The evidence that the adenovirus-based and mRNA-based vaccines are safe and effective is large-scale trials with tens of thousands of participants.
The evidence that Stöcker’s peptide-based vaccine is safe and effective is Stöcker’s own testimony that he and a few other people used it, didn’t get sick, and have the relevant antibodies. [EDITED to add:] Sorry, “a few” isn’t fair because he claims to have done a further experiment with 64 people. ~70 people is definitely better evidence than ~5 people, but I don’t see any reason to trust Stöcker enough to be confident that what he says about those ~70 people is actually true.
The evidence that RadVac is safe and effective is a general argument that it should be safe and might be effective, and so far as I can tell nothing else at all.
It might be true that the peptide approach is better, but I’d want to see much better evidence before calling for a “Truth and Reconciliation Committee” to look into the alleged awful misdeeds of the people who promoted other approaches.
The evidence that Stöcker’s peptide-based vaccine is safe and effective is Stöcker’s own testimony that he and a few other people used it, didn’t get sick, and have the relevant antibodies.
“Truth and Reconciliation Committee” to look into the alleged awful misdeeds of the people who promoted other approaches.
I don’t think promoting other approaches is the problem. The problem is suppressing certain efforts that are helpful. If the RKI would have cooperated with Stöcker I would have now relevant antibodies because I would be vaccinated.
I don’t fault Moderna, BioNTech for what they did in 2020 but I consider the actions of the regulatory agencies worth “Truth and Reconciliation Committee” as they prevented us from fighting the pandemic effectively.
The evidence that RadVac is safe and effective is a general argument that it should be safe and might be effective, and so far as I can tell nothing else at all.
This is a funny sentence. Basically it’s saying that if we see the most informed people doing X then that’s no evidence that doing X is a good thing to do. You likely wouldn’t make that argument in any other context but here the dogma is strong enough that people could think this is no evidence. It’s like “there’s no evidence for mask working for the average person” when there were no studies for that last year.
It seems to be that there’s a fine line between what RaDVaC is doing in their communication about their vaccine and what Stöker is doing and when you are over that line you get persecuted by the government.
I expect that RaDVaC is very careful about not providing legal attack surface and providing other kinds of evidence could be seem as illegal product advertisement.
I know of one instance of attempted suppression: Stöcker gave his alleged vaccine to a bunch of people and someone brought a legal action against him for running an unregistered clinical trial.
If that’s what you mean: it seems to me that if someone breaks the law, then taking the legal steps that are generally taken against people who break the law isn’t obviously properly described as “suppressing his efforts”, even if he claims he did it for the Greater Good. (It sounds as if you reckon he didn’t break the law because he’s a doctor; maybe you’re right—I don’t know anything about German law—but it seems to me unlikely that anyone would bother making laws against unregistered clinical trials if you could work around them simply by having a doctor administer the drugs, since surely that happens in pretty much all clinical trials anyway, and I’ve got to assume that whoever brought the case against Stöcker has some idea what the law says.)
If instead you mean that the German agencies didn’t actively work with Stöcker to bring his alleged vaccine to proper clinical trials, mass production, etc., then again it seems to me that this doesn’t deserve the name of “suppression”. I bet there are thousands of people claiming to have better ways to deal with COVID-19, and I bet they’re all writing to institutions like the PEI demanding that things be done their way. What algorithm are you proposing they should have executed that would have told them to put time and effort into working with Stöcker but not with dozens of cranks? And how are you so sure that Stöcker isn’t a crank himself? Again, so far as I can tell we have only his word for it that his alleged vaccine is safe and effective, even on the small sample of people he allegedly tested it on.
Basically it’s saying that if we see the most informed people doing X then that’s no evidence that doing X is a good thing to do.
If “basically “means “not”, I guess. I don’t see much connection between what I actually said and what you say I “basically” said.
If you mean that in addition to the RadVac folks’ general argument that their alleged vaccine should be safe and effective, the fact that they have chosen to actually take it is a little bit more evidence, then I guess I agree: but (obviously, I think?) it’s not much further evidence. (It tells me that they probably find their own arguments convincing, which isn’t exactly a surprise.) And I don’t see any obvious reason why I should consider the RadVac folks “the most informed people”.
