No i did not have reservations about safety of the injections, i trust clinical studies. People who don't trust double blind, placebo controlled studies simply have a fundamental trust problem because well, if you don't trust those, it's really hard to trust anything at all.

I didn't think vaccines were actually necessary or would help at all because i expected the virus to spread anyway which it did, and i didn't have any specific health issues to make me afraid of the virus (and i was wrong on this, a perfectly healthy guy just a bit older than me who i knew, refused vaccine, got to intensive care with covid, and nearly died). So maybe i dodged a bullet idk.

But in any case, political considerations were main reasons why i took the vaccine - by that point, i was pretty much infuriated with hard-right propaganda and hard-right opinions prevailing everywhere around me.

>Why is it do you think that “political markers” have come to take such precedence for some people?

Because of the culture war. It's a bitch and you have to take part even if you hate the idea. Too many things people on the other end of the spectrum do, repel you too much and you need to distance yourself from them as much as possible - and they usually do it exactly for that purpose. I bet conservatives feel the same about us; it's just that - culture war.

Maybe splitting into two nearly non-intersecting societies, like they had in Netherlands (they had three! google "Pillarisation") is a good thing. They avoided strife simply by having parallel structures - schools, churches, hospitals, theatres, labour unions, and of course political parties - for each, and almost did not communicate with people outside of their group, ignoring each other. Even during WWII Resistance against Nazi occupation was pillarised - separate groups fought against Nazis while ignoring each other. They won't admit it, but pillarisation ended simply because one of the groups - social-democrats - eventually won.

The studies were only placebo controlled for the initial run of a handful of weeks.

After which the controls were given the mRNA injections, eliminating the possibility any study of longer term issues that may arise.

Though now we have come to see quite a few complications arising that weren’t picked up in the initial studies. To the point that nearly all countries where the mRNA shots were used, aside from the USA, have barred their further use from some, or the majority of their populations.

Have you followed any of this?

For those of us who have, I think it’s caused a bit of reevaluation in many things we had assumed to be largely noble endeavors, public health, things involving placebo controlled, double blind studies as you say, etc.

I think some of us have learned that when there are other factors at play such as profit motives, and large scale social engineering and experimenting it pays to look beyond the messaging of political parties when making medical decisions that have the potential to affect the rest of our lives, or suddenly end them.

I guess it would be a kind of hard cognitive dissonance inducing thing to do though, if even “by accident” the people on the other side who’s opinions you find so objectionable that you’re thinking about wars of separation with, turned out to have some valid points that if you had considered them may have in fact saved you some trouble in the form of heart issues, or lowered sperm counts, or period disruptions, or a host of other potential issues.

That's simply not true, studies were placebo-controlled until after administration of approved vaccines have started everywhere. No voices towards giving placebo branch the vaccine started before March 2021 when most vulnerable population and a good chunk of population overall was already vaccinated by "production" vaccine. Some studies eventually gave vaccine to placebo participants (thus ending the trial) in mid-2021, some never did. In any case, vaccine authorisation was in all cases based on studies with proper placebo control.

And no, mRNA vaccines are still in use everywhere in the European Union. Vaccination against Covid in general has been withdrawn from the wide public because it's no longer worth the cost and risks, because everyone today has some level of immunity and today's Covid strains are a lot less dangerous, so it's worth the scoop for only most vulnerable population groups.

Moveover, mRNA vaccines for other viruses are being tested and used after the Covid success and there is no talk about limiting or banning the technology. Your posts looks like some conspiracy theory.

Oops, yeah when I said mRNA shots, I meant the spike protein ones, as those are currently the only ones. I didn’t mean to imply a whole class of products.

I would think if there were to be anymore there would be much more skepticism and questions though, given that so many got these under the pretence of not getting Covid and then they still got Covid and in many cases some unpleasant side effects from the shots to boot.

Is there a study with the control group having not been “uncontrolled” and thus potential for further longer term data?

Vaccine testing never considered probability of asymptomatic infection and never gave any promise about it. They only tested for probability of symptoms, hospitalisation, and death. If someone took vaccine thinking it will make them immune in the sense of avoiding infection altogether it's their problem/misperception.

>If someone took vaccine thinking it will make them immune in the sense of avoiding infection altogether it's their problem/misperception.

Seems a little harsh to blame people themselves for being wrong if simply for the reason of taking at their words authorities like the president of the USA, the head of the cdc, the head of the nih, and many more on down the line.

Detailed results of clinical studies that were used to apply for emergency authorisation of vaccines were widely discussed in all kinds of press of all political leanings. They explicitly stated that there were no studies about probability of asymptomatic infection. IIRC Pfizer study counted as "positive cases" (for both vaccine and control group) the one that had both a positive covid test AND two of the six primary symptoms, or a positive test AND breathing difficulties/reduced blood oxygen levels, as a single sufficient serious symptom. They did not count asymptomatic infections.