5 ms·

"It has been determined" that infected dairy herd serology can be disclosed

61 points by ctoth 2y ago

ggm 2y ago
The fact that indicators of decision-making have to be indirect, speaks to the risk environment of public health officials. Post Fauci, it's huge. Is this problem also a function of both devolution of power to states and the environment post animal activism? Or just the "don't ask don't tell" of US policy these days? A bunch of laws got passed about revealing inner truths of animal husbandry in the wake of activist filming in chicken houses and piggeries. We depend on the massive herds of food animals. We depend on clear information sharing about their health. They aren't just tasty beef and cheese, they are disease vectors and storage grounds of infection. This information policy nightmare isn't good.
- cyanydeez 2y ago
  [flagged]
- CrossVR 2y ago
  > Post Fauci, it's huge. How is Anthony Fauci related to this? He headed the NIAID, not the USDA.
  - Blackthorn 2y ago
    Are you really going to try to say that the absurd levels of bile, vitriol, and threats that he received for doing his job during a pandemic has zero knock-on effect for other public health officials?
    - TehCorwiz 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - sunny-d 2y ago
      [flagged]
    - CrossVR 2y ago
      Woah, I'm not sure how you got that from my comment. It was a genuine question since OP made it seem as if Dr. Fauci had played some role in the USDA's handling of the H5N1 epidemic. In fact I was concerned OP was trying to pin yet another conspiracy on him.
  - guhidalg 2y ago
    I remember in 2020 how a career public servant, colleague to those in USDA, was contradicted by the president because it made the administration's COVID response look bad. Recently, the US president has decided he doesn't want to protect his public servant's lives anymore https://apnews.com/article/fauci-trump-security-detail-4b2e317dc9e7768c0571df30750e863a https://apnews.com/article/fauci-trump-security-detail-4b2e3...
  - ggm 2y ago
    As others note, its the public health aspect of being a voice for science and reason, against the political backlash and death threats. I did not mean to imply USDA and NIAD related, except in needing public health policy people making decisions and statements in the public eye.
- JohnTHaller 2y ago
  On a related note, "Trump ends Fauci’s security detail and says he’d feel no responsibility if harm befell him": https://apnews.com/article/fauci-trump-security-detail-4b2e317dc9e7768c0571df30750e863a https://apnews.com/article/fauci-trump-security-detail-4b2e3...
  - financetechbro 2y ago
    > “You can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for government,” Trump said. Coming from the guy who will have security detail for the rest of his life because he worked for the government. Truly comical time to be alive
coding123 2y ago
[dead]
knowaveragejoe 2y ago
> In a Breitbart article, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins blithely assures us that increased biosecurity supported by the Trump Administration will negate the need for vaccines. I have to wonder how that’s going to work out for poultry flocks next to dairy (or feedlot) H5N1 B3.13 or D1.1 outbreaks, especially when she is also taking cattle vaccines off the table in the same conversation? I’ll give Secretary Rollins credit for one thing - she definitely does not hide her intentions in 3rd person language anonymity! She will own these comments! That'll be something to keep in mind.
- mlinhares 2y ago
  "negate the need for vaccines" i guess we should start to buy only imported powdered milk as US milk won't be safe for human consumption anymore. what is wrong with these people, go be corrupt and steal government money but leave this shit alone.
  - DrillShopper 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - superq 2y ago
      Is this hyperbole, or are you seriously claiming that the Jewish men who run Breitbart, or Jewish founders like Ben Shapiro or Andrew Breitbart, are neo-Nazis?
      - watwut 2y ago
        Andrew Breitbart is dead and not running anything right now. Also, antisemitism was not the only thing wrong with nazi.
      - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
        A lot of people who hate Jews are surprisingly fine with Ben Shapiro
      - 2y ago
timewizard 2y ago
This isn't my field but I always feel it's disingenuous to show PCR results without telling me how many cycles of PCR you did. PCR is effectively a magnifying glass and you're obscuring the level of magnification you used to get a detection. It doesn't seem, on it's own, to ever be a useful piece of information.
- stonogo 2y ago
  For a diagnostic application, the cycle count doesn't really matter. Either the DNA your primers are targeting is present or it is not. That's why they talk about a "positive" or "negative" PCR test -- the presence or absense of the viral DNA is a binary. For diagnostic use like this, the standard is 30±10 cycles, but it doesn't really matter if it's ten or a hundred, since all you're really doing is verifying the presence of the target genome.
  - realityfactchex 2y ago
    Is a robust citation each available for each of those related claims? I'm not looking for dogmatic assertions, I mean the fundamental and reproducible papers proving those claims. Because those are all in direct opposition with the parent. And two views of an issue will not be resolved by each claiming opposite dogma. Hopefully someone can present the evidence. A textbook citation is not enough. Are there really controlled experiments showing these things? Or is it mostly theoretical? Is it time to ask what we know--are these "facts we have been taught", or have we looked into the scientific validity of the proofs with the criticality of a practicing scientist? I think that very solid citations here would actually go a long way to inform the parent, but I doubt that anything short of that would do so.
    - stonogo 2y ago
      I do not have the time or the inclination to perform a comprehensive literature review for the benefit of a web forum. The body of work in this area is massive, well understood, and public. You can replicate results in any university microbiology course. Thousands of students do these things every day. You can even construct your own PCR setup from a cd rom drive and parts and do it at home. Reagents and primers are available on the open market. If, given all that, the difference between acceptance and rejection is some links in a forum post, there wasn't really any interest in the truth to start with.

