[SailingSperm]

The 12 billion or so COVID vaccine doses given also only have a history of ~2 years. If the adverse effects of it were say for instance, minor cardiac damage that resulted in no acute symptoms, but instead an overall reduction in life expectancy by 5 years, the costs of such would not be known for some time. Another side of this is the possible cumulative effects of ongoing covid vaccination boosters that have no long term data.

Finally also the danger of immunological imprinting[1] possibly resulting in less than optimal immune response. The fact these vaccines have little impact on transmissibility means basic evolutional biology theory is at play, driving selective pressures for antigens humans are less capable of mounting defenses against thanks to an already primed imuno response of the original virus' antigens. This is evident with the proliferation of variants and sub variants.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Original_antigenic_sin

[VBprogrammer]

> The 12 billion or so COVID vaccine doses given also only have a history of ~2 years. If the adverse effects of it were say for instance, minor cardiac damage that resulted in no acute symptoms, but instead an overall reduction in life expectancy by 5 years, the costs of such would not be known for some time.

Can you explain how this standard of rigueur leads to anything less than a complete halting of medical research?

The original trials for the Pfizer vaccine were conducted on 46k people (half of which necessary recieved a placebo). At the time of those trials there was no shortage of willing volunteers to take part in the trial, no limit on the amounts of funding available and a considerable appetite to do something. Other trials have to make to with much fewer participants with hundreds to low thousands seemingly typical.

[SailingSperm]

>Can you explain how this standard of rigueur leads to anything less than a complete halting of medical research?

~10 yrs of trials and safety data collecting (Including long term studies) is the historical norm. We've certainly not had a complete halting of medical research from doing that.

My main point though is that with the level of data provided and the fact long term studies have not, and cannot have been conducted in this time frame - the push to mandate (and coercively pressure vaccination uptake through fear of losing your job, or access to regular life things bars, cafes, travel etc.) is unjustified and arguably doesn't even reach the bar for informed consent (with many people getting it under the impression it would prevent contraction and transmission).

[edmundsauto]

The risk of taking action was compared against the risk of not taking action. I imagine most scientists would have loved to have developed this vaccine 10+ years ago and done long term studies, but that wasn’t an option.

It may have been influenced by the bias for action, but the trade off was the death and disruption we saw in 2020-21, compared to a future risk that scientists projected as minimal.

It still seems like a solid decision to me. But if this research shows that millions die from increased myocarditis rates, I think it would have been a bad outcome. Still not sure if that would influence my perception to the process.

Making decisions under uncertainty is hard.

[dham]

> Making decisions under uncertainty is hard.

I don't blame rushing the vaccines at all. In fact, maybe we should have skipped more steps to get the vaccine to 70+ year olds or people who are obese faster. But let's just be honest, the risk profile for younger people just wasn't high. The data was clear very early on. That was even with underreported numbers. It should have never been mandated and if you were at a decent weight and under 40 you were never at that much of a risk, especially to say something like the flu.

[alvah]

Enforcing vaccination before it's possible to know the long-term effects, for all groups including those at low risk from Covid, was and is a terrible idea. Offering it to the elderly, obese and otherwise-at-risk, where there's a clear and obvious net benefit, was all that should have been done.

[edmundsauto]

I disagree. The information at the time was the vaccine was massively impactful at reducing spread. They got that part wrong, but the decision to require vaccination was rational IMO.

The decision didn't have a great result because the assumptions didn't hold. Good process, bad outcome.

(Not to mention that if everyone had actually just gotten the shot, we might have stalled the viral evolution into the delta + subsequent variants. My understanding is those mutations reduced vaccine transmission efficacy. If people hadn't turned public health into politics, we could have possibly avoided the endemic nature of the virus, which I think we can all agree would have been a far superior outcome versus where we are today.)

[alvah]

“Good process, bad outcome.”

And that is where I vehemently disagree. Bad process, bad outcome. Many people lied to make the information appear as you said. The incentives they had to lie should have a lot more scrutiny, rather than being shrugged off, and many of these people should be in jail.

[edmundsauto]

How did you differentiate lies from inherent complexities in public health communication in a novel situation?

[alvah]

I don't claim any special ability to differentiate lies from inherent complexities in public health communication in a novel situation. However, the claim in early 2021 that the vaccines were both safe and effective, before enough time had elapsed for either to be known, was a bit of a red flag. I don't think you needed much expertise in anything to have reached this conclusion.

I believed at the time (and still believe) the risk/reward ratio still favoured offering the vaccines to at-risk groups. Making it mandatory or de-facto mandatory for all was a colossal clusterfuck. It worked out well for big pharma though, but at what long-term cost?