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To be clearer, the question of what level of caution is appropriate is one that cannot depend on the approach being considered. It needs to to be one that can b
by Kalium 7y ago
To be clearer, the question of what level of caution is appropriate is one that cannot depend on the approach being considered. It needs to to be one that can be applied evenly across the whole of the solution-space.
Approaches like insisting on fully and completely explore all the ideas that are readily palateable before we try to understand the potentials and risks of others seems like making policy primarily based around personal ick-factor. Which is great when choosing what to have for dinner, but maybe somewhat less than ideal when every delay means thousands more dead people.
Also, vaccines can run horribly off the rails. One cannot mutate into a pathogen, as you say, but tainted vaccines are a known risk. There may be unknown long-term risks or other things that haven't been fully studied. No approach is risk-free in this arena, and we do a disservice to humanity when we pretend otherwise.
- tw04 7y ago>but maybe somewhat less than ideal when every delay means thousands more dead people. You literally just defeated your own logic. The reason we do medical trials and "delay" is to ensure the vaccines aren't "tainted" as you put it, and to ensure that there are no delayed side effects. But... you want to rush an alternative option that could kill literally millions, because waiting could mean thousands die??
- Kalium 7y agoI can see I have been unclear. Please accept my apologies for my error. I do not think it reasonable to rush through any thing, option, or approach in this arena. I do not suggest or advise any actions of the sort in any way, shape, or form. I do think it's worth taking the time to ensure that risks are handled properly. I think it's worth having a uniform framework for identifying what those risks are and reasoning about them to enable planning. I also think we should consider carefully the potential benefits of exploring multiple possibilties, against the chance that the most pleasing and lowest risk ones do not pan out. Again, please accept my apoligies for being unclear. I hope I've made myself clearer! Please don't hesitate to ask if there's anything else I can communicate better.
- roywiggins 7y ago> Also, vaccines can run horribly off the rails. One cannot mutate into a pathogen, as you say The live polio vaccine absolutely can. Before polio was largely eliminated, it didn't really matter, but once the risk of getting the wild-type virus dropped below the risk of getting it from the vaccine, it stopped making sense to use the live-attenuated vaccine. http://www.virology.ws/2015/09/10/why-do-we-still-use-sabin-poliovirus-vaccine/ http://www.virology.ws/2015/09/10/why-do-we-still-use-sabin-...
- User23 7y agoThis makes me think that it's good persuasion to acknowledge that all anti-vaxxers aren't necessarily fundamentally irrational (some are I'm sure). Most people are anti-vaccine with respect to smallpox for example, as well as the polio example you give. We continue to use the vaccines we do because they improve the overall odds, not because they are a panacea with no downsides.
- roywiggins 7y agoThe modern inactivated ("killed", if you consider a virus alive) polio vaccine is nearly perfectly safe though (other than one-in-a-million allergic reactions), and can't give you polio. Nobody's used the live vaccine in the US since 2000. People don't generally get vaccinated against smallpox anymore because the pathogen has been eradicated.