I am saying the vaccines could have been made available in half the time without serious risk to the public, but with great benefit in terms of lives saved, illnesses short circuited, and opportunity for dangerous variant creation significantly reduced.
Those government agencies both have reputations for sloth. No emergency is sufficient to get them off their respective asses and move things along at a more rapid pace. Period.
I don’t deny they do good work. But it takes them forever to bring matters to a conclusion, regardless the provocation.
I am saying the vaccines could have been made available in half the time without serious risk to the public, but with great benefit in terms of lives saved, illnesses short circuited, and opportunity for dangerous variant creation significantly reduced.
You cannot possibly know that.
As it is, the schedule they managed for what is still considered an 'experimental" (but thoroughly tested) vaccine is quite fast.
The only way they could have done this faster was to have pushed the pipeline faster while testing was still in progress, and had mass-vaccination pre-configured for as soon as the results were in that they appeared safe.
“everybody knows” that these vaccines could have been safely released in half the time? really?
We only know they were safe to release because they were tested.
Knowing that they were safe in hindsight, post release, does not support the notion that they should have been released sooner with less testing. That isn’t the way it works.
When people all around the world are sick and thousands are perishing, it becomes necessary to make certain adjustments to customary procedures.
Just think for a moment, if you have the ability, of impact the current fiasco is having on persons who were hesitant to get a shot in the first place. We need shots in arms here and all around the world. Vaccine hesitancy was a problem before. Your beloved government agencies just made the situation worse. Then they announce they are going to sit on the matter for almost two weeks!
This is insanity for our people. And it is pure CYA for the CDC and the FDA.
When people all around the world are sick and thousands are perishing, it becomes necessary to make certain adjustments to customary procedures.
They DID make adjustments. There is a reason these are still considered “experimental” vaccines that have provisional approval.
But to say they could do it in HALF the time is simply absurd.
If you had a virus with a much higher death rate in the broader population you could start to make a better case for that kind of haste – but there are major public trust considerations with society being able to take these organizations at their word when they say that something is tested or not.
Maybe you could make the case for “broader testing” where more people are allowed to opt-in to earlier experimental phases – but there are multiple stages that you can’t skip and still be making rigorous scientific determinations about whether these are both safe AND effective.
The ONLY way they could have handled this better would have been to have vaccines staged and ready to go while testing was still taking place so that DAY ONE of approval shots were going out in quantity.
Anything earlier than that is just not sound science and only looks like a good idea in hindsight – where if you had been wrong, nobody would ever trust those organizations again.
Your primary concern, no doubt. Mine is the saving of lives and short circuiting creation of unpredictable and potentially deadly variants.
Posters to this thread are more conversant on these matters than the average person. Hesitant people out there, in their tens of millions unfortunately, do not distinguish between the various vaccines like we do here routinely. They just hear “vaccine paused because of problems” and that reinforces their existing notion of avoidance, which is extremely bad. I’m not certain this error will be overcome any time soon. You cannot force people to accept the vaccine. It’s voluntary.
One death in seven million shots is NOT reason to do what the CDC and FDA have done . . . or say the sorts of things they are saying . . . all in their own self interest, and surely not ours!!
The older brain exhibits a lower degree of neuroplasticity. That’s just life.
You are being way more ridiculous than usual. The vaccines were developed and made available in record time. It’s unprecedented by any measure. People still think they were released too soon and have not been sufficiently tested – it’s one of the reasons people still hesitate to get vaxed. You’re now arguing that they should have been released even sooner because right now we think they’re safe. This only makes sense if we could time travel into the past.
IMO the biggest problem at the FDA is regulatory capture (they employ too many Monsanto alumni). The FDA is almost toothless when compared to their counterparts in Europe, for example. Our regulations and enforcement of food labeling and safety is lacking. I don’t see anything that points to “self-preservation”.
I don’t have a strong opinion on the CDC, except that they didn’t do anything to lose my trust, and as a non-expert I don’t even consider not following their guidelines.
Of J&J I do not know – I’m not an expert. But I do think it’s worse to be killed by a vaccine (because it is voluntary) than by a virus (not voluntary).
That is the point. Both carry risk. But the risk of inoculation failure, together with vaccine hesitancy, is FAR greater than one death in seven million shots. The major risk for the FDA however, and especially to their cherished “reputation”, is in that one death. They are straining at gnats and swallowing camels, while doing great harm in the process.
The thing about risk, is that we’re all pretty bad at calculating it. Sure, one in a million is incredibly low, until that one is you or someone you love. Given that we already have something that not only doesn’t kill you, but also has higher efficacy and produced and distributed in higher quantities, I suspect lots of people decided against getting the J&J shot even before it was paused.
Plus it’s not just the risk of blood clots and death. They’ve had multiple quality control issues. Multiple (4?) mass sites shut down due to higher than expected number of allergic reactions. All of this taken together implies higher risk.
There were six clot events, one of which has resulted in death. The clots can be managed with proper medication . . . which is NOT the usual and customary treatment, i.e., heparin. But the correct treatment for these clots IS available.
Meanwhile:
Drudge is now reporting that Bourla has said Pfizer vaccine recipients will be needing a THIRD shot within one year. WHOA!!
Sounds to me like nice enhancement to Pfizer’s already burgeoning bottom line!
Got it. That’s a little better. Do keep in mind, however, that once diagnosed with a blood clot it will follow you until you die, because you’re considered high risk for recurrence. Should you ever need prescription drugs or surgeries, the doctor will require you to take extra precautions. Getting pregnant after a blood clot diagnosis also requires heparin shots during pregnancy.
Also fuck J&J. They didn’t stop selling talc-based baby powder until last year, even though talc is frequently contaminated with asbestos. Can’t ever trust them with anything again.
This isn’t going to be specific to Pfizer, it’ll most likely be the same for all of them. They’re either permanent, like MMR, or they’re not, like flu. Or somewhere in-between, like tetanus.
The clot events are serious, no question. J&J takers, especially the ladies, should probably receive a warning sheet with instructions on what to do pronto if symptoms materialize.
But look, COVID-19 is gonna be with us for a REALLY long time if not enough people are willing to be vaccinated. And the longer the virus rampages the more likely is emergence of a variant able to resist current vaccines. So time is of the essence. Making a public announcement like they did, then pulling J&J completely, then saying it’ll be two weeks before any decision is forthcoming . . well . . it’s just NUTS!! Sadly the damage almost surely already has been done. How this insanity will be put right, if at all, I have no clue.
This ain’t Red China. You cannot put a gun to the heads of Americans and FORCE them to get their shot. Any policy decision that reinforces vaccine hesitancy does great harm to us all. And that goes DOUBLE when there is such weak provocation.
No question we will have enough shots available. But average people out there lack the sophistication of posters here, and that goes double for persons hesitant to get a shot. They will conflate the J&J announcement with the other (available) vaccines. Here most posters easily can make that distinction and know J&J and (for example) Pfizer are completely different animals. But for average people with hesitancy, “vaccine is vaccine”. Tarnish one and you tarnish them all. That is NOT a good thing when the goal is promotion of acceptance so we can get shots into arms.
And that is especially salient given there was no substantial reason to tarnish the J&J vaccine in the first place!
