A Gambler’s Take: Are We Overdosing on Vaccines?

Understanding gambling and economics helps you evaluate health and medical decisions. (or, "Trust me, I play poker for a living!")

As I’m a semi-retired professional gambler and long-time amateur philosopher, economist, psychologist, political and legal theorist, and all-around devotee of the human condition, you’re all probably wondering what my opinion about vaccines is, right?

In brief, I think some vaccines are great. Others, not so much. And with each vaccine and each specific patient, there is a tradeoff in risk profiles. The decision to administer a vaccine or not has upsides and downsides — just like all human decisions.

As economics teaches us: there are no solutions, only tradeoffs.

That said, I think at the moment “we” are massively over-using vaccine technology. I can’t say exactly which vaccines “should” be given to people or when, but I do think it’s obvious that Big Pharma has completely captured the monopolistic regulatory framework intended to discipline it — as well as the members of Congress who could potentially alter that regulatory framework.

Big Pharma is in charge now, and it likes it. It also likes to push as much of its product onto and into the population as is corporeally possible.

Because of this, I am very happy that Robert F. Kennedy Jr (RFKj) is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services. I can’t vouchsafe every utterance he’s ever made about vaccines or anything else, but the man does understand that the current system is rotten.

That rot is breaking us financially, and even worse, making us much sicker than we ought to be, and the US government bears much of the blame. RFKj clearly intends to fix all this and has already gotten started.

In my mind, monopolistic government can’t be “fixed”. That system has a structural problem that poisons the incentives of its members — and the outcomes of all us proles. That said, I wish him well. Maybe he can make a bad thing a little better.

RFKj was recently hauled before congress so that Democrats could gather fundraising soundbites and to attempt to give him a scolding.

It… didn’t go that way.

I recommend you all take a look at this hearing. For those with the time and intestinal fortitude to experience the whole 2+hour-long attempted struggle session, it can be found here.

But for those of you who would prefer just a few highlights, the X account “Vigilant Fox” did a very nice job summarizing this hearing. Enjoy!

Naturally,

Adam