
My new medical research startup launches today: let me know what you think - rms
http://www.metamed.com/
======
ceejayoz
Googling for "Hank Gardstein MD" finds only a Henry (for which Hank is a
nickname) Gardstein ([http://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-henry-
gardstein-xcs...](http://www.healthgrades.com/physician/dr-henry-gardstein-
xcsg4)) with the same school of medicine, medical specialty, and rough date of
beginning of practice as that of the profile on MetaMed.

That doctor was disbarred
([http://w3.health.state.ny.us/opmc/factions.nsf/cd901a6816701...](http://w3.health.state.ny.us/opmc/factions.nsf/cd901a6816701d94852568c0004e3fb7/3e643e0499ca9b7a8525747b0058f221/$FILE/lc108744.pdf))
for writing online pharmacy prescriptions.

Same guy?

~~~
abraininavat
Guy's gotta eat!

------
tait
Congrats on an audacious project!

Unfortunately, main site not working for me.

So, "at least two of our expert researchers will validate test results to rule
out any errors"?

What does that mean, exactly? As a board certified pathologist, I have some
idea what I mean by validation, but what do you mean?

Next, the featured testimonial from "Jerry W." sounds fishy - it may be
genuine, but it seems like it was written by marketing, and lacks any detail
to provide credibility to skeptical evaluators.

Next, when research is published, there is a p value, perhaps 0.04. When you
provide your recommendations to patients, I'm sure you are smart enough to
hedge appropriately. How do you communicate that? Do you guarantee follow-up
if new research modifies the confidence of your previous recommendations?

Finally, research evaluating one treatment versus another typically are
provided in the context of routine patient care for the average patient. Your
clientele here, clearly, are not run of the mill patients. With the proposed
fee structure, they are also not likely pursuing routine treatment. This
suggests that routinely published research will be less applicable to your
customers. This amounts to being a huge selection bias. How do you plan to
adjust for this issue? (As a specific example for one class of these problems,
for those not familiar with these kinds of issues: the reason we don't perform
routine mammograms in women starting at age 20 is not just cost - the
prevalence is so low in this age range that the false positive rate is very
high. So, patients who obtain a mammogram at age 20 for "screening" are at
higher risk of false positives.)

~~~
apsec112
Hello. I work for MetaMed, and knew Jerry (not his real name) from long before
he became a client - I assure you that that page was in no way written or
edited by us. We generally do not include specifics (like real names, medical
histories, and so on) to protect patient privacy, which we take extremely
seriously.

~~~
tait
Great, and thanks for the info.

I see how that issue - name/history/etc. - would make it hard to provide
credible success stories.

Site still not working for me, so this may be there:

Perhaps, someday, maybe include a patient story or two with medical history
but no name? (With appropriate HIPAA waivers...)

Even better, it would be WAAY awesome if you posted, whenever possible, the
results of your research on your site for review by anybody. It may not be in
your current business model, but the "giving back" angle might be the edge
that pushes you into popularity.

------
nostromo
From Google Cache (was going to link to it, but the text-only version has a
lot of over-laid text and is hard to read):

> We work with you and your doctor to figure out how advances in medical
> science apply to your personal health needs. Our team of researchers will do
> in-depth, personalized analysis to find new technologies, read scientific
> journals, talk to experts, and separate real medical breakthroughs from
> media hype. Whether it’s testing, prevention, treatment, or nutrition, if
> you have medical questions, we can help inform you about what the options
> are and what a rushed, ten-minute appointment might have overlooked.

Pricing:

> $5,000 (Surface); $25,000 (Depth); $250,000 (Comprehensive); $1,000,000
> (Original Research)

~~~
waterlesscloud
Prices are currently listed as $5,000 (Core), $10,000 (Expanded), and Call For
Quote (Concierge).

"Concierge" for medical service feels a little cheesy to me, but I'm not in
that income demo so I could be completely wrong.

The sample Surface report looks kinda thin to me for $5,000.
<http://www.metamed.com/static/Meta_Sleep.pdf>

The Expanded report is a little better.
<http://www.metamed.com/static/Meta_H_Pylori.pdf>

The Sample Concierge report is interesting. Though from an admittedly quick
skim I'm not sure how much of it is truly personalized. There's a lot
statistics in there, which I guess is unavoidable.
<http://www.metamed.com/static/Meta_Gout.pdf>

In any case, I like the basic idea of this a LOT. It's an interesting
direction to go in, bringing this kind of thing to semi-mass market.

