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PaperclipPerfector  13d ago (text post)   33929 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 11, 2024

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In the end that's exactly what would happen. Rich people would pay a lot for vaccines, poor people wouldn't get them at all, and grifters would get rich off the back of lawsuits.

Measles would go back to killing thousands of people a year in the U.S.

Is this the world you want to live in?

These concerns just seem internally silly. The only reason prices would rise a bunch is if there are a lot of vaccine related harms. If the harms are very small, then the cost for pharma would be small meaning costs would not increase much.

So what is it? Do vaccines cause a lot of damage meaning drug costs would need to increase a lot? Or do vaccines cause little harm meaning costs would rise only a little?

So what is it? Do vaccines cause a lot of damage meaning drug costs would need to increase a lot? Or do vaccines cause little harm meaning costs would rise only a little?

Neither.

Vaccines (at least the non-MRNA variety) cause little harm but the American legal system often assigns huge legal damages that are not warranted. For reference:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/business/j-and-j-talc-cancer-lawsuits-settlement/index.html

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-29/3m-to-pay-6-billion-to-resolve-vast-military-earplug-lawsuits

Ok. Now we are talking. So the problem isn’t torts per se but absurd compensatory damages. Isn’t the solution then not unlimited liability but a more proscribed amount of damages?

Yes. Fix torts and we can unlock a lot of benefits. But let's not put the cart before the horse.

but the American legal system often assigns huge legal damages that are not warranted.

It sounds like that's the real problem here. Maybe instead of defending a specific carve-out patch for vaccines in particular, people should be pursuing tort reform instead.

Agreed. There are problems with how we calculate compensatory damages. That could be fixed resulting in the better cost benefit regulation of not just vaccines but al products.

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