8 ms·

Ugh. I'm so disappointed in this whole situation. Feels like Theranos. I want to cover my eyes and ears for the media and political shit show that's going to c

Ugh. I'm so disappointed in this whole situation. Feels like Theranos. I want to cover my eyes and ears for the media and political shit show that's going to come from this. It's true that a certain politician shouldn't be trumpeting unproven treatments, but the media seemed to celebrate when that politician was "proven" wrong. Did we forget that we should all be rooting for treatments to work? I hoped during this pandemic science would move fast and sacrifice some accuracy for speed. But I didn't expect (a seemingly) complete fabrication could go so far with so many eyes. Now I worry the overreaction toward accuracy-over-speed will cause significant slowdowns in published data. We shouldn't over-punish honest mistakes when we value speed over accuracy... but this just feels awful. Would think prison is likely to come. A good read: http://freerangestats.info/blog/2020/05/30/implausible-health-data-firm http://freerangestats.info/blog/2020/05/30/implausible-healt...

HideousKojima 6y ago
>We shouldn't over-punish honest mistakes when we value speed over accuracy Looking at some of the specifics, these don't look like "honest" mistakes, and I'm doubting any integrity on the part of the peer reviewers and the Lancet too with how blatantly false some of their data are. It doesn't even pass the smell test: https://mobile.twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/1266108861259210753 https://mobile.twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/126610886125...
- ImaCake 6y ago
  The blog post linked by the parent post very clearly argues the data is fake. So I think you are misinterpreting what the parent post is saying. But I totally agree with your sentiment that this is truly terrible and everyone involved should be more than a bit ashamed.
lbeltrame 6y ago
> We shouldn't over-punish honest mistakes when we value speed over accuracy... But we should still make sure these behaviors are not rewarded. Science was right when they called against "Pandemic Research Exceptionalism". I think at this point in time, where available knowledge has increased a little, we can afford to be stricter than before.
cm2187 6y ago
Agree. On science taking its time, one thing that baffles me is that in the US and the UK, HCQ trials are only starting, as we reach the tail of this pandemic. Would someone know what is the rationale for waiting so long?
- noelsusman 6y ago
  They're not only starting now, they've been going since early February. This one just finished: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638. It found no preventive effect. Other trials are looking at treatment effectiveness.
  - garmaine 6y ago
    Sigh. They were not giving zinc supplements. It’s really frustrating that the theorized mechanism of HCQ effectiveness as a prophylactic is its ability to transport zinc across cell walls (zinc interrupts the viral RNA replication), yet these trials don’t include zinc supplements.
    - lbeltrame 6y ago
      > Sigh. They were not giving zinc supplements. Check the supplementary data. There were confounding factors, but a group of patients took zinc, and there is no difference between the two groups. Bear in mind that this study has no say on the use as a treatment.
      - garmaine 6y ago
        Thanks, that's good to know.
  - cm2187 6y ago
    Well, a first victim of the loss of credibility of these publications. How do I know this study is more serious than the lancet study?
FireBeyond 6y ago
> I want to cover my eyes and ears for the media and political shit show that's going to come from this. It's true that a certain politician shouldn't be trumpeting unproven treatments, but the media seemed to celebrate when that politician was "proven" wrong. Did we forget that we should all be rooting for treatments to work? We're hoping for _a_ treatment to work. Trump's motivations were largely self-interest, financial investments and other. We didn't celebrate because Trump was wrong. There was skepticism about the treatment, but he (not a physician) was up there pimping it. Even he didn't necessarily believe it was the cure. For all he said that, he said "Hey, take it anyway, why not? Can't hurt!" (when indeed it can). Finally came conclusive evidence that "You are wrong. Be quiet." Though Trump being Trump, that didn't overly work. It's no different to "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli, who once lodged an appeal / protest against a drug being approved... Not because it was dangerous. Or less effective. Or more expensive. No, in fact it was safer than treatments out there. And more effective. And cheaper. And all those reasons meant he opposed it. Because it wasn't _his_ drug. People who say "Big Pharma is holding the cure to cancer", etc., all those conspiracy theories? Shkreli literally opposed a better drug because it would cost him and his company profits.
- Myce 6y ago
  On Twitter I've seen too many celebrate that Trump was wrong. While this is about saving lives. It's the same with people that were applauding healthcare workers but now have no issues with protesters that don't take any COVID measures. It's terrible that health is politicized, it should be above all parties. I also have a bit of an issue with your statement about Trump's motivations. Just these presumptions are why some people didn't want the medicine to work, while in reality we can all only just guess about his motivations.
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    I think you are confusing "didn't want the medicine to work" with "never believed that the medicine worked". I also think you are trying to say there is some inconsistency between applauding health workers for doing necessary work that put them in danger of catching and spreading covid, and applauding protesters for doing necessary work that put them in (much less) danger of catching and spreading covid?
gfodor 6y ago
