Talk:Vaccine adverse event

See also

I guess this is revisiting the age old debate about what to include in the "see also" section. I thought this was settled with the inclusion of the vaccine template. Andrew73 13:21, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the ones that focus on autism. It is extremely controversial to suggest that vaccines cause autism, even more controversial that it is the cause of the "autism epidemic" and more controversial still that every vaccination article needs one of Ombudsman's laundry lists. JFW | T@lk 02:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of the medical establishment's willful insistance in casting a blind eye upon its role in causing the autism epidemic, the neurological and GI tract pathologies evident in vaccine injury claimants is central to the potential liabilities faced by the pharmaceutical industry. Pretending the connection does not exist in order to excuse deleting links, despite the tens of thousands of legal claims being made by the parents of children with autistic spectrum disorders, clearly equates with suppression. Ombudsman 04:28, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Far from a blind eye, the question of a link between vaccines and autism has been extensively researched, so there isn't any pretending of a connection when it doesn't exist (of course perhaps additional research will prove me wrong. Furthermore legal claims do not necessarily equal causation (or do you believe Anna Ayala's claims about the finger)...perhaps there are other motives (e.g. financial gain, exploitation of parents, etc.) involved.

From a different stand point, I don't think it's necessary to include autism, etc. in the "see also" section when they are already mentioned in the text. Andrew73 04:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Andrew, for setting a professional tone for this talk page. And thanks for catching the fact that the links were already integrated into the text. The unusual lack of scientific curiosity within the medical community about the apparent link raises plenty of red flags about what is really happening with regard to the likely link. Fatally flawed epidemiological studies have not even begun to prove there is no link, especially since the primary value of such studies is simply for drawing inferences. Clinical studies, as yet lacking funding, have unquestionably supported the evident link. Additionally, the growing evidence of a cover-up by the pharmaceutical industry of vaccine injury rates, and frantic efforts to enact legislation protecting vested interests, indicates that the industry is fully aware of the vast tragedy that has unfolded. Neither has the link escaped the attention of many among the millions of parents who may eventually file vaccine injury claims (two million potential claimants, minimum, in China alone, supposing access to legal remedies is not denied). No vaccines = virtually no autism. Period. The goal here at the Wiki is supposedly to build an encyclopedia, and thoughtful discourse such as you have displayed hopefully heralds an improvement toward productive use of talk pages for related articles. It has taken nearly eight decades to begin serious research on the effects of thimerosal, and perhaps the Wiki itself will be at the forefront of fostering more rapid investigations of similar dangers, like the MMR vaccine. Your example above is a good indication that the communication barriers hampering the advance of research can be overcome. Ombudsman 06:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Ombudsman, I think this is a situation where we'll have to agree to disagree! I agree that the pharmaceutical industry isn't perfect and that financial motivations may influence decisions. And I agree that vaccinations aren't perfect, but neither is anything else in medicine. And I agree that it may be more difficult to "prove" a negative (than a "positive"). But I give greater weight to the published epidemiology out there refuting the link between vaccinations and autism.

One thing that hasn't been touched on in these discussions is that I wonder if this focus on vaccinations may up being a red herring and distracting autism research. Andrew73 13:51, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Sources

Ombudsman, you have included numerous external links, but it is unclear which of these are sources that support the content of this article. Could you revisit the content and add footnotes to facilitate WP:CITE? JFW | T@lk 02:57, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Another newspaper article. Is it useful? It doesn't seem to add any new information, nor anything that is not contained in more primary sources. Is Milford noted for the quality of its coverage of deep medico-legal issues? Midgley 09:55, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

"people are less tolerant of vaccines' adverse effects than of adverse effects of other treatments"

Does anyone know what this somewhat ambiguous phrase is intended to mean? I assumed that the "tolerance" referred to was that of public opinion, and edited accordingly, but that has been reverted on the grounds that it is "unclear that public opinion less tolerant". certainly, but the alternative interpretation of the phrase (that it is the people themselves that are less tolerant - i.e. vaccines have worse adverse effects than other treatments) is at least equally unsupported. I'll put a fact tag on it for now in the hope that the source for the statement will make it clear, but can anyone clarify? Brunton (talk) 09:07, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

