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Comment on US FDA approves nasal spray alternative to EpiPen for allergic reactionsparent

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I knew someone that was… violently, ridiculously afraid of needles and to have them describe the time they had to stab a roommate with an Epi-Pen — after running outside and failing to find a Good Samaritan to do it — it was like hearing someone describe finding the courage to take a life or something, some kind of war story. He did finally do it, though. He also puked on the person.

The guy had some kind of natural aversion combined with an apparently traumatic memory from childhood of being held down and poked multiple times (probably due to their resisting) by nurses.

Agree. I didn't even think about it before in that context, but I also have some childhood trauma from too many blood tests. I can pass out after having blood drawn now and don't know if I'd be able to inject someone. Hopefully yes...

I'm convinced a lot of "antivaxxery" is simply redirected needle phobia.

Possibly. I wonder what keeps us from adopting needle-free vaccinations. It seems like the tech has been available but not fully developed for decades.

We shouldn’t be dismissive about how sub-optimal it is that children are routinely held down and stabbed, against their protests, by authority figures. There’s nothing surprising about people growing up from this and not trusting medical experts.

It depends, historically vaccines have been administered by injecting dead bacteria/organic matter that triggers your auto immune system to start generating the anti-bodies needed to fight whatever is being vaccinated against.

Irrelevant to the topic, COVID vaccines were developed with new technology that uses synthetic materials.

I am over simplifying a lot here, but the point is that sometimes you need to get that dead matter into the bloodstream to start the auto-immune processes.

Historically, yes, but these days it seems more like a question of priorities.

To your point, it does depend: there are needle-free options available for some vaccinations currently, though in many cases children are nonetheless forced to take the version that they beg to decline.

The children have the least say in where the research funding goes, negotiating reimbursement contracts between payors and providers, planning pharma development pipelines… My opinion is that we’re failing them.

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