3 ms·

No, bad leftovers didn’t cause teen’s life-threatening infection, amputations

26 points by sohkamyung 5y ago

WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
I totally believed the original story. It's so hard to figure out what's true and what's not. What I find hard to admit is that I consider myself a fairly well informed individual; yet, I totally fell for this story. I wonder how much stuff I believe that's totally BS? It's very disheartening.
- andrewflnr 5y ago
  I think that feeling contributes to some people falling for conspiracy theories. Agnosticism is exhausting. Constantly finding out that you were wrong is just miserable. You just want to believe something, so it's tempting to just throw yourself into some belief. Also an important role religion has traditionally served. The non-falsifiability is a feature, not a bug.
- mc32 5y ago
  An article I read went even further and stated that rice and pasta because they are carbs are to be special suspects and should not be left out at room temperatures lest you gamble your health… and I’m thinking buffets and previous nights’ pizzas left out…
  - mbg721 5y ago
    Bacillus cereus is a real thing; you can't leave rice out at room temperature indefinitely, or at least that's how I was taught. Here's the British NHS's take on it: https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning/#:~:text=Uncooked%20rice%20can%20contain%20spores,that%20cause%20vomiting%20or%20diarrhoea https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can....
Vecr 5y ago
Technically you can't say with confidence that it did not happen, there's no actual evidence that it did not. That said, he probably got it the normal way (through the air) from his friend, or from whoever gave it to his friend. Not exactly related, but the WHO messing up with human-to-human and airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is not something you want to happen again, so you don't want to dismiss things with the confidence the article does.
- sohkamyung 5y ago
  The article does say this, which implies high confidence that the food had nothing to do with his condition. > "It was completely irrelevant to this patient's presentation," Rosenberg said, adding that the doctors on the case never thought that spoiled food caused the illness. "It was horrifying that this is how medical disinformation can be so easily disseminated... There were more media outlets than I can count who picked up on this and were reporting on it."
  - Vecr 5y ago
    That's absence of evidence, not evidence of absence. The dogma is that you can't get N. meningitidis invasive infection from food, but this case is no way provides evidence to support that you can't. Also, I oppose the label "disinformation", apparently a bunch of people got confused, including ProMED, no one is/was trying to pull anything.

26 points by sohkamyung 5y ago

I totally believed the original story. It's so hard to figure out what's true and what's not. What I find hard to admit is that I consider myself a fairly well informed individual; yet, I totally fell for this story. I wonder how much stuff I believe that's totally BS? It's very disheartening.

andrewflnr 5y ago
I think that feeling contributes to some people falling for conspiracy theories. Agnosticism is exhausting. Constantly finding out that you were wrong is just miserable. You just want to believe something, so it's tempting to just throw yourself into some belief. Also an important role religion has traditionally served. The non-falsifiability is a feature, not a bug.
mc32 5y ago
An article I read went even further and stated that rice and pasta because they are carbs are to be special suspects and should not be left out at room temperatures lest you gamble your health… and I’m thinking buffets and previous nights’ pizzas left out…
- mbg721 5y ago
  Bacillus cereus is a real thing; you can't leave rice out at room temperature indefinitely, or at least that's how I was taught. Here's the British NHS's take on it: https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning/#:~:text=Uncooked%20rice%20can%20contain%20spores,that%20cause%20vomiting%20or%20diarrhoea https://www.nhs.uk/common-health-questions/food-and-diet/can....

Vecr 5y ago

Technically you can't say with confidence that it did not happen, there's no actual evidence that it did not. That said, he probably got it the normal way (through the air) from his friend, or from whoever gave it to his friend. Not exactly related, but the WHO messing up with human-to-human and airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is not something you want to happen again, so you don't want to dismiss things with the confidence the article does.

sohkamyung 5y ago
The article does say this, which implies high confidence that the food had nothing to do with his condition. > "It was completely irrelevant to this patient's presentation," Rosenberg said, adding that the doctors on the case never thought that spoiled food caused the illness. "It was horrifying that this is how medical disinformation can be so easily disseminated... There were more media outlets than I can count who picked up on this and were reporting on it."
- Vecr 5y ago
  That's absence of evidence, not evidence of absence. The dogma is that you can't get N. meningitidis invasive infection from food, but this case is no way provides evidence to support that you can't. Also, I oppose the label "disinformation", apparently a bunch of people got confused, including ProMED, no one is/was trying to pull anything.