The only benefit of anti-vaxxers is the default position as a self-selected control group with minimal loss to the aggregate IQ of society from remaining untreated. — Cheshire

Yes, and those who comply are the test group.

Treatment group

Treatment group — Cheshire

Test vs Control. Classic Experimental Set up.

Right, but if you are playing on the poetic aspect of semantics it is a treatment group. It is a preventive treatment; a specific test.

Right, but if you are playing on the poetic aspect of semantics it is a treatment group. It is a preventive treatment; a specific test. — Cheshire

Let's be candid here. Vaccines usually take much longer than the 1 year Covid-19 vaccines have been developed within. My hunch is fast-tracking the process like this a realy bad idea - shortcuts, I'm told save time but there's a tradeoff here between speed and safety/efficacy which everyone, oddly, seems to be ignoring.

Safety is entirely measured in terms of certainty. — Isaac

We are not dealing with quantum mechanics. The measurement does not alter what is being measured. The safety of a product and the determination of its safety are not the same. A product does not become safer because it is approved. It is approved because it has been shown to be safe. It is not its safety that changed, it is rather our degree of certainty of its safety that may change.

You suggested that it was evidence of the safety of the vaccine in the context of the FDAs work on safety... — Isaac

The context is whether he or others who are concerned for the safety of the vaccine should wait for FDA approval. If you did not understand that before, there is no good reason you would not now since it has been pointed out to you more than once. What is it you hope to accomplish be continuing to argue about your misunderstanding of what was said?

Let's be candid here. Vaccines usually take much longer than the 1 year Covid-19 vaccines have been developed within. My hunch is fast-tracking the process like this a realy bad idea - shortcuts, I'm told save time but there's a tradeoff here between speed and safety/efficacy which everyone, oddly, seems to be ignoring. — TheMadFool

Can I make assertions extrapolated only from the duration of the time taken? Are they equally as valid.

If you've done design and manufacturing work; then you are aware a lot of the progression can be derived from the initial setup or concept. Suppose whoever made the prototype knew what they were doing. The lack of changes and reevaluation to an original design also makes for quick output.

you require proof the covid vaccine is not an extraordinary case. — Cheshire

Why would I require proof that it's not an extraordinary case?

It is a demand for deductive evidence for the unknown outcome of a probabilistic trial awaiting inductive corroboration. It is a function of the amount of time that has passed; that makes the request impossible to meet. — Cheshire

Yep. Which is why I wouldn't demand that it's met. I'm not demanding anything here. It's other people doing the demanding, I'm happy to just let people make up their own minds.

If you take a Bayesian approach the number of currently healthy vaccinated people increasing at a steady rate should be reasonably compelling. Th number of unhealthy unvaccinated people clogging hospitals in places should also be reasonably compelling. — Cheshire

Why? With an increase in vaccine uptake we'd expect an increase in healthy vaccinated people in all cases (except the vaccine actually being lethal). Increasing numbers of healthy vaccinated people tells us nothing.

Where's your evidence for "The number of unhealthy unvaccinated people clogging hospitals in places ". In the UK 40% of hospitalisations related to covid are among the vaccinated.

Prove to me what happens to me in the future. Can't be done. — Cheshire

No one is asking anyone to prove what will happen in the future. I don't know where you're getting this from.

Where's your evidence for "The number of unhealthy unvaccinated people clogging hospitals in places ". In the UK 40% of hospitalisations related to covid are among the vaccinated. — Isaac

Literally the hospital 5 miles from my house. From a nurse named Karin Heller in the ICU watching young people die from a delta variant begging people to address the situation. In the UK at least 40% of anything that occurs is likely to some one vaccinated. It is a function the populations vaccination rate which I addressed as being novel 5 or 6 times.

Yep. Which is why I wouldn't demand that it's met. I'm not demanding anything here. It's other people doing the demanding, I'm happy to just let people make up their own minds. — Isaac

I'm pretty sure I was verbally abused for not providing evidence which you now acknowledge can't exist. Letting people make up their own minds does not entail justifying their bad ideas; should covid prove to hold the ordinary dynamic of having been less effective due to anti-vaxxer spread of speculative danger.

