Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by sjsdaiuasgdia 163 days ago
> Now, everyone trying to fix the medical establishment is immediately called an anti vaxxer, science denier, etc.

Well they keep showing up with shitty unverified claims...are we supposed to treat their shitty claims as valid just because they're against the grain?

It's also good to keep an eye on the graft. It's funny how pretty much every big personality in the alt-med space has totally awesome products to sell you that Big Science won't let you know about.

1 comments

Maybe you missed my point.

I claim that every credible opposition to the medical establishment has been branded as science denial for decades, so much that scientists and researchers won't even bother any more for the sake of their careers.

That's how you get the people you are talking about.

Which credible oppositions that were branded as science denial do you have in mind, specifically?

My own memory of opposition to the medical establishment in past decades inevitably flows to homeopathy, colloidal silver, and other nonsense. There's always been a lot of kooks and grifters trying to make a buck off the gullible by playing on their paranoia.

The most prominent historical example is Semmelweis, dude wanted doctors to start washing hands. Was ridiculed, bullied, and abused into insanity.

I'll leave out mrna vaccines and gender related examples to avoid politically charged examples and people missing the forest for the trees.

Here are some more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Abramson (Read his book!)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Olivieri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Healy_(psychiatrist)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Oldham_Kelsey

You can google the general topic and see that there are hundreds more, but none of these individuals managed to become prominent or well known because they just gave up.