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Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

irishtimes.com

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Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#401

Post by ethbr0 »

Beltalowda wrote: post #391
jostmey wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the FDA will insert itself to regulate medicine wherever it can. For example, the FDA has been pushing to regulate diagnostic tests as medical devices. It’s funny how Americans surrender medical autonomy to the government but draw a strict line in the sand in other issues

> For example, the FDA has been pushing to regulate diagnostic tests as medical devices. I assume you mean COVID home tests and things like that? Call me strange, but if I buy such a thing then I'd like to make sure it's held to some standard of accuracy and safety. I do not have the resources or knowledge to find this out myself. Most people don't, and you can't just rely on "internet reviews" or the like. Someone h…

I'm surprised by the popular take on this. Hasn't HN spent the last 3 years lamenting how the FAA ceded too much regulatory power to industry?

... because this is where it starts. The answer to "there are regulatory inefficiencies" is not "get rid of regulations" or "allow industry to self-regulate."

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#402

Post by lolinder »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #387
inglor_cz wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recipient is a non-Muslim, so no Sharia-related problems in his case. AFAIK it is not forbidden for a Muslim to touch pigs, only to eat them. Pigs and dogs are impure, but you can perform ablution afterwards. Muslims normally own hunting and guarding dogs. That would actually be a common problem for Coalition soldiers in Iraq when they tried to enter a village by stealth - lots of barking. "This impureness nevert…

I understand why pigs are “impure” (parasites in the meat), but why dogs?

In Judaism at least, and I'd assume the same translates to Islam, "impurity" is understood to mean "ritually impure". It doesn't necessarily mean there's a specific scientific reason to avoid the meat, just that God asked them not to partake.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#403

Post by tptacek »

pasabagi wrote: post #381
goodguyamericun wrote: post #186

I just want to say huge respect for Dr Mohammad who despite his faith decided to do what is right. It might not be well known but most muslims are raised with strong beliefs, even in educated countries (eg 85% in Pakistan support sharia). God bless Dr mohammad

> sharia Can anybody offer some insight into what people mean by that? I know that in the 19th century, sharia was basically just a legal tradition, that drew on Islam (just as western legal traditions draw on Christianity, or eastern ones Confucianism). Is it more extreme these days?

No. Sharia means different things to different people. Think of someone who calls themselves a "practicing Catholic", and then think of what that might mean to a non-Catholic hearing that. Do they eat meat on Fridays? Do they attend church every day? Do they protest health clinics? There are practicing Catholics who do all of these things and none of them.

Unfortunately, the word has been seized on in western culture to refer to the legal beliefs of militant Islamism. But that's not at all what it means to most Muslims.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#404

Post by treeman79 »

baldfat wrote: post #388
jostmey wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the FDA will insert itself to regulate medicine wherever it can. For example, the FDA has been pushing to regulate diagnostic tests as medical devices. It’s funny how Americans surrender medical autonomy to the government but draw a strict line in the sand in other issues

I have a weird muscle disease that is treated with just taking over the counter L-Carnitine. The issue, vitamins and supplements are not regulated. So, I will try to take a new brand and after a few days my symptoms will come back because the pills don't have the L-Carnitine like it says and there is no one to make sure it does. It will cost me four to seven days of pain, and no one is held responsible. My best guess…

I had to spend thousands to go through a dozen medications for medical issues. Eventually turned to supplements in part because it was much easier to experiment.

I have a couple meds and treatments I’ve been begging doctors to try, but they aren’t aware of them so refuse to consider.

Go onto any support forum and you’ll find countless tales of doctors not listening or not knowing current info on a condition.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#405

Post by raxxorrax »

jostmey wrote: post #8
phnofive wrote: post #2

Discussed here fifteen days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29882912 Not a huge update but an interesting discussion of FDA approval; can the FDA actually stop or sanction experimental procedures like this?

Yes, the FDA will insert itself to regulate medicine wherever it can. For example, the FDA has been pushing to regulate diagnostic tests as medical devices. It’s funny how Americans surrender medical autonomy to the government but draw a strict line in the sand in other issues

Private companies also rely on the state for liability reasons as we just now saw with the vaccines. I believe overall this is a good idea to have high expectations for medical procedures as it does not inhibit progress.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#406

Post by drran »

Loughla wrote: post #384
drran wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulations should be transparent, with link to original cases and deduction process documented. We are not telepaths.

You can look up any and all regulations online. Then you can read the transcripts of public comments regarding the regulations. You can find relevant court cases online. What else do you need? Nobody does that now, for the most part, why would they do it if there were a hyperlink attached to the regulations themselves? Who actually reads the text of regulations in the general population? I have zero data, but I'm wil…

Finding of all that information requires a lot of time and dedication. In my country (Ukraine), a lot of information about law development process is available online. For example: http://w1.c1.rada.gov.ua/pls/zweb2/webproc4_2?id=&pf3516=509... . It contains notes with explanation about why law need to be changed, but it hard to follow. Some information is available online, some in docx files, some in a random database, some on a video, some is not available at all.

