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Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by tertius on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @09:17AM (#26806630)
Ending a contract would encourage them to do more R&D for more future contracts.

Don't subsidize drugs/vaccines that don't work.

There are 100+ vaccines being worked on. We're fine.

Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by thu2111 on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @09:43AM (#26806939)
But AstraZeneca does work. The idea it doesn't is a fiction peddled by French and German political leaders, it's not based in science.
Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by rocqua on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @09:51AM (#26807049)
And this can be clearly seen in the UK covid numbers!
Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by krzyk on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @10:47AM (#26807821)
It works, but has inferior efficacy compared to mRNA vaccines. Same for J&J.

If you have a choice, why get AZ? More over second shot is 3 months away, for mRNA it is at most 42 days away.

J&J has one shot, that has efficacy lower event than AZ.

US is vaccinated mostly using mRNA (because AZ took long to approve and J&J came at that time, but is now blocked).

In my country we have the most amount of Pfizer vaccine, AZ screwed us and didn't deliver so why bother with almost non-existent vaccine that has lower efficacy?

J&J delivered todays some vaccines, but I assume it won't do it anymore as it waits to see what happens with clothing.

Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by tblt on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @11:15AM (#26808269)
It's my understanding that efficacy cannot be directly compared like this, as it's a function of what variants were around during the trial, amongst other things. I believe Vice produced a good video on this recently.

Importantly, don't all vaccines currently authorised have 100% protection against death from COVID-19?

Edit: it was Vox, not Vice, and the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3odScka55A

Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by elliekelly on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @09:23AM (#26806701)
> Don't subsidize drugs/vaccines that don't work.

Why not? Funding vaccine research seems a worthy endeavor even if some of the research doesn’t pan out. The end result doesn’t need to be an immediately usable vaccine in order for the time & money spent to be worthwhile. Even a completely failed vaccine project could yield a piece of information that helps ensure the next project doesn’t fail.

Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by tertius on Thursday April 15, 2021 @01:55PM (#26823916)
> Why not?

Because money is finite? Not every research grant gets funded. So let's start with the most promising ones?

Funding vaccines that are not meeting standards should be dropped so that standards can be met. These companies don't need money for R&D, they have enough and can recoup it if they create a product that the market wants.

Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by bluGill on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @12:26PM (#26809310)
There are different levels of research. Right not Adrenovirus vaccines need to go back to the lab and figure out this clotting issue. Maybe they can, maybe they can't, either way this is a basic research question that needs only a tiny amount of research money. More importantly, that money needs to be spread over a few years.

Most of the vast amounts of research funding given isn't really research, it is scaling up production - a much harder problem that needs much more money. Since we now know of some issues (that would be very hard to find before a large scale roll out - lets not put undeserved fault on anyone here) the labs can focus on them.

Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by gnfargbl on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @09:45AM (#26806961)
> Don't subsidize drugs/vaccines that don't work.

Both AZ and J&J have been proven effective. They clearly work. It might not be politically expedient for the EU Commission to emphasize that fact, but it is true nevertheless.

Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by krzyk on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @10:51AM (#26807900)
They work, but at least AZ is working hard to NOT deliver vaccines to EU. (and sending those manufactured in EU to the UK).

Remember when Italians found 15M vaccines at the factory? I don't know why AZ representatives aren't prosecuted for such behavior of the company.

So I think it is a good call to wait for the contract to end.

BTW. Work at ~72%, mRNAs are at ~91%. What would you choose if you had both at the table? And what would you choose if you have the 91% at the table and 72% one in the other room?

Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by IAmEveryone on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @01:15PM (#26810067)
"The food is terrible, and the portions much too small".
Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by makomk on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @10:59AM (#26808046)
The 15 million vaccines which the EU and Italy claimed were some secret shipment to the UK without any basis, and actually turned out to be part of their already publicly announced deliveries to the EU and South America (with the latter being vaccines of non-EU origin which they were just packaging)? Those 15 million vaccines? There's been some astoundingly dodgy political narrative-pushing against AZ.
Re:EU Commission to end AstraZeneca and J&J vaccine contract... by krzyk on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @11:13AM (#26808242)
I didn't write it was a secret shipment to the UK. Just that they have hidden 15M doses, that could be used to protect lives. And considering that they were obligated to provide few M of vaccines to EU countries makes it a good case against AZ.

Is reducing the total amount of vaccines to EU from 500M to 200M in the whole 2021 also a dodgy political narrative against AZ?