"Because science" is new slang terminology that refers to bogus explanations or justifications for why things are done a certain way during the pandemic.
I have come to love the term because it encapsulates the contempt for the public evidenced by officials who usually know little about science but regurgitate "the science" to justify some unjustifiable policy.
Aaro Siri, a wonderful attorney, has challenged US health agencies on many of their illogical and often illegal pandemic policies.
He just posted the exchange he has had with CDC over its refusal to acknowledge the presence of immunity to COVID in the recovered.
While the whole document is interesting, the very end contains some of CDC's "because science" answers.
Let me explain what CDC has been doing over the past year: whenever there is strong evidence that shows a CDC claim or policy is dead wrong, CDC's "scientists" conduct a bogus study which can involve cherrypicking endpoints, choosing specially selected time periods, and a variety of other shenanigans to produce "evdience" that calls into question the real science. They have done this with masks, lockdowns, recovered immunity, and vaccines for children, that I can recall off the bat. I worked with a group of scientists who tried to reproduce the CDC's calculations. But we couldn't, because even though the CDC "scientists" were friendly and seemingly open, they never would provide enough information on their data set and their algorithm(s) for us to check their work. Clearly that was CDC policy, even though it flies in the face of standard ICMJE medical publication standards.
And that is what they did in this case. Despite mountains of evidence regarding the strength of recovered immunity, CDC just cited its own bogus study, while leaving the door open in case "the science" changed in the future. Where is the shame?
And, the agencies don't mind dragging litigation on forever, since it is your money that is paying for it.
1 comment:
Here's a goodie: a local politician told one of his constituents (who is a good friend of mine) that if it isn't on Google Scholar, then it's not reliable. I laughed out loud. I do literature searches all the time, and pretty much the last place I look for anything is Google Scholar!
It's a pity that science has become one of the casualties of this pandemic of fear.
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