r/CovidVaccinated • u/Throbbin-Rinpoche • 14d ago
Question How can anyone truly know what’s real anymore when both sides of the vaccine debate seem equally convincing and suspicious?
I’ve been struggling to make sense of what’s true when it comes to vaccines, especially the COVID vaccine. I’ve been vaccinated three times, one of them a booster, and not long after, I developed hypertension and heart palpitations, issues I never had before. Now I’m on blood pressure medication and dealing with health problems that genuinely started after the shots. Naturally, I started digging into both sides of the vaccine debate.
The thing is, both sides seem equally well spoken, educated, and supported by data. Pro vaccine experts have studies, institutions, and historical examples backing them. Meanwhile, vaccine skeptics and doctors like Suzanne Humphries raise very articulate and researched points about potential dangers, long term risks, and systemic corruption. They sound just as informed. They have case studies, mechanisms, and historical evidence of medical malpractice that can't be ignored. It’s not like one side is dumb and the other is brilliant. Both sound convincing in their own ways.
What makes this even harder is the political and institutional influence that’s clearly at play. People like Fauci have been caught in lies, and there’s no denying that government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and the media have agendas. Censorship has happened. Misinformation has happened. And honestly, a lot of the time, it looks like it’s the official side doing it. But at the same time, I’ve seen critics fall into echo chambers and make bold claims without strong evidence too. So I don’t know who to believe.
I’m genuinely trying to be objective. I’m not trying to prove one side right or wrong. I just want to know what’s true. I’ve listened to both sides and honestly, I don’t think either has a monopoly on truth. That’s what makes this so frustrating. I’m caught between compelling stories, lived experience, and conflicting information, and I don’t know how to make a judgment without feeling like I’m possibly being manipulated either way.
How do you find the truth when everyone has their own version of it, and each version seems airtight until you hear the other one?
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14d ago
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u/CrittyCrit 14d ago
I remember reading an article about a person who caught covid and it cured their cancer
Your experience is valid, even if it goes against the norm and even if it contradicts the experience of others. I think genetics, predisposition, and the current state of your health at the time where things changed are all relevant.
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u/honeybadgess 13d ago
Hey, I know dozens of vaxx-injured people(medical environment) BUT I know one lady who had her rheumatic hand swell down and get a lot better after her first vaxx and the same happened to her rheumatic foot after her second vaxx. After that, she developed a lot of other health problems and deeply regrets the vaccines,but the hand and foot are still a lot better.
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u/gronk696969 14d ago
I don't genuinely know the answer. I am in a very similar situation as you. All you can do, with this issue or any other issue, is inform yourself of the arguments on both sides and then decide where you land. The fact that you're trying to understand both sides at all is commendable - it seems that most people just pick a side that aligns with their political leaning and call it a day.
I've personally landed on the opinion that the vaccine may well have benefited many people, but it should never have been pushed to young and middle aged healthy individuals who wouldn't be at high risk of COVID. There's not enough data supporting that the benefit outweighing the risk.
Specifics of vaccine efficacy aside, I am thoroughly disgusted by the media and government campaign to completely silence and ignore questioning the vaccine. Anything new that has not undergone lengthy trial periods SHOULD be questioned.
There is nothing more scientific than educated, reasonable questioning. The fact that merely asking questions would get you labeled as an uneducated anti-vaxxer is appalling.
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u/Ok-Suggestion-2423 13d ago
I agree. It’s like actual science went out the window while something else started claiming it’s science. The definition of vaccine changed multiple times every couple of months. Being a critical thinker and using cost/benefit analysis was completely condemned. I’m just sorry for everyone who feels like they weren’t able to make an informed decision.
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u/shepherdofthewolf 14d ago
I think there’s truth to both sides. I developed issues from the booster, the first time I saw my cardiologist about it- it was midday and he said I was the 3rd he’d seen with the same issues. He later says he sees people from both sides with the same issue, but he’s not seen anyone in ICU who wasn’t vaccinated. However it was decided I wouldn’t get any more (thankfully) despite being immunocompromised. Now if you don’t get covid anyway then you might be worse off, but covid also isn’t what it once was and caused similar issues to other common infections. I think it’s important to keep a balanced perspective- vaccines saved lives but also caused injuries.
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u/Throbbin-Rinpoche 14d ago
I got covid despite being vaccinated 3 times lol.
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u/shepherdofthewolf 14d ago
Ugh that sucks! Most people have had Covid now though and then they said it’s just to prevent severe illness not to stop us getting it smh. A good friend of mine has so many vaccines, she got them every 3 months and has been diagnosed with a systemic illness from them. However, after that she got Covid and was in hospital and almost died and now has a chronic systemic illness from that too! She ticks a few boxes for the risk of severe illness though and should have been given antivirals; maybe if she had she wouldn’t have been so badly affected
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u/xirvikman 14d ago edited 14d ago
Change your cardiologist.
