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TigerDoc
| Favorite team: | LSU  |
| Location: | Texas |
| Biography: | |
| Interests: | |
| Occupation: | |
| Number of Posts: | 11657 |
| Registered on: | 4/25/2004 |
| Online Status: | Not Online |
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Caveat emptor on ball-spiking at this phase is where I'm at.
What's wrong with that?
What's wrong with that?
1
What's the socially acceptable amount of time before posting mission accomplished pics? Maybe I'll edit, baw.
You may be right. We can't lose all of these.
where are you getting giddy?
re: Khomeini's statue has been toppled ...
Posted by TigerDoc on 2/28/26 at 9:09 pm to Boodis Man
quote:
"Mission Accomplished" ?
For those too young to remember, Bush flew into the carrier in his flight suit and then gave a victory speech in front of this banner. It was glorious for a bit.
We're better at battles than wars is all I'm saying.
Heh, I thought that was our glorious takedown of the Taliban. We've had a few of these, haven't we? We're super good at this first part.
Reminders of Iraqi's pulling down the Saddam statue in '03:
I’m not a fan of indemnifying manufacturers either. Removing liability removes incentive to improve. But the alternative can’t just be “ban it tomorrow” unless someone can show how we replace its function at scale without major cost spikes. Use what we have while investing aggressively in safer and more efficient alternatives, and keep liability pressure in place and we'd probably eventually end up with something safer.
re: What is happening to the MAHA movement?
Posted by TigerDoc on 2/24/26 at 3:07 pm to Burt Reynolds
Yes, I agree with your position on immunity if not your interpretation of the strength of the evidence of glyphosate harms. RFK Jr. stood up for glyphosate's safety, seems to just want to go after Monsanto, says it's the adjuvants not the active ingredients that's harmful. I take it that's not good enough for you? You'd prefer a total ban?
re: What is happening to the MAHA movement?
Posted by TigerDoc on 2/23/26 at 9:11 pm to Burt Reynolds
Banning sounds straightforward, but with something this embedded in modern agriculture it would have many knock-on effects (e.g. higher food prices, more soil disturbance, and Big Ag would shift to other chemicals that aren’t obviously better). There's a lot that could be done short of bans with reducing reliance and tightening safeguards rather than flipping a switch overnight, though. Curious if you’d see that as a step in the right direction.
re: What is happening to the MAHA movement?
Posted by TigerDoc on 2/23/26 at 3:02 pm to Burt Reynolds
Pointing to specific pathways is good - much more informative than just saying “it’s poison”. The profit angle is also real in agriculture, but it cuts both ways - yield, food prices, farmer economics, and environmental tradeoffs all get mixed in. That’s why people end up arguing about evidence rather than motives. What were you hoping MAHA was going to do with glyphosate?
Yeah - “carcinogenic” by itself doesn’t tell you much. Sunlight, alcohol, and processed meat are all on carcinogen lists too. The meaningful question is always at what dose and exposure? That’s why toxicologists hammered us on the idea that the dose makes the poison - it keeps us from arguing past each other with labels instead of numbers.
re: What is happening to the MAHA movement?
Posted by TigerDoc on 2/23/26 at 1:11 pm to Burt Reynolds
Worth separating hazard from risk. glyphosate can cause harm under certain conditions, but that’s true of almost any biologically active chemical. The debate is about risk at real-world exposure levels (this same principle is relevant to the mercury in vaccines vs. emissions issue as well). Some groups classified it as “probably carcinogenic” while some regulators like EPA have generally concluded typical dietary exposure is low risk. That gap is why the issue stays contentious. If we’re going to worry about it, the conversation should probably focus on exposure levels and evidence, not just the fact that it kills plants because things you put in your body all the time without a thought (e.g. salt & caffeine) can also do that.
re: What is happening to the MAHA movement?
Posted by TigerDoc on 2/23/26 at 8:55 am to Burt Reynolds
Good series of posts. Every movement that moves from critique to governing eventually hits this moment - you have to show how you weigh competing risks, not just identify villains. The swings on glyphosate and food dyes is similar to this situation with mercury:
EPA to weaken rule limiting harmful mercury, air toxins from coal plants
If mercury is framed as a major public health concern (e.g., years of debate around thimerosal), then easing mercury limits on coal emissions seems like it would at least require a clear explanation of why that risk is acceptable. What’s the framework here? Cost-benefit? Exposure thresholds? Precautionary principle sometimes but not others?
