6 ms·

The CDC is full of shit. It’s not complicated.

by junofan 4y ago

shadowgovt 4y ago
What does the CDC have to gain by downplaying the seriousness of this disaster?
- throw_m239339 4y ago
  > What does the CDC have to gain by downplaying the seriousness of this disaster? Don't you remember what happened to 9/11 workers who then died of specific forms of cancer? The US government fully knew that working there was dangerous for their health due to the toxic dust. What executive working at the CDC now will still be there in 15 years? That won't be their problem...
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    9/11 was an unprecedented event; nobody had been exposed to that level of powdered modern-constructed building before in the US. Not in those population numbers. Vinyl chloride exposure risk, in contrast, is pretty well understood; we've been working with it for over 100 years (and crashing trainloads of it for about that long). I agree the EPA (not CDC) made errors after 9/11, but they were working with a novel threat.
    - gregw2 4y ago
      “Novel threat?!” Just “Errors?” You underplay this, however unwittingly. (Sorry for the long post here.) I lived in New York suburbs and had a firefighter friend who by his commanding officers was encouraged not to go down there (reasons unknown to me) despite being willing. I was glad for him (and his family) because the risk of spending days/weeks in that strange smelling smoke were pretty obvious. Common sense isn’t “science” but the Bayesian priors for the risk given what we knew about asbestos, asbestos in office buildings, other chemicals in plastics in office buildings, the prolonged period people were working in the smoke, the lack of leadership demanding masks due to the discomfort/heat and the great strange stench of the smoke were all pretty obvious to anyone following the news in the area. Amidst very reasonable questioning and concern for first responder heros spending large amounts of time in the smoke (and after it was clear there were no more survivors to be found), while smoke was still abundant, the EPA literally declared it was “safe” during public questioning about it and in very strong terms, when it was clear there could be no such scientific basis to conclude a statement as strong as that. I was shocked at the time and I hold their previously respectable but politically-oriented leader Christine Todd Whitman personally responsible for the lie and injury to 1000s of people so that the capitalist system could rebuild as fast as possible at the expense of first responder suckers who trusted the elite all the while praising them for their sacrifice. (I don’t usually view the world in such terms but in this particular circumstance I completely do.) The way people clearing the site as fast as possible were lied to was unconscionable. I am sure Ms. Whitman was pressured from above her, but I consider it one of the most obvious blatant political economically-driven hypocritical lies to come out of my government, a complete self-betrayal of the EPA in fulfilling their core mission purpose and values, and a dark disgrace upon all involved. Looking back, I don’t think I misremembered the EPA characterization of it as “safe”. They did declare it safe per Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency_September_11_attacks_pollution_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_... Per Wikipedia, Ms Whitman claims the agency statement of “safe” was never about ground zero, just lower manhattan, which I will concede may be true, but ground zero was a super obvious concern at the time amidst press questioning and even if I should be charitable and not claim it was a bald face lie, it was a lie by omission, misdirection, etc. The lack of clarity on the risks to ground workers or public concern or advocacy for them by the agency with the most expertise and pertinent mission was and is a betrayal. They couldn’t have added a qualifying statement of concern with whatever degree of uncertainty they had at the time about ground zero at the time? “There are risks/unknown here but not here?” I don’t mind also blaming local political officials also for using/misusing/twisting EPA words for their agendas and on behalf of are business owners small or large, or national security officials playing psychological or political games at the requests of their leadership, but I came away with the a stench of deception. I try to tell myself “Deception? Couldn’t it have been just ordinary incompetence, a failure of leadership, scientific uncertainty?” But the silence about the risks to first responders and cleanup teams —all the while while the entire culture was voluminously heroizing them, to me, speaks volumes. This was a completely predictable tragedy which, while perhaps not completely avoidable, would have been much more morally defensible if the risks and unknowns would have been openly acknowledged and disclosed responsibly to the people who put their lives and health on the line to accelerate economic recovery so they could make an informed decision or requested at least hazard pay before taking the risks. But no. They were deceived and lied to. All while being praised for their sacrifice. Makes me sick.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  Loss of government credibility for telling people that they were in no danger while clouds of toxins were visible overhead? If there is one thing you can out on, it is that government agencies will always circle the wagons to cover up malfeasance and/or incompetence.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    That's exactly why, if anything, the CDC is incentivized to overstate the risk. Credibility is their stock in trade.
    - junofan 4y ago
      They’re incentivized to focus on interagency bullshit and little else.
    - goodSteveramos 4y ago
      Why didnt CDC report the symptoms of their own employees?
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        Is it interesting or relevant? I have similar symptoms right now; it's called "what you get when you have a cold." No causality, nothing to report.
        VagueMag 4y ago
        I don't know, they told healthy 20 year olds to take multiple shots of largely untested injections to avoid those same symptoms, so
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        Can you clarify your meaning?
        deleted 4y ago
- hedora 4y ago
  Immediately before this accident, the rail workers were striking over inadequate safety rules. Multiple trains derailed in East Palistine. Netflix even filmed a documentary about it there. Knowing all that, both parties sided with the railways and voted to force the rail workers back to work. Post accident, audio recordings of a railway supervisor ordering safety inspectors to ignore safety issues were released. Poisoning an entire town is not a good look for either the Democrats or the Republicans, so the CDC has every political incentive possible to downplay this incident, regardless of who wins the next election.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    ... except CDC scientists have a reputation independent of the political machine. They have more to lose being branded liars than to gain toeing party lines.
    - zaroth 4y ago
      It’s a little late to start caring about lying now…
    - revelio 4y ago
      [flagged]
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        Honestly, the way the public acted during COVID is half the reason I default to trusting the CDC. It's a far sight better than trusting the voices that tried to replace the CDC with their own "expertise."
        thisisdumb93 4y ago
        [flagged]
        shadowgovt 4y ago
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Maybe they did it so that it would be easier to remove medical and CDC personnel from the area. After all, protecting these people was the justification the public health administration used to say "masks don't work". You have to be a total sucker to believe they're optimizing for your subpopulation. They're the #1 Greater Good Team. If admitting they got sick would reduce faith in the government and that would be bad For The Greater Good, they would just lie.
  - shadowgovt 4y ago
    The CDC didn't say masks don't work. They did say cloth masks weren't as effective as N95s.
    - revelio 4y ago
      Oh how quickly we forget. https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cdc-mask-guidance-during-covid-19-pandemic https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cd... March 24, 2020 Even as the coronavirus spreads across the United States — shutting down businesses, sporting events and schools — the CDC’s advice around masking remains unequivocal: Healthy people who do not work in the healthcare sector and are not taking care of an infected person at home do not need to wear masks.
      - shadowgovt 4y ago
        Ah, now that I know what you mean: Yes, the CDC said masks don't prevent the spread of the virus. They also said it mitigates the spread of the virus, which are both true statements when the number of people wearing masks grows to "most of the country." Medicine is a statistical science, which a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the nuances of.
        revelio 4y ago
        I'm not renewiltord, who actually talked about public health officials not the CDC, unless he edited that part of his post. Hardly makes a difference though. CDC advice in March 2020 was that the vast majority don't need to wear one. Then suddenly everyone had to wear one, on pain of fines. Nothing about masks or the virus or "the science" changed. The reliability problem remains.
- User23 4y ago
  One reason is so they can focus their resources on serving underprivileged communities instead of a 97% white town.