Even I hadn't let my cynicism about our national discourse sink so low as to think medical treatments would be politicized. Ultimately, it was a new low point. Once it started it was clear where this was going. Many may have died from it if the worse case scenario turns out to be true: this treatment does in fact work, and was stalled or prevented due to politics. Similarly, the complete disregard by the medical community of playing their role in reminding others organizing protests to take steps to prevent participants from spreading the virus has been equally disturbing. I've heard literally nothing from the medical community about tips, methods, or instructions for ensuring protestors do not cause a new outbreak. There does not seem to be any innovation happening in helping people organize and protest while keeping social distancing in mind. I don't know what that would look like, but it's a moral failure that the problem hasn't been worked whatsoever. I haven't even heard stories of people just handing out masks. Things are quite dire.
- crystalmeph 6y ago
  >I've heard literally nothing from the medical community about tips, methods, or instructions for ensuring protestors do not cause a new outbreak. I think this is a typical example of the medical community's method of communicating with the public - until they've studied something to death, they're too afraid to say anything, and if pressed, will just tell you to keep doing what you're doing, even if emerging evidence to the contrary and widespread anecdotal counter-examples are starting to surface. Think about the whole mask fiasco at the beginning of this mess. The CDC actually told Americans that wearing masks might make them more likely to get the virus, despite masks being an effective preventive measure against all other known respiratory viruses to my knowledge, plus the widespread usage of masks by literally billions of people in Asia is a pretty good indicator that it can be done safely. During "normal" times, this general approach may be 100% right, you need to be very sure you understand even low-incidence side effects before you tell 8 billion people what is good for them and what isn't. But that's simply the wrong approach in the face of a fast-moving pandemic - you need to be able to do basic risk/reward analysis quickly and recommend the path that is most likely to work, even if you're not 100% sure, and you're operating on some educated guesses in the absence of hard data. Basically, they need to operate more like engineers and less like doctors, at least for a little while =)
jmull 6y ago
> but the media ... I don't think you can blame the media here. They reported on extremely important and relevant scientific research that was credible by any kind of reasonable journalistic standard. How could they have done otherwise? Contrasting the research claims against the claims of "a certain politician" would be a natural and necessary part of that. Some commentators went too far -- some always do, often the same ones -- but the failing here wasn't generally the media. > Did we forget that we should all be rooting for treatments to work? I don't think that's being forgotten that outside the lunatic fringe. Notice that this story is getting wide coverage, just like the coverage of the original finding.
- ImaCake 6y ago
  Reading the abstract to the Lancet article [0] would probably convince any decently trained science reporter that all is good. They tick all the boxes for what you are supposed to do when you do a case-control study. It reads as very professional and well done. I certainly thought that it passed the bullshit test on first read. The problem is with the data itself, and it isn't obvious it is fabricated because it is such a ridiculous over the top lie that you wouldn't think someone would try to make such a lie. 0. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
- skeletor_999 6y ago
  I would blame the science media to some degree. I don't expect the New York Times to recognize the problems with these papers, but I've seen several examples of science journalists treating these studies as having the final say. This includes Science magazine, one of the premier science journals. The issue of bring Trump into this is tougher. I'm not an American, and don't follow his speeches. I've seen many articles start out with "the drug that Trump irresponsibly hyped up has been proven not to work". To me, it feels like Trump is their main focus instead of the science. Now, if Trump has repeatedly hyped this drug I think that it would be reasonable. Is that the case, or is it the case that the media continue to bring up something he said weeks ago?
  - 6y ago
ImaCake 6y ago
The freerangestats article is the clearest and easiest to read discussion of this topic I have found so far. Glad to see it in the top comment :)
stephc_int13 6y ago
The Lancet is a property of Elsevier. There is, to say it mildly, a bit of controversy about them in the academic world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Academic_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Academic_practices
refurb 6y ago
This is what happens when politics starts to invade scientific pursuits. People ask the question "how can I use this to help me politically?" versus "how can this help fight the epidemic?".
userbinator 6y ago
that a certain politician shouldn't be trumpeting I have a feeling that choice of words was deliberate. ;-)
Ididntdothis 6y ago
“It's true that a certain politician shouldn't be trumpeting unproven treatments, but the media seemed to celebrate when that politician was "proven" wrong. Did we forget that we should all be rooting for treatments to work?” The words of this certain politician have a lot of weight and probably caused a lot of attention to be diverted from real research into looking into this. We can’t chase every crackpot theory only because it’s coming from somebody powerful.
JKCalhoun 6y ago
We should cheer when bullshit is proven wrong. Sorry for my language.
seesawtron 6y ago
When such a large study is published in a big Journal, claiming that a drug might have a negative impact on lives of people in the trials, the authorities will be considered stupid not to pay attention to it at all and continue the trials. That is exactly what they did: They paused their trials temporarily to look at the evidence of this study, examined it and found that it was indeed controversial and lacked solid data. Now they have resumed the trials again. The media sells it as a clickbait story "All trials STOPPED because of a flawed study" implying they were stopped PERMANENTLY to excite the general audience. For them it is entirely something that brings them huge revenue from ads when they write such "emotinally driven" stories, they do not care about the effects it has on the public in the long term by reducing faith in world health organizations.

