what-to-do
You are kind of right. New drug discovery does take a long time to become standard of care. However there have been lots of exceptions. Car-T treatment for some blood cancers was given approval after only Phase 1 testing due to 90%+ response rate. And it's not alone. The FDA and EMS have process for this.
There are lots of scary rumours going around about these vaccines. Mostly by those that think 5G is also responsible for virus spread,but none of these rumours not supported by science.
The corona virus has been known about for a long time. SARS, swine flu, MERS are all part of that virus group. Just the mutated strain has changed. This has helped with expedited drug process. So no, it's not a conspiracy.
The testing of thalidomide is in no way near the quality of testing these vaccines have gone through. It would seem the medical testing learned from mistakes and adapt, just like we do in aviation. And that is a very good thing indeed.