Hacker News Reader

Comment by chowells | Hacker News Reader

It means making an informed choice that you know raises fatality rates.

Who did that in this case? The parents? Isn't it more likely that they don't believe it raises fatality rates (however incorrectly)?

> Who did that in this case?

Anti-vax activists like RFK Jr. https://www.medpagetoday.com/publichealthpolicy/healthpolicy...

by not saying anything about it, he committed statistical murder?

Don't be disingenuous.

He's actively suppressing publication of studies showing vaccine safety as a government official.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/us/politics/fda-covid-vac...

He said nothing about the medication in question, so does your original comment mean that RFK is guilty of statistical murder and should be punished for his general vaccine skepticism? I'm not sure how else to read "another case of statistical murder that can't be punished as it should, unfortunately".

That would be an extraordinary claim.

If you witness child abuse and say nothing, you bear some responsibility for its continuation.

If you’re the top health official of the country and spread doubt about numerous public health interventions, including actively suppressing research showing their safety and efficacy, yes, you’re guilty as fuck.

Hope this helps clarify things.

Of course he’s probably wrong about much of that. Punishing him for it in a court, if that’s what you mean, would be illiberal and grotesque.

Why? It’s negligent homicide.

It’s just so diffuse that it doesn’t fit in our crime model. Like polluters who shave years off an entire neighborhood’s lives via health impacts.

Because an opinion can’t rise to homicide, even if it influences policy. That’s not what homicide is. Instead, it’s simply bad policy, to be punished at the ballot box.

Bad policy that needlessly kills thousands of people should be punishable outside the ballot box.

If your policy of letting kindergarteners play with grenades goes bad, you go to jail.

This is a broken system. When somebody allegedly steals a backpack they get thrown in Riker's. When somebody with substantial power causes a whole bunch of people to die in aggregate via pollution, misinformation, or whatever our society has no mechanism to punish them.

Yes.

He's rather infamous for his part in the 2019 Samoa measles outbreak.

See: https://apnews.com/article/rfk-jr-samoa-measles-kennedy-vacc...

See: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/rfk-jr-samoa-measles-va...

See: https://www.newsweek.com/rfk-jr-denies-samoa-visit-was-vacci...

The changes he's made upon taking over HHS are almost certain to have far-reaching affects which eclipse that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com