By the way, the line "Our doctors are here to listen" in the call-or-chat box
is brilliant. The couple of people I know who have problems they would need to
take to this level are completely fed up with doctors that they feel aren't
listening to them. This is the market. People who are in strong need of
personal level attention.

~~~
FireBeyond
"The sample Surface report looks kinda thin to me for $5,000.
<http://www.metamed.com/static/Meta_Sleep.pdf>

No kidding. For three pages, effectively (with lots of whitespace).

In fact, for $5,000, your actionable items on the subject of "Difficulty
Sleeping" are:

1\. Get tested for sleep apnea. 2\. Take melatonin. 3\. Reduce caffeine
intake.

Seriously? The first item is "get tested for thing you are complaining about"?

<http://www.medicinenet.com/insomnia/article.htm> \- I typed in "Difficulty
sleeping" into Google, and got this result as the first. It included all three
items from the report and took somewhere under sixty seconds to find.

Don't get me wrong - this, and essentially anything medical - is ripe for
innovation (I'm working on a almost polar opposite idea myself), and there are
some good advances in expert systems for diagnosis that I've seen.

But if you're attempting to get $5,000 to $50,000 out of someone, the sample
report you're showing isn't selling it, at all.

~~~
apsec112
Sorry about that, you're totally right - that was an older draft version that
got uploaded by mistake (I work for MetaMed). We'll have the new one up in a
day or so when the launch chaos has died down.

(I can send you a bunch of our more current research tonight if you're
interested in this particular subject - email me at avance@metamed.com)

------
sytelus
So how these really work? Do you have experts in every sub-field of medicine
lined up to analyse each case? Looking at your team, everyone seems to have
title "Health Researcher" but most of them have no real degree in medicine or
have any real experience with specific illness. Many seem to have experience
and education that is not even remotely close to "health researcher" title let
alone be legally licensed to prescribe anything to anyone medicine related in
US. So how these people are supposed to read complex test reports, connect
subtle dots and give me advice that is better than sub-sub-specialty
practicing MD who sees 100s of patients day in day out? Website is full of PR
quotes without any details of how it would stand up to claims it has been
making.

~~~
apsec112
It would be totally impractical to have full time people studying every sub-
sub-sub-specialty: if we saw a person with rare disease X once a year, what
would the specialist in X do the rest of the time? That's why we have a large
network of outside experts we can consult when very domain-specific knowledge
is needed.

Also, as someone who spends a lot of time working with doctors, the current
medical system does _not_ train people to look at things in detail and connect
subtle dots - it trains people to run around doing everything as quickly as
they possibly can. (Ask anyone who's in residency if you don't believe me.) A
significant part of our advantage is that we can spend much more time on a
single patient than a standard ten-minute consultation.

~~~
sytelus
Well, standard consultation does not cost $5000. If I have $5000 to spend, why
should I use this website as opposed to directly finding another expert (with
real MD degree and hand-on experience) and get their second opinion? I'm not
sure of equivalent hourly rate of doctors but even at $500 per hour, I should
be able to get a real specialist to study my reports in-depth and take their
couple of hours of consulting time for a fraction of the cost. Again website
needs to make explicit how much it would cost, who would do the work and what
are their credentials. Lot of statistics such as 50% of second opinions
contradicts looks very bogus. Is it from a reliable source?

~~~
apsec112
Sources on second opinions:

<http://www.cancer.med.umich.edu/news/second_opinion06.shtml>

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020372170457715...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203721704577159280778957336.html)

------
MartinCron
Interesting idea, but I'm wondering about the iterative nature of some
diagnosis and treatment. I'm specifically thinking about how my wife went
through lots of trial and error with eliminating particular things from her
diet to get a handle on what was making her feel so terrible.

The way I'm reading the site, it feels more like a one-shot "we'll run a bunch
of tests and give you a single comprehensive analysis" which seems like a good
idea in theory, but scares me in practice.

~~~
apsec112
With every research report, we include a summary of what we can do further
research on if something changes, we get new information, or the budget is
expanded. You're right that we don't make this very prominent on the site,
though - thanks for the feedback.

------
lifeisstillgood
A rushed ten minute consult annoys us all, but How often is my medical
condition going to be something that say paying the doctor to take 45 mins
would not uncover.

