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The tragedy here goes far beyond the direct damage to the patents who were prescribed this vile stuff off-label. There's also the collateral damage to the medic

The tragedy here goes far beyond the direct damage to the patents who were prescribed this vile stuff off-label. There's also the collateral damage to the medical establishment that supports this -- can anyone argue that the anti-vaxxers don't have a point when they're on about exactly this sort of profit-driven evil from Big Pharma? I myself am an anti-anti-vaxxer (a pro-vaxxer?) who actually supports state-mandated vaccinations, but this puts me in the very uncomfortable position of having to defend one corner of an industry that does the kinds of things described here and a government that has failed at the most basic oversight. So the next time you read about a measles outbreak at a theme park or you see a scientifically illiterate ghoul like Jenny McCarthy peddling her child-killing nonsense on TV, spare a thought for Johnson & Johnson, because they're feeding the anti-vaxxer paranoia and kneecapping legitimate public health efforts.

LordKano 11y ago
The anti-vaxxers would have a point even if J&J wasn't involved in shady activity. I am not an anti-vaxxer. I was vaccinated. I had my children vaccinated. I just hold the position that the power of the state shouldn't be used to compel people to inject substances into their bodies, even if we think we have a good reason for doing it. I'm not looking to delve too deeply into the politics of it but there are good reasons to oppose mandatory vaccinations.
- aggie 11y ago
  Vaccination is not an onerous requirement and there is very good reason to believe it is beneficial to public health when widely administered. If you want to reject it on principle alone, you'll have to address why your liberty in principle is more important than my health concern in practice.
  - sp332 11y ago
    It could still be a civil suit - if someone actually got sick because you weren't vaccinated, they could sue you for damages. Also, once you give the government the authority to require people to be injected, they will probably start expanding it in various directions. That's really not a power I want to give to them.
    - chaosphere2112 11y ago
      The government has had this authority since 1905 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts); there's no "giving them" this power, they've had it for over 100 years.
    - grotsnot 11y ago
      That's the sort of tragedy-of-the-commons style fault that is prohibitively difficult to prove is due to a specific individual. Governments exist to solve such coordination problems.
    - valarauca1 11y ago
      Appeal to fear is a logical fallacy not a rational argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear
      - jack9 11y ago
        Regardless of a fallacy or not, it's effective. So the argument works. Dealing with the populace, citing wikipedia doesn't get you very far.
    - filoeleven 11y ago
      If someone got sick because you weren't vaccinated, does that not imply that they were also not vaccinated? Or are there cases where e.g. you can only get vaccinated as an adult, and you're suggesting a civil suit if you infect a child?
      - DanBC 11y ago
        Vaccines are not 100% effective. Some people are unable to take vaccinations. That's why we want to vaccinate as many people as possible - herd immunity protects the people who are unable to get vaccinated or people at that edge of efficacy. And a child who is not vaccinated by their parent may want to get that vaccination when they're old enough to make that decision by themselves.
  - Someone1234 11y ago
    > If you want to reject it on principle alone, you'll have to address why your liberty in principle is more important than my health concern in practice. Nope, they really don't. The default should not be for the state to force someone to inject a substance into their body, and if they refuse or raise concern, that it is then on them to explain/justify why NOT. The state should justify why they're doing it, and make a good case to each individual so they make the right choice. If you think the first amendment is an important right in the US, then the right to not have complex chemicals and or living organisms injected into your body should be an even higher right (since you're entrusting your very health on the state). I fully support vaccines and we are CHOOSING to vaccinate our kid. I understand herd immunity, but your fear doesn't trump other people's individual rights. I dislike both anti-vaxxers AND forced-vaxxers. One is scientifically ignorant and the other is morally bankrupt. Pick your poison I guess.
    - ceejayoz 11y ago
      I'm fine with "you can't force me to get vaccinated" if it includes an acceptance of civil liability should you be part of an outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease.
      - Someone1234 11y ago
        That's just petty. Even assuming liability, you cannot sue dead people back to life, or sue an epidemic away. So, no, that is silly and helps nobody. If you're going to do that just go full hog and fine people, at least it doesn't feel like petty revenge. Ultimately it is the fact that vaccines AREN'T required that forces the government to spend the time, resources, and effort promoting vaccines. Without that they can just arbitrarily start demanding we inject things and outright reject all requests for information/data/etc. We are actually in a good-ish place. Most of the population is vaccinated, there's plenty of data on vaccinations available to the public, and many of the concerns have been debunked using good solid science which cannot easily be refuted. Essentially the forced-vaccination people are arguing for worse science, they just haven't figured that out yet because they aren't looking far enough into the future. If they are forced, what is the justification for the science? Or are you just going to rely on other countries where it isn't mandated for the science (in particular follow up studies)?
  - jschwartzi 11y ago
    I would like to point out that, in practice, we have eradicated Polio, and Smallpox, both of which are terrifying diseases. Also, thanks to vaccination of the adult populace you never hear about babies dying from Pertussis. There are other diseases that are similarly rare now but that used to kill or deform people before vaccinations became a part of public health policy. So there are some good reasons why I think you're right.
  - netcan 11y ago
    The problem I have with thee sorts of debates is that fundamentals are very hard to argue against in principle. But in effect, practical "compromises" can often serve both goals better than a single purists solution. I happen to believe in both liberty and public health. In practice, vaccinations against infectious diseases need to hit certain percentages, not 100% of the population. With free vaccination, post natal health care, school programs and public education campaigns we can hit those numbers, and we do so regularly. There's no need for the gross violation of freedom some people fear, locking up parents or declaring them unfit, tying people to a chair and needling them. Doing this voluntarily puts more onus on the system to be smart and high functioning, invest in education and making people comfortable with the whole thing. It increases the pressure to reduce side effects, inconvenience, cost, fear and any other barrier to getting kids vaccinated. Generally, the whole thing works better. The fundamentalist is not serving principles more faithfully than the centrist or pragmatist. She's often just being argumentative and trying to be right to the detriment of her principles. Declaring all state involvement or authority to be (equally?) coercive and violent is silly, thinking in discreet categories when the world of human beings is fuzzy. Ignoring people's agency in the decision to vaccinate them or their children is an obvious violation is a basic morally deafness. I see comments like these from smart people who think more deeply about such things than the average person. It's baffling. Almost makes me think that the whole enterprise of moral philosophy and political philosophy is counter-productive. People fall into traps of vainly searching for consistency and leave their moral sense behind, with common sense far behind. TLDR: There is no reason to forgo obesity for vaccination or vaccination for freedom. People are motivated into these arguments by a desire to be right, not to help people be free or healthy.
