efforts to capitalize the pandemic are being masked by emphasizing to place the blame on the currently unvaccinated. — baker
There is also a dangerous simplificationism going on where the experimental covid vaccines are being advertised and praised as if they'd be in the category of classical effective and relatively safe vaccines, trying to borrow the glory of those classical vaccines. — baker
There are important ethical differences between a potential COVID-19 vaccine and existing vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine. Given the current speed of the clinical trials process for COVID-19 vaccine research, as well as the likelihood that any approved vaccine would be rushed into mass production, a COVID-19 vaccine will have much more limited safety and efficacy data available than is the case for existing vaccines. This, in addition to the widespread politicisation of vaccine research, means that citizens can reasonably be much less certain that a COVID-19 vaccine will be safe and effective than they would be about other vaccines. — Xavier Symons
I suppose the process (vaccine development) can be sped up if the standard duration (longer) is due to logistics issues and not due to biological factors that have to do with the pathogen (Covid-19) or the test animals/humans. Good point!
It's not as simple as I thought it was! :up: — TheMadFool
Can you please help me see how this is a philosophical topic? If so, to which category in TPF does it belong? — Alkis Piskas
the vaccine arrives on the table condemned, because it hasn't already existed and hasn't been produced by some imaginary artisan small batch vaccine operation. — Cheshire
More like reluctant to extend my personal decisions to the scope of the world's children to maintain a position.Condemned? I think you're confusing 'condemned' with 'reluctant to inject the entire future generation of the human race without a little more data'. — Isaac
Infection is morally irrelevant without transmission (which you already account for in the second term). The two morally relevant factors are need for health services (not the same as infection, clearly) and transmission — Isaac
If dissenting voices are to be suppressed, they should be suppressed on the basis of good science, not on the basis of their agreement with institutions, especially government ones. — Isaac
Do you really believe that a tremendous amount of death, suffering, and economic loss would not be prevented if everyone was vaccinated? — hypericin
Yes, but without infection transmission is impossible.If the vaccine reduced infection and transmission each by 50%, overall likelihood of the subject transmitting the virus is reduced to 25% versus baseline. Even if the protective effect was merely 30% in each of these, this would equate to roughly 50% less transmission, which given its exponential can vastly change outcomes of a pandemic. — hypericin
Protection against ICU admission is a separate issue, and demonstrably robust with the vaccine: — hypericin
A moral case for taking the vaccine would have to show that it reduces the need for the use of health services and/or the rate of transmission relative to other strategies, and to a greater extent that other lifestyle choices we already consider morally irrelevant. — Isaac
Do you really believe that a tremendous amount of death, suffering, and economic loss would not be prevented if everyone was vaccinated? — hypericin
Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should. COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their caretakers. — Martin Kulldorff - professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School
How is what constitutes good science to be assessed by the layperson, though, if not by using the majority consensus as the yardstick in any field? — Janus
The majority consensus seems to be that the vaccines are for the most part safe and effective. — Janus
It is understandable that governments and authorities operate on the assumption that, in an emergency situation, public debate with dissenters from this consensus, would only confuse the populace and lead to an increase in "vaccine hesitancy", which could only worsen the situation — Janus
Some small risk is acknowledged but people are being asked to accept that personal risk for the sake of the common good. Given the situation; given the damage extended lock-downs will inevitably do to economies, with the increased suffering, illness and death that would inevitably entail, it does not seem to be an unreasonable request.. — Janus
Yes. So vaccination is one way of reducing transmission. I'm not sure who you think is denying that. — Isaac
As for transmission - as I've said, we've no evidence yet for a reduction in transmission compared to other strategies so it's unknown. — Isaac
True again. So the vaccine is one way to reduce ICU admission too. Again I can't see where you might be getting the impression that anyone's denying that. — Isaac
I'm not seeing any relevance to the claim that the unvaccinated infectious are clogging up hospitals.... — Isaac
Is this ignorant "argument" really worth addressing? Obesity and skydiving are not transmissible diseases. Nor are they pushing hospitals to the brink of collapse.Of course you completely ignored the actual argument.. — Isaac
Says who? Because Martin "herd immunity" Kulldorff does not. Rather, for him letting the virus run rampant, causing unknowable lives lost, or ruined by long covid, is somehow acceptable. Preventing this does not rise to the level of "need".Yes. Not everyone needs to be vaccinated to avoid that — Isaac
I've just quoted a professor in medicine at Harvard Medical School (one of the top medical schools in the world). I've previously cited papers from immunologists and epidemiologists from the world's top medical journals in support of my position. — Isaac
Relevant qualification, publication in a respected peer reviewed journal, and lack of obvious conflict of interest. Does that seem complicated to you, it seems quite obvious and simple to me - what am I missing? — Isaac
A moral case for taking the vaccine would have to show that it reduces the need for the use of health services and/or the rate of transmission relative to other strategies, and to a greater extent that other lifestyle choices we already consider morally irrelevant. — Isaac
It's like it's being framed using a theory of mind we should all have discarded by the age of about three. We have different minds, yes? So in the minds of the people refusing the vaccine, it is not serving the common good. — Isaac
Depends on what you mean by "conflict of interest". — Janus
How do you think the public would react if public debates about the merely conjectured future safety of the vaccines were played out? — Janus
I understand the concern of all governments to protect their people from the Delta variant. But we cannot accept countries that have already used most of the global supply of vaccines using even more of it — Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - WHO
If, instead of being honest about the safety, the public are told it's 100% safe and anyone suggesting otherwise is a lunatic, a large minority are just going to find that super suspicious. — Isaac
there really is nothing to debate, is there? — Janus
This kind of rhetoric is seriously at risk of killing thousands more and prolonging the crisis, by making remaining unvaccinated into a moral proscription. — Isaac
The suspicion is now going to fall more heavily on things like polio, MMR, hepatitis... All of which save millions of lives. — Isaac
It's an unbelievable misjudgment of human nature to think you can persuade anyone to take a vaccine by saying "shut up — Isaac
You quoted out of context. The objection was to the lie you offered concerning 100% support. I'll pleasantly exchange a difference in opinion, but cheating the matter to support the false outrage isn't the same as variance in scientific perception of the facts.Reacting in the way we see here, and on social media, to reasonable people presenting well-supported dissenting opinion is dangerously unhelpful. Depends if you want to debate that... — Isaac
The objection was to the lie you offered concerning 100% support. — Cheshire
The truth is the rest of the public had the same reservations and put themselves at risk for something greater than themselves. — Cheshire
Demanding respect for a heightened phobia under the guise of reasonable and plainly emotionally charged discourse is the only conspiracy that is observable. — Cheshire
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