6 ms·

> it's almost amusing that the WHO was recommending not to use it Why is everyone picking on the WHO constantly? It's like it's a reflex at this point, as fa

> it's almost amusing that the WHO was recommending not to use it Why is everyone picking on the WHO constantly? It's like it's a reflex at this point, as far as I can tell designed to shift "blame" off of... other parties who got lots of stuff wrong. In this case you're spinning really hard. The WHO guidance you're quoting, quoted in the article you link, was really mild: "“Given lack of effectiveness and possible harm, routine corticosteroids should be avoided unless they are indicated for another reason,” WHO authors wrote." Is that really unreasonable? In January they didn't have evidence of effectiveness, and drugs have side effects. Sounds like correct reasoning to me. Do you actually disagree? And in any case that quote is from a document in January, the current version (from March, also linked from the article) is here, and makes a bunch of complicated points about steroid use, citing contemporary research which was inconsistent about effect: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/clinical-management-of-novel-cov.pdf https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/clinica...

Tenoke 6y ago
>Why is everyone picking on the WHO constantly? Because they've made multiple avoidable bad calls. >In this case you're spinning really hard. 'WHO was recommending not to use it' is a quick summary of statements like "routine corticosteroids should be avoided unless they are indicated for another reason,”. How is this not a recommendation against it and 'spinning really hard'? At any rate, I didn't dig into that part much (WHO recommendations are much much less important than medical trials), I just found it interesting enough to mention.
- elcomet 6y ago
  > Because they've made multiple avoidable bad calls. Could you say more about this ?
  - newacct583 6y ago
    It all comes down to politics. Some people want covid to be the "fault" of someone else. The WHO is a good target, because they did indeed have some really bad communication work in the early days of the infection: 1. They stated, more assertively than they probably should, that they believed the virus was contained in Wuhan and not spreading in the community (that's the "no human-to-human transmission" quote that gets taken out of context). 2. Their statements that people should not try to acquire PPE masks were poorly phrased and seemed to imply that masks don't work (obviously they do). 3. There was that one incident, not related to the outbreak really, where a WHO official hung up the phone rather than take questions about Taiwan (for geopolitical reasons, Taiwan is not a member of the WHO). This led to a thousand "WHO is in China's pocket" takes. I mean, just in general the WHO has not comported themselves well here. There's been plenty of routine incompetence to complain about, and frankly they haven't really don't much to help. But the political vitriol you hear about them is 100% blame shifting. Most of the people yelling loudest about the WHO failing to give good advice about this dangerous disease tend to argue in other contexts that the disease isn't so dangerous, we shouldn't be forced to wear masks, the economic damage is too great, liberty is at stake, etc...
    - EasyTiger_ 6y ago
      Honestly I don't think it's true to say it's about politics. The WHO tweet from 14 January was very misleading and no doubt caused things to get worse: > Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        As far as the WHO was aware, and at the time of posting, that tweet was entirely accurate. They're not the CIA. They don't have an adversarial spy arm. They rely enormously on member nations' self-reporting, and they rely on those reports being honest. That clear evidence came later on doesn't mean the WHO had clear evidence at the time. (And, as the saying goes, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Nothing in that tweet says "it can't spread"; it says "we can't solidly confirm it has been yet".)
        legolas2412 6y ago
        Sure, and a lot of misleading stuff is true. Consider this imaginary scenario. Imagine a dead body is found in the street in front of your house. The dead person has multiple stab wounds, and there is a knife 20 feet away from the body. Imagine you inform the police, but they come 2 hours later, and announce that they'll investigate the death. Then 2 days later they come and announce that they had no evidence that this was a murder. They also announced that staying in and locking your doors had shown to not stop serial killers and was counter productive. Do you want such an investigative agency? I would prefer if the police said something like this within 1 hours of arriving at the crime scene "the stab wound and a bloody knife indicate that this might be a murder. In order to stay safe, the residents should stay in, take precautions and lock their doors" In case you didn't get what I referred to, there is no reason to doubt via a SARS like virus with respiratory sickness may be transmitted via air. Their default reaction should have been to assume the worst. Further, saying that travel restrictions do not stop a disease is a stupid statement to make. Specially when we see South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, NZ etc exterminate the virus. WHO is to blame as much as individual governments.
- gjulianm 6y ago
  Note that those recommendations are made for medical professionals, and in fact that recommendation does not conflict with this study. For people with mild symptoms (not requiring oxygen nor ventilation) it doesn't change the mortality risk, so indeed it shouldn't be used as a routine drug for everyone who is COVID-19 positive. In fact, knowledge of SARS and MERS indicated that corticosteroids could be harmful, so it was absolutely the right call to make: if they aren't indicated for a certain reason, don't use them routinely for most patients.
nogabebop23 6y ago
>> Why is everyone picking on the WHO constantly? Because they are a political organization first and a medical organization second, and not a particularly effective political group either, combining the worst of bureaucracy with questionable alliance and motives. In short, they're ineffective and untrustworthy.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- fredoliveira 6y ago
  > Because they are a political organization first and a medical organization second, and not a particularly effective political group either, combining the worst of bureaucracy with questionable alliance and motives. Please expand with some sources if you can, because I keep hearing this as a particular political talking point, but have never seen any real backing to these claims.
  - drocer88 6y ago
    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-health-organization-blame-pandemic-coronavirus/609820/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-h...
    - snapetom 6y ago
      Don't forget the Bruce Alyward incident.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Tenoke 6y ago

