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by lettergram 4 days ago
It was a false positive for what it was worth - https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-says-taylor-f...
6 comments

It's my understanding that it was traced definitively to Taylor Farms, but the only positive test may have been a false positive.

You don't always get a positive test, but this doesn't necessarily prevent you from concluding the cause of food contamination.

> but the only positive test may have been a false positive

Software getting flagged by anti-malware as a false positive is a great way to get an evil corpo tale of woe to the top of HN with 800 points.

Multiple chains of evidence may be used to support a conclusion. One conclusive chain is sufficient, even if others are equivocal.

You're focusing on the weakest part of the argument, which HN guidelines explicitly request you not do: <https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>.

(Less so if others are exculpatory. Which is not the case here. A known false positive is not conclusive proof, but neither does it explicitly clear a source.)

See for more explanation: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49044401>.

Taylor Farms also gave Maga Inc a million dollars six days after the FDA pushed a food safety rule back.
"That $1 million donation came six days after the FDA announced plans to delay the enforcement of a "food traceability rule" that would affect fresh fruits and vegetables, among other products, until 2028. The rule is unrelated to the inspection of fresh produce — it requires companies to track products at seven different key points in the supply chain to better prevent foodborne illness outbreaks."

https://www.snopes.com/news/2026/07/21/taylor-farms-trump-do...

How can you believe this?, look at the signs. Its too obvious someone got paid to say that.
It’s not worth much because the take away from this is you can call and pay to have heinous crimes pushed under the rug. It’s simple corruption, and devastating.
At this point, why would I trust what they say?
This is the most upsetting thing about everything that is happening. Like, sure I have plenty of criticisms about the FDA, but by and large, I thought the body was slowly working in the direction of the public good.

Once you destroy that trust, every single announcement becomes suspect. You no longer have anything you can believe.

And if you don't think the Republican's will use this distrust to their advantage, well, I have a bridge to sell you. It's a very common tactic by them: create a problem that never existed, then wine about said problem.
They'll wine, and dine.

But also whine.

Yep why not both?
It’s so unbelievably destructive. We had a kid recently and I was looking up vaccine research. Do we have to prod the kid with the Hepatitis B vaccine at birth? I looked it up and promptly said, “well, CDC actually just came out with a thing that says it’s optional.” Wife turned to me and said, uh yeah, and who is the new director of the HHS now? Looked it up, and I come to find that many scientists were opposed to the decision to make it optional.

Yep, now I’ll be second guessing everything I read from the CDC. Good news though, I can ask a fucking AI Chatbot what to do. As a normal person with basic civic values this shit makes me so mad. It’s beyond disgusting. The gates of Hell are wide open for these people.

Uhh, I'll just say please run your AI chatbot medical research by your wife first.
I read the AI chatbot part as sarcasm fwiw.
Yeah guess in hindsight that didn’t read as clear as it should have.

The chat bot is only even correct because of obvious, authoritative, trustworthy sources like the CDC. Makes it even more enraging to see bot tech makers meeting with the destroyers of truth.

> FDA says...

This admin has lied repeatedly. Why would any of us believe a statement solely because the admin said it? Do we need to give them the benefit of the doubt despite how many times they lie?

> This admin has lied repeatedly. Why would any of us believe a statement solely because the admin said it?

At this point they've lied enough that the assumption should just always be "They're probably lying again. I need more evidence / facts / details if this is a thing I care about at all." Honestly though, I'm at a point where I simply won't trust much anything anymore without seeing / hearing more (provably true) facts first. Lying / deceit has just become far too common / accepted / normalized these days.

The press seems to think that someone who lies whenever their lips are moving deserves an elevated platform.
This is the same argument that the anti-vaxers had about the COVID vaccine.

My only advice is to become a domain expert or have friends who are domain experts.

No, it’s not.

During the COVID pandemic situations we’re evolving quickly and the admin admitted they were wrong previously or had updated their views based on new information.

If you ask this admin about their obviously incorrect or fallacious statements their response is to call you a nasty person or piggy and then double down on the lies.

Don't gaslight.

It was very possible at the beginning of COVID that it was an airborne virus. However the CDC proclaimed that there was no evidence, therefore no one should wear masks.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/cdc-reverses-agai...

>In March 2020, as the pandemic began, Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president of the United States, explained in a 60 Minutes interview that he felt community use of masks was unnecessary. A few months later, he argued that his statements were not meant to imply that he felt the data to justify the use of cloth masks was insufficient. Rather, he said, had he endorsed mask wearing (of any kind), mass panic would ensue and lead to a surgical and N95 mask shortage among health care workers, who needed the masks more.

https://slate.com/technology/2021/07/noble-lies-covid-fauci-...

There was also the messaging that the vaccine did not cause myocarditis.

>This obvious error was compounded weeks later during a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The committee met to discuss what we knew and did not know about heart inflammation, or myocarditis, that had been linked to mRNA vaccination, and most notable in young men who received the vaccine.

I agree that the current administration is bad but I can't call it worse because the prior administration worked to illegally censor it's critics.

https://www.congress.gov/118/meeting/house/115561/documents/...

The administrative agencies response to the pandemic was very telling, there were multiple large conversations here with lots of comments about how we were being lied to.

Cool, so they admitted to falsehoods or updating. This admin does not.

The anti vaxxers and people not trusting this admin are not equivalent

You're initial comment was:

>> FDA says... >This admin has lied repeatedly. Why would any of us believe a statement solely because the admin said it? Do we need to give them the benefit of the doubt despite how many times they lie?

The fact of the matter is that both sets of officials lied.

Fauci only admitted to lying when he was brought in front of congress and there was a chance they were going to prosecute him if he lied to them.

We will see what this admin does if they ever get brought up to task.

Fauci thought his intentions were noble.

RFK Jr. believes the same I am sure.

Doesn't make either of them right, understanding why the other side is/was upset is the first step to fixing the problem.

If you can't see the equivalence between saying don't trust the government because it's lying and don't trust the government because it's lying there is nothing that will convince you.