The cited source (Bonhoeffer & Heininger 2007, PMID 17471032) says "Immunization safety concerns are different from concerns about other medical interventions, because they are administered to generally healthy individuals and the tolerance of AEFIs is substantially lower compared to adverse events following medication for an existing illness." When I wrote the text in question I merely attempted to put it into the active voice. I removed the fact tag and put in a comment saying what the cited source is (normally there's no need to supply one of several duplicate citations). Eubulides (talk) 17:14, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. So when they say "the tolerance of AEFIs is substantially lower...", it looks to me as if they are essentially talking about the tolerance of public opinion to adverse events. As I said above, the wording is slightly ambiguous, and could be taken as indicating that it is the tolerance of people's bodies that is lower (i.e. adverse effects of vaccines are worse than adverse effects of other treatments). I don't have access to the full text, although the abstract certainly doesn't suggest that the paper supports the alternative interpretation. Brunton (talk) 11:43, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

"Tollerance of public opinion" doesn't make much sense. People can be tollerant or intollerant individually, but public opinion is some ambiguous amalgum of people's opinions, what pundits say, etc. Also, public opinion is largely in favor of vaccination, it is in the individual case that people may have more reservations about vaccination. (i.e., vaccination in the third person is good - people want the benefits of everybody else being vaccinated, it is in the first person (me or my children being vaccinated) that more reservations come into play.) Zodon (talk) 18:01, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I think the ambiguity that Brunton is talking about is whether it's the person's body that is tolerant of AEFIs ("tolerant" as in "lactose-intolerant"), or whether it's the person's opinion that is tolerant of AEFIs ("tolerant" as in the film "Intolerance"). The source's context makes it clear that the latter interpretation is intended. I tried to fix this by changing "people are far less tolerant of vaccines' adverse effects than of adverse effects of other treatments" to "people are far less willing to tolerate vaccines' adverse effects than adverse effects of other treatments". Eubulides (talk) 18:19, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

That was precisely my point - the new wording is better. Brunton (talk) 20:41, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps rather than talking about what you shouldn't include, you should talk about what you SHOULD, such as ADEM, Encephalitis, Giullain-Barre, Th1/2 skewing, and the new statistically significant syndrome that has appeared post-Gardasil vaccination-- just as a jumping off point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.123.117.160 (talk) 18:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Side effects and safety

At present the article reads as a provaccination polemic. THE Vaccine Controversy article is the place for that. Here actual risks should be listed and the medico-legal aspect explored. e.g. SV40 long term prognosis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.165.128.188 (talk) 00:46, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree.2601:80:4003:7416:4415:D680:992D:3498 (talk) 15:55, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Missing info on what happened to claims

From 1988 until March 3, 2011, 5,636 claims relating to autism, and 8,119 non-autism claims, were made to the VICP. 2,620 of these claims, one autism-related, were compensated, with 4,463 non-autism and 814 autism claims dismissed;

This doesn't explain what happened to the about 4800 (5636-1-814) autism claims that were neither compensated nor dismissed nor does it explain what happened to the about 1000 (8119-2620-4463) non-autism claims that were neither compensated nor dismissed. --Espoo (talk) 19:01, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Titles/subheadings

Hello - I entered information on Vaccine Compensation in Quebec, but I could not get the Canada subheading to look like the two other countries - US and United Kingdom - can anyone help? thank youCsessa2017 (talk) 02:29, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Formatted it. Interesting reference you gave for your edit. It noted that during the 2009–2010 period, 5.7 million people in Quebec received the A(H1N1) vaccine alone, but only six cases were compensated overall. Moriori (talk) 03:24, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Vaccine injury term

I've flagged the sources for the claim that the term "vaccine injury" is used "especially in the anti-vaccination community". Two sources were provided: [1][2]. As far as I can tell, while both sources refer to "vaccine injuries", neither source discusses the use of the term, and neither makes the claim that it is especially prevalent with anti-vaxers. Am I missing a discussion of this in either of those sources? - Bilby (talk) 17:12, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

