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Comment by ike2792 | Hacker News Reader

They really picked a strange set of claims to ask people about.

- For the protein one, it's too general of a question. Some plant proteins aren't complete proteins while others are, and animal proteins can range from super-healthy oily fish to less-healthy bacon.

- The next three are more standard "almost certainly false" claims that would make sense to ask in a survey like this.

- The acetaminophen/autism thing was in headlines recently with lots of people either hyping it up or trying to discredit it. It's hard to say anything is clear either way, but it isn't completely outrageous to believe this one.

- Finally, "vaccines are used for population control" is just an outright conspiracy theory and not even mainstream for "false health claims."

Lumping different types of questions together like this is like saying "more than 70% of people believe that butter isn't as bad as we thought or that the moon landing was faked."

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We can't even necessarily claim that oily fish is "super-healthy". People shouldn't rely on it as their only source of protein due to the risk of heavy metal toxicity, especially for larger fish. A few servings per week are probably fine depending on the exact fish species.

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/prenatal...

Some plant proteins are "complete" in the sense of including all essential amino acids, but the ratios are wrong which still leaves at least one amino acid as a limiting factor. It's usually best to mix at least two plant proteins instead of relying on a single one.

Everything in moderation.

> plant proteins are "complete" [...] but the ratios are wrong

While I understand the idea, it lacks to point out the right ratio of others plants. A better generalization would be:

   Most plants include all AA acids. Some are "complete" as they include all AA while others are leaves at least one AA as a limiting factor.

See my sibling comment for a short list of "complete" plants https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48018888

“vaccines are used for population control” Bill Gates has stated this is a goal, but in a different context. The idea is if you’re in a country with a large number of early deaths you are likely to have more children, and vaccines should help reverse this trend. So this is kind of an ambiguous question.

"vaccines are used for population control" in practice might as well be "do you extremely dislike and distrust the medical industry." It gives people an opportunity to express hostility at the cost of strawmaning their own disorganized opinions.

In the first three questions asked I could see reasonable people argue either way, with legitimate papers backing their "side", so I'm happy to at least see an even split.

For the autism question I agree with you, people simply believing their government is reasonable.

But I am quite worried about the last question. That 25% of people believe vaccines are used for population control is worrisome, no matter how you spin it.

Note that while it is not a vaccince, there is an injectable birth control, and immunocontraceptives which would actually be vaccines are in development. Further there have been well documented cases where people were sterilized against their will under the guise of other medical procedures, including receiving such shots. It really doesn't take too much whisper down the lane for that to be misunderstood, and once you get it in your head that a vaccination program could be used for population control I imagine it would be pretty hard to find evidence to convince yourself otherwise.

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