The CDC is full of shit. It’s not complicated.

shadowgovt 4y ago

What does the CDC have to gain by downplaying the seriousness of this disaster?

throw_m239339 4y ago
> What does the CDC have to gain by downplaying the seriousness of this disaster? Don't you remember what happened to 9/11 workers who then died of specific forms of cancer? The US government fully knew that working there was dangerous for their health due to the toxic dust. What executive working at the CDC now will still be there in 15 years? That won't be their problem...
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  9/11 was an unprecedented event; nobody had been exposed to that level of powdered modern-constructed building before in the US. Not in those population numbers. Vinyl chloride exposure risk, in contrast, is pretty well understood; we've been working with it for over 100 years (and crashing trainloads of it for about that long). I agree the EPA (not CDC) made errors after 9/11, but they were working with a novel threat.
  - gregw2 4y ago
    “Novel threat?!” Just “Errors?” You underplay this, however unwittingly. (Sorry for the long post here.) I lived in New York suburbs and had a firefighter friend who by his commanding officers was encouraged not to go down there (reasons unknown to me) despite being willing. I was glad for him (and his family) because the risk of spending days/weeks in that strange smelling smoke were pretty obvious. Common sense isn’t “science” but the Bayesian priors for the risk given what we knew about asbestos, asbestos in office buildings, other chemicals in plastics in office buildings, the prolonged period people were working in the smoke, the lack of leadership demanding masks due to the discomfort/heat and the great strange stench of the smoke were all pretty obvious to anyone following the news in the area. Amidst very reasonable questioning and concern for first responder heros spending large amounts of time in the smoke (and after it was clear there were no more survivors to be found), while smoke was still abundant, the EPA literally declared it was “safe” during public questioning about it and in very strong terms, when it was clear there could be no such scientific basis to conclude a statement as strong as that. I was shocked at the time and I hold their previously respectable but politically-oriented leader Christine Todd Whitman personally responsible for the lie and injury to 1000s of people so that the capitalist system could rebuild as fast as possible at the expense of first responder suckers who trusted the elite all the while praising them for their sacrifice. (I don’t usually view the world in such terms but in this particular circumstance I completely do.) The way people clearing the site as fast as possible were lied to was unconscionable. I am sure Ms. Whitman was pressured from above her, but I consider it one of the most obvious blatant political economically-driven hypocritical lies to come out of my government, a complete self-betrayal of the EPA in fulfilling their core mission purpose and values, and a dark disgrace upon all involved. Looking back, I don’t think I misremembered the EPA characterization of it as “safe”. They did declare it safe per Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Protection_Agency_September_11_attacks_pollution_controversy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_... Per Wikipedia, Ms Whitman claims the agency statement of “safe” was never about ground zero, just lower manhattan, which I will concede may be true, but ground zero was a super obvious concern at the time amidst press questioning and even if I should be charitable and not claim it was a bald face lie, it was a lie by omission, misdirection, etc. The lack of clarity on the risks to ground workers or public concern or advocacy for them by the agency with the most expertise and pertinent mission was and is a betrayal. They couldn’t have added a qualifying statement of concern with whatever degree of uncertainty they had at the time about ground zero at the time? “There are risks/unknown here but not here?” I don’t mind also blaming local political officials also for using/misusing/twisting EPA words for their agendas and on behalf of are business owners small or large, or national security officials playing psychological or political games at the requests of their leadership, but I came away with the a stench of deception. I try to tell myself “Deception? Couldn’t it have been just ordinary incompetence, a failure of leadership, scientific uncertainty?” But the silence about the risks to first responders and cleanup teams —all the while while the entire culture was voluminously heroizing them, to me, speaks volumes. This was a completely predictable tragedy which, while perhaps not completely avoidable, would have been much more morally defensible if the risks and unknowns would have been openly acknowledged and disclosed responsibly to the people who put their lives and health on the line to accelerate economic recovery so they could make an informed decision or requested at least hazard pay before taking the risks. But no. They were deceived and lied to. All while being praised for their sacrifice. Makes me sick.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
