Comment by ryanferg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryanferg | Hacker News Reader

When I was in undergrad, a Cog Psych professor told me a story about an undergrad who made a poster for a regional research conference of no real consequence about the correlation between diet soda drinking and some recall task. The study and the conference were more about teaching students about research more than actually finding anything. When he and his student showed up to the conference, a representative from a low-cal sweetener producer was there, and proceeded to spend the entire conference standing next to the poster refuting the obviously amateurish research. He said for years afterwards, he'd still get mail and faxes about new research that disproved any link between fake sugar and memory problems.

All of that being said, I don't know if there is a substance that we consume that has had more research done on it than artificial sweeteners. For every study like this, there are other studies disproving them, etc. If there is an effect, the effect size is small, and I'm not convinced there is anything there. Also, I'm drinking a Diet Coke right now and in another life I was an Alz researcher so maybe I really want it to not be there.

Wait, a mysterious man showed up to an impactless meeting to basically embarrass the hell out of an aspiring undergrad research and your immediate reaction wasn't "Oh shit, these people are probably trying to cover something up."

Cause that's my immediate reaction, sounds similar to the cigarette industry in the 60s

I think that's a strong reaction. Corporate damage control and prevention of profit loss will look pretty much the same whether they're covering something up or just correcting the record. If there's a threat to profits, an industry and corporation will usually attempt to prevent or attack it regardless of any connection to the truth.

> "just correcting the record"

If that phrase isn't triggering your alarm bells, I don't know what to tell you...

> "If there's a threat to profits, an industry and corporation will usually attempt to prevent or attack it regardless of any connection to the truth."

Oh okay, you do get it lol.

The thing is though, it doesn't have to be like this. We allow it to be at our own mortal peril, and that isn't even remotely hyperbole.

"Correcting the record" isn't inherently malicious, and a company attacking something does not indicate a likely cover up. That reasoning is overly cynical and fallacious. I'm no fan of corporations or overlarge industries (and their respective lobbyists), but the way I see them is like large organisms. They are neither good nor evil, simply consumed by self-preservation and the drive to thrive.

questions of good and evil aside, these sorts of organisms have subsumed human beings into a new composite apex predator

paperclip maximizers are real, they're made of code and people

I agree entirely, but it's not relevant to my point. Understanding the problems with an entity is completely different from assuming that every bad rumor about that entity is true, or taking the position that the entity can never actually be right.

You can't fight problems from a position that doesn't consider things realistically. You just lump yourself in with all the other raving conspiracy theorists.

Fair, I don't think we disagree

paperclip maximizers?

> "Oh shit, these people are probably trying to cover something up."

Was that also your reaction when Youtube shut down anti-vax videos and videos promoting dangerous Covid "cures"?

Sometimes, even if you know something is false, it is helpful to nip misinformation in the bud.

So, now that it’s been admitted that testing for immunological blocking response (ya know, “immunization”, the thing vaccines used to do) was NOT done by Pfizer, and testing for risk to human reproduction was NOT done at all — are you still glad that everyone shut down debate about risks?

What else do you “know” is false or true, that even those who created the thing are unaware of?

Your position seems to reflect an astonishing level of hubris, to me.

They did test that the vaccine reduced risk of transmission and contraction of the disease, and testing for fertility didn't make sense anyway (and recent studies verify that it has no effect on fertility anyway) so I don't know why anybody who isn't grasping at straws would bring up anything of that sort in the first place.

I am glad that they shut down foolish misinformation like that, which is only designed to mislead people into being anxious about nothing in an effort to spread FUD about vaccines.

Although they have recently admitted that the vaccine does not, in fact, reduce the risk of transmission - which might call their testing into question, no?

Bless you, but it's surreal to have such a discussion in a forum that purports to attract interesting discussion on technical topics.

Perhaps you missed the Pfizer's admission to the EU parliament that they did no such testing.

