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Zetkin8 t1_j2t7ndz wrote

Reply to comment by SnooPuppers1978 in Researchers find that public health trust was the strongest predictor of positive attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination. Information literacy, science literacy, and religiosity affected attitudes to a lesser degree. by glawgii

That's a lot of "could"s... Yes, I agree that nonsensical incentives exist. But I fail to see what this would even look like to provoke something with the same outcome as a vaccine conspiracy.

Also, those things exist in politics. Take laws governing sexual offences for example. If I was in charge and pushed a reform that protects victims better, my political opponent could claim that such crimes went through the roof while I was in office. But I truly lack the imagination for such a situation in a medical agency. I'd expect my career to be over if I gave a green light for the admission even if I could've known better. Especially in such a high-profile case.

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SnooPuppers1978 t1_j2tb136 wrote

> with the same outcome as a vaccine conspiracy

Depends on what you consider a vaccine conspiracy? Bad biological takes like you said above, yes, I would agree is unreasonable. But for example general fear of undetected adverse issues, either short or long term. Is that a conspiracy?

> I'd expect my career to be over if I gave a green light for the admission even if I could've known better.

There could be no clear single approver, since 90%+ of people are approving, everyone could be just going with the flow. It's a safe approval to take, because everyone agrees to approve it, it would be much riskier to go against the grain unless you are 100% confident that you are in the right to go against the grain. But also again I'm not trying to convince such a thing could be possible. I don't know if it is, I haven't worked as a scientist in medicine. I could only speculate.

But then, it's not about whether it really is feasible for this to be like that, but more about how a general person would be able to tell that this is not the case. So maybe you've done the whole process of developing the vaccine, led the trials from phase 1 to phase 3, dealt and audited all the subcontractors, then worked together with regulators and governments and you know that for sure there's no way something really bad could be missed.

How can a normal person know that this process is validated to such extent if in their own personal life they have seen bizarre things happening first hand especially under time and deadlines pressure, that a naive person would never expect to happen if they have full trust in systems?

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