7 ms·

Yup, looks like it: - Aaron Kheriarty is no longer associated with UC Irvine after refusing their vaccine mandate (this changed between the filing and now) and

by geofft 5y ago

Yup, looks like it: - Aaron Kheriarty is no longer associated with UC Irvine after refusing their vaccine mandate (this changed between the filing and now) and tweets links to The American Conservative. https://twitter.com/akheriaty https://twitter.com/akheriaty - Harvey Risch published an opinion piece in favor of hydroxycholoroquine in the American Journal of Epidemiology which attracted opposition from many other scientists as inappropriate/unscientific (not simply wrong yet within the bounds of good-faith scientific inquiry) and a response from that journal. https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/190/4/491/5898696 https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/190/4/491/5898696 - Peter McCullough appeared on an episode of Joe Rogan where even Joe Rogan correctly identified that his claims were implausible. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29655002 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29655002 I got bored after the first page, I can look further....

colpabar 5y ago
Well I for one am glad that FOIA requests don't depend on whether you like the people filing them. I find it absolutely ridiculous that asking for this data is seen as a bad thing. Why are pharmaceutical companies suddenly beyond questioning?
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    Humanity is who is asking for answers.
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      Looking for answers or looking for ammunition in an ideological war against vaccination?
  - Karunamon 5y ago
    Hiding information and general untrustworthiness harms credibility, which is a chicken that's going to come home to roost the next time there's a public health crisis. The CDC blew a lot of its credibility with the (arguably noble) early lie about masks not working. Pharma companies probably don't have that much to lose. Now it's the FDA's turn. "We must hide legally-required-to-be-available information because some people may misuse it" is a path with unlimited abuse potential, best avoided.
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      Look, again, I’m not suggesting any legally required information should be hidden. But if you think the end result of releasing massive amount of even totally-above-board information is going to be increased public trust, then you must have sleepwalked the last 6 years. There’s a good case to be made that releasing this is the best course. But let’s not pretend that public trust won’t be eroded because it takes an order of magnitude more work to disprove bulls### than to make it up (or twist it) in the first place. And it isn’t any particularly information I’m talking about, simply the vast quantity involved. The vaccine becoming political is probably the worst thing to happen to humanity in the last 2-3 years. Worse probably than COVID itself. EDIT: just thought of one possible solution or at least mitigation to the “Bull### asymmetry principle” when combined with massive data dumps: Limit the amount of material that can be requested. Any specific dates or whatever could be requested within the stack. Or if a representative sample is desired, the entire dump is sectioned in pieces and each section is securely hashed. The one doing the request can then request, say, up to 100-1000 sections and each such section can then have its hash compared. That ensures the random selection is random to the satisfaction of the requesting party. And it limits the amount of bulls### that needs to be countered to some reasonable level. Otherwise, any attacker will be able to overwhelm the public with endless claims from a massive stash of requested documents. This doesn’t limit the amount of work for scrubbing PII, though, since you’d have to scrub it before hashing or the hashing wouldn’t be recreatable. But at least you’d limit the amount of unique bulls### that’d need to be countered.
      - Karunamon 5y ago
        The FDA could've had the policy that the data is scrubbed and made available as its ingested. And, quite honestly, I see this complaint of theirs as one made in bad faith. Once they have no other choice, they'll comply in a lot faster than 3/4 of a fucking century. Really, I see FOIA requests as failures of government; as in they represent the government being poked to be transparent when transparency should be the default.
  - colpabar 5y ago
    Of course people are going to cherry-pick things that suit their narrative from this massive amount of information. But that's the game. If there are questionable things in this data, then it's up to our public health officials to explain them. This vaccine is a new type of medicine that was produced faster than vaccine before it. It also seems to work. But regardless, we all deserve to see every bit of information about its production, especially now that people's jobs depend on them getting it.
- geofft 5y ago
  To be clear, I am not saying "This FOIA request is bad because I don't like the people filing them." I agree transparency is good, and I in fact think it should be the default, no FOIA necessary, including and perhaps especially for things like medical approvals. That means the assumption of it being made public should be built in at every step of the process, including notes of patient trials. I am simply responding to the comment above that asks, who are the people who are requesting the information, and what is their agenda. That is also a very important thing to know for a vibrant public discourse.
  - colpabar 5y ago
    Fair enough; thanks for elaborating. I just can't help but think that pfizer did this on purpose - not making redacted versions of their data, knowing it would take the FDA forever to do that if it ever got FOIA'd.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
vorpalhex 5y ago
> and tweets links to The American Conservative. Why do we care about this? Does he also have bad taste in summer outfits? > which attracted opposition from many other scientists as inappropriate/unscientific (not simply wrong yet within the bounds of good-faith scientific inquiry) That is incorrect. The counter arguments were narrow and about statistical methods, specifically risk ratio usage and confounders. Neither side appeared out of bounds in this debate. > Peter McCullough appeared on an episode of Joe Rogan where even Joe Rogan correctly identified that his claims were implausible. Your evidence here is an HN thread which restates the issue. Double infections are exceedingly rare (currently): https://nypost.com/2022/01/03/israel-reports-rare-double-infection-of-covid-19-and-flu/ https://nypost.com/2022/01/03/israel-reports-rare-double-inf... Attack facts and claims, not people.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  > Why do we care about this? Does he also have bad taste in summer outfits? You can feign ignorance here but the answer is obvious. Anti-vax talking points are far more common in conservative media.
  - Jimmc414 5y ago
    For the sake of argument even if they were conservatives or anti-vaxer or felons or insurrectionists the Freedom of Information Act still applies to them.
    - staticassertion 5y ago
      The initial statement was questioning their motives, not to remove the FOIA. > My guess is it's a group of charlatans looking to sell their own COVID cures
- samsa 5y ago
  The NY Post article you link to is about getting both Covid and influenza at the same time. That may be rare. Getting covid a second time after having previously had it (which is what McCullough erroneously claimed was near impossible) is in fact increasingly common.
tagoregrtst 5y ago
“[…] tweets links to The American Conservative” Cant blame him though. It is a great magazine.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  What do you find great about it? (Honestly asked as a non-reader unfamiliar with its content, aside from the implication of the name)
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    If you are a liberal interested in what conservatives think about things, without going full Q crazy, you could do worse. If you are interested in anti-trump conservative thought, The Bulwark is another good source.
  - tagoregrtst 5y ago
    What I like most is that, whilr unapologetically conservative, they are fair and will acknowledge faults in the right and good in the left. Take their editor Dreher. Dreher is a very social conservative, and economically populist. So is he a Trumpist? He despises Trump specifically for his character shortcomings and has no patience for someone who cant see Trump do any bad. Dreher also has complete intolerance for incivility towards his opponents. Also, I havent found any other publication explain the damage that cars have caused America than their segment “The new Urbs”. Only Ivan Illich’s quip that cars average 5mph come close to the poignancy. For TAC the car’s sins aren't CO2 emissions. The sin of the car is that it ripped our cities apart. For TAC, the electric car isn't the solution but a mere bandaid. They are unabashedly anti-war and anti-interventionist in a manner that Mark Twain, or Smedley Butler would be were they alive (ie many of them, like Twain and Butler, made the mistake of believing the establishment narrative on foreign intervention and are furiously making amends). Finally, TAC is a gateway to sober conservative intelligentsia, which exists, is very broad and very rich. How many have heard of Roger Scruton compare to Hannity? EDIT: Some criticism is in order. They appear to be a talent incubator, a lot of their columnists are recent grads. They’re great, but they don't last long and I miss some of the old guys (especially their urbanism guy) They are increasingly a christian focused magazine, which is fine by me, but does limit their palpability for HN readers. That being said, i suspect believers of any faith would be more comfortable reading TAC than NYT (in my experience religious people are more comfortable with people of other faith than with secularism - but its a long and off topic point) Finally, about the ME coverage. Its simple, its not in the US interest or our problem. Agreed. However their stance on Israel is softer than it was but harsher than mainstream media. Everyone has a problem with men in the middle.