Loss of government credibility for telling people that they were in no danger while clouds of toxins were visible overhead? If there is one thing you can out on, it is that government agencies will always circle the wagons to cover up malfeasance and/or incompetence.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  That's exactly why, if anything, the CDC is incentivized to overstate the risk. Credibility is their stock in trade.
  - junofan 4y ago
    They’re incentivized to focus on interagency bullshit and little else.
  - goodSteveramos 4y ago
    Why didnt CDC report the symptoms of their own employees?
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      Is it interesting or relevant? I have similar symptoms right now; it's called "what you get when you have a cold." No causality, nothing to report.
      - VagueMag 4y ago
        I don't know, they told healthy 20 year olds to take multiple shots of largely untested injections to avoid those same symptoms, so
        shadowgovt 4y ago
        Can you clarify your meaning?
      - deleted 4y ago
hedora 4y ago
Immediately before this accident, the rail workers were striking over inadequate safety rules. Multiple trains derailed in East Palistine. Netflix even filmed a documentary about it there. Knowing all that, both parties sided with the railways and voted to force the rail workers back to work. Post accident, audio recordings of a railway supervisor ordering safety inspectors to ignore safety issues were released. Poisoning an entire town is not a good look for either the Democrats or the Republicans, so the CDC has every political incentive possible to downplay this incident, regardless of who wins the next election.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  ... except CDC scientists have a reputation independent of the political machine. They have more to lose being branded liars than to gain toeing party lines.
  - zaroth 4y ago
    It’s a little late to start caring about lying now…
  - revelio 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      Honestly, the way the public acted during COVID is half the reason I default to trusting the CDC. It's a far sight better than trusting the voices that tried to replace the CDC with their own "expertise."
      - thisisdumb93 4y ago
        [flagged]
        shadowgovt 4y ago
renewiltord 4y ago
Maybe they did it so that it would be easier to remove medical and CDC personnel from the area. After all, protecting these people was the justification the public health administration used to say "masks don't work". You have to be a total sucker to believe they're optimizing for your subpopulation. They're the #1 Greater Good Team. If admitting they got sick would reduce faith in the government and that would be bad For The Greater Good, they would just lie.
- shadowgovt 4y ago
  The CDC didn't say masks don't work. They did say cloth masks weren't as effective as N95s.
  - revelio 4y ago
    Oh how quickly we forget. https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cdc-mask-guidance-during-covid-19-pandemic https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cd... March 24, 2020 Even as the coronavirus spreads across the United States — shutting down businesses, sporting events and schools — the CDC’s advice around masking remains unequivocal: Healthy people who do not work in the healthcare sector and are not taking care of an infected person at home do not need to wear masks.
    - shadowgovt 4y ago
      Ah, now that I know what you mean: Yes, the CDC said masks don't prevent the spread of the virus. They also said it mitigates the spread of the virus, which are both true statements when the number of people wearing masks grows to "most of the country." Medicine is a statistical science, which a lot of people have a hard time wrapping their heads around the nuances of.
      - revelio 4y ago
        I'm not renewiltord, who actually talked about public health officials not the CDC, unless he edited that part of his post. Hardly makes a difference though. CDC advice in March 2020 was that the vast majority don't need to wear one. Then suddenly everyone had to wear one, on pain of fines. Nothing about masks or the virus or "the science" changed. The reliability problem remains.
User23 4y ago
One reason is so they can focus their resources on serving underprivileged communities instead of a 97% white town.