(04-27-2020, 10:22 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Interesting piece. I think there are a number of efforts like this one, where people are volunteering to try to help in any way they can. There are stories of individuals with 3D printers printing face shields. There are stories of an effort to create an open source ventilator design. There are lots of companies looking at re-purposing approved drugs or drugs under development for COVID-19. Interestingly, it is BARDA that is doing a lot of the same sorts of things that this group is doing by cutting through red tape, evaluating and offering advice to proposals, streamlining the process of identifying promising candidates and helping to fund "at risk" manufacturing so that if one or more of the candidates does help treat COVID-19 it will be ready to be broadly deployed. I think it is great to have as many bright minds thinking about the problem as we can, and that is why in the mid-term, I am actually fairly sanguine about our ability to defeat the virus. I don't know whether the breakthrough will come from this particular group, or somewhere else, or, more likely the unseen effect of thousands of individuals working their tail off to try to come up with solutions.This is the national response I would expect from the United States culture at its best. I would expect the merit of the ideas ultimately to be the only criteria, and the rationale for a relatively covert and backchannel approach is to avoid the kind of politicization that would derail meritocratic consideration.
My one particular concern is that while this group seems to be ethically fairly well grounded (the article mentions divestment from companies who could benefit from the group's advice and the fact that they don't stand to benefit), the general idea of using access to high level government officials to trumpet specific ideas is one that could go sideways in a hurry. I think of Rudy Giuliani's push of stem cell therapy:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/31/rudy...-meddling/
Maybe these guys' ideas merit discussion. They are a very well-credentialled group. And I will grant it that sometimes you need someone who can cut through the red tape. But generally I favor evaluating ideas on their merit, rather than what channels they are brought up through.
BC
(04-27-2020, 10:22 AM)BostonCard Wrote: Interesting piece. I think there are a number of efforts like this one, where people are volunteering to try to help in any way they can. There are stories of individuals with 3D printers printing face shields. There are stories of an effort to create an open source ventilator design. There are lots of companies looking at re-purposing approved drugs or drugs under development for COVID-19. Interestingly, it is BARDA that is doing a lot of the same sorts of things that this group is doing by cutting through red tape, evaluating and offering advice to proposals, streamlining the process of identifying promising candidates and helping to fund "at risk" manufacturing so that if one or more of the candidates does help treat COVID-19 it will be ready to be broadly deployed. I think it is great to have as many bright minds thinking about the problem as we can, and that is why in the mid-term, I am actually fairly sanguine about our ability to defeat the virus. I don't know whether the breakthrough will come from this particular group, or somewhere else, or, more likely the unseen effect of thousands of individuals working their tail off to try to come up with solutions.This is the national response I would expect from the United States culture at its best. I would expect the merit of the ideas ultimately to be the only criteria, and the rationale for a relatively covert and backchannel approach is to avoid the kind of politicization that would derail meritocratic consideration.
My one particular concern is that while this group seems to be ethically fairly well grounded (the article mentions divestment from companies who could benefit from the group's advice and the fact that they don't stand to benefit), the general idea of using access to high level government officials to trumpet specific ideas is one that could go sideways in a hurry. I think of Rudy Giuliani's push of stem cell therapy:
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/31/rudy...-meddling/
Maybe these guys' ideas merit discussion. They are a very well-credentialled group. And I will grant it that sometimes you need someone who can cut through the red tape. But generally I favor evaluating ideas on their merit, rather than what channels they are brought up through.
BC
