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Pessimist opinion? They didn't. The FDA has people move to private enterprise (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/former-fda-commissioner-scott-gottlieb-joins-pfiz

Pessimist opinion? They didn't. The FDA has people move to private enterprise (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/former-fda-commissioner-scott-gottlieb-joins-pfizers-board.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/former-fda-commissioner-scot...) and vise versa (I don't have sources, but I would be shocked if it didn't happen). To that end, my (pessimist) opinion is that there were likely some financial incentives for the FDA to uh...gloss over 60% of that 450,000.

rajin444 5y ago
It was more or less common knowledge “big pharma” doesn’t have a strong record when it comes to trust before Covid. It’s pretty crazy how fast political tribalism can be used to change people’s minds. Just because your political enemy wants to do something does not mean it’s bad. These vaccines were an amazing tool to help end the pandemic but the producers who are profiting heavily from these should be scrutinized as much as possible given there are hundreds of millions receiving this vaccine.
- albatross13 5y ago
  > These vaccines were an amazing tool to help end the pandemic Oh, it has ended? lol.
  - lalaland1125 5y ago
    It has pretty much ended for the vaccinated. Vaccinated people have a very very low chance of death or hospitalization, an order of magnitude lower than the unvaccinated in many cases.
    - Handytinge 5y ago
      There are many countries where lockdown, daily restrictions, entry requirements and isolation are still normal. This pandemic is global - just because things have improved where you are doesn't mean that's the case for the other 95% of the world's population.
      - lalaland1125 5y ago
        That's a non-sequitur. The pandemic, as in the actual killing / harming of people with the virus, is mostly over for vaccinated people. True, some political response to the pandemic are still in place, but that would happen no matter what as politics tends to move slower than the reality on the ground.
        orra 5y ago
        > The pandemic, as in the actual killing ... That's not the definition of pandemic. A pandemic is a very widespread infectious disease. Theoretically, the disease doesn't even have to be deadly. It's true that the vaccines have substantially reduced risk for the vaccinated, but I don't think we can (yet) say the pandemic is over.
  - bsder 5y ago
    Effectively, yes. Omicron puts us in the endgame--Covid is an endemic disease now. It's not the endgame we wanted, but it's the endgame. Omicron is apparently as contagious as chicken pox, and chicken pox effectively infected every person (generally in waves when enough new children hadn't had it). Due to Omicron, in 30-60 days, everyone will have been infected, vaccinated, or both. Even if you could get all the human infections to zero, the animal reservoirs would simply start it up again. Welcome to the new world. Perhaps people will take a pandemic slightly more seriously next time. But I doubt it.
adgjlsfhk1 5y ago
They didn't, but that's not a bad thing. The way the process works is that companies give the FDA both summary statistics and underlying data. The FDA can recompute the stats from the data, confirm they match and approve. The reason for asking for the data isn't because they'll read it, it's so that the summary stats can't be faked without a massive amount of fraud that can be proven if the company lied. Companies can't fake the data because if they got caught, there would be long jail terms and billions of dollars of fines (and they provide too much data for it to be easily forgable).
- pfortuny 5y ago
  Yeah… good luck with that hope. Have you haerd of Exxon? The Sacklers held on for 20 years on Oxycontin…
  - atleta 5y ago
    What does Exxon have to do with the FDA or how medications are authorized? Also, I don't think that the manufacturer of Oxycontin has tricked the authorization process (and then successfully covered up this fact for 20 years). As far as I know, the problem was their marketing strategy, how they convinced doctors (medical practitioners) and probably patients (I can remember the details). So while it's troubling, it's a completely unrelated process and thus unrelated issue.
    - octopoc 5y ago
      > What does Exxon have to do with the FDA or how medications are authorized? It proves that the FDA shouldn't use a "trust, and don't verify" approach to medical trials performed by megacorporations.
      - atleta 5y ago
        Again, what does exactly the Exxon case 'prove' here? Also, how? Which act of theirs? (I'm pretty sure I miss a lot of details there and that might be the reason I have no idea what connection are you drawing here.) Also, no one said "trust and don't verify". What was said is that they don't have to verify all the data and read through all the pages. Because the risk is just too high and they will obviously look into the details here and there.

