4 ms·

Yes it's probably the end medically, but it's not the end of its use as a political wedge. To people who believe the current political rhetoric promoting hydr

by danans 6y ago

Yes it's probably the end medically, but it's not the end of its use as a political wedge. To people who believe the current political rhetoric promoting hydroxychloroquine, a study in a medical journal doesn't change anything, as their interest in it was never based its medical efficacy, but rather as a symbol used to rally around their leader and their movement. Just look at the anti-vaccination movement, which continues despite being debunked for years. And we shouldn't so quickly dismiss this phenomenon. We underestimate the power of that kind of fictional narrative group-think to our peril. The only way to fight falsehood based narrative is truth based narrative. The dry statistical or scientifically derived truth that eggheads like most of us wish would prevail is largely powerless. Stories are what ultimately wins.

puranjay 6y ago
It's been absurd that I have people on my Twitter feed attributing the low death rate in India to India's "widespread daily use of HCQ". 31 years in India and I've never even heard of it!
- rsynnott 6y ago
  I suspect this was people thinking “chloroquine is a malaria drug and India has malaria, therefore it’s used in India”. Which sounds vaguely convincing at first glance, but malaria in India has been immune for decades.
  - puranjay 6y ago
    Don't even get me started on the people hoarding tonic water because it has quinine in it
- rurban 6y ago
  Easy to explain. HCQ as treatment is questionable. Always was. Even the Chinese retracted their recommendation in End of February. But it is still recommended as prevention, and there is a Indian study confirming its suitability as prevention. That's how it always worked. India is also the sole manufacturer of it, for their malaria problem. It's still in widespread use there. Europeans were extra stupid to try it as treatment. If you read the early original Chinese reports they always mentioned that it worked as prevention, Lupus patients had an advantage. And those two disliked presidents always promoted its usage as prevention, not treatment. But reading is apparently a rare skill.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
Exactly. What, you think these hucksters like Laura Ingraham are going to apologize for their dangerous bullshit (spoiler - no: https://www.thedailybeast.com/laura-ingraham-trashes-promising-coronavirus-treatment-remdesivir-to-promote-hydroxychloroquine https://www.thedailybeast.com/laura-ingraham-trashes-promisi... )? Of course not. Apologies are for losers, instead when the facts are against you, you just double down and demonize those who try to convince you with those facts as nefarious enemies. Those of us who live in the world of reality need to realize the only way to fight this "demon haunted world" is to make a scarier demon, not try to fight with facts.
eloff 6y ago
It goes both ways. There are studies showing it is a statistically and clinically significant treatment [1]. Whether those results are reproducible or not remains to be seen. Most of these studies you never hear about because many people on the left want Trump to be wrong or have a knee jerk reaction to anything he says. It even has a name: Trump derangement syndrome. Irrational behavior in both directions is indefensible. [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32335560/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32335560/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- danans 6y ago
  > Irrational behavior in both directions is indefensible. Agreed that any political side is capable of false narratives, but that's hardly what's going on here. Nobody with the fundamental desire for a treatment for themselves and those they care about should they fall severely ill would want any proven effective treatment to be dismissed for political reasons, whether that is hydroxychloroquine or anything else. The problem is that what should have been left as an investigation into a medication with no political colors was turned into a political wedge by the US president who seemingly aspired to use it to regain relevance during this crisis. The same thing has also happened for the various promotions of very preliminary vaccines, or of a fictional nationally deployed testing website that was claimed by POTUS to be under development by Google. This follows the basic principle guiding this administration and its leader that there is no such thing as bad publicity. And to a certain extent, they might even be right. Time will tell.
  - eloff 6y ago
    Every reference I've seen to Hydroxychloroquine in the media is quick to denounce it as a dangerous, discredited treatment. So I think this is not just irrationality on the part of the left, but an example of the gated institutional narrative suppressing ideas. Not to take away from the irrationality of blind faith in anything Trump says seen on the right. If you look at the experts, they're still designing studies to test it, and there are some papers suggesting it does work. The jury is very much still out on this subject.

by danans 6y ago

puranjay 6y ago

It's been absurd that I have people on my Twitter feed attributing the low death rate in India to India's "widespread daily use of HCQ". 31 years in India and I've never even heard of it!

rsynnott 6y ago
I suspect this was people thinking “chloroquine is a malaria drug and India has malaria, therefore it’s used in India”. Which sounds vaguely convincing at first glance, but malaria in India has been immune for decades.
- puranjay 6y ago
  Don't even get me started on the people hoarding tonic water because it has quinine in it
rurban 6y ago
Easy to explain. HCQ as treatment is questionable. Always was. Even the Chinese retracted their recommendation in End of February. But it is still recommended as prevention, and there is a Indian study confirming its suitability as prevention. That's how it always worked. India is also the sole manufacturer of it, for their malaria problem. It's still in widespread use there. Europeans were extra stupid to try it as treatment. If you read the early original Chinese reports they always mentioned that it worked as prevention, Lupus patients had an advantage. And those two disliked presidents always promoted its usage as prevention, not treatment. But reading is apparently a rare skill.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

Exactly. What, you think these hucksters like Laura Ingraham are going to apologize for their dangerous bullshit (spoiler - no: https://www.thedailybeast.com/laura-ingraham-trashes-promising-coronavirus-treatment-remdesivir-to-promote-hydroxychloroquine https://www.thedailybeast.com/laura-ingraham-trashes-promisi... )? Of course not. Apologies are for losers, instead when the facts are against you, you just double down and demonize those who try to convince you with those facts as nefarious enemies. Those of us who live in the world of reality need to realize the only way to fight this "demon haunted world" is to make a scarier demon, not try to fight with facts.

eloff 6y ago

It goes both ways. There are studies showing it is a statistically and clinically significant treatment [1]. Whether those results are reproducible or not remains to be seen. Most of these studies you never hear about because many people on the left want Trump to be wrong or have a knee jerk reaction to anything he says. It even has a name: Trump derangement syndrome. Irrational behavior in both directions is indefensible. [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v... [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32335560/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32335560/

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
danans 6y ago
> Irrational behavior in both directions is indefensible. Agreed that any political side is capable of false narratives, but that's hardly what's going on here. Nobody with the fundamental desire for a treatment for themselves and those they care about should they fall severely ill would want any proven effective treatment to be dismissed for political reasons, whether that is hydroxychloroquine or anything else. The problem is that what should have been left as an investigation into a medication with no political colors was turned into a political wedge by the US president who seemingly aspired to use it to regain relevance during this crisis. The same thing has also happened for the various promotions of very preliminary vaccines, or of a fictional nationally deployed testing website that was claimed by POTUS to be under development by Google. This follows the basic principle guiding this administration and its leader that there is no such thing as bad publicity. And to a certain extent, they might even be right. Time will tell.
- eloff 6y ago
  Every reference I've seen to Hydroxychloroquine in the media is quick to denounce it as a dangerous, discredited treatment. So I think this is not just irrationality on the part of the left, but an example of the gated institutional narrative suppressing ideas. Not to take away from the irrationality of blind faith in anything Trump says seen on the right. If you look at the experts, they're still designing studies to test it, and there are some papers suggesting it does work. The jury is very much still out on this subject.