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Comment by exogeny | Hacker News Reader

Of course it is. It automatically presents a clear and obvious conflict of interest, by which no reasonable person would assume zero impact.

No one gets paid $150,000 to not say what they're supposed to, and even then, they lost the case. It was unconvincing and, to quote the judge, "he cherry-picked and misrepresented study results and refused to acknowledge the role of genetics".

I mean shit, that's marginally better than the absolute garbage of Wakefield but not by much. It's embarrassing that this is where we are.

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Are you seriously stating that all law which has paid expert witnesses is now suspect solely because the expert is paid? Remember, Wakefield spoke garbage, paid or not. He had undisclosed conflicts of interest, his co authors retracted and the BMA withdrew his licence in the UK, his paper was retracted by the journal he published in.

The Dean was paid openly, directly, by one side of a case. As far as I know the meta analysis, which btw I do not think justifies the public health statements being made, has NOT been retracted, there are questions about methodology.

As you note, the case was lost. The judge used his discretionary powers to discount his evidence, and rightly so but the same judge will sit trial on case where he accepts the paid evidence of experts, routinely.

Paid expert witness are of course suspect. Judges and juries still have to use their critical thinking skills to evaluate the statements from the expert witness. They are not accepted at face value.

> Are you seriously stating that all law which has paid expert witnesses is now suspect solely because the expert is paid?

Yes, I would make that affirmation, specially if the expert is being paid 150k for about a month's worth of work. But suspect doesn't mean guilty, only that there's a conflict and it should be acknowledged.

Follow the money.

Let's say you're listening to a podcast extoll the virtues of a high protein low carb diet. You'll assign a mental probability that they're correct. Does that prior probability change if you learn they've signed a protein shake company as a sponsor the same day the podcast was released?

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