depending on specific characteristics of the person, like weight, age etc?
The immune system is different and reacts differently with age. In other words...the fact the older aged persons have less of a risk with the vaccines is because their immune
reacts...(dare I say it?)...reacts less?
I don't know about this specific case but previously (e.g. with AZ) the concern was not that a specific vaccine had worse side effects on younger people.
It was a balance of the risks of the vaccine pretty much in general versus the risks of Covid by age range.
So basically if the risk of Covid is high it makes to get any vaccine available. But if the risk of Covid is very, very low then you may start considering what the risks of getting the vaccine are.
A guess: The benefits of the vaccine to a 35 year old are substantially larger than to a 25 year old, and Moderna seems to provide better protection to new variants than Pfizer. This may be mostly just because the mRNA dose is larger in Moderna than Pfizer, but with a somewhat worse side-effect profile.
In other words, if you have a medicine with both risks and benefits increasing with dose, the optimal dose will generally be larger for people who stand to benefit more.
I'm vaxxed (Moderna), my county has a 97% vaccination rate plus indoor mask mandate, and I just got over covid. It was basically a very mild flu. The idea that we can control this is fantasy, and I do not plan on getting vaccinated again for covid.
I think what people are missing is that getting covid is inevitable, it's not a choice we can make anymore, whereas getting vaccinated is. That throws a monkey wrench into this risk/reward equation where even if the vaccination benefits outweigh the risks, people are worried about the possibility of an own-goal and how stupid they would feel knowing their personal risk profile to covid is basically zero. It's this notion of the possibility - no matter how remote - of self-inflicted harm juxtaposed with the unavoidable outcome of getting covid that messes up the equation, and I don't think it's really that irrational for many people.
March 2020 I accepted that eventually I would get it. I was a 'critical infrastructure' worker, so I was in the work truck covering multiple states. I got it in January 2021 while unemployed, got through it without medical intervention, and am glad I had taken some efforts to improve my health (eating, exercise, body fat).
I am amazed at the people who are afraid to go outside and exercise, while putting on weight while sitting on couch being scared by TV news and ordering meal delivery.
> and I do not plan on getting vaccinated again for covid.
Look at the graphs of covid deaths overlayed over infections in time per country.
You will clearly see the two waves and now the third with deaths tracing up for each.
Now in countries with high % vaccinations there is barely a bump in deaths. Then look at russia or romania, their deaths are tracking first and second wave pattern.
I dunno how one can make case vaccines have no effect.
Covid might be staying and it sucks, but so far its much more dangerous than flu, I will be vaccinating myself for it as it looks like the best bet.
Lockdowns are probably not going to happen as EVERY single country would have to introduce them and that kind of global coordination is a pipe dream.
So does blindly reading the headline and not the whole article.
> However, according to the EMA, the benefits of both mRNA shots in preventing COVID-19 continue to outweigh the risks, the regulator said, echoing similar views expressed by U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization.
"Take Pfizer over Moderna if you're under 30" isn't the anti-vax position.
> the benefits of both mRNA shots in preventing COVID-19 continue to outweigh the risks, the regulator said, echoing similar views expressed by U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization
I'm not so sure about that. I think there's valid healthy skepticism about the mRNA shots but the loudest people protesting are firebreathers with no coherent argument or thought
[+] [-] SandersAK|4 years ago|reply
"However, according to the EMA, the benefits of both mRNA shots in preventing COVID-19 continue to outweigh the risks, the regulator said, echoing similar views expressed by U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization."
[+] [-] y7|4 years ago|reply
"France's public health authority has recommended people under 30 be given Pfizer's Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine when available instead of Moderna Inc's Spikevax jab, which carried comparatively higher risks of heart-related problems."
[+] [-] belter|4 years ago|reply
"Researchers find a higher than expected risk of myocarditis in young men after full vaccination."
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/09/health/researchers-find-a...
Particularly this one from article above:
"...Boys between 16 and 19 years of age had the highest incidence of myocarditis after the second dose, according to a second study in the journal. The risk of heart problems in boys of that age was about nine times higher than in unvaccinated boys of the same age..."
Edit: The article above has a quote that I find fascinating
"Myocarditis is among the concerns that may have led the Food and Drug Administration to ask Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to enroll more children in their vaccine trials. Potential side effects are likely to dominate the discussion when agency advisers meet next week to review the evidence for a vaccine in children aged 5 to 11 years."
What kind of person voluntarily enrolls their children in vaccine "trials"?
[+] [-] AutumnCurtain|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] boulos|4 years ago|reply
> The myocarditis risk difference between the first and second dose was 1.76 cases per 100,000 people (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.33 to 2.19), or less than a 0.002% incidence. The largest difference was among male recipients 16 to 19 years, who had 13.73 cases per 100,000 people (95% CIs, 8.11 to 19.46)—but even that level amounts to only a 0.014% incidence.
> In other words, compared with unvaccinated people, vaccinated people had a 2.35 rate ratio of myocarditis 30 days after the second dose (95% CI, 1.10 to 5.02). Vaccinated young males had an 8.96 rate ratio (95% CI, 4.50 to 17.83).