    - ghaff 11y ago
      As you suggest, one can be strongly pro-vaccination and just as strongly against the ability of the government to send a SWAT team to the door to vaccinate you forcibly. Personally, the law California passed seems a reasonable compromise to me. Once it's phased in, it makes it possible for parents to still opt-out their children but it 1.) makes it very much a non-casual decision, given that they'll probably have to home-school as a result, and 2.) keeps the children away from at least one of the locations (school) where they would interact with the largest population of other children.
- Retra 11y ago
  Given that the whole purpose of a state is to compel people to do things, I'm wondering what basis you have for drawing the line there. Or why a simple waiver process wouldn't be sufficient to handle those who object. In general, I would argue that a state has the authority to compel someone into doing anything that has been sufficiently demonstrated to be a good decision, and so the onus is on the anti-vaxxer to show that receiving a vaccine is in fact not a good decision in their case (because it has been shown to be valuable in general.)
  - LordKano 11y ago
    Given that the whole purpose of a state is to compel people to do things I'd argue that the purpose of the state is to prevent people from doing certain things. To illustrate, most of our laws are "Thou shall not..." versus "Thou must..." to punish "bad" behavior instead of compel "good" behavior. I'm wondering what basis you have for drawing the line there. Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice. Or why a simple waiver process wouldn't be sufficient to handle those who object. Because a waiver process implies that it's the government's choice and not the individual's. In general, I would argue that a state has the authority to compel someone into doing anything that has been sufficiently demonstrated to be a good decision Can the state compel everyone to be a vegan unless they can show proof of a medical condition that would make it unworkable?
    - saulrh 11y ago
      How about "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving yourself unvaccinated", by analogy to "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by selling tained food" or "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving your hair out when you're working in a restaurant's kitchen"?
      - sageikosa 11y ago
        By leaving yourself unvaccinated, you are bearing the risks of contamination. The risks that someone else takes leaving themselves unvaccinated is up to them.
- a3n 11y ago
  It's a tough question, and I acknowledge your position. However, the very nature of state as we know it is to have the power of compulsion over many things. It's a spectrum.
wehadfun 11y ago
I would guess that most of the anti and pro-vaxers are not scientifically trained, were not involved in the development or testing of these vaccines, probably have not read any of the original reports, don't know what influences could have effected those reports and are basically regurgitating info they saw on TV or the internet. I've heard both sides of the vaccine argument and they both have points.
- afarrell 11y ago
  This is true of > 95% of any non-obscure public policy debate, is it not?
  - wehadfun 11y ago
    Non-scientific issues are understood quite well by those doing the debating. I would guess that a relatively small community truly knows what is going on in vaccinations. Besides "it prevents X", I doubt most doctors could tell you what is in this stuff.
- leoc 11y ago
  > I've heard both sides of the vaccine argument and they both have points. Would you expand on this?
  - wehadfun 11y ago
    Anti-vaccine points: 1. The people who control what vaccines the Government reccomends are "close" to the people that profit from the vaccines. For example Paul Offit, one of the louder pro-vaxies, voted to put a vaccine on the schedule and he had a patent to a similar vaccine. 3 years later he sold his patent for $182 million. 2. The Government has proven that it can be tricked (Volkswagen) and influenced by big money so its easy to not trusts the Governments medical recomendations, and reports. 3. Since 1986 vax manufactuers can not be sued for hurting your kid because of the NCVIA. Since 1986 the amount of vaccines that have been added to the schedule has increased. Anybody over 30 did not have as many or the same vaccines that are recommend for children now. Pro-vax 1. Vaccines have eradicated issues that were deadly in the past 2. Vax works best if we all do it. 3. Yeah vax may hurt you but a seat belt could hurt you too. Still the majority of the time it is safer to where the seat belt. 4. I had vax and I'm fine so my kids can have vax. 5. Yeah the vax can cause problems but so can the diseases they prevent.
roc 11y ago
> can anyone argue that the anti-vaxxers don't have a point when they're on about exactly this sort of profit-driven evil from Big Pharma Yes; they do not have a point as regards vaccines. Because vaccines are so essential to public health, they're very closely regulated and monitored by the FDA. Samples from each and every lot of each and every vaccine are passed to CBER and tested (for efficacy, sterility, etc) at several stages of production, and licenses for distribution are granted per lot, based on passing those tests. The FDA knows exactly what they want from these drugs, what the active agents are and how they work, and how to test for them. They don't accept cleverness or variations. There's essentially no profit in this process and no room for profit.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- ZeroGravitas 11y ago
  There's also the non-profit-driven evil you need to worry about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
  - leoc 11y ago
    And Guatemala: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment . In fact, why not the whole thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...
tcdent 11y ago
> anti-anti-vaxxer Vaxx yourself, force your wife and child to vaxx, create a policy of only befriending vaxxed people, but the next time you think about telling me what to do, you can fuck off.
dang 11y ago
Please don't take HN threads on off-topic flamewar tangents.
- webnrrd2k 11y ago
  The OP is strongly worded, but I don't think he's starting a flamewar. it's true that this kind of behavior on the part of pharma damages their credibility and feeds some people's paranoia. Just like the mishandling of the Katrina disaster feed a lot of people's paranoia about "big government". It might not make strictly logical sense, but the damage is still done.

