[bettercaust]

> For example: most people assume vaccines are tested against an inert placebo like water, and will only be approved as safe if it doesn't cause more problems than the placebo does. This isn't what happens. The "placebo" in vaccine trials is usually another vaccine.

First, please consider from where and whom you received this information. It was probably RFK Jr. or someone on social media or maybe a news article, right? Did you bother to scrutinize that information? Because it's not true. All vaccines (like other medications) are tested against the standard of care. For a first-in-class vaccine, that's going to be a saline placebo because there is no standard of care yet; for subsequent vaccines, it will whatever is the current vaccine. This is completely sensible. The idea that the vaccines on the market now were never tested against saline placebo is mis/disinformation promulgated by a lawyer whose name escapes me; some of those saline placebo-controlled trials for vaccines are listed [here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pUMNBewb0kgTU7g3augmOtPG...).

If you have a passing understanding of common anti-vaxx talking points, RFK Jr.'s arguments are easy to debunk.

[mike_hearn]

> it's not true ... [the placebo] will be whatever is the current vaccine. This is completely sensible ... [it] is mis/disinformation

Or rephrased, "that's not happening and it's good that it is". This kind of thing is called the Law Of Salutary Contradiction [1] and originates in confused, ideological thinking. If you want to argue with RFK Jr about something you need to decide if what he's saying isn't true, or if it is true but you disagree it's a problem. You can't pick both.

The "first in class" approach isn't illogical but it's an ultra-high risk strategy. If just one unsafe vaccine gets through the systerm that will lead to a chain of erroneous approvals that result in dangerous substances being labelled as safe. In other words it only seems completely sensible if you have absolute and total faith in the entire testing and regulatory infrastructure. Anyone who lacks your iron-clad faith will view this practice as obviously crazy.

Given that the medical profession have routinely lied as a group about many things in the past, it is unreasonable to use practices that demand quasi-religious faith in them. They refused to accept this and are now paying the price.

[1] https://americanmind.org/salvo/thats-not-happening-and-its-g...

[const_cast]

There's multiple problems here:

1. We used known safe and effective vaccines as placebos. Keyword KNOWN. We're not gonna debate the efficacy of the fucking polio vaccine, just be for real.

2. The reason we do this is because it's very unethical to deny medication that we currently administer and know works to human subjects. That would be treating people worse than we treat the general population. That's unethical.

3. We don't just do this vaccines, but ALL medication. When we make new drugs to treat cancer, we don't compare them against saline. Because that's evil. We compare them against known effective chemotherapy regimes.

4. All of this is besides the point, because using an inert placebo wouldn't help anything. How does using an inert placebo make a new medication more effective or more safe? It doesn't.

5. We DO use inert placebos all the time - just not in human trials. Because we want to give humans real medicine so they don't fucking die.

[bettercaust]

Nah, that's is just an artifact of an conflated claim made by RFK Jr. and others and the more complex reality that needs to be underlined to refute it. If the claim is "no vaccine products on the market were tested against a saline placebo", that is untrue because new first-in-class vaccines were. If the claim is "no vaccine classes on the market were tested against a saline placebo", that is untrue because as far as I can tell all classes were tested against a saline placebo at some point. If the claim is "some vaccine products on the market were not tested against a saline placebo", that would be true and it would not be a problem if those vaccine products were of vaccine classes that were previously tested against saline placebo.

How are you qualifying this strategy as "ultra-high risk"? How well do you understand the new drug and vaccine regulatory process in the US? An "unsafe" (vague) vaccine will be discovered via postmarketing surveillance (e.g. Rotashield). If two unsafe vaccines are trialed comparatively and the adverse event rate is unusually high for both groups than what was previously reported, that's not going to go unnoticed even if it appears like there's no significant difference between the two statistically. Your concern also assumes that because the first approval was erroneous that all subsequent ones will be too, which is an unfounded assumption.

If you want to claim that the medical profession have "routinely lied as a group about many things in the past", you'll have to back that up because I don't agree and will not accept your assertion at face value.