[throwaway2474]

I hope that at some point we get to see an in-depth business case study of Pfizer and how they’ve been so successful out of the pandemic. They seem to have an unbelievable grasp of the science-marketing game and how to navigate it successfully at scale.

Without getting too far into controversial territory, I’ve observed that

- Out of many competing vaccines, Pfizer was always the “cool” one, in both scientific and lay circles

- The vaccine has caused a significantly higher number of cardiac side effects than initial studies reported, which has just sort of been swept under the rug

- It’s failed to stop the pandemic in any meaningful way

And yet

- You still won’t read this in most mainstream media, and still can’t mention these things in many social contexts

- Governments around the world are still pushing Pfizer/Moderna over all other vaccines (hear about AZ recently?)

This article is another example of how their marketing machine is working for them.

If I ran a multimillion dollar company in a highly regulated industry, I’d be taking very careful notes of him how Pfizer is playing this one.

[fabian2k]

Myocarditis is a very rare side effect, you generally can't see those in phase 3 trials. You need a lot of people for these to show up, simply because they are so rare. That's nothing new here, this applies to every new drug or vaccine. And Biontech/Pfizer doesn't have the highest myocarditis rate, that is for Moderna.

The vaccines also simply work. They worked very well against the wild type where they also prevented infection, and not only drastically reduced death and hospitalisation. They still reduce death and hospitalisation against Omicron. We figured out now that you really want a third dose for best protection, but that is simply something that you can't know if you have to develop a vaccine on such a compressed timescale.

The mRNA vaccines are the best ones against COVID. AZ and J&J have more serious rare side effects, and they are simply less effective. They're still dramatically better than no vaccine, but once the vaccines were not scarce anymore in the developed world, it made sense to focus on the better ones.

[throwaway2474]

As a disclaimer, I have ongoing cardiac side effects. Several doctors from general practice and in cardiology have separately told me that they all generally accept the published numbers much lower than what they see first hand. In a previous comment I hypothesised this is because the reporting systems are not good.

[locuscoeruleus]

> - It’s failed to stop the pandemic in any meaningful way

One of the nordic countries has 10x more infections than the first wave and 0.5x people in intensive care. While the vaccines have failed to stop the pandemic, I disagree that the contribution is not meaningful.

[throwaway2474]

I think that’s largely because omicron is less serious. I think the vaccine helped against past strains, and maybe a bit against omicron, but it was vastly oversold.

[ceejayoz]

> I think that’s largely because omicron is less serious.

You can think that as much as you like, but we have actual numbers on hospitalization/death in the two populations, and there's a clear, large difference even in the Omicron surge.

[throwaway2474]

Delta and previous strains saw horrendous, mass casualties in many countries. I don’t think that’s really happening anywhere with omicron. It may be that enough of the world is vaccinated at this point (or had covid) that there’s no way to properly compare. Or maybe it’s just not being reported anymore? But it definitely doesn’t feel anywhere near as bad as previous waves, even in the unvaccinated population.

[ceejayoz]

> I don’t think that’s really happening anywhere with omicron.

It's almost like a bunch of people got vaccinated, but the US is still losing thousands a day. More than a 9/11's worth every day for the past week.

> It may be that enough of the world is vaccinated at this point (or had covid) that there’s no way to properly compare.

The 10-30% unvaccinated in most developed nations provides plenty of statistically significant population, and we've literally done the comparing. (See charts: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/11/briefing/omicron-deaths-v...)

> But it definitely doesn’t feel anywhere near as bad as previous waves, even in the unvaccinated population.

We know it's less lethal, yes, but extrapolating that to "the vaccine isn't useful" is false.

[dataflow]

My understanding is Pfizer was the "cool one" because it was a well established pharmaceutical company that created a vaccine on a compressed timeline that drastically cut the rate of severe illness and death, with performance better than much of its competition. i.e. it was to a great extent based on merit (both in the past and present).

> The vaccine has caused a significantly higher number of cardiac side effects than initial studies reported, which has just sort of been swept under the rug

Links with actual numbers to illustrate the scale of the alleged issue are pretty necessary with this kind of accusation.

[bambax]

> It’s failed to stop the pandemic in any meaningful way

This isn't true, and makes one question the rest of your message. What is true is that the vaccine doesn't really stop people from contracting Covid. But it prevents them from being sick, which is what matters. This is verifiable.