4 ms·

This is an “anti-science” viewpoint though- you’re providing a bunch of hypotheses but no evidence for them. And then you’re throwing in unrelated historical

This is an “anti-science” viewpoint though- you’re providing a bunch of hypotheses but no evidence for them. And then you’re throwing in unrelated historical situations “Thalidomide babies” to evoke the “think of the children” argument, provoking moral outrage. Finally you throw up a straw man to imply that science doesn’t generally use ethical practices, of which you provide no evidence for.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vixen99 5y ago
You mean 'I've personally seen no evidence for them'. Pharmaceutical companies are science companies big time. They do science and the stack of proven unethical practices connected with them is extensive as a spot of searching reveals. No implication necessary, We know they often don't conduct themselves in a proper manner and often in a criminal manner. "Pfizer to Pay $2.3 Billion for Fraudulent Marketing" - https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-largest-health-care-fraud-settlement-its-history https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/johnson-johnson-pay-more-22-billion-resolve-criminal-and-civil-investigations https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/johnson-johnson-pay-more-22-b... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-pharmaceutical-company-merck-sharp-dohme-sentenced-connection-unlawful-promotion-vioxx https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-pharmaceutical-company-mer... To which we can add Eli Lilly, Amgen, Astrazenica, Actelion, Purdue Pharma all of whom have been fined upwards of $200 million. And these are only the big fish. Of course most scientific activity takes place such that ethical considerations don't arise. When they do however, it would seem that making a default judgment of their ethical probity is definitely problematic.
incrudible 5y ago
When you say "no evidence", what sort of evidence do you expect? The reason we generally run trials for many years is to gather evidence. There was "no evidence" for the vaccines causing Myocarditis when they were rolled out. Now there's strong evidence and the concerns are growing. This trial reported Myocarditis rates at 1:1000 in a group with median age 33: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.13.21262182v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.13.21262182v... This is three times higher than what the FDA estimated for the highest risk group (males aged 16-17), based on VAERS data: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-08-30/03-COVID-Su-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-... As for neurodegeneration, there is a concern that Codon-optimization[2] used for mRNA vaccines[3] can trigger it. It's simply not possible to gather evidence of that in the current approval timeframe, we just assume that the risk outweighs the benefit, come hell and high water. That may be a reasonable assumption for at-risk groups, but not for everyone. [2] https://blog.addgene.org/to-codon-optimize-or-not-that-is-the-question https://blog.addgene.org/to-codon-optimize-or-not-that-is-th... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34358150/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34358150/
- incrudible 5y ago
  > This trial reported Myocarditis rates at 1:1000 in a group with median age 33 This report was based erroneous data. Revised numbers are closer to VAERS data.
jcims 5y ago
The quality and the ethics of any scientific endeavor are orthogonal attributes. To me it seems that gp is simply stating that they are concerned that the power of these tools to solve problems could push society to adopt them at a rate that doesn’t allow for the longer term implications to be realized. Thalidomide may be unrelated pharmaceutically, but the EUA for Moderna was issued almost exactly 9 months after the very first phase 1 trial started. How many pregnancies were brought from conception to full-term through that testing? CRISPR has the ability to modify genetic material in reproductive cells, causing heritable germline modifications. How do we test that? Unfortunately the pandemic is distorting this conversation. There are too many subtexts around widespread rapid adoption, conflict around mandatory vaccination, avoidance of severe societal hazards, etc.
- c7DJTLrn 5y ago
  >Unfortunately the pandemic is distorting this conversation That's one of the reasons I hesitated to even comment with concern on this topic and why I had to make it clear I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Unfortunately everybody's kneejerk reaction to any kind of skepticism or concern on this topic is to label them as a 5G sterilisation nutcase.
  - jcims 5y ago
    We’ve reinvented religion.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vixen99 5y ago

You mean 'I've personally seen no evidence for them'. Pharmaceutical companies are science companies big time. They do science and the stack of proven unethical practices connected with them is extensive as a spot of searching reveals. No implication necessary, We know they often don't conduct themselves in a proper manner and often in a criminal manner. "Pfizer to Pay $2.3 Billion for Fraudulent Marketing" - https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-largest-health-care-fraud-settlement-its-history https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/johnson-johnson-pay-more-22-billion-resolve-criminal-and-civil-investigations https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/johnson-johnson-pay-more-22-b... https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-pharmaceutical-company-merck-sharp-dohme-sentenced-connection-unlawful-promotion-vioxx https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-pharmaceutical-company-mer... To which we can add Eli Lilly, Amgen, Astrazenica, Actelion, Purdue Pharma all of whom have been fined upwards of $200 million. And these are only the big fish. Of course most scientific activity takes place such that ethical considerations don't arise. When they do however, it would seem that making a default judgment of their ethical probity is definitely problematic.

incrudible 5y ago

When you say "no evidence", what sort of evidence do you expect? The reason we generally run trials for many years is to gather evidence. There was "no evidence" for the vaccines causing Myocarditis when they were rolled out. Now there's strong evidence and the concerns are growing. This trial reported Myocarditis rates at 1:1000 in a group with median age 33: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.13.21262182v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.13.21262182v... This is three times higher than what the FDA estimated for the highest risk group (males aged 16-17), based on VAERS data: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-2021-08-30/03-COVID-Su-508.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-... As for neurodegeneration, there is a concern that Codon-optimization[2] used for mRNA vaccines[3] can trigger it. It's simply not possible to gather evidence of that in the current approval timeframe, we just assume that the risk outweighs the benefit, come hell and high water. That may be a reasonable assumption for at-risk groups, but not for everyone. [2] https://blog.addgene.org/to-codon-optimize-or-not-that-is-the-question https://blog.addgene.org/to-codon-optimize-or-not-that-is-th... [3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34358150/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34358150/

incrudible 5y ago
> This trial reported Myocarditis rates at 1:1000 in a group with median age 33 This report was based erroneous data. Revised numbers are closer to VAERS data.

jcims 5y ago

The quality and the ethics of any scientific endeavor are orthogonal attributes. To me it seems that gp is simply stating that they are concerned that the power of these tools to solve problems could push society to adopt them at a rate that doesn’t allow for the longer term implications to be realized. Thalidomide may be unrelated pharmaceutically, but the EUA for Moderna was issued almost exactly 9 months after the very first phase 1 trial started. How many pregnancies were brought from conception to full-term through that testing? CRISPR has the ability to modify genetic material in reproductive cells, causing heritable germline modifications. How do we test that? Unfortunately the pandemic is distorting this conversation. There are too many subtexts around widespread rapid adoption, conflict around mandatory vaccination, avoidance of severe societal hazards, etc.

c7DJTLrn 5y ago
>Unfortunately the pandemic is distorting this conversation That's one of the reasons I hesitated to even comment with concern on this topic and why I had to make it clear I'm not a conspiracy theorist. Unfortunately everybody's kneejerk reaction to any kind of skepticism or concern on this topic is to label them as a 5G sterilisation nutcase.
- jcims 5y ago
  We’ve reinvented religion.