Non-IT News Thread
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Amazon fires: What about Bolivia?
All eyes have been on the burning of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil, as international pressure - and sharp criticism - have been heaped upon its president.
But fires do not stop at borders, and Bolivia's rainforest is burning too. The Amazon sprawls for millions of square miles across nine different countries - and Bolivia has seen fires rage across the forest near its borders with Brazil and Paraguay. The size of the fires is estimated to have doubled since Thursday. About one million hectares - or more than 3,800 square miles- are affected. Yet while Brazil's President Bolsonaro has been trading rhetorical blows with world leaders over his actions to protect the rainforest, little attention has been given to the blaze in Bolivia and its causes. Bolivian President Evo Morales is in the midst of a controversial re-election campaign, having gone to the courts to abolish term limits as he seeks a fourth time as the country's leader. Unlike his Brazilian counterpart, he has decided to accept international help in fighting the fires - securing a Boeing 747 "supertanker" from the US to drop water, and welcoming the offer of aid from the G7 summit at the weekend. -
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
BBC News - Opioid crisis: Johnson & Johnson hit by landmark ruling
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49452373How is this not more on the prescribing providers? Is there a such thing as an inverse class action lawsuit?
Needs to hit the vendors first, then they can go after prescribers.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
BBC News - Opioid crisis: Johnson & Johnson hit by landmark ruling
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49452373How is this not more on the prescribing providers? Is there a such thing as an inverse class action lawsuit?
Needs to hit the vendors first, then they can go after prescribers.
I don't really follow - the vendors aren't advertising directly to patients - they are advertising to providers - providers who should be doing their due diligence and knowing the side effects, etc and not prescribing when not called for.
I would totally blame the manufacturers (is that who you are calling the vendors? - if not, who are the vendors in your mind?) IF people could buy this crap over the counter and there was no safeguards to it's purchase - which of course we know there is a black market for this stuff, but that's basically outside the scope, unless you want to claim the manufacturers are getting supply to the black market easily and on purpose.
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Brazil will reject $20 million of Amazon fire aid from G7
Brazil will reject an offer of $20 million in international aid for the fires that are burning across the Amazon rainforest, according to the president's office.
The special communications office for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro told CNN on Tuesday that the country would turn down the money that was pledged at the G7 summit in France on Monday. The blazes in the Amazon have caused a public spat between Bolsonaro and French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been vocal about the need for an international response to the fires. According to news site G1 Globo, Bolsonaro's chief of staff suggested that the aid should be used elsewhere instead. "We are thankful, but maybe those resources would be more relevant to reforest Europe," Onyx Lorenzoni was quoted as saying by G1 Globo late Monday night. But on Tuesday morning, around an hour after his communications office confirmed that Brazil would reject the funding, Bolsonaro appeared to cast doubt on the matter. "Did I say that? Did I? Did Jair Bolsonaro speak?" he asked reporters outside the presidential residence, adding that he would only respond to the offer once Macron withdrew his insults of him. -
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
I don't really follow - the vendors aren't advertising directly to patients - they are advertising to providers - providers who should be doing their due diligence and knowing the side effects, etc and not prescribing when not called for.
Yup, so first you have to prove, as they just did, that there is something going on before you can prove that the individual prescriptions are a problem.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
I don't really follow - the vendors aren't advertising directly to patients - they are advertising to providers - providers who should be doing their due diligence and knowing the side effects, etc and not prescribing when not called for.
Yup, so first you have to prove, as they just did, that there is something going on before you can prove that the individual prescriptions are a problem.
WHAT? really? so if the manufacturer was completely guiltless - you're saying that makes the prescribers guiltless too? Ok you didn't say that - so I need you to say what you said, but in a totally different way so I might understand where you're driving at.
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
WHAT? really? so if the manufacturer was completely guiltless - you're saying that makes the prescribers guiltless too?
Not in all cases, but in this one, pretty much. It would make it impossible to go after prescribers for sure.
