[ForHackernews]

You are misrepresenting that story (deliberately, to make a point?). One person on a vaccine trial has reported adverse symptoms -- it is not yet known whether the patient's symptoms are a reaction to the vaccine or not. They could be sick with some completely unrelated issue.

The trial has been paused in order to investigate the cause of this person's symptoms.

> “At this stage, we don’t know if the events that triggered the hold are related to vaccination,” said Dr. Luciana Borio, who oversaw public health preparedness for the National Security Council under Mr. Trump and who was acting chief scientist at the F.D.A. under former President Barack Obama. “But it is important for them to be thoroughly investigated.”

If anything, this should make you more confident, not less, in the safety of a well-tested vaccine.

[undergrowth54]

> this should make you more confident, not less, in the safety of a well-tested vaccine.

Indeed it should! The fact that people are about to communicate messages such as "I am worried that this vaccine caused harm" means that it is more likely that this risk of harm is being appropriately managed.

A broken fire alarm is a risk to fire safety.

[ceejayoz]

> A broken fire alarm is a risk to fire safety.

So is one that issues false alarms every 5 minutes, which is generally a better analogy for anti-vaxxers.

[afarrell]

That is also correct.

Epistemology is hard.