This implies that corners were cut. They were not. They went through the full regulatory procedures.
> many people still sit with the issues they caused
Few medicines are entirely without side effects. The effects of the virus were in general far worse. Millions of lives were saved from the vaccines.
> Not a win
Apart from the millions of lives that were saved.
> at the very least, they reduced the confidence of average people in vaccines and gave credence to the anti-vaxxer
This was thanks to scientific illiteracy, cynical political opportunism, and rancid leadership. The vaccines were a huge success by any reasonable measure.
If you read the article, you'll see that they did in fact meet the full requirements by August 2021. The EAU plus criteria were met quickly, but they did meet every criteria normally used.
All the doctors and medical professionals were forced to get vaccinated in early 2021. If something went wrong, the very people that we depend on could have suffered mass casualties. And many of them did suffer from effects from the vaccine, even though they likely had already contracted COVID beforehand and a vaccine was unnecessary. This is the problem with mandates and anti-science thinking.
> This implies that corners were cut. They were not. They went through the full regulatory procedures.
That's absolutely not true. The standard for new vaccines, iirc, required a period of something on the order of 7 years. Time, in this case, is not a function of procedure that can be expedited in an emergency, but is actually an important element in and of itself. Many issues do not manifest immediately and actually need follow up over time.
The crazy thing about these vaccines was that both mRNA vaccines and the viral vector vaccines were completely new platforms, never deployed at scale. They work entirely differently than all other vaccines. Up until this point, vaccines all delivered the antigen in one of 3 ways: you get a weakened virus, you get a dead virus, or you get the antigen itself (subunit protein like Novavax). Both the mRNA (Pfizer & Moderna) and the viral vector (J&J) vaccines worked by getting either mRNA or DNA (viral vector) into your cells, and then having your own cells produce and express the antigen themselves. Basically the difference between server generated code or shipping the JS for you to run the SPA on your own client.
One of the crazy things about this was that it wasn't obvious what the implications would be of having our own cells expressing the antigens (and thus flagging themselves for destruction by our immune system). This was particularly concerning because the cells that were shown to be doing this, despite the complete lie that kept being repeated of the vaccine staying localized at the injection site, were found all over the body. In the case of the viral vector vaccines, at least they were being delivered by a vessel (living adenovirus) that our bodies have had billions of years of evolution to determine where they might end up. In the case of the mRNA vaccines, though, the vessel was a lipid nanoparticle with an exceptional ability to deliver payloads basically anywhere in the body. Note: the attention these lipid nanoparticles had received prior to their use in mRNA was their ability to deliver payloads to places that are notoriously difficult to reach, notably their ability to cross the brain blood barrier. So you have delivery mechanisms delivering a payload that makes our cells into antigen factories, shown to be producing them all over the body, and targeting themselves for destruction by the immune system/causing an increased immune response in these areas.
And then, for the icing on the cake, there was mounting evidence that the antigen itself was actually likely destructive/problematic.
I could go off forever on this topic. The amount of obfuscation and gaslighting was insurmountable for anybody that was even remotely interested in figuring out what was happening. From a personal perspective, my trust in many institutions was permanently shaken.
> That's absolutely not true. The standard for new vaccines, iirc, required a period of something on the order of 7 years.
In Europe, it can take years, but because of organizational reasons and economic incentives. The whole process was completed as far as possible, but companies when through the same steps as always.
They also said that the spike proteins produced by the vaccine would be gone within a few days or weeks, and new studies show that they were detected multiple years afterwards. This was "guaranteed" to not happen. The trials were too short to pick this up and what does that actually mean for the health of people afterwards.
The trials missed the fact that younger males under 40 have a material increased risk myocarditis from the vaccine. And when reports of that started coming out, the media and "medical establishment" fought against those reports and said the people who were saying this were "anti-vaxxers". But finally the CDC acknowledged this and added it to their communication without accountability or apologies.
Their reaction was anti-science and driven by ideology and things like this is why trust in the media and medical establishment was destroyed because it was highly visible.
COVID itself causes a significant increase in the risk of myocarditis, substantially higher than the vaccines.
Symptoms similar but milder and less frequent is a general expectation of any vaccine, especially early forms of the vaccine. Early vaccines were deactivated or variant forms of the actual disease, and modern vaccines generally contain fragments of the actual disease.
