Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised [LWN.net]

Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

Posted Mar 1, 2016 1:22 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised by Cyberax
Parent article: Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

> That's not correct.

So you're telling me my personal experiences are fake?

Anyway, who gives a **** about a court and compensation (and what happens in reality probably isn't as nice as you'd like to think).

My point was that reports of bad reactions to vaccines (and, presumably, other medicines) GET SUPPRESSED!!! Some doctors are good, and will fill in a yellow card as a matter of course. Unfortunately, many doctors will not, and have to be forced to. Which many patients are not prepared to do!!! So the *evidence* that vaccines are safe is seriously compromised :-(

What you say is nice in theory. The reality is, it probably doesn't work that well in practice - many people do not get (often, do not WANT) compensation. And don't have the energy to fight the system, anyway.

Again, I have PERSONAL EXPERIENCE of this - my wife (imho) has been injured by a medical mistake. We don't want compensation - we just wish it had never happened. And, as so often is the case, it's only in hindsight that we realised what had happened.

Cheers,
Wol

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Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

Posted Mar 1, 2016 2:15 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (5 responses)

> My point was that reports of bad reactions to vaccines (and, presumably, other medicines) GET SUPPRESSED!!!
No, they're not. At least in the US they are registered centrally: https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/index - it's even available for download. And the reporting is _mandatory_ for doctors.

> Again, I have PERSONAL EXPERIENCE of this - my wife (imho) has been injured by a medical mistake.
Sorry, nope. I don't believe you or your wife. Vaccines are extremely safe unless you have a direct allergy to one of the components.

Pretty much the only medical mistake is NOT getting a vaccine absent clear contraindications.

Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

Posted Mar 1, 2016 8:29 UTC (Tue) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (4 responses)

To be fair, he never said that his wife's problems had anything to do with vaccination. Even with modern (science-based) medicine, stuff sometimes Goes Wrong, and that can of course be devastating to the people concerned. It's probably a good idea not to put too much blind faith in what a medical doctor tells you – second opinions are generally available – but if you consider the alternatives to modern science-based medicine you will quickly find out that there really aren't any that on the whole are anything near as successful.

As far as adverse vaccine side effects are concerned, there may be some underreporting going on but personally I don't think that this happens enough to make a significant dent in the risk/benefit ratio (as I said in my other message, a 3.5-order-of-magnitude difference in fatality rates is hard to beat). When you're talking about adverse vaccine side effects, it's also worth remembering that pretty much anything bad that happens to you after a vaccination may be (and often is) written up as an adverse side effect. There doesn't have to be an obvious cause-effect relationship. In principle, if you step out of the doctor's office after your vaccination and get hit by a car in the road, that can go into the database as an adverse side effect of your vaccination.

Finally, different countries operate their own separate tracking systems for adverse vaccine reactions. Since these all agree that the risks of vaccination are vanishingly small, there must be a global conspiracy going on where doctors and public-health organisations everywhere collude in playing down vaccination side effects, and that becomes progressively more unlikely the bigger the conspiracy needs to be.

So, people, get vaccinated. It's really quite safe and it helps protect you and the people around you from all sorts of nasty, debilitating, and possibly lethal diseases, including nasty diseases that we don't know how to make better once you actually have them.

Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

Posted Mar 1, 2016 10:42 UTC (Tue) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (3 responses)

> To be fair, he never said that his wife's problems had anything to do with vaccination. Even with modern (science-based) medicine, stuff sometimes Goes Wrong, and that can of course be devastating to the people concerned.

It was painkillers, actually. And now she can't walk without sticks, or walk very far ...

> It's probably a good idea not to put too much blind faith in what a medical doctor tells you – second opinions are generally available –

: -) Including using your own common sense. But the painkiller incident was lack of experience (by a very well-respected Doctor!), and all too often this does boil down to experience or lack thereof. The more I experience of the system, the more I see its failings in sharing experiences ... :-(

> but if you consider the alternatives to modern science-based medicine you will quickly find out that there really aren't any that on the whole are anything near as successful.

Which is why I repeatedly stress that I'm in favour of this stuff. I just come across far too much evidence of dishonest (typically American sharp) practice. Unfortunately, I get the impression that Cyberax is very insular and thinks "everyone does it the American way". THEY DON'T.

We have a major advantage over here in that health care is free. If it wasn't, we'd probably be destitute trying to pay for my wife's care. But that has the side effect that when things go wrong, we get "the linux warranty attitude". In other words, they'll refund us what we paid for it - nothing. But if it's cost you your job, your health, etc etc that's a pretty appalling attitude. And sadly, it is NORMAL over here. Too many people (including Cyberax) take the "I'm all right, Jack" attitude. Until it happens to them. And then they scream and say "why isn't anybody doing anything!?!?". Well, I'm trying to do something, because it's happened to us, but it's hard work against the megaphone of "I'm all right".

Cheers,
Wol

Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

Posted Mar 1, 2016 16:46 UTC (Tue) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Oh, painkillers are really dangerous -- but, of course, so is pain. Both can and do kill.

And this has nothing whatsoever to do with vaccines. My twin brother died because of pretty staggering levels of medical incompetence, but that doesn't mean I think vaccines are bad or even that doctors are evil or covering anything up: I just think that doctors should go back for retraining every so often (the doctor who accidentally killed my brother at birth through failing to notice that he existed was almost forty years out of training and probably still believed in the leech cure). Mind you it is fairly hard to cover up dead people, except literally.

Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

Posted Mar 1, 2016 18:47 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

> Unfortunately, I get the impression that Cyberax is very insular and thinks "everyone does it the American way".
Nope. I'm not even an American.

However, there's nothing gray about vaccines - it's completely black and white. You should always get vaccinated against common diseases in the absence of clear direct contraindications (allergy to components of vaccines, weakened immune systems due to HIV/cancer/...).

Other medical procedures and medications are more complicated (painkillers, antidepressants, ADHD drugs) and there absolutely is a lot of potential for medical mistakes. Not so with vaccines.

Linux Mint downloads (briefly) compromised

Posted Mar 7, 2016 12:28 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Your wife having issues because of some medical errors with painkillers is _not_ a good reason to become an anti-vaccer, is _not_ a good reason to start saying Wakefield should be looked on favourably (seriously, he was an utter charlatan; worse, a charlatan who did lumbar punctures on children for no justifiable reason).