I respectfully disagree. VAERS can absolutely be used to establish causality when followed by proper expert investigation (which is exactly its purpose as a signal-detection system). The IOM has relied on VAERS data to confirm causal links in 158 vaccine-adverse event pairs, including rotavirus vaccine and intussusception.
Here, FDA career scientists conducted that follow-up: they reviewed 96 child death reports and concluded at least 10 were caused by COVID vaccine myocarditis. That expert finding, not politics, is what triggered the stricter protocols. Healthy skepticism means demanding the full data for review, not preemptively calling it invalid.
The FDA memo citing 10 vaccine-caused myocarditis deaths in kids came _after_ the Sept. 2025 ACIP vote. ACIP had already dropped routine vaccination for healthy kids 6 mo-17 yr and moved everyone under 65 to "shared decision-making" (high-risk only) [1]
The detailed FDA analysis still isn't public. That's exactly why we should demand it instead of dismissing the claim.
Blame NYTimes for leaking the internal memo. In all honesty they should be fined for doing this.
We have no information about how highly motivated anti-vaxxers in positions of power over the FDA arrived at this conclusion except "the team has performed an initial analysis"[1]. That's literally it. Your claim that "FDA career scientists" conducted the follow-up can't even be based on this flimsy a statement. Moreover, these deaths have already been investigated by FDA career scientists and found these conclusions unwarranted.
Prasad spends the rest of the memo politically grandstanding (including claiming it was the FDA commissioner that was the hero here, forcing this issue, not FDA career scientists) and dismissing any objections to very obvious arguments against his claim (that have been made and published multiple times over the past five years) without any evidence, while providing no evidence of his own, in a memo addressing FDA career scientists.
Seriously, everyone should go read his memo. It's basically just a shitty antivax substack post, yet will apparently be FDA policy going forward. Another win for meritocracy.
> The detailed FDA analysis still isn't public. That's exactly why we should demand it instead of dismissing the claim.
The only "claim" here just sounds more official because RFKjr got a bunch of his best antivax buddies to be in charge of the FDA (same with the ACIP). There's no way to even consider it without evidence, so there's nothing to dismiss. Come back when you have something real.
The NYT shouldn't get a free pass for publishing a half-baked internal draft memo that even says "initial analysis" and then framing it as settled science. That's how you create panic and confusion, not transparency. Leaking unfinished work and splashing it on the front page is reckless. This should not be allowed.
Calling everyone "anti-vaxxers" is lazy. Most people I know who are skeptical of the covid shots (including plenty of doctors and scientists) are fully vaccinated against measles, polio, tetanus, etc. They just don't trust a product that skipped the usual 5–10 year safety window and got pushed with emergency authorization. That's not "anti-vax", that’s pattern recognition.
The memo is short on data and long on rhetoric, sure. That's exactly why we need the actual underlying review released in full.
You sound really invested in keeping those covid shots on the childhood schedule. Got a big Pfizer position in the 401k? Kidding, obviously. But the "anyone who asks questions is an anti-vaxxer" reflex is exactly why people stopped trusting the institutions in the first place. I respect every real skeptic, on any side. Asking questions is what moves science forward. Blind trust is stagnation.
Assume you're right: VAERS is useless for causality and the 10 deaths are not real or not proven.
What possible benefits does RFK Jr. get from dramatically restricting a vaccine using data he knows is meaningless and will be shredded in 24 hours by every fact-checker and cardiologist on HN/Twitter/younameit?
If he just wanted to scare people for no reason, the rational move is to keep repeating “VAERS proves nothing” and change zero policy. That costs nothing and keeps everyone happy. Instead he’s taking massive heat, angering the entire medical establishment, and shrinking the childhood schedule.
Inventing a fake danger out of junk data brings him zero benefit and enormous political cost. That only makes sense if the internal FDA review actually found something real and alarming.
> Assume you're right: VAERS is useless for causality…
Don't assume. https://vaers.hhs.gov/data/dataguide.html "When evaluating data from VAERS, it is important to note that for any reported event, no cause-and-effect relationship has been established."
> What possible benefits does RFK Jr. get from dramatically restricting a vaccine using data he knows is meaningless and will be shredded in 24 hours by every fact-checker and cardiologist on HN/Twitter/younameit?
He gets to restrict vaccines, which is a thing he's wanted to do for decades.
Duh. VAERS guide says raw reports dont 100% prove causality. Nobody claims they do. That's why FDA's OBPV did the follow-up review of those 96 child deaths and concluded >10 were causal from vaccine myocarditis.
They could've just said "VAERS proves nothing" and left the recommendation unchanged. Instead they wrote it up, leaked it early, and invited the exact scrutiny you're giving it now.
If the conclusion was fake or flimsy, this blows up in their face and RFK looks like a clown. They only take that risk if the OBPV analysis actually held up internally.
> That's why FDA's OBPV did the follow-up review of those 96 child deaths and concluded >10 were causal from vaccine myocarditis.
We don't actually know who at the OBPV did the review (Prasad only referred to the results coming from "the team") and the causal ranking they used included any case where causality was subjectively rated between "certain" and "possible/likely".
