4 ms·

Sounds like a real world case of the trolly problem. Either take no action (by giving out no vaccine) and let hundreds die each day, or give out the vaccine and

Sounds like a real world case of the trolly problem. Either take no action (by giving out no vaccine) and let hundreds die each day, or give out the vaccine and kill a few people each day (assuming the vaccine is causing the deaths, which likely isn't the case anyways).

garmaine 6y ago
> assuming the vaccine is causing the deaths, which likely isn't the case anyways The number of people who got sick equals the base rate, so I really don't see how this could be the case.
azinman2 6y ago
That trolly problem is a one off. Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question, creating a far larger problem spanning time. It's already the case that various sub-communities are hesitant to get the vaccine based upon previous experimentation on their populations long ago, such as the Tuskegee Study.
- thelean12 6y ago
  > Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question, creating a far larger problem spanning time. Is pulling the vaccine (with minimal evidence that it's causing issues) worse? How many people are going to turn down the AZ vaccine now, even if there's not actually an issue?
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    People turning it down would happen anyway once the reports started coming out. By withdrawing it pending more data, when (if) it comes back to market there will be increased confidence that it's been properly vetted. At least, more confidence than if it was left on the market as clotting reports continued to roll in. I don't think there's really a good answer here though. It's balancing human lives in the basis of imperfect data and predictions of human behavior.
  - smoe 6y ago
    The media stories would have come out either way. Some people are set to not take a vaccine, they will take whatever version of this story as an argument for their view point. It is not about them. But take someone like my father (76) as example. Not anti—vaccine at all, but a bit cautious and not in a hurry to get it. If there are stories from reputable news papers, that vaccine A causes X issue but government keeps giving them out, he would not take it. If on the other hand it got stopped, investigated and found to be harmless he would be open again. If based on the data it should be continued to be given out while investigation is ongoing, I don’t know. I think as with a lot of things about this pandemic and it’s handling in different countries it will maybe take years to have conclusive insights in hindsight what were the right decisions.
- jdavis703 6y ago
  Using the Tuskegee Study is a bad example. The African American community has among the lowest rates of vaccine hesitancy, it’s about half of what Republican males report. Source: https://www.axios.com/concern-republican-coronavirus-vaccine-hesitancy-trump-6220b95e-f334-49c4-ad4f-854d5af6b76b.html https://www.axios.com/concern-republican-coronavirus-vaccine...
  - azinman2 6y ago
    But people do explicitly name it as a reason not to trust the vaccine. And similar for other groups. My point still stands: with vaccines, you can’t create reasons for distrust.
    - mkoubaa 6y ago
      You're both right
  - stjohnswarts 6y ago
    It wasn't brought up for comparison it was brought up as an example of why POC have their doubt about a 90% white government telling them it's not a problem. You and I know there is a 99.99999999% chance that this is not Tuskegee 2.0, but when you've had to live with bias and doubt about government/police/etc.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  > Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question This is false. Problems with AstraZeneca has little to do with any other vaccine. They're engineered entirely differently and mechanisms of action are wildly different.
  - azinman2 6y ago
    Tuskegee experiment has nothing to do with covid. Yet that doesn’t stop people from mistrusting vaccines. There are a non-trivial amount of people that think all the covid vaccines are a way for Bill Gates to track you. When we’re talking about population-level inoculation, you need to maximize trust by minimizing any perceivable harm.

garmaine 6y ago

> assuming the vaccine is causing the deaths, which likely isn't the case anyways The number of people who got sick equals the base rate, so I really don't see how this could be the case.

azinman2 6y ago

That trolly problem is a one off. Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question, creating a far larger problem spanning time. It's already the case that various sub-communities are hesitant to get the vaccine based upon previous experimentation on their populations long ago, such as the Tuskegee Study.

thelean12 6y ago
> Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question, creating a far larger problem spanning time. Is pulling the vaccine (with minimal evidence that it's causing issues) worse? How many people are going to turn down the AZ vaccine now, even if there's not actually an issue?
- ineedasername 6y ago
  People turning it down would happen anyway once the reports started coming out. By withdrawing it pending more data, when (if) it comes back to market there will be increased confidence that it's been properly vetted. At least, more confidence than if it was left on the market as clotting reports continued to roll in. I don't think there's really a good answer here though. It's balancing human lives in the basis of imperfect data and predictions of human behavior.
- smoe 6y ago
  The media stories would have come out either way. Some people are set to not take a vaccine, they will take whatever version of this story as an argument for their view point. It is not about them. But take someone like my father (76) as example. Not anti—vaccine at all, but a bit cautious and not in a hurry to get it. If there are stories from reputable news papers, that vaccine A causes X issue but government keeps giving them out, he would not take it. If on the other hand it got stopped, investigated and found to be harmless he would be open again. If based on the data it should be continued to be given out while investigation is ongoing, I don’t know. I think as with a lot of things about this pandemic and it’s handling in different countries it will maybe take years to have conclusive insights in hindsight what were the right decisions.
jdavis703 6y ago
Using the Tuskegee Study is a bad example. The African American community has among the lowest rates of vaccine hesitancy, it’s about half of what Republican males report. Source: https://www.axios.com/concern-republican-coronavirus-vaccine-hesitancy-trump-6220b95e-f334-49c4-ad4f-854d5af6b76b.html https://www.axios.com/concern-republican-coronavirus-vaccine...
- azinman2 6y ago
  But people do explicitly name it as a reason not to trust the vaccine. And similar for other groups. My point still stands: with vaccines, you can’t create reasons for distrust.
  - mkoubaa 6y ago
    You're both right
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  It wasn't brought up for comparison it was brought up as an example of why POC have their doubt about a 90% white government telling them it's not a problem. You and I know there is a 99.99999999% chance that this is not Tuskegee 2.0, but when you've had to live with bias and doubt about government/police/etc.
systemvoltage 6y ago
> Having a major vaccine lead to serious issues puts all of vaccines into question This is false. Problems with AstraZeneca has little to do with any other vaccine. They're engineered entirely differently and mechanisms of action are wildly different.
- azinman2 6y ago
  Tuskegee experiment has nothing to do with covid. Yet that doesn’t stop people from mistrusting vaccines. There are a non-trivial amount of people that think all the covid vaccines are a way for Bill Gates to track you. When we’re talking about population-level inoculation, you need to maximize trust by minimizing any perceivable harm.