Vaccine Discussion Master Thread

[noturbizniss]

...still reading through. Kang, can you help out here?

[kangarruu]

...still reading through. Kang, can you help out here?

All Congress did with the NCVIA was to regularize the exposure of vaccine manufacturers. Instead of manufacturers being subject to lots of complicated vaccine litigation, there's a simple(er) and informal process with set payouts for various vaccine side effects. This allows vaccine manufacturers to know their exposure in advance and prevents complicated litigation.

The Supreme Court held that the NCVIA preempted state-law vaccine side-effect claims, even those that are caused by a design defect, so long as the manufacturer followed the statutory and regulatory requirements. The Supreme Court did not opine on the safety of vaccines, except in section 1A, where it hailed vaccines as one of the greatest achievements in public health in the 20th century.

[henche]

All Congress did with the NCVIA was to regularize the exposure of vaccine manufacturers. Instead of manufacturers being subject to lots of complicated vaccine litigation, there's a simple(er) and informal process with set payouts for various vaccine side effects. This allows vaccine manufacturers to know their exposure in advance and prevents complicated litigation.

The Supreme Court held that the NCVIA preempted state-law vaccine side-effect claims, even those that are caused by a design defect, so long as the manufacturer followed the statutory and regulatory requirements. The Supreme Court did not opine on the safety of vaccines, except in section 1A, where it hailed vaccines as one of the greatest achievements in public health in the 20th century.

They could know their exposure in advance by buying insurance, just like everyone else with liabilities does.

[kangarruu]

They could know their exposure in advance by buying insurance, just like everyone else with liabilities does.

1) That's not really relevant. Congress decided that it wanted a system with simple rules and defined payouts instead of complicated litigation. It's the same theory behind simplified workers' compensation rules. This system provides little litigation and defined payouts at the cost of full-on individualized determinations.

2) It would be awfully hard to buy insurance against a liability that is 200x your annual sales. See page 2 of the opinion.

[henche]

1) That's not really relevant. Congress decided that it wanted a system with simple rules and defined payouts instead of complicated litigation. It's the same theory behind simplified workers' compensation rules. This system provides little litigation and defined payouts at the cost of full-on individualized determinations.

2) It would be awfully hard to buy insurance against a liability that is 200x your annual sales. See page 2 of the opinion.

On 2, not sure why to assume the courts had been getting the liability wrong with vaccines anymore than with anything else.

[kangarruu]

On 2, not sure why to assume the courts had been getting the liability wrong with vaccines anymore than with anything else.

Point 2 has nothing to do with whether the courts were getting anything right or wrong. You asked why the vaccine manufacturers couldn't deal with their exposure through insurance. The answer is that insurance would be too expensive.

Point 1 deals with Congress moving the burdens around.

[ChaimMoskowitz]

What about the Shingles Vaccine, yes or no?

[henche]

Point 2 has nothing to do with whether the courts were getting anything right or wrong. You asked why the vaccine manufacturers couldn't deal with their exposure through insurance. The answer is that insurance would be too expensive.

Point 1 deals with Congress moving the burdens around.

Back to point 2, I was jumping a step ahead.  My assumption is that if a product does more good than harm, then it should be profitable even after accounting for all the liabilities (which can themselves be predicted by buying insurance).  This is the theory underlying having strict liability for products liability (that is, that manufacturers are generally liable even if they were not negligent). 

So, if vaccines would not be profitable after accounting for their liabilities, that indicates they do more harm than good. 

[kangarruu]

Back to point 2, I was jumping a step ahead.  My assumption is that if a product does more good than harm, then it should be profitable even after accounting for all the liabilities (which can themselves be predicted by buying insurance).  This is the theory underlying having strict liability for products liability (that is, that manufacturers are generally liable even if they were not negligent). 

So, if vaccines would not be profitable after accounting for their liabilities, that indicates they do more harm than good.

The conclusion does not follow. You need to explain why the profitability of a product is tied to its "goodness." I can think of countless other factors that play into profitability.

Even if you could validate the assumption that goodness and profitability are connected, no one claimed that vaccines are not profitable. The issue was that the risk was outsized, so insurance would be too expensive.

This goes back to point 1: Congress didn't want the manufacturers to have to deal with so much litigation, insurance, risk, and the like. Instead, it created a schedule of side effects, payouts, and claims. The risk is controlled and people suffering from side effects have clear expectations of what the law will grant them.

[henche]

The conclusion does not follow. You need to explain why the profitability of a product is tied to its "goodness." I can think of countless other factors that play into profitability.

Even if you could validate the assumption that goodness and profitability are connected, no one claimed that vaccines are not profitable. The issue was that the risk was outsized, so insurance would be too expensive.

This goes back to point 1: Congress didn't want the manufacturers to have to deal with so much litigation, insurance, risk, and the like. Instead, it created a schedule of side effects, payouts, and claims. The risk is controlled and people suffering from side effects have clear expectations of what the law will grant them.