HideousKojima 6y ago

>We shouldn't over-punish honest mistakes when we value speed over accuracy Looking at some of the specifics, these don't look like "honest" mistakes, and I'm doubting any integrity on the part of the peer reviewers and the Lancet too with how blatantly false some of their data are. It doesn't even pass the smell test: https://mobile.twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/1266108861259210753 https://mobile.twitter.com/JamesTodaroMD/status/126610886125...

ImaCake 6y ago
The blog post linked by the parent post very clearly argues the data is fake. So I think you are misinterpreting what the parent post is saying. But I totally agree with your sentiment that this is truly terrible and everyone involved should be more than a bit ashamed.

lbeltrame 6y ago

> We shouldn't over-punish honest mistakes when we value speed over accuracy... But we should still make sure these behaviors are not rewarded. Science was right when they called against "Pandemic Research Exceptionalism". I think at this point in time, where available knowledge has increased a little, we can afford to be stricter than before.

cm2187 6y ago

Agree. On science taking its time, one thing that baffles me is that in the US and the UK, HCQ trials are only starting, as we reach the tail of this pandemic. Would someone know what is the rationale for waiting so long?

noelsusman 6y ago
They're not only starting now, they've been going since early February. This one just finished: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638 https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638. It found no preventive effect. Other trials are looking at treatment effectiveness.
- garmaine 6y ago
  Sigh. They were not giving zinc supplements. It’s really frustrating that the theorized mechanism of HCQ effectiveness as a prophylactic is its ability to transport zinc across cell walls (zinc interrupts the viral RNA replication), yet these trials don’t include zinc supplements.
  - lbeltrame 6y ago
    > Sigh. They were not giving zinc supplements. Check the supplementary data. There were confounding factors, but a group of patients took zinc, and there is no difference between the two groups. Bear in mind that this study has no say on the use as a treatment.
    - garmaine 6y ago
      Thanks, that's good to know.
- cm2187 6y ago
  Well, a first victim of the loss of credibility of these publications. How do I know this study is more serious than the lancet study?