I think vaccine injury may be used less recently than it was in the past, but I don't think it's exclusively an anti-vax term. Natureium (talk) 17:21, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Vaccine injury is, today, used almost exclusively by antivaxers. Note for example the Vaxxed bus, which is covered with the names of hundreds of children whose status as vaccine injured was accepted entirely uncritically, most of them being autistic. The only place I can find any significant ongoing mention of the term is in the cases before the vaccine court, which handles only a tiny number in coparison with the global community of people with adverse reactions and the much larger community of people who are told they have them by cranks and charlatans.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4468570/

Davies et al [25] examined the content of 100 similar websites from a rhetorical perspective to better understand the social discourses in which vaccine-skeptical claims are embedded. Their rhetorical analysis revealed that vaccine-skeptical websites portrayed themselves as authorities on vaccination, appealed to viewers’ emotions through personal testimonies of vaccine injury [...]

Opposition to the HPV vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix has coalesced around specific injury narratives [62], and SANE Vax is one of the prominent Web venues proffering a space for these discourses. (note that the HPV "vaccine injuries" turn out to have nothing to do with HPV, when investigated in detail)

NVIC states that its mission is to prevent vaccine-related injuries and deaths (NVIC is one of the most important anti-vaccine propaganda groups in the US, and its information is almost universally misleading or incorrect)

Of 5 board members of SANE Vax, two state they are parents of vaccine injured children. There's one now according tot he website, who claims that his daughter's POTS was caused by HPV vaccine. It probably wasn't.

A pattern emerges: antivaxers state with confidence that their children are "vaccine injured", based on the claims of "vaccine injury experts" who actually usually have no medical expertise, but are simply members of the anti-vaccine cult.

“It is obvious that the government does not want to publicize the existence of the [court],” reads one website that is typical of the conspiracy wing, “because the more Americans learn that there are vaccine injuries and deaths … the more they may start to question the safety of vaccines.” (http://time.com/3995062/vaccine-injury-court-truth/).

A Google search for "vaccine injury" (quoted) finds plaintiffs' attorneys, a few articles pointing out how rare vaccine injuries are, and a host of antivax sites like NVIC which implicitly claim that vaccine injuries are not just rare but almost inevitable, that they include death from HPV vaccine and autism from any vaccine, both of which are bullshit, and so on. Guy (Help!) 18:56, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

While I have seen "vaccine injury" used by antivaxers, the content in question dos not appear supported by the source, and should be removed as OR. Tornado chaser (talk) 19:18, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

According to your reading of it. Whereas according to mine, it's fine. We should not, after all, obscure the fact that the "vaccine injury" trope is, as the sources show, used as a propaganda tool by antivaxers. Guy (Help!) 19:36, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

The latest source you've added, [3], also fails to discuss the term. It uses it once, but there's no claim that it is "particularly associated with the anti-vaccination subculture." - Bilby (talk) 21:28, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

The root of the problem is this: many science communicators who look at this - Paul Offitt, David Gorski, Peter Hotez and many, many more - make this exact point in their blogs and podcasts. But I am trying to stick to sources that are well established as reliable. In fact the statement is entirely supported by the prose of the sources, just not as a literal word for word quote. That "vaccine injury" is an antivax trope is both true and well known (see [4] for a skeptical take) to the point that the crankosphere actually calls the reality-based take on vaccines and autism, vaccine injury denialism.. Guy (Help!) 22:19, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

The statement isn't supported by the sources you've offered. You are jumping from "anti-vaxxers use the term vaccine injury" and "anti-vaxxers focus on vaccine injuries" to "the specific term vaccine injury is particularity associated with anti-vaxxers", which in many of these cases is countered when the sources discuss things such as the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. - Bilby (talk) 22:35, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Bilby is correct, I have reworded part of the lead[5] to be more consistant with the sources. Tornado chaser (talk) 00:11, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

s/be more consistant with the sources/cause less butthurt to antivaxers/. For example, you removed "the idea that severe events are common has been classed as a "common misconception about immunization" by the World Health Organization", which is absolutely 100% in line with the source.

