Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal
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Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal
#2Discussion on reddit in /r/medicine, by actual medical professionals AFAICS:
https://old.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/9rpajq/dermatolog...
Copy of the starter comment by OP there:
> Starter comment: NYTimes discusses an article that details Venture Capital buying dermatology practices that do an unusually high proportion of high dollar procedures. The article made it through peer review and was posted as an article in press. It was suddenly pulled. The AAD’s incoming president works for an VC Owners clinic and sits on their board. Lawyers for one firm called lead authors institution to demand changes. This is a huge assault on academic freedom. More so than any nonsense from Washington. Coming on the heels of AAD telling multiple people incorrectly that they failed the board exam over the past few years, this is another major scandal that could result huge changes. Or retaliation.
From another comment there that is a tl;dr of some the problem:
> VC involvement in derm practices is a huge, huge issue. One of the bigger practices in town recently was bought by a VC firm, and, lo and behold, all their borderline melanomas now, after being read by their "new" pathologist, need re-resections to get more ti$$ue. I no longer refer to them. Don't even get me started on electronic brachytherapy.
Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal
#3After just finishing "Bad Blood", the book by John Carreyrou on the Theranos fraud, this particular passage in the article had me incensed:
> This week a lawyer for Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, which is backed by private equity and is the largest dermatology practice in the United States, called the general counsel at the University of Florida, where two of the authors are employed, demanding specific changes to the paper.
I'm disgusted by these high-powered law firms using thuggish tactics to try to silence critics. I have no problem with these lawyers responding to the article, in public, after it is published, but using the threat of expensive litigation to shut people up is just gross and morally bankrupt.
Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal
#4The issue seems to come down as to wether or not the paper had factual inaccuracies. Many academic papers are withdrawn, just check out retractionwatch.com.
Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal
#5Can someone link to the paper? The best thing we can do to combat this sort of thuggery is to shine light on it and try to go full-on Streisand effect.
Edit - here it is:
Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal
#6I don't care why because this is hacker news and I expect better article headlines than buzzfeed clickbait crap.
Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal
#7People 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.
Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal
#8After just finishing "Bad Blood", the book by John Carreyrou on the Theranos fraud, this particular passage in the article had me incensed: > This week a lawyer for Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, which is backed by private equity and is the largest dermatology practice in the United States, called the general counsel at the University of Florida, where two of the authors are employed, demanding specific c…
These aren't critics. These are scientists. Changing their results to suit corporate interests is a fire-able offense, and they are honor-bound to not retract unless the truth of their results are in question.
Giving overly generous Yelp reviews is fine, who cares? Publishing "generous" science as fact is morally wrong.
Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal
#9After just finishing "Bad Blood", the book by John Carreyrou on the Theranos fraud, this particular passage in the article had me incensed: > This week a lawyer for Advanced Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery, which is backed by private equity and is the largest dermatology practice in the United States, called the general counsel at the University of Florida, where two of the authors are employed, demanding specific c…
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 arise) with little thought about the effect these long list of restrictions cause. It often seems it cascaded from Microsoft's use of EULAs from Windows 95, Office 95 and onwards, because it was the norm to consumers in that 'monopoly' environment.
The role of lawyers in suppressing ideas, choices and debate - be it in healthcare (the USA dermatology sector as per the OP article) or in technology - the Hacker News set - warrants further debate.
Especially if ethics are to play a greater role in the future of technology - as seems to be the general consensus of forward-thinking governments and progressive technologists.
Re: Some private equity firms are furious over a paper in a dermatology journal
#10I have no proof they are involved, but my wife and I both had a visit to a dermatologist last year. Both of us were then recommended for excisions. She was 29, I was 28.
Everything came back pretty much normal.
We were sent to this fern after a friend went there. He also had an excision. Also under 30.
Now, we feel pretty much like we were played. Maybe this is relevant to this issue.