4 ms·

Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravity challenge (2003)

30 points by artur_makly 7y ago

dang 7y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22778832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22778832 (I wonder why twice in two days?) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18677508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18677508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4644463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4644463
echelon 7y ago
Parachutes solve a simple to model physics problem with few variables. Vaccines or drugs are injected into an incredibly complicated biological system and interact with the immune system, cell signalling pathways, gene expression, thousands of different receptor bindings, and more. For vaccines, the immune system itself is immeasurably complex. You can teach it the wrong things and be stuck with that lesson for life. Interfering with signalling pathways can give you incurable cancer ten years down the line, or leave you with terrible disorders that ruin your quality of life. How many times have drugs interfered with pregnancy and caused children to be born with birth defects and learning disorders? There's a reason we study these things. This analogy is a very poor fit. Edit: why is this being downvoted? Are people really eager to try the new prophylactics? While designing a fix for Coronavirus is incredibly important, we can't throw out all we know about safety. Why don't you offer a counter argument so we can discuss? Intervention in cases where it is obvious the patient won't survive is worth considering, but we shouldn't proactively give healthy people something we aren't sure is safe.
- usrusr 7y ago
  Evidence based medicine isn't under fire because it objects the injection of random compounds as vaccines (pretty much everybody does), it's under fire because of its position on masks.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    I'm not sure I follow. All of the true evidence I could find (i.e. the 2 randomized, controlled studies I could find for use of medical masks by the public) greatly supported their use for reduction of respiratory virus transmission. If anything, I found the general position of "masks shouldn't be warn by the public because they don't protect healthy people" to be completely unsupported by any randomized controlled studies. Don't know if that's what you were referring to.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  It's being downvoted because you failed to appreciate the joke and instead went on an angry rant about what you mistakenly assumed was being made fun of.
macintux 7y ago
My only question is why this wasn’t published on an April 1st.
- probably_wrong 7y ago
  If memory serves me well, it kind of was: it was published on the BMJ Christmas special[1], which is more light-hearted than the "regular" issues. [1] https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-types/christmas-issue https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-type...
angel_j 7y ago
“We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.”
pmyteh 7y ago
You might also enjoy a follow-up article of sorts, also published in the Christmas BMJ, reporting the results of an actual RCT on parachute use: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5094 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5094
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

30 points by artur_makly 7y ago

dang 7y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22778832 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22778832 (I wonder why twice in two days?) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18677508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18677508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4644463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4644463

echelon 7y ago

Parachutes solve a simple to model physics problem with few variables. Vaccines or drugs are injected into an incredibly complicated biological system and interact with the immune system, cell signalling pathways, gene expression, thousands of different receptor bindings, and more. For vaccines, the immune system itself is immeasurably complex. You can teach it the wrong things and be stuck with that lesson for life. Interfering with signalling pathways can give you incurable cancer ten years down the line, or leave you with terrible disorders that ruin your quality of life. How many times have drugs interfered with pregnancy and caused children to be born with birth defects and learning disorders? There's a reason we study these things. This analogy is a very poor fit. Edit: why is this being downvoted? Are people really eager to try the new prophylactics? While designing a fix for Coronavirus is incredibly important, we can't throw out all we know about safety. Why don't you offer a counter argument so we can discuss? Intervention in cases where it is obvious the patient won't survive is worth considering, but we shouldn't proactively give healthy people something we aren't sure is safe.

usrusr 7y ago
Evidence based medicine isn't under fire because it objects the injection of random compounds as vaccines (pretty much everybody does), it's under fire because of its position on masks.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  I'm not sure I follow. All of the true evidence I could find (i.e. the 2 randomized, controlled studies I could find for use of medical masks by the public) greatly supported their use for reduction of respiratory virus transmission. If anything, I found the general position of "masks shouldn't be warn by the public because they don't protect healthy people" to be completely unsupported by any randomized controlled studies. Don't know if that's what you were referring to.
anigbrowl 7y ago
It's being downvoted because you failed to appreciate the joke and instead went on an angry rant about what you mistakenly assumed was being made fun of.

macintux 7y ago

My only question is why this wasn’t published on an April 1st.

probably_wrong 7y ago
If memory serves me well, it kind of was: it was published on the BMJ Christmas special[1], which is more light-hearted than the "regular" issues. [1] https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-types/christmas-issue https://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-authors/article-type...

angel_j 7y ago

“We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute.”

pmyteh 7y ago

You might also enjoy a follow-up article of sorts, also published in the Christmas BMJ, reporting the results of an actual RCT on parachute use: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5094 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k5094

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]