Why? With an increase in vaccine uptake we'd expect an increase in healthy vaccinated people in all cases (except the vaccine actually being lethal). Increasing numbers of healthy vaccinated people tells us nothing. — Isaac

Should someone take advice from someone that holds no significance to the health of people following vaccination; when the matter is the effect of a vaccine on health? Then, why provide it? Beyond justifying one's own choice to the detriment of others?

We are not dealing with quantum mechanics. The measurement does not alter what is being measured. The safety of a product and the determination of its safety are not the same. A product does not become safer because it is approved. It is approved because it has been shown to be safe. It is not its safety that changed, it is rather our degree of certainty of its safety that may change. — Fooloso4

Safety –a measure of the probability of an adverse outcome and its severity associated with using a medicine or technology in a given situation — McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine

The context is whether he or others who are concerned for the safety of the vaccine should wait for FDA approval. — Fooloso4

Yes. And the argument is that waiting will increase the safety by decreasing the uncertainty (risk). As I said, safety and efficacy are not binomial, everything is only ever some given level of safety. Some people (like @180 Proof) want to wait for a higher level of safety, a greater degree of certainty. The question is what qualifies the FDA to determine what level of safety people ought to accept?

Literally the hospital 5 miles from my house. From a nurse named Karin Heller in the ICU watching young people die from a delta variant begging people to address the situation. — Cheshire

Exactly the kind of anecdotal evidence we've been trying to stop anti-vaxxers from using to spread disinformation.

In the UK at 40% of anything that occurs is likely to some one vaccinated. It is a function the populations vaccination rate — Cheshire

Yes, it is. What difference does that make to a claim that it is the unvaccinated who are clogging hospitals? And yes, things might be different in the US, or they might not. We don't know do we, because you're too lazy to actually look up any evidence for us to discuss.

Letting people make up their own minds does not entail justifying their bad ideas — Cheshire

We haven't established that they're bad ideas yet.

If vaccines work as advertised (figuratively speaking; I don't watch broadcast television, and thus have no recent basis for comparisons) then people should, for the most part, be happy enough to get them. If, on the other hand, the "science" behind vaccines is predominantly the result of inter-industry peer pressure or the career equivalent, and pro-vaccine propaganda, like other capitalist propaganda, is designed to conflate an ideal with a product or service and the reality of vaccine technology is more akin to snake oil than a miracle drug, one would think that even still a majority of plebes would rather err on the side of caution and allow themselves whatever necessary measurement of blind faith, in order to lay claim to whatever tenuous peace of mind might be gleaned from mindless obsequience. "Should" people get a covid vaccine? If they want to. Should the remainder be forced into getting vaccinated? Absolutely not.

Force, and threat of force, is, for the most part, the only tool in government's tool box. If we're going to force people to be vaccinated, why not force them to work, force them to contribute to the "greater good", or force them to live a certain way in order to achieve some lofty, universal goal? Where is the line drawn? Why pressure your neighbor to be vaccinated if your vaccine is so great? If a vaccine requires majority consensus before it can be possitively effective, then why even bother making it?

It looks to me as though covid is just the new terrorism. Eventually it will be a new boogeyman to scare us all into submission and have us fighting amongst ourselves to establish some new standard of safety, of course at the cost of merely a few pesky freedoms, another pinch of liberty, and perhaps the last layer of our collective sanity.

Exactly the kind of anecdotal evidence we've been trying to stop anti-vaxxers from using to spread disinformation. — Isaac

Empirical observations provided in real time by known medical professionals in direct contact is not the same kind.

Yes, it is. What difference does that make to a claim that it is the unvaccinated who are clogging hospitals? And yes, things might be different in the US, or they might not. We don't know do we, because you're too lazy to actually look up any evidence for us to discuss. — Isaac

It is evidence your position is untenable and must result to holographic facts. At least 40% of all affected were probably also British by residence. No one needs a dishonest tactic to present the truth. I consider this a concession your position can not be maintained.

We haven't established that they're bad ideas yet. — Isaac

See above.