[1] https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/10/covid-va...
[+] [-] belter|4 years ago|reply
"Covid: Children's extremely low risk confirmed by study" https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57766717
[+] [-] ceejayoz|4 years ago|reply
> Almost 95% of vaccine-linked myocarditis cases were mild, but one fulminant (sudden and quickly escalating) case was fatal. Surveillance occurred from the vaccine's market introduction, Dec 20, 2020, to May 31, 2021.
[+] [-] Causality1|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|4 years ago|reply
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myocarditis
[1] https://books.google.nl/books?id=-nIpAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA135&redir...
[+] [-] LurkingPenguin|4 years ago|reply
We don't even yet know for sure the mechanism by which the vaccine can cause myocarditis. There are various theories, a number of them related to the spike protein itself.
Figuring this out should be of the highest priority given that public health officials around the world are basically moving towards a boost every 6 for the foreseeable future position.
[+] [-] thesausageking|4 years ago|reply
Myocarditis is inflammation of the heart and is believed to be caused by the immune system's response to the virus. It maybe that it's less likely to happen in 30+ because their immune response tend be more muted.
[+] [-] kesselvon|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] disambiguation|4 years ago|reply
The serum is meant to be administered at an intramuscular site, but injections have a chance of hitting a blood vessel upon insertion.
I am not a medical professional, but the advice I've read is that practitioners should "aspirate" the needle (pull back on the plunger) before delivering the vaccine, to see if they've hit a blood vessel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgVsd6qoyU4
This theory somewhat matches the observations because young people are likely to have more, larger blood vessels in their arms compared to older demographics.
This also explains why men experience myocarditis more than women.
[+] [-] peteradio|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] belter|4 years ago|reply
"How Aging Affects Your Immune System" https://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/guide/seniors-boost-immu...
[+] [-] mytailorisrich|4 years ago|reply
It was a balance of the risks of the vaccine pretty much in general versus the risks of Covid by age range.
So basically if the risk of Covid is high it makes to get any vaccine available. But if the risk of Covid is very, very low then you may start considering what the risks of getting the vaccine are.
[+] [-] TickCount|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jessriedel|4 years ago|reply
In other words, if you have a medicine with both risks and benefits increasing with dose, the optimal dose will generally be larger for people who stand to benefit more.
[+] [-] bedhead|4 years ago|reply
I think what people are missing is that getting covid is inevitable, it's not a choice we can make anymore, whereas getting vaccinated is. That throws a monkey wrench into this risk/reward equation where even if the vaccination benefits outweigh the risks, people are worried about the possibility of an own-goal and how stupid they would feel knowing their personal risk profile to covid is basically zero. It's this notion of the possibility - no matter how remote - of self-inflicted harm juxtaposed with the unavoidable outcome of getting covid that messes up the equation, and I don't think it's really that irrational for many people.
[+] [-] landemva|4 years ago|reply
I am amazed at the people who are afraid to go outside and exercise, while putting on weight while sitting on couch being scared by TV news and ordering meal delivery.
[+] [-] me_me_me|4 years ago|reply
Look at the graphs of covid deaths overlayed over infections in time per country.
You will clearly see the two waves and now the third with deaths tracing up for each.
Now in countries with high % vaccinations there is barely a bump in deaths. Then look at russia or romania, their deaths are tracking first and second wave pattern.
I dunno how one can make case vaccines have no effect.
Covid might be staying and it sucks, but so far its much more dangerous than flu, I will be vaccinating myself for it as it looks like the best bet.
Lockdowns are probably not going to happen as EVERY single country would have to introduce them and that kind of global coordination is a pipe dream.
[+] [-] ceejayoz|4 years ago|reply
Well, yeah, you're vaccinated.
We've known since the original EUA submission data for the Pfizer vaccine that they're highly effective at preventing severe disease.
It's a little odd to go "welp, vaccine didn't work" when it probably did.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gjsman-1000|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ceejayoz|4 years ago|reply
> However, according to the EMA, the benefits of both mRNA shots in preventing COVID-19 continue to outweigh the risks, the regulator said, echoing similar views expressed by U.S. regulators and the World Health Organization.
"Take Pfizer over Moderna if you're under 30" isn't the anti-vax position.
[+] [-] arenaninja|4 years ago|reply
I'm not so sure about that. I think there's valid healthy skepticism about the mRNA shots but the loudest people protesting are firebreathers with no coherent argument or thought
[+] [-] uniformlyrandom|4 years ago|reply
The problem with risks and probability is that human brain does not process probability numbers well, so it is all or nothing.
Anti-vaxxers point of view: I do not understand what 0.0001 is, round it up to 0.5 - OMG vaccines kill.
Vaxxers point of view: I do not understand what 0.0001 is, let us round it down to 0. Vaccines are harmless.
Second point is way more rational, although of course also incorrect.
[+] [-] zibzab|4 years ago|reply
Analysing all angles and making informed decisions is sort of the exact opposite of pushing your head in the sand.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] joelbondurant|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]