The (uniformly accepted) theory is that assuming you can measure how much people appreciate a product by how much they will pay for it, and the societal cost of a product by the cost of production plus the liabilities it causes, if producers are forced to bear the cost of their liabilities (internalize the externalities, for the economists), then the only products which will be worthwhile to produce will be those with net societal benefit. Because the producers will have to price their products assuming the liabilities.

So why should congress step in here and limit the awards people can get under ordinary tort law? Assuming the courts are not way off (which is an assumption underlying out entire society, so it'd better be right), then the liabilities they impose will roughly equal the actual harm done.  Which should be insurable at just a bit more.  So I don't imagine the aggregated risk would be outsized to the harm.

[kangarruu]

The (uniformly accepted) theory is that assuming you can measure how much people appreciate a product by how much they will pay for it, and the societal cost of a product by the cost of production plus the liabilities it causes, if producers are forced to bear the cost of their liabilities (internalize the externalities, for the economists), then the only products which will be worthwhile to produce will be those with net societal benefit. Because the producers will have to price their products assuming the liabilities.

So why should congress step in here and limit the awards people can get under ordinary tort law? Assuming the courts are not way off (which is an assumption underlying out entire society, so it'd better be right), then the liabilities they impose will roughly equal the actual harm done.  Which should be insurable at just a bit more.  So I don't imagine the aggregated risk would be outsized to the harm.

You've conflated appreciation for a product for its social utility. As the SC noted, vaccines are victims of their own success. They've so completely prevented the targeted diseases that people no longer remember how awful they were, and people don't fully appreciate the benefit of the vaccine. It's the case that one can rely solely on the internalization of externalities to determine the social utility of a product. There's no guarantee that the public accurately measures the benefit of the product (particularly in something like vaccines, where an unvaccinated person can ride on the coattails of others so long as herd immunity rates are met). There are also confounding factors like cost, the effect of medical insurance concealing prices, and the like.

There are two points to make with respect to your second paragraph. First, it is not a warranted assumption that courts accurately price harms and issue judgments thereon, and that assumption does not underlie our society. Courts are not experts in measuring medical or other harm. Rather, courts issue judgments and those influence what people can expect to recover in the future for similar harms. The assumption is the wrong way around.

Second, remember that a chief purpose of law is to allocate burdens. There's no "natural" allocation of who should bear the burdens of society. It is the law that shifts the burdens around. So if Congress feels the courts are getting the allocation wrong, it can (and did) say so. Congress decided that the cost and risk of litigation in the vaccine sphere (most of which consumers lost, but which was still expensive and lengthy) was not a burden that vaccine manufacturers should bear. Instead, Congress set up a system that is simple and has defined payouts. The burdens under this system, which need not be detailed at length, are set upon consumers whose claims would exceed the defined payouts and on manufacturers for claims that would be lower than the payouts. The benefits are to consumers who now have a presumption in their favor, consumers whose claims are below the payouts, the manufacturers whose claims would exceed payouts, and everyone benefits from not needing expensive litigation.

[Cheesecake]

You've conflated appreciation for a product for its social utility. As the SC noted, vaccines are victims of their own success. They've so completely prevented the targeted diseases that people no longer remember how awful they were, and people don't fully appreciate the benefit of the vaccine. It's the case that one can rely solely on the internalization of externalities to determine the social utility of a product. There's no guarantee that the public accurately measures the benefit of the product (particularly in something like vaccines, where an unvaccinated person can ride on the coattails of others so long as herd immunity rates are met). There are also confounding factors like cost, the effect of medical insurance concealing prices, and the like.

There are two points to make with respect to your second paragraph. First, it is not a warranted assumption that courts accurately price harms and issue judgments thereon, and that assumption does not underlie our society. Courts are not experts in measuring medical or other harm. Rather, courts issue judgments and those influence what people can expect to recover in the future for similar harms. The assumption is the wrong way around.

Second, remember that a chief purpose of law is to allocate burdens. There's no "natural" allocation of who should bear the burdens of society. It is the law that shifts the burdens around. So if Congress feels the courts are getting the allocation wrong, it can (and did) say so. Congress decided that the cost and risk of litigation in the vaccine sphere (most of which consumers lost, but which was still expensive and lengthy) was not a burden that vaccine manufacturers should bear. Instead, Congress set up a system that is simple and has defined payouts. The burdens under this system, which need not be detailed at length, are set upon consumers whose claims would exceed the defined payouts and on manufacturers for claims that would be lower than the payouts. The benefits are to consumers who now have a presumption in their favor, consumers whose claims are below the payouts, the manufacturers whose claims would exceed payouts, and everyone benefits from not needing expensive litigation.

I agree. In addition, there are huge numbers of people who can't afford to pay the actual value of vaccines, but when it comes to health care, we are more socialist than free market.

So, the government has an interest in keeping prices down, in order to allow everyone to receive them.

