Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by qsera 27 days ago
So what is the logic here?

If the only entity that you can get information from is an entity that is known to lie, you can trust this entity?

It is not that we know for a fact that X is not safe. It is that we have no reason to believe that the powers that can ensure that, does not have an incentive to do it, and a large financial incentive to NOT do it and instead grease a lot of palms and get it mandated.

This is particularly relevant when the cost to grease the palms is minuscule compared to the profit that can be made by the approval.

And it is particularly relavant when the common man cannot any relavant information about it from any other source.

We are sitting ducks here. But people apparently does not notice.

2 comments

That’s what this article here is about. Yes, FDA is known to make questionable actions, as are other agencies around safety or efficacy of drugs. But here the statistics continue to show they are right about vaccines.
I think your own logic supports the opposite from your conclusions?

I'm saying that every developed country's medical bodies support that these vaccines are safe.

Are you claiming that every developed country's medical bodies do not have an incentive to make the right decisions around vaccines? That they will be too cautious because they are afraid of approving something that turns out to be unsafe, or the opposite that they have no fear of approving something unsafe?

Are there any examples you'd point to of where developed countries' medical bodies approved something unsafe because they were bribed, as you imply is the norm today?

But most importantly, if you think every developed country's medical bodies should not be used as the source of info about safety vs benefits, what should be? Or what should be the system even if it doesn't exist today?

> is an entity that is known to lie

What are you referring to?

> the common man cannot any relavant information about it from any other source.

The common man is inundated with info about vaccines from other sources, although much of it is misinformation, etc.

>Are you claiming that every developed country's medical bodies do not have an incentive to make the right decisions around vaccines?

It is a question of how aligned the individual's incentives and the incentives of the medical body in question. And often it is extremely misaligned. So that is what is I mean when I said there is "no incentive".

So what do I mean by that?

When such an organization recommend X, it just mean that if everyone follows that recommendation, the population wide metric, that can be immediately measured or that is often measured will show good beneficial result.

So here if people follow the recommendation two things can happen

1. The number of covid deaths will drop. This is something that will show up immediately, because everyone was focused on daily death toll.

2. A substantial number of people will have adverse effects. This is something that can be managed (in terms of public opinion)

So the incentive of the organization end up being favorable to the recommendation despite the very good chance of point 2 happening. With financial incentives, this is just more pronounced...

> What are you referring to?

Any group of human beings.

I'm still unsure if you think there is any other even theoretical approach than trusting developed countries' medical bodies that would have better outcomes, or if you believe the approach I mentioned is the absolute optimal possible one.

Regardless, as far as the statistics about things like how vaccines changed covid deaths, and any change in non-covid deaths, a study of tens of millions of people found a very large drop in covid deaths among the vaccinated... and actually no increase in other cause morbidity either (different study than the OP study). https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

In that study are you aware if they looked at the vaccination status of the expired members in the unvaccinated group during their death?
Is the theory that the first COVID vaccines (plus COVID vaccines in subsequent years - boosters) were especially safe and reduced deaths dramatically, but that people who got their first COVID vaccines in subsequent years got something that caused far more deaths than it saved, and that's why 'vaccinated' group results are so good compared to the 'unvaccinated' group? (I am guessing you have some point you're trying to get to, and that's why you're avoiding questions like whether the process mentioned in my parent comments has the absolute best expected outcomes of any possible or theoretical approach, or what the better approach is if not?)
I mean, if the people in the unvaccinated group got vaccinated, then they are not really unvaccinated, right? So I am wondering if the study only consider "unvaccinated death" if the person was unvaccinated at the time of their death...