rajin444 5y ago

It was more or less common knowledge “big pharma” doesn’t have a strong record when it comes to trust before Covid. It’s pretty crazy how fast political tribalism can be used to change people’s minds. Just because your political enemy wants to do something does not mean it’s bad. These vaccines were an amazing tool to help end the pandemic but the producers who are profiting heavily from these should be scrutinized as much as possible given there are hundreds of millions receiving this vaccine.

albatross13 5y ago
> These vaccines were an amazing tool to help end the pandemic Oh, it has ended? lol.
- lalaland1125 5y ago
  It has pretty much ended for the vaccinated. Vaccinated people have a very very low chance of death or hospitalization, an order of magnitude lower than the unvaccinated in many cases.
  - Handytinge 5y ago
    There are many countries where lockdown, daily restrictions, entry requirements and isolation are still normal. This pandemic is global - just because things have improved where you are doesn't mean that's the case for the other 95% of the world's population.
    - lalaland1125 5y ago
      That's a non-sequitur. The pandemic, as in the actual killing / harming of people with the virus, is mostly over for vaccinated people. True, some political response to the pandemic are still in place, but that would happen no matter what as politics tends to move slower than the reality on the ground.
      - orra 5y ago
        > The pandemic, as in the actual killing ... That's not the definition of pandemic. A pandemic is a very widespread infectious disease. Theoretically, the disease doesn't even have to be deadly. It's true that the vaccines have substantially reduced risk for the vaccinated, but I don't think we can (yet) say the pandemic is over.
- bsder 5y ago
  Effectively, yes. Omicron puts us in the endgame--Covid is an endemic disease now. It's not the endgame we wanted, but it's the endgame. Omicron is apparently as contagious as chicken pox, and chicken pox effectively infected every person (generally in waves when enough new children hadn't had it). Due to Omicron, in 30-60 days, everyone will have been infected, vaccinated, or both. Even if you could get all the human infections to zero, the animal reservoirs would simply start it up again. Welcome to the new world. Perhaps people will take a pandemic slightly more seriously next time. But I doubt it.

adgjlsfhk1 5y ago

They didn't, but that's not a bad thing. The way the process works is that companies give the FDA both summary statistics and underlying data. The FDA can recompute the stats from the data, confirm they match and approve. The reason for asking for the data isn't because they'll read it, it's so that the summary stats can't be faked without a massive amount of fraud that can be proven if the company lied. Companies can't fake the data because if they got caught, there would be long jail terms and billions of dollars of fines (and they provide too much data for it to be easily forgable).

pfortuny 5y ago
Yeah… good luck with that hope. Have you haerd of Exxon? The Sacklers held on for 20 years on Oxycontin…
- atleta 5y ago
  What does Exxon have to do with the FDA or how medications are authorized? Also, I don't think that the manufacturer of Oxycontin has tricked the authorization process (and then successfully covered up this fact for 20 years). As far as I know, the problem was their marketing strategy, how they convinced doctors (medical practitioners) and probably patients (I can remember the details). So while it's troubling, it's a completely unrelated process and thus unrelated issue.
  - octopoc 5y ago
    > What does Exxon have to do with the FDA or how medications are authorized? It proves that the FDA shouldn't use a "trust, and don't verify" approach to medical trials performed by megacorporations.
    - atleta 5y ago
      Again, what does exactly the Exxon case 'prove' here? Also, how? Which act of theirs? (I'm pretty sure I miss a lot of details there and that might be the reason I have no idea what connection are you drawing here.) Also, no one said "trust and don't verify". What was said is that they don't have to verify all the data and read through all the pages. Because the risk is just too high and they will obviously look into the details here and there.