More worryingly, you also changed "but vaccines do not cause autism" to "despite the scientific evidence that vaccines do not cause autism". I guess you probably don't realise why that is dangerous. Read some of the sources, you will see that antivaxers portray science as a conspiracy to sell vaccines. Everyone here knows that science is a method for telling truth from fiction, but in antivax world, casting this as "you say X but science says Y" is actually framing it "brave whistleblower mommy instinct we know best says X but as evil corporate big pharma science conspiracy says Y". At this point we can say with clarity that vaccines do not cause autism. That's a statement of fact. We don't say "there is no scientific evidence that the earth is flat", right? And this really is at that level of certainty. It's not just that vaccines don't cause autism, as you stated: there is no actual evidence of a link, causal or otherwise. In other words, the onset of autism is not even correlated in time with vaccinations. They are independently distributed. The antivax position was always based on the post-hoc fallacy, but in this case even that fallacy doesn't apply. A is not even associated with B is an absolute proof point for A does not cause B, it is scientifically stronger but perceived as weaker by the lay public, for whom we are writing.

You really need to stop editing these articles directly until you understand what the antivax propagandists are trying to achieve in the world. Guy (Help!) 09:00, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

@JzG: I really didn't think that adding "scientific evidence" was softening anything, I just thought it was a awkward use of "but", I have changed "but" to "despite the fact that" to fix this wording and hopefully address your concerns about my previous wording. Your statment that You really need to stop editing these articles directly until you understand what the antivax propagandists are trying to achieve in the world. is odd, because you don't generally need inside knowledge beyond what is in RS to edit wikipedia. (although I do have such inside knowledge, I was an antivaxer at one time, and what the other antivaxers I knew were "trying to achieve in the world" was health(of course everyone wants that) and less government influence in our lives(a legitimate political opinion). The problem(in my observations anyway) is that they have a badly misguided, if not totally backward, idea of how to achieve health, but I have never heard of any nefarious plot by activists to Make AmericaThe World Sick Again (Although there are some bad actors who profit from and spread this misinformation by selling "detox supplements" or alternative vaccine schedules). Tornado chaser (talk) 18:05, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

@Bilby: I think you're misreading here. The statement is not that the term is only associated with antivaxers, but that it is particularly associated with them. Antivaxers state, as if it were fact, that SIDS, autism and shaken baby synddrome are vaccine injuries. They use "vaccine injury" in preference to "adverse event". They assert that everything in VAERS is a proven vaccine injury. In the professional literature, by contrast, the most usual form of words is adverse event, not injury, because injury is an unspecific term and many adverse events aren't injuries. In terms of use of the term, it's first and foremost antivaxers, second, plaintiffs' lawyers, third, politicians. Guy (Help!) 13:41, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

The source you are using mentions vaccine injury as a term only once, and says neither that it is particularly or only associated with antivaxxers. - Bilby (talk) 13:47, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

@JzG: The sources don't discuss the word choices of antivaxers vs legit scientists, you seem to be engaging in OR. Tornado chaser (talk) 17:29, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Unless you are actually familiar with the sources in their entirety, and the wider antivax crankosphere, sure it might seem that way. I am familiar. Guy (Help!) 20:11, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

I looked at the sources, and they don't discuss the word choices of antivaxers vs legit scientists. Your claim to need familiarity with "the wider antivax crankosphere" makes it sound like you are editing based on additional info not in the source, in which case you need to cite the sources you are getting this from. Tornado chaser (talk) 21:04, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

• It is absolutely incorrect to characterize the phrase "vaccine injury" as a term primarily used by antivaxers. The United States has a statutory National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and the U.S. Department of Health maintains a "Vaccine Injury Table", which it describes as "a table of vaccines, the injuries, disabilities, illnesses, conditions, and deaths resulting from the administration of such vaccines, and the time period in which the first symptom or manifestation of onset or of the significant aggravation of such injuries, disabilities, illnesses, conditions, and deaths is to occur after vaccine administration for purposes of receiving compensation under the Program". bd2412 T 21:20, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

