4 ms·

...because MCA is a treatment, while the vaccine is a prophylactic. Every person who refuses the vaccine and winds up needing ICU treatment means resources unav

...because MCA is a treatment, while the vaccine is a prophylactic. Every person who refuses the vaccine and winds up needing ICU treatment means resources unavailable for breakout cases and non-covid emergency conditions. It's absolutely ethical to compel vaccination in order to safeguard the health and safety of the overwhelming majority of Americans who are being individually and socially responsible by getting vaccinated; and the healthcare system and workers, which are under tremendous strain. Also, prior to COVID, monoclonal antibodies were being tested in single digit numbers of patients with highly aggressive cancers at a cost of $500K per treatment. The cost has come down 100x, so it's inaccurate to claim production hasn't ramped up. It has, it's just still way more cost effective to get a vaccine.

brigandish 5y ago
> It's absolutely ethical to compel vaccination It's never ethical to compel the innocent to do anything. A shifting of the incentives would be far more ethical, but difficult politically - perhaps make people who are unvaccinated pay a greater percentage of their treatment, or need to take special insurance. I'd advocate that kind of thing for most things relating to personal/lifestyle choice, obesity being a good example, giving better premiums to non-smokers, vegetarians etc but when the numbers of (possible) patients becomes big then it's unlikely to be taken up either by an electorate nor by a politician. That's ignoring how many health systems seem fundamentally broken for other reasons (e.g. US and UK).
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  > It's never ethical to compel the innocent to do anything. What does that even mean? Innocent of what, having an immune system? Financial incentives, such as being fired if you create a hazardous workplace by refusing vaccination, are a form of compulsion on an escalating ladder of methods to convince people. The government absolutely leaned on business to make that happen in order to avoid a direct mandate.
  - brigandish 5y ago
    > What does that even mean? Innocent of what, having an immune system? Innocent of a crime. That's it's usual meaning, and we compel those guilty of crimes to do things they don't want to. > Financial incentives, such as being fired if you create a hazardous workplace by refusing vaccination, are a form of compulsion on an escalating ladder of methods to convince people. That's not an incentive, that's a punishment. I do agree, however, that it is a form of compulsion (a compulsion is never also an incentive).
    - kelseyfrog 5y ago
      What a strange way of looking at the world. When did you choose to have that perspective and why?
      - brigandish 5y ago
        You need to be more specific, especially to keep within the commenting guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments
    - sriram_malhar 5y ago
      I'm not sure what you are referring to with terms like "innocent", "crime", "compulsion" etc when the topic is a covid vaccine. I don't know why everyone's up in arms about this particular vaccine. Kids around the world are given vaccines for polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, hiaemophilus influenza type b (Hib), diarrhea, smallpox etc. Why is everyone up in arms about this particular vaccine, esp. when the mRNA based ones don't even have any part of the virus? I can't think of any reason other than stupid/criminal politicians on the right using whatever slogans they can to influence their sheeple to maintain their foothold. Jeez.
      - brigandish 5y ago
        > I'm not sure what you are referring to with terms like "innocent", "crime", "compulsion" etc when the topic is a covid vaccine. Why I'm referring to them is because the only members of society we usually compel to do anything are: - children - those in the military - those guilty of a crime - those who have lost their mind Adults innocent of a crime, not in the military, and who are compos mentis are not subject to compulsion - to compel them would likely be a crime. > I don't know why everyone's up in arms about this particular vaccine. I am not everyone and I am not up in arms about the vaccine, I am responding to the element of compulsion and violation of the normal situation of legal standing between an individual and the government (who would be the ones doing the compelling). If you compel someone to get any of the other vaccines listed, then I would be "up in arms" about that too.
vimy 5y ago
MCA can also be a prophylactic. The assumption that vaccines would end the pandemic was also based on the idea they would stop transmission. This turned out to be wrong. Vaccines are excellent at preventing hospitalization but do a crappy job stopping transmission. So when we have vaccines who are only excellent at self-protection and we also have a cure, I don’t see why we would compel anyone to take something they don’t want to.
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  That is simply nonsense. The current vaccines are not completely effective at reducing transmission in a rapidly mutating virus when a significant minority is refusing to take it. If the vaccine was deployed to 95% of the population the virus would not have enough hosts to continue propagating and would reduce to background noise that can be easily handled by the medical systems with treatments like MCAs. I'm also curious what is acceptable about monoclonal antibodies, but not the vaccine? They've been developed by the same types of scientists, on a similar timeline to the mRNA vaccine technology, and they work on similar fundamentals, but the MCAs are a less effective solution in terms of cost, production, deployment, and long term protection. The whole thing just seems like a temper tantrum with no rational basis.
  - vimy 5y ago
    > I'm also curious what is acceptable about monoclonal antibodies, but not the vaccine? I don’t know since I’m vaccinated. I just think people should have a choice.

