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Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

nytimes.com

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Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

#141

Post by jacquesm »

rayiner wrote: post #133
jacquesm wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not an accurate description of the situation as far as I can see it. The one group of doctors is a bunch of researchers, the other group is a large corporate entity that makes gobs of money from certain products.

> Dr. Matt Leavitt heads Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, the largest dermatology practice in the United States, which is backed by private equity. It is one of the practices that objected to the article.

So the guy graduated a Dr. That does not presently make him a doctor other than in the legal sense. For all practical purposes in this dispute he is a businessman that sees his revenue stream endangered and moves to protect it using the law. This has absolutely nothing to do with two doctors arguing over 'who is right' or 'what is true'.

Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

#142

Post by nate_meurer »

awalton wrote: post #85
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody like to remember that folks went there because the coffee was extra hot. She didn't get burned because McD's served hot coffee - she'd been drinking that for years? She got burned because just as she took the top off to put in sugar, her grandson gunned the motor and spilled it. So who's 'fault' is all this? In law you can sue for money from anybody even remotely connected with an injury. So she chose McD's in…

> So who's 'fault' is all this? Uh, it was McDonald's fault, as proven by the several legal battles this woman won. This continuous questioning of settled arguments is absurd. They served the woman boiling hot coffee - it's simply not drinkable or safe to handle at that temperature (and shouldn't even have been brewed over 180...)

You're not a coffee drinker are you? :) The optimum brewing temperature for coffee is 200 deg F (94 deg C), plus or minus a few degrees. This is the range recommended by professional coffee associations such as NCA and SCAA [1], and is the range used by pretty everyone, from Starbucks to your local diner. The NCA recommends that coffee be served at around 80 deg C (which is what burned Stella Liebeck); this is a perfectly reasonable service temperature, widely used by most good coffee shops and restaurants, including McDonalds to this day.

The "settled arguments", as you say, were questionable to begin with, and businesses continue to struggle with how to balance decent coffee service and protection from frivolous lawsuits. But the only thing that's really changed since Stella's lawsuit is the addition of warnings on coffee cups, just in case anyone else decides it's a good idea to squeeze a cup of hot coffee between their legs while they fiddle with the top.

1 - https://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/How-to-Brew-Coffee

Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

#143

Post by nate_meurer »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #62
gaius wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were sued in the US by some woman who scalded herself when she spilled McDonalds coffee on herself. She was given millions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Rest... That woman burned the skin off her genatalia when McDonald's served a far too hot coffee. After they refused to pay a small amount to cure her injuries (remember, no socialized health care in USA), she sued. She offered to settle, again for a small amount to cover expenses, and McDonald's refused again McDonald's launched a massive PR campaign to mock he…

No, the coffee was not far too hot. It was served within the temperature range that was, and still is, recommended by professional coffee associations like the NCA [1]. Most good coffee establishments serve coffee in the range of 160 degrees F (71.1 degrees C) and 185 degrees F (85 degrees C). Yes, all temperatures in that range present a burn hazard. I have trouble believing that a reasonable person would assume it's safe to put a newly-served cup of hot coffee between their legs and take the lid off, which is what poor Stella did.

1 - https://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/How-to-Brew-Coffee

Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

#144

Post by mschuster91 »

testvox wrote: post #126
mschuster91 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what country can you not fire your own employees? In Germany, you need strong reasons to fire an employee: intentionally causing accidents/damage, theft and other felonies related to your work (so, no firing your employee for drunk driving off the job) or failure to improve performance. The other thing is due to closing of the department or the location or the company going bankrupt, but these cases are often enou…

Very interesting, honestly I prefer the American system where you can be fired at any time but if fired without cause you are entitled to continue receiving some portion of your paycheck from unemployment insurance.

The problem here is that you need to be able to afford the lawyer, the time for the court proceedings etc. in order to get said money.

Which means: those hit the most hard by "fire at will" are the poorest.

Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

#145

Post by RichardCA »

duxup wrote: post #18
aaavl2821 wrote: post #13

This isn't discussed much, but the healthcare provider industry has traditionally been a major sector of interest for private equity. Hospital companies like HCA, dental clinics, ambulatory surgery centers, etc. Healthcare providers are attractive to private equity 1) because of stable, non-cyclical cash flow, 2) benefits to scale (ie better negotiating leverage with payers), 3) ability to easily increase revenue at…

There was an NPR (I think it was NPR) story about how medical helicopter rides have skyrocketed in cost. The issue was a lot of private equity folks realized that you could just get in the market and if you didn't get enough rides... you just cranked up the price and went after individuals who where hardly in a position to shop around when they needed the ride. Now there is an excess of medical helicopters, solution?…

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/09/25/6475315...

Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

#146

Post by nate_meurer »

SolaceQuantum wrote: post #113
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, not the case in this particular instance. And further, the cup was very hot, and the lid secure. Those straw men are irrelevant - it wasn't by touching the cup that the litigant was injured. It was willfully removing the top.

How would she be at fault if there is no indication that willfully removing the top would expose liquids so hot that it would melt her skin? There is no reasonable expectation to be served coffee that will melt your skin when exposed to it.

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think you understand the temperatures involved here. Stella was burned by 80 deg C coffee. Guess who else serves coffee this hot? Everybody. ALL good coffee shops and restaurants serve coffee in the range of 160 degrees F (71.1 degrees C) and 185 degrees F (85 degrees C). The National Coffee Association informally recommends the higher end of this range, around 80-85 deg C, and McDonalds still serves at this temperature or higher.

Anyone who drinks coffee at shops or restaurants, or makes coffee in a decent coffee maker, has experience with 80+ deg C coffee, and any reasonable person should know not to squeeze a cup of it between their legs while they take the top off, which is what Stella did.

Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

#147

Post by drb91 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #39
drb91 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you can leverage your quality research to find better funding. If anything, situations like this should actually help your career—what better signal you’ve found a good vein of research?

> If anything, situations like this should actually help your career—what better signal you’ve found a good vein of research? How'd it go for Charles Murray?

Not the same situation—he lost status on the strength of his work.

Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

#148

Post by nate_meurer »

CtrlAltT5wpm wrote: post #72
fjsolwmv wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Rest... That woman burned the skin off her genatalia when McDonald's served a far too hot coffee. After they refused to pay a small amount to cure her injuries (remember, no socialized health care in USA), she sued. She offered to settle, again for a small amount to cover expenses, and McDonald's refused again McDonald's launched a massive PR campaign to mock he…

To add context, the original awarded amount was calculated to be the revenue of a single day of coffee sales for McDonald's. Stella Liebeck had originally sued for ~$50,000, to cover the cost of her medical bills, which McDonald's refused to do. Additionally, the award was calculated at that amount as a punitive measure, because McDonald's had received hundreds of complaints from customers of the coffee being too hot…

McDonalds had received a few hundred complaints out of 10 billion cups of coffee served. The temperature of the coffee was not a problem; it was, and still is, the temperature at which all good coffee shops and restaurants serve coffee, including McDonalds. If you go get coffee at McDonalds (or Starbucks or pretty much anywhere else) it will be served to you at around 80 deg C, and sometimes even higher. This temperature is recommended by professional coffee associations [1], and it's the temperature at which any decent coffee machines holds your coffee.

It sucks that Stella Liebeck was injured. Nobody deserves that. But she was burned because she squeezed a cup of hot coffee between her legs while she messed with the lid. This is, by any reasonable criteria, an abuse of the product, and protecting a few people from such foolish choices would mean depriving everyone else of decent coffee. Fortunately that hasn't happened yet.

1 - https://www.ncausa.org/About-Coffee/How-to-Brew-Coffee

Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

#149

Post by somebodynew »

mikeash wrote: post #132
eesmith wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So for consistency's sake it's better to just always list allergens, rather than have the regulations say "except when it's bizarre and nonsensical." Otherwise, someone has to decide where that boundary is.

I don’t think it’s really that hard to draw the line. You can still err heavily on the side of safety while not requiring a bag of nuts to warn about the nuts it contains. But our legal system doesn’t go for that sort of nuance.

The US law on allergen labeling does actually have this nuance, but sellers probably chose to err on the side of caution. See section 203 (a) of the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act of 2004:

> If it is not a raw agricultural commodity...

> ...except that the name of the food source is not required when ... the common or usual name of the ingredient uses the name of the food source from which the major food allergen is derived

https://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceRegulation/GuidanceDocument...

Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal

#150

Post by nate_meurer »

fjsolwmv wrote: post #60
lbriner wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haven't you seen the McDonalds coffee in the UK? "Warning, contents may be hot" The "may" always makes me chuckle.

It's funny because you forget that coffee can eventually cool.

No, I think it's a bit humorous because coffee is and always has been widely known and accepted to be served piping hot, often near boiling. Same with tea and mate. If you order a pot of tea from any decent shop or restaurant, it will be served full of freshly boiled water. The closer to boiling the better. Do you think all teapots should have big warnings enameled on their sides as well? Should all knives have "WARNING: SHARP" engraved on the blades?
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