LogFAQs > #947883767

zebatov posted...

Its super weird to me that you dont apply this thinking to all vaccines, and then continually attack people who do. The industry is the industry. If youre skeptical about them being after profits here, why do you think they would be any different with any other vaccine, drug etc.?

Because I understand the vaccine development process well enough to know that this has come out months earlier than it would have had the process not been rushed. When the process hasn't been rushed and/or the vaccine has been out for long enough that data on side effects and the like are readily available, I'm less inclined to be skeptical because it's more possible for me to make an informed risk analysis and it's easier to trust that they did their due diligence in testing it before releasing it.

Yes, there's some amount of money on the line for every vaccine (though vaccines generally aren't big moneymakers for pharmaceutical companies, as much as people like to believe that they are), but this is very much not a typical situation. The entire global economy is depending on this vaccine (to say nothing of the lives that will be saved), which means everyone is scrambling to achieve the glory and profit that is on the line (even if there won't be that much immediate profit, whichever company cures Covid is basically set for PR for the next half-century). The stakes are much higher than they usually are, and certainly much higher than they have been at any point in the recent history of pharmaceutical research, and that's cause to be skeptical of anyone that looks at all like they might have cut corners.

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