My risk model treats all the available vaccines as “drug that was developed under political and financial pressure and whose trials ended much sooner than is normally the case”.
And what other drugs do you believe have been in that reference class? Without that, it doesn’t tell you much. All drugs are developed under financial pressure.
Direct finanical motivations seems to be even less strong in this case. Big Pharma is more in it for the goodwill then for the profits. If you read market analysis like How much could Pfizer make from a COVID-19 vaccine?:
And while there will be massive COVID-19 vaccine sales, he actually doesn’t see pharmaceutical companies in general making significant profits off of them in the long run.
[...]
So why race to be first? Conover said other incentives, along with profit, would include a company being able to generate goodwill with governments and patients.
And what other drugs do you believe have been in that reference class?
I don’t know.
Without that, it doesn’t tell you much.
I disagree. It allows me to shift those products from the category “drugs backed by the authority of academia and years of rigorous research” to “drugs that you take because important people and your echo chamber say that you should”.
I must admit, I’ve had some lingering doubts about drug testing before. But I never investigated those because it would take me too much time to gather the necessary knowledge to even distinguish whom to trust (especially since I find biology completely uninteresting—my high school teacher made sure of that). But I’m certain that the incentives of researchers and administrative bodies are more aligned with telling the truth in the case of ordinary drugs, than they are in case of Covid vaccines.
Direct finanical motivations seems to be even less strong in this case.
Thank you. I do not believe the guy quoted in the article because I don’t know his incentives, but that prompted me to look up the stock price of Pfizer and to my untrained eye it doesn’t look like investors believe the company will reap great profits from this. This strikes out my concern about financial incentives. The other concerns (about political pressure and lowered scrutiny) remain.
And what other drugs do you believe have been in that reference class? Without that, it doesn’t tell you much. All drugs are developed under financial pressure.
Direct finanical motivations seems to be even less strong in this case. Big Pharma is more in it for the goodwill then for the profits. If you read market analysis like How much could Pfizer make from a COVID-19 vaccine?:
I don’t know.
I disagree. It allows me to shift those products from the category “drugs backed by the authority of academia and years of rigorous research” to “drugs that you take because important people and your echo chamber say that you should”.
I must admit, I’ve had some lingering doubts about drug testing before. But I never investigated those because it would take me too much time to gather the necessary knowledge to even distinguish whom to trust (especially since I find biology completely uninteresting—my high school teacher made sure of that). But I’m certain that the incentives of researchers and administrative bodies are more aligned with telling the truth in the case of ordinary drugs, than they are in case of Covid vaccines.
Thank you. I do not believe the guy quoted in the article because I don’t know his incentives, but that prompted me to look up the stock price of Pfizer and to my untrained eye it doesn’t look like investors believe the company will reap great profits from this. This strikes out my concern about financial incentives. The other concerns (about political pressure and lowered scrutiny) remain.