Healthcare Deform

I have to wonder if this will survive the new DoJ leadership. Or if they are waiting for the “big players” to make a “significant donation” to the Republican Fascist cause?

13 Likes

Everything old is new again.

11 Likes

FTA:

"Courts have recognized that sharing information through an algorithm provider can create the same anticompetitive effects as a direct exchange between competitors.

Does anyone know how much competitors exchange data directly? It seems to me they can do it easily through secure computer communications. Or meeting privately at industry meetings.

10 Likes

It can be a bit of a prisoners’ dilemma when it is direct. A competitor can use the same information that allows collusion as a competitive advantage instead. They could be recording everything to report the illegal collusion.

The advantage of an aggregator algorithm is that it insulates participants from those direct competitive threats.

12 Likes

Good points. Thnx!

8 Likes
16 Likes

Good luck with that. He’s not the first to take on Oliver (and will definitely lose) and he’s not going to be the last.

ETA: And reading up on the details, yeah, the context doesn’t change the shittiness (pun intended) of this bean-counter-masquerading-as-a-doctor’s statements. If anything, it makes them worse. He’s totally going to lose.

16 Likes

The jokes just write themselves.
For Oliver’s writers, it’s gonna be like fishin’ in a barrel.

17 Likes
3 Likes

I am guessing this will trigger a new round of funding cuts for lèse-majesté. Speaking out against this fascist gangster and his cronies will rapidly become grounds in and of itself for discipline and severe consequences.

The moves from Kennedy highlight escalating threats to science and medicine, the researchers wrote. Like Edwards, they called for researchers and health experts to stand up to defend evidence-based medicine.

AMEN!!

17 Likes

Let me start by saying, it is not vaccines!! This has been evaluated an insane number of times, because it rises from the dead repeatedly. There are a number of potential exposures that would be legit subjects for investigation. Teflon cookware/PFOA exposure has been epidemiologically associated with autism, and a small mouse study back in the '00’s suggested a connection, but I have not seen any follow-up studies. Other epidemiological associations have been with environmental exposure to inorganic mercury, older fathers, improved diagnostic criteria, and probably most importantly, heredity. 80% of first-degree relatives of autistic kids demonstrate “fragments” (autistic characteristics that typically do not rise to the level of diagnosis.) I have a strong suspicion that these items will not be targeted by Junior’s (and Geier’s) “studies” which will, almost certainly, start with the desired conclusion (vaccines bad) and prune data to reach that. These are most certainly the stupidest of times. Just as an aside, let me put it out there that Thimerosal, the mercury-containing preservative previously used in vaccines, was phased out in '00, and the last batches outdated in '01. As you may have noted, this did not fix the autism “epidemic.”

“If we’re pissing away money over here, that’s less money that we have to actually go after the true reason,” Cassidy, a doctor, told Bhattacharya during his hearing. But Kennedy has also brought on a well-known vaccine skeptic, David Geier, to study the connection between vaccines and autism, the Washington Post and New York Times have reported.

But Cassidy voted for Junior. He is not one of the good guys.

19 Likes

Like the hiring of David Geier, RFK Jr.’s comment is a clear signal that HHS intends to produce rigged and fraudulent research that supports Kennedy and Trump’s pre-existing beliefs in a connection between autism and vaccines.

17 Likes

This isn’t previewing properly. The actual headline is “Deadly measles outbreak does little to counter vaccine scepticism in Texas” A lot of children are going to have to die before that happens, I suppose.

11 Likes

Consider how many died of covid, and vaccine resistance got worse. I’m honestly not hopeful that dead kids will make any difference at all.

13 Likes