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I see a lot of complaints of people about the fact that Pfizer required legal immunity against side effects. This is a must for any vaccine manufacturer, other

I see a lot of complaints of people about the fact that Pfizer required legal immunity against side effects. This is a must for any vaccine manufacturer, otherwise the vaccine is just not commercially feasible. That's what killed Lymerix, and why we don't have Lyme disease vaccine anymore. If the government does not back it up, the manufacturer won't stand a chance. Even if the vaccine has a good safety profile, a 0.1% rate of side effects applied to millions is still a lot of lawsuits.

fsh 5y ago
This also happened with the DPT vaccine in the 1980s. Manufacturers kept losing lawsuits based on junk science until they could no longer afford liability insurance. This is why the US congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act that protects manufacturers from lawsuits.
roenxi 5y ago
That is a signal your laws are bad and squelching valuable innovation. Giving random one-off exceptions when you personally feel like it is a terrible way to regulate commerce. Vendors should be able to grade their vaccines on a curve based on how much safety and efficacy data there is, then let people choose whatever in consultation with their doctors.
- jimmyearlcarter 5y ago
  exactly
evandijk70 5y ago
Please note that for a vaccine against a disease like corona, a 0.1% rate of side effects serious enough to lead to lawsuits is not a 'good safety profile', especially when given to people outside well-defined risk groups. The Johnson & Johnson and Astrazeneca vaccines, which probably have a 'borderline safety profile' have a rate of side-effects between 0.001% and 0.0001%.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  In slovenia (~2mio pop, ~1mio had covid), the current statistics for girls under 25 show zero deaths due to covid and 1 death due to the vaccine (j&J). She got vaccinated because she had to, and all the measures are designed (accidentally or intentionally) to mostly affect the young, because old people (the ones who die a lot if not vaccinated) don't do most of the restricted stuff anyways (eg. closed nightclubs don't affect them)
waihtis 5y ago
Fine, but now we have two extra phenomena with the COVID vaccine: 1) Discussion about vaccine side effects, efficacy rates, etc. is being actively censored (e.g. Twitter's ridiculous post censorship policy) 2) Governments pushing for a mandatory vaccine If one doesn't think this creates a very dangerous precedent one does not understand history nor human nature at all.
- pas 5y ago
  Obviously the situation is bad. The antivaxx bomb exploded and a significant chunk of the population has been hit by it. Now governments are trying to counteract that. (Twitter too.) Both usually have crude methods only.
  - waihtis 5y ago
    This is not an antivaxx problem, this is a government/NGO ineptitude & trustworthiness problem. There's been a million fumbles and lies around the whole pandemic, making the quasistalinist approach to pandemic governance likely the number one catalyst of antivaxx stances.
    - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      Yep, so many many lies, so many "science changing is a good thing" stuff (eg "masks are useless, wash your hands", and mask wearers being conspiracy theorists, to "mandatory masks" and antimaskers being the conspirac nutjobs), "just 14 more days", etc.... but they still want you to "trust them" now, with "this new thing".
      - pas 5y ago
        The science was always uncertain, the policy flip-flop was understandable, the absolutely fubar'ed PR is the nightmare fuel. Masks work. That was not the question. How much they help is the question of science. The cost-benefit decision is the question of policy. How to communicate the changing policy should have been the PR question. The US and international agencies that set policies are not as science-driven as they should be. ( https://www.slowboring.com/p/our-public-health-agencies-should https://www.slowboring.com/p/our-public-health-agencies-shou... ) Framing this as "lies" is counter-productive. Policy converging with science is mostly a good thing, but first that needs high quality science (= high quality data, asking the right questions, etc). The current US communication zeitgeist using "science" as a shorthand for "policy based on cost-benefit evaluation of such and such scientific reports by this and this community of experts and stakeholders" is a big problem, but it's a symptom of other bigger US social phenomena.
emilfihlman 5y ago
This is absolutely not true, and has not been true before Covid.
bsjks 5y ago
All of this only begins to be a problem when 1) discussion about side effects is constantly shut down and 2) you force people to take the vaccine against their will.
pelasaco 5y ago
The question is which country must back this up? US? Germany? All countries in the World? To some context: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/10/pfizer-accused-of-holding-brazil-to-ransom-over-vaccine-contract-demands https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/10/p...
- libertine 5y ago
  Each contract has it's own terms, one of the cause for delays within the EU was due to some of those legal terms. USA and UK waved a lot of responsibilities. If it's shared liability, for example, in the EU it would be both EU and Pfizer that would back this up.
  - pelasaco 5y ago
    At least in Germany, the state wasn't back in it up. It may have changed now. But when the first Astrazeneca problems popped up, the answer was "you did it knowing the risks, when you signed up for it". Reference: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/haftungimpfschaden-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/haftungimpfsch...
  - simonh 5y ago
    > USA and UK waved a lot of responsibilities. Brit here. I’m not intending to be argumentative, you’re right, but I’d prefer to put it a bit differently. The British government chose to take on responsibility for ordering and using the vaccines. We did our testing, contracted the drug companies to do a job to standards we set, and paid them for it. If a mistake was made, it’s on us. I have no problem with that. Now, if the drug companies lied, or failed to live up to their contracts, that’s a different story. But if they did the job we asked in good faith, we’ll, that’s fine. Contrast with the OxyContin debacle in the US. Those people lied, concealed evidence, conspired and goodness knows what else. They deserve the full force of the law. I am in no way advocating blanket liability waivers for drug companies.
    - libertine 5y ago
dilap 5y ago
Yet J&J was willing to waive immunity?
fontenot-jon 5y ago
the government is responsible for lyme disease, "plum island shennanigans," and then magicly whipped out a response... strange, history may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme all too often

fsh 5y ago

This also happened with the DPT vaccine in the 1980s. Manufacturers kept losing lawsuits based on junk science until they could no longer afford liability insurance. This is why the US congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act that protects manufacturers from lawsuits.

