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See also vaccine manufacturers for an example about how it isn't about the patients. They are legally immune from prosecution under the PREP Act for anything th

See also vaccine manufacturers for an example about how it isn't about the patients. They are legally immune from prosecution under the PREP Act for anything that unintentionally goes wrong. You also can't sue the FDA for approving any drug under Emergency Use Authorization. As for the vaccine court created to handle payouts from harm, it has only paid out 29 times in the last decade. I might believe the vaccines are safe - but 29 payouts (<6% of all filed claims) in a decade seems way too low by any statistic. The proof of harm seems insurmountable. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/covid-vaccine-side-effects-compensation-lawsuit.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/covid-vaccine-side-effects-c...

thelopa 4y ago
That statistic could equally be cited as evidence that vaccines are overwhelmingly safe but are plagued by widespread, unfounded belief that they cause harm. It certainly isn’t insurmountable proof that they cause harm. If you want to prove that vaccines cause harm you will need different data.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  If you read the article, experts say that the statistic is rather due to the extremely high amount of red tape required to even file a claim (you basically need a lawyer). Plus, the idea of paying a niche lawyer for less than 6% chance of success is enough to make everyone give up, and not everyone can afford said lawyer because it is so complex. You also must provide a medical basis and explanation for how it happened (otherwise it's legally just a coincidence), which requires additional paperwork by doctors, hospitals, and so on. And last, all claims must be filed within 1 year of the vaccination, so if you develop something, say, 10 months later, you have only 2 months to figure out the mess and file the claim. If it took you 3 months to put the medical basis together - too late. Plus, it's just common sense. Even by the official statistic of Thrombosis happening in "4 cases per one million" according to the CDC (as one potential side effect), that would indicate we should have 896 cases at a minimum, let alone authorized payouts.
  - KingOfCoders 4y ago
    You lost me with "Plus, it's just common sense." https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Common-Sense https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-...
  - thelopa 4y ago
    It seems like you can’t make up your mind whether you’re trying to prove the government is doing a bad thing or whether the vaccines are unsafe. For the sake of argumentation, let’s say that the 4 cases of thrombosis per million is accurate, and all 4 cases are very severe. In that case, yeah, we should probably see more court settlements in favor of patients, and the government is doing a bad thing. However, if only ~900 people in the whole country have a severe reaction to vaccines but they save millions of people annually by preventing deadly and debilitating diseases, then you’ve shot yourself in the foot! That statistic is strong evidence that vaccines are very safe and likely produce more good than harm!
  - HyperSane 4y ago
    Vaccines kill a few dozen people and harm a few hundred a year while saving literally millions of people from death and severe harm. They are one of the greatest advances in medicine.
- calvinmorrison 4y ago
  There is surely no better way to convince people than calling their beliefs unfounded
  - spillguard 4y ago
    How else are you supposed to convince someone of a point, if not by mentioning the evidence?
    - calvinmorrison 4y ago
      I find that evidence is only loosely related with what people believe, to be honest.
Overtonwindow 4y ago
You're speaking really about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. If someone is harmed by a vaccine the maker is immune from suit, but they can apply to the NVIC, which has paid out to some. However the difference is that the NVIC uses tax dollars to pay those claims. The drug companies themselves are immune. In business terms it's a win, but not very much for the public.
- gjsman-1000 4y ago
  Right. I'm not trying to make an anti-vaccine point or anything like that here. I'm simply saying that 29 payouts in a decade, even with ridiculously low odds of injury, is still way, way, way too low and it lacks justice. Showing it really isn't about patients - if you get hurt, you'll never be compensated, too bad. Just like Theranos. You got hurt - too bad.
  - shagmin 4y ago
    This seems like apples and oranges to me. Theranos was lying about having a working product and I don't think there were many patients actually hurt, since they still used other products that were already available to have the appearance of something working, but I digress. In the case of vaccines, there is a product that thousands or millions of people take, and some small minority of people have some anomalous reactions. If you are one person that has a serious reaction to a vaccine that millions of people have had just fine, should you be compensated? I can see if it affected a large percentage of people, but where to draw that line I don't know, but then it shouldn't have made it past enough red tape with the FDA to be so widely available.
- dahdum 4y ago
  I believe it’s a win for the public, government mandates many of these vaccines and while they have extremely low risk, it’s still non-zero. The last thing we need is a bunch of spurious lawsuits finding sympathetic and uninformed jurors driving up the costs for everyone and scaring the public into refusing them. In the US we have plenty of that already.
- vkou 4y ago
nonameiguess 4y ago
"Unintentionally" is doing a lot of work there. This is to incentivize pharma makers to create vaccines without having to worry about spurious lawsuits. If they commit some kind of outright fraud, selling substances that aren't what they say or fabricating research results, they're still liable. This isn't much different from the way medical malpractice works. You can't (successfully) sue a doctor who performed open heart surgery on your husband because he died afterward, in most cases, because it's a risky procedure and that risk is something you have to accept. But if they were drunk while performing the surgery, you can absolutely sue for that. In this specific case, though, there isn't necessarily this kind of informed consent. People can be legally mandated to get vaccines, so it would make no sense to hold the company providing the vaccines liable. The entity creating the mandate, in this case the government itself, should be the one liable, and they are. Your number doesn't mean a whole lot, either. The most dangerous vaccines are for things like malaria and anthrax that typically only military members get, and when they end up harmed, the VA pays them disability benefits. There are way more than 29 people getting VA disability because of events like this.
P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
For covid it makes sense due to the haste (whether you agree with said haste or not, you know it makes sense given said haste exists). I can't speak to other, more deliberate, vaccines, but I suspect it exists there as simply protection the companies negotiated for.
bsder 4y ago
You are 3x-10x more likely to die from an alcohol related incident than you are from any vaccine side effects. Especially for people under 50. Come back once I see anti-vaxxers levels of crusading against alcohol, and I might take you seriously.

