
Serious Adverse Event Time - hprotagonist
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/09/09/serious-adverse-event-time
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ashtonkem
Derek Lowe is almost the author of the “Things I Won’t Work With” series of
articles on this very blog, which recount in humorous fashion various
compounds with poisonous, explosive, or downright foul properties that he
refuses to work with.

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cactus2093
> since vaccines are designed to be given exclusively to people who are not
> sick ... the safety standards have to be very high.

I'm not sure I follow this logic. Sure, the safety standards for all medicine
have to be acceptably high. But just like one might say "this person has a
risky heart condition that may kill them anyway, so it's worth using the risky
drug on them", doesn't the same logic apply in a pandemic? You can factor in
the risk of catching a disease and then dying from it, just the same way you
can factor in the risk of dying from a disease someone already has.

If we're talking about a 1 in 30,000 serious adverse reaction to a vaccine for
a disease that kills about 1 in 200 (and may give serious permanent effects
like heart or lung damage to a majority of people it doesn't kill), wouldn't
that be worth the risk? If we do nothing, as far as I have heard, we basically
expect that up to 60% of people might get the disease (and in many places,
perhaps 10-25% of people have already gotten it), or else we have to keep up
various levels of restrictions on activity indefinitely. Just seems a little
weird that this article doesn't acknowledge the urgency and uniqueness of the
present situation.

I'm not trying to argue for using a potentially unsafe vaccine, and I'm not an
expert on the matter. But this shallow level of discussion of the issue just
leaves me with more questions than answers.

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rustybelt
1 in 200 is not universal. The risk is much lower for young healthy people.
That is the group that will (probably wisely) be reluctant to get vaccinated
unless they are required to.