by geofft 5y ago

colpabar 5y ago

Well I for one am glad that FOIA requests don't depend on whether you like the people filing them. I find it absolutely ridiculous that asking for this data is seen as a bad thing. Why are pharmaceutical companies suddenly beyond questioning?

Robotbeat 5y ago
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Humanity is who is asking for answers.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Looking for answers or looking for ammunition in an ideological war against vaccination?
- Karunamon 5y ago
  Hiding information and general untrustworthiness harms credibility, which is a chicken that's going to come home to roost the next time there's a public health crisis. The CDC blew a lot of its credibility with the (arguably noble) early lie about masks not working. Pharma companies probably don't have that much to lose. Now it's the FDA's turn. "We must hide legally-required-to-be-available information because some people may misuse it" is a path with unlimited abuse potential, best avoided.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Look, again, I’m not suggesting any legally required information should be hidden. But if you think the end result of releasing massive amount of even totally-above-board information is going to be increased public trust, then you must have sleepwalked the last 6 years. There’s a good case to be made that releasing this is the best course. But let’s not pretend that public trust won’t be eroded because it takes an order of magnitude more work to disprove bulls### than to make it up (or twist it) in the first place. And it isn’t any particularly information I’m talking about, simply the vast quantity involved. The vaccine becoming political is probably the worst thing to happen to humanity in the last 2-3 years. Worse probably than COVID itself. EDIT: just thought of one possible solution or at least mitigation to the “Bull### asymmetry principle” when combined with massive data dumps: Limit the amount of material that can be requested. Any specific dates or whatever could be requested within the stack. Or if a representative sample is desired, the entire dump is sectioned in pieces and each section is securely hashed. The one doing the request can then request, say, up to 100-1000 sections and each such section can then have its hash compared. That ensures the random selection is random to the satisfaction of the requesting party. And it limits the amount of bulls### that needs to be countered to some reasonable level. Otherwise, any attacker will be able to overwhelm the public with endless claims from a massive stash of requested documents. This doesn’t limit the amount of work for scrubbing PII, though, since you’d have to scrub it before hashing or the hashing wouldn’t be recreatable. But at least you’d limit the amount of unique bulls### that’d need to be countered.
    - Karunamon 5y ago
      The FDA could've had the policy that the data is scrubbed and made available as its ingested. And, quite honestly, I see this complaint of theirs as one made in bad faith. Once they have no other choice, they'll comply in a lot faster than 3/4 of a fucking century. Really, I see FOIA requests as failures of government; as in they represent the government being poked to be transparent when transparency should be the default.
- colpabar 5y ago
  Of course people are going to cherry-pick things that suit their narrative from this massive amount of information. But that's the game. If there are questionable things in this data, then it's up to our public health officials to explain them. This vaccine is a new type of medicine that was produced faster than vaccine before it. It also seems to work. But regardless, we all deserve to see every bit of information about its production, especially now that people's jobs depend on them getting it.
geofft 5y ago
To be clear, I am not saying "This FOIA request is bad because I don't like the people filing them." I agree transparency is good, and I in fact think it should be the default, no FOIA necessary, including and perhaps especially for things like medical approvals. That means the assumption of it being made public should be built in at every step of the process, including notes of patient trials. I am simply responding to the comment above that asks, who are the people who are requesting the information, and what is their agenda. That is also a very important thing to know for a vibrant public discourse.
- colpabar 5y ago
  Fair enough; thanks for elaborating. I just can't help but think that pfizer did this on purpose - not making redacted versions of their data, knowing it would take the FDA forever to do that if it ever got FOIA'd.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