Most of us have diseases that are horses not zebra - and you have a strong
financial incentive to encourage hypochondriacs to keep hearing zebra.

If my condition has Gregory House stumped, sure ill pay you but otherwise that
lump on your skin is a cyst not a tumour and that shortness of breath is lack
of fitness not a heart failure.

~~~
cowkingdeluxe
There are a good deal of misdiagnoses that cause more months of suffering,
especially with diseases like Crohn's disease. Maybe a service like this could
prevent that with the help of a more accurate up front diagnosis. Diseases
aren't as rare as people tend to think (~1.5 million with a digestive disease
in the U.S. alone).

That said, here are a couple things which make me skeptical about this:

1) They make claims involving rounded numbers without sources, such as "50% of
second opinions contradict the original diagnosis." That's a red flag for me.
Would be nice for me to see some sources for claims like that on a site
wishing to sell medical research services.

2) Several of the medical researchers do not have a background in anything
medical. In fact, one of the senior health researchers' area of expertise
includes herbal medicine and Naturopathy (which is a bit anti-vaccination:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturopathy>). I would not be happy If I got
suggested any alternative medicine remedies for my disease at the cost of
$5,000.

~~~
Mycroft65536
Some things that are labeled "alternative medicine" have actual studies, with
decent sample sizes and good methodologies, showing that they work. These
things are worth paying attention to. The rest don't meet our standards and
get ignored.

~~~
carbocation
Most things with evidence are readily accepted in modern medicine. Is there an
alternative medicine treatment with good evidence that is nevertheless
rejected by modern medicine that you can think of as an example?

~~~
Mycroft65536
Foxglove for heart disease. FDA approved and doctors don't recommend it
enough.

~~~
robbiep
Foxglove is a really silly idea as a herbal medicine because it is available
in a quantified purified form from the pharmacy called digoxin and you will
minimise the change of running out of the very narrow therapeutic window that
digoxin is both efficacious and non-toxic within.

Side effects of digitalis (the active component) toxicity include but are not
limited to DEATH

Saying take foxglove instead of digitalis is kind of like saying take willow
bark instead of aspirin, but potentially MUCH MORE DANGEROUS.

If what you mean to say is 'we shiuldnt give profits to the pharmaceutical-
medical-industrial complex because I believe it is acting against my best
interests' then go ahead and say so; however if thr best example of an
'alternative' medicine being efficacious or safer is foxglove you are woefully
underinformed

As the saying goes, alternative medicine that works becomes medicine. That is
digoxin

------
pcrh
This is the sort of service that a general practitioner should be providing.

The vast majority of patients have routine problems. Though these might be
distressing to the individuals, the "standard of care" (assuming correct
diagnosis) is established practice, and this service would not affect that.

For the few with very rare conditions, or with useless primary care
physicians, this service might be useful, however the price is very high for
what is essentially a diagnostic/referral service.

Nevertheless, I think it could be commercially successful, given the number of
people who think they know more about medicine and medical practice than their
doctors do.

~~~
apsec112
There are many conditions which are extremely common, but for which more
effective treatments don't propagate to patients. About 5% of the US
population has clinical depression, for example, and writing gratitude letters
has been shown in studies to be quite effective at treating depression (more
so than drugs or therapy). Yet, most patients don't know about it.

~~~
carbocation
> _writing gratitude letters has been shown in studies to be quite effective
> at treating depression (more so than drugs or therapy)_

I could not find a publication supporting that assertion after a brief pubmed
search. Can you provide one?

~~~
mindcrime
A quick Google search turns this up:

<http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10902-011-9257-7>

~~~
carbocation
Yes, I did see that, but it doesn't address the important part of the
assertion _(more so than drugs or therapy)_ so to be charitable, I assume the
OP has a different reference in mind.

~~~
mindcrime
Good point, although it's hard to say without reading the full-text.
Personally, I wasn't interested enough to pay for access to read it. _shrug_
Still, it is suggestive that the OP isn't totally blowing smoke on this.

~~~
carbocation
Interesting; I don't have the same take. If the OP's assertion is true, then
he's referencing an under-recognized study of critical importance. If it's
just hyperbole sitting on top of truth (whether due to an incorrect
recollection or otherwise), that's a big problem.

Claims that have some truth to them, but which are not correct, are both
endemic to and hazardous in healthcare. I will argue that in this type of
conversation, claims of fact that are disputed but ultimately unsupported must
be taken to be false until shown otherwise.

(The fulltext of the article that you found doesn't use the terms "SSRI",
"medication", "drug", or "therapy", but I haven't read it in depth to see if
they're using some unusual synonyms.)

------
orangethirty
For reference, make sure your site can handle real traffic before posting it
to HN. Not doing so will hurt your brand and reduce chances of getting some
good initial traction. More so with such type of service. My initial
perception is that I cannot trust a business with my health when they can't
even properly setup a website.

------
carbocation
Whenever we run a test in medicine, we ask, "How would the result affect
management?" If the result, one way or another, would not change management,
the test is not worth running.

The site is down so I have to go from the headline, but I'd ask the same
question: how would this service affect clinical management? Can you offer an
example?

