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So far the comments seem to come down on the side of "the government shouldn't be interfering with what people want to do". How would Hacker News respond if in

by zzzeek 7y ago

So far the comments seem to come down on the side of "the government shouldn't be interfering with what people want to do". How would Hacker News respond if instead this health consultant was primarily giving out advice that vaccinations cause autism, and that her nutritional advice was in fact how to avoid the need for vaccines ?

ackfoo 7y ago
The difference is that we have sound scientific evidence for the efficacy and safety of vaccines. We can give one group of people a vaccine, and another a placebo, in the course of a randomized, controlled, prospective, double-blind human trial. We cannot, however, conduct the same trial for different diets. There is no ethical way to completely control what someone eats in a double-blind fashion. This requires humans in captivity to be fed against their will. Such a trial is neither practical nor ethical, and the results are likely to be far less generalizable to a population because of the conditions of the experiment. We know a lot more about what to feed animals, because it has been possible to conduct controlled experiments upon them. Whether those were, in fact, ethical, is another question. So the problem is that the state-licensed nutritionist does not necessarily have better advice than an unlicensed practitioner, and it is impossible to prove that this is so. While it is a laudable idea to strive for a standard of good nutritional advice, to assume that the science underlying that advice is settled is profoundly naive.
SllX 7y ago
It’s a strange thing, but it turns out people have the right to be wrong in what they say. If it makes Americans uncomfortable that the court is taking this opinion, it’s because they are taking the position that this is an infringement on our rights as people. Remember, the Bill or Rights isn’t a granting of rights, it’s a restriction on the government to not infringe on the rights we are born with and which are inalienable.

by zzzeek 7y ago

ackfoo 7y ago

The difference is that we have sound scientific evidence for the efficacy and safety of vaccines. We can give one group of people a vaccine, and another a placebo, in the course of a randomized, controlled, prospective, double-blind human trial. We cannot, however, conduct the same trial for different diets. There is no ethical way to completely control what someone eats in a double-blind fashion. This requires humans in captivity to be fed against their will. Such a trial is neither practical nor ethical, and the results are likely to be far less generalizable to a population because of the conditions of the experiment. We know a lot more about what to feed animals, because it has been possible to conduct controlled experiments upon them. Whether those were, in fact, ethical, is another question. So the problem is that the state-licensed nutritionist does not necessarily have better advice than an unlicensed practitioner, and it is impossible to prove that this is so. While it is a laudable idea to strive for a standard of good nutritional advice, to assume that the science underlying that advice is settled is profoundly naive.

SllX 7y ago

It’s a strange thing, but it turns out people have the right to be wrong in what they say. If it makes Americans uncomfortable that the court is taking this opinion, it’s because they are taking the position that this is an infringement on our rights as people. Remember, the Bill or Rights isn’t a granting of rights, it’s a restriction on the government to not infringe on the rights we are born with and which are inalienable.