The process is not fully transparent. It means that it's easy to create two laws, which are contradicting each other, or modify laws against their original purpose, etc., because it's hard to see consequences when the law is not transparent. For example, our ex-president Yanukovich just replaced Constitution on president site with an older version. Yes, it's online, but it took 2 years(!) until people noticed that and start to revolt.

In software development, we have test cases, which must be passed. In law development, we have nothing like that.

In my county, we read laws fairly often, because they are easy to get, but most of the time people prefer to read «commentary» — a book about law with comments and cases.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#407

Post by throwaway946513 »

likeclockwork wrote: post #373
sillysaurusx wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you clean your anus if you were a cat? Suppose a cat had fingers, and basic language ability. Would you still feel the same way? Suppose we didn't slaughter the other five proto-human species (Neanderthals et al). Would you still feel the same way? The line gets blurrier the more you think it over.

I reject the notion that you can clean anything by licking it.

Friction and liquids? Seems pretty much like the wet wipe used to clean my countertop - only a different friction material, and a different liquid solvent.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#408

Post by BoorishBears »

vasco wrote: post #270
BoorishBears wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a collapsed lung from a gunshot wound was contagious you sure would. If having your head split open in a DWI accident was contagious you would. Like 99% of the arguments against vaccination this isn't nearly as pithy as you think. After seeing what going through the initial wave of COVID in a medical provider in the ER did to my mother I could not care less about how many loopholes in efficacy people want to tout.…

You seem to have very strong views on this and I don't but as a natural follow up from your arguments, how do you propose we deal with the obesity crisis under the lens of people who don't self preservate and have all sorts of cardiovascular issues and bring healthcare costs to unbearable highs for everyone else? To be clear my position is that you should treat everyone, fatties, smokers, antivax, whatever, merely be…

This is not that complicated:

Is a heart attack going to infect your provider?

Is neck cancer going to infect your provider?

We have a vaccine that significantly reduces the odds of putting our healthcare providers at risk and becoming part of the group of people crippling our ability to provide emergency medical care... if you don't take it not because you're ineligible, but because you've decided you know better, you should not be a priority.

And really this is already how it works. When ICUs get overwhelmed, people with COVID who code might not get resuscitated.

The massively increased risk to the provider combined with the chances of recovery mean you will just die:

https://www.cdha.nshealth.ca/system/files/sites/documents/co...

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And I guess saying I have strong feelings supposed to be some backhanded ad hominem? I mean clearly you have strong feelings as well, writing tirades about the "fatties", the difference between us is what I write is based on reality

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#409

Post by ethbr0 »

admash wrote: post #330
neuronic wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hostility towards FDA on HN is incredible. I wouldn't trust some VC funded startup bros with anything related to medicine at all without having passed every single regulatory board tangentially related to whatever they are doing, even more so after Theranos.

I wouldn't trust startup-bros either, without regulatory oversight. That being said, the hostility towards the FDA is not without basis (see below). Though I would argue that much of that hostility it due to it doing too little, rather than too much. Why is the FDA Funded in Part by the Companies It Regulates? https://today.uconn.edu/2021/05/why-is-the-fda-funded-in-par... Hidden conflicts? Pharma payments to FDA adv…

Why? Because citizens want an expert-staffed and functional regulatory body, but aren't willing to pay the tax necessary to fund it, at parity with private sector salaries.

The root of all government problems is "We trust you to make decisions that impact a large amount of monetary value, but also pay you less than the amount of money flowing through you, and also pay you less than private industry would be willing to."

Which... sets up an interesting dynamic.

There are a lot of selfless saints out there. But there are also a lot, not. And so internal processes and regulations pile on top, in an attempt to curb the worst of corruption.

Can we make the system better? Eh... maybe? But it's important to remember that a lot of features that look insane are actually reactive solutions to problems inherent in the system.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#410

Post by Cthulhu_ »

jostmey wrote: post #8
phnofive wrote: post #2

Discussed here fifteen days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29882912 Not a huge update but an interesting discussion of FDA approval; can the FDA actually stop or sanction experimental procedures like this?

Yes, the FDA will insert itself to regulate medicine wherever it can. For example, the FDA has been pushing to regulate diagnostic tests as medical devices. It’s funny how Americans surrender medical autonomy to the government but draw a strict line in the sand in other issues

> It’s funny how Americans surrender medical autonomy to the government but draw a strict line in the sand in other issues

You're implying that all ~332 million Americans are a homogenous and single-minded mass. Please stop generalizing, it's not a good look.

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