FireBeyond 6y ago

> I want to cover my eyes and ears for the media and political shit show that's going to come from this. It's true that a certain politician shouldn't be trumpeting unproven treatments, but the media seemed to celebrate when that politician was "proven" wrong. Did we forget that we should all be rooting for treatments to work? We're hoping for _a_ treatment to work. Trump's motivations were largely self-interest, financial investments and other. We didn't celebrate because Trump was wrong. There was skepticism about the treatment, but he (not a physician) was up there pimping it. Even he didn't necessarily believe it was the cure. For all he said that, he said "Hey, take it anyway, why not? Can't hurt!" (when indeed it can). Finally came conclusive evidence that "You are wrong. Be quiet." Though Trump being Trump, that didn't overly work. It's no different to "Pharma Bro" Martin Shkreli, who once lodged an appeal / protest against a drug being approved... Not because it was dangerous. Or less effective. Or more expensive. No, in fact it was safer than treatments out there. And more effective. And cheaper. And all those reasons meant he opposed it. Because it wasn't _his_ drug. People who say "Big Pharma is holding the cure to cancer", etc., all those conspiracy theories? Shkreli literally opposed a better drug because it would cost him and his company profits.

Myce 6y ago
On Twitter I've seen too many celebrate that Trump was wrong. While this is about saving lives. It's the same with people that were applauding healthcare workers but now have no issues with protesters that don't take any COVID measures. It's terrible that health is politicized, it should be above all parties. I also have a bit of an issue with your statement about Trump's motivations. Just these presumptions are why some people didn't want the medicine to work, while in reality we can all only just guess about his motivations.
- lazyasciiart 6y ago
  I think you are confusing "didn't want the medicine to work" with "never believed that the medicine worked". I also think you are trying to say there is some inconsistency between applauding health workers for doing necessary work that put them in danger of catching and spreading covid, and applauding protesters for doing necessary work that put them in (much less) danger of catching and spreading covid?

gfodor 6y ago

Even I hadn't let my cynicism about our national discourse sink so low as to think medical treatments would be politicized. Ultimately, it was a new low point. Once it started it was clear where this was going. Many may have died from it if the worse case scenario turns out to be true: this treatment does in fact work, and was stalled or prevented due to politics. Similarly, the complete disregard by the medical community of playing their role in reminding others organizing protests to take steps to prevent participants from spreading the virus has been equally disturbing. I've heard literally nothing from the medical community about tips, methods, or instructions for ensuring protestors do not cause a new outbreak. There does not seem to be any innovation happening in helping people organize and protest while keeping social distancing in mind. I don't know what that would look like, but it's a moral failure that the problem hasn't been worked whatsoever. I haven't even heard stories of people just handing out masks. Things are quite dire.

crystalmeph 6y ago
>I've heard literally nothing from the medical community about tips, methods, or instructions for ensuring protestors do not cause a new outbreak. I think this is a typical example of the medical community's method of communicating with the public - until they've studied something to death, they're too afraid to say anything, and if pressed, will just tell you to keep doing what you're doing, even if emerging evidence to the contrary and widespread anecdotal counter-examples are starting to surface. Think about the whole mask fiasco at the beginning of this mess. The CDC actually told Americans that wearing masks might make them more likely to get the virus, despite masks being an effective preventive measure against all other known respiratory viruses to my knowledge, plus the widespread usage of masks by literally billions of people in Asia is a pretty good indicator that it can be done safely. During "normal" times, this general approach may be 100% right, you need to be very sure you understand even low-incidence side effects before you tell 8 billion people what is good for them and what isn't. But that's simply the wrong approach in the face of a fast-moving pandemic - you need to be able to do basic risk/reward analysis quickly and recommend the path that is most likely to work, even if you're not 100% sure, and you're operating on some educated guesses in the absence of hard data. Basically, they need to operate more like engineers and less like doctors, at least for a little while =)