I was quoting @Fishfry here. This is from a country with a high vaccination rate. What really matters though is the transmission rate.

I was quoting Fishfry here. — hypericin

Oh, it didn't appear to be a quote.

This is from a country with a high vaccination rate. — hypericin

So people keep saying. No one has yet explained how that gem of statistical understanding everyone is so proud of is relevant to a claim about the rarity of the vaccinated infectious.

What really matters though is the transmission rate. — hypericin

Indeed. So evidence of a significant difference in transmission rate between strategies (vaccination vs other non-pharmaceutical methods vs both) is what we'd need to establish a moral imperative for a person to choose one over another. Do you have such evidence?

Do you have such evidence? — Isaac

Evidence that vaccinations reduce transmission at a rate significant to cases of not vaccination. Besides the remarkable initial reduction in transmission following the introduction of a vaccine. Hold on I'm gathering evidence the sky is blue for a different study.
I probably wouldn't take it if I were you. The irony could be deadly.

Yep. Which is why I wouldn't demand that it's met. I'm not demanding anything here. It's other people doing the demanding, I'm happy to just let people make up their own minds. — Isaac

Yes, it is. What difference does that make to a claim that it is the unvaccinated who are clogging hospitals? And yes, things might be different in the US, or they might not. We don't know do we, because you're too lazy to actually look up any evidence for us to discuss. — Isaac

I think you've been hacked.

Safety –a measure of the probability of an adverse outcome and its severity ... — McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine

When an assessment is made it cannot measure things that only become evident at a latter date. If it is discovered years later that a drug poses a danger to a certain group of individuals, then the safety of the drug must be re-evaluated. It is the evaluation that changes. The danger was there all along, it was simply unknown.

And the argument is that waiting will increase the safety by decreasing the uncertainty (risk). — Isaac

It does not increase the safety but it may increase our understanding of the safety, but then again, it may not. Such an increase in our understanding may occur years from now rather than between now and its approval. Where do you draw the line?

As I said, safety and efficacy are not binomial, everything is only ever some given level of safety. — Isaac

You did, but you said so in defense of your claim that it doesn't make sense to say that the vaccine is safe and effective:

Because it has been shown to be safe and effective.
— Fooloso4

That doesn't make sense. It's not a binomial. — Isaac

And later you said that no one is denying its safety and efficacy. But also:

I've presented evidence from experts who believe that vaccination does not significantly increase the chances of a good outcome. — Isaac

Can you explain how the vaccine is effective but does not significantly increase chances of a good outcome? How do you reconcile these conflicting claims?

The question is what qualifies the FDA to determine what level of safety people ought to accept? — Isaac

That is a question but not the one that was raised. In this case, for him, based on what he said,FDA approval is the determining factor. The question is whether there is likely to be a significant increase in what is known about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine between now and approval, and whether that degree of confidence is offset by the danger of being infected.

It is the evaluation that changes. The danger was there all along, it was simply unknown. — Fooloso4

Yes. And as I've cited, that's the definition of 'safety' used in the industry. Safety is the degree to which we know what the dangers are. If a medicine will cause thrombosis in patients over 80 it will be recalled or not prescribed to them. The extent to which a medicine is 'safe' is the degree of certainty that it won't. They can't say with 100% certainty that it won't, but the more checks that are done, the more certain they can be that it won't, the 'safer' that medicine is said to be.

To be clear, if 'safe' is a property of the vaccine, not our knowledge of it, then the FDA are lying. They don't know whether it's 'safe' do they, it might not be. We're in a much stronger position accepting that 'safe' is about their knowledge of it, otherwise everything can be declared 'might not be safe'. I really don't think that will help.

Such an increase in our understanding may occur years from now rather than between now and its approval. Where do you draw the line? — Fooloso4

Good question. I can't see an argument that experts in vaccines are in any way more qualified than anyone else to answer that question. Yet that is the question being treated here as if they had. People are being told that they morally ought to accept the consensus of vaccine experts opinion on what level of risk they ought to take.

Note, we're not talking about what level of risk there is. That is something the experts do indeed have expertise in. We're talking about what level of risk people ought to accept.