We also know that two orders of magnitude more children died from covid than that, and we have strong studies suggesting that myocarditis from covid is both more common and more severe than the observed cases tied to the covid vaccines, two inconvenient stances that Prasad waves away as insufficiently studied, even as he bases his entire position on a subjective review of something by someone, and doesn't bother filling in those blanks.
> If the conclusion was fake or flimsy, this blows up in their face and RFK looks like a clown
He beclowns himself all the time. He himself walked back the Tylenol claim after convincing Trump to talk about it so publicly and standing by him while he did it. Clearly he's not bothered by it.
> That's why FDA's OBPV did the follow-up review of those 96 child deaths and concluded >10 were causal from vaccine myocarditis.
And we're back at the "Hitler provided free things to Jews" technical truth again. This is likely an accurate statement!
But it'd deeply missing important context.
> If the conclusion was fake or flimsy, this blows up in their face and RFK looks like a clown.
This is likely meaningless to the guy who leaves dead bears in Central Park. The biggest political innovation in the last 50 years or so is the discovery that you can look like a clown without much consequence.
1. Hitler gave Jews free stuff (technical truth used to mislead)
2. Dead bear guy doesn’t care about looking like a clown
3. Therefore the OBPV causality review must be deceptive sleight-of-hand
That's literally a conspiracy theory.
On Tylenol, FDA did add a "possible association" warning in Sept 2025 (RFK’s call), but even the new label says evidence is only _suggestive_, not proven. Poop analogy fits the anti side better: no, avoiding fever meds won't prevent autism, but it could harm pregnancies.
"U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that since the start of the pandemic, more than 2,000 children age 18 and younger in the U.S. have died from COVID-19. Nearly 700, or about 33%, were less than 1 year old."
Given the effectiveness at preventing death, I'll happily trade 2,000 COVID deaths for 10 myocarditis deaths.
Once again, stricter protocols don't dismiss anyone, they adapt to 2025 realities: near-zero child covid deaths monthly vs. rare vax risks. Under the new FDA framework, kids aren't denied shots; they just require a doctor's consult for personalized recs. Your framing sounds like full denial, which is false and amps up the fear.
> What possible benefits does RFK Jr. get from dramatically restricting a vaccine using data he knows is meaningless and will be shredded in 24 hours by every fact-checker and cardiologist on HN/Twitter/younameit?
That's never bothered him before. Vaccines cause autism. WiFi causes DNA changes and opens up the blood-brain barrier allowing toxins into the brain. Chemtrails. HIV is not a major cause of AIDS, with lifestyle and drugs (particularly amyl nitrate) being the major causes.
> Inventing a fake danger out of junk data brings him zero benefit and enormous political cost. That only makes sense if the internal FDA review actually found something real and alarming.
Making fake dangers out of junk data is why he has political power in the first place.
You just listed a bunch of old-school RFK claims to dismiss him entirely.
That's exactly how people used to shut down anyone questioning:
- Vioxx
- lab leak
- opioids
- PFAS
...all “crazy conspiracy theories” until proven true.
I'm not saying vaccines cause autism (the evidence still doesn't). But stay skeptical, even of your own side. That's how science actually moves forward.
The point is that you were arguing the RFK Jr would not make claims unless they were supported by the evidence. The examples given show that he will in fact make such claims.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results: just because RFK Jr. has hyped weak claims before doesn't automatically make this OBPV causality review wrong.
The political appointees pushing this new policy have not presented any evidence of these deaths beyond a vague assertion in a leaked internal email. They have not provided that evidence to career staffers either.
And that is precisely why not-yet-finalized health-related leaks should not be shared publicly by mainstream media, given that the reaction here seems shaped far more by political allegiance than by the facts themselves.
Pushing covid-19 vaccinations onto kids was always controversial. Covid isn't smallpox, people under 30 only get a serious case very rarely, and the vaccine isn't sterilizing anyway.
If we want to use medications responsibly and rationally, we must be careful about the cost/benefit analysis to the intended recipient groups. It makes great sense to vaccinate old people against Covid and teenagers against HPV. The other way round, much less so.
Of course the vendors will push for blanket use, as they make more money, but that is also the problem.
Both of these are true: 1) Vaccines kill people. 2) Vaccines save lives.
That's why we evaluate relative risk. The vaccines that we recommend are significantly safer than not being vaccinated at all, for the population as a whole.
This isn't limited to vaccines of course. Everything from antibiotics to defibrillators to car airbags can kill people too, but it's extremely rare compared to how often they save lives.
I strongly disagree with the author. The mindset they described somewhat reminds me of body positivity—excess weight is not good for your health, accepting it through a mental shift is a bad advice.
Here is my personal advice to whoever reads this comment. Ignore everything they say on the internet. Do what works best for you. Trust your intuition. Set bold goals. Always learn and strive to become better in everything you do.
If you failed an interview, it’s perfectly ok to be disappointed. Spend a day calling your own self names. It’s normal! The very next day analyze why you failed, see where you need to improve. Rinse and repeat. This will get you whatever the hell you want in this life.
