If you're referring to the CDC changing its layperson definition on https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm, its old definition was wrong and didn't include flu vaccines, among many others.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=definition+of+recession&sour...
It looks like NBER's definition of how they declare recessions has remained consistent, so I'd defer to them:
https://web.archive.org/web/20210103093754/https://www.nber....
Not really drugs per se, but at 50k feet yes that's true (but no entirely accurate).
However, the mRNA technology is new, different from traditional vaccines, and effectively untested. Untested until Covid.
This isn't a judgement or a knock. Just a fact.
It wasn't enough testing, and a large scale test wasn't economically viable. But they also weren't completely untested. (And guess what the world spent 6 months doing at some high death rate times? Yep, large scale testing them.)
The rub for many was / is the quickness of the process in contrast with the cock-sureness of the narrative (i.e., don't worry about it...just trust us...). There was also the disconnect between "trust the science" vs limited data and the shutting down of any question. Real Science is fearless.
The data wasn't limited in any way.
It's funny, because I have the opposite criticism. We just let people die for 6 months because we refused to act on "we are sure it's safe, we are confident it will work" and waited to have complete certainty on both of those. If we just scaled the tests further and start paying the labs before we were completely sure the vaccines work (we just really, really expected them to). We could have tested them in less than a month, and vaccinated most of the more vulnerable people in less time than that.
But if we did that, we would be open to the possibility of one of the vaccines not working. We would need a lot of transparency to deal with that, and it looks like the population can't deal with quantified certainty in any way, just with the binary version of it.
Really? Because that's not what I said.
You can't change a process - especially not a medical one for 100s of millions of people - and then say "We're 100% certain of this. This is all new. There are no long term side effects. And if you think or say otherwise, we will cancel you."
Anyone who knows even a bit of history - medical or otherwise - and is comfortable with that is a either naive, or on the take.
To clarify, I don't have a problem with an non-traditional process. That being said, the way the process was "sold" set off my BS detector too many times. The two are disconnected to a fault.
For example, there's this:
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/07/13/1111137...
Long to short, we've had "OMG the variants..." repeated over and over, how important the jab is to that, and then how in a worldwide pandemic the threat of variants can come from anywhere.
Yet, 2 docs in Brazil have to invent their own vax? And promise to give it away? While USA Big Pharma...does what??? counts their money? Because variants aren't a threat? See?
Again, complete disconnect. Disconnect that no one should be comfortable with.
The testing process? Of course we can, statistics is quite an established and predictive science.
Again, looks like you have a problem with a non-traditional process. You also seem to have a falling for low-quality science journalism. Both are understandable, but your failure of understanding the vaccine policies around the pandemics were due to your partial understanding, and not fault of the policies.
https://www.statnews.com/2017/01/10/moderna-trouble-mrna/ https://www.statnews.com/2017/06/28/moderna-writedown/
The only thing you were sure of is that you were terrified, and wanted anything and anyone to save you.
But hey I'm sure all those auto-immune diseases cropping up from the vaccines fall into the category of "sureness" :D