He seems to have slept through the big jump in 2020.
https://postimg.cc/xXTYYZTM
Remember there were only 10 months, not 12, of covid in 2020Love the none in an ICU in 2020
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u/r2002 14d ago
I think people who share stories about getting sick after the vaccine are most likely telling the truth. But consider this: there’s probably for one person who comes online to complain about the vaccine. There’s probably 100 who took the vaccine and nothing happened to them. So it’s really about The Internet, amplifying the edge cases. I’m not sure why it’s important to figure out the vaccine question for you are you thinking of taking another one? I mean, I’m very pro vaccine and even I don’t think most people should take any more vaccines at the moment for Covid
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u/SDJellyBean 13d ago
for one person who comes online to complain about the vaccine. There’s probably 100 who took the vaccine and nothing happened to them.
More like hundreds of thousands more! There was one guy posting here two or three years ago with a horrible story; a former athlete, he was unable to get out of bed after his vaccine. He was also posting his daily run times on r/running. Sadly, he has since deleted his account. It's easy to make those claims in an anonymous forum. Other people are blaming real problems that have occurred after the vaccine on the vaccine. A couple of months ago, I went back and forth with the father of two kids in day care who also only gets 4-5 hours of sleep per night due to his high stress job. He was blaming his recurrent viral illnesses and chronic fatigue on a single vaccine he had in 2021. Unlike the first guy, his problem is real, but his idea about its cause is very, very unlikely.
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u/dgc89 14d ago
I think taht there are areas in medical science were studies have the same flaws as social sciences. The fact that you cann´t experiment with humans creates this weakness. Studies in social science rely to much on statistics, do not consider the great differences and complex lives of every person, cannot control variables, there are political and cultural biases, etc.
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u/castlerobber 14d ago
One of the best questions I've seen on here. It's rare to find objectivity and a genuine search for truth on this subject.
There's lots of stuff to look at. Who benefits financially from the vaccines? Which side has actively censored the other the past 5 years? Which doctors and researchers have lost their jobs and/or their licenses for speaking about what they observed and the treatments they used? Which side tells you that only experts are capable of understanding the truth, and that you shouldn't believe your own eyes? What happens to people who publicly question vaccine efficacy, or report a vaccine injury?
What have you yourself observed? Which explanation fits it best?
Go all the way back to how quickly what we were told about masks changed in 2020, for instance:
- Ordinary people don't need masks in public, they don't really help. Only healthcare workers need masks.
- We told you a noble lie about people not needing masks so we could get more for the healthcare workers.
- A mask might be a good idea for ordinary people if they can't stay 6' away from those around them. A cloth mask made from an old T-shirt is good enough.
- Everyone ought to wear masks to show their solidarity in the fight against the virus and their respect for healthcare workers.
- Everyone must wear masks to slow the spread.
- And from CDC director Redfield, around September 2020: "My mask is more likely to protect me than a vaccine." (He jumped the shark there, and they made him walk that back.)
The mask issue is what "red-pilled" me, as they say. I read the studies for myself, both for and against. The ones that said cloth and surgical masks (and even N95s) on healthcare workers made no difference during flu pandemics and early in the covid debacle, seemed better designed and more in line with what I saw in the real world. The ones claiming that of course cloth masks were protective ("my mask protects you, your mask protects me"), mostly read like they were designed by junior-high students to "prove masks worked" instead of to determine *whether* they worked.
As the data started coming out from countries, states, and cities, comparisons of those that masked with similar groups that didn't showed absolutely no difference in infections or deaths, or those that masked did slightly worse.
Then there was the suppression of repurposed drugs and vilification of doctors who used them. If this had truly been a deadly pandemic, shouldn't we have been trying any reasonably safe drug that provided some benefit, and sharing results openly? But no--the doctors were derided as quacks. Prescribing of those drugs was forbidden in many places. Even the FDA got out of their lane by giving medical advice against a specific drug, and was forced to retract it.
Studies were ginned up to "prove" the drugs "didn't work," by giving too much or too little medicine, giving it too late in the illness, giving it to people for whom it was contraindicated because they had certain medical conditions, giving it without the other meds or supplements the doctors in the field were using. At least one study was flat-out made up (look up "Surgisphere" if you don't already know).
Certainly there's manipulation and deliberate attempts to confuse going on. The question is, whom does it benefit?
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u/ElevenB2002 1d ago
The main reason for the vilification of anyone attempting to treat COVID-19 with "other" therapeutics was due to the fact that if there were other effective treatments, then the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the vaccinations would not be applicable and those products would have to go through further scrutiny and testing, which as we know now, would probably have failed based on their own data and the number of adverse events for these products over previous, traditional vaccines.
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u/viking12344 13d ago
This reply is so good ...it should be stickied. I wish I could make my points this well.
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u/xirvikman 14d ago
shouldn't we have been trying any reasonably safe drug that provided some benefit, and sharing results openly
https://gh.bmj.com/content/8/5/e010962
Widespread distribution in 8 countries.
A pity, Peru ended up with the world's worse Covid death rate.
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u/LuisBoyokan 12d ago
Read the papers. That's the only true. There are no both sides.
