Hacker News Reader

Comment by rediguanayum | Hacker News Reader

Hey guys- This data leak looks like the work of a misinformation campaign. The very first thing this article says is the data is from a cyberattack on European Medicines Agency (EMA), and the data was sent anonymously to journalists. A Reuters article claims that the Russian and Chinese are behind this: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-cyber/russian-chinese-.... May be it's true that there is mRNA instability, but the efficacy data says the Moderna vaccine works extremely well. mRNA in intrinsic in your cellular biology with all of its instability, and your body manages to deal with it just fine.

View on HN

> May be it's true that there is mRNA instability, but the efficacy data says the Moderna vaccine works extremely well

The efficacy data was based on clinical trial batches though, and the challenge seemed to be with lower manufacturing quality in the large scale commercial batches : "changes were made in their processes to ensure that the integrity was improved and brought in line with what was seen for clinical trial batches."

To be honest, we do also have real world data now (Israel mainly) that confirms the benefit/risk balance to be extremely good.

also the 2nd dose reaction, some of it's getting through at least

From https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/cyberattack-ema-update-6 the EMA has acknowledge that the individual emails are authentic, though "data from different users were selected and aggregated, screenshots from multiple folders and mailboxes have been created and additional titles were added by the perpetrators in a way which could undermine trust in vaccines."

sounds like an excuse, it’s a little creepy that certain parties have such a stake in vaccines being extremely trustworthy, as if there’s something wrong with it being a different case per each individual’s health/risk status, they should be saying “talk to your doctor” rather than “everyone get the vaccine when it’s your turn”

What more information could a doctor have that the drug regulators lack?

Information about your personal health, history, medications, and risk factors of course.

A patient’s medical record isn’t useful when the only groups being advised not to take vaccines are children and people with past allergic reactions to vaccines. A doctor has no more information in this regard than the health regulators.

Just like everything in medicine it’s all risk management. If the risk of suffering damage from covid is lower than the risk of damage from a vaccine then you don’t need the vaccine. A doctor will know your proper risk assessment.

>This data leak looks like the work of a misinformation campaign. The very first thing this article says is the data is from a cyberattack on European Medicines Agency (EMA), and the data was sent anonymously to journalists

What exactly of the above makes this a "misinformation campaign" (a term so vague as to be misinformation itself)? Nowhere in what you say above says the data are falsified or wrong.

Hackers have leaked data from organizations almost as long as there were computers - and giving them to journalists and/or posting them just as often. People also did it before computers.

The difference being that then we saluted getting access to raw data, whereas now we are being conditioned to consider them "misinformation".

> The difference being that then we saluted getting access to raw data, whereas now we are being conditioned to consider them "misinformation".

I like this point. I wish it would be reported as an "influence operation" rather than "misinformation". The most effective propaganda is 80% true.

Official response from the EMA indicates that the "leakers" (lightly?) manipulated the data, and did not simply pass it on unmodified:

> A closer investigation of the published material has revealed that not all of the documents were published in their integral, original form and may have been taken out of context. Whilst individual emails are authentic, data from different users were selected and aggregated, screenshots from multiple folders and mailboxes have been created and additional titles were added by the perpetrators in a way which could undermine trust in vaccines.

https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/cyberattack-ema-update-6

So basically they took out the most interesting parts and left the rest. So this is just spin from EMA.

"manipulated data" sounds like Orwellian double speak from the company.

I remember the planned parenthood video, where they where haggling over prices for parts. Planned parenthood claimed it was a manipulated video too. Because it was an excerpt. They even locked up somebody for making the video. Never mind that the full unedited video was also released on the internet.

And a few years earlier I watched a documentary on CBC about a black market in body parts. Little bits and pieces used during surgery. Which this totally corroborated.

You're assuming "the most interesting parts" are from original documents and not doctored. There are many interests that create anti-vax campaigns, much of it coming from singular sources and brought to you by bots. Meaning somebody is making money or political power from it. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/facebook-anti-vax-influencers...

If there's actual proof the PP video was legitimate surely it's in that criminal case. Provide specific and high quality proof on specific instances, making wide generalizations does not make it convincing.

The case was for breaking the law to get the information. It didn’t matter that it was accurate and the public should know what was happening.

Which will show what kind of actions they did or did not actually go through. Are you basing the proof of pp selling parts soley based on an edited video?

No it won't, and no I'm not. Did you bother to look into this at all or are you just repeating talking points?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_Parenthood_2015_unde...

I'm not sure where you got your info, but PP was totally vindicated after 15 states investigated.

yeah, don't really want to get into it. But the videos where real. The haggling for the price of fetus parts was real. Planned Parenthood defence rest on the claim that they where not making a profit. Which would be akin to your dentist charging you $500 to take out your daughter's tooth, causing her extra pain during extraction to make sure the tooth came out whole, then secretly selling her tooth for tens of thousands with out her knowledge. Then after the dentist gets caught in an undercover video haggling over the price to a potential buyer. The courts decide that that he made no money because after he pays himself a million dollar salary, his business is basically brake even. In a final bit of dystopian irony they charge and jail the guy that made the undercover video.

"a Texas grand jury chartered to investigate Planned Parenthood found no wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood but instead indicted CMP founder David Daleiden and member Sandra Merritt"

It sounds like they got people together to go after PP and then it didn't turn out that way.

Doesn't that cut against the dystopia in your imagination where things are predetermined?

The parent wikipedia article shows that CMP attempted to entrap Planned Parenthood by offering them $1600 for fetal tissues, but PP declined. Mike Pence's own investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing. So no, you're wrong, and the proof is in the link you're replying to.

Just watch the video and get back to me. Lets just say the wikipedia article is carefully phrased. Some might say it's "deceptively edited" /s

That sounds like curation/highlighting, not modification.

Seems like "manipulated" is EMA code-speak for "published the parts that make us look bad".

instability of mRNA is not an issue under the following proviso, the truncated fragments of the whole mRNA must not destroy the structure of the epitope regions; and beyond this level there are still PAMPs [pathogen associated molecular patterns] that will trigger an immune response pathway as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innate_immune_system

> Hey guys- This data leak looks like the work of a misinformation campaign.

Setting aside the misinformation / disinformation rhetoric for a moment, a product that gets injected in virtually every human being alive needs to go through a generous amount of scrutiny to ensure it works as intended and does not cause more harm than good.

Biotech is a vastly complex field and taking the stance of "it works, trust me" is not exactly wise.

The leaked information requires analysis to identify the valid and relevant parts which should be treated as feedback for health policies and vaccine development.

> The very first thing this article says is the data is from a cyberattack on European Medicines Agency (EMA), and the data was sent anonymously to journalists.

It could just as likely be a hacker acting out of altruism, similarly to the one who broke into that italian company a few years ago. If someone didn't trust that the megacorp was acting in good faith, what they did here is probably the most effective (though morally ambiguous) way to hold them accountable.

The only question now is, are we going to brush their work aside without examination, blithely labelling it "misinformation", without any further thought?

Everything looks like a misinformation campaign perpetrated by 'them' anymore. This well could be. It also might not be. The data could have been manipulated. It might not have been.

We do what we can with what information is offered to us. Lies, half-truths, and all.

Including the misnformation that this or that is misinformation...

To quote my favorite meme:

It's all so tiresome…

I could think of half a dozen parties with interest and the means to push this story in either direction. It's axiomatic that a story that's been covered is of interest to anyone. The response to a story implicitly carries on that property. The specific nature of the interests involved are not always clear.

Here, I reserve judgement. Time will tell.

it's very convenient to not even have to say something isn't true, but that russians or chinese dug it up.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com