You did, but you said so in defense of your claim that it doesn't make sense to say that the vaccine is safe and effective: — Fooloso4

I meant that your use of that proposition in your argument didn't make sense, as I've already explained. If you state an unrelated, or irrelevant fact as proof, I'd say "that doesn't make sense". It's not disagreeing with the fact, it's saying that it's use in that place is nonsensical. Your use of the fact that the vaccine had been declared 'safe and effective' to argue that it ought to be taken was nonsensical because the person concerned had already said that they'd prefer to wait until it was proven more safe, a greater degree of certainty about the dangers.

Can you explain how the vaccine is effective but does not significantly increase chances of a good outcome? How do you reconcile these conflicting claims? — Fooloso4

Because efficacy is not binomial either. Something can be more or less efficacious and still be labelled 'efficacious'. The argument I've presented from the immunology experts is that whilst the vaccine is a good risk/benefit balance for adults and vulnerable children, it is not a good risk/benefit balance for younger adults and children where they have no pre-existing vulnerability.

That is a question but not the one that was raised. — Fooloso4

In my view it is exactly the one which was raised. Someone was told that they ought to take the vaccine because it had passed a certain threshold of safety and efficacy. But there's no scientist who can determine what risk we ought to be willing to take, no scientist who can tell us who we ought to trust.

It's my belief that we can make judgements about what risk we ought to take and who we ought to trust, but those judgements should be based on reason, not votes. I have presented perfectly adequate reasons for the position I hold, nearly 30 citations to support it. It's not the most popular position, but it's a perfectly well justified one. That ought to matter.

ndeed. So evidence of a significant difference in transmission rate between strategies (vaccination vs other non-pharmaceutical methods vs both) is what we'd need to establish a moral imperative for a person to choose one over another. Do you have such evidence? — Isaac

Delta makes this complicated, especially since published numbers are all over the place. But I was wrong, what really matters is (difference in infection rate) x (difference in transmission rate). So even modest protection in both factors can multiply to make a significant difference.

To be clear, if 'safe' is a property of the vaccine, not our knowledge of it, then the FDA are lying. — Isaac

To be clear, you are making things less clear. We cannot evaluate the safety of a vaccine without some knowledge of it. When it is said to be safe this means to the best of our knowledge. If it turns out to be less safe than the evaluation concluded that does not mean that they are lying, but that they were mistaken.

...otherwise everything can be declared 'might not be safe'. I really don't think that will help. — Isaac

Does that mean that when you say:

Nothing is without risk. — Isaac

that is not helpful?

We're talking about what level of risk people ought to accept. — Isaac

It is not so simple. When discussing communicable disease we have to consider what level of risk the community ought to accept. More and more in both the private and public sector the answer is that the risk of the vaccine is lower than the risk of an unvaccinated community.

Your use of the fact that the vaccine had been declared 'safe and effective' to argue that it ought to be taken was nonsensical because the person concerned had already said that they'd prefer to wait until it was proven more safe, a greater degree of certainty about the dangers. — Isaac

Once again you misrepresent what I said. I did not say it ought to be taken. I said I was surprised to here he was waiting. It is his choice to wait and I did not challenge that. For some perverse reason you keep returning to this. It gets us nowhere.

Because efficacy is not binomial either. — Isaac

It seems as though you do not actually know what this means. The fact that something can be more or less effective does not mean it is not effective. When the vaccine is said to be effective that does not mean that it does not significantly increase chances of a good outcome. If it did not significantly increase chances of a good outcome it would not be regarded as effective. I think you know this, but just can't help arguing.

... it is not a good risk/benefit balance for younger adults and children where they have no pre-existing vulnerability. — Isaac

At first it was thought that there was not much risk for younger people but that is no longer the true. In any case, as with any vaccine that is considered safe that does not mean that it would be helpful for everyone.

Someone was told that they ought to take the vaccine because it had passed a certain threshold of safety and efficacy. — Isaac

I suppose one advantage of being you is that you will never be lonely. You always have the voices in your head to argue with.

