[Osx-nutters] Denial

[Chris Gehlker]

On Aug 16, 2007, at 4:04 AM, Stefano Mori wrote:

> In terms of prediction, did you hear about that issue recently with
> AIDS in Africa? They established a mechanism whereby AIDS could be
> transmitted by breast milk. They modeled how this would spread
> through the population. It obviously meant more deaths from AIDS. So
> they campaigned and educated women to give their babies a formula
> instead. It now appears that those babies fed on a formula have
> severely weakened health, perhaps because the water was not clean, or
> perhaps because there was something in breast milk which they needed
> to build their own immune system. These babies have been getting
> dysentery and dying. Something like eight times more babies have been
> dying than normal. In effect, the prediction about babies dying of
> AIDS has led to FAR MORE BABIES DYING of dysentery than were
> predicted to die of AIDS. They had data, they had a mechanism, they
> had a model, and they made a prediction, they acted on that  
> prediction.

By leaving out the allegation that the "they" who established the  
mechanism were employed by the baby formula companies, particularly  
Nestle, you  change the meaning of this story. The moral is 'Don't  
trust PR masquerading as science."

--
Vegetarians eat Vegetables, Humanitarians frighten me