No. Risk of myocarditis for males under 40 after the 2nd dose of Moderna was at >4X higher than the risk of myocarditis. This is indisputable. There is a clear signal that the vaccines caused injury that weren't detected until years after the "trials".
If it was detected, would it or should it have changed anything? On the one hand we have a disease causing millions of deaths, on the other hand we have this rare risk.
No trial can detect rare long term risk. It can only bound that risk. And we shouldn't ask for anything more. Everything is risky, but the risk bounds are acceptable.
What are you talking about? This isn't talking about long term risk at all. This is within 28 days of the 2nd dose. That is well within the reach of a clinical trial. The clinical trial should have detected this, but it was rushed. Plain and simple.
The narrative was that everyone should be vaccinated. The data and science showed that not only did young people have an incredibly low, almost non-existent risk from COVID, there was a material risk to all young men from myocarditis from the vaccine.
The reason why there is so much distrust about the medical establishment and the media is because what they were telling us didn't make sense and it was obvious they were lying to us just to get us to take the vaccine. Why were they so desperate for us all to get the vaccine when science proved that it didn't work by end of 2021?
> The narrative was that everyone should be vaccinated
And that's still true for everyone that lives in human society. The disease killed ~7 million people and would have killed far more without the vaccine. Almost all of the deaths were in the vulnerable, like is the case for most diseases. Vaccinating the entire population protects the vulnerable. The moral choice as one of the not-vulnerable is to either get vaccinated or be a hermit.
> The clinical trial should have detected this, but it was rushed. Plain and simple.
No, that is wrong. Trials generally don't detect very rare side effect that only occur for some special subgroups. They would have to have tested 100.000 males <40 to detect that. That's generally not feasible for any medication or vaccine.
That's also only talking about one particular side effect, more interesting would be a comparison of all-cause mortality, because that's more likely what you are interested in: Does the vaccine increase or decrease my chance of dying soon?
For example I calculated back then that getting unvaccinated Covid-19 would increase my (very low, male of age <40 living in central Europe) likelihood of dying within the same year by the factor 7.
There's also a problem with the study - there's always a problem, that's why a singular study is never sufficient. Within a big data set - and tens of millions is huge in this context, you can always find significant results if you just test enough subgroups. That's called alpha error accumulation, because the more hypothesis you test, the more likely you will have 'significant' results by pure coincidence.
That's why reporting significant results on (hypothetical example) "elderly people between 60 and 70 that don't own a TV" are always met with caution.
It seems to me they tested at least around 50 hypothesis from what data they gathered (sex, age in 10 years bins, ethnicity etc), but they might effectively have tested more and from a first look it seems they didn't account for that.
PS:
> Why were they so desperate for us all to get the vaccine when science proved that it didn't work by end of 2021?
You talking about one vaccine in particular? Or some combination in particular? But only covid vaccines, I guess?
Anyway, what you wrote is wrong. Every single one of them helped in the sense that people would be less contagious and would have less severe symptoms.
> That's also only talking about one particular side effect, more interesting would be a comparison of all-cause mortality, because that's more likely what you are interested in: Does the vaccine increase or decrease my chance of dying soon?
This is from memory but I think there were 16 deaths in the vaccine group and 14 or 15 in the control group in Pfizer's short-term safety trial of around 40k participants. None of the deaths were obviously vaccine related and it was statistically insignificant so the results were dismissed due to not being obviously bad.
They also lost track of a huge number of participants (like 200-400?), and never figured out why. It's entirely possible they died and the safety profile world be completely different if they were included.
> so the results were dismissed due to not being obviously bad.
Not sure if 'dismissed' is the correct phrasing. The results were statistically analyzed as it's always done with empirical studies.
> They also lost track of a huge number of participants (like 200-400?), and never figured out why. It's entirely possible they died and the safety profile world be completely different if they were included.
Sounds like that were the drop outs which is normal for empirical studies. <1% drop out sounds quite small (don't know for this type of study in particular, though).
I wouldn't be surprised if the very question you are asking has been subject to research in the last decades as every medication goes through a very similar process.
In general, that phrasing sounds to me that somebody tries to frame something that's super normal (drop outs) to something questionable and mystical.
I don't mean you, but the source you used back then.
And males under 40 have a material increased risk of myocarditis from the virus itself. More-so than the vaccine. A friend under 40 is on beta blockers thanks to Covid.
