5 ms·

It really bothers me how hard both citizens and officials seem to be wanting Chloroquine to fail all because somebody they didn't like endorsed it publicly. Can

It really bothers me how hard both citizens and officials seem to be wanting Chloroquine to fail all because somebody they didn't like endorsed it publicly. Can't let him have that win, right? Like children. The original studies that showed promise used combinations of Chloroquine, Azithromycin, and or zinc, and there is a speculated pathway by which these drugs interact to interfere with COVID replication. This study only looked at HCQ. This kind of partisan, childlike pettiness is dangerous to all of us - what if Chloroquine works but we overlooked it because a couple shitty papers told us what we wanted to hear? Was it appropriate to tweet about? Debatable. It is a presidents job to keep his people hopeful when possible, and this drug cocktail was in multiple (admittedly not perfect) papers at the time of the tweet. People need to be more objective when evaluating statements made by the president. That doesn't mean you have to like him.

nkozyra 6y ago
I think there's a bunch of strawmen here. It's disingenuous to say that people who found [said person]'s comments to be a bad idea want it to fail. Indeed, if that person had come up and said "there's a lot of promising treatments, such as ..." or "the experts are telling us that some studies involving [x, y, z] are showing some positive signs" or something of that ilk, nobody would have cared. Instead, the person multiple times touted something that is to date unproved. People find that irresponsible for a number of reasons, not least of which that there are legitimate users who need this and it's now in short supply. So what people are protesting is someone not waiting for medical science and just causing noise. Like many things, this person could have handled this all more responsibly.
- twomoretime 6y ago
  >https://youtu.be/oWQjWepaDv0 https://youtu.be/oWQjWepaDv0 "Very promising early results". >https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+tweet+chloroquine&prmd=insv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvzOjehOvoAhVICc0KHcxyD8gQ_AUoAXoECAwQAQ&biw=412&bih=556&dpr=2.63#imgrc=sU_DAlax8JfVaM https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+tweet+chloroquine&prmd... "Have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers" Meanwhile the media response has been universally lamenting that a president would "tell people" [he didn't] to take this drug. How many outlets jumped on the single chloroquine phosphate overdose as proof of the president's responsibility? I encourage you to search "Trump" and "chloroquine" and find me a single headline that doesn't tear into Trump. Like most people, your views have been warped by headlines and op-eds being touted as "news." The fact that the president acts like a child doesn't mean our news should too. The petty editorialization of the daily briefings are an excellent example - the media's job in such a case is to be an objective first source - not to force their point of view through adversarial headlines that change every 5 seconds and "fact checking" only his alleged untruths. But this is where the majority of Americans get their news. It's shameful. Edit: hell, look at this absolutely ridiculous headline at the top of the CNN "fact check" page: "Fact check: Trump denies saying another thing he said and makes more false claims at coronavirus briefing" What kind of headline is that? Is anyone competent left at CNN? The media no longer deserves the soft power it wields. They lost that privilege when they strayed so far from any semblance of objectivity.
  - Goronmon 6y ago
    "Have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers" and "Hopefully both will be used immediately. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST" Both seem pretty ridiculous when we don't even know if its effective at all, let alone "one of the biggest game changers".
    - twomoretime 6y ago
      There were multiple papers out of Europe and China by then. This was already floating around before Trump latched onto it because it was indeed promising, which is exactly what Trump said. What else do you think the words "hopefully" and "real chance" are here to communicate? What do you think "move fast" means? Administer the cure to everyone, or figure out if it works? This was a clearly promising avenue and as the head of the executive this is one of the few things that the man has done right. This vitriol is pure, irrational bias.
      - nkozyra 6y ago
        It's neither vitriol nor irrational to expect a leader to yield to experts and to relay only reliable information. What he did instead lacked context or information necessary to mass communicate. There's a way to communicate it and it wasn't this.
        twomoretime 6y ago
        >it's neither vitriol nor irrational to expect a leader to yield to experts and to relay only reliable information. And you want to tell me that from his tweet you already know he didn't get this information from so called experts? How exactly does this tweet indicate otherwise? >What he did instead lacked context or information necessary to mass communicate. There's a way to communicate it and it wasn't this Welcome to the new normal, where politicians communicate via tweet. I agree that it is inappropriate but this particular example is just being used to project the usual anger onto him with multiple plausible but ultimately inappropriate rationalizations. There was, again, nothing inappropriate about a passing mention of a safe, cheap, promising drug. He could have done the same in the middle of a speech for similar effect. Besides, what did you expect him to do, cite the relevant studies on Twitter? Sure, ideally he would, but let's not pretend that more than, say, .01 percent of the population is even capable of reading studies... This is a shitty hill to die on.
rsynnott 6y ago
> It really bothers me how hard both citizens and officials seem to be wanting Chloroquine to fail No-one wants it to fail. However, right now there's no reason to think that it is useful, and the sooner there's a definitive answer either way the better. Certainly, no-one should be taking it outside trials right now, and the ambiguity (and unreasonable hope stoked by high-profile idiots) is causing people to take it, often without medical supervision. This will kill people.

