Can’t Believe Everything You Read
As you’ve probably heard, British newspapers don’t maintain the same standards for scrupulous accuracy as we have here in the US. Thus sometimes you read a UK press report that, while interesting, you just know has to be false. For example, there’s this from The Guardian:
The NHS is developing a simple blood test that could save the lives of hundreds of unborn babies who are put at risk when doctors try to establish whether they are developing healthily in the womb, the Guardian has learned.
The test could put an end to the use of invasive procedures such as amniocentesis, which cause some women to miscarry.
Yes this seems like an interesting story about a potentially useful medical innovation. But the discerning reader will note that this is all allegedly happening in the United Kingdom, and funded by the National Health Service. The NHS, however, is a socialistic system and the UK a socialist land. And everybody knows that under socialized medicine, medical innovation will cease. Therefore, the story must be made up.
23 Responses to “Can’t Believe Everything You Read”
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August 10th, 2009 at 12:04 am
Hey, if it didn’t run in WorldNetDaily, that’s all the evidence I need to convince me that it’s socialist claptrap.
Meanwhile, I know now for certain that Obama’s “Hawaiian birth certificate” is a crude forgery. The Globe told me so.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:08 am
This is clearly inaccurate; since it’s run by the government, they’d just kill the baby. Otherwise it would just grow up to get sick and require more healthcare, which would be expensive, so better to nip the problem in the bud, as it were.
Also, they would kill the mother as well, because who wants to deal with all that post-partum claptrap? After that the doctor would be required to fly to America — at taxpayer’s expense, mind! — to hunt down Trig Palin and kill him too. It’s a shame, but cheaper in the long run, which we all know is the point of government run death camps — er, health care — is all about.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:11 am
Who said innovation would “cease” under socialized medicine?
A few posts ago, you took some right-wingers to task for trading in canards” about health care.
This seems like one of those.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:19 am
I notice that the story says “is developing”, and not “has developed”.
The way these socialist systems work, I’m sure NHS will finish the development in 58 years at a cost of $6.2 trillion. Meanwhile, the private sector here in the US will probably have developed a better test 57 years earlier at a cost about 99% less.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:23 am
The way these socialist systems work, I’m sure NHS will finish the development in 58 years at a cost of $6.2 trillion. Meanwhile, the private sector here in the US will probably have developed a better test 57 years earlier at a cost about 99% less.
I appreciate Al being nice and specific, unlike that weaselly equivocator Sam M.
So, Al, what do we get when you’re wrong?
August 10th, 2009 at 12:28 am
Or maybe you could read the article:
Or Google the information and see that the NYT reported on a CA biotech firm having already developed this, as of Oct 2008.
But that might be too much work to find out that the NIH ‘research’ is simply a cost-benefit study to see if they should adopt technology developed in America.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:50 am
Oh, Al, you’re such a lazy hack when you’re not skiving off your day job to earn GOP points on the side.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:53 am
Obviously, one example of innovation is not sufficient evidence to discredit the notion that the level of medical innovation will decrease as government involvement increases.
August 10th, 2009 at 1:32 am
Obviously, one example of innovation is not sufficient evidence to discredit the notion that the level of medical innovation will decrease as government involvement increases.
My guess is that ten examples, or a hundred, or a thousand examples won’t be sufficient to discredit the notion in the minds of people who cling with religious intensity to the idea that “government can’t do anything right.”
August 10th, 2009 at 1:33 am
A bill, presumably. ‘Cause if he gets his way you won’t be able to sue him for malpractice.
August 10th, 2009 at 2:24 am
[...] Yglesias finds a clearly made-up story about medical [...]
August 10th, 2009 at 2:24 am
Or maybe you could read the article. Here’s the full, uncensored sentence:
So what the private sector in the US developed was a test for determining sex, not determining the baby’s health. NHS is developing the latter. If there were already a test for it then they obviously wouldn’t need to develop one.
First off, the article mentions two different tests, one of which was developed by Stanford University and the other by the private company Sequenom.
Second, how about reading the rest of the same paragraph you selectively quoted from?
From another source:
Looks like the private sector does a great job botching their own procedures. NHS probably can’t compete with that.
As I’ve already shown you, that’s not true. Sequenom’s test was only for Down syndrome and the jury is still out on it, which is why their stock is still down 75% from start of year. Second, while I’m sure you meant “NHS” and not “NIH”, that was perhaps an inconvenient slip, since the research conducted by Stanford for their Down syndrome test was funded partially by, that’s right, the NIH.
August 10th, 2009 at 6:37 am
[...] It kills people, rations care, and halts medical innovation. [...]
August 10th, 2009 at 9:12 am
FYI – I just had an amniocentesis done in the US, and at the same time gave blood for research into maternal blood tests designed to replace the amnio. They’re apparently close to one for Trisomy 21 (Down’s), and once it’s perfected they’re going to tweak it to include the rest.
August 10th, 2009 at 9:47 am
[...] counter those blasphemous NHS horror stories, Yglesias deals a card from the bottom of the deck in an attempt to try and trick his readers into believing that a socialized medicine program has [...]
August 10th, 2009 at 9:47 am
You need to pick a name, anonymous, or we wont’ be able to ship you the thread you just won.
This is no amount of evidence that will convince market fetishists that they’re wrong. It wasn’t evidence that made them market fetishists in the first place.
What a magnificent summation of public vs private sector health care. I’ll be the NHS hasn’t invented a single drug that can give a 73-year-old man a boner.
August 10th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
why do people keep touting the private sector in the U.S. as the engine of innovation while its investment in the country’s science infrastructure is much smaller compared to such broad based, politically supported scientific establishment as NIH, a branch of the federal government? whithout the sustained and massive governmental support for medical R&D the industry themselves could never come anywhere near the development of a commercial product. the military is government run and top notch in its own innovations (for better or worse) so why assume a government run health care (which is not even on the table) will retard medical innovations?
August 10th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
the military is government run and top notch in its own innovations (for better or worse) so why assume a government run health care (which is not even on the table) will retard medical innovations
Yes, if only all our industries were as productive, efficient and corruption-free as the defense industry.
August 10th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
The government is so efficient I cream my pants when I see an Obama poster:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-197545.html
August 10th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
pants-creaming sycophant, the worst example you can cherry-pick against govt-run health care is the VA health care because it’s more efficient and equitable than the other dozen patchwork systems we have now. in fact many opposed its privatization proposed early this year by Obama. not to say it’s not without its problems such as lack of funding but the fact that adding non-service related conditions to private plans was greeted with strong opposition from veterans tells me those using VA to oppose greater govt involvement haven’t done their homework….
August 10th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Wait a second, I thought the lack of market incentives meant the government would never change practices if something wasn’t working.
Why, it’s almost as if conservatives don’t understand how the government works.
August 11th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Haha I’d take the NHS over your system of healthcare any day of the week! Don’t get me wrong, it is not without its flaws, but it is free at the point of delivery (irrespective of wealth). I’m sure you have great health insurance, but many Americans do not (and suffer greatly as a result). Don’t even get me started on “British newspapers don’t maintain the same standards for scrupulous accuracy as we have here in the US.” What happened with the NYT and WMDs? Jayson Blair?
August 11th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
That’s ’cause whenever they’re in power it doesn’t.