And if you look, you will see that I never used the word primarily. The statement was: The term vaccine injury is particularly associated with the anti-vaccination subculture. And it is. Top hits for vaccine injury are sites like NVIC, Age of Autism and other militant antivaxers. In the literature, the term "vaccine injury" is used almost exclusively as a direct reference to NVICP. The technical term is vaccine adverse event or variants thereof. When you read "vaccine injury" in a newspaper article, it la almost always in the mouth of an antivaxer. When you hear people talking about their "vaccine injured children", they are almost always talking about autism, which is not caused by vaccines. Yes, medics and scientists sometimes say vaccine injury, but they usually use a less loaded term. Whereas antivaxers almost never use any term other than vaccine injury. So the term is, as I wrote, particularly associated with the anti-vaccine subculture, and the sources establish this in their discussion. But we have two editors here whose primary goal in any vaccine related article is to make the antivax side seem less wrong. Guy (Help!) 22:34, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

I see what you are saying, but in order for the encyclopedia to say that the term is particularly associated with antivaxers, we would need a source saying, basically, "the term, 'vaccine injury', is particularly associated with the anti-vaccination subculture". bd2412 T 01:31, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

@JzG: Your claim that me and Bilby's primary goal in any vaccine related article is to make the antivax side seem less wrong. is WP:aspersions, and is not the first time you have accused me of being antivax for arguing against your attempts to insert OR[6]. If you really think that I am trying to make antivaxers seem less wrong, how do you explain the many times[7][8][9][10][11][12][13] (this is not a complete list) I have removed antivax POV-pushing and whitewashing? I am not taking any further action now, but I will file an ANI or AE report if you keep making a pattern of these demonstrably false accusations. Tornado chaser (talk) 03:18, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

You keep asserting your opinion as if it were fact. You are wrong: it is not OR. Guy (Help!) 09:19, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Here's an unequivocal statement:

To examine the influence of a popular negative modifier associated with HPV vaccination, we mirrored the methodology previously used [1] with the terms “HPV vaccine injury,” “Gardasil injury,” and “Cervarix injury.” For all three search terms, the top result was HPV vaccine critical. Additionally 13/15 (87%) of top five results and 27/30 (90%) first page results were also vaccine critical. These findings show that the pejorative modifier “injury,” in conjunction with HPV vaccine search terms creates a much stronger vaccine critical bias than any of the other terms used by Fu et al.

— Benhamu, Joanne; Hawkes, David; McDermott, Tracey (2016-06-01). "The Role of Pejorative Search Terms and Professional Antivaccine Advocates on Search Engine Results for Human Papillomavirus Vaccine". Journal of Adolescent Health: 691. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.02.010. Retrieved 2019-02-11.

It's a letter to the editor, hence I did not cite it. However, it reflects the fact, as I have outlined here numerous times. Use of the term is particularly (not solely or primarily) associated with antivaxers.

The same is discussed in Shelby, Ashley; Ernst, Karen (2013-08-01). "Story and science". Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics. 9 (8): 1795–1801. doi:10.4161/hv.24828. ISSN 2164-5515. PMC 3906284. PMID 23811786.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link). Guy (Help!) 09:19, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

What is the difference between particularly and primarily? Tornado chaser (talk) 15:31, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

How about "often associated"? That is clearly supported. Also, the letter to the editor references an actual study, so can that study be found? bd2412 T 15:43, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

I am happy with "often associated". I think we might already source the original study, let me check. Guy (Help!) 15:44, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

Definition in opening sentence

The article currently defines vaccine adverse events as adverse events “caused by vacination”. Is this entirely correct? The article seems to be discussing claimed, or reported, adverse incidents, but these are not all actually caused by vaccines. For example the VAERS database has a disclaimer saying that inclusion in the database “does not imply causality.” I suggest a change to “associated with”, or perhaps “caused by or associated with”. Brunton (talk) 11:27, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