nkozyra 6y ago

I think there's a bunch of strawmen here. It's disingenuous to say that people who found [said person]'s comments to be a bad idea want it to fail. Indeed, if that person had come up and said "there's a lot of promising treatments, such as ..." or "the experts are telling us that some studies involving [x, y, z] are showing some positive signs" or something of that ilk, nobody would have cared. Instead, the person multiple times touted something that is to date unproved. People find that irresponsible for a number of reasons, not least of which that there are legitimate users who need this and it's now in short supply. So what people are protesting is someone not waiting for medical science and just causing noise. Like many things, this person could have handled this all more responsibly.

twomoretime 6y ago
>https://youtu.be/oWQjWepaDv0 https://youtu.be/oWQjWepaDv0 "Very promising early results". >https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+tweet+chloroquine&prmd=insv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjvzOjehOvoAhVICc0KHcxyD8gQ_AUoAXoECAwQAQ&biw=412&bih=556&dpr=2.63#imgrc=sU_DAlax8JfVaM https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+tweet+chloroquine&prmd... "Have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers" Meanwhile the media response has been universally lamenting that a president would "tell people" [he didn't] to take this drug. How many outlets jumped on the single chloroquine phosphate overdose as proof of the president's responsibility? I encourage you to search "Trump" and "chloroquine" and find me a single headline that doesn't tear into Trump. Like most people, your views have been warped by headlines and op-eds being touted as "news." The fact that the president acts like a child doesn't mean our news should too. The petty editorialization of the daily briefings are an excellent example - the media's job in such a case is to be an objective first source - not to force their point of view through adversarial headlines that change every 5 seconds and "fact checking" only his alleged untruths. But this is where the majority of Americans get their news. It's shameful. Edit: hell, look at this absolutely ridiculous headline at the top of the CNN "fact check" page: "Fact check: Trump denies saying another thing he said and makes more false claims at coronavirus briefing" What kind of headline is that? Is anyone competent left at CNN? The media no longer deserves the soft power it wields. They lost that privilege when they strayed so far from any semblance of objectivity.
- Goronmon 6y ago
  "Have a real chance to be one of the biggest game changers" and "Hopefully both will be used immediately. PEOPLE ARE DYING, MOVE FAST" Both seem pretty ridiculous when we don't even know if its effective at all, let alone "one of the biggest game changers".
  - twomoretime 6y ago
    There were multiple papers out of Europe and China by then. This was already floating around before Trump latched onto it because it was indeed promising, which is exactly what Trump said. What else do you think the words "hopefully" and "real chance" are here to communicate? What do you think "move fast" means? Administer the cure to everyone, or figure out if it works? This was a clearly promising avenue and as the head of the executive this is one of the few things that the man has done right. This vitriol is pure, irrational bias.
    - nkozyra 6y ago
      It's neither vitriol nor irrational to expect a leader to yield to experts and to relay only reliable information. What he did instead lacked context or information necessary to mass communicate. There's a way to communicate it and it wasn't this.
      - twomoretime 6y ago
        >it's neither vitriol nor irrational to expect a leader to yield to experts and to relay only reliable information. And you want to tell me that from his tweet you already know he didn't get this information from so called experts? How exactly does this tweet indicate otherwise? >What he did instead lacked context or information necessary to mass communicate. There's a way to communicate it and it wasn't this Welcome to the new normal, where politicians communicate via tweet. I agree that it is inappropriate but this particular example is just being used to project the usual anger onto him with multiple plausible but ultimately inappropriate rationalizations. There was, again, nothing inappropriate about a passing mention of a safe, cheap, promising drug. He could have done the same in the middle of a speech for similar effect. Besides, what did you expect him to do, cite the relevant studies on Twitter? Sure, ideally he would, but let's not pretend that more than, say, .01 percent of the population is even capable of reading studies... This is a shitty hill to die on.

rsynnott 6y ago

> It really bothers me how hard both citizens and officials seem to be wanting Chloroquine to fail No-one wants it to fail. However, right now there's no reason to think that it is useful, and the sooner there's a definitive answer either way the better. Certainly, no-one should be taking it outside trials right now, and the ambiguity (and unreasonable hope stoked by high-profile idiots) is causing people to take it, often without medical supervision. This will kill people.