roenxi 5y ago

That is a signal your laws are bad and squelching valuable innovation. Giving random one-off exceptions when you personally feel like it is a terrible way to regulate commerce. Vendors should be able to grade their vaccines on a curve based on how much safety and efficacy data there is, then let people choose whatever in consultation with their doctors.

jimmyearlcarter 5y ago
exactly

evandijk70 5y ago

Please note that for a vaccine against a disease like corona, a 0.1% rate of side effects serious enough to lead to lawsuits is not a 'good safety profile', especially when given to people outside well-defined risk groups. The Johnson & Johnson and Astrazeneca vaccines, which probably have a 'borderline safety profile' have a rate of side-effects between 0.001% and 0.0001%.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
In slovenia (~2mio pop, ~1mio had covid), the current statistics for girls under 25 show zero deaths due to covid and 1 death due to the vaccine (j&J). She got vaccinated because she had to, and all the measures are designed (accidentally or intentionally) to mostly affect the young, because old people (the ones who die a lot if not vaccinated) don't do most of the restricted stuff anyways (eg. closed nightclubs don't affect them)

waihtis 5y ago

Fine, but now we have two extra phenomena with the COVID vaccine: 1) Discussion about vaccine side effects, efficacy rates, etc. is being actively censored (e.g. Twitter's ridiculous post censorship policy) 2) Governments pushing for a mandatory vaccine If one doesn't think this creates a very dangerous precedent one does not understand history nor human nature at all.

pas 5y ago
Obviously the situation is bad. The antivaxx bomb exploded and a significant chunk of the population has been hit by it. Now governments are trying to counteract that. (Twitter too.) Both usually have crude methods only.
- waihtis 5y ago
  This is not an antivaxx problem, this is a government/NGO ineptitude & trustworthiness problem. There's been a million fumbles and lies around the whole pandemic, making the quasistalinist approach to pandemic governance likely the number one catalyst of antivaxx stances.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Yep, so many many lies, so many "science changing is a good thing" stuff (eg "masks are useless, wash your hands", and mask wearers being conspiracy theorists, to "mandatory masks" and antimaskers being the conspirac nutjobs), "just 14 more days", etc.... but they still want you to "trust them" now, with "this new thing".
    - pas 5y ago
      The science was always uncertain, the policy flip-flop was understandable, the absolutely fubar'ed PR is the nightmare fuel. Masks work. That was not the question. How much they help is the question of science. The cost-benefit decision is the question of policy. How to communicate the changing policy should have been the PR question. The US and international agencies that set policies are not as science-driven as they should be. ( https://www.slowboring.com/p/our-public-health-agencies-should https://www.slowboring.com/p/our-public-health-agencies-shou... ) Framing this as "lies" is counter-productive. Policy converging with science is mostly a good thing, but first that needs high quality science (= high quality data, asking the right questions, etc). The current US communication zeitgeist using "science" as a shorthand for "policy based on cost-benefit evaluation of such and such scientific reports by this and this community of experts and stakeholders" is a big problem, but it's a symptom of other bigger US social phenomena.

emilfihlman 5y ago

This is absolutely not true, and has not been true before Covid.

bsjks 5y ago

All of this only begins to be a problem when 1) discussion about side effects is constantly shut down and 2) you force people to take the vaccine against their will.

pelasaco 5y ago

The question is which country must back this up? US? Germany? All countries in the World? To some context: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/10/pfizer-accused-of-holding-brazil-to-ransom-over-vaccine-contract-demands https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/10/p...

libertine 5y ago
Each contract has it's own terms, one of the cause for delays within the EU was due to some of those legal terms. USA and UK waved a lot of responsibilities. If it's shared liability, for example, in the EU it would be both EU and Pfizer that would back this up.
- pelasaco 5y ago
  At least in Germany, the state wasn't back in it up. It may have changed now. But when the first Astrazeneca problems popped up, the answer was "you did it knowing the risks, when you signed up for it". Reference: https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/haftungimpfschaden-101.html https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/gesellschaft/haftungimpfsch...
- simonh 5y ago
  > USA and UK waved a lot of responsibilities. Brit here. I’m not intending to be argumentative, you’re right, but I’d prefer to put it a bit differently. The British government chose to take on responsibility for ordering and using the vaccines. We did our testing, contracted the drug companies to do a job to standards we set, and paid them for it. If a mistake was made, it’s on us. I have no problem with that. Now, if the drug companies lied, or failed to live up to their contracts, that’s a different story. But if they did the job we asked in good faith, we’ll, that’s fine. Contrast with the OxyContin debacle in the US. Those people lied, concealed evidence, conspired and goodness knows what else. They deserve the full force of the law. I am in no way advocating blanket liability waivers for drug companies.
  - libertine 5y ago

dilap 5y ago

Yet J&J was willing to waive immunity?

fontenot-jon 5y ago

the government is responsible for lyme disease, "plum island shennanigans," and then magicly whipped out a response... strange, history may not repeat, but it sure does rhyme all too often