I got long covid from an infection before the vaccines were available.
Getting the vaccination and boosters noticeably worsened my existing long covid symptoms. I still got the boosters because I assume a reinfection would be much worse than the vaccine's effects. If I ever thought I could reasonably avoid risk of future infections I would not choose to get more boosters, but since exposure is inevitable, I'll deal with the consequences of the booster.
When essentially everyone has had exposure to covid your statement can't actually be tested. We don't have a cohort of people we know got vaccinated but were never exposed to the virus.
Anyway, the vaccine is worth getting because the alternative is being exposed to the virus without protection, but that doesn't mean the vaccine is actually free of side effects for everyone.
Hypothetically, it could be because those folks have already died or are experiencing effects that genpop refuses to corroborate with the treatment. There’s been a major bias against reporting side effects (not that the process has ever been fully hashed out) and iirc the ‘cine industry is the only one you can’t sue, so any potentially-educational lawsuits that might’ve been are a nonstarter. Not saying these things are confirmed but that there’s definitely room for a lot to fly under the radar.
You can't sue the makers because a federal agency has taken all liability. You can sue the agency though, and they do pay out occasionally for injuries caused by vaccines.
Ok just going to make the counter argument if that's ok?
They are new compared to traditional vaccines like polio and smallpox
Their view is that vaccines are now unnecessary because of herd immunity, (I've got them to concede that hospitals or the economy would have collapsed without vaccines), and that they are just being used up because govts signed contracts.
Their view is that the side effects risk is now higher than the benefit.
So how many years does it take to no longer be new?
The Polio vaccines are also new compared to the Smallpox vaccines.
But that doesn't mean we don't have sufficient data on their safety and effectiveness. And we have comparable levels of data on the mRNA covid vaccines.
It also only works if the herd remains immune. We are now seeing a return of diseases that had previously been eliminated (not eradicated), due to a decline in vaccinations. Examples include measles and whooping cough.
So would you say that vaccines are still needed for all, or just for people like me who are immunosuppressed?
Vaccines are needed for all, as in everyone who is eligible for inoculation. Yes, if I am vaccinated, my body will be much better equipped to successfully fight off the virus and keep me out of the hospital (and the morgue)...but in doing so, I also contribute to the overall herd immunity, which protects people who have pre-existing conditions, cannot be safely inoculated, or have immune system issues. If I don't get vaccinated, I don't just put myself at risk; if I get covid (which isn't always obvious because it doesn't always present physical symptoms, aka I could be a carrier), I also risk infecting everyone I come in contact with, which endangers people like you.
Anecdotal, I'll admit, but I've had 6 shots now. And I plan on getting one every 6 months because I can't take the risk of getting sick. The only side effects I've suffered is a sore arm for a day or so afterwards. The other side effect is that I haven't gotten Covid yet, or if I did then it was so mild I didn't notice most likely thanks to those vaccines.
Your friends are being short sighted. mRNA vaccines have been around for a long time, almost but not quite as long as polio or small pox vaccines, but still a long time. The only thing that changed for Covid, if you take the time to research the vaccine, is that the message protein was changed. This protein can't hurt you or give you Covid in any way. All it does is present a foreign protein for your immune system to begin fighting. For most people, they don't even notice. Mostly because our immune system is fighting off something actually infectious pretty much every day, but you don't get sick. These vaccines are a valuable tool in fighting infections, specifically because of the way new updates to the vaccines can be created quickly. To deny this is being willfully blind to their benefits.