[henche]

You've conflated appreciation for a product for its social utility. As the SC noted, vaccines are victims of their own success. They've so completely prevented the targeted diseases that people no longer remember how awful they were, and people don't fully appreciate the benefit of the vaccine. It's the case that one can rely solely on the internalization of externalities to determine the social utility of a product. There's no guarantee that the public accurately measures the benefit of the product (particularly in something like vaccines, where an unvaccinated person can ride on the coattails of others so long as herd immunity rates are met). There are also confounding factors like cost, the effect of medical insurance concealing prices, and the like.

There are two points to make with respect to your second paragraph. First, it is not a warranted assumption that courts accurately price harms and issue judgments thereon, and that assumption does not underlie our society. Courts are not experts in measuring medical or other harm. Rather, courts issue judgments and those influence what people can expect to recover in the future for similar harms. The assumption is the wrong way around.

Second, remember that a chief purpose of law is to allocate burdens. There's no "natural" allocation of who should bear the burdens of society. It is the law that shifts the burdens around. So if Congress feels the courts are getting the allocation wrong, it can (and did) say so. Congress decided that the cost and risk of litigation in the vaccine sphere (most of which consumers lost, but which was still expensive and lengthy) was not a burden that vaccine manufacturers should bear. Instead, Congress set up a system that is simple and has defined payouts. The burdens under this system, which need not be detailed at length, are set upon consumers whose claims would exceed the defined payouts and on manufacturers for claims that would be lower than the payouts. The benefits are to consumers who now have a presumption in their favor, consumers whose claims are below the payouts, the manufacturers whose claims would exceed payouts, and everyone benefits from not needing expensive litigation.

The burden is on the consumer in any event, since producers always pass on the cost of expected liabilities into their pricing.  So I don't think that's a purpose of the law.

And if you can't assume the courts generally are not way off, there's no point in having laws anyway.

[Cheesecake]

The burden is on the consumer in any event, since producers always pass on the cost of expected liabilities into their pricing.  So I don't think that's a purpose of the law.

And if you can't assume the courts generally are not way off, there's no point in having laws anyway.

So the purpose is to lower prices for consumers, especially those who otherwise couldn't afford it, and for the government, which pays for many consumers' vaccines.

[kangarruu]

The burden is on the consumer in any event, since producers always pass on the cost of expected liabilities into their pricing.  So I don't think that's a purpose of the law.

The expected liability is lower under this system in no small part because it eliminates the bulk of expensive litigation. You're also neglecting the intermediating effect of having insurance companies, not consumers, pay for vaccines, as well as liabilities due to outsize risk. Moreover, see Justice Breyer's concurring opinion in Bruesewitz. He analyzes the legislative intent behind the NCVIA and it's fairly clear that Congress wanted shift the burdens away from manufacturers because the market and their risk was unpredictable. 

And if you can't assume the courts generally are not way off, there's no point in having laws anyway.

It's not about the courts being way off. It's that Congress decided, in this context, that it wanted a different rule than what existing law would allow. There's no 'right' or 'wrong' way to decide these cases; it's just a policy decision as to who should bear these burdens.

[henche]

The expected liability is lower under this system in no small part because it eliminates the bulk of expensive litigation. You're also neglecting the intermediating effect of having insurance companies, not consumers, pay for vaccines, as well as liabilities due to outsize risk. Moreover, see Justice Breyer's concurring opinion in Bruesewitz. He analyzes the legislative intent behind the NCVIA and it's fairly clear that Congress wanted shift the burdens away from manufacturers because the market and their risk was unpredictable. 

It's not about the courts being way off. It's that Congress decided, in this context, that it wanted a different rule than what existing law would allow. There's no 'right' or 'wrong' way to decide these cases; it's just a policy decision as to who should bear these burdens.

You can't shift the burden.  It goes on the consumer in either event. Either as a tax (under the new method), or as increased cost of production (under the old method).

The only thing you CAN do, is say that people who are harmed should not get fully compensated. 

[jj1000]

Because it's convenient to throw out ridiculous statements that were never tested?

Or maybe because parents that stop vaxing do it for a reason and they want to justify it? And feel like they are doing it for their kid's own good.

[Achas Veachas]

But the pediatricians admit that to with egg on their face

Which pediatricians? None of the ones I used for my kids (we went through three so far)...

[aygart]

But they have medical records to prove it, & if you care for the truth, you can visit any unvaxed home  & see it. Come to my house see my 8 month unvaexd baby crawl sit & stand

Just post a warning on the pediartican  keep away from children

If anything these who torture innocent babies by injecting toxins , in order to fatten their wallets, they need to fabricate some baloney to justify it

I just made an offer to a pedi , cash on table in public,remove names for privacy, print list of unvaxed kids & list of vaxed in your practice.Compare asthma rates, other chronic disease & age reached development milestones. Did i hit a raw nerve.

Most of what you wrote I cannot decipher but I think you are crediting the lack of vaccines for your baby crawling at eight months. All nine of my children got vaccines and some were crawling and standing at eight months and some not.

[aygart]

your vaxed baby stand @ 8 months ? my foot!

the distrust is mutual