Just came across this little nugget of nonsense in the Taipei Times, courtesy of the illustrious 陳建仁 (an epidemiologist by training and onetime head of the NSC):
Trial data, published in top-rated international scientific journals, showed the effectiveness of the Medigen vaccine, Chen said.
Taipei allowed Medigen to waive phase 3 clinical trials, as achieving the requisite sample size was not possible in Taiwan, which had a relatively low number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, he said.
So, let’s break that down: the Taiwan authorities allowed a new pharmaceutical product onto the market without any meaningful testing, potentially to be used on millions of people under the terms of a mandate, for a disease so dangerous that they couldn’t even find enough subjects to test it on, and were only later able to claim that the product was ‘effective’ (although I note he is not claiming that it is ‘safe’).
Let’s be clear: this guy is an expert in his field. He is not a random idiot who doesn’t understand what he’s saying.
The Medigen vaccine was as effective as to BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, and superior by a large margin to AstraZeneca in preventing deaths and serious symptoms, Chen said, citing a study published in the scientific journal Infectious Diseases.
“Clinical trials conducted across the globe showed that the Medigen vaccine is a good one,” he said.
I suppose if your baseline is “completely useless” then maybe it is better, but if it was so wonderful then how come so few people took it? Oh, right, it’s because it was useless for international travel permits - which was the one and only reason most people got jabbed in the first place.
Regarding some KMT lawmakers’ claims that more than 1,000 Medigen stockholders are Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members, Chen said the company in question is publicly traded and does not keep any documentation about of its stockholders’ party affiliation.
So is it true or isn’t it? “I don’t know” doesn’t refute the position of people who claim that they do know. I guess it’s lucky DPP members aren’t required to declare conflicts of interest in political decisions, isn’t it?
Rumors claiming that documents about the development of the Medigen vaccines were classified for 30 years are “fake news,” Chen said.
The allegedly sealed documents were thoroughly examined by prosecutors, Control Yuan members and lawmakers in the course of investigations into about 60 allegations against the vaccine, all of which were disproved, he said.
Asked to comment on DPP presidential candidate Vice President William Lai’s (賴清德) support for publishing Medigen’s vaccine contract, Chen said the government is in the process of renegotiating the terms of nondisclosure agreements.
So they’re not ‘sealed’, merely restricted to a need-to-know group of people. Okey dokey.
And the piece de resistance:
Spreading false information about medicine is unethical and potentially illegal, the CDC said, adding that it urges Tsai to be mindful of his social responsibilities.
Perhaps Chen might want to review some of the claims made by the CECC over the last few years and see how many of them were false, unethical or potentially illegal?
If this is the sorry state of The Science™ in Taiwan, I’m glad I never took any notice of The Science. And the DPP wonder why they’re losing political ground.