> Vinay Prasad is a fraud
What’s with him being allowed to continue to practice at the University of California [1]?
What’s with him being allowed to continue to practice at the University of California [1]?
The fraud is in his supposed thrust towards better scientific rigor when he is so sloppy with major decisions of life and death.
Just as the comment up there says that HN comments that are critical and misinformed get a lot of attention and upvotes, Prasad has been highly critical and misinformed about scientific research, and his stint at the FDA has exposed that his critiques are much like that top-level HN comment that doesn't get things quite right.
How can one tell whether he has tenure?
I can dislike someone’s stance while at the same time recognizing that others benefit from the same protections.
If protections are reduced, the process will be weaponized.
This is a valid concern. So is moral hazard from a lack of accountability. I’m trying to figure out how those balance.
The whole thing is kind of fascinating. Some of his "skeptic" fellow travelers like Cifu and Mandrola still carry water for him. Presumably he has a champion in Bob Wachter who also likes to fly the "contrarian" flag.
COVID really brought out a lot of crazies from UCSF and Stanford
To be clear, the FDA regulates marketing claims. “Is the label accurate?”
Major decisions about life and death are between the doctor and the patient, not the FDA.
It sounds like you’re taking an expansive view of this government agency’s mandate. People will push back on this at the ballot box, even if they can’t put it to words themselves.
In the case of vaccines, FDA's decisions can quite obviously make a difference in whether we have a rampant lethal pathogen roaring through our schools and killing our children and elderly... or not.
It's pedantic to the point of being outright false to say the FDA is not involved in major decisions of life and death. Silly take.
Such decisions, what treatments are available, are far more widespread and momentous than any individual decision between a doctor and a single patient, because they affect all conversations between doctors and patients.
> It sounds like you’re taking an expansive view of this government agency’s mandate
It sounds like you don't know what the FDA does in practice. It is not my supposed "view" it is the basic factual reality of the FDA for decades and decades. (And if you are asking for my view, I believe it has the appropriate level of control of the industry, having developed products directly under their regulation. My personal experience with the FDA, and the experience of all the people I know in similar situations, has been with a very astute and scientifically meritous institution, that worked hard to make sure that products see fair and rapid evaluation. At least, up until what I have seen under Vinay Prasad.)