Is there something even better? This article wastes a lot of text repeating over and over that there are problems without getting to the most important ones.
The submitted link considers the Moscow Times article and copies verbatim (in the leaked report section) the quotes regarding randomization and side effects.
For what's worth, Brazilian regulators also had a bunch of issues with data provided for Sputnik. Issues were also raised when facilities were inspected.
Same feeling here. Curiously enough the domain is called "For better science", where we'd have expected neutrality and impartiality to be the guiding principles of any report.
Apart from that, it is hard to believe that any of the vaccine reports and clinical trials are unbiased. Unfortunately there are too many conflicts of interest and money on the table for any information to be taken at face value. The beauty of science is that now that the vaccines are out there it becomes easier to independently access them and move our knowledge further in the right direction.
And on that note, regardless of the final outcome for Sputnik V, at least there will be lessons learned for the future development of vaccines and increased scrutiny in their manufacturing process.
For what it's worth, the blog has a pretty similar tone even when writing about less politically-fraught topics; it's usually focused on fraud in the life science literature.
> at least there will be lessons learned for the future development of vaccines and increased scrutiny in their manufacturing process.
I’m nagging, but we’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to set a precedent where pharmaceutical companies are relieved of the burden of demonstrating the safety of their products and also relieved of the risk of providing relief to anyone harmed by said products.
20 years later, emergency measures to protect Americans from terrorism are in effect today. I doubt Pfizer will be vulnerable to class-action suits ever again.
>The beauty of science is that now that the vaccines are out there it becomes easier to independently access them and move our knowledge further in the right direction.
I think that what is sort of a sideline in this article is really a more important story. The Lancet and NEJM have completely debased themselves and destroyed centuries of institutional credibility in their handling of covid related research. I don't know where it goes from here but they have both burned themselves to the ground.
The Lancet does this all the time. To add a few more examples to the sibling comments: The fraudulent HCQ paper*, the absurd Iraq war casualty calculation.
In general, assume that whenever there's politics or the opportunity to shock, the Lancet won't be very thorough with its articles.
* The conclusion being accidentally right doesn't cover for the fraudulent data.
The article shows evidence of sloppiness, not really of fraud. Neither would really surprise me, given the high political stakes. But I suspect that if Russia went for full-on fraud, they would do a much better job than this.
Case in point: the doping scandal at the Sochi winter olympics. It was evil, yes, but you cannot help but admire how detailed and well-executed the operation was. They designed and built a whole building around the scheme! Supposedly, even the FSB (reincarnation of KGB) was involved. If not for a senior whistle-blower, I think we would never know.
I'm sure that if there was some top-level prikaz to cook the books, there would be no discernible flaws in the data whatsoever.
The last article about Sputnik that I read on HN stated that many countries are awaiting their promised doses, because Korea and India cannot produce enough of it.
As the tone of article is bit aggressive, I have own observations, my relatives who lives in Russia were fully vaccinated with Sputnik and all 4 of them (one family) got a very hard COVID with delta, two of them were on oxygen therapy. Doesn’t mean anything but my feelings are that there are some lie about that vaccine efficiency for no reason except political benefits.
Readit News
[1] https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/08/20/leaked-sputnik-v-r...
Sounds like the author has an axe to grind.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/world/covid-vaccine-brazi...
Apart from that, it is hard to believe that any of the vaccine reports and clinical trials are unbiased. Unfortunately there are too many conflicts of interest and money on the table for any information to be taken at face value. The beauty of science is that now that the vaccines are out there it becomes easier to independently access them and move our knowledge further in the right direction. And on that note, regardless of the final outcome for Sputnik V, at least there will be lessons learned for the future development of vaccines and increased scrutiny in their manufacturing process.
I’m nagging, but we’ve gone to extraordinary lengths to set a precedent where pharmaceutical companies are relieved of the burden of demonstrating the safety of their products and also relieved of the risk of providing relief to anyone harmed by said products.
20 years later, emergency measures to protect Americans from terrorism are in effect today. I doubt Pfizer will be vulnerable to class-action suits ever again.
Can you clarify what you mean by this?
In general, assume that whenever there's politics or the opportunity to shock, the Lancet won't be very thorough with its articles.
* The conclusion being accidentally right doesn't cover for the fraudulent data.
Read the article about Apache Arrow / DataFusion 5.0 it is better.
Case in point: the doping scandal at the Sochi winter olympics. It was evil, yes, but you cannot help but admire how detailed and well-executed the operation was. They designed and built a whole building around the scheme! Supposedly, even the FSB (reincarnation of KGB) was involved. If not for a senior whistle-blower, I think we would never know.
I'm sure that if there was some top-level prikaz to cook the books, there would be no discernible flaws in the data whatsoever.
The last article about Sputnik that I read on HN stated that many countries are awaiting their promised doses, because Korea and India cannot produce enough of it.
https://www.laprensalatina.com/venezuelas-vaccine-drive-sput...