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Mary Pat Campbell's avatar

One of the biggest issues I had was the outright lying.

To pretend that they knew more than they actually knew, they lied about it. Lied about trade-offs, lied about data, just lied.

But it wasn't just the deceptions, but that they tried to otherize the people who were trying to dig into what was actually going on. In some cases, these other people may have been incorrect, but they were trying their best. In some cases, they turned out to be correct. But no, they wanted grandma to die, you see.

They are going to have a difficult time rebuilding trust if it's not just that they say, "Sorry, we were wrong, we shouldn't have done that" (they're still making excuses -- some won't go that far), but that they say, "We won't do it next time." -- some may say the first, but not the second. We can't trust it won't happen again. They'll lie again if they feel they want to wield that power. It's for our own good, you see.

Even if they're wrong. Again. Because they're the experts.

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Ray Prisament's avatar

I continue to really appreciate what you are both doing here but when taking a step back some of the dynamics are really strange, aren't they? For example, the idea that we must show "public health" officialdom that those with dissenting views were data driven and not bent on destruction or whatever (similarly, Dr. Jetelina's statement in the original piece that she was initially surprised she could have a civil and productive dialog with you (!))... I mean, is public health a serious profession and field of study? Or some kind of insular and emotionally fragile club?

Because in most serious professions / fields of study the ability to consider and incorporate alternate views is pretty baseline. As their reflection continues (at its glacial pace) I hope they will consider there might be something fundamentally awry in the epistemological state of either the field itself, or the majority of its contemporary practictioners.

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