7 ms·
I wish the current U.S. administration hadn't tried to turn this into a partisan issue.
by D13Fd 7y ago
I wish the current U.S. administration hadn't tried to turn this into a partisan issue.
- Recurecur 7y agoIt absolutely did not. The press did. The mainstream US media has become a one-sided partisan cheerleading squad for the Democrats, and most Americans are sick of it. We'll see how that works out in November.
- starkd 7y agoExactly. How is passing on information that had already been widely circulating among medical professionals making it partisan?
- ageofwant 7y agoThis is the one great thing about democracy: you choose exactly what you deserve.
- philjohn 7y agoLet's not jump the gun yet - not even been peer-reviewed.
- bart_spoon 7y agoI would argue that its being peer-reviewed as we speak. The typical peer-review process involves having other experts review the paper, for free, before publication. One small silver lining of this pandemic is the urgency has caused the scientific model to shift towards preprints, which are rapidly disseminated among the scientific community via places like Twitter and Reddit, and notable papers end up getting vetted by many, many more experts much more quickly than they would via the traditional process. I've already seen many flawed papers quickly debunked and shot down, and others quickly floated to the top of the discussion, via experts commenting on Twitter and elsewhere. I wonder if after all this is over, if our methods of modern science are changed forever, or if we just revert to where we were before.
- yepwewillsee 7y agoNo, most Americans are sick of Trump and his mindless anti science supporters and their endless lies. Yeah. We are going to see in November. You aren’t going to like the outcome for your racist draft dodging business failure tax cheating rapist impeached serial liar with early dementia but restoring adults to leadership will suit the rest of us well.
- stuff4ben 7y ago"restoring adults to leadership" with Biden (or any of the dems)? Hah! Good luck with that...
- anu7df 7y agoYour bias is showing. I could say "most Americans are sick of a lying, inept administration that can't be trusted". But I would be accused of being a biased democrat. I suspect the reality is the administration is totally inept or rendered inept due to the rotten top. The misinformation or biased information on either side's media outlet does not let the people see the real truth. Strange times indeed.
- BFatts 7y agoThink about how silly that sounds - the MSM would need to coordinate their work, on a grand scale, to repeat the same messages about Trump and his people. They would have to coordinate their "fake news" (i.e. stuff that's critical of Trump) to all refer to the same facts. Seems like a lot of work to coordinate a destructive effort against the president AND keep it up over the last 3.5 years...
- zimpenfish 7y ago> The mainstream US media has become a one-sided partisan cheerleading squad for the Democrats They broadcast almost every word Trump says, largely uncritically[1], with frequent "Today is the day he became President" epiphanies whilst minor Democrat issues are blown up into huge talking points and controversies that last for months. How the chuff are they a "one-sided partisan cheerleading squad" for the Democrats? [1] There'll occasionally be a "these things aren't true" afterwards but it doesn't stop them broadcasting them first.
- _red 7y agoFace it, HCQ is an old and cheap drug that doesn't fit Big Pharma profit visions. Its much more enticing for Big Pharma to sell new patented solutions, so they will pay their PR mouthpieces (MSM) to "be cautious" of anything that doesn't achieve that end goal.
- dogma1138 7y agoHaven’t many big pharmas pledged to or have donated millions of doses already? Seems a bit in odds with your claims.
- _red 7y agoDonate something that cost you 0.10 per pill and getting a tax write-off for $2.00 per pill. Sure, why not?
- tomcam 7y agoSo... making those donations was bad? Would you prefer they not do it?
- aabeshou 7y agodont move the goalposts. (1) OP said big pharma wants to downplay HCQ because it doesnt make them as much money. (2) reply says that the fact that pharma donated millions of doses contradicts that (3) OP counters that pharma is donating millions of doses because it gives them an epic tax write-off it has nothing to do with donations being bad. it has to do with the fact that pharma is always doing whats best for them, and if its also best for patients that's a happy coincidence, but they frequently act in opposite of whats best for patients (e.g. price gouging on insulin, in this case possibly downplaying the efficacy of a cheap drug HCQ), and that's something we should notice and call out
- dogma1138 7y agoThat’s fine however it doesn’t bode with the original assertion that it’s downplayed HCQ if anything it somewhat sensationalized it. I have no problems believing that BigPharma does what is good for BigPharma in this case getting good PR, a tax write off and having their most valuable customers as in those with chronic conditions which means pretty much most people once they hit 50-60 to stay alive so they can sell their patented drugs to their insurers and HMOs is a much more believable strategy than some conspiracy that BigPharma is downplaying HCQ because they can’t make money on it.
- jsight 7y agoThat is not at all a fair assessment of what happened. I won't blame specific groups (there is plenty of fault to go around), but it wasn't the administration that made things partisan there.
- shakezula 7y agoThe President literally called it a "Democrat hoax" How is it not the administration's doing then?
- drocer88 7y agohttps://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-re...
- blacksqr 7y agoSnopes gave the claim a mixed rating because close reading of Trump's comments suggested to the article author that Trump was calling Democratic accusations of inadequate response by his administration the hoax, not the virus itself. The article is dated March 2. But now it seems clear that the accusations were absolutely accurate, and the distinctions the author tries to draw are irrelevant.