EPA to weaken rule limiting harmful mercury, air toxins from coal plants
If mercury is framed as a major public health concern (e.g., years of debate around thimerosal), then easing mercury limits on coal emissions seems like it would at least require a clear explanation of why that risk is acceptable. What’s the framework here? Cost-benefit? Exposure thresholds? Precautionary principle sometimes but not others?
CCTA has real advantages and incentives absolutely play a role, but I'd complexify this a bit - the situation is probably more layered/messy than a single explanation. Medicine tends to look confusing because it’s trying to optimize several things at once - catching disease early, avoiding cascades of extra testing, managing risk, dealing with insurance constraints, and working within whatever resources a local system actually has. Incentives matter, but large systems usually evolve under a mix of pressures, not one steering wheel.
IOW, beware stories about big systems with only one moving part.
IOW, beware stories about big systems with only one moving part.
Appreciate that, and I think you’re putting your finger on something important - most people’s views here are shaped by the cases that stick with them, especially when the system feels slow or dismissive. The hard part is that medicine has both incredible successes and very human blind spots, and people tend to encounter one or the other more vividly.
Sounds like we probably agree that the interesting question isn’t whether problems exist, but how to design systems that catch mistakes without making access impossible (which is easier said than done).
These kinds of conversations are rare online, so I’m glad it’s staying thoughtful.
Sounds like we probably agree that the interesting question isn’t whether problems exist, but how to design systems that catch mistakes without making access impossible (which is easier said than done).
These kinds of conversations are rare online, so I’m glad it’s staying thoughtful.
Feels like y'all are actually pointing at the same uncomfortable truth from different angles - that medicine is both incredibly helpful and very fallible. The “docs get it wrong sometimes” stories and the “these drugs are powerful and complicated” concern aren’t really contradictions - they’re two reasons this is a hard policy question.
Part of me says the real question isn’t “trust vs don’t trust”, but where the guardrails should sit given that humans (patients and clinicians) are imperfect and there’s of course a version of this debate that isn’t about who’s naive, but about how much friction we want between people and powerful tools.
The other part of me wants to lean into the trust issue & engage the questions of what would make health professionals and institutions more trustworthy, but maybe that can be blended too, because I think there are some limitations to human improvement and that well-calibrated guardrails in themselves might help the distrust problem, but it's more complex than just that, because our odd information environment sometimes distorts our judgements of trustworthiness.
Part of me says the real question isn’t “trust vs don’t trust”, but where the guardrails should sit given that humans (patients and clinicians) are imperfect and there’s of course a version of this debate that isn’t about who’s naive, but about how much friction we want between people and powerful tools.
The other part of me wants to lean into the trust issue & engage the questions of what would make health professionals and institutions more trustworthy, but maybe that can be blended too, because I think there are some limitations to human improvement and that well-calibrated guardrails in themselves might help the distrust problem, but it's more complex than just that, because our odd information environment sometimes distorts our judgements of trustworthiness.
Sheepish that I missed that. Carry on. :cheers:
He was extending charity to the argument (hence him saying "I doubt it"). I don't blame people for looking for ideas to get health care more cheaply but I agree with you that this one has some significant failure modes (as almost everything does, really). :lol:
Fair point, and I probably should’ve said it more precisely. The proverb isn’t about bandaids or routine self-care. It’s a caution about how even trained people can lose objectivity once they’re both clinician and patient once risk becomes complex (obviously not the case with bandaids).
I agree this is an analog problem. The interesting work is figuring out where along the continuum different drugs belong and not arguing for or against the continuum itself. One way to make the sorting task more concrete is to ask what kind of “friction” each drug needs:
-Labeling alone (true OTC)
-Pharmacist gatekeeping / behind-the-counter
-Time or quantity limits
-Prescriber oversight because of monitoring or stewardship (antibiotics are the obvious example)
Once you start thinking in terms of friction matched to risk rather than a single line the conversation gets a lot more practical.
I agree this is an analog problem. The interesting work is figuring out where along the continuum different drugs belong and not arguing for or against the continuum itself. One way to make the sorting task more concrete is to ask what kind of “friction” each drug needs:
-Labeling alone (true OTC)
-Pharmacist gatekeeping / behind-the-counter
-Time or quantity limits
-Prescriber oversight because of monitoring or stewardship (antibiotics are the obvious example)
Once you start thinking in terms of friction matched to risk rather than a single line the conversation gets a lot more practical.
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