The libel laws in the United States are famously protective of as much speech as possible. In the UK, in order to be protected from a libel suit, a publication must prove that the thing they said is true and that they knew it to be true when they said it. By contrast, in the US, the person suing a publication must prove not only that what was printed was false AND that the publication knew it was false AND, with “
I don't claim to be an expert, because I've never used my degree professionally, but I got a Biochemistry/Molecular Biology B.S. back in the day. Thus, I've run PCR tests and have at least a general understanding of what they are. This issue has bugged me since the beginning of the crisis, and I remember seeing experts talk about cycle thresholds on Twitter as far back as March/April.
That Apoorva and the NYT presented this like it was new information infuriated me. Mainstream publications have spent 6 months reporting "Cases" as gospel, despite the fact that we are NOT using the historical definition of a case, which would be clinical symptoms, perhaps with a positive test. Instead, we are using strictly PCR positives. This has always struck me as madness.
While I don't blame reporters specifically, as many of them have been pulled off other beats (breaking news, crime, whatever) to cover something they are woefully unqualified for. Editors though, should force them to seek out more nuanced positions. Why hasn't Dr. Fauci, who obviously knows about the limitations of PCR (look up his battles with Dr. Cary Mullis, who invented PCR for manufacturing purposes, over using it to identify HIV in the 80's) been talking about this? Why hasn't the WHO? IT ISN'T NEW! (I feel like I am taking crazy pills dot GIF).
I thank Dr. Mina for leading the charge here. I only wonder why other Doctors and Virologists haven't been speaking out sooner. I have a personal interest here, as my partner had a positive PCR test as part of a random medical screening, and we are one of the millions of families forced into quarantine for two weeks. This was in June, and they never had a single symptom - have tested negative for antibodies twice since. So yeah...probably not actually infected, just some viral fragments that PCR amplified enough to identify.
Further reading: from 2015, an article about a study where they randomly PCR-swabbed peoples' noses and were shocked at how often virus was found with no symptoms. So this isn't something new for Covid. https://healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/shows.php?shows=0_8pwxdv0o
"in the US, the person suing a publication must prove not only that what was printed was false AND that the publication knew it was false AND, with “actual malice”, printed it anyway."
I just wanted to clarify that this standard applies to any suit by a public official or public figure against any individual. The US does not recognize a standard specific to "journalists" because the right of free press protects all individuals, not just credentialed "journalists." If the New York Times falsely claimed that Joe down the street committed a crime, then Joe could sue the Times under the negligence standard for defamation (assuming Joe's Internet blog had not gone viral such that he was a public figure). It would be more accurate to state the following:
"in the US, a public official or public figure suing a publisher must prove not only that what was printed was false but also that the publisher knew it was false (or recklessly disregarded whether it was false) AND, with “actual malice”, printed it anyway."
I don't claim to be an expert, because I've never used my degree professionally, but I got a Biochemistry/Molecular Biology B.S. back in the day. Thus, I've run PCR tests and have at least a general understanding of what they are. This issue has bugged me since the beginning of the crisis, and I remember seeing experts talk about cycle thresholds on Twitter as far back as March/April.
That Apoorva and the NYT presented this like it was new information infuriated me. Mainstream publications have spent 6 months reporting "Cases" as gospel, despite the fact that we are NOT using the historical definition of a case, which would be clinical symptoms, perhaps with a positive test. Instead, we are using strictly PCR positives. This has always struck me as madness.
While I don't blame reporters specifically, as many of them have been pulled off other beats (breaking news, crime, whatever) to cover something they are woefully unqualified for. Editors though, should force them to seek out more nuanced positions. Why hasn't Dr. Fauci, who obviously knows about the limitations of PCR (look up his battles with Dr. Cary Mullis, who invented PCR for manufacturing purposes, over using it to identify HIV in the 80's) been talking about this? Why hasn't the WHO? IT ISN'T NEW! (I feel like I am taking crazy pills dot GIF).
I thank Dr. Mina for leading the charge here. I only wonder why other Doctors and Virologists haven't been speaking out sooner. I have a personal interest here, as my partner had a positive PCR test as part of a random medical screening, and we are one of the millions of families forced into quarantine for two weeks. This was in June, and they never had a single symptom - have tested negative for antibodies twice since. So yeah...probably not actually infected, just some viral fragments that PCR amplified enough to identify.
Further reading: from 2015, an article about a study where they randomly PCR-swabbed peoples' noses and were shocked at how often virus was found with no symptoms. So this isn't something new for Covid. https://healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/shows.php?shows=0_8pwxdv0o
"in the US, the person suing a publication must prove not only that what was printed was false AND that the publication knew it was false AND, with “actual malice”, printed it anyway."
I just wanted to clarify that this standard applies to any suit by a public official or public figure against any individual. The US does not recognize a standard specific to "journalists" because the right of free press protects all individuals, not just credentialed "journalists." If the New York Times falsely claimed that Joe down the street committed a crime, then Joe could sue the Times under the negligence standard for defamation (assuming Joe's Internet blog had not gone viral such that he was a public figure). It would be more accurate to state the following:
"in the US, a public official or public figure suing a publisher must prove not only that what was printed was false but also that the publisher knew it was false (or recklessly disregarded whether it was false) AND, with “actual malice”, printed it anyway."
Whatever the cause it does seem like there's a permanent split between Florida's official reporting and other entities: see the seven day case rate from https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/96dd742462124fa0b38ddedb9b25e429
and https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states/florida