~~~
Udo
_> Whenever we run a test in medicine, we ask, "How would the result affect
management?"_

Yet, a lot of unnecessary tests are run daily at every hospital I've seen. But
what's worse is that often times doctors are reluctant to find out more about
a patient's illness simply because they believe "it wouldn't affect treatment
and it's not worth it anyway". It doesn't take a scientist to figure out why
this approach can be disastrous. At the same time, high-paying private
patients _are_ often considered to be worth finding out the specifics.

The whole system of clinical knowledge and action is broken from this point
on. Doctors often do not keep current with advances in medical research, and I
encountered a few who are actively opposed to it, asserting that medicine
should not go any further than it does today because it's considered
"unnatural".

Medicine is in danger of becoming scientifically bankrupt. This startup, while
I think it's a great concept, is a symptom of this disease. Practitioners,
even in the odd case they're interested in advanced knowledge that is not
being passed down from whoever the resident rockstar surgeon is, generally do
not have proper access to current knowledge and statistics.

It seems to me this system, where a life is more often than not considered
ephemeral and expendable (except if you're a small child or a pregnant woman),
this system is broken and cannot in its current form provide the services we
will need as our civilization advances. As it is, this system plays into the
hands of religion and pseudo science (a trend which doctors are generally
comfortable with), and it is one of the dehumanizing factors that make our
hospitals places of desperation instead of regeneration.

~~~
apsec112
Hello. I agree with your criticisms of the medical system, and MetaMed was
started specifically to help fix these problems - to bring science back into
medicine. It's impossible for any one person to keep current with all
research, so we provide a service where a team of scientists can keep up on
the latest research for individual physicians and patients. We're all about
giving access to statistics and scientific knowledge - it's what we do.

~~~
Udo
As I said: I think it's a great idea and I wish you all the success in the
world. If only this wasn't necessary... I also hope that you don't encounter
too much resistance from practitioners.

------
guylhem
Excellent idea, great concept!!!

It's not everyday medicine where you work on simple problems following a
statistical approach - an appendicitis is more likely than a Meckel
diverticulum, and a simple overeating is even more likely than both.

But there are complicated cases - not very often, but that's the one I like,
and that most of the passionated doctors do too. Hell - I _love_ such cases.

A quick story - I once had the chance to make a one-in-a-million diagnosis
while working in the ER of a small hospital, around 2004.

A patient presented with a psychiatric history and a psychiatric diagnosis,
but somehow it didn't feel right. I had this odd feeling when talking to the
patient - no psychiatric symptoms of no kind. It seemed wrong. I ordered basic
blood tests (checking for hyponatremia, etc), X-rays - all normal.

It was a bit late so I asked for the patient to be served a lunch before being
discharged, deeply unsatisfied. Around 10 minutes later, the patient had a new
episode - but this time it was in an hospital and I did not have to rely on
eyewitnesses - it looked a lot like neurological problem, not a psychiatric
problem.

After another round of blood tests (I don't like it when I don't know what's
happening), brain scan, etc. everything was normal. I noticed the glucose was
normal - it should not be, since the patient had had an hospital lunch (in my
hospital it included marmelade, and all kind of sweet things!)

So I ordered a test to check for insulinoma (I'm weird, I know - its incidence
is like one-in-a-million) because it made sense - and the test was negative.

At this time, I was just a medical resident - the seniors were a bit mad at me
for having spent so much time (and costly diagnostic procedures) on what was
proven wrong, and what should be wrong in the first place - because it is so
unfrequent. And that's not what one is expected to do in the ER (fortunately,
it was late at night)

Yet I wasn't satisfied, so I asked the patient to be transferred in the
university hospital neurological department for further tests. Something was
happening, we didn't know what, someone had labelled the patient "crazy" (not
politically correct, but truth is psychiatric patient issues are usually less
investigated) but there _was_ something.