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Ok you didn't say that - so I need you to say what you said, but in a totally different way so I might understand where you're driving at.
For a prescriber to get in trouble, they don't have to just have done something wrong, they have to have been paid off to do it, or else you can't show anything because doctors have unlimited rights to do any reckless thing that they want. Doctors are essentially immune to being sued over judgement calls.
But vendors aren't allowed to pay off doctors to kill people, that's a crime. And if that crime has been committed, then you just have to show that a specific doctors was in on it.
Basically you need a crime first. This isn't a question of ethics, it's about legality. And doctors have zero ethical requirements, but there are certain laws that they can't break.
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Selling a TV off of the back of a truck is totally legal. So to stop that happening, it's best to start by showing that TVs were stolen and tracking them to trucks that are selling them. Then you can arrest the guys selling them from the trucks.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Ok you didn't say that - so I need you to say what you said, but in a totally different way so I might understand where you're driving at.
For a prescriber to get in trouble, they don't have to just have done something wrong, they have to have been paid off to do it, or else you can't show anything because doctors have unlimited rights to do any reckless thing that they want. Doctors are essentially immune to being sued over judgement calls.
But vendors aren't allowed to pay off doctors to kill people, that's a crime. And if that crime has been committed, then you just have to show that a specific doctors was in on it.
Basically you need a crime first. This isn't a question of ethics, it's about legality. And doctors have zero ethical requirements, but there are certain laws that they can't break.
Thanks - OK.. I get that now.
it blows one's mind that doctors can act so recklessly - I wonder how true that really is? Have there been many court cases to back that up - that always side with the doctor for not doing their job? Of course... proving they were reckless might be a real challenge.
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
it blows one's mind that doctors can act so recklessly - I wonder how true that really is?
MDs are essentially certified to have unlimited authority. This is both great and terrible. It's terrible for really obvious reasons. But it is great because it allows someone with an MD's training to decide to ignore the standard quackery and either try something experimental or just use common sense when the medical establishment does not. This is actually one of the few protections in the American medical system, but because the path to becoming a doctor doesn't encourage strong ethics, it isn't used very widely for good reasons. But you can't take it away or the right to innovate goes away.
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@Dashrender doctors can afford way better lawyers than their victims can. I mean patients. No, victims is right.
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@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
Of course... proving they were reckless might be a real challenge.
Here is the problem....
If you could just "prove recklessness" concepts like vaccinations or break mold being a cure for diseases would have landed people in jail and the only legal cures would remain leaches. Because we still live in the era of witch-doctory, we have the problem that there is little to no science behind our medicine so what is established or believed is often insane or unproven. And any attempt to find something new or to test theories are seen as crazy, until they work (and often still seen as crazy once they do.)
It's not like architecture or materials science were we have really, really good science that tells us how strong an arch made of bricks or foam will be. Medicine is still in the dark ages and what is "established" is little better, and often worse, than something random.
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@RojoLoco said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender doctors can afford way better lawyers than their victims can. I mean patients. No, victims is right.
That, too.
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@scottalanmiller said in Non-IT News Thread:
@Dashrender said in Non-IT News Thread:
it blows one's mind that doctors can act so recklessly - I wonder how true that really is?
MDs are essentially certified to have unlimited authority. This is both great and terrible. It's terrible for really obvious reasons. But it is great because it allows someone with an MD's training to decide to ignore the standard quackery and either try something experimental or just use common sense when the medical establishment does not. This is actually one of the few protections in the American medical system, but because the path to becoming a doctor doesn't encourage strong ethics, it isn't used very widely for good reasons. But you can't take it away or the right to innovate goes away.
That likely is a reason it's called a medical practice.
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BBC News - Purdue Pharma 'offers up to $12bn' to settle opioid cases
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49491307 -
Unsolicited nudes now illegal in Texas.
"“The law makes it a Class C misdemeanor to send an unwanted, unrequested indecent photo – by text, dating app, email or any other platform.”"
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So much for AirDrop in Dallas.
