Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 170 posts

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

#41

Post by daro »

mcny wrote: post #37
Gatsky wrote: post #17

Paper isn’t even that bad really, just stating the obvious. Academia isn’t built to cope with well funded adversaries. Journalists handle the heat much better, at least the NYT got hold of it.

I doubt it is perfect. I agree they're probably built for it but in practice, theory and practice are not the same. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/business/media/banished-f... Archived at https://archive.fo/v5b1x I'm sure even the NY Times has its limits and so do the likes of al Jazeera and the BBC. Another question: Could Intel or nVidia or Microsoft or Facebook do something similar for tech journalists?

Bloomberg has still not retracted its story about the Chinese spyware despite heavy pressure from Apple and Amazon. So I guess that shows that at least some journalist can cope with it.

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

#42

Post by lordnacho »

jedberg wrote: post #28
copper_think wrote: post #11

What is the value that private equity and/or VC are adding to dermatology? I guess what I'm asking is, why would the physicians be interested in sharing some portion of their income with these non-physicians? Medicine, like other guild professions like law, dentistry, and accounting, is an enterprise which seems to naturally fit the partnership model instead.

There is a strange bit about being a doctor or lawyer -- you aren't allowed to for a C corp for your own practice. However, if someone else forms the corp and you work for them, then you get all the protections of a C corp, as long as you don't own the majority share. So one thing they add is legal protection.

So find a doctor you trust from medical school, and you hire him for your C-Corp and he hires you for his?

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

#44

Post by lordnacho »

It sounds to me that what is being monetized is the authority of doctors. There's a lot of medical conditions where you rely on the doctor to tell you what to do. After all, you don't have a degree in that.

Now I can buy a clinic and pressure all the doctors through an incentive scheme that they are not used to, and get them all to nudge the borderline cases into must-act cases. And chances are each individual case is somewhat defensible, and the doctor is still an authority. It's perfect, the doctors are not even going to admit their bias. But as a whole, a lot of people will be on treatments that they wouldn't have been on.

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

#45

Post by calgoo »

So I wonder if there is an opportunity to create a service that let's you look up the center you are visiting, and seeing who the investors/ owners are. Then you can filter away any that has gotten bad stars/reviews based on bad practices.

Fight vc money with vc money basically.

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

#46

Post by stephengillie »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #40
LaundroMat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In ancient Rome, Crassus owned the fire department. When there was a home on fire, Crassus would negotiate the price for extinguishing the fire with the owners or tenants. Plus ça change...

I mean, this is close to being right, but it's wrong in every one of the details. Crassus didn't own the fire department. Crassus owned a bunch of slaves who he had trained to put out fires. Crassus didn't charge for extinguishing fires. If your house was on fire, Crassus took his team and negotiated to buy your house . If you sold it to him, he'd put out the fire. There was no flow of money from you to Crassus under…

Ah, the ol' fire sale.

At other times in history, it was the seller whose house (or business) was literally on fire, trying to sell to an unwitting buyer.

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

#47

Post by cylinder »

losteric wrote: post #22
adrian_mrd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Related thought: the influence of lawyers in tech firms - witness the draconian EULAs users are 'forced' to accept with a false binary choice of accept or not - and the role that corporate law staff have had in software development, by effectively limiting the rights of users. It seems to me that many technology firms copy-and-paste the soul of EULAs to protect themselves (against the worse cases that may aris…

I think this legal arms race is a consequence of America's overly-litigious and profitable legal system. These EULAs are the equivalent of warning labels on soda bottles that loosely read "Warning: Contents under pressure, don't point at your eyes"... who is that written for? We laugh and call it unnecessary, but that warning exists because there is precedent that must now be defended against. When those ludicrous ca…

Make losing plaintiffs pay the defendant's attorney's fees and costs, it changes everything

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

#48

Post by killjoywashere »

lordnacho wrote: post #44

It sounds to me that what is being monetized is the authority of doctors. There's a lot of medical conditions where you rely on the doctor to tell you what to do. After all, you don't have a degree in that. Now I can buy a clinic and pressure all the doctors through an incentive scheme that they are not used to, and get them all to nudge the borderline cases into must-act cases. And chances are each individual case i…

Are socialized medicine systems less evil?

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

#49

Post by afarrell »

distant_hat wrote: post #20
djsumdog wrote: post #7

People often wonder what the point of tenure is. Well this is it. Those authors need to not back down, and call attention to this. If they're tenured researchers or professors, they should be able to make publications like this without fear or retaliation from the school or industry.

All tenure does is largely protect you from getting fired. They can still do a fair amount of damage though you still have employment. Lab space can be reduced, it can get harder to get approvals for research, decreased funding etc.

"At the University of Florida, our professors do fearless research" -- title to a piece by the UoF PR department, milking an easy win for all it's worth.

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

#50

Post by adrian_mrd »

User23 wrote: post #26
adrian_mrd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Related thought: the influence of lawyers in tech firms - witness the draconian EULAs users are 'forced' to accept with a false binary choice of accept or not - and the role that corporate law staff have had in software development, by effectively limiting the rights of users. It seems to me that many technology firms copy-and-paste the soul of EULAs to protect themselves (against the worse cases that may aris…

> Agree. Related thought: the influence of lawyers in tech firms - witness the draconian EULAs users are 'forced' to accept with a false binary choice of accept or not The comedy option is to print it out, cross out and initial each clause you disagree with, sign it, and mail it to them certified with a letter saying you agree under these terms please write back if they don't agree. This actually works with all contr…

Sounds like my kind of comedy jam!

I also like the idea of the 'Nightmare Letters' such as this one for GDPR: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nightmare-letter-subject-acce...

Would be of interest to note how many users have submitted such requests/letters, since GDPR took effect in May of this year.

If lawyers, and by extension, the management/C-level teams of software firms - who either direct, endorse or approve what the lawyers put in the EULAs to begin with - can stick it to users, why shouldn't users be able to stick it back to them?

Post reply on HN