Remember when 3000 Americans died and we invaded two countries and killed a bunch of people and created a giant departmental bureaucracy and spent trillions of dollars?

Now 3000 Americans dying is just a standard Wednesday.

thanks chim

lol yes. and some patriots were like "im gonna go fight, kill, and die if i have to to protect american lives" and some of those same people now are like "i'll never wear a mask!"

has angela merkel been leader of germany for like the past 80 years? wtf

lol johns hopkins owned slaves

****ing americans are so ****ing racist

Well that's going to be weird for that university.

Seriously, can we please stop naming things after people?

Indigenous people named things properly.

johns hopkins might try to keep the name, saying "but he owned only 4 slaves! so it's not that bad! and it was a long time ago anyway!"

Yeah I agree.

Though my counter to this would of course be that lack of trust in big pharma companies exists for a reason, and likely is a big contributor to distrust of this vaccine. Doesn't really go against anything you said, just something to consider.

This just explains the very point I am making. The pharma companies want indemnification from the bad effects this might cause in a not insignificant portion of the population. That seems to be the point you are making here, right?

I think he's saying if its 90% effective and 10% can still become sick, those who get vaccinated and sick may want to sue. The 90% isn't referring to 10% adverse reactions, but lack of efficacy.

Do we have any readings on what they actually asked for protection from?

edit: Maybe I'm wrong since he used the word "safe" in the first sentence, I admittedly read it through the lens of the discussion I would move forward in this regard.

Seems like that is being kept intentionally under wraps. But it does specifically seem to be concerned with protecting Pfizer against lawsuits form people who have negative effects from the vaccine.

I thought "90 + 10 = 100" would be more clear

anyway, to be more explicit -


A drug company that releases a product after a sub-standard vetting procedure is at a heightened risk of the product either failing or causing some (hopefully) unintended harm.

If the public demands that the drug company extraordinarily rush-release a product, the public should not thereafter penalize the company for the potential extraordinary harm resulting from the public's extraordinary demand.

That said, people may still innocently be injured from the rush-release, so some measure of compensation is still appropriate.

In that case, the public itself, through the agency of the government, should provide the relief to the injured person, in order to enable the rush-delivery of the product to the remainder of the public.

In case not everybody here is familiar with the concept of "indemnity", it does not mean "no recovery":

So if Pfizer releases a vaccine, and 90% of the people are benefited but 10% do not, the entire public covers the loss of the 10% (aka "risk pooling").

yes, please

IANAW, don't let me get in the way of you shilling for massive pharmaceutical corporations, but you are really missing the point. I am explaining why there is reason to be skeptical of the vaccine for all the reasons you highlighted:

The point is if the vaccine was so clearly safe and without any possible drawbacks, indemnification would not be necessary. But clearly Pfizer and the government understand that it is not so clearly safe. And it seems like you are explaining all the reasons Pfizer is being careful--so why would an individual not have the same caution as Pfizer? That is the point.

Brilliant idea. Call it the eyebooger rule.

Each individual will need to weigh the risks of taking an early vaccine against the benefits of vaccination. I don't understand the problem here? My point wrt risk pooling is that there is a huge social benefit to encouraging vaccination and thus society should bear the downside costs.

I get that you are less than optimistic, but I don't think anyone is claiming this whole thing is just over.

Seems to me like you just wanted to **** on Chim's joy, using an anti-scientific line (mistrust of isolated experimentation) that is curious given your history of insisting that marxism is a scientific discipline, and in the meanwhile found an opportunity to jab at for-profit medicine.

you seem to be on two sides at the same time

either indemnification was appropriate because of rushed testing brought on by public demand

or my skepticism is unscientific

which is it?

science is a skeptical discipline

you haven't presented a real dilemma

I know I'm being hypothetical here, but in the scenario I drew (90% efficacy), we have an incredible scientific accomplishment (developing a vaccine for a virus <1 year after discovering it) and a hedge to shore up any shortfall.


You might be falling victim to the "enemy perfect" thing, again?

IANAW you are being intentionally obtuse.

I have nothing to gain from that, and "no"


Maybe you aren't communicating effectively?

I know, which makes it all the more frustrating.

Who would have thought that a part of (or perhaps a tradition??) in a modern democracy would be to pardon some criminals, while rushing to execute others, all while you still have the power of POTUS.

17 states now involved in the lawsuit to overthrow the rightful results of the election.

This is crazy, man.