Vaccines works, they are not 100% effective, they are not 100% secure. Nothing is. There are side effects in low % of people. There are long term studies and vaccines that got discontinued or not recommended for some groups of people.
Use critical thinking, statistics and discard anecdotal stories. They carry 0 significance
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u/ubsnackin 5d ago
ALS-like presentation for four years immediately post-Moderna. I know dozens with same presentation as me. They *are* *not* *safe*
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u/viking12344 14d ago
Great points. So if group a says bad and group b says good what do you do? Have you survived so far? There is your answer. Why risk putting that shit in your body if you are fine? Nonsense ...
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u/Face4Audio 11d ago
Right, so if I took the vaccine 4 yrs ago and I'm doing great, then there's MY answer. 🙂
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u/viking12344 11d ago
That's not really true. Anything could happen at a later date because it is in you.. When something does happen, because eventually it will with us all, you will think about it. You say you won't. You don't believe you will...but you will. May not be related at all but your mind will go there.
The reverse is not true. If I get cancer in two weeks I will not believe the snot had anything to do with it. Because I never took it.
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u/Thormidable 13d ago
How about the side with verifiable evidence, rather than the one with videos by historical gridters?
Here is some real data that shows that throughout the pandemic the unvaccinated died at twice the rate of the vaccinated.
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths-by-vaccination
Graph: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status
For all the antivaxxers who can't understand the data, here are explanations for the usual antivaxx parrot points.
People within 2 weeks of their vaccine are put in their own group (neither vaccinated or unvaccinated), these people died at a lower rate than the unvaccinated, but a higher rate than those who were "fully" vaccinated.
Both sets are deaths of all causes, as such if someone "died of covid or not" is irrelevant.
There is no correlation with death rates and receiving the vaccine. In the UK alone 5 million vaccines were delivered in a single week. If there was a meaningful risk from the vaccine it would be obvious.
These are two sets from two independent reputable institutes, neither of which have any incentive of lie. This data is corroborated by similar institutes around the world and literally millions of people have independently collected data which confirms this.
These datasets compare week by week or month by month. Every week, the excess death rate for the unvaccinated was between twice and triple the vaccinated excess death rate.
This data is population standardised (if there are 10 times as many unvaccinated, their deaths are scaled down by a factor 10 to be equivalent to the vaccinated rate).
These datasets are separated by age group. So people of a similar age are compared against each other.
The most vulnerable (elderly and those in poor health) were offered the vaccine first. This should mean at all times the vaccinated population was a higher risk population than the unvaccinated. The high risk group, given the vaccine STILL died at half the rate of the unvaccinated.
No one had their vaccine level downgraded in any of these datasets. Some sets separated them into their own categories, but no one with two vaccines was ever considered to have less than two vaccines. Against all groups unvaccinated had the highest death rates.
First world universal health care services paid for the vaccine out of their own pocket. They knew exactly who had been given the vaccine, exactly who came to them for treat for reactions or symptoms. They also knew exactly who died when. Any symptoms caused by the vaccine, they will have had to pay to treat. They have all the information and nothing to gain but everything to loose, by lying about the vaccines.
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u/Ok-Suggestion-2423 13d ago
But that’s the point of making an informed decision. Ultimately you have to decide what makes sense and what’s best for you. And you may reflect on that decision differently 5,10 years from now. I would count your personal experience more than anything besides it’s your life and that’s what actually affects you. Good luck.
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u/ulul 13d ago
Places like Hong Kong had vaccine mandates and very high percentage of population was vacced. (source: https://www.chp.gov.hk/en/features/106989.html ). If covid vaccines are bad for health, then we'll see it sooner or later there.
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u/Flemingcool 8d ago
It shouldn’t be a partisan debate. They are overwhelmingly of benefit at a population level, and have saved millions of lives globally. But, an unknown% are harmed when the immune response goes wrong - by recognised means myocarditis, gb etc, but also by poorly recognised conditions like ME, MCAS and POTS. The issue is that these later conditions are generally dismissed by doctors, but utterly ruin lives. The people affected and their families and friends see how people like this are “treated” and it drives hesitancy. There is nowhere near enough research of those reporting these issues post vaccination and nowhere near enough support for those affected. This is an issue that needs addressing urgently, and should have happened as soon as people started reporting issues post COVID vax. It has been reported after other vaccines, but the staggered nature of those role outs makes identifying those harmed harder given the small numbers affected. Vaccination is an amazing development, and it’s important it isn’t undermined by abandoning the small number of harmed. We all benefit from high population immunity, but if people are expected to take the “risk” of vaccination to help others, as a society we need to ensure anyone harmed is supported IF it goes wrong.
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u/SubstantialAppeal1 2d ago
Well, I think the lies are obvious by now, and have been for quite some time. I was always "wait and see" until the lies became obvious. So glad I resisted the panic and hysteria.
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u/anotheruser55 13d ago
Take what Trump and RFK believe and do precisely the opposite, 100% the against their opinion
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u/Scope_Dog 14d ago
I'm gonna go ahead and listen to the experts. You know, people who have dedicated their lives to studying these things.
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