If that’s what you mean: it seems to me that if someone breaks the law, then taking the legal steps that are generally taken against people who break the law isn’t obviously properly described as “suppressing his efforts”,
Of course laws are supressing people from engaging in certain actions whether or not those laws are desirable laws, laws are supressing.
In this case, it seems that while it’s completely legal for a doctor to brew anything together and give it to their patients it’s not legal to run a clinical trial without registration.
If RaDVaC folks would publish the evidence that they gathered for their vaccine it’s easy to argue that they did run a clinical trial for the vaccine which they seems to desire to avoid. Given that they are not allowed to provide that kind of evidence publically they have to be Straussian about it.
it seems to me unlikely that anyone would bother making laws against unregistered clinical trials if you could work around them simply by having a doctor administer the drugs
There’s a difference between having a doctor administering the drugs and being a doctor administring drugs. Doctors are allowed to give their patient any brew they make but there are rules that regulate the conditions under which you can give a brew to a doctor to administer to his patients. There are some rules that regulate what doctors can do with scheduled substances but those aren’t applicable here.
Secondly, rules for Phase I clinical trials exist for protecting clinical trial participants. They don’t exist to prevent people from doing experiments on themselves and their family.
Saying that a doctor who brews a vaccine for themselves in March and give it to a total of five people he cares about before September is engaged in doing a clinical trial seems to me like a huge stretch.
What algorithm are you proposing they should have executed that would have told them to put time and effort into working with Stöcker but not with dozens of cranks?
If you have a pandemic and a biotech billionaire contacts you with wanting to help you treat him different then dozens of cranks that also want to contact you. Especially if the company they founded helps you with fighting the pandemic (they provide COVID-19 tests).
If you mean that in addition to the RadVac folks’ general argument that their alleged vaccine should be safe and effective, the fact that they have chosen to actually take it is a little bit more evidence, then I guess I agree: but (obviously, I think?) it’s not much further evidence.
Skin in the game is a good way to handle problems of information assymetry and trusting expertise.
Just because a drug is FDA approved doesn’t mean that it has an effect or is safe either. If I saw a FDA official or a Ranbaxy employee telling his doctor to make sure that he gets a brand name drug instead of one from Ranbaxy you can take that as good evidence that made you shouldn’t trust the FDA approved Ranbaxy drug.
The question here is whether general arguments that experts make based on inference are reliable, or do you need specific evidence. What is the track record for expert inferences about vaccines?
From a quick search, it seems that the clinical trial success rate for vaccines is about 33%, which is significantly higher than for medical trials in general, but still not all that high? Perhaps there is a better estimate for this.
The evidence that the adenovirus-based and mRNA-based vaccines are safe and effective is large-scale trials with tens of thousands of participants.
The evidence that Stöcker’s peptide-based vaccine is safe and effective is Stöcker’s own testimony that he and a few other people used it, didn’t get sick, and have the relevant antibodies. [EDITED to add:] Sorry, “a few” isn’t fair because he claims to have done a further experiment with 64 people. ~70 people is definitely better evidence than ~5 people, but I don’t see any reason to trust Stöcker enough to be confident that what he says about those ~70 people is actually true.
The evidence that RadVac is safe and effective is a general argument that it should be safe and might be effective, and so far as I can tell nothing else at all.
It might be true that the peptide approach is better, but I’d want to see much better evidence before calling for a “Truth and Reconciliation Committee” to look into the alleged awful misdeeds of the people who promoted other approaches.
The evidence that Stöcker’s peptide-based vaccine is safe and effective is Stöcker’s own testimony that he and a few other people used it, didn’t get sick, and have the relevant antibodies.
I don’t think promoting other approaches is the problem. The problem is suppressing certain efforts that are helpful. If the RKI would have cooperated with Stöcker I would have now relevant antibodies because I would be vaccinated.
I don’t fault Moderna, BioNTech for what they did in 2020 but I consider the actions of the regulatory agencies worth “Truth and Reconciliation Committee” as they prevented us from fighting the pandemic effectively.
This is a funny sentence. Basically it’s saying that if we see the most informed people doing X then that’s no evidence that doing X is a good thing to do. You likely wouldn’t make that argument in any other context but here the dogma is strong enough that people could think this is no evidence. It’s like “there’s no evidence for mask working for the average person” when there were no studies for that last year.
