Look, I'm more willing than most to agree that forcing a medical procedure on the masses is a terrible idea. I'm even more willing than most to agree that not every vaccine will have a sufficient cost/benefit trade off for everyone. I have low-exposure and low-risk to COVID so I'm content to wait a while for the vaccine. I have questions in my mind about how we're so sure that a big shot of mRNA can't somehow cause a risk of birth defects, etc. But...
>> The reason we haven't is because it will introduce more problems than it solves down the line.
This is just not sound reasoning, and it's a terrible argument against the vaccine. Have you ever taken antibiotics? Or have you ever benefited long-term from anything medical that we didn't "evolve" through natural selection? Because I sure as hell have. How does this not apply to other vaccines, which have clearly saved an astonishing number of lives, and have, almost without exception, not produced the kind of long-term existential threats to humanity you seem to be hinting at.
>How does this not apply to other vaccines, which have clearly saved an astonishing number of lives, and have, almost without exception, not produced the kind of long-term existential threats to humanity you seem to be hinting at.
It does apply to all vaccines. Vaccines bias the immune system, which has evolved to be general enough to deal with problems that generally come our way. This bias caused by vaccines results in better performance against those specific viruses but comparatively worse performance against most of anything else. This can also result in auto immune disorders down the line:
Generally, this bias also happens naturally when viruses infects populations. But the tradeoff is mostly worth it when the virus is still at large... and the natural population is optimized for wide variety of attacks because the immune systems are biased in many different ways in the first place, so even after a pandemic, the resulting population will still have a varied enough immune systems.
Large scale vaccinations bias the population in a very few particular ways. When vaccines for multiple viruses are given to everyone, the immune systems become more and more similar than it would ever happen naturally. So, mass vaccinations make us more fragile as a species against future pandemics, not to mention the autoimmune disorders that also happen as a result.
Given that vaccines have unintended consequences, you probably agree that targetted vaccinations are effective i.e. what if we could vaccinate exactly those who will get infected right before they get infected? That way, we could help them fight the infections better while not affecting anyone else. Right? That is how the immune system already works. It starts the fight right after it detects the infection.
Sometimes, the immune response is not appropriate and can cause more problems than it solves. The same can happen with vaccines.
Sometimes, the immune response may be appropriate but is not sufficent to save the host. The same can happen to vaccinated individuals. It can be argued that the headstart that one gets because of early vaccination might make it worth it... but you also have to consider how many will be vaccinated even though they never really get infected and how many will be missed anyway... and there is also a cost to determining these things. So, overall, it is highly unlikely to be worth it.
>> The reason we haven't is because it will introduce more problems than it solves down the line.
This is just not sound reasoning, and it's a terrible argument against the vaccine. Have you ever taken antibiotics? Or have you ever benefited long-term from anything medical that we didn't "evolve" through natural selection? Because I sure as hell have. How does this not apply to other vaccines, which have clearly saved an astonishing number of lives, and have, almost without exception, not produced the kind of long-term existential threats to humanity you seem to be hinting at.