You make some good points Isaac. As you probably know, I've been wrestling with the decision whether or not to be vaccinated myself. I'm 67 and have no children, but I live in a rural area, so my chances of exposure are nowhere near what they would be in the city.

If what you say about the studies done to determine the safety of the vaccines in the under 25s is true then that is cause for concern and I would be worried too if I had children in that age group. Well, I am concerned anyway, I wouldn't want to see young people as a group harmed by the vaccines, but of course I would be more worried if I had kids myself.

In an emergency situation, which I think this arguably is, there does seem to be an imperative to suppress the voices of dissenters just for the pragmatic reason that they create unwarranted fears in many impressionable people, which serves to undermine the program. I say unwarranted because there are many dissenters, some very well-regarded medical experts, who speak as though they know this is going to be a disaster, an experiment on a vast scale that is going to cause millions of deaths and so on.

See this for example. According to my anti-Covid vaccines friend there is a league of thousands of doctors in the US, who believe the vaccines are killing and injuring many more people than the official figures show. But this all seems to be hyperbolic speculation (or should I have said speculative hyperbole?) as far as I, the non-expert, can tell.

The issues involved in more informed disagreements over safety, whether they have a more or less equal balance of advocates on either side or relatively few on the dissenting side, are beyond the capabilities of non-experts, that is those who are not epidemiologists, virologists or immunologists, to critically assess, and that seems to be a big problem.

The issues involved in more informed disagreements over safety, whether they have a more or less equal balance of advocates on either side or relatively few on the dissenting side, are beyond the capabilities of non-experts, that is those who are not epidemiologists, virologists or immunologists, to critically assess, and that seems to be a big problem. — Janus

Agreeable.

Can I make assertions extrapolated only from the duration of the time taken? Are they equally as valid. — Cheshire

Why not? If a particular activity (here vaccine development) was/is done faster than usual, some standards must've been flouted and therein lies the rub. I'm not saying the Covid-19 vaccines are duds but there definitely is a difference between them and other vaccines that were developed as per well-established procedures.

If you've done design and manufacturing work; then you are aware a lot of the progression can be derived from the initial setup or concept. Suppose whoever made the prototype knew what they were doing. The lack of changes and reevaluation to an original design also makes for quick output. — Cheshire

I suppose the process (vaccine development) can be sped up if the standard duration (longer) is due to logistics issues and not due to biological factors that have to do with the pathogen (Covid-19) or the test animals/humans. Good point!

It's not as simple as I thought it was! :up:

So people keep saying. No one has yet explained how that gem of statistical understanding everyone is so proud of is relevant to a claim about the rarity of the vaccinated infectious. — Isaac

Well if the whole country was vaccinated, 100% of those infected would be vaccinated. Further, children, who are ineligible, and young adults, who get vaccinated in lower numbers, make up a significant part of the unvaccinated population. Their natural immunity partially removes them from the pool of potential viral hosts. Whereas the older demographic groups, with the weakest immune systems, also have the highest vaccination rates. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/811B/production/_119915033_934ed1dc-65ea-4439-9d4c-b82dd0fe28e0.png

what really matters is (difference in infection rate) x (difference in transmission rate). So even modest protection in both factors can multiply to make a significant difference. — hypericin

I agree with the combination, but not the way you've put it. Infection is morally irrelevant without transmission (which you already account for in the second term). The two morally relevant factors are need for health services (not the same as infection, clearly) and transmission. A moral case for taking the vaccine would have to show that it reduces the need for the use of health services and/or the rate of transmission relative to other strategies, and to a greater extent that other lifestyle choices we already consider morally irrelevant.

For example, we don't morally compel people not to skydive, or box, or compete in motor-sports. We don't morally compel them to exercise, avoid red meat, eat fruits and vegetables... We basically accept that some people will risk burdening the health services to a greater extent that others, so long as that extent is not huge we don't create any moral imperative. Freedom and diversity are more important considerations for us than the community burden those choices carry.

