I agree that it appears Steve was wrong on this point. But don't take him in bad faith. He spends his whole day trying to open doors of communication, and others have been pushing the false meme of the high percentage of spontaneous abortions. I suspect this is a case of proxy trust through two degrees.
What he is right about, and has done the leg work to talk with people at the highest levels of the FDA and other places about, is that there are significant risk signals that authorities aren't even bothering to examine---and that policy seems to have been put in place to block examination.
Ultimately, it is far more dangerous to be a true believer in new vaccine technology that might have a negative net risk-benefit than a vaccine skeptic with a subset of incorrect takes. Either way, we need to keep the doors of communication open. If Steve didn't hear this point well it's because he doesn't have 500 hours a day to hear everyone. But I can attest that when he hears new and better arguments, he does adjust.
Note: Steve called me and asked me to explain the case you're making, so I pulled up the tables and made a spreadsheet, and he will hear me out in a few minutes and my belief is that he will see the point when we're done.
But one thing about this episode that bothers me and has bothered me for many such episodes over the past 15 months is that there is a vacuum of communication. Regardless of who is right in most debates, the side of "the authorities" does little or nothing to communicate reasons for its statements. Some of them may be true, and some false, but communication would settle a lot. That is to say that I think that the authorities have settled on a "strategy", which is disconcerting.
I agree that it appears Steve was wrong on this point. But don't take him in bad faith. He spends his whole day trying to open doors of communication, and others have been pushing the false meme of the high percentage of spontaneous abortions. I suspect this is a case of proxy trust through two degrees.
What he is right about, and has done the leg work to talk with people at the highest levels of the FDA and other places about, is that there are significant risk signals that authorities aren't even bothering to examine---and that policy seems to have been put in place to block examination.
Ultimately, it is far more dangerous to be a true believer in new vaccine technology that might have a negative net risk-benefit than a vaccine skeptic with a subset of incorrect takes. Either way, we need to keep the doors of communication open. If Steve didn't hear this point well it's because he doesn't have 500 hours a day to hear everyone. But I can attest that when he hears new and better arguments, he does adjust.
Note: Steve called me and asked me to explain the case you're making, so I pulled up the tables and made a spreadsheet, and he will hear me out in a few minutes and my belief is that he will see the point when we're done.
But one thing about this episode that bothers me and has bothered me for many such episodes over the past 15 months is that there is a vacuum of communication. Regardless of who is right in most debates, the side of "the authorities" does little or nothing to communicate reasons for its statements. Some of them may be true, and some false, but communication would settle a lot. That is to say that I think that the authorities have settled on a "strategy", which is disconcerting.