3 ms·

This is interesting, but where do you draw the line? I mean, even showing the specific data from your example above, you may have long periods of time where th

This is interesting, but where do you draw the line? I mean, even showing the specific data from your example above, you may have long periods of time where the unvaccinated proportion of the population (take for example Australia's Northern Rivers region or areas of California recently) that, for a long time experience declining immunisation rates, with no increase in disease. Then eventually herd immunity falls low enough that they aren't protected and someone gets infected and it rips through a population. For 10 years, the data may have shown no adverse impacts one way or another - the only way to tell the difference between a vaccinated and unvaccinated child would have been to measure antibody titre. Then, all of a sudden, lots of people are sick and a few babies are dead. You can't convince people to read the 'good' information. I mean, to take another example, the information for healthy eating and lifestyle are all around us but it certainly hasn't lead to a change in average BMI heading anywhere but upwards in the last 30 years. Literally the first 10 google queries for Vaccines are form the CDC, Mayo Clinic and other excellent resources going through the evidence for vaccines. I'm not sure how a further portal is going to help people who have decided to make decisions contrary to the evidence. It's a quasi-religious belief that is being fought

breck 7y ago
> even showing the specific data from your example above, you may have long periods of time .... Then, all of a sudden, lots of people are sick This is a fair point that pandemics are outliers and one must weigh expected value of a high impact event and not just probability. Making it easy to simulate expected outcomes to inform decision making would be an important component. Similarly, you need to take into account the other low probability event that vaccines may be fine for 50 years and then one year's formulation goes awry for one population group. It seems like VAERS is designed for this latter purpose and really what I'm talking about would in a sense be a much more comprehensive VAERS. > Literally the first 10 google queries for Vaccines are form the CDC, Mayo Clinic and other excellent resources going through the evidence for vaccines. This is a good data point. I opened the 10 links and they are indeed good extensive resources about the existing information. After a number of clicks I was able to finally find 2 really interesting things. VAERS CSV downloads: https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/datasets.html https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/datasets.html and a WONDER query inferface: https://wonder.cdc.gov/ https://wonder.cdc.gov/. Both leave a lot to be desired but definitely a big step in the right direction. > You can't convince people to read the 'good' information....I'm not sure how a further portal is going to help people who have decided to make decisions contrary to the evidence. I think the problem is it's really hard to truly make decisions based on the evidence because the evidence is so hard to use correctly. I think we should figure out how to bring the evidence front and center instead of burying it in very slow and hard to use ways (pdfs, clunky complex query interfaces, registration or permission walls etc). The approach the US has taken to date is to summarize the data and make widespread proclamations that are right for the mean but often wrong for the individual. Instead if we could bring the data closer to the user we could make it as fast for a user to determine for themselves that getting a vaccination is a good bet than it is for them to just accept that based on a blanket statement. The NIH's Precision Medicine Initiative is another step in the right direction but there's still a long way to go.

breck 7y ago

> even showing the specific data from your example above, you may have long periods of time .... Then, all of a sudden, lots of people are sick This is a fair point that pandemics are outliers and one must weigh expected value of a high impact event and not just probability. Making it easy to simulate expected outcomes to inform decision making would be an important component. Similarly, you need to take into account the other low probability event that vaccines may be fine for 50 years and then one year's formulation goes awry for one population group. It seems like VAERS is designed for this latter purpose and really what I'm talking about would in a sense be a much more comprehensive VAERS. > Literally the first 10 google queries for Vaccines are form the CDC, Mayo Clinic and other excellent resources going through the evidence for vaccines. This is a good data point. I opened the 10 links and they are indeed good extensive resources about the existing information. After a number of clicks I was able to finally find 2 really interesting things. VAERS CSV downloads: https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/datasets.html https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/datasets.html and a WONDER query inferface: https://wonder.cdc.gov/ https://wonder.cdc.gov/. Both leave a lot to be desired but definitely a big step in the right direction. > You can't convince people to read the 'good' information....I'm not sure how a further portal is going to help people who have decided to make decisions contrary to the evidence. I think the problem is it's really hard to truly make decisions based on the evidence because the evidence is so hard to use correctly. I think we should figure out how to bring the evidence front and center instead of burying it in very slow and hard to use ways (pdfs, clunky complex query interfaces, registration or permission walls etc). The approach the US has taken to date is to summarize the data and make widespread proclamations that are right for the mean but often wrong for the individual. Instead if we could bring the data closer to the user we could make it as fast for a user to determine for themselves that getting a vaccination is a good bet than it is for them to just accept that based on a blanket statement. The NIH's Precision Medicine Initiative is another step in the right direction but there's still a long way to go.