Very good question. In general, it seems to me, that a vaccine adverse event is indeed an event caused by a vaccine. There are many claimed vaccine adverse events, which may, on investigation, turn out either to be VAEs, or not. Most of the academic sources do start from the premise that they are talking about actual adverse events, and make a distinction between those and events which follow, but may or may not be caused by, vaccination. Guy (Help!) 13:36, 8 February 2019 (UTC)

"Common misconception"

@JzG: You made this revert[14] apparently because I removed the word "common", however, I replaced it with "popular", which I thought mean essentially the same thing as "common" in this context, I am not trying to change the meaning, it's just odd to have "the idea has been classed as a common misconception", don't we normally just say something like "despite the common misconception"? Tornado chaser (talk) 04:22, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

It's not popular with me... Guy (Help!) 15:43, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

In this context "popular" means common, believed by many people, ect. It doesn't make any sense to talk about whether something is popular with a specific person. Tornado chaser (talk) 03:45, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

The idea that adverse reactions are common, has been classed as a "common misconception about immunization". If one word needs to change, it cannot be in the quote, it would have to be the first instance of common, not the second. Guy (Help!) 23:40, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I am suggesting getting rid of the quote and just stating as fact that the misconception is popular. Tornado chaser (talk) 23:46, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Of course you are. But the quote is fromt he WHO and is directly relevant, so let's not do that, however much it might please the antivaxers. Guy (Help!) 23:51, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Statment from RS don't have to be attributed quotes, often they are just stated as fact, I don't see how this would please antivaxers. Tornado chaser (talk) 23:54, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

I see no harm in having the quote. It makes it clear that this exact wording is the authoritative opinion of the body being quoted. bd2412 T 00:08, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

It just seems awkward to me, but this is not a huge problem. Tornado chaser (talk) 00:11, 15 February 2019 (UTC)

Adverse Effects Databases

Would like to include links to prominent monitoring databases around the world. The WHO database is called VigiBase. There may be analogous or partner databases in member and non-member countries MarsInSVG (talk) 12:08, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Adding more precise definitions of rarity

I propose we add the standard definition of rarity of adverse events:

• very common – this means that 1 in every 10 people taking the medicine are likely to have the adverse reaction
• common – this means that between 1 in 10 and 1 in 100 people may be affected
• uncommon – this means that between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1,000 people may be affected
• rare – means that between 1 in 1,000 and 1 in 10,000 people may be affected
• very rare – means that fewer than 1 in 10,000 people may be affected.

Source: [15]https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/consumers/Safety-of-Medicines/Medicine-safety.asp Forich (talk) 05:05, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

These are "standard"? Alexbrn (talk) 05:53, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

It seems that way; Side effect#Frequency of side effects quotes the WHO on the subject. (I have no horse in this race.) - CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:55, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

None of these ranges seem relevant to vaccines, for which serious adverse reactions are more along the lines of 1-2 in 1,000,000. BD2412 T 22:03, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I think -- but I may misunderstand -- that the point is that, by accepted definitions of adverse event incidence, all serious vaccine adverse reactions are very rare. - CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:57, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

My caution is that it would be misleading to specify that "fewer than 1 in 10,000 people" are affected by reactions that are a hundred times rarer than that. BD2412 T 23:17, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

@BD2412: that's Original Research, we follow established guidelines. I propose we include the parameters as they are published in reliable sources and let possible misunderstandings be dealt with at the appropiate channels out of Wikipedia. Forich (talk) 19:38, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

It should be trivially easy to find sources providing the specific average incidents for specific vaccines. For example, this. BD2412 T 20:24, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

• If we want to state or imply something about the rate of AEs for all vaccines, we need a source for that. Anything else is synthesis/OR. Bon courage (talk) 02:10, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
  • There's lots of sourcing out there for that. But even more important to me than the sourcing is that the material be tied in to the article at hand. The proposed, now reverted, addition to the article by Forich doesn't do that. A version which properly explained how this relates and where vaccine AEs fall could be acceptable. - CRGreathouse (t | c) 02:17, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Inconsistent Language in First Two Paragraphs

