It is you that don't seem to understand some basics. We've NEVER been dishonest enough, or unintelligent enough, to try and include the R&D period of any new drug to say that the drug isn't actually "new", simply because "we've been studying it and/or developing it for decades", or "it took decades to go from a concept in someone's mind, to an actual, realized drug or product". You see how unintelligent that sounds, scientifically, (i.e. from a scientific perspective)???
We typically do VERY long trials for these new drugs for very good reasons. So that we can get actual data for reasonably long periods so that we have some actual scientific basis for saying that it is likely to be safe. Yet when the drug is released, we've always acknowledged that it is new because despite the lengthy trials, we realize that the true test is releasing it to the public where we typically encounter all types of things that weren't anticipated, or not encountered in the trials. With the new vaccines, we've even skipped the lengthy trials.
What has allowed this mass psychosis/massive delusion to take place so that so many relatively intelligent folks, suddenly can't see the forest for the trees??? They are deluded by the simplest of manipulation, such as someone saying, "It took us decades to develop this, therefore we already know everything about this novel technology. It's not new at all". I mean, this is complete ludicrousy.