[ExI] 23andME - Company issues: privacy

Will will.madden at gmail.com
Sun Oct 19 17:08:42 UTC 2014


On vaccines, the vaccine “scare” was not about vaccines at all, it was about thiomersal.  Thiomersal is a mercury based preservative that was determined by “consensus” science to not have a link to autism and other neurological disorders.  I would argue that this determination was specious at best, and given the availability of alternate preservatives, its use was dangerous and misguided.  If the concerns around this preservative had been addressed head on and honestly, instead of through obfuscation and medical “theater” (while quietly no longer allowing it to be used without addressing the concerns directly), we wouldn’t have the present issues with vaccine refusal.  Why do we really have these issues?  Because only foolish or cognitively defective people would believe such myths?  No, it’s because people don’t trust the FDA and establishment because the FDA and establishment didn’t handle the matter directly and honestly (probably because of legal concerns on the part of one of their benefactors), and people can tell, that’s why.  I don’t trust the FDA either, for what it’s worth.

On access to genetic information and its interpretation, the FDA should not have the power to block an online service from interpreting raw genetic data on behalf of consumers.  This mail order and online service is not yelling “fire” in a crowded movie theater.  The results are personalized and don’t endanger others.  This is an obvious overstep in power by the FDA, blocks peoples’ access to information, and reveals an underlying arrogance on the part of the FDA and doctors on the industry payroll.  The arrogance is that normal people are to naive and simpleminded to seek out answers regarding their own personal health.  They should be thrown from their pedestals and have their powers greatly curtailed.  We would all be much better for it, especially given how modern and evolving technology could rapidly advance in so many fields if these crooks would simply get out of our way.  Access to medical information is largely blocked by these institutions, including the educational system.  

There’s no reason that in 5 years we can’t have an internet based “watson” like technology that interfaces directly with end users and makes many modern doctors largely obsolete.  The FDA isn’t going to accelerate access to services like these.  The FDA will block them with red tape, because they represent the established industry, and their desire to block competition and maintain their comfy, heavily credentialed, anachronistic oligopoly.

On October 19, 2014 at 10:26:58 AM, spike (spike66 at att.net) wrote:

 

 

>… On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] 23andME - Company issues: privacy

 

On Oct 19, 2014 7:40 AM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>>… We have a known-corrupt government with a medical bureaucracy (which does not answer
> directly to the voters (and which recently insisted that ebola cannot be
> airborne)) claiming it has broad authority to regulate what an
> internet-based service may tell you, even if that service is run by
> volunteers and charges nothing.  If that isn't first amendment territory, I do not understand the first
> amendment.

>…That is shouting fire in a crowded theater territory.  The First Amendment never gave an absolute right to say anything at any time…

Indeed sir?  So the first amendment assures that citizens have the right to free speech unless of course they say something to which the government disagrees?  Who gets to say what is allowed speech and what is not?  Shall we appoint a “Free” Speech Czar?

>…Though I do wish they would use this same power to go after those who spread misinformation about vaccines to the point that vaccine refusal has become a public health problem in some areas…

Indeed sir?  I agree that harmful misinformation is spread regarding vaccines, but I disagree that spreading that misinformation is illegal.  That too is covered under first amendment rights.  Otherwise it would be illegal for the government to tell us that if we like our health plan we can keep our health plan (period end of story, 34 times on record.)  It would be illegal for our own government to tell us that the murders of US personnel in Benghazi was the result of an internet video, that Bowe Bergdahl served his country with distinction, that ebola cannot go airborne:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZxrE6orp2A

That comment seems self-contradictory to me.

  

The white stuff in this photo is a bodily fluid and it is in the air.  Ebola gets in all the bodily fluids.  That big white aerosol cloud in the photo would contain viruses if the sneezer is infected.  If a virus can be spread by bodily fluids, and saliva is a bodily fluid, and saliva goes airborne every time a person sneezes, and anyone in the area inhales that aerosol, then the viruses in those droplets enter the bystanders lungs and throat.  We can scarcely imagine a more optimal surface for a virus to land: nasal tissues, the throat, the bronchioles, the alveoli, all of which are well protected, moist, highly vascular tissues, a playground for bacteria and viruses.  Please, where did I go wrong in that line of reasoning? 

We are told by the like-your-doctor-keep-your-doctor president that we cannot catch ebola by sitting next to someone on a bus.  (Do we get a Period End of Story on that?)  Unless of course the person next to you sneezes and you happen to breathe  (PEoS).  But other than that, PEoS.  Oh and that like-your-plan-keep-your-plan story: that was PEoS comma unless your plan doesn’t conform to our rules, PEoS.  So get on the bus, citizen. 

Please, how in the hell can we be so DEAD certain sneezing is not an ebola vector?  Doctor Rafal Smigrodzki, do educate us please, sir.

Adrian I agree that medical misinformation is harmful to individuals and to public health.  But information, even the false and harmful variety, is covered under the first amendment.  If the government gets to decide what information is covered under the first amendment and which is not, there is no point in having a first amendment; it doesn’t do anything.  Understatement, the first amendment itself becomes harmful misinformation.  It becomes self-contradictory, assuring citizens a right while handing the government the authority to decide the circumstances under which a citizen really has that right, along with the right to arbitrarily prosecute after the fact.

spike 

 

 

 

 

_______________________________________________  
extropy-chat mailing list  
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org  
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20141019/21c25ce0/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.jpg at 01CFEB7A.74AA5090
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 43350 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/attachments/20141019/21c25ce0/attachment.obj>


More information about the extropy-chat mailing list