The fact that governments, researchers and medical professionals worldwide claimed they did test effectiveness against transmission (and thus claimed moral high-ground in forcing these prophylactic treatments which do not include immunization), when in fact they did NOT test, will go down as one of the most catastrophic blunders in the history of public medicine.

Trust in public medicine programs -- and, tragically, public vaccination programs in particular, has been destroyed, perhaps for generations.

And it is due, in no small part, to catastrophic hubris such as revealed here.

FUD about vaccines is now rampant because the extreme testing, care and attention they usually undergo was short-circuited. The resultant outcome of unnecessary carnage will be squarely on the shoulders of those responsible for this outrageous lack of scientific humility.

Your first paragraph is condescending and unnecessary.

Can you cite any sources that confirm that "governments, researchers and medical professionals worldwide claimed they did test effectiveness against transmission"? I haven't seen any, and a cursory Google search reveals articles like this [0] which confirm my memory that this was never claimed by the vaccine researchers. Independent research after the vaccines were released did find they reduced transmission significantly (for the early variants).

This reference to the Pfizer "admission" seems way more like a gotcha tactic. Pfizer never made the claim, nor was it necessary to show the vaccine was safe and served its primary objective.

Edit: Oops, forgot to cite my source :P

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-pfizer-vaccine-tra...

No. What is condescending and unnecessary is the claim that "They did test that the vaccine reduced risk of transmission", when even the Reuters "fact check" confirms that they did not [0]

Gaslighting the HN audience into questioning our memory that we were forced to take an untested vaccine will be met with immediate and sharp reprimand. If you feel it is condescending -- then stop gaslighting. You lied, and people were forced to take a wildly experimental, potentially dangerous, untested product. Unacceptable.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-pfizer-vaccine-tra...

Thousands of my fellow citizens were forced to leave their jobs for refusing this. Our government officials are on video claiming they had solid scientific reasons to do so, to "protect grandma". It was all lies. And you know it.

The commenter you originally replied to was wrong. Pfizer (and other vaccine researchers) never did research on transmission.

But again, can you cite any sources saying that at one point they [Pfizer and other vaccine researchers] did claim that?

The answer of course is that no, you can't, because they didn't. They didn't lie and neither did governments and health organizations. But because we were asked to vaccinate to protect ourselves and others (which worked, and was quickly backed by independent scientific research after vaccines were offered to the public), it sounds like a big gotcha lie if Pfizer says they specifically didn't research that.

Note there are ways you protect others by vaccinating other than reducing transmission. By significantly lowering your chance of hospitalization, you ensure there are more free hospital beds for those that need it (due to COVID or not).

I guess it's good that the sugar industry has enough money to fund studies of artificial sweetener and vice versa.

How about developing enough self-control to avoid both products altogether?

I've been good at avoiding money and studies.

Blaming individuals in these scenarios is always strange to me, people mostly trust that the items they can purchase won't harm them. It's an immense burden to saddle the consumer with endless research of every product they purchase, on top of their usual time needs from work, commute, family.

> people mostly trust that the items they can purchase won't harm them

The state of California has made it abundantly clear that practically everything you can purchase there will harm you.

No, what it has made abundantly clear is that poor incentives produce poor outcomes. There's significant penalty for underlabeling with regard to the known to cause cancer business and no penalty for gratuitous labeling. So every damn thing gets labeled to minimize potential liability and now carcinogenicity is a joke.

> All of that being said, I don't know if there is a substance that we consume that has had more research done on it than artificial sweeteners

MSG? ... MSG is probably a close second...

> If there is an effect, the effect size is small, and I'm not convinced there is anything there.

Even if there is, apparently sugar is doing much more damage.

Yeah, that's my main takeaway from the general body of research. Sugar is awful for you in a million well-known ways. Most artificial sweeteners are, at worst, far better for your health. I'm a big fan of erythritol for most purposes.

Has there been a suspected artificial sweetener/memory issue link for a while? I could see them wanting to refute it if there were fluoride-like not very well founded concerns. Otherwise that is insanely suspicious, to the point of parody.

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