Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada • Hacker News Board

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#261

Post by slashdev » Thu, May 06, 2021, 12:26 AM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #169

slashdev wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are so good at ignoring large daily risks and freaking out about tiny unknown risks. Just look how many people are scared of the covid19 vaccines, but take bigger risks in their morning commute. Actually if you just stick to the AstraZenica vaccine with the risk of blood clots - you take a bigger risk just getting out of bed in the morning, even if you never leave the house.

Yes and no. The vaccines are by definition new and untested. That the blood clots appeared suggests that the unknown surface area of the vaccine is higher than we expected; whereas the almost all of the risk on your commute are known and preventable. For example let's say the vaccine causes a side effect that appears only two years from now; then you wouldn't necessarily be correct in asserting that the morning commu…

The risks on your morning commute are not preventable by effort on your part. You can drive with care, but there is still substantial risk no matter what.

Unknown but remote risks with any vaccine are really quite substantially less dangerous than the known and quantifiable risk of your commute. We're talking like three orders of magnitude or more which leaves a lot of room for unknown risks.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#262

Post by shkkmo » Thu, May 06, 2021, 12:46 AM UTC

omgwtfbbq wrote: post #233

shkkmo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have a number of very good modern science fiction authors that easily rival them. While none of them may be as iconic, I think that has more to do with competition in the genre and breadth of the market.

Name some? My experience with authors like Cixin Liu and some contemporaries is that they are unreadable, this could just be bad translations in Liu's case but I'm not at all convinced modern writers rival the classical greats in SciFi.

I found myself similarly underwhelmed by Cixin Liu given all the good things I'd heard.

I'm horrible at remembering names, but three of my favorites off the top of my head are Peter Watts, Neil Stephenson and Kim Stanley Robison.

I've generally had decent luck finding new authors by just by seeing who gets Hugo and Nebula nominations.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#263

Post by fao_ » Thu, May 06, 2021, 12:48 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #179

fao_ wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure you understand how irresponsible that is.

That might be. I'm not an expert. Is it more irresponsible than not removing them prior to operating on someone's brain?

You're acting like those are the only two options available, though. That's not the case.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#264

Post by shkkmo » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:01 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #222

shkkmo wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't what is happening. The USDA is prohibiting suplemental testing. The allegation is that this is because that might reveal cases of infection that would show the USDA testing policies are not sufficient. Thus the USDA is placing their reputation over the health of US citizens.

Another poster makes the argument that the USDA does not prohibit supplemental testing, it just prohibits making safety claims on the basis of supplemental testing. I find their argument far more persuasive than yours. Is there more to yours?

The persuasivity of an argument does not guarantee its truthfulness.

There are plenty of sources, including court documents, that verify that the USDA was trying to prevent private testing, not just claims being made on the basisnof private testing.

The ban on testing was justified by the USDA based on the potential for safety claims, but the ban itself was on testing.

I don't personally buy the argument, if the US testing was sufficient to guarantee safety I see no consumer harm in allowing additional (potentially ineffective) testing that could help a US producer satisfy other countries' import controls.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#265

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 06, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

anonymouse008 wrote: post #98

andy_ppp wrote: post #49

I do wonder if it’s possible that vaccines that are designed to make the body produce certain parts of the spike protein could lead to prion diseases accidentally. Are we sure of the proteins coded for and also that this coding can’t produce misfolded proteins? It’s pretty unlikely but also we don’t have long term testing of these proteins in the body. * please note I’ve had the first dose of Astra Zeneca and intend…

I’m wondering if the original Covid infection runs the risk for latent prion issues too — There’s just no reason for the mass hysteria from governments from what I’ve seen spread amongst my friends - and I run dangerously close to leaving the “anecdotal data gravity well” with how many observations I’ve tracked, deaths included. It felt like they were withholding some long term effects to keep everyone calm.

[deleted]

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#266

Post by todd8 » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:02 AM UTC

dcolkitt wrote: post #125

codingbeer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever a topic about something that could potentially destroy humanity comes up (say, climate issues), there is always some comment that makes a reasonable argument of why things are not as bad as they seem. This never happens when prions are the topic.

The simplest counterpoint to prion cataclysm fear is that it hasn't happened yet. That implies a low chance that it'll happen anytime in the near future. There's no evidence that any significant human population has ever been wiped out by prions at any point in the history of the species. Heck, we haven't even observed widespread (>10% infected) prion disease in any species. At least with something like climate chang…

> The simplest counterpoint to prion cataclysm fear is that it hasn't happened yet.

Well a prion disease (called Kuru) did affect the Fore people of New Guinea seriously in the 1950s and 1960s as I recall. Here is what Wikipedia says about the Fore people:

> Furthermore, Kuru predominantly affected women, as women more commonly partook in cannibalistic religious rituals. Because of this, there was a significant sex imbalance in Fore society.[14] By some accounts, this gender imbalance reached a 3:1 male to female ratio at its worst. This affected the family structure of the Fore, as it became commonplace for children to be raised and cared for only by their fathers.[1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fore_people

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#267

Post by bluGill » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:11 AM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #237

bluGill wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, glyphosphate is used in a lot of different places and is well studied. There are the usual conspiracy theories but the science is pretty strong.

