Asking vaccine companies to accept liability for their vaccines is basically asking them to make a bet that their vaccines are safe or to let an insurance company make a bet that they are safe.
Isn’t it actually asking them to trust that juries and judges will rule that vaccines are safe, and not award outsize damages in cases where they are potentially wrong about that? That’s a different question from whether the vaccines are actually safe or not.
I don’t think the legal system is particularly good at evaluating vaccine safety or efficacy, and there are well-known problems with jury awards.
So a better question is: is the legal system reliable enough that we can outsource evaluation of safety on technical questions to it, and rely on juries to award damages fairly? And the answer to those questions is pretty clearly no.
Isn’t it actually asking them to trust that juries and judges will rule that vaccines are safe, and not award outsize damages in cases where they are potentially wrong about that? That’s a different question from whether the vaccines are actually safe or not.
I don’t think the legal system is particularly good at evaluating vaccine safety or efficacy, and there are well-known problems with jury awards.
So a better question is: is the legal system reliable enough that we can outsource evaluation of safety on technical questions to it, and rely on juries to award damages fairly? And the answer to those questions is pretty clearly no.