I agree about body positivity, but the big difference is we are talking about relationships here. Whenever it's a relationship, whether it's professional, platonic or romantic, sometimes it really is just them. But more often than not it's a bit of both, it's up to you to decide whether you want to make it about them or make it about you. If it's always about them then you'll be that person who only ever meets assholes. We all know the truth: you're the asshole.
So yes, reflect and think about what you could do better, but don't compromise on your principles or try to be a person you're not.
I think you missed the point, he doesn't disagree with your points at all, he's just pointing out that you shouldn't stress yourself out thinking you have to win them all when actually 1 is often all you need.
I’m not sure if the author’s perspective aligns with what I said.
> You don’t need every job to choose you. You just need the one that’s the right fit.
I don’t think anyone expects to pass all the interviews. Seriously, who expects that? The right fit of choices is often limited. You need to deeply understand your weaknesses and strengths to even know what the right fit is. People are usually unaware of their own superpowers. Hard work is the only thing that pays off. Luck comes to those who are prepared.
The article has no connection to body positivity at all. It’s about storming through a long series of rejections or failures. And your entire second paragraph could very well be a justification for body positivity itself.
I don’t understand the point of concentrating everything in a megacity. Take New York as an example: the cost of living is through the roof, while the quality of life is often the opposite. Corporations should stop renting offices in the most expensive areas of the country and instead prioritize locations where housing is affordable and people don’t have to spend more than 10 minutes commuting to work. The state should de-prioritize NYC and encourage companies to invest in smaller cities. This would bring jobs to those areas, reduce pressure on NYC, and support broader infrastructure development. Apply that approach across the country, and suddenly the entire nation can function more efficiently instead of relying on a few overloaded hubs.
Also, my own take is that the high rent in NYC is sort of proof that the quality of life is high. Or at least, NYC is desirable. People are willing to pay a premium to live there, which is a strong signal of their preference.
I think it's a situation akin to HOAs where there are absolutely people who prefer being in an HOA but it has this feedback loop which results in significantly more people being in an HOA than would prefer to be just because there are limited options and undoing an HOA is higher friction than new construction including one.
On one hand this is still preference. They pick to be in a city over the other options available. On the other hand the other options aren't available because enough people are already interested in centralizing life choice options into a city and so it just drives that feedback loop over and over as more people choose where the option of the day is rather than what they'd like. The only thing holding this loop back from runaway is large cities eventually seem to have population growth fall behind cost of living growth and that stops the runaway for the particular city.
Perhaps more simply: the immediate and big picture preference often don't align and this misalignment further drives a larger gap in those two preferences over time until the cost to scale the city finally becomes too high.
> Corporations should stop renting offices in the most expensive areas of the country and instead prioritize locations where housing is affordable and people don’t have to spend more than 10 minutes commuting to work.
What's the benefit to the corporation to do that? They move to a more affordable area, which corresponds to less concentrated, which corresponds to fewer workforce available, especially if the goal is to spend 10 minutes commuting, as you state.
Nobody's forcing anyone to live in a city, they want to because the jobs and culture and opportunities are there. And companies want to be there because that's where the workers are. It's a feedback loop, I guess cost is the main moderator. There is an argument for decentralizing a little but surely it's the governments job to incentivize that.
There are well known netowrk effects, that happen when economists study cities. You can just have each individual bank pick some random small town and set up an office there.
That said, I do agree that some amount of distribution of infrastructure spending makes a lot of sense. But even if you did that, New York itself could raise enough taxes to make its own infrastructure without having to tax the rest of the nation.
But I would say the US has done this reasonably well, NY is nowhere as dominatie any many other places. You have Boston with universities and medical, Valley, LA areospace/media, DC government and so on and so on.
But economics is pretty clear, hubs are good, getting a place with lots of experts togheter improves efficency for everybody. And getting enough people together that proper infrastructure pays for itself is also good.
Density has some obvious advantages. It also has a bunch of disadvantages. The millions of people living there seem to think it's worth the tradeoff, at least to the point of having enough inertia not to move elsewhere.
I don’t know what I’m talking about (pure fantasy), but what if you train a model on compressed data and then perform inference on compressed data as well? Could this work? With the output also being compressed and then decompressed by the client?
The tokenizer is already a form of (somewhat lossy) compression of a string of plaintext to a stream of token identifiers. You can reason about Tokenizers/"embedding spaces" as a sort of massive "Dictionary Table/Dictionary Function" like you might use in a zip/gzip stream.
Starting with already compressed data doesn't necessarily mean fewer tokens, you can probably assume similar entropy (or probably worse entropy) in expanding "Dictionary words" in a compressed stream versus "tokens" from a plaintext stream.
Since all input is run through a tokenizer, I would expect the tokenizer space doesn't change a lot between one trained on uncompressed vs one trained on compressed data.
Building a tool that automatically generates living infrastructure diagrams from your IaC files and turns them into real-time incident dashboards. Think Figma meets Datadog - beautiful visualization that updates during outages to show you exactly what's failing and how to fix it.
The insight: your architecture diagram shouldn't be a stale PNG in Confluence. It should be your war room during incidents.
Going to be available as both web app and native desktop.
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