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by paulmd
1903 days ago
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Fauci more or less came out and said that the CDC's public recommendations at that time were not based on the science available to them, but were an action-driven measure to preserve the available PPE supplies for healthcare workers, as in the depths of the early pandemic they were dangerously depleted. To put it another way, they lied to the public to keep the masks where they could do the most good. https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-confirms-public-health-experts-... You can equivocate about what is "enough evidence" that masks are effective and whether that threshold had been reached yet (you can always collect more evidence, but when people are dying it's not bad to make some guesses that it probably is airborne/aerosol and masks will help). But the Surgeon-General went as far as to claim that the science showed that masks were not effective. That the science was in and it showed that masks did not prevent transmission among the general public - which is different from "not enough evidence to conclusively say yet". https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/face-masks-coronavirus... The USG's actions here were medically unethical - they misrepresented the benefits and dangers of an intervention in order to manipulate the patient's behavior. Maybe it's justifiable under the circumstances but at best it's shady. I think under a different president it probably would have gone differently. But it doesn't change the responsibilities of the medical professionals involved here - you don't get to abdicate your ethical vows just because the president tells you to. |
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At some point you can't understand all the evidence for some given proposition. That's a different point for each of us depending on what we've studied, the proposition etc. At some point we have to rely on some kind of authority in the belief that they won't tell lies because if they did there would be dire consequences for the people involved. Even when we check the evidence we don't personally check the lab to see if the evidence is faked.
Anti-vaxxers and their ilk look at current medical experts as the authority and call bullshit. If I can't make an argument from evidence to them because it won't be persuasive to that individual all I can do is say, well yes, but not /this/ time. They wouldn't lie again this time like they did before. But they would if it suited their purpose, they've shown that. So I don't think they have an ulterior purpose this time. Not super convincing is it? So we're left with attacking the anti-vaxxer "science" as BS. From evidence. Which can be difficult to make convincing to some people. Meh. Anti-vaxxers is just one example in one field that shows the effect. There are so many. "They'd even lie to us about how to be safe in a damn pandemic!" Yeah they would. They did.
I'll put an estimate on the marginal impact on loss of life from that masks don't work lie. More than one life lost that would not have been if the lie was not told. More than one is sufficient. Feel free to tighten the estimate to how much more than one.
Fauci, yep. I'd cross the road to avoid him which he wouldn't care about at all as he soaks up the adulation he so clearly craves. It's easy to criticize from the comfort of obscurity under zero pressure compared to what he must have faced but that doesn't mean we must keep silent. To hell with him. He has no business remaining in public life making and influencing decisions because he is a liar of the worst kind. Disagree with me by all means, but if /you/ see that as an attack on the Democrats in favor of Republicans (or Russia, or China) you're not much better yourself when it comes to undermining the credibility of genuine expertise.