> it is a very common problem on the left -- taking the words literally and out of context
This is a very common problem on the right -- whatever Trump says gets constantly reinterpreted into something more favourable.
This wasn't out of context. It was part of a broader and systematic attempt to play down the pandemic.
He had multiple opportunities to clarify what he meant, and declined. When explicitly asked if the "slow the testing down" remarks were a joke, Trump said "I don't kid. Let me just tell you. Let me make it clear."
He then kept repeating the argument in subsequent tweets on 23 June: "Cases are going up in the U.S. because we are testing far more... With smaller testing we would show fewer cases!"
> Grow up.
Another common problem on the right -- argument by insult.
I don't think Trump or any of his appointed lieutenants think any of this through. It's the result of decisions made by emotion, not logic. "Vibe-governing" in other words.
Climate change, and science in general, is associated with nerds, boring reality, obstacles to immediate gratification, and effects on poor people.
Fossil fuels are associated with large wads of cash, action films, and sticking it to the libs.
Decisions might have terrible consequences. Who cares? Thinking things through is boring, and the people making the decisions are rich enough to be insulated from anything that might happen and old enough to not be around when it does.
I doubt that people in government, along the entire chain of command, that get paid to analyse policy, that pay consultants to analyse policy, that produce reports on the many facets of the world… that all of that is put together to NOT think things through.
I’d honestly prefer the explanation to be that they’re just that evil, at least that aligns with my worldview.
> Russia's war against Ukraine has never been about getting more territory,
That's completely counter to everything we know about Putin's mindset, and completely counter to all his actions so far. How would a war for territory look any different to what is occurring now?
> when Ukraine has to be a sovereign and neutral state
That's an oxymoron. Why does a sovereign democratic have to be neutral? A democratic state has the right to pursue whatever alliances it chooses.
> Wouldn't walking away from your house, maybe with a reparations package, be better than it being blown up by drones and your family killed?
Please explain your analogy. Everyone should give up their property whenever they are threatened? For free, or whatever the aggressor chooses to give them?
> I don't think we need to go to war. We need to find a way to deal with Russia with humanity instead of treating them like some boomer-era cold war bogeyman.
What does that mean? How would you deal with them with humanity? Just give up your country when they invade?
Trump could be elected for a third term and it could still be a temporary phenomenon, because the movement fails to transfer beyond one individual's personality.
This is incredibly complacent. The Heritage foundation view of where the US is going has been thoroughly inserted into American public life by a thorough politicisation of all public agencies. It would take an equally dominant and ruthless force to cleanse what Trump has done. I don't see that happening. Your judiciary and corporate interests have a momentum that should not be underestimated.
Breaking things is much easier than making them. American democracy is going to take a long time to recover.
I enjoyed "The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company" by Dalrymple, which has a specific focus, but conveys a fascinating history of British involvement with India.
I've used Cursor a lot. Until recently it was mandated by my employer. I can't see the attraction at all. It's a (bad IMO) IDE integration, a reasonable model (but I still generally preferred Claude over Composer), and a bunch of other tools that weren't very developed (like cloud environments and multi-agent orchestration). It's a suite of tools, most of which have superior alternatives. What am I missing?
> If Samsung or Xiaomi or Google could sell you a better phone with a replaceable battery, they would.
It's an interesting theory. I'm going to call it capitalist-optimism. It's roughly oppositional to Doctorow's theory of enshittification.
> but everyone came to the conclusion that the trade off is just not worth it
The trade-off here being profit margin versus customer convenience. They've calculated that they'd make more cash with non-changeable batteries (e.g. by encouraging more buying of new devices rather than changing batteries) would make them more cash than selling a phone with a replaceable battery. And they might well be right, but that doesn't make it a good thing for civilisation.
> And now the EU, in its infinite wisdom has decided it knows whats best.
Before the EU mandated USB-c chargers pretty much every phone had their own charger. It was awful. You couldn't easily borrow a charger because everyone had a different configuration.
Now things are far better. It turned out that the EU did know best. It maybe wasn't best for phone manufacturers in the short term, but it was better for customers.
> why don't they just fund a company to create such a phone? Why doesn't anyone?
Is this a serious question? In order to create a competitor to the major smartphone operators you'd need a huge amount of capital. I don't think I could convince a venture capitalist or bank to give me that kind of investment just to start a company selling a phone with a replaceable battery.
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