Paragraph I says “caused by vaccination,” but Paragraph II says “… can be coincidental.” This seems inconsistent and confusing. 216.106.149.86 (talk) 14:25, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

I recall an account of a woman who brought her child to the pharmacy be vaccinated for COVID-19. Later that day, the child had a seizure. The thing is, when they had gotten to the pharmacy, the line was too long, so the child had not actually been vaccinated that day at all. Had the child received the vaccine, it surely would have been blamed for the seizure, and treated as the likely cause by courts and doctors. BD2412 T 14:37, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

More likely by the tabloid media and anti-vax campaigners. No doctor of any quality would do so, and I would also hope the courts would do better. But yes, the first post here is correct. That wording is problematic. Even the word "believed" seems wrong to me. Surely a VAE must be caused by a vaccine to count as one. Some nutter believing an event was caused by a vaccine doesn't make it true. Nor could we create sensible content covering all the false beliefs about VAEs. Unfortunately, the source, Health Canada, accepts reports of adverse events from "consumers", i.e. not just health professionals. The website doesn't make clear whether it does any quality control on such reports. I am tempted to edit the opening wording of the article to have it make more sense. HiLo48 (talk) 01:05, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

It is, quite frankly, most often unclear whether a vaccine was the cause of an adverse health event proximate to receiving the vaccine in the way that we can say that dropping a hammer on your foot was the cause of a broken it. There are certain statutory presumptions made under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in the U.S. (and in comparable programs in other countries) to the effect that a certain medical event occurring within a certain amount time frame after receiving a particular vaccine will be treated as if it was caused by the vaccine, even if the relationship is actually unknowable. BD2412 T 01:58, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

Do you know if anything similar happens in other countries? (And just a tip - Have a read of WP:EDITSUMMARY. It tells you about not writing such long Edit summaries.) HiLo48 (talk) 02:30, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

I would suggest starting with Clare Looker & Heath Kelly, No-fault compensation following adverse events attributed to vaccination: a review of international programmes, Bulletin of the World Health Organization (March 21, 2011). Most of the countries examined only require a balance of probabilities (or in some cases, probable cause) to award compensation, which is often a lower burden than would be required in a civil suit. As for the length of my edit summaries, they are within the length that is physically possible within the constraints of the platform. BD2412 T 03:43, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

All that tells me is that some people almost certainly receive compensation even when their injury was not caused by the vaccine. That really doesn't help us here. (My comment re your Edit summaries was merely a tip. Yours are abnormally long. They really aren't summaries. And they make you appear to be an inexperienced editor.) HiLo48 (talk) 06:06, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

The point is that what is called a "vaccine adverse event", both medically and legally, is usually just a guess at causation based on correlation. Also, "inexperienced editor" is one of the most amusing things I have ever seen put into writing on this platform. Too experienced, actually. My reign as one of Wikipedia's top editors precedes that rule three times over. BD2412 T 12:32, 12 December 2023 (UTC)

Copying and pasting your post is NOT summarising it.HiLo48 (talk) 00:38, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Congratulations for being literally the first person who has ever cared about the length of my edit summaries. Let me see if there is some kind of barnstar for that. BD2412 T 02:00, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

My initial comment was intended as a helpful tip. Sorry you didn't see it that way. HiLo48 (talk) 02:17, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Your initial comment was directed towards me personally, and not relevant to the development of this article. It should have been left as a user talk page comment, and should be hatted now. BD2412 T 13:31, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

Your wording believed to have been caused is an improvement. Maybe "suspected of having been caused" is even better? Adding a data point to databases like VAERS does not necessarily mean one actually believes there is a connection. (I don't know how far we are moving into WP:OR territory here, and the lede should also summarize what the body of the article says.) --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:39, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

@Hob Gadling: I don't know how much we want to finesse it. In some instances, it is more accurate to say that it is "presumed to be". Perhaps we can find a source for the latter proposition. BD2412 T 13:32, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

I have a watchlist. No need to ping me, especially for something I do not need to respond to. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:34, 14 December 2023 (UTC)