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The FDA rushing the approval of vaccine that might turn out to be unsafe harms their credibility in the long run. The worst case scenario of a hastily approved

The FDA rushing the approval of vaccine that might turn out to be unsafe harms their credibility in the long run. The worst case scenario of a hastily approved vaccine is so high that it probably makes sense to bear the cost and take the health/economic hit. Also this is the first major use of mRNA vaccine, scientists and experts were not sure how well it would work. Administering it without trials could have led to a nightmare scenario for a few individuals and anti-vaccine stance for a larger chunk of population. Ben is probably right, the status quo should change, but I am not sure if the 'opportunity cost' calculus he makes is accurate in this case.

pdonis 6y ago
> The worst case scenario of a hastily approved vaccine is so high that it probably makes sense to bear the cost and take the health/economic hit. I'm not so sure. See my response to ivanbakel upthread.
renewiltord 6y ago
Well, the worst case scenario of not approving the vaccine is that the virus mutates into an airborne monstrosity with near instant fatality. So not approving the vaccine also makes no sense. Ultimately, any optimization strategy that depends on using just the worst case without the probability of the worst case to optimize on is going to rapidly find itself unable to optimize because the worst case has cost infinity with every path.
xyzzyz 6y ago
> The FDA rushing the approval of vaccine that might turn out to be unsafe harms their credibility in the long run. FDA has just paid for this risk of losing credibility with hundreds of thousands of lives. Was it a good price? > The worst case scenario of a hastily approved vaccine is so high that it probably makes sense to bear the cost and take the health/economic hit. Really? You ran the numbers? Show your work.
- cageface 6y ago
  It's very likely we're going to see another pandemic with a much more lethal pathogen in our lifetimes. Counting on overnight development of vaccines and throwing out proper testing to bail us out is a mistake.

pdonis 6y ago

> The worst case scenario of a hastily approved vaccine is so high that it probably makes sense to bear the cost and take the health/economic hit. I'm not so sure. See my response to ivanbakel upthread.

renewiltord 6y ago

Well, the worst case scenario of not approving the vaccine is that the virus mutates into an airborne monstrosity with near instant fatality. So not approving the vaccine also makes no sense. Ultimately, any optimization strategy that depends on using just the worst case without the probability of the worst case to optimize on is going to rapidly find itself unable to optimize because the worst case has cost infinity with every path.

xyzzyz 6y ago

> The FDA rushing the approval of vaccine that might turn out to be unsafe harms their credibility in the long run. FDA has just paid for this risk of losing credibility with hundreds of thousands of lives. Was it a good price? > The worst case scenario of a hastily approved vaccine is so high that it probably makes sense to bear the cost and take the health/economic hit. Really? You ran the numbers? Show your work.

cageface 6y ago
It's very likely we're going to see another pandemic with a much more lethal pathogen in our lifetimes. Counting on overnight development of vaccines and throwing out proper testing to bail us out is a mistake.