The Disastrous J&J Pause | Hacker News Reader

The Disastrous J&J Pause

marginalrevolution.com

13 pointsjseliger10 comments

This is easy 20/20. At the time they were not entirely sure how widespread and if the incidences would increase. Remember doctors follow the Hippocratic oath - First, do no harm.

How do they administer chemo or radiation then?

Or just do an X-ray for that matter.

Doctors make tradeoffs all the time.

Apples to oranges but I'll take the bait. Chemo's risks are well studied and known. Is a long discussion with a patient to understand all the risks/rewards. X-rays risks are so negligible it's not worth discussing. This was a oh crap, we don't know what's happening and we're doing this to millions of people a day.

Its not apples and oranges, you presented the oath as an absolute and now you are talking about risk analysis and some harms being dismissible.

The effect of low dose X-rays or other low dose radiation is unquantified below a certain threshold. Some people believe it’s actually good for you. In other words, prescribing an X-ray is not doing harm based on our current understanding, it is doing “undefined”

Also Dan appears to be walking back some on his theories - https://twitter.com/FT__Dan

No, the rates were already known to be extremely low. It was political theater to look cautious when no pause was warranted. It cost more lives than it saved. That is greater than zero net harm and the wrong choice.

I'll lament political theater as much as the next guy, but it's not a pointless exercise. Last I checked, there's a solid 1/3 Americans making the largely irrational decision to forgo vaccination. We may soon have more vaccines than willing recipients... if science will not convince these stragglers, then perhaps theatrics will.

It is exactly a pointless exercise when it kills more people than it saves. They should've said that the rates were very, very low, they're monitoring the situation closely and conducting research into it in parallel, but not pausing it because it would kill more people indirectly by not vaccinating them than would it save by pausing.

This is a big problem of "democracy" (Socrates' absolute favorite political system - mob rule by popular sentiment rather than science or expertise) where benevolent dictators are essential to override the stupidity of individual "choice" for vital public health policies for the actual greater good.

Anyone who refuses a vaccine without a narrow, valid medical excuse should get 3 years of prison time. If they don't like it, too bad. "Democracies" have to quit pandering to the crazies and make people do what is best for all during an emergency.

Withholding lifesaving medication from people so that they trust you more is idiotic and irresponsible. I don’t know how anyone could possibly have thought that it would work.

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