• OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    By your logic, we can never know if drugs are in fact safe, because we can’t prove they’ll never have ill effects. Can’t prove a negative, after all.

    Yes, that’s exactly right. You can not prove that a drug is completely safe under all conditions because it’s impossible to test it under all conditions.

    You do this enough and you can say the drug is in fact safe

    “Safe” in this case does not mean a guarantee. You can say that the drug is safe enough for use. You can’t guarantee 100% safety, but you can say that the benefits greatly outweigh the risks. Vaccines are safe because the good they do overwhelms the dangers. However it dies not guarantee no side effects.