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RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
21–30 of 37 posts
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#22[flagged]
Don't know about the flu, but there has been discussion about the ethics of vaccinating old people against pneumonia. Sir William Osler famously called pneumonia the “old man's friend”, because it kills the elderly without too much suffering.
e.g.: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02644...
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#23[flagged]
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Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
"New vaccines" in this case includes, as an example, influenza vaccines that use the same mechanism that has already been proven safe and effective and which need to be developed and deployed in the (short) time between determining the most likely influenza strains for the year and the beginning of flu season. If annual influenza vaccines cannot be approved in time for flu season and flu deaths increase significantly…
That’s a good question. No I wouldn’t consider it justifiable. I think newer versions of existing vaccines shouldn’t qualify as ‘new vaccines’. The article mentions ‘ four years ago is unacceptable so it sounds like they want to retest new versions every four years, rather than every new version.
> The article mentions ‘ four years ago is unacceptable so it sounds like they want to retest new versions every four years, rather than every new version.
Your choice of quote makes it seem like you are misunderstanding or deliberately misrepresenting the article. In more context:
> "As we've said before, trials from four years ago conducted in people without natural immunity no longer suffice. A four-year-old trial is also not a blank check for new vaccines each year without clinical trial data, unlike the flu shot which has been tried and tested for more than 80 years," Nixon said in a statement he had earlier sent to The Washington Post. "The public deserves transparency and gold-standard science — especially with evolving products."
This states that a Covid vaccine passing the placebo-controlled study requirement 4 years ago will not suffice to accept updated versions of the same Covid vaccine -- not that vaccines and/or delivery mechanisms will only need to be tested every 4 years. More concisely: it's an upper bound, but not a lower bound.
Edit: Fixing up some grammar.
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#25What 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.
It depends on what type of placebo you use. The adjuvants used in vaccine injections appear to have some effect on the immune system themselves, even without the material intended to promote an immune response against a specific pathogen.
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#26God 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…
I really do not understand why you think "this was the GOPs moment to actually deregulate things in a manner that's good for people".
Nothing about this moment created conditions for such a thing.
There was no support for such a thing and no real promiss to do such a thing. No track record fod GOP proposing good regulation.
Project 2025 was known and not about helping people. The anto vaccine regulations are already a thing in red states.
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s a good question. No I wouldn’t consider it justifiable. I think newer versions of existing vaccines shouldn’t qualify as ‘new vaccines’. The article mentions ‘ four years ago is unacceptable so it sounds like they want to retest new versions every four years, rather than every new version.
> The article mentions ‘ four years ago is unacceptable so it sounds like they want to retest new versions every four years, rather than every new version. Your choice of quote makes it seem like you are misunderstanding or deliberately misrepresenting the article. In more context: > "As we've said before, trials from four years ago conducted in people without natural immunity no longer suffice. A four-year-old trial…
> This states that a Covid vaccine passing the placebo-controlled study requirement 4 years ago will not suffice to accept updated versions of the same Covid vaccine
Yes. That is what the comment you were replying to states.
> More concisely: it's an upper bound, but not a lower bound.
You can’t say it’s any bound at all. Maybe more than two milliseconds old (less than four years) is unacceptable, maybe 16 millennia (more than four years) is unacceptable. They’re just thinking about four years as being unacceptable. Which sounds reasonable.
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#28[flagged]
Somebody responded to you with medical research and Hacker News readers flagged it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43866237
There might be many reasons to disagree with the research - it’s not peer reviewed for one - but flagging seems to be somewhat antiscience, which is a shame for a forum about software engineering and innovation.
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#29Regardless of what you think of RFK, there's no good reason to think more testing of medicine is a bad thing.
What if what you think of RFK is that he's clearly throwing up roadblocks to delay or prevent vaccines (ideologically) that the actually legitimate medical community is already on top of testing appropriately?
But they’re not on top of testing:
> "except for the COVID vaccine, none of the vaccines on the CDC's childhood recommended schedule was tested against an inert placebo, meaning we know very little about the actual risk profiles of these products."
Re: RFK Jr. to require placebo-controlled studies for new vaccines
#30Regardless of what you think of RFK, there's no good reason to think more testing of medicine is a bad thing.
What, specifically, is your experience in medicine, and specifically epidemiology and current vaccine testing? Given the answer is clearly and obviously “none”, why do you think you’re qualified to have any opinion at all?
What research have you made to refute the statement that more testing of medicines is a good thing? Please link to the published studies you have authored.
In case you are new to adult discourse, many people, including yourself have opinions on matters that they are not experts in.
Despite the question above, you are in fact allowed to have opinions on whether there should be more or less testing of medicine.
The same way you have opinions about geopolitics despite the fact that you don’t sit on private committees or serve in the military.
You can have opinions about tech products without having written their source code or even writing any of your own.