I’ve written many times about the value of cost-benefit analysis for government policy.
My go-to example is that a nationwide 5-mph speed limit would reduce traffic fatalities, but the resulting economic damage would be so pervasive that there would a net reduction in life expectancy.
In other words, the indirect effects would outweigh the direct effects.
But that’s just a theoretical example.
We now have a real-world case study thanks to a remarkably short-sighted decision about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine by bureaucrats at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Ronald Bailey of Reason is very blunt about the deadly consequences.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a statement today “recommending a pause in the use” of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine…based on six cases of a rare blood clot disorder in people who had been inoculated with the one-dose vaccine. There have been six cases out of 6.8 million people who have already been inoculated with the vaccine. The blood clot incidents all occurred in women between the ages of 18 and 48. Those odds amount to one in 1.13 million, which is comparable to your annual chances of being struck by lightning (1 in 1.22 million). For comparison, a November 2020 meta-analysis in The Lancet found that more than one in five very ill hospitalized and post-mortem* COVID-19 patients experienced venous thromboembolism—that is, blood clots in their veins. A 2010 study in the Journal of American Preventive Medicine reported that the annual incidence of thromboembolism between the ages of 15 and 44 was about 1.5 cases per 1,000 people. In addition, the risk of blood clots from taking oral contraceptives is about 1 in 1,000 annually. …By focusing on the not-yet-proven, very low risk of blood clots versus the known risks of the increased misery, hospitalizations, and deaths that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine would have prevented, our overly cautious public health bureaucrats will likely cause more sickness and deaths among Americans than would otherwise have occurred.
Just in case you’re tempted to dismiss the above article because of Reason‘s libertarian perspective, Philip Bump’s article in the Washington Post makes the same point about tradeoffs.
It’s easy to imagine the internal debate at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention upon learning that six cases of a rare, dangerous blood clot have been found in women who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Allowing the vaccine to be distributed while experts reviewed the cases risks exposing more people to the possible problem. Pausing distribution, though, runs a different risk… Given that about 6.8 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine have been administered and that there have been only six such incidents, the rate at which those red dots occur is about 1 in 1.1 million vaccinations. …By way of comparison, every year about 12 in 100,000 Americans die in a car crash. …more than 561,000 people in the United States have died of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. That’s about 1.8 percent of the 31.2 million people who have contracted it. Given the effectiveness of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in preventing serious illness and death, vaccinating 6.8 million people could have…protected millions of people probably prevented thousands of deaths — with six problematic incidents.
Mr. Bump makes the broader point that each of us make cost-benefit decisions every day.
Nearly everything we do is a balance between risk and reward. Driving down the street, as mentioned above. Walking outside, where a meteorite could suddenly slam into your skull. Sitting on your couch, where your floor could give way or an electrical fire could break out or a bear could crash through your window. None of these things is likely, so we don’t worry about them, but they could. We draw a balance.
The people on Twitter who can do math (regardless of ideology) were united in their disdain for what the bureaucrats did.
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And that’s just a very small sampling.
For my modest contribution to this discussion, I want people to have liberty to take the J&J vaccine, regardless of the shameful actions of the bureaucrats in Washington (or their counterparts at the state level).
Indeed, I also want them to have the freedom to take the AZ vaccine.
Let adults make their own choices about costs and benefits, about risks and rewards.
That means they can choose vaccines (or not), as well as whether to vape, to own a gun, to donate/sell organs, or to try experimental treatments.
Liberty is not only a good principle, it also generates the best health outcomes.
P.S. To learn more about the harmful policies of the FDA, click here and here.
[…] But the biggest lesson from Richard’s column is that politicians and bureaucrats failed to consider direct and indirect effects (a problem that is sadly commonwith government), so their cost-benefit analysis (to the extent they did any) was very flawed. […]
[…] But the biggest lesson from Richard’s column is that politicians and bureaucrats failed to consider direct and indirect effects (a problem that is sadly common with government), so their cost-benefit analysis (to the extent they did any) was very flawed. […]
When I look at all the possible side effects listed on any prescription or over the counter product that is readily available, I have to wonder who is getting paid off, and why, Pfizer and Moderna must be really upset that J and J only need one shot to do the job, Must have been really cutting into their profits.
Jim…I respect your right to receive whatever medical care you and your physician consider to be best for you without government interference. If you wish to be vaccinated, then by all means select whatever one you want to receive. Incidentally the J&J ‘issue’ is a red herring and will be quickly resolved to everyone’s satisfaction with reassurances from Fauci that everything is wonderful. So give it a week or so, and you will be able to get that particular vaccine. Unmentioned are the other 4 locations across the USA that shut down quickly after opening when women began collapsing shortly after receiving the J&J experimental treatment. Some had issues serious enough to warrant hospitalization. The CDC somehow forgot to mention that in conjunction with J&J.
Cheers, Flo
Hi Flo. Clearly you choose not to get the J&J vaccine. Do you support my right to have this vaccine? Because at the moment the FDA is denying me this choice.
Your arguments are specious. Lightening, birth control pills, auto crashes, drunk drivers, and run away Clydesdales do not permanently alter your genetic immune system although they may very well kill you. This untested (8 weeks is not testing; it is hopeful extrapolation) experimental treatment has never previously been ethically used on human beings anywhere. And given the number of proven therapeutics available, why bother? Have you been ‘vaccinated’? If not, I am happy to cede my doses to you. May I suggest reviewing the data in VAERS which now shows over 3,000 deaths associated with the experimental treatments. This is more that the total number of vaccine related deaths in the previous 11 years combined. I am all for informed consent re these treatments, but the key word is informed. Sadly far too many people are not. They are simply terribly frightened. Thank you for the article.