4 ms·

Yes, it would be stupid. But is that what's happening here? You have a ton of studies that says "no" and a few that say "maybe". But you want us to what? Keep

by bena 6y ago

Yes, it would be stupid. But is that what's happening here? You have a ton of studies that says "no" and a few that say "maybe". But you want us to what? Keep studying until it finally says "yes"? "Check this out, it shows promise" "Ok." "Oh, it's not as effective as initially thought" "Ok, but this study says it might be" "Ok, but we just did a full study that says it's not" "Ok, but this study" And on and on. At what point do you say, "Ok, I guess we should move on". It was never discarded out of hand.

esyir 6y ago
It was. Long before the bulk of the studies even processed, the media had flipped right over to "hcq is the devil and a hoax". This, from what I observed, was essentially independent of any actual scientific research or result.
- IvyMike 6y ago
  The initial "hcq works" was also independent of any actual scientific research or result. If someone says "Take this magical cure, maybe it could work... but I don't have any evidence of it yet", it's not so terrible to start from a position of skepticism. Could hcq work? Maybe, although with every randomized trial it seems less likely. But the people who initially pushed it did so from a position of wishful thinking, not actual science. This might have been a hoax of ignorance not evil, but in the end, I say it's still a hoax.
  - esyir 6y ago
    The issue here isn't that one side was correct, or one side was wrong. The issue here is that both sides talking points were barely even touched the actual results. You're right, "hcq works" was independent of the scientific work done then. However, "HCQ doesn't work" was the same. The reason we had those studies in the first place is because preliminary work showed some promise, and researchers decided to dig in to confirm this. What many people don't know is that the biomedical scientific process is fraught with false starts and failures to replicate. The results are subsequently slow. At that time, the only responsible answer, and the answer that any biomedical scientist with integrity would give is: "Early results show X, though further follow up studies would be needed to replicate these results to confirm their validity" But that's not what we got. What we got was a binary split between miracle cure and worse than homeopathy, depending on which side of the political divide you were on.
    - lucd 6y ago
      Both-sidism: in evidence-based medecine, a treatment is ineffective until it is proven effective. Now that some monthes have passed, at least five peer-reviewed RCTs were conducted. In each of them hydroxychloroquine is ineffective.
    - IvyMike 6y ago
      > or one side was wrong I argue that when someone declares, without evidence, that "X works", that is a hoax and should be criticized. Even if later evidence shows it works! Because it's easy to make a random guess, and it's hard to fight the collateral damage that wrong guess can cause. There are a million things that might be the covid miracle cure (colloidal silver? high protein diet? grapeseed extract? etc, etc, etc). If I pick one of these on a hunch and start pushing it as a cure, I would rightly deserve to be called out.
  - nl 6y ago
    There was a (very bad!) study done in France that showed some initial promise which is what kicked off the whole thing.
  - giardini 6y ago
    IvyMike says>The initial "hcq works" was also independent of any actual scientific research or result.< No, there were Chinese, French and other reports and observational studies during the pandemic that supported use of HCQ: >"Wuhan was the epicenter, and the Chinese physicians at the People’s Hospital of Wuhan University told their Western counterparts that they got the idea of using HCQ because none of the 178 patients they had admitted for COVID-19 had lupus—a surprise, since lupus is an immune disease, and some thought it might have made these patients especially vulnerable. They wondered why this might be, and whether HCQ, which these patients had been taking for this preexisting condition, might in some way be protecting them against COVID-19."< taken from "Hydroxychloroquine: A Morality Tale": https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/hydroxychloroquine-morality-tale https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/hydroxyc...
    - IvyMike 6y ago
      That's a potential reason to investigate, not a conclusion.
      - smichael 6y ago
        That's one of the points made in the fine article. Recommended, thanks for linking it.
- bena 6y ago
  Have you considered that maybe your observations are nowhere near complete enough to make a determination?
- gl00pp 6y ago
  It's not really the media though. It's respected doctors and their ep·i·de·mi·ol·o·gy. Trump isn't pushing sound science. He's hoping to buffalo people (like you) into thinking he's on to something. AND THE MEDIA IS SO AGAINST HIM. EVEN THO IT REALLY HELPS THE FAKE NEWS JUST WANTS TO HURT HIM. BECAUSE THEY LOVE HILLARY
jbritton 6y ago
In April, Dr Zelenco stated he had treated some 600 patients with HCQ+Zinc+Zpac with good results. And now more doctors are saying the same. Not a single trial has tested this treatment. This is why people won’t give up hope. From my reading it seems to be Zpac that creates the most heart risk and doxycycline is now sometimes used instead.
- bena 6y ago
  Zithromax is an antibiotic. Which is useless against a virus. And why are doctors giving untested treatments to patients?
  - Khelavaster 6y ago
    >Zithromax is an antibiotic. Which is useless against a virus. "Azithromycin Induces Anti-Viral Responses in Bronchial Epithelial Cells" has over 220 citations. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20150207/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20150207/)
  - nl 6y ago
    To be clear, I think this is a pretty bad "study". But there are plenty of reasons why antibiotics are given to people with Covid-19 to deal with secondary infections. > And why are doctors giving untested treatments to patