I am not so sure this completely discounts the statistical relevance of when Letby joined, more infants died. When she was reassigned from the day shift the the night shift, she brought along the same pattern of deterioration for the infants. I am not convinced that there being "no medical evidence" discounts these facts, but still, I wonder if it is possible that Letby is single most unlucky nurse in history and truly freak accidents happened on her watch by chance. Its hard to say.
> I am not so sure this completely discounts the statistical relevance of when Letby joined, more infants died.
There were mortality rate spikes happening at hospitals across the country. The common factor was defunding and understaffing.
> she brought along the same pattern of deterioration for the infants.
The investigators discarded cases but included a child that deteriorated seconds after Letby clocked in to the hospital before she even walked to her department. Everything I have read about the case screams fitting the data to match a predetermined outcome. This is how other nurses were jailed for mass murders that simply did not happen.
The case is really bizarre. The prosecution invented a new form of murder that every publicly interviewed expert claims is physically impossible, based on a paper about a single medical case from decades ago, of which the only surviving author supports Letby's defense (but was not allowed to testify).
The "statistical" evidence, as presented, is worthless. It does not analyze the data in any quantitative way. It collects some unusual facts, waves a wand, and with a theatrical whisper says "guilty". Neither is an accepted method of statistical analysis.
To put some meat on this claim, here's some things that should have been included:
- consider whether LL was given sicker children to look after
- more generally, consider other statistical factors that could have contributed: number and experience of doctors on shift, of patients, etc.
- consider whether night and day shifts had the same mortality
- consider how many "suspicious" deaths occured when other nurses were on duty
- consider wider nationwide factors affecting child mortality. E.g. is it broadly on the rise, maybe due to general deteriorating health of the population.
- once some kind of assigning of deaths was done, how much of an outlier was LL's "count"
- ...and finally comparing to some kind of base rate of how often nurses kill their patients. If you conclude there was a 1:1000 probability of these events occuring by chance, but a base rate of nurses killing patients is 1:10000, then it's still 10:1 more likely LL is innocent.
As far as I can tell none of the above was done properly. Some things were vaguely looked at, but in an anecdotal "analysis", not something containing actual mathematics.
Of course it's possible that you do this analysis and conclude LL is guilty - I don't know that. But the analysis, as summarized, is to a proper statistical evidence what a child's drawing is to a CCTV screenshot.
One additional thing of note is that it was the police and their expert witness that decided which deaths were “suspicious” vs “non suspicious”.
Without the categorisation of deaths being suspicious/non suspicious, Letby was on shift for 40% of the deaths (approximately what you would expect, she worked 35% of the week).
It was the police with the expert witness that then selected which deaths were suspicious, and they did this non-blind (ie the expert looked at the case notes, could see if Letby was on shift, and then made an evaluation on if it was suspicious or not).
After this categorisation, Letby was present at 100% of the suspicious deaths (and none of the non-suspicious deaths)
Sounds like the unit she worked in wasn't totally competent. I'd give general advice to anyone (who cares) to be careful working with a group of incompetents or in a drowning situation, it's hard to avoid catching shit.
I've recently read a story about a missing woman who was found years later apparently wood-chipped all over her backyard. The husband has never been arrested. How are we judging someone guilty in the nurses case when there is just a statistical uptick.
This has been around since 2011 at least, I remember playing this in the apple store at the mall when I was bored waiting for my parents. Cool to see it resurface on HN!
I don't believe the parent comment is saying people who need wheelchairs should get a cheaper worse option, they are pointing out that reasonable options in Germany exist for less than a grand whereas in the US, these reasonable options are borderline unaffordable
The Amazon results in the US are basically the same. You can buy chairs for $200 in the same way you can buy a bike from Walmart for $200. $200 chairs aren't suitable for day-to-day mobility, especially outside. This article I found in another comment explains the difference:
You might get a kick out of this website: https://usefulinterweb.com/
It curates a list of 1000s of interesting websites, and adds about 3-4 new links daily
I found the idea of this promising, but the first link I followed took me to an Amazon page to buy a book. I feel like that's directly taking me out of the useful internet experience, as I was expecting content on the topic.
I really like how your cookies button looks. I know it is a small thing, but being based in Europe where they tend to pop up and cover the whole page, its a nice change of pace. I also noticed that the fonts for your drop down menus are not matching the font on the rest of the page. Minor detail, but noticeable.
