For what it’s worth, I’m vaccinated and wear a mask in every public encounter until I’ve discussed the risks with whoever I am dealing with whether required to or not.
However I strongly disagree with mandatory medical treatment of any kind.
I could imagine a law for emergency vaccinations that I would find acceptable, but it would need to have a lot of safeguards.
First, that's not what the GP said. It's also not what I'm saying.
Second, where I live the vaccine I got [1] went through a well-defined process designed explicitly to safely but swiftly approve medicine for emergency use, eg. during pandemics [2].
[1] - https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/comirnaty
[2] - https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/marketing-auth...
You said this, and we are referring to a vaccine that is not FDA approved.
‘Well defined’ doesn’t mean anything. The vaccines have not been approved according to normal medical standards.
Except they have. They've literally been approved using medical standards developed to handle time-critical medicine approval, which is as much of an approval process as the standard non-fast-tracked system. The studies are there, they're just taken from much earlier in the development process of the medicine than usually, and the approval is granted for a shorter period with continuous close monitoring and repeated follow up reviews.
The reason this accelerated approval isn't used for all medicine is not because it's less safe, but because it's more expensive and more effort consuming for all parties involved. Things are less sequential and more parallel, but all the important steps are still there.
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/publi...
Compare:
Fast-tracked: https://www.ema.europa.eu/sites/default/files/timeline_-_fas...
Standard: https://www.ema.europa.eu/sites/default/files/timeline_-_sta...
They haven’t.
> The reason this accelerated approval isn't used for all medicine is not because it's less safe
How do you known it isn’t less safe? There are no studies comparing the safety of the methods. Only arguments to that effect.
No? Like, no, this is not a sound argument, and is fallacious to the point where I'm not even going to attempt to argument against it.
> How do you known it isn’t less safe? There are no studies comparing the safety of the methods. Only arguments to that effect.
How do you know the non-fast track process is safer? There are no studies comparing the safety of the methods. Only arguments to that effect.
Considering both processes are established by the same public health organization, and that I'm not a health specialist myself to be able to prove otherwise, I see no reason to trust one but not the other.
We can’t be 100% sure it is.
> There are no studies comparing the safety of the methods. Only arguments to that effect.
Clever try. This is also true, but a fallacy nonetheless.
We have a long history of the safety of the non-fast track process and no history for the fast track process. We therefore have high confidence in then safety of the non-fast track process and low confidence in the fast track process.
> Considering both processes are established by the same public health organization, and that I'm not a health specialist myself to be able to prove otherwise, I see no reason to trust one but not the other.
Ok, so you have just declared that you don’t trust yourself to analyze this for yourself and are going to trust the authorities. That’s fine but it renders your analysis moot.
It also invalidates your argument so far since the authorities you trust have not given approval of the new vaccines only emergency use authorization. The authorities you trust agree with me that we can yet trust the vaccines the way we do those that have undergone full testing.
We were overcautious with the vaccines, it has cost us hundreds of billions in economic damages.
We don’t know the side effects.
I almost consider your talk about side effects fear mongering when the overwhelming evidence is pointing to a safe and effective vaccine. The mRNA vaccines by now have more evidence on their record than most vaccines when the become available. That should count for something. Vaccine hesitancy will cost us dearly.
Like, after the million of administered doses I would offer you a bet that the side effects are less than 1,000th of the effects a corona infection.
Not longitudinal evidence.
I’m not advocating hesitancy. I personally have been vaccinated. The only point I’ve argued for is not mandating vaccination. I strongly oppose mandatory medical treatment of any kind, and that has to include vaccination.
However it is also still true that these vaccines have not received approval, and although widespread use certainly may be better even in terms of lives lost than the economic damage, that is definitely a very bad reason to mandate medical treatment.
> I would offer you a bet that the side effects are less than 1,000th of the effects a corona infection.
For most people, you may be right. I’m happy for that case to he made, openly, with data. What I object to is forcing people on the basis of that data.
One last point: some countries have formally approved the vaccines already. So your focus on an US FDA approval is a little strange. The European union for instance did not use an emergency approval (which would put liability on the governments) but chose a regular approval with conditions, which put the liability on the manufacturer.
I mean, compulsory vaccination is a thing in many countries, and I think it's a net good for the world?