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There are real safety risks to testing unknown drugs and the public literally isn’t smart enough to assess the risk to themselves. Everyone would sign up for t

by parsimo2010 6y ago

There are real safety risks to testing unknown drugs and the public literally isn’t smart enough to assess the risk to themselves. Everyone would sign up for the test vaccine to get a chance at escaping quarantine without understanding the risk. And if we offered this on a regular basis it is inevitable that a candidate drug would have adverse effects on a large group and people would be out for blood because nobody actually read the fine print. Here’s a list of examples that shows why the FDA must be deliberate in their testing. People can die or be permanently crippled when we screw it up. Just imagine if we rushed a coronavirus vaccine with a similar safety concern and ended up hurting millions of people before we realized it: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.html https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/concerns-history.... The FDA already does have compassionate use exemptions for people that are on death’s door and there are no downsides to taking an experimental drug- they’re dying anyway if it doesn’t work out. I think that’s about the right level threshold for deciding whether to give people unproven drugs and we should not have rushed the vaccines any faster- hindsight may show us that the vaccines are safe but we couldn’t have known that a few months ago. We have to do the testing.

CWuestefeld 6y ago
a chance at escaping quarantine without understanding the risk. Yet it appears that the FDA makes no attempt to understand the downside risk associated with NOT taking the vaccine. I don't see them talking to economists trying to understand what damage will be done to our businesses, and how people will suffer as a result of that; or even of what lockdowns are doing to our mental health. The ONLY risks they're considering are on the side of taking the vaccination. And this is always how it works for them, both in normal times and during the pandemic. Consider last March, when the CDC's covid-19 test was defective. Despite the fact that the assay is a simple matter that any decent hospital can do in their own lab, the FDA would not allow anyone to do it. That set America's pandemic fight back by a couple of weeks. If we could shift the spread backwards by two weeks, how many thousands of lives would we be saving? The FDA's hidebound refusal to look at both sides is responsible for this.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- 36r7r7ddyd 6y ago
  This probably isn't a situation you want to take a purely economic outlook towards the problem. When the largest at-risk group is the elderly you're not going to see a lot of financial disruption in sectors that keep the wheels moving.
  - CWuestefeld 6y ago
    I'm not looking for a purely economic outlook. I'm complaining that the FDA is at the far extreme, with a purely medical outlook, giving no consideration for other factors. (I should amend that a bit. They've clearly done a lot to streamline their processes for this. But as far as I can tell, they haven't done anything to balance different kinds of risk in their standards.)

CWuestefeld 6y ago

a chance at escaping quarantine without understanding the risk. Yet it appears that the FDA makes no attempt to understand the downside risk associated with NOT taking the vaccine. I don't see them talking to economists trying to understand what damage will be done to our businesses, and how people will suffer as a result of that; or even of what lockdowns are doing to our mental health. The ONLY risks they're considering are on the side of taking the vaccination. And this is always how it works for them, both in normal times and during the pandemic. Consider last March, when the CDC's covid-19 test was defective. Despite the fact that the assay is a simple matter that any decent hospital can do in their own lab, the FDA would not allow anyone to do it. That set America's pandemic fight back by a couple of weeks. If we could shift the spread backwards by two weeks, how many thousands of lives would we be saving? The FDA's hidebound refusal to look at both sides is responsible for this.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
36r7r7ddyd 6y ago
This probably isn't a situation you want to take a purely economic outlook towards the problem. When the largest at-risk group is the elderly you're not going to see a lot of financial disruption in sectors that keep the wheels moving.
- CWuestefeld 6y ago
  I'm not looking for a purely economic outlook. I'm complaining that the FDA is at the far extreme, with a purely medical outlook, giving no consideration for other factors. (I should amend that a bit. They've clearly done a lot to streamline their processes for this. But as far as I can tell, they haven't done anything to balance different kinds of risk in their standards.)