61 points by ctoth 2y ago

ggm 2y ago

The fact that indicators of decision-making have to be indirect, speaks to the risk environment of public health officials. Post Fauci, it's huge. Is this problem also a function of both devolution of power to states and the environment post animal activism? Or just the "don't ask don't tell" of US policy these days? A bunch of laws got passed about revealing inner truths of animal husbandry in the wake of activist filming in chicken houses and piggeries. We depend on the massive herds of food animals. We depend on clear information sharing about their health. They aren't just tasty beef and cheese, they are disease vectors and storage grounds of infection. This information policy nightmare isn't good.

cyanydeez 2y ago
[flagged]
CrossVR 2y ago
> Post Fauci, it's huge. How is Anthony Fauci related to this? He headed the NIAID, not the USDA.
- Blackthorn 2y ago
  Are you really going to try to say that the absurd levels of bile, vitriol, and threats that he received for doing his job during a pandemic has zero knock-on effect for other public health officials?
  - TehCorwiz 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - sunny-d 2y ago
    [flagged]
  - CrossVR 2y ago
    Woah, I'm not sure how you got that from my comment. It was a genuine question since OP made it seem as if Dr. Fauci had played some role in the USDA's handling of the H5N1 epidemic. In fact I was concerned OP was trying to pin yet another conspiracy on him.
- guhidalg 2y ago
  I remember in 2020 how a career public servant, colleague to those in USDA, was contradicted by the president because it made the administration's COVID response look bad. Recently, the US president has decided he doesn't want to protect his public servant's lives anymore https://apnews.com/article/fauci-trump-security-detail-4b2e317dc9e7768c0571df30750e863a https://apnews.com/article/fauci-trump-security-detail-4b2e3...
- ggm 2y ago
  As others note, its the public health aspect of being a voice for science and reason, against the political backlash and death threats. I did not mean to imply USDA and NIAD related, except in needing public health policy people making decisions and statements in the public eye.
JohnTHaller 2y ago
On a related note, "Trump ends Fauci’s security detail and says he’d feel no responsibility if harm befell him": https://apnews.com/article/fauci-trump-security-detail-4b2e317dc9e7768c0571df30750e863a https://apnews.com/article/fauci-trump-security-detail-4b2e3...
- financetechbro 2y ago
  > “You can’t have a security detail for the rest of your life because you worked for government,” Trump said. Coming from the guy who will have security detail for the rest of his life because he worked for the government. Truly comical time to be alive

coding123 2y ago

[dead]

knowaveragejoe 2y ago

> In a Breitbart article, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins blithely assures us that increased biosecurity supported by the Trump Administration will negate the need for vaccines. I have to wonder how that’s going to work out for poultry flocks next to dairy (or feedlot) H5N1 B3.13 or D1.1 outbreaks, especially when she is also taking cattle vaccines off the table in the same conversation? I’ll give Secretary Rollins credit for one thing - she definitely does not hide her intentions in 3rd person language anonymity! She will own these comments! That'll be something to keep in mind.

mlinhares 2y ago
"negate the need for vaccines" i guess we should start to buy only imported powdered milk as US milk won't be safe for human consumption anymore. what is wrong with these people, go be corrupt and steal government money but leave this shit alone.
- DrillShopper 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - superq 2y ago
    Is this hyperbole, or are you seriously claiming that the Jewish men who run Breitbart, or Jewish founders like Ben Shapiro or Andrew Breitbart, are neo-Nazis?
    - watwut 2y ago
      Andrew Breitbart is dead and not running anything right now. Also, antisemitism was not the only thing wrong with nazi.
    - BriggyDwiggs42 2y ago
      A lot of people who hate Jews are surprisingly fine with Ben Shapiro
    - 2y ago

timewizard 2y ago

This isn't my field but I always feel it's disingenuous to show PCR results without telling me how many cycles of PCR you did. PCR is effectively a magnifying glass and you're obscuring the level of magnification you used to get a detection. It doesn't seem, on it's own, to ever be a useful piece of information.

stonogo 2y ago
For a diagnostic application, the cycle count doesn't really matter. Either the DNA your primers are targeting is present or it is not. That's why they talk about a "positive" or "negative" PCR test -- the presence or absense of the viral DNA is a binary. For diagnostic use like this, the standard is 30±10 cycles, but it doesn't really matter if it's ten or a hundred, since all you're really doing is verifying the presence of the target genome.
- realityfactchex 2y ago
  Is a robust citation each available for each of those related claims? I'm not looking for dogmatic assertions, I mean the fundamental and reproducible papers proving those claims. Because those are all in direct opposition with the parent. And two views of an issue will not be resolved by each claiming opposite dogma. Hopefully someone can present the evidence. A textbook citation is not enough. Are there really controlled experiments showing these things? Or is it mostly theoretical? Is it time to ask what we know--are these "facts we have been taught", or have we looked into the scientific validity of the proofs with the criticality of a practicing scientist? I think that very solid citations here would actually go a long way to inform the parent, but I doubt that anything short of that would do so.
  - stonogo 2y ago
    I do not have the time or the inclination to perform a comprehensive literature review for the benefit of a web forum. The body of work in this area is massive, well understood, and public. You can replicate results in any university microbiology course. Thousands of students do these things every day. You can even construct your own PCR setup from a cd rom drive and parts and do it at home. Reagents and primers are available on the open market. If, given all that, the difference between acceptance and rejection is some links in a forum post, there wasn't really any interest in the truth to start with.