> Let's say I want to research effectiveness and safety of a flu vaccine by myself. Sure. Let's say the manufacturer and the government claim that the vaccine

> Let's say I want to research effectiveness and safety of a flu vaccine by myself. Sure. Let's say the manufacturer and the government claim that the vaccine is 100% effective, all of the time, with no side effects. But you happen to notice that lots of women are complaining online about, say, missing their periods for months at a time after taking it. And getting the flu anyway. Congratulations. You have done your own research, made your own observations, and thought for yourself. That's the kind of thing many people were talking about. What else could they be talking about, since as you point out, they didn't have any access to raw data. If you want to get hardcore into citizen science, that's really cool. You will have to pick a direction though; we can't do everything unfortunately. And funding is hard. > A lot of papers are behind paywall and I don't have money for the ongoing journal subscriptions. There are ways around this these days, but yeah the paywalling and siloing of knowledge is really holding back our potential as a species. Did you know that it connects back to Ghislaine Maxwell's dad? Yeah, he was the guy most responsible for expanding the paywall model of academic research and maximising the profit from it. He could make or break scientific careers, keep certain discoveries to himself, hold leverage on academic institutions and professors...