thelopa 4y ago

That statistic could equally be cited as evidence that vaccines are overwhelmingly safe but are plagued by widespread, unfounded belief that they cause harm. It certainly isn’t insurmountable proof that they cause harm. If you want to prove that vaccines cause harm you will need different data.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
If you read the article, experts say that the statistic is rather due to the extremely high amount of red tape required to even file a claim (you basically need a lawyer). Plus, the idea of paying a niche lawyer for less than 6% chance of success is enough to make everyone give up, and not everyone can afford said lawyer because it is so complex. You also must provide a medical basis and explanation for how it happened (otherwise it's legally just a coincidence), which requires additional paperwork by doctors, hospitals, and so on. And last, all claims must be filed within 1 year of the vaccination, so if you develop something, say, 10 months later, you have only 2 months to figure out the mess and file the claim. If it took you 3 months to put the medical basis together - too late. Plus, it's just common sense. Even by the official statistic of Thrombosis happening in "4 cases per one million" according to the CDC (as one potential side effect), that would indicate we should have 896 cases at a minimum, let alone authorized payouts.
- KingOfCoders 4y ago
  You lost me with "Plus, it's just common sense." https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Common-Sense https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-...
- thelopa 4y ago
  It seems like you can’t make up your mind whether you’re trying to prove the government is doing a bad thing or whether the vaccines are unsafe. For the sake of argumentation, let’s say that the 4 cases of thrombosis per million is accurate, and all 4 cases are very severe. In that case, yeah, we should probably see more court settlements in favor of patients, and the government is doing a bad thing. However, if only ~900 people in the whole country have a severe reaction to vaccines but they save millions of people annually by preventing deadly and debilitating diseases, then you’ve shot yourself in the foot! That statistic is strong evidence that vaccines are very safe and likely produce more good than harm!
- HyperSane 4y ago
  Vaccines kill a few dozen people and harm a few hundred a year while saving literally millions of people from death and severe harm. They are one of the greatest advances in medicine.
calvinmorrison 4y ago
There is surely no better way to convince people than calling their beliefs unfounded
- spillguard 4y ago
  How else are you supposed to convince someone of a point, if not by mentioning the evidence?
  - calvinmorrison 4y ago
    I find that evidence is only loosely related with what people believe, to be honest.

Overtonwindow 4y ago

You're speaking really about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Fund. If someone is harmed by a vaccine the maker is immune from suit, but they can apply to the NVIC, which has paid out to some. However the difference is that the NVIC uses tax dollars to pay those claims. The drug companies themselves are immune. In business terms it's a win, but not very much for the public.

gjsman-1000 4y ago
Right. I'm not trying to make an anti-vaccine point or anything like that here. I'm simply saying that 29 payouts in a decade, even with ridiculously low odds of injury, is still way, way, way too low and it lacks justice. Showing it really isn't about patients - if you get hurt, you'll never be compensated, too bad. Just like Theranos. You got hurt - too bad.
- shagmin 4y ago
  This seems like apples and oranges to me. Theranos was lying about having a working product and I don't think there were many patients actually hurt, since they still used other products that were already available to have the appearance of something working, but I digress. In the case of vaccines, there is a product that thousands or millions of people take, and some small minority of people have some anomalous reactions. If you are one person that has a serious reaction to a vaccine that millions of people have had just fine, should you be compensated? I can see if it affected a large percentage of people, but where to draw that line I don't know, but then it shouldn't have made it past enough red tape with the FDA to be so widely available.
dahdum 4y ago
I believe it’s a win for the public, government mandates many of these vaccines and while they have extremely low risk, it’s still non-zero. The last thing we need is a bunch of spurious lawsuits finding sympathetic and uninformed jurors driving up the costs for everyone and scaring the public into refusing them. In the US we have plenty of that already.
vkou 4y ago

nonameiguess 4y ago

"Unintentionally" is doing a lot of work there. This is to incentivize pharma makers to create vaccines without having to worry about spurious lawsuits. If they commit some kind of outright fraud, selling substances that aren't what they say or fabricating research results, they're still liable. This isn't much different from the way medical malpractice works. You can't (successfully) sue a doctor who performed open heart surgery on your husband because he died afterward, in most cases, because it's a risky procedure and that risk is something you have to accept. But if they were drunk while performing the surgery, you can absolutely sue for that. In this specific case, though, there isn't necessarily this kind of informed consent. People can be legally mandated to get vaccines, so it would make no sense to hold the company providing the vaccines liable. The entity creating the mandate, in this case the government itself, should be the one liable, and they are. Your number doesn't mean a whole lot, either. The most dangerous vaccines are for things like malaria and anthrax that typically only military members get, and when they end up harmed, the VA pays them disability benefits. There are way more than 29 people getting VA disability because of events like this.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago

For covid it makes sense due to the haste (whether you agree with said haste or not, you know it makes sense given said haste exists). I can't speak to other, more deliberate, vaccines, but I suspect it exists there as simply protection the companies negotiated for.

bsder 4y ago

You are 3x-10x more likely to die from an alcohol related incident than you are from any vaccine side effects. Especially for people under 50. Come back once I see anti-vaxxers levels of crusading against alcohol, and I might take you seriously.