For anyone below middle age, your chances of hospitalisation are around 9-10 in 100,000 (source https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2020.0982). Your chances of needing hospital services just from being overweight are about 50 times that (source https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/statistics-on-obesity-physical-activity-and-diet/england-2020/part-1-obesity-related-hospital-admissions-copy). So, the vaccine's effectiveness is irrelevant here 1/10,000 risk of hospitalisation is already not something we normally have a moral imperative to avoid in the first place so any reduction carries no normative weight.

As for transmission - as I've said, we've no evidence yet for a reduction in transmission compared to other strategies so it's unknown.

Well if the whole country was vaccinated, 100% of those infected would be vaccinated. Further, children, who are ineligible, and young adults, who get vaccinated in lower numbers, make up a significant part of the unvaccinated population. Their natural immunity partially removes them from the pool of potential viral hosts. — hypericin

All true. I'm not seeing any relevance to the claim that the unvaccinated infectious are clogging up hospitals, or that the vaccinated infectious are 'rare', which were the two claims I used that statistic to counter.

When it is said to be safe this means to the best of our knowledge. — Fooloso4

I've literally quoted the medical dictionary on what it means and you still persist as if you were some font of knowledge...

Does that mean that when you say:

Nothing is without risk. — Isaac


that is not helpful? — Fooloso4

Depends on the context. If someone is citing 'risk' as a reason for avoiding something, or lack of 'risk' as a reason for doing something, then yes, it is useful to point out that nothing is without risk.

When discussing communicable disease we have to consider what level of risk the community ought to accept. More and more in both the private and public sector the answer is that the risk of the vaccine is lower than the risk of an unvaccinated community. — Fooloso4

That's not an answer. If the question is 'how much risk ought the community accept?' the answer can't be to compare two risks to see which is the higher. That's the answer to the question 'which risk is higher?', not the question 'what level of risk ought we accept?'

I did not say it ought to be taken. I said I was surprised to here he was waiting. — Fooloso4

I see. So why were you surprised? A substantial number of people are waiting for full approval before taking the vaccine, why would it surprise you to find 180 was one of them?

If it did not significantly increase chances of a good outcome it would not be regarded as effective. — Fooloso4

Of course it would. Most drugs are effective only in certain circumstances, or dependent on the risk/benefit calculation. Not to mention the stunning naivety in suggesting that because the FDA say it's effective it must therefore be effective...

Paracetamol - https://www.evidentlycochrane.net/paracetamol-widely-used-ineffective/
Cancer drugs - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2589085
Anti-depressants - https://www.research.ox.ac.uk/article/2016-06-08-most-antidepressant-drugs-ineffective-for-children-and-teens-study-finds

All FDA approved as safe and effective, serious questions over the effectiveness of all of them... It's almost as if the world's largest and most powerful lobbying group ever might have had some influence over the matter... surely not though, I expect they spend four times as much on lobbying than any other industry just for the fun of it, not because it works!

At first it was thought that there was not much risk for younger people but that is no longer the true. — Fooloso4

'True'? So now you have the hotline to what is actually 'true', not just expert opinion, not even consensus anymore, we went past that barrier quickly, now it's what's actually True. So Stephen Baral is actually lying (not just presenting a different opinion) when he said

the likelihood of severe outcomes or death associated with covid-19 infection is very low for children — Stephen Baral

In any case, as with any vaccine that is considered safe that does not mean that it would be helpful for everyone. — Fooloso4

No, exactly. So each individual should be able to make up their own (informed) mind about whether it's suitable for them, yes?

If what you say about the studies done to determine the safety of the vaccines in the under 25s is true then that is cause for concern and I would be worried too if I had children in that age group. Well, I am concerned anyway, I wouldn't want to see young people as a group harmed by the vaccines, but of course I would be more worried if I had kids myself. — Janus

Not sure if I cited this already, but there's a blog in the BMJ recently on the issue you might be interested in - https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/05/07/covid-vaccines-for-children-should-not-get-emergency-use-authorization/ and a discussion in the Journal of Medical Ethics about it here - https://jme.bmj.com/content/47/8/565

In an emergency situation, which I think this arguably is, there does seem to be an imperative to suppress the voices of dissenters just for the pragmatic reason that they create unwarranted fears in many impressionable people, which serves to undermine the program. — Janus

It's possible, yes. But for an alternative view point on the effect of suppressing dissenting voices - https://documents.uow.edu.au/~bmartin/pubs/99rsppp.html . I think there's a danger, as Vinay Prasad put it that

The CDC director calls this "following the science," but it is not. It is following the TV pundits. — Vinay Prasad - Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California

If dissenting voices are to be suppressed, they should be suppressed on the basis of good science, not on the basis of their agreement with institutions, especially government ones.

