This is part of mod Bobo Fett and shuffles conversations in the politics section. After this answer I think Bobo thanked shuffle for his reply. I also was deeply impressed by this:
12,465
Re: Will you be taking the Covid vaccine when approved?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobo Fett View Post
Sorry if I've missed it, but do you have any specific knowledge/training/education in the field?
I studied chemistry and dropped out my last semester at university. Worked on a few research projects and had to suffer through boring as **** quantitative analysis classes. All of that is only relevant so far as my skepticism comes from a scientific background, not anti-vax witchcraft or wild conspiracy theories.
Data. Process. People.
If you can show me data, process, and competent, trustworthy people behind the science, then I don't need to know much about virology or epidemiology, I can trust their work.
Data
The first thing you want to see is the data. Typically, researchers will publish their data in scientific journals for peer review.
Oxford-AstraZeneca -- they have published their data
Pfizer-BioNTech -- press releases only (red flag)
Moderna -- press releases only (red flag)
So Oxford-Astrazeneca have published their data:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...466-1/fulltext
Pfizer and Moderna have withheld their data and self-reported whatever they want.
Process
Data can be fabricated, so you want to check the process and make sure the researchers are doing everything by the book. That means everything from techniques all the way up to regulatory clearance. Process can weed out incompetence, mistakes, bad science, even fraud. With a few exceptions I can't comment on the actual science, that's for those people who are highly trained in that field of expertise.
However, one of those exceptions is widely known by many people here-- mRNA vaccines have never worked. Which type of vaccine did each company select?
Oxford-AstraZeneca -- traditional vaccine, known to work
Pfizer-BioNTech -- mRNA vaccine (not a red flag, but reason to be skeptical)
Moderna -- mRNA vaccine (not a red flag, but reason to be skeptical)
So once again, Oxford-AstraZeneca were doing things the "right way", while Pfizer and Moderna chose to pursue unlikely if not totally improbable candidates.
People
Chez doesn't need to see the data or think critically about the process, he just wants to trust the people involved (more on that later). But trusting the people involved is the last thing you want to look at, only if the data and the process look solid. Then you check who was behind the study. If it's a reputable company or university, then you trust their work with the caveat that further studies should be conducted until the scientific community forms consensus. If the study comes from some uni students without much history and their findings don't line up with previous research, naturally they will be treated with more skepticism, even if their data and process looks good.
So what about the people behind the Covid-19 vaccine candidates?
Oxford-AstraZeneca -- seems ok to me
Pfizer-BioNTech -- CEO sold 62% of his shares in the company on the same day as their 90% efficacy press release:
https://www.npr.org/2020/11/11/93395...aising-questio
Moderna -- their executives have sold literally all of their shares in the company:
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/04/90830...raise-concerns
Oxford-AstraZeneca
[x] Data
[x] Process
[x] People
Oxford-AstraZeneca have done everything by the book. Their vaccine candidate would give me the most confidence. Unfortunately, vaccines are known to take years to develop and they did skip a few steps along the way. Safety concerns have been raised, even short-term, and because of the rushed hurry involved, there's no possible way to study longer-term side effects. AstraZeneca was also widely mocked and derided recently because they gave thousands of trial participants the wrong dose, calling the results they did report into question.
Altogether there's enough reason to doubt this vaccine,
both its risks and its efficacy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/b...ca-oxford.html
Pfizer-BioNTech
[ ] Data
[ ] Process
[ ] People
Pfizer-BioNTech chose a vaccine candidate at the beginning that was highly unlikely to succeed based on past results. While not necessarily a red flag, that decision should cause immediate skepticism. That skepticism could be overcome with good process and good data, however, they unblinded the participants in their trial. The control group (placebo) was given water shots with no side effects. The vaccine group reported significant side effects and self-isolated for ~2 days. The incubation period of the virus is ~5 days. Pfizer has chosen to self-report efficacy at only 7-days via press release, while withholding the rest of the data in their trial. This process calls into question the meaningfulness of the data they did self-report, and, of course, they have chosen to withhold the rest of their data until now.
Additionally, the CEO sold most of his shares in the company, timed to execute on the day of their selective 90% 7-day efficacy press-release.
Pending further review of data which the company has so far withheld, my read is that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine most likely has little or no efficacy, with unknown side-effects. The U.K. has approved the vaccine based on Pfizer's press-release alone. It's possible that other countries will approve the Pfizer vaccine based only on Pfizer's press release. That seems to be the angle the scummy if not actually lawbreaking CEO is aiming for.
Sell vaccine via selective, overly optimistic press release
--> any country desperate enough to authorize it without verifying the data
Then provide data to everyone else
--> some countries will authorize based on most optimistic interpretation
--> some countries may be more skeptical
Like the Swiss!
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/incompl...cines/46196598
That's why I made the comment about the U.K. being dumb and desperate (Dr. Fauci and EU regulators said the same thing), the U.S. probably going to grab onto the most optimistic interpretation because of the enormous political pressure and the fact that it's second wave still hasn't peaked (population more intransigent than anywhere else on Earth), the EU already starting to hedge like they will wait and see what happens first, and the Swiss openly saying they cannot approve the vaccine right now because Pfizer refuses to provide them with complete data (huge red flag).
Altogether, there's reason to not only doubt, but have serious reservations about this vaccine,
both its risk and its efficacy.
Moderna
[ ] Data
[ ] Process
[ ] People
Like Pfizer, Moderna refuses to publish its data for peer review. They are a company that has been around for ~10 years but never once, not even a single time, ever sold any product. They claim they have succeeded in developing a revolutionary new type of vaccine. They release press-releases, usually shortly after Pfizer releases theirs, always promoting how everything about their vaccine is even better than Pfizer's.
Pfizer -- 90% self-reported 7-day efficacy
Moderna -- 95% self-reported 7-day efficacy
Pfizer
--> vaccine candidate must be stored and shipped in expensive, specialized freezers at very cold temperatures
Moderna
--> unlike all other mRNA vaccines, they claim theirs can be stored and shipped much more cost effectively in normal refrigerators
Additionally, Moderna's executives have sold literally all of their shares in the company.
The only conclusion can be that Moderna is a scam. Either it has no chance of being approved by regulators, but the executives promoted their stock to record high prices and then all cashed out; or possibly they could have gone full Theranos and may actually manage to distribute junk science into the world population based on fraud and fabricated results.
Either way, Moderna is a scam