LordKano 11y ago

The anti-vaxxers would have a point even if J&J wasn't involved in shady activity. I am not an anti-vaxxer. I was vaccinated. I had my children vaccinated. I just hold the position that the power of the state shouldn't be used to compel people to inject substances into their bodies, even if we think we have a good reason for doing it. I'm not looking to delve too deeply into the politics of it but there are good reasons to oppose mandatory vaccinations.

aggie 11y ago
Vaccination is not an onerous requirement and there is very good reason to believe it is beneficial to public health when widely administered. If you want to reject it on principle alone, you'll have to address why your liberty in principle is more important than my health concern in practice.
- sp332 11y ago
  It could still be a civil suit - if someone actually got sick because you weren't vaccinated, they could sue you for damages. Also, once you give the government the authority to require people to be injected, they will probably start expanding it in various directions. That's really not a power I want to give to them.
  - chaosphere2112 11y ago
    The government has had this authority since 1905 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts); there's no "giving them" this power, they've had it for over 100 years.
  - grotsnot 11y ago
    That's the sort of tragedy-of-the-commons style fault that is prohibitively difficult to prove is due to a specific individual. Governments exist to solve such coordination problems.
  - valarauca1 11y ago
    Appeal to fear is a logical fallacy not a rational argument. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_fear
    - jack9 11y ago
      Regardless of a fallacy or not, it's effective. So the argument works. Dealing with the populace, citing wikipedia doesn't get you very far.
  - filoeleven 11y ago
    If someone got sick because you weren't vaccinated, does that not imply that they were also not vaccinated? Or are there cases where e.g. you can only get vaccinated as an adult, and you're suggesting a civil suit if you infect a child?
    - DanBC 11y ago
      Vaccines are not 100% effective. Some people are unable to take vaccinations. That's why we want to vaccinate as many people as possible - herd immunity protects the people who are unable to get vaccinated or people at that edge of efficacy. And a child who is not vaccinated by their parent may want to get that vaccination when they're old enough to make that decision by themselves.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  > If you want to reject it on principle alone, you'll have to address why your liberty in principle is more important than my health concern in practice. Nope, they really don't. The default should not be for the state to force someone to inject a substance into their body, and if they refuse or raise concern, that it is then on them to explain/justify why NOT. The state should justify why they're doing it, and make a good case to each individual so they make the right choice. If you think the first amendment is an important right in the US, then the right to not have complex chemicals and or living organisms injected into your body should be an even higher right (since you're entrusting your very health on the state). I fully support vaccines and we are CHOOSING to vaccinate our kid. I understand herd immunity, but your fear doesn't trump other people's individual rights. I dislike both anti-vaxxers AND forced-vaxxers. One is scientifically ignorant and the other is morally bankrupt. Pick your poison I guess.
  - ceejayoz 11y ago
    I'm fine with "you can't force me to get vaccinated" if it includes an acceptance of civil liability should you be part of an outbreak of vaccine-preventable disease.
    - Someone1234 11y ago
      That's just petty. Even assuming liability, you cannot sue dead people back to life, or sue an epidemic away. So, no, that is silly and helps nobody. If you're going to do that just go full hog and fine people, at least it doesn't feel like petty revenge. Ultimately it is the fact that vaccines AREN'T required that forces the government to spend the time, resources, and effort promoting vaccines. Without that they can just arbitrarily start demanding we inject things and outright reject all requests for information/data/etc. We are actually in a good-ish place. Most of the population is vaccinated, there's plenty of data on vaccinations available to the public, and many of the concerns have been debunked using good solid science which cannot easily be refuted. Essentially the forced-vaccination people are arguing for worse science, they just haven't figured that out yet because they aren't looking far enough into the future. If they are forced, what is the justification for the science? Or are you just going to rely on other countries where it isn't mandated for the science (in particular follow up studies)?
- jschwartzi 11y ago