See this for example. According to my anti-Covid vaccines friend there is a league of thousands of doctors in the US, who believe the vaccines are killing and injuring many more people than the official figures show. But this all seems to be hyperbolic speculation (or should I have said speculative hyperbole?) as far as I, the non-expert, can tell. — Janus

Yeah, I think that's the point we've reached. It seems reasonable to read of the usual dismissal of quackery we get from sciencebasedmedicine.org (I quite like it a lot of the time), until we read this line "he’s rehashing the same dubious arguments made by Peter Doshi in January to claim that the actual efficacy of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines is much lower than the clinical trials found".. Pete Doshi...an associate professor of pharmaceutical health services research at the University of Maryland and editor of the British Medical Journal. How is David Gorski (an oncologist specialising in breast cancer) in a position to claim that Pete Doshi (an epidemiologist and editor of the world's foremost medical journal) is making 'dubious' arguments?

I mean there's no doubt in my mind that McCullough is exaggerating in order to promote his own personal 'cure' - same old story. What's insidious is the way the article is used to subtly (or not so subtly) attempt to throw any dissenting opinion under the same bus.

Find some whacko saying something is bad - et voilà - proof that it's good. It just doesn't work like that (or at least it shouldn't).

The other wierd issue here is that the people who would accuse a doctor like McCullough of deception to promote a product are the same ones dismissing the influence of the pharmaceutical companies' commercial interests as mad conspiracy theory. Either doctors are willing to risk lives to promote products or they are not, and with more power comes more ability to do exactly that.

The issues involved in more informed disagreements over safety, whether they have a more or less equal balance of advocates on either side or relatively few on the dissenting side, are beyond the capabilities of non-experts, that is those who are not epidemiologists, virologists or immunologists, to critically assess, and that seems to be a big problem. — Janus

Yes. As I said earlier in this thread, there's only a handful of people actually involved in this who know the facts first hand, a few hundred at most. The rest - governments and agencies included - are choosing who to trust. I feel like that used to be recognised in the sciences (though maybe I'm being nostalgic), these days it seems we're asked to believe the chosen ones have the Truth™ and the rest are sociopaths or lunatics.

I expect a higher level of wariness from those responsible for public health. If even a single expert (well-recognised, in the correct field) says there's a problem, then the course of action is uncertain. Hesitancy at least, certainly not legally mandating the chosen course and banning discussion of the alternative as has been mooted in this case.

Matters of public health should not be left to individual citizens to decide, simply because they are too complex for an ordinary citizen to have the proper grasp of them, and too important to be left to lay public discourse and individual decision.

The government should make a decision and make it mandatory for people to comply. If it doesn't, this can mean several things:
-- The matter of public health is not as severe as originally thought or as popularily presented.
-- The matter of public health is worse than originally thought or as popularily presented.
-- The government doesn't have a solution, but refuses to admit so.
-- The government has a solution, but refuses to enact it, because it would possibly lead to public disapproval, and the government doesn't want to deal with that (it's either too weak, or too concerned about being reelected).

I expect a higher level of wariness from those responsible for public health. If even a single expert (well-recognised, in the correct field) says there's a problem, then the course of action is uncertain. Hesitancy at least, certainly not legally mandating the chosen course and banning discussion of the alternative as has been mooted in this case. — Isaac

Yes. If the governments are so damn sure of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, then why didn't they push the makers of the vaccines early on to produce sufficient amounts for everyone?

Why did the governments let the private pharmaceutical companies dictate the pace of the pandemic early on, at that crucial time when the pandemic could have been reigned in with an effective vaccine (even if not a particularly safe one)?