jmull 6y ago

> but the media ... I don't think you can blame the media here. They reported on extremely important and relevant scientific research that was credible by any kind of reasonable journalistic standard. How could they have done otherwise? Contrasting the research claims against the claims of "a certain politician" would be a natural and necessary part of that. Some commentators went too far -- some always do, often the same ones -- but the failing here wasn't generally the media. > Did we forget that we should all be rooting for treatments to work? I don't think that's being forgotten that outside the lunatic fringe. Notice that this story is getting wide coverage, just like the coverage of the original finding.

ImaCake 6y ago
Reading the abstract to the Lancet article [0] would probably convince any decently trained science reporter that all is good. They tick all the boxes for what you are supposed to do when you do a case-control study. It reads as very professional and well done. I certainly thought that it passed the bullshit test on first read. The problem is with the data itself, and it isn't obvious it is fabricated because it is such a ridiculous over the top lie that you wouldn't think someone would try to make such a lie. 0. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
skeletor_999 6y ago
I would blame the science media to some degree. I don't expect the New York Times to recognize the problems with these papers, but I've seen several examples of science journalists treating these studies as having the final say. This includes Science magazine, one of the premier science journals. The issue of bring Trump into this is tougher. I'm not an American, and don't follow his speeches. I've seen many articles start out with "the drug that Trump irresponsibly hyped up has been proven not to work". To me, it feels like Trump is their main focus instead of the science. Now, if Trump has repeatedly hyped this drug I think that it would be reasonable. Is that the case, or is it the case that the media continue to bring up something he said weeks ago?
- 6y ago

ImaCake 6y ago

The freerangestats article is the clearest and easiest to read discussion of this topic I have found so far. Glad to see it in the top comment :)

stephc_int13 6y ago

The Lancet is a property of Elsevier. There is, to say it mildly, a bit of controversy about them in the academic world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Academic_practices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier#Academic_practices

refurb 6y ago

This is what happens when politics starts to invade scientific pursuits. People ask the question "how can I use this to help me politically?" versus "how can this help fight the epidemic?".

userbinator 6y ago

that a certain politician shouldn't be trumpeting I have a feeling that choice of words was deliberate. ;-)

Ididntdothis 6y ago

“It's true that a certain politician shouldn't be trumpeting unproven treatments, but the media seemed to celebrate when that politician was "proven" wrong. Did we forget that we should all be rooting for treatments to work?” The words of this certain politician have a lot of weight and probably caused a lot of attention to be diverted from real research into looking into this. We can’t chase every crackpot theory only because it’s coming from somebody powerful.

JKCalhoun 6y ago

We should cheer when bullshit is proven wrong. Sorry for my language.

seesawtron 6y ago

When such a large study is published in a big Journal, claiming that a drug might have a negative impact on lives of people in the trials, the authorities will be considered stupid not to pay attention to it at all and continue the trials. That is exactly what they did: They paused their trials temporarily to look at the evidence of this study, examined it and found that it was indeed controversial and lacked solid data. Now they have resumed the trials again. The media sells it as a clickbait story "All trials STOPPED because of a flawed study" implying they were stopped PERMANENTLY to excite the general audience. For them it is entirely something that brings them huge revenue from ads when they write such "emotinally driven" stories, they do not care about the effects it has on the public in the long term by reducing faith in world health organizations.