  I would like to point out that, in practice, we have eradicated Polio, and Smallpox, both of which are terrifying diseases. Also, thanks to vaccination of the adult populace you never hear about babies dying from Pertussis. There are other diseases that are similarly rare now but that used to kill or deform people before vaccinations became a part of public health policy. So there are some good reasons why I think you're right.
- netcan 11y ago
  The problem I have with thee sorts of debates is that fundamentals are very hard to argue against in principle. But in effect, practical "compromises" can often serve both goals better than a single purists solution. I happen to believe in both liberty and public health. In practice, vaccinations against infectious diseases need to hit certain percentages, not 100% of the population. With free vaccination, post natal health care, school programs and public education campaigns we can hit those numbers, and we do so regularly. There's no need for the gross violation of freedom some people fear, locking up parents or declaring them unfit, tying people to a chair and needling them. Doing this voluntarily puts more onus on the system to be smart and high functioning, invest in education and making people comfortable with the whole thing. It increases the pressure to reduce side effects, inconvenience, cost, fear and any other barrier to getting kids vaccinated. Generally, the whole thing works better. The fundamentalist is not serving principles more faithfully than the centrist or pragmatist. She's often just being argumentative and trying to be right to the detriment of her principles. Declaring all state involvement or authority to be (equally?) coercive and violent is silly, thinking in discreet categories when the world of human beings is fuzzy. Ignoring people's agency in the decision to vaccinate them or their children is an obvious violation is a basic morally deafness. I see comments like these from smart people who think more deeply about such things than the average person. It's baffling. Almost makes me think that the whole enterprise of moral philosophy and political philosophy is counter-productive. People fall into traps of vainly searching for consistency and leave their moral sense behind, with common sense far behind. TLDR: There is no reason to forgo obesity for vaccination or vaccination for freedom. People are motivated into these arguments by a desire to be right, not to help people be free or healthy.
  - ghaff 11y ago
    As you suggest, one can be strongly pro-vaccination and just as strongly against the ability of the government to send a SWAT team to the door to vaccinate you forcibly. Personally, the law California passed seems a reasonable compromise to me. Once it's phased in, it makes it possible for parents to still opt-out their children but it 1.) makes it very much a non-casual decision, given that they'll probably have to home-school as a result, and 2.) keeps the children away from at least one of the locations (school) where they would interact with the largest population of other children.
Retra 11y ago
Given that the whole purpose of a state is to compel people to do things, I'm wondering what basis you have for drawing the line there. Or why a simple waiver process wouldn't be sufficient to handle those who object. In general, I would argue that a state has the authority to compel someone into doing anything that has been sufficiently demonstrated to be a good decision, and so the onus is on the anti-vaxxer to show that receiving a vaccine is in fact not a good decision in their case (because it has been shown to be valuable in general.)
- LordKano 11y ago
  Given that the whole purpose of a state is to compel people to do things I'd argue that the purpose of the state is to prevent people from doing certain things. To illustrate, most of our laws are "Thou shall not..." versus "Thou must..." to punish "bad" behavior instead of compel "good" behavior. I'm wondering what basis you have for drawing the line there. Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice. Or why a simple waiver process wouldn't be sufficient to handle those who object. Because a waiver process implies that it's the government's choice and not the individual's. In general, I would argue that a state has the authority to compel someone into doing anything that has been sufficiently demonstrated to be a good decision Can the state compel everyone to be a vegan unless they can show proof of a medical condition that would make it unworkable?
  - saulrh 11y ago
    How about "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving yourself unvaccinated", by analogy to "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by selling tained food" or "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving your hair out when you're working in a restaurant's kitchen"?
    - sageikosa 11y ago
      By leaving yourself unvaccinated, you are bearing the risks of contamination. The risks that someone else takes leaving themselves unvaccinated is up to them.
a3n 11y ago
It's a tough question, and I acknowledge your position. However, the very nature of state as we know it is to have the power of compulsion over many things. It's a spectrum.

