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Comment by ljm | Hacker News Reader

This article is practically misinformation in itself, and the body of the text confirms it:

“The event is being investigated by an independent committee, and it is too early to conclude the specific diagnosis.”

Here is an article from another newspaper, about the same thing: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/09/oxford-univers...

The headline is: "Oxford University Covid vaccine trial put on hold due to possible adverse reaction in participant"

Compared to NYT's "Covid-19 Live Updates: Vaccine Trial Is Halted After Patient’s Adverse Reaction"

Notice the difference between the two of them?

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I'm struggling to understand what you are saying here. Can you... sort of... unpack your point rather than indirectly alluding to it? (I'm an ex-biologist and read the Times article and don't see it as misinformation. It is almost entirely factual and lays out all the critical information an educated reader would need to understand the current situation).

Which word do you have an issue with in the NYT headline, 'reaction'? As in, the 'adversity' faced by this patient may not in fact be a 'reaction' to the vaccine?

The use of "on hold" in the guardian headline clearly conveys a temporary pause or an interruption.

The use of "halted" in the NYT headline commonly means stop or end.

halted; halting; halts Definition of halt

(Entry 1 of 4)

intransitive verb

1 : to cease marching or journeying

2 : discontinue, terminate the project halted for lack of funds

transitive verb

1 : to bring to a stop the strike halted subways and buses

2 : to cause the discontinuance of : end halt hostilities

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/halt

on hold in American English

1. in a period or state of interruption or delay the countdown was on hold

2. in a state of interruption in a telephone call, as during a transfer to another line I was on hold for five minutes

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/on-h...

The NYT makes the headline about an adverse reaction and the study is paused because of it. To my mind 'adverse reaction' means that they've established the cause and effect, and the study was halted because someone reacted badly to the vaccine.

My issue is that it's not clear whether the patient's illness is due to the vaccine or something else, so headlining with 'adverse reaction to the vaccine' is jumping to a conclusion. They don't say 'possible', which is the truth.

yes. But they both still fall under the category of "someone is worried about the harms of a vaccine"

So are they both misinformation, or are you painting with too broad of a brush?

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