RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
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Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#2God the US is so far on the Authoritarian side of the graph that even our "burn down the government deregulate everything" party can't help themselves. Any voter romanticism about having the government have less control over your life surely has to be dispelled by this point. This was the GOPs moment to actually deregulate things in a manner that's good for people and they just said, "we're keeping everything the same, just with conspiracy theories added." I mean it's probably for the best that they're squandering their shot on stupid shit like this but I still wonder if they will ever wake up and realize their position as not the opposition party anymore and that they have to / get to lead — tackle the bigger issues and shape the direction of the country going forward. They won, they owned the libs mission accomplished whatever and now it's their moment to govern and they're still acting like pissed off back seat drivers.
In tech terms they're the principal architects now and they're using that power to get their preferences on minor PR reviews merged.
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#3What would be the benefit of a placebo study vs studying the differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations?
Is the hypothesis that there is some kind of psychosomatic/placebo effect to vaccines, where just the process of getting injected changes outcomes? I find that hard to believe.
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#4[flagged]
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#5God the US is so far on the Authoritarian side of the graph that even our "burn down the government deregulate everything" party can't help themselves. Any voter romanticism about having the government have less control over your life surely has to be dispelled by this point. This was the GOPs moment to actually deregulate things in a manner that's good for people and they just said, "we're keeping everything the sam…
They're doing exactly what they wanted to do and planned to do. To a significant extent these were the goals of the american conservative movement going back decades. This is what leadership means to the right and what it always has. Death and destruction.
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#6What would be the benefit of a placebo study vs studying the differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations? Is the hypothesis that there is some kind of psychosomatic/placebo effect to vaccines, where just the process of getting injected changes outcomes? I find that hard to believe.
Maybe they should be double blind. Maybe whether or not your doctor thinks you got the vaccine impacts your later susceptibility.
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#7God the US is so far on the Authoritarian side of the graph that even our "burn down the government deregulate everything" party can't help themselves. Any voter romanticism about having the government have less control over your life surely has to be dispelled by this point. This was the GOPs moment to actually deregulate things in a manner that's good for people and they just said, "we're keeping everything the sam…
They're doing exactly what they wanted to do and planned to do. To a significant extent these were the goals of the american conservative movement going back decades. This is what leadership means to the right and what it always has. Death and destruction.
I feel like it’s a very strange person that is comforted by all of this. I am super susceptible to nostalgia, but in a nerdy VHS and Afghan blanket kind of way, nothing about any of what Trump is doing makes me think of the good old days. And I long for the good old days!
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#8Regardless of what you think of RFK, there's no good reason to think more testing of medicine is a bad thing.
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#9What would be the benefit of a placebo study vs studying the differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations? Is the hypothesis that there is some kind of psychosomatic/placebo effect to vaccines, where just the process of getting injected changes outcomes? I find that hard to believe.
Vaccines are already double blind tested with a placebo, but the yearly updates for seasonal vaccines based on a previously tested mechanism are not. The goal of this new requirement is to create delays making it effectively impossible to create annual flu & covid vaccines within these constraints.
The reason the updates aren't currently tested this way is because medical research ethics perspectives on the balance of risk of novel unknown effects vs known risk of withholding effective treatment from the placebo group. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_equipoise
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#10What would be the benefit of a placebo study vs studying the differences between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations? Is the hypothesis that there is some kind of psychosomatic/placebo effect to vaccines, where just the process of getting injected changes outcomes? I find that hard to believe.
Maybe they should be double blind. Maybe whether or not your doctor thinks you got the vaccine impacts your later susceptibility.
I guess the danger here is that for vaccines that we already know reduce the risk of deadly diseases, you’d either:
Randomly expose patients to the risk of contracting a known debilitating/deadly disease
Or
No one who comes in for the vaccine will consent the trial