10 ms·
Covid-19: politicisation, “corruption,” and suppression of science
- generalizations 6y agoQuote: > [...] research published this week by The BMJ [...] finds that the government procured an antibody test that in real world tests falls well short of performance claims made by its manufacturers. Researchers from Public Health England and collaborating institutions sensibly pushed to publish their study findings before the government committed to buying a million of these tests but were blocked by the health department and the prime minister’s office. Why was it important to procure this product without due scrutiny? Prior publication of research on a preprint server or a government website is compatible with The BMJ’s publication policy. As if to prove a point, Public Health England then unsuccessfully attempted to block The BMJ’s press release about the research paper.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y agoThis seems like pretty dishonest framing from the article. The government was quite explicit about why it was important to procure this product without due scrutiny (https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4353?ijkey=369744d6c8b0a332cbd7d1378b0ac1556cb2f2c0&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4353?ijkey=369744d6c8b0...). They urgently needed a lot of tests in order to do surveillance testing, and the normal standards of quality for medical tests don't matter enough to delay pandemic surveillance until they're satisfied. More generally, I think this clearly demonstrates the problem with claims of politicization: the question of which corners should be cut to address a public health emergency is inherently political.
- s1artibartfast 6y agoIf the governments position was simply that this test was good enough, or that they wanted to proceeded at risk, there would be no problem. The problem is that the government also actively tried to suppress accurate scientific publications about these tests.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- biffstallion 6y agoFunny, a week after the elections we got our first announcement from a biotech firm of a viable 90% effective vaccine, now another week later we have a second firm announcing 94% effectiveness. No politics, right. When the President banned flights from China months ago, the Democrat response was "XENOPHOBIA". Again, no politics, right.
- tomohawk 6y agoPeople's healthcare gets nationalized and there's surprise that healthcare becomes politically driven? Who would have thought?
- pjc50 6y agoIt's the privatisation that is making people suspicious: the private companies who've been awarded public money with inadequate scrutiny inevitably turn out to be linked to the ruling party or their donors. (see linked footnote https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n21/peter-geoghegan/cronyism-and-clientelism?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bmj.com%2F https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n21/peter-geoghegan/cron... )
- newacct583 6y agoHonestly, these UK incidents detailed seem awfully tame to someone across the ocean.
- vmchale 6y agoForreal. In the US, public health officials are getting death threats.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- s1artibartfast 6y agoOn the contrary, at least in the US I don't worry about the government censoring scientific journal articles about covid that make them look bad. Maybe I am wrong about this.
- thinkingemote 6y agoIndeed, the editorial gives examples from the US: "Suppression of science and scientists is not new or a peculiarly British phenomenon. In the US, President Trump’s government manipulated the Food and Drug Administration to hastily approve unproved drugs such as hydroxychloroquine and remdesivir."
- lumberingjack 6y agoUnited States FDA did not approve of neither so this is just a fluff editorial that doesn't fact check some of us call that fake news
- newacct583 6y agoThe FDA absolutely approved those drugs via emergency authorizations. That's the point: they weren't able to be approved via a normal process so the administration went around the bureaucracy. And in the case of HCQ they did this in contravention of the clear science surrounding the drug. Do you have a link to "not fake" news explaining how these drugs were somehow not approved?
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoIts pretty crazy. Report about a bunch of people denying COVID exists with their last COVID induced dying breaths. www.cnn.com/videos/us/2020/11/16/south-dakota-nurse-intv-newday-vpx.cnn
- bioinformatics 6y agoI don't know if you are naive or dumb to believe that woman. Maybe both.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- petertodd 6y agoNote that the "last dying words" claim has been disputed due to there being just 11 deaths where that nurse worked: https://twitter.com/Zigmanfreud/status/1328401634360131585 https://twitter.com/Zigmanfreud/status/1328401634360131585
- setpatchaddress 6y agoYeah, disputed by a hard-right anti-mask COVID truther. I dunno about the story in question, but at this point, these people can't be considered neutral referees. They exist to shitpost and drive wedges between people.
- petertodd 6y agoHe provided an authoritative source - official death stats - and a rational explanation as to why that source suggests the nurses claim may be a lie. As others in this thread pointed out, the attention of getting on to CNN is unfortunately enough to encourage people to lie. You don't need to trust him personally.
- ceejayoz 6y ago> You don't need to trust him personally. You do, though. You need to trust that he's not omitting critical information, either via ignorance or deliberate malice. Information like this: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/tech_notes.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/tech_notes.htm > It is important to note that it can take several weeks for death records to be submitted to National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), processed, coded, and tabulated. Therefore, the data shown on this page may be incomplete, and will likely not include all deaths that occurred during a given time period, especially for the more recent time periods.