brigandish 5y ago

> It's absolutely ethical to compel vaccination It's never ethical to compel the innocent to do anything. A shifting of the incentives would be far more ethical, but difficult politically - perhaps make people who are unvaccinated pay a greater percentage of their treatment, or need to take special insurance. I'd advocate that kind of thing for most things relating to personal/lifestyle choice, obesity being a good example, giving better premiums to non-smokers, vegetarians etc but when the numbers of (possible) patients becomes big then it's unlikely to be taken up either by an electorate nor by a politician. That's ignoring how many health systems seem fundamentally broken for other reasons (e.g. US and UK).

arrosenberg 5y ago
> It's never ethical to compel the innocent to do anything. What does that even mean? Innocent of what, having an immune system? Financial incentives, such as being fired if you create a hazardous workplace by refusing vaccination, are a form of compulsion on an escalating ladder of methods to convince people. The government absolutely leaned on business to make that happen in order to avoid a direct mandate.
- brigandish 5y ago
  > What does that even mean? Innocent of what, having an immune system? Innocent of a crime. That's it's usual meaning, and we compel those guilty of crimes to do things they don't want to. > Financial incentives, such as being fired if you create a hazardous workplace by refusing vaccination, are a form of compulsion on an escalating ladder of methods to convince people. That's not an incentive, that's a punishment. I do agree, however, that it is a form of compulsion (a compulsion is never also an incentive).
  - kelseyfrog 5y ago
    What a strange way of looking at the world. When did you choose to have that perspective and why?
    - brigandish 5y ago
      You need to be more specific, especially to keep within the commenting guidelines https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html#comments
  - sriram_malhar 5y ago
    I'm not sure what you are referring to with terms like "innocent", "crime", "compulsion" etc when the topic is a covid vaccine. I don't know why everyone's up in arms about this particular vaccine. Kids around the world are given vaccines for polio, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, hiaemophilus influenza type b (Hib), diarrhea, smallpox etc. Why is everyone up in arms about this particular vaccine, esp. when the mRNA based ones don't even have any part of the virus? I can't think of any reason other than stupid/criminal politicians on the right using whatever slogans they can to influence their sheeple to maintain their foothold. Jeez.
    - brigandish 5y ago
      > I'm not sure what you are referring to with terms like "innocent", "crime", "compulsion" etc when the topic is a covid vaccine. Why I'm referring to them is because the only members of society we usually compel to do anything are: - children - those in the military - those guilty of a crime - those who have lost their mind Adults innocent of a crime, not in the military, and who are compos mentis are not subject to compulsion - to compel them would likely be a crime. > I don't know why everyone's up in arms about this particular vaccine. I am not everyone and I am not up in arms about the vaccine, I am responding to the element of compulsion and violation of the normal situation of legal standing between an individual and the government (who would be the ones doing the compelling). If you compel someone to get any of the other vaccines listed, then I would be "up in arms" about that too.

vimy 5y ago

MCA can also be a prophylactic. The assumption that vaccines would end the pandemic was also based on the idea they would stop transmission. This turned out to be wrong. Vaccines are excellent at preventing hospitalization but do a crappy job stopping transmission. So when we have vaccines who are only excellent at self-protection and we also have a cure, I don’t see why we would compel anyone to take something they don’t want to.

arrosenberg 5y ago
That is simply nonsense. The current vaccines are not completely effective at reducing transmission in a rapidly mutating virus when a significant minority is refusing to take it. If the vaccine was deployed to 95% of the population the virus would not have enough hosts to continue propagating and would reduce to background noise that can be easily handled by the medical systems with treatments like MCAs. I'm also curious what is acceptable about monoclonal antibodies, but not the vaccine? They've been developed by the same types of scientists, on a similar timeline to the mRNA vaccine technology, and they work on similar fundamentals, but the MCAs are a less effective solution in terms of cost, production, deployment, and long term protection. The whole thing just seems like a temper tantrum with no rational basis.
- vimy 5y ago
  > I'm also curious what is acceptable about monoclonal antibodies, but not the vaccine? I don’t know since I’m vaccinated. I just think people should have a choice.