If your aim is to travel there are arguably safer alternatives to flying in a 737-MAX that fulfill the same purpose, namely flying in a pre-MAX 737 model or on any Airbus model. If you have no alternatives available and you are so scared of the 737-MAX that you choose not to travel it may be irrationally overcautious, but there is arguably a minuscule increase in safety nonetheless.

If your aim is to improve your immunity to an infectious disease, the only alternative to vaccination that fulfills the same purpose is to catch the disease, which is definitely not safer. If you are so afraid of FDA corruption in favour of pharma companies (or of needles) that you choose to avoid improving your immunity altogether, you're still at risk of catching the disease anyway, which is clearly less safe than any purported risk of getting vaccinated (that is, unless you make huge changes in your lifestyle to avoid human contact).

That is absolutely not the same thing. If I don't fly on a plane, the worst thing that happens is the company doesn't get my money. If I don't take a vaccine the worst thing that could happen becomes a potential loss of vital senses or even death(s).

Your ending statement could hardly be further from the truth. There's no evidence that these groups of people are related.

> If I don't fly on a plane, the worst thing that happens is the company doesn't get my money.

There are people that state they'd rather drive than fly on a Max.

The worst that can happen is a statistically much higher likelihood of dying. On the other hand, if you don't take the vaccine, the worst that happens is Pfizer doesn't get your money.

> On the other hand, if you don't take the vaccine, the worst that happens is Pfizer doesn't get your money.

Also, y'know, the whole increased risk of serious illness due to a lack of immune protection that would be granted by the vaccine.

Yes these are clearly identical situations with no difference at all! /s

You're right, in one situation you have people rejecting a product with years of research vetted by regulators around the world because they don't like the business practices and politics of the organizations behind it. On the other, you have... the same exact thing.

Whoops. They are the same.

I'm not rejecting the physics of airtravel, or that planes can in principle be engineered and built safely.

Assuming you're not being intentionally obtuse: the FDA makes some decisions purely out of politics (e.g. many schedule 1 drugs) and they make other decisions based on higher tolerance of risk in certain situations. Perhaps the FAA should slap a black box warning on the 737 to regain credibility.

You're arguing my point. Both anti-vaxxers and anti-Maxers believe the regulatory agencies are corrupt and politicking, therefore they substitute their own scientific opinions where they feel like it.

Nah. The FDA offers a nuanced approach making criticism far less reasonable. The FAA presents the flying public with an all or nothing approach. It's entirely reasonable to criticize the regulatory capture that got us here. It's also quite reasonable to be dissatisfied with the status quo at the FAA for the time being.

If we'd seen more thalidomide babies, or if people were being harmed en masse by vaccines perhaps things would be more comparable. But they're not so they're not. Besides, the FAA is explicitly tasked with promoting the business interests of American companies while also promoting safety. That's quite different than the FDA, and a more reasonable comparison would be between the FDA and NTSB.

Nah. If we'd seen more Max deaths you'd be right, but the hundreds of thousands dead from the opioid crisis or the millions of lives destroyed from the war in drugs due to marijuana being on schedule one shows the FDA is beholden to the pharma and prison industries. Not trustworthy.

Medicine isn't science, it's a discipline. Flying is science. There is no "this will fly in my opinion". As ridiculous as saying I trust one organization so all are fine.

I don't agree with who you're replying to, but this is a terrible comparison.