- sleepysysadmin 6y agoSay you were Emperor of Antagria(Neighbour of Canada). You find out there is a highly infectious mutated virus spreading. It has entered your country. Early modeling places it less deadly than the flu but higher infectiousness. Which likely means mass deaths. It's February 3rd, Australia and the USA closed their borders to China. Trump's political opponents are calling him xenophobic and racist. Canada denounced "the spread of misinformation and fear across Canadian society" and called on the opposition to "not sensationalize the risk to Canadians",[15][16] while Tam endorsed the position by the World Health Organization, which "advises against any kind of travel and trade restrictions, saying that they are inappropriate and could actually cause more harm than good in terms of our global effort to contain" the disease.[15] Your own advisors are likely telling to much of the same thing. Afterall, it's not even a Pandemic yet, that doesnt happen until March 11th. You tend to agree Trump is xenophobic and racist. So you don't shutdown the border. But you could potentially save lots of lives if you do shut it down. You decide not to because you dont want to be called xenophobic and racist. Month later, March 13th comes along and Canada is finally pretending to close it's borders; when in reality is actually not. Multiple flights a day were still coming from China. You look at the Canadians and think they might have an idea what they are doing. Maybe those flights are just repatriating their own citizens? You look into it and there's absolutely no checks to see if those people are healthy, they arent really serious about the lockdown. You think, perhaps we should wear masks? But Canada's chief of public health outright dismisses the idea. It's april now and Tam is saying "people who are not sick should not wear a face mask at all" You figure that perhaps she's educated and knows well, perhaps masks dont work? You could order that you must wear a mask to go out in public. It might save lives but surely Chief of Public Health in Canada knows what she is doing. It's now May 20th and this same person now says we should wear masks? Why didn't you tell the citizens of Antagria to wear masks sooner? At what point do you as Emperor make the decision to lockdown? At what point do you face being called xenophobic and a racist and actually lockdown? You also realize that when you lockdown and removed fundamental human rights. You need to show people you're re-opening. So you lockdown more than you even need to, in order to have a reopening where you end up at the appropriate lockdown level. So you even shutdown your government's parks and other outdoor areas. Only to open them up shortly afterwards. Why is Covid so politicized? Why is there corruption and suppression of science? Because without suppressing Covid dissent someone might say you have completely screwed up your response to the issue.
- tpoacher 6y agoOne cautiously notes this is the exact scenario that Andrew Wakefield complained had happened with MMR.
- ceejayoz 6y agoThe corruption in the MMR scenario came from Wakefield, including having applied for a patent for a competing vaccine, and receiving over $400k by trial lawyers pushing to show the MMR vaccine to be dangerous, resulting in findings that he "had been dishonest in his research, had acted against his patients' best interests and mistreated developmentally delayed children, and had 'failed in his duties as a responsible consultant'" and his being barred from practicing medicine in the UK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud#Conflict_of_interest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancet_MMR_autism_fraud#Confli...
- tpoacher 6y agoQuite right! Hence "cautiously". Regardless, one may still "cautiously note this is the exact scenario that Andrew Wakefield complained had happened with MMR", without contradicting anything you (quite rightly) pointed out about the nature of later events. And just as with this story, and as others have commented elsewhere, this behaviour by the government (pushing a solution they were aware had a high probability of being substandard) may or may not be more related to political than medical factors, and may or may not have involved malicious intent.
- YinglingLight 6y agoWestern Civilization would not have made it to where it is today without the Scientific Method. Full Stop. Science™, as it exists today, is a deified Organization, filling the vacuum of religion in the secular West. Corruption grows under the guise of purity. Be it the Catholic Church, be it Sumo Wrestling. What sentence spoke to the HNer's ear is more unquestionably swallowed than one prefaced with "Scientists report..." ? As if Scientists don't have mortgages to pay. As if funding was entirely detached from motives. Full throated acceptance.
- mywittyname 6y ago> Science™, as it exists today, is a deified Organization, filling the vacuum of religion in the secular West. I don't really agree here. I can see the argument that most fields are so advanced that people need to have "faith" in scientific leadership because they can't hope to achieve a deep understanding of most fields of science. At least that trust is given to a group who is ostensibly equipped to refute false or misleading findings via the scientific method. But that's not replacing the role of religion, which is more political, social, & ethical in nature. I'd argue political systems have displaced religion in most of the West. Also, shouldn't your username be YuenglingLight
- YinglingLight 6y ago>But that's not replacing the role of religion, which is more political, social, & ethical in nature. Science has been all three in Europe for the last 80 years, in the US, the last 40.
- pjc50 6y agoThere's a discussion to be had about "scientism", but this isn't it.
- jjgreen 6y agoAll sounds a bit left-field until you hear Venki Ramakrishnan, President of the (UK) Royal Society, describe randomised controlled trials of masks as “methodological fetishism”. I await the result of Thomas Benfield's (Copenhagen) study on the same with interest.
- thinkingemote 6y agoThis is an editorial by the Executive Editor of the prestigious British Medical Journal.
- dirtyid 6y agoThere was never a possibility that an event as generationally and globally impactful as Covid19 would not have be politicized. But it doesn't help that it's happening at a time with record distrust of science.