• ilinamorato@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    edit-2
    17 hours ago

    Sigh.

    It’s unnecessary. It’s stupid. But at least it’s not actively harmful, I guess.

    Edit: Nope, actually, it definitely is.

    • MegaUltraChicken@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      66
      ·
      17 hours ago

      I mean, the reason we don’t do this is because it’s unethical to deny people a potentially lifesaving vaccine in place of a placebo when it may just be a small change from a previous vaccine that doesn’t add any more danger.

      This shit is still going to kill people.

    • ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      20
      ·
      edit-2
      17 hours ago

      From the article, it’s probably going to be actively harmful:

      The Trump administration plans to impose a new testing requirement for new vaccines — a demand that could delay the availability of the next round of COVID-19 vaccines and complicate the approval of other vaccines.

      Additionally, this all but insures people will catch diseases - potentially fatal diseases like COVID - when they don’t need to because they’ll be given a placebo:

      In addition, experts say that giving someone a placebo to protect them against a potentially deadly disease when an effective vaccine already exists would be unethical.

      “Are they really planning on doing a placebo-controlled trial where a certain group of people are not given that vaccine, knowing that the virus can cause infection and disease, including serious disease in anyone? Anyone can be felled by this virus,” Offit says. “So it’s not an ethical trial.”

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        edit-2
        17 hours ago

        Great point. Someone else noted it’s also unethical to give a placebo to someone who then thinks they’re protected. So great job, leatherface. We need to put the “Health” in your job title in very heavy scare quotes.

        Edit: You added in that exact same thing right after I posted the reply. Nice.

      • baltakatei@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        15 hours ago

        truck barreling down hillside towards river rapids

        Well, at least we haven’t sunk into the river yet.

      • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        edit-2
        17 hours ago

        Right, see, that’s what I was concerned would happen.

        The administration is young, though. I mean, they’re definitively not, but like… it’s early in the term.