To the editor: Columnist Michael Hiltzik states, “Testing a vaccine in opposition to a real placebo is moral and correct when it’s the primary therapy for a illness for which no different secure and efficient therapy exists. That’s not the case, nevertheless, when a identified therapy does exist — say after a vaccine has been proven to be secure and efficient and has develop into the usual of care” (“RFK Jr.’s plans for vaccine testing are extremely unethical and a hazard to your well being. Right here’s why,” Could 8).
Scientifically, that’s a hen and egg drawback. If you happen to don’t enable placebo trials, how precisely do you certify a vaccine as “secure and efficient”? You can’t. Therefore, each positions of the talk have deserves. The actual hazard lies with demagogues and idealogues.
Avanidhar Subrahmanyam, Los Angeles
