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FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama

arstechnica.com

151–160 of 173 posts

Re: FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama

#151
Something I have never understood about the "big pharma makes fake/unnecessary/harmful vaccines" narrative is how folks who believe in it (including those in this comment section) understand these companies' incentives.

In the United States, pharma companies make money when insurance companies (and the government, but less so than in many other nations) buy their product to give to patients. In practice, very few people are paying for vaccines out of pocket.

Insurance companies in particular hate, hate, hate giving anybody money for any reason. They will not pay for something unless you beat them over the head with how well it works. And if they don't believe you, they'll do their own analyses. Better to blow a few million on a study than spend a few billion on unnecessary treatments. (This is the same reason that there's a car-insurance funded highway safety institute crash-testing cars.)

And yet, every year, they insist on making the flu and COVID vaccines free and pushing it on as many people as possible! I guarantee you if you call your insurance company and ask if they think you should get a flu or COVID vaccine, or any vaccine, really, they'll say, yes please.

Why would they do that if these vaccines were going to cost them money by a) being useless or b) being harmful? There is simply no incentive!

The reason everybody wants you to get the damn shot is that the shots work, and the downside risks of them are smaller and cheaper than the downside risks of the things they prevent. Capitalism would make it very difficult to repeatedly sell vaccines that don't work, or hurt you; you might get away with it once, but after that, the reward's just not there.

I don't know how one responds to that, if one distrusts vaccines, other than to suggest a much larger and more complex evil conspiracy than is plausible to most people.

Re: FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We take comfort in fantasizing about a black and white world and condemn others without trying to understand what drove them to act this way. If, perhaps, we could understand the underlying causes we could remove them and prevent as much evil from arising in the future. But we first have to admit that cause and effect is real and applies to human behavior.

Cause? We don't care. Effect? We all are sicker and closer to the grave because these ghouls are preying on us. We don't care about the justifications for murdering the collective for personal gain, its just treason to humanity plain and simple.

I 100% agree that this is terrible, they're doing it for personal gain, and its treason against humanity. All I'm saying is there are underlying causes that drive people to do these things. If we can understand them maybe we can change those causes so it doesn't happen again in the future. I think any sensible person would agree that a future with less of these kinds of experiences is better for everyone.

Re: FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama

#155
post #134

Flu vaccines aren't immunizing vaccines. They protect against specific strains, and half the time they immunize against a strain that doesn't become widespread and do very little or nothing to protect you. They have side effects which vary widely in severity depending on the specific vaccine. This article has no data about why mRNA flu vaccines will improve these outcomes, and has no data about the risk/benefit ratio…

> Hard pass until I see some hard data. Are you remotely qualified to understand said data? Or do you, as you did below, just want an easy opportunity to swipe at things you know you lack expertise to understand?

Are you suggesting that a governing body can recommend a medicine to the public without requiring publicly available scientific data first?

Re: FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama

#156
I thought mRNA vaccine was approved by FDA as an emergency measure for Covid. Doesn't it usually take around 10 years of assessment long term effects to approve a vaccine for general use? Especially for a new family of vaccines like mRNA?

Re: FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama

#157
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zero patrons inside the stores cared/did anything. A business structuring things to prevent a scene is not compassion in my mind, just like pride awareness by businesses wasn't actual pride awareness.

Deciding whether someone's helpful actions or lack thereof is good or bad based on your perception of their internal mental state seems pretty fraught. How do you know why the business implemented this? How do you know what the other patrons felt about it? Do you regularly pick fights with psychopaths in public?

If a woman is being harassed, especially an old one, yes, I have always stepped in. That used to be a part of me I thought was conservative. But it doesn't appear to actually be a trait they hold.

I'm not litigating my mothers treatment here. I am expressing the damage done.

Re: FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama

#158

Flu vaccines aren't immunizing vaccines. They protect against specific strains, and half the time they immunize against a strain that doesn't become widespread and do very little or nothing to protect you. They have side effects which vary widely in severity depending on the specific vaccine. This article has no data about why mRNA flu vaccines will improve these outcomes, and has no data about the risk/benefit ratio…

What do you mean by "immunizing vaccines"? In the first sentence, you say that flu vaccines are not and in the second you admit they are. Maybe you meant that their coverage is not comprehensive. If so, that's what you should say. mRNA flu vaccines have substantial potential advantages in terms of the ability to target a wider spectrum of variants and faster time to manufacture.

> faster time to manufacture.

In other words: improved responsiveness when loading a flu season.

Re: FDA advisors unanimously vote to approve Moderna's mRNA after agency drama

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Is it reasonable to describe this as a “difference of opinion between scientists”? Per the OP article: * it was a Trump political appointee who had made a “shocking” decision to not even review the vaccine * it was despite the objections of the subject matter experts and career scientists * it was despite the submitted study results being exactly what the FDA had previously approved * the vote to go the opposite dire…

You identify the potential bias of only one side here. The revolving door between regulators and industry introduces potential biases of others in the opposite direction.

If Prasad approved of the trial design and later decided it was insufficient then I would see things differently.

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