> Does not really work when you need PhDs to understand the subject matter.
You don't need PhD to roughly understand percentages and frequencies of various side effects and risks occurring from trial data. If there's 1% chance of X from a vaccine as opposed to 0.1% chance of X from the virus, you don't need to have PHD to understand what would be a better option for you.
> What does "main motivation" even mean? Everyone does everything with some ratio of money:"greater good". Some people will kill someone else for $1B, and some will not. If you want your society's best people at the cutting edge of medical science, then you better reward them, maybe even comparably to spending their time figuring out how to target you with ads online. But that does not mean they can also not do things for the greater good.
So my question is, are the current vaccines truly good for the society? E.g. are they given to children because of money, or because they are confident of these being safer to children than the virus? They can still be given because of money as well when they are safer in addition, but I guess the main point is - are they willing to overlook the fact that children will get harmed by vaccines more than they would by the virus in order to make money or gain political power?
> That is why you need various teams of experts double checking each other (for example in this case, various governments and even non government agencies evaluating vaccines). Is it possible the whole system is corrupt a la Hollywood style evil syndicate movie? Maybe. Is living life worth it assuming every situation is like that without considerable evidence? No.
And if you check the article you will see that this evaluation was not done properly. Despite complaints of poor practices, unblinding, falsified data, people who made the complaints were fired and FDA did not investigate the complaints.
> For the record, in case you are curious about my thoughts on the government's response, I was OK with government restrictions if hospitals were being overwhelmed and vaccines were not widely available. After the vaccine had been made widely available, my response would have been to remove all government restrictions and let people get turned away from hospital emergency rooms if they are unvaccinated. I see no problem with vaccine requirements.
My personal stance is that based on information I know right now, I do not agree with vaccine mandates for these particular vaccines and I do think taking these vaccines should be a personal choice and no one should be pressured or forced into taking them.
>Is British Medical Journal not a reputable journal?
I have no idea, I am not in this field. The claims may very well may be legitimate, but I do not know what normal clinical trials entail or how much corruption is to be expected.
>You don't need PhD to roughly understand percentages and frequencies of various side effects and risks occurring from trial data. If there's 1% chance of X from a vaccine as opposed to 0.1% chance of X from the virus, you don't need to have PHD to understand what would be a better option for you.
Is it that easy? I imagine when you are dealing with 8B people worldwide, you are dealing with population size and systemic effects, not worrying about individual effects. I do not know for sure, I am not an epidemiologist, but I assume the CDC or whatever orgs have some on staff that know better.
>I guess the main point is - are they willing to overlook the fact that children will get harmed by vaccines more than they would by the virus in order to make money or gain political power?
Who knows? This is an ever present risk in society. As far as I can tell, Moderna and Pfizer and J&J are profiting from this, and I do not see why all the leaders of the government health agencies from US/UK/EU/Canada would be particularly simultaneously invested in it.
>And if you check the article you will see that this evaluation was not done properly. Despite complaints of poor practices, unblinding, falsified data, people who made the complaints were fired and FDA did not investigate the complaints.
These are companies and organizations employing tens of thousands of people. Maybe there is a big cover up happening, maybe there is not. I know from operating businesses and managing people myself that claims can get start getting thrown around willy nilly very quickly. It takes time to gather all the info and analyze the big picture. There are lots of "bombshell" type news items that come out every day about every business "meat producer does this" "farming corp does this" "Apple did this" etc.
All I know is that the results of these organizations have mostly trended in the right direction, so that is what I have to operate with and hope for the best.
>> these organizations have mostly trended in the right direction
[citation needed]
Not sure how many times the government and pharmaceutical companies have to be proven horrifically, detrimentally corrupt before people become concerned enough to push back. For many, the answer is "after it's too late".
The citation is infant mortality rates, and talking to all of my grandparents and their brothers and sisters and how women used to regularly have babies die or have polio or smallpox. And now it is very rare to have any of that happen.
Is British Medical Journal not a reputable journal?
I'll throw the link in again:
https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635
> Does not really work when you need PhDs to understand the subject matter.
You don't need PhD to roughly understand percentages and frequencies of various side effects and risks occurring from trial data. If there's 1% chance of X from a vaccine as opposed to 0.1% chance of X from the virus, you don't need to have PHD to understand what would be a better option for you.
> What does "main motivation" even mean? Everyone does everything with some ratio of money:"greater good". Some people will kill someone else for $1B, and some will not. If you want your society's best people at the cutting edge of medical science, then you better reward them, maybe even comparably to spending their time figuring out how to target you with ads online. But that does not mean they can also not do things for the greater good.
So my question is, are the current vaccines truly good for the society? E.g. are they given to children because of money, or because they are confident of these being safer to children than the virus? They can still be given because of money as well when they are safer in addition, but I guess the main point is - are they willing to overlook the fact that children will get harmed by vaccines more than they would by the virus in order to make money or gain political power?
> That is why you need various teams of experts double checking each other (for example in this case, various governments and even non government agencies evaluating vaccines). Is it possible the whole system is corrupt a la Hollywood style evil syndicate movie? Maybe. Is living life worth it assuming every situation is like that without considerable evidence? No.
And if you check the article you will see that this evaluation was not done properly. Despite complaints of poor practices, unblinding, falsified data, people who made the complaints were fired and FDA did not investigate the complaints.
> For the record, in case you are curious about my thoughts on the government's response, I was OK with government restrictions if hospitals were being overwhelmed and vaccines were not widely available. After the vaccine had been made widely available, my response would have been to remove all government restrictions and let people get turned away from hospital emergency rooms if they are unvaccinated. I see no problem with vaccine requirements.
My personal stance is that based on information I know right now, I do not agree with vaccine mandates for these particular vaccines and I do think taking these vaccines should be a personal choice and no one should be pressured or forced into taking them.