What science are you referring to? The most I've heard about it is the Bayer lawsuit. "A San Francisco jury initially awarded Johnson $289.2 million after finding the chemical glyphosate in Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma" [1] [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/bayer-glyphosate-lawsuit/bay...

A jury trial is not science. Juries tend to be swayed by emotions and sticking it go big companies not right. (I can't offer you anything better to replace them though )

There have been many real scientific studies done. https://www.epa.gov/pesticides/epa-finalizes-glyphosate-miti... is the most readable summary

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#268

Post by rvba » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:15 AM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #247

rvba wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a way to not test anything at all. I really try to stay away from politics, but sounds as something made by some bribed political appointment.

I'm curious why you'd say that. It sounds to me like a bureaucrat pointing out a scientific fact about the testing. I'm not an expert on testing for prions, but it doesn't surprise me that the test isn't good enough to pronounce an animal disease-free. And if that's correct, it's very much their purview to make it clear that advertising it as disease-free would be false. Most of the work at US agencies is done by car…

"Most new cars sold in USA have breaks that work. It doesnt make sense to test them since this would give the public a wrong impression that cars are safe".

If 3,4 million new cars are sold in USA then probably 99% are generally ok. Because in current world generally most things are ok by default (custom software might be different, but off the shelf software generally works).

But if you would be unlucky 1% where nobody checked the breaks... this would be 34 yhousand cars.

And there is much more cattle raised and consumed so checking everything makes sense.

Not checking anything because 99% will be ok is a pseudoscientific argument.

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#269

Post by mannerheim » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #264

vkou wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another poster makes the argument that the USDA does not prohibit supplemental testing, it just prohibits making safety claims on the basis of supplemental testing. I find their argument far more persuasive than yours. Is there more to yours?

The persuasivity of an argument does not guarantee its truthfulness. There are plenty of sources, including court documents, that verify that the USDA was trying to prevent private testing, not just claims being made on the basisnof private testing. The ban on testing was justified by the USDA based on the potential for safety claims, but the ban itself was on testing. I don't personally buy the argument, if the US t…

Creekstone specifically argued for its use for marketing purposes:[0]

> Creekstone claims to have suffered $200,000 per day in lost revenue as a result of the diminished export market. Stewart Decl. ¶ 17. Moreover, in markets where U.S. beef is available, Creekstone contends that consumer fears about BSE have diminished its sales. See Id. ¶¶ 4, 5 (discussing market surveys in Japan and U.S.). To allay the concerns of consumers and importers, in 2004 Creekstone made a “business decision” to perform the rapid BSE test on each cow it slaughters. ... USDA memorialized its decision to deny Creekstone permission to purchase rapid BSE test kits from Bio-Rad in a June 1, 2004 letter, concluding that “allowing a company to use a BSE test in a private marketing program is inconsistent with USDA's mandate to ensure effective, scientifically sound testing for significant animal diseases and maintain domestic and international confidence in U.S. cattle and beef products.”

Anyway, at the time of the decision, Japan was allowing US exports of beef (this was argued by the USDA in the district court, which they did not pursue on appeal), so their effort was purely a marketing one. For the record, Japan would subsequently go on to ban American beef again, before allowing imports of American beef once more in 2019, after they themselves had scaled back their BSE testing in 2017 to only symptomatic cows.

Would the USDA have allowed Creekstone to use the test if they had said they were going to use it as part of an animal health monitoring measure, which is what the USDA's program is? Maybe, but obviously Creekstone wasn't using it for that purpose if they were wanting to test every cow, including cows for which the test could not possibly detect BSE even if they had it.

[0]: https://www.animallaw.info/case/creekstone-farms-premium-bee...

Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada

#270

Post by mannerheim » Thu, May 06, 2021, 2:29 AM UTC

rvba wrote: post #268

jfengel wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you'd say that. It sounds to me like a bureaucrat pointing out a scientific fact about the testing. I'm not an expert on testing for prions, but it doesn't surprise me that the test isn't good enough to pronounce an animal disease-free. And if that's correct, it's very much their purview to make it clear that advertising it as disease-free would be false. Most of the work at US agencies is done by car…

"Most new cars sold in USA have breaks that work. It doesnt make sense to test them since this would give the public a wrong impression that cars are safe". If 3,4 million new cars are sold in USA then probably 99% are generally ok. Because in current world generally most things are ok by default (custom software might be different, but off the shelf software generally works). But if you would be unlucky 1% where nob…

> "Most new cars sold in USA have breaks that work. It doesnt make sense to test them since this would give the public a wrong impression that cars are safe".

This isn't what the argument against testing every cow is about. It is really 'You can't test every car's brakes with a test that will say the car's brakes are OK even if those brakes are bad'. If a food product had a toxic ingredient, do you think it's appropriate for a company to run a test that can detect it, say, 50% of the time, and say their product is xyz-toxin-free? What if the test is only effective 10% of the time? 1%?

The USDA didn't decide not to perform no tests for BSE tests at all. They decided to perform tests specifically for those cases where, if the cow had BSE, the test could actually catch it. Again, I don't entirely agree with the USDA's approach, but it isn't unreasonable.