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Comment by refurb | Hacker News Reader

I would question your true interest in understanding when you use the words “this clown” and “all moronic”.

We tend not to use those words when we have an honest intent to understand someone else’s position.

You also have access to the internet so have the ability to find well written and thought out discussions of the other side when it comes to vaccines and Peter Mark’s opinions.

If all you do is consume media from your side of course the other side appears to make no sense.

If you want a good place to start you can look at the controversy of Mark’s overruling of FDA review teams to approve Elevidys which I would argue raises questions as to his judgement.

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If the shoe fits…

Every day we get new affirmation of the incompetence and malice of the Trump administration. The people in charge of the futures and lives of millions, such as RFK, don’t have public welfare or health in the front of their minds. Nor can they admit their own ignorance or acknowledge mistakes.

Asking one side to have an honest intent to understand and consider positions that have no basis in fact or reality or scientific method amounts to asking scientists to have an open mind about astrology, Ouija boards, and repeatedly discredited junk science. Of the two possibilities — RFK et al. know something the rest of us don’t about disease and vaccines, or he knows nothing and suffers from egomania — I think the evidence speaks for itself.

Dr. Fauci and others may have made mistakes, but they can admit to their mistakes in the face of enormous pressure to act and save lives. They didn’t make mistakes out of colossal stupidity, ignorance, and drug abuse.

The only side that matters is reason and those that depart from it ought not and will not be taken seriously.

Faced with flat earthers it makes no sense to teach the controversy. Instead rub their nose in theirown mesd. Let them be embarrassed instead because while they are unsalvable as human beings their humiliation may help salvage others more worthy.

At least for myself, words like "clown car" and "moronic" are an exasperated coping mechanism that comes from repeatedly trying to engage, but only ever getting whataboutist responses that sidestep answering any of the actual criticisms. And on many topics, this often includes criticisms in terms of the values that supporters claim to hold dear.

Or alternatively, I could understand if your concern with Elevidys was so glaringly bad as to drive single-issue support (and then it would strike me as worth it to actually investigate), but your "raises questions" wouldn't seem to indicate that either.

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I am genuinely curious - the goofy language is to mask the (possibly misdirected) immense concern. If I am wrong, and all these goons I perceive as sinners are in fact saints, I would truly love to hear the recitation of facts that expels me of my delusion.

If you’re looking for sinners and saints I don’t think you’re going to find it.

If I were to summarize the disagreement in the most neutral terms, it’s the risk vs benefit of vaccines.

And like all risk vs benefit choices, it comes down to a choice - there is no one right answer, it’s a value judgement. I work in the industry so see this all the time - someone makes the call “we have enough data to confidently say X”. People disagree all the time over this. You can always get more data to be more sure, but at some point you start wasting your time.

I’d say the argument from the RFK side is we don’t know enough about the safety of certain vaccines to make the risk vs benefit argument of mandatory vaccination. The same argument for food additives like red dye.

Marks likely disagrees - as is evident from him overruling 3 different teams on Elevidys - a drug that failed phase 3 yet Mark’s decided the risk vs benefit was good enough for FDA approval.

And before anyone says “yeah but look at the kooky things that side says”, you can do that for any argument. Even the pro-vaccine side says untrue things but that doesn’t mean the core argument doesn’t have validity.

The difference is that one side is data driven and one is not.

Consider the measles vaccine. In the last 60 years in the US around 200 million people have been vaccinated with it. That has generated a lot of data on its safety and effectiveness. And not just short term safety--we've got plenty of data from people who were vaccinated in childhood and are now retired so we've got good data on long term safety too.

This data overwhelmingly says that is is extremely safe and effective.

The RFK Jr side has no statistically significant data to counter that, yet they still say it is not safe or not effective.

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