Personally, I think it's more than just asking policy makers to give less weight to studies produced by these massive corporations. This is because many of the people who work for these companies end up becoming the policy makers. For example, Michael R. Thomas worked for the government for a while, then became the VP of Public Policy for Monsanto. Then he gets a gig under the Obama administration as Deputy Commissioner of the FDA. This isn't a political comment either. There are plenty of people like this who worked for Bush or Trump, too. Bush appointed a guy that had to resign 2 months later for failing to disclose the stocks he had in various health and medical companies. Why do you think he didn't do that? The people that are willing to bend the rules often end up at the top.
There is carousel that happens at the top echelons of our government. I think this big corporations have figured out a backdoor way to profit. That said, it's hard to solve this problem, because these people know the system better than anyone else. I think you want people who have worked in the industry helping shape the policies, but there has to be a way to hold them accountable. When's the last time we've seen ANYONE at the top get punished. Bernie Madoff is the last high-profile guy that comes to mind for me. Most of the punishment these days seems to be directed at whistleblowers, which is a good sign the criminals are running things. I just want this cleaned up, and I think, until it does, we need to be extremely suspicious of data produced by these companies.
As to your question, most of what I post here are studies funded by hospitals, clinics, and, to a lesser degree, universities. I like clinician and hospital studies because they often seem to have the least bias. Well, that's not entirely true. They often make mistakes in methodology, but they seem to get called out pretty quickly for it. I don't trust the government agencies for the reasons mentioned above. I can almost always find flaws in their methodology that end up favoring Big X. When you look at who funds research, it's entirely motivated by profit, which is a good thing if you can keep it from being corrupted. Either the government is subsidizing it or corporations want to profit from it. These people spend billions of dollars lobbying the government and manipulating data. This ultimately impacts the quality of our science. You can probably find posts from me over 5 years ago complaining about the brokenness of our scientific institutions, and, imo, we are seeing it manifest via Covid.
So often, studies with the best interest of the people in mind get ignored because nobody wants to fund it. That's a problem. We get bad data because nobody wants to do peer review. That's a problem. We have activism in journalism that elevates ideology over science. That's a problem. We need peer review. We need studies that isolate variables. We need double blind studies. There should be just as much incentive for peer review as there is for new research. I don't think researchers should get credit for a study until it goes through peer review, the methodology is sound, and the conclusion of study should be repeatable.
(08-31-2021, 11:42 AM)homebiscuit Wrote: [ -> ] (08-30-2021, 10:02 PM)Lucky2Last Wrote: [ -> ]It's looking like we are on the downward trend. I'm curious how the numbers will look with all the kids returning to school. I don't suspect we'll see a huge uptick, but delta is a different animal.
Don't be daft. This is my whole argument about the over emphasis of the vaccine. The policy does not fit the data.
I’m not being daft, you just seem to be on a mission to solve a some nebulous mystery without any clues. It’s as if you’re attempting to prove some dark sinister plot that no one else sees.
Have you bothered to read A study I have posted?
Look dude, this is how I am reasoning. We know corporations want to profit. We know there is a history of companies manipulating data for profit at the expense of the people. I have posted many studies that show why I believe a portion of these policies are not scientifically sound, which leads me to believe that some of the policy is being driven by corporate greed and not facts. Those are all perfectly reasonable premises that fit within the context of our system. Is asinine of you to try to discredit me by making me out to be a conspiracy theorist.