Australia's COVID-19 response saved countless lives, but it also left hundreds of people believing they were suffering a constellation of strange symptoms from the vaccines. Now they're fighting a class action against the federal government.

Interesting and rather tragic.

The part about supressing the cause of death was especially gutwrenching. Silencing hurt people out of fear of encouraging nutters is a horrible thing to do.

  • melbaboutown@aussie.zoneEnglish
    72·
    8 hours ago

    The sad part is that reactions to vaccines are vanishingly rare but real. I’m wondering if this lady’s immune system had an unusually strong response and left her with some kind of autoimmune disease as a result. Fibromyalgia can be triggered after being sick with a virus and has been confirmed to be autoimmune.

    But it is much better for vaccines to be mandatory to keep herd immunity for those that can’t have them and keep smallpox or polio from coming back. On the balance you just can’t afford to have it be optional.

    Ironically the symptoms she’s describing sound like long covid which also gets ignored and denied support. It makes me wonder if her body did massively overreact to even the attenuated virus

    • vividspecter@lemm.eeEnglish
      6·
      5 hours ago

      None of the major vaccines for COVID are an attenuated virus to be clear, although some vaccines are made like that (usually older ones).

      • melbaboutown@aussie.zoneEnglish
        1·
        5 hours ago

        Ah that’s right! I had a brain fart and for some reason was thinking of traditional vaccines. Are the major vaccines the RNA ones where it’s just the protein? I’ve forgotten.

        I wonder if the types affect the chance of a reaction for some people or in general

        • vividspecter@lemm.eeEnglish
          3·
          3 hours ago

          I wonder if the types affect the chance of a reaction for some people or in general

          Yeah, it does affect the type of severe reaction. AstraZenica had TTS, and with Moderna/Pfizer it’s pericarditis/myocarditis.

          Chances of it happening are very low for both vaccine types, but when you administer millions of doses, some minority are going to be affected.

        • zero_gravitas@aussie.zoneEnglish
          4·
          4 hours ago

          Are the major vaccines the RNA ones where it’s just the protein?

          • Moderna and Pfizer are mRNA.
          • Novavax is protein subunit.
          • AstraZeneca is viral vector (not an attenuated SARS-CoV-2, a completely different virus).