wehadfun 11y ago

I would guess that most of the anti and pro-vaxers are not scientifically trained, were not involved in the development or testing of these vaccines, probably have not read any of the original reports, don't know what influences could have effected those reports and are basically regurgitating info they saw on TV or the internet. I've heard both sides of the vaccine argument and they both have points.

afarrell 11y ago
This is true of > 95% of any non-obscure public policy debate, is it not?
- wehadfun 11y ago
  Non-scientific issues are understood quite well by those doing the debating. I would guess that a relatively small community truly knows what is going on in vaccinations. Besides "it prevents X", I doubt most doctors could tell you what is in this stuff.
leoc 11y ago
> I've heard both sides of the vaccine argument and they both have points. Would you expand on this?
- wehadfun 11y ago
  Anti-vaccine points: 1. The people who control what vaccines the Government reccomends are "close" to the people that profit from the vaccines. For example Paul Offit, one of the louder pro-vaxies, voted to put a vaccine on the schedule and he had a patent to a similar vaccine. 3 years later he sold his patent for $182 million. 2. The Government has proven that it can be tricked (Volkswagen) and influenced by big money so its easy to not trusts the Governments medical recomendations, and reports. 3. Since 1986 vax manufactuers can not be sued for hurting your kid because of the NCVIA. Since 1986 the amount of vaccines that have been added to the schedule has increased. Anybody over 30 did not have as many or the same vaccines that are recommend for children now. Pro-vax 1. Vaccines have eradicated issues that were deadly in the past 2. Vax works best if we all do it. 3. Yeah vax may hurt you but a seat belt could hurt you too. Still the majority of the time it is safer to where the seat belt. 4. I had vax and I'm fine so my kids can have vax. 5. Yeah the vax can cause problems but so can the diseases they prevent.

roc 11y ago

> can anyone argue that the anti-vaxxers don't have a point when they're on about exactly this sort of profit-driven evil from Big Pharma Yes; they do not have a point as regards vaccines. Because vaccines are so essential to public health, they're very closely regulated and monitored by the FDA. Samples from each and every lot of each and every vaccine are passed to CBER and tested (for efficacy, sterility, etc) at several stages of production, and licenses for distribution are granted per lot, based on passing those tests. The FDA knows exactly what they want from these drugs, what the active agents are and how they work, and how to test for them. They don't accept cleverness or variations. There's essentially no profit in this process and no room for profit.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ZeroGravitas 11y ago
There's also the non-profit-driven evil you need to worry about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
- leoc 11y ago
  And Guatemala: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiment . In fact, why not the whole thing? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...

tcdent 11y ago

> anti-anti-vaxxer Vaxx yourself, force your wife and child to vaxx, create a policy of only befriending vaxxed people, but the next time you think about telling me what to do, you can fuck off.

dang 11y ago

Please don't take HN threads on off-topic flamewar tangents.

webnrrd2k 11y ago
The OP is strongly worded, but I don't think he's starting a flamewar. it's true that this kind of behavior on the part of pharma damages their credibility and feeds some people's paranoia. Just like the mishandling of the Katrina disaster feed a lot of people's paranoia about "big government". It might not make strictly logical sense, but the damage is still done.