As far as I know this was explained away with - it's too urgent and it's not ethical to have placebo controlled vaccine trials at this time, since everyone will contract covid. So we didn't have any.
The trials lasted long enough to gather the statistical evidence needed to show that the vaccine prevented the trial group from becoming infected (and that it was highly unlikely the trial group did better due to random chance). When that point was reached, the trial was deemed sufficient and was ended/unblinded. When people are dying by the thousands every day (in the USA alone), how much longer would you have wanted the trial to go on? We found out what we wanted to know. The vaccine worked. There's no need to carry on and ask the placebo group to continue with the risk of being infected.
I'm not going to argue the ethics, I'm going to argue that these trials are under-powered and insufficient to make bold claims about vaccine efficacy. The trials are in fact not completed until the end of the year, but there is little further information to be gained after dissolution of the placebo group.
Remember, the people defending Ivermectin also argue that it's unethical to do further trials when it is "clearly effective" (according to under-powered studies). Consider that pharma companies deliberately avoid follow-up trials to avoid finding results that don't align with business interest. Remdesivir and Molnupiravir both looked promising in early trials, but were found to be rather ineffective (and dangerous) in later trials.
I don't have a problem with administering drugs/vaccines based on good faith and speculative benefit if that is declared appropriately. Just don't dress it up as "scientifically validated".
> The evidence for covid vaccines is that they provide robust protection for months, and then protection may begin to wain.
Hone your own advice and be precise in your claims.
There is good evidence that two doses of the vaccine were protective for at least three months, against the variants dominating 2021.
It's 2022, there is a new escape variant about and we endorsed teenagers to get a booster shot to "protect" themselves from this new variant - based on what evidence exactly?
> Evidence for ivermectin is that, ehhh it might have some effect.
There is lots of weak evidence that it's highly effective and some weak evidence that it does nothing. This adds up no good evidence for anything.
> Those aren't the same. Trying to dress them up as similar is wrong. These two things as re not equally scientifically validated.
That's not the point. The question is, do you apply the same standard to both? Do you reject weak observational data as evidence? If so, a lot of the claims about vaccine effectiveness (here and now) are not supported by evidence.
And they don’t have any incentive to do so. Most governments, on almost any political side have decided vaccines are the solution full stop. They don’t want to be proved wrong and have no incentive to investigate. Drug companies also have no incentive.
I agree with your last sentence a lot, we can do a lot of things and administer a lot of things, just don’t say “an attack on it is an attack on science”
One of the things that has made it hard to believe the drug companies behind the new vaccines are trustworthy is the way that they and the medical establishment has continuously claimed that these vaccines have good long-term safety, when long-term safety wasn't even something that was being tested for, and a long term hasn't yet elapsed. Such claims were being spouted by government and medical people even before the EUA was finalized, which makes the entire thing seem quite untrustworthy to anyone who was looking at the actual situation and research.