>Why is everyone picking on the WHO constantly? Because they've made multiple avoidable bad calls. >In this case you're spinning really hard. 'WHO was recommending not to use it' is a quick summary of statements like "routine corticosteroids should be avoided unless they are indicated for another reason,”. How is this not a recommendation against it and 'spinning really hard'? At any rate, I didn't dig into that part much (WHO recommendations are much much less important than medical trials), I just found it interesting enough to mention.

elcomet 6y ago
> Because they've made multiple avoidable bad calls. Could you say more about this ?
- newacct583 6y ago
  It all comes down to politics. Some people want covid to be the "fault" of someone else. The WHO is a good target, because they did indeed have some really bad communication work in the early days of the infection: 1. They stated, more assertively than they probably should, that they believed the virus was contained in Wuhan and not spreading in the community (that's the "no human-to-human transmission" quote that gets taken out of context). 2. Their statements that people should not try to acquire PPE masks were poorly phrased and seemed to imply that masks don't work (obviously they do). 3. There was that one incident, not related to the outbreak really, where a WHO official hung up the phone rather than take questions about Taiwan (for geopolitical reasons, Taiwan is not a member of the WHO). This led to a thousand "WHO is in China's pocket" takes. I mean, just in general the WHO has not comported themselves well here. There's been plenty of routine incompetence to complain about, and frankly they haven't really don't much to help. But the political vitriol you hear about them is 100% blame shifting. Most of the people yelling loudest about the WHO failing to give good advice about this dangerous disease tend to argue in other contexts that the disease isn't so dangerous, we shouldn't be forced to wear masks, the economic damage is too great, liberty is at stake, etc...
  - EasyTiger_ 6y ago
    Honestly I don't think it's true to say it's about politics. The WHO tweet from 14 January was very misleading and no doubt caused things to get worse: > Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      As far as the WHO was aware, and at the time of posting, that tweet was entirely accurate. They're not the CIA. They don't have an adversarial spy arm. They rely enormously on member nations' self-reporting, and they rely on those reports being honest. That clear evidence came later on doesn't mean the WHO had clear evidence at the time. (And, as the saying goes, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. Nothing in that tweet says "it can't spread"; it says "we can't solidly confirm it has been yet".)
      - legolas2412 6y ago
        Sure, and a lot of misleading stuff is true. Consider this imaginary scenario. Imagine a dead body is found in the street in front of your house. The dead person has multiple stab wounds, and there is a knife 20 feet away from the body. Imagine you inform the police, but they come 2 hours later, and announce that they'll investigate the death. Then 2 days later they come and announce that they had no evidence that this was a murder. They also announced that staying in and locking your doors had shown to not stop serial killers and was counter productive. Do you want such an investigative agency? I would prefer if the police said something like this within 1 hours of arriving at the crime scene "the stab wound and a bloody knife indicate that this might be a murder. In order to stay safe, the residents should stay in, take precautions and lock their doors" In case you didn't get what I referred to, there is no reason to doubt via a SARS like virus with respiratory sickness may be transmitted via air. Their default reaction should have been to assume the worst. Further, saying that travel restrictions do not stop a disease is a stupid statement to make. Specially when we see South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, NZ etc exterminate the virus. WHO is to blame as much as individual governments.
gjulianm 6y ago
Note that those recommendations are made for medical professionals, and in fact that recommendation does not conflict with this study. For people with mild symptoms (not requiring oxygen nor ventilation) it doesn't change the mortality risk, so indeed it shouldn't be used as a routine drug for everyone who is COVID-19 positive. In fact, knowledge of SARS and MERS indicated that corticosteroids could be harmful, so it was absolutely the right call to make: if they aren't indicated for a certain reason, don't use them routinely for most patients.

nogabebop23 6y ago

>> Why is everyone picking on the WHO constantly? Because they are a political organization first and a medical organization second, and not a particularly effective political group either, combining the worst of bureaucracy with questionable alliance and motives. In short, they're ineffective and untrustworthy.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
fredoliveira 6y ago
> Because they are a political organization first and a medical organization second, and not a particularly effective political group either, combining the worst of bureaucracy with questionable alliance and motives. Please expand with some sources if you can, because I keep hearing this as a particular political talking point, but have never seen any real backing to these claims.
- drocer88 6y ago
  https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-health-organization-blame-pandemic-coronavirus/609820/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-h...
  - snapetom 6y ago
    Don't forget the Bruce Alyward incident.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]