Guess what- weeks later I got a letter, they found it was a rare variant of
insulinoma that our basic test did not detect.

That's one of my best moment in life !! That day I made a difference - I
removed a wrongful psychiatric diagnosis and gave the proper diagnosis.
Patients with insulinoma should _not_ get institutionalized in a psychiatric
hospital.

That's the medicine I love. Fixing basic problems is the job a mechanic.

The kind of medicine I love is unfortunately not possible with the current
healthcare setup - and even with usual patients, because most people don't
care. They want a quick fix.

This startup idea is just great, to take care of people who want the real
deal. I wish you luck!!

I'm sure you will find great clinicians who will take going as deep as the
rabbit hole goes to give excellent care.

~~~
ryguytilidie
I wish more doctors were like you. I was in the ER last month and have seen 6
different doctors since and none really seemed to care once the problem got
more complicated than the stock answer or giving me some painkillers :(

~~~
ams6110
ER is not the place to go for diagnosis of anything complicated. They are a
first-line triage, treat, and refer operation.

~~~
ryguytilidie
Like I said, after the ER I've went to 6 doctors. I didn't go to the ER by
choice. I literally passed out, they rushed me to the ER. I followed up with
specialists and they had no idea what was wrong and didn't really seem to
think figuring it out was worth their time.

------
raddoc
I like the idea in concept but have a couple critiques.

1) Pricing- even the most basic package is ridiculous. For $5000 I would not
only fly to your city to spend as much time with you in a face-to-face meeting
discussing your medical problems, but I would give you my personal cell phone
number for any questions or concerns at a later date.

2) Chart reviews- I don't know the credentials of the people doing the
reviews, but I am highly suspect of anyone other than a board certified
physician in a given specialty providing medical advise or in any way guiding
diagnostic decisions.

Having said that, I think there is real opportunity here. I wish you the best
of luck.

------
lupatus
Kevin,

It seems that the Singularity Institute also reads James Altucher:
[http://www.jamesaltucher.com/what-is-the-quickest-way-to-
mak...](http://www.jamesaltucher.com/what-is-the-quickest-way-to-make-a-
million/).

My guess is that your "productize step" is to also use your researchers to
train a specialized medical search engine you'll keep on the back-end (sort of
a Mahalo+Watson).

If that isn't what you're doing, let me know. Maybe I can help get you there.

~~~
rms
Yup, there are all sorts of interesting problems in solving the back end
problems of organizing our research.

------
ceejayoz
As a patient, I'd worry that the "at least two of our expert researchers will
validate test results to rule out any errors" would get steered towards the
less credentialed folks - the Eagle Scout philosophy major rather than the one
or two MDs on the list of staff.

I'd have more comments, but the site appears to have gone for now...

~~~
Mycroft65536
The Eagle Scout philosophy majors are doing the photo editing and art design.
All of our researchers have a more rigorous background.

~~~
ceejayoz
That's not borne out by the site.

Health Researcher: Justin Alderis is an Eagle Scout who co-chaired the
Princeton Philosophical Society for four years while he earned his BS degree
from Princeton University, with a focus on the philosophy underlying cognitive
science.

------
Sharma
Idea is great.

But I feel pricing model needs a revisit.

For patients with some serious ailments this is all fine but what about less
serious issues like..a person with allergies, thyroid, migraine etc. These are
kinds of things which bother people but still not enough to spend 5000 for
analysis.

Probably a profile based pricing is a good idea? Just a thought.

~~~
ceejayoz
A person with allergies, migraines, etc. is almost certainly better served by
going to their general practitioner for a $20 copay.

~~~
Sharma
Well I am not saying no options available. This service says they use
research, data analysis etc. I am sure 20 copay will not get you that.

So my point was to pay more that 20 but less than given minimum 5000.

~~~
ceejayoz
An allergist is likely to have plenty of access to research, data analysis,
etc. about their specialty, and cost significantly less than $5,000.

$5,000 would buy me consultations with 250 allergists, who'd likely be basing
their conclusions on the same sort of research available to the health
researchers at MetaMed, as well as it being their actual medical specialty.

------
orangethirty
You definitely need a better landing page. Plus your pricing page needs work.
Since this is not a cheap service, I would test a version that did not post
prices but encouraged inquiries.

