We know what the long term consequences of vaccination are: reduction of risk of the long term consequences of COVID. These include breathing difficulties, fatigue and cognitive impairment. The objectively proven benefits of vaccination are so starkly and concretely conclusive that it is functionally impossible for anyone's imagined fantastical, hypothetical concerns to outweigh them.
A vaccine isn't even really medicine, it's science. It is a method of giving your immune system a heads up about a pathogen without exposing you to the actual pathogen. The vaccine doesn't hang around in your body for the "long term". The vaccine material is quickly disposed of by your body. After a few weeks, the only things left inside you is your own immune system, better educated.
There is no single "vaccine material" and pretending there is this single magic completely disappearing thing in all vaccines is disingenuous at best.
Also, just because something disappear from the body does not mean that it will have long lasting impacts (of course that is the point, where the gained immunity is a positive impact, but there could also be negative)
I never said that vaccine material was singular; my intent was for "material" to represent the totality of all material content in the vaccine dose, save perhaps for the water molecules it is suspended in.
If you want to go down that rabbit hole of "long lasting impacts" then you must equally accept that everything you eat is a risk. Everything you wear against your skin is a risk. Every breath you take. Every move you make. Every bond you break. Risk is everywhere.
Running away from a Komodo dragon carries the risk present in any form of physical activity. It's possible that you might trip, fall, and hit your head in a particularly nasty way. But the fact that running isn't entirely free of risk doesn't mean running away from a Komodo dragon is a bad idea.
I don't know of anyone who's "dictating" that you get the vaccine and I would oppose anyone who wants to make vaccinations literally compulsory.
But given how extremely well tested it is, given its utterly astonishing and indisputable efficacy, given that the upsides greatly outweigh the risks[0], I have no problem with society applying a bit of societal pressure on people to get vaccinated voluntarily.
[0] Obviously this is the case when talking about known risks, likely but unproven risks, or even unlikely but plausible risks. But it's still true EVEN IF you accepted all of the wacky paranoid nonsense about vaccine safety and their beliefs about "long term risks". I haven't heard any anti-vax argument that makes the vaccine out to be even one tenth as bad as the disease it protects you from.
>I have no problem with society applying a bit of societal pressure on people to get vaccinated voluntarily.
The problem is that you are essentially imposing your trust in the institutions, onto others.
Trust in "science" is fundamentally different from trust in "scientists". Even though it might make sense to apply societal pressure to mandate trust in "science", it makes no sort of sense to mandate trust in "scientists".
I think it is hard for a lot of people to see or acknowledge the distinction between "Science" and "Scientists" which is causing these debates..
This has nothing to do with trust any more. I no longer have to trust a single thing said by any individual scientist, any individual medical doctor, any institution of science or any institution of medicine. Why? Because sufficient evidence is now available in hard numerical statistics.
Adverse events? Don't make me laugh. Sorry, but even the most doomsday anti-vax postulations about vaccine "adverse events" don't even come close to competing with the proven "adverse events" of COVID infection. A whole bunch of mumbling imaginings don't amount to a hill of beans when compared to four million deaths.
If you want my attention, you'll have to show me evidence that vaccines have caused millions of people to die within weeks and millions more are currently suffering serious long term illness. But you can't show anything like that. You're playing an infantile game of "I demand exact numbers" in order to hide the fact you're asserting phantom dangers while unable to offer any numbers of your own.
A vaccine isn't even really medicine, it's science. It is a method of giving your immune system a heads up about a pathogen without exposing you to the actual pathogen. The vaccine doesn't hang around in your body for the "long term". The vaccine material is quickly disposed of by your body. After a few weeks, the only things left inside you is your own immune system, better educated.