vorpalhex 5y ago

> and tweets links to The American Conservative. Why do we care about this? Does he also have bad taste in summer outfits? > which attracted opposition from many other scientists as inappropriate/unscientific (not simply wrong yet within the bounds of good-faith scientific inquiry) That is incorrect. The counter arguments were narrow and about statistical methods, specifically risk ratio usage and confounders. Neither side appeared out of bounds in this debate. > Peter McCullough appeared on an episode of Joe Rogan where even Joe Rogan correctly identified that his claims were implausible. Your evidence here is an HN thread which restates the issue. Double infections are exceedingly rare (currently): https://nypost.com/2022/01/03/israel-reports-rare-double-infection-of-covid-19-and-flu/ https://nypost.com/2022/01/03/israel-reports-rare-double-inf... Attack facts and claims, not people.

staticassertion 5y ago
> Why do we care about this? Does he also have bad taste in summer outfits? You can feign ignorance here but the answer is obvious. Anti-vax talking points are far more common in conservative media.
- Jimmc414 5y ago
  For the sake of argument even if they were conservatives or anti-vaxer or felons or insurrectionists the Freedom of Information Act still applies to them.
  - staticassertion 5y ago
    The initial statement was questioning their motives, not to remove the FOIA. > My guess is it's a group of charlatans looking to sell their own COVID cures
samsa 5y ago
The NY Post article you link to is about getting both Covid and influenza at the same time. That may be rare. Getting covid a second time after having previously had it (which is what McCullough erroneously claimed was near impossible) is in fact increasingly common.

tagoregrtst 5y ago

“[…] tweets links to The American Conservative” Cant blame him though. It is a great magazine.

ethbr0 5y ago
What do you find great about it? (Honestly asked as a non-reader unfamiliar with its content, aside from the implication of the name)
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  If you are a liberal interested in what conservatives think about things, without going full Q crazy, you could do worse. If you are interested in anti-trump conservative thought, The Bulwark is another good source.
- tagoregrtst 5y ago
  What I like most is that, whilr unapologetically conservative, they are fair and will acknowledge faults in the right and good in the left. Take their editor Dreher. Dreher is a very social conservative, and economically populist. So is he a Trumpist? He despises Trump specifically for his character shortcomings and has no patience for someone who cant see Trump do any bad. Dreher also has complete intolerance for incivility towards his opponents. Also, I havent found any other publication explain the damage that cars have caused America than their segment “The new Urbs”. Only Ivan Illich’s quip that cars average 5mph come close to the poignancy. For TAC the car’s sins aren't CO2 emissions. The sin of the car is that it ripped our cities apart. For TAC, the electric car isn't the solution but a mere bandaid. They are unabashedly anti-war and anti-interventionist in a manner that Mark Twain, or Smedley Butler would be were they alive (ie many of them, like Twain and Butler, made the mistake of believing the establishment narrative on foreign intervention and are furiously making amends). Finally, TAC is a gateway to sober conservative intelligentsia, which exists, is very broad and very rich. How many have heard of Roger Scruton compare to Hannity? EDIT: Some criticism is in order. They appear to be a talent incubator, a lot of their columnists are recent grads. They’re great, but they don't last long and I miss some of the old guys (especially their urbanism guy) They are increasingly a christian focused magazine, which is fine by me, but does limit their palpability for HN readers. That being said, i suspect believers of any faith would be more comfortable reading TAC than NYT (in my experience religious people are more comfortable with people of other faith than with secularism - but its a long and off topic point) Finally, about the ME coverage. Its simple, its not in the US interest or our problem. Agreed. However their stance on Israel is softer than it was but harsher than mainstream media. Everyone has a problem with men in the middle.