It seems to be that there’s a fine line between what RaDVaC is doing in their communication about their vaccine and what Stöker is doing and when you are over that line you get persecuted by the government.
I expect that RaDVaC is very careful about not providing legal attack surface and providing other kinds of evidence could be seem as illegal product advertisement.
What do you mean by “suppressing”?
I know of one instance of attempted suppression: Stöcker gave his alleged vaccine to a bunch of people and someone brought a legal action against him for running an unregistered clinical trial.
If that’s what you mean: it seems to me that if someone breaks the law, then taking the legal steps that are generally taken against people who break the law isn’t obviously properly described as “suppressing his efforts”, even if he claims he did it for the Greater Good. (It sounds as if you reckon he didn’t break the law because he’s a doctor; maybe you’re right—I don’t know anything about German law—but it seems to me unlikely that anyone would bother making laws against unregistered clinical trials if you could work around them simply by having a doctor administer the drugs, since surely that happens in pretty much all clinical trials anyway, and I’ve got to assume that whoever brought the case against Stöcker has some idea what the law says.)
If instead you mean that the German agencies didn’t actively work with Stöcker to bring his alleged vaccine to proper clinical trials, mass production, etc., then again it seems to me that this doesn’t deserve the name of “suppression”. I bet there are thousands of people claiming to have better ways to deal with COVID-19, and I bet they’re all writing to institutions like the PEI demanding that things be done their way. What algorithm are you proposing they should have executed that would have told them to put time and effort into working with Stöcker but not with dozens of cranks? And how are you so sure that Stöcker isn’t a crank himself? Again, so far as I can tell we have only his word for it that his alleged vaccine is safe and effective, even on the small sample of people he allegedly tested it on.
If “basically “means “not”, I guess. I don’t see much connection between what I actually said and what you say I “basically” said.
If you mean that in addition to the RadVac folks’ general argument that their alleged vaccine should be safe and effective, the fact that they have chosen to actually take it is a little bit more evidence, then I guess I agree: but (obviously, I think?) it’s not much further evidence. (It tells me that they probably find their own arguments convincing, which isn’t exactly a surprise.) And I don’t see any obvious reason why I should consider the RadVac folks “the most informed people”.
Of course laws are supressing people from engaging in certain actions whether or not those laws are desirable laws, laws are supressing.
In this case, it seems that while it’s completely legal for a doctor to brew anything together and give it to their patients it’s not legal to run a clinical trial without registration.
If RaDVaC folks would publish the evidence that they gathered for their vaccine it’s easy to argue that they did run a clinical trial for the vaccine which they seems to desire to avoid. Given that they are not allowed to provide that kind of evidence publically they have to be Straussian about it.
There’s a difference between having a doctor administering the drugs and being a doctor administring drugs. Doctors are allowed to give their patient any brew they make but there are rules that regulate the conditions under which you can give a brew to a doctor to administer to his patients. There are some rules that regulate what doctors can do with scheduled substances but those aren’t applicable here.
Secondly, rules for Phase I clinical trials exist for protecting clinical trial participants. They don’t exist to prevent people from doing experiments on themselves and their family.
Saying that a doctor who brews a vaccine for themselves in March and give it to a total of five people he cares about before September is engaged in doing a clinical trial seems to me like a huge stretch.
If you have a pandemic and a biotech billionaire contacts you with wanting to help you treat him different then dozens of cranks that also want to contact you. Especially if the company they founded helps you with fighting the pandemic (they provide COVID-19 tests).
Skin in the game is a good way to handle problems of information assymetry and trusting expertise.
Just because a drug is FDA approved doesn’t mean that it has an effect or is safe either. If I saw a FDA official or a Ranbaxy employee telling his doctor to make sure that he gets a brand name drug instead of one from Ranbaxy you can take that as good evidence that made you shouldn’t trust the FDA approved Ranbaxy drug.
The question here is whether general arguments that experts make based on inference are reliable, or do you need specific evidence. What is the track record for expert inferences about vaccines?
From a quick search, it seems that the clinical trial success rate for vaccines is about 33%, which is significantly higher than for medical trials in general, but still not all that high? Perhaps there is a better estimate for this.
Estimation of clinical trial success rates and related parameters https://academic.oup.com/biostatistics/article/20/2/273/4817524