~~~
rms
It's probably worth testing, but as hackers and web users we all can't stand
websites that don't list prices.

~~~
orangethirty
I'm a marketing consultant/software engineer. Have plenty of data that points
to not listing prices over $1500. Not in your industry, of course. But I have
data from different markets.

------
norabean
I did a write-up for MetaMed for my site: <http://bit.ly/YZb3G8/> Please share
it if you can. If you know any journalists/bloggers that wish to interview
MetaMed founding team, please let me or the person who posted this know.

------
naive
The website (now loading) lists many health researchers on your team, but it
doesn't say say much about their credentials and/or experience in
biology/medicine. Can you give us some more details?

~~~
biotech_anon
It also looks like many are associated with the "Singularity Institute." My
exposure to that group left me feeling like it was some sort of cult of
charlatans and wide-eyed dreamers. The presentations I've seen from them
featured graphs without units and a lot of hand waving without hard data or
independent validation. Almost like a sort of Scientology for Silicon Valley.

~~~
sytelus
Whenever the term "meta" is involved with anything, please do expect hand
waving ;).

------
ThomPete
Great project and may I say great design. Looks very very solid IMHO.

Good luck.

As someone with a 1000 moles who have been diagnosed with melanoma (luckily
early stage and now removed) would this service be of any good for me?

~~~
Mycroft65536
If you're uncertain of the diagnosis or are worried about it coming out of
remission, then we will be able to help. How long ago did you have it?

~~~
ThomPete
Last year, just after I moved to the US in May.

Been quite interesting (and scary) to go through the US healthcare system
coming from Denmark.

------
SCdF
While your site is down, let me make one OT comment: I nearly had a heart
attack when I saw that the username was 'rms'.

Unsurprisingly I suppose, you're not _that_ rms.

~~~
tokenadult
The Hacker News user rms has joked that his username means "Rupert Murdoch
sucks," if I remember correctly.

~~~
rms
It was a joke that outlived its meaning, but still, here we are. :)

~~~
Macsenour
Ahem, those are also my initials. :)

------
icoder
Site's down. Perhaps you can put a teaser of what metamed is about in the
comments so we have something to read/vote on while you get your site up
again.

------
bthomas
Interesting idea, but site is not really usable on mobile...

~~~
jimrandomh
The menus at the top use mouse-hover which doesn't make sense on phones, but
the links at the bottom go to the same set of pages as the menus.

~~~
bthomas
Tanks for responding. If curious, the hovers on the who we are page also
caused me problems, and assets took a while to load.

------
mijail
Can customers receive a print copy or is it only in PDF?

------
ibdthor
Not to be that guy, but on the Overview page for Patients & Caregivers, in the
picture with the two women, it says "treatment regime" - I believe it should
be "treatment regimen".

~~~
abstractbill
Definition #2 of "regime" makes sense to me for this context, though I think
regimen is more common in the US (regime is more common in the UK):
<https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Aregime>

------
logjam
MD here. The headline on your webpage: "For serious medical conditions, you
need direct access to the _world’s best researchers_." [my emphasis added]

Pardon my skepticism, but that sentence and the rest of your not-functioning-
very-well website smell of nothing more than an attempt to ripoff very
vulnerable people, and other marketing bullshit.

But do please prove me wrong - kindly link to the world-class research your
docs and researchers have done thus far.

~~~
apsec112
Our consultant network includes Nobel laureates, heads of biology departments,
famous professors, and as top-rate people as one can find. They aren't on the
first version of the site because a) they're not full-time employees - being
very busy, they usually only have a few hours a week - and b), before you ask
someone to be on a website, you first have to show them the site, and the
site's only been up for about twelve hours because it's launch day. We're
currently compiling our business, scientific and medical advisory boards, and
will have them up over the next few weeks.

Also, why the rudeness? In terms of the disagreement hierarchy
(<http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>), you're using DH1 through DH3 -
attacking credentials and tone rather than facts.

~~~
carbocation
> _Also, why the rudeness? In terms of the disagreement hierarchy
> (<http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html>), you're using DH1 through DH3 -
> attacking credentials and tone rather than facts._

I think you've got things turned around a bit here. He's not using claims of
authority to spuriously attack an argument that you're making. You are the one
asserting authority, and he's asking for proof. Since you are basing some of
your credibility on authority, it seems like a reasonable request.

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stickbranch
I think it'd be nice if your site loaded.

