Oh wow how the conspiracy theories change.

There used to be fears of "death panels" controlling access to medical care when Clinton tried to propose universal health care.

The CDC and FDA are about safety, not cost management. And they get significant complaints about how much they regulate pharma and are impediments to pharma for that!

Now the conspiracy theorists of the other side seem to be having their day in the public mind.

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Fomite 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

This isn't a conspiracy theory - I worked on projects around that during graduate school, and talked to my colleagues who worked on them. Cost-effectiveness thresholds are a consideration that goes into how widely a vaccine will be rolled out, etc.

That was, for example, why boys were originally not part of the recommendation for the HPV vaccine. It would double to cost, while doing very little to prevent cervical cancer via indirect protection. Once the evidence accumulated that it was associated with other cancers, that stopped being true.

Similar logic applied to older women and men.

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epistasis 4 days ago | parent [-]

Cost considerations would be more from the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, not the mentioned above United States Preventive Services Task Force. (Oh, and I see that another comment parallel to mine up there now mentions ACIP too...)

In any case, somebody thinking that evaluating safety and efficacy aside from cost considerations means that there's collusion with pharmaceutical companies would be a conspiracy theory.

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fsckboy 4 days ago | parent [-]

have you ever wondered if it's a great idea to have former generals populate the defense department, procurement, and revolving door employment with defense contractors? what could go wrong? what could go expensive?

you are one of the generals in this scenario, thinking that evaluating safety and efficacy aside from cost considerations couldn't possibly lead to higher costs because you yourself and everybody in your industry are so darn smart, clever and by god ethical.

what did you do before this? work on creating the covid 19 virus, or just calling people who questioned it "conspiracy theorists"? what's that, you were in caves tracking down the zoonotic transfer, which you'll find any day now, scientific consensus and all, peter daszak assured you you'll find it and he's beyond reproach!

and I resent you saying that I'm a conspiracy theorist because I have not said any of this is happening, I am pointing out the vector where it could happen (go back, look, where did I say any of this was happening?)

it's simply, methinks the lady doth protest too much

	▲	potato3732842 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		>have you ever wondered if it's a great idea to have former generals populate the defense department, procurement, and revolving door employment with defense contractors? what could go wrong? what could go expensive? The real question is why are people who are capable of identifying the problem when it's generals sitting on the board of Lockheed or a telecom industry insider heading the FCC suddenly unable to do so when it's someone who's made their career engineering stormwater solutions taking a position at the EPA or the pharma industry funding research that the CDC will base its policy on. The CDC, the DOD, etc, etc, these are all symptoms of the problem and a distracting sideshow. As usual, the real evil is in the minds of the people who peddle double standards and the fact that we have architected society such that this behavior is mainstream and those who engage in it are not marginalized.

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fsckboy 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

clear financial incentives are never conspiracy theories: always follow the money.

thinking that they are conspiracy theories? that's a conspiracy theorist.

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epistasis 4 days ago | parent [-]

There's no clear financial incentive on the decisions here. If there were, it would be collusion, and not in the open, and therefore not clear.

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fsckboy 4 days ago | parent [-]

the cdc decides to make recommendations no matter how expensive, and big pharma collects the expensive, and the expert community works for the cdc and big pharma? do you even understand what regulatory capture is? do you understand how framing something as saving lives no matter the cost draws attention away from funneling money to big pharma no matter the deficit?

let me guess, you work in this area too.

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epistasis 4 days ago | parent [-]

Since you already replied to my other comment, hopefully you understand now that ACIP takes into account cost as part of its recommendations, but the independent group we were talking about in this thread does not.

Even with CDC its recommendations, it's not the final word.

The reasoning you're highlighting here is highly conspiratorial

	▲	Fomite 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		There's also a much less pronounced revolving door at the CDC as compared to the DoD I would argue.