- airstrike 7y agoThe president called his alleged mishandling of the situation a "Democratic hoax". He didn't call COVID-19 a hoax or the treatment we're discussing
- dlp211 7y agoSo it wasn't a hoax and this is really a distinction without a difference.
- phkahler 7y agoWe are talking about HCQ, please dont bring up other issues.
- caconym_ 7y agoI think Trump was just casting about for anything he might hitch his wagon to and claim credit for later. It's unfortunate that "the other side" heaped so much scorn on chloroquine just because Trump was touting it, because there was never any conclusive evidence that it doesn't work, and if it actually does work then they played right into Trump's usual "hoax" angle.
- D13Fd 7y agoAgreed. But by trying to hitch their wagon to one particular treatment, and trying take ownership of that issue, they are making it about them and about politics rather than about the efficacy of the treatment. In this kind of crisis, the last thing we need is to be injecting politics into the decision about which treatments are most effective.
- randcraw 7y ago"The other side" criticized Trump for what he said. They did not impugn the potential of chloroquine. This issue is only, "What did the president say and should he have said it". No responsible person should offer unproven medical advice IN ANY WAY. And no medical professional should do so unless they have multiple reliables sources to support their advice. Trump failed on both of these points. If chloroquine turns out to fail, he'll surely promote more possible treatments again and again, thereby whittling away public trust and hope, over and over. That's terrible leadership, and rightly merits criticism from everyone who gives a damn, not just "the other side".
- caconym_ 7y agoI have to disagree that "the other side" "did not impugn the potential of chloroquine". The opinion that it had been disproven was (and still probably is) widespread. If you were paying attention, I don't see how you could have missed all the fear-mongering about overdoses and side effects, the fish tank cleaner thing, and so on. There are also a lot of people who think the same as we both do: that whatever happens in the future re: chloroquine, Trump should not be touting unproven treatments on TV. But the issue has clearly grown vastly more complicated than that, spreading through a game of telephone across hyper-opinionated social media bubbles. This is precisely the same effect Trump exploits with his thinly-veiled racist and sexist dogwhistles, etc., allowing him to say horrible things without actually saying them, but on the left/liberal side there's no leader coordinating the application of that interpretive force for political "good" (except, perhaps, Putin's troll farms). We also agree that Trump is a terrible leader. I'd go further, and say that the blood of at least tens of thousands of Americans will be on his hands by the time this is all over. Unfortunately, his disapproval rate has fallen to just 50% and is still trending downward, and the persistence forecast says it'll keep going that way regardless of his gross negligence in managing this crisis. After all, the degree to which he's escaped accountability to date is astonishing. If we want to get rid of him, we need to do better than wandering through the trees of his playbook while losing sight of the forest.
- bart_spoon 7y agoHow did they turn it into a partisan issue? Trump announced in a press conference that hydroxychoroquine held promise as a potential therapy based on anecdotal evidence being shared by physicians in Asia and Europe. Everyone, Democrats, the media, and individuals jumped on him as promoting snake oil and having no basis for his claims. It was barely news when he announced it. Some of the same evidence he was referencing in his claims had been circulating in preprints and on subs like r/COVID19 for weeks at that point. I strongly dislike the administration generally, but I've been perplexed as to how eager everyone has been to attack him over this particular incident. And if it was made partisan, it seems like it was done so by others, and not the administration itself.
- Justsignedup 7y agoHe heard something about these two drugs, and without any scientific evidence he announced it, causing a panic-grab for the drugs. Unfortunately even the CDC was saying we don't have evidence supporting it.
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoLook in the mirror to see how this became a partisan issue. The president made absolutely no partisan statements when mentioning his hope for the drug. It was those looking through dirt colored glasses that took things down that path.
- D13Fd 7y agoIt's not "partisan statements," it's the strategy of trying to take ownership of one particular treatment. It shouldn't be a political issue. It's hard to see the president's statements as anything but an effort to promote himself by tying himself to this treatment. It should be non-partisan. Previous administrations didn't try to set up "I win" scenarios in times of crisis. We need to be able to evaluate the treatment without it being clouded by the issue of whether one side or the other was right.
- BFatts 7y agoTrump: "This is their new hoax" - Their refers to Democrats and Hoax refers to the Coronavirus. I'd say that's a pretty damn partisan statement from our Commander in Grief.
- VBprogrammer 7y agoTrump's statements on the issue were completely out of all proportion to the current state of medical knowledge. The UK government is led by a right wing populist by all accounts and this is what our daily breifing had to say on the matter "And in our determination to prevent as many patients as possible seeing their condition worsen we are conducting rapid clinical trials on those drugs, including anti-malarials, which may be able to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on those affected." Contrast that with Trump's statements (by Twitter of course): "HYDROXYCHLOROQUINE & AZITHROMYCIN, taken together, have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains - Thank You! Hopefully they will BOTH (H works better with A, International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents)....." If you can't see why there is a problem with the way Trump has spoken about these drugs then I'm afraid I've lost all hope.
- zionic 7y agoThis really sounds like your bias showing. The media made this partisan, not the administration.
- randcraw 7y agoNo. The administration made repeated wild unsubstantiated claims of a "cure" for a pandemic that the press properly pushed back on given the near zero experimental evidence behind the claim. This issue is partisan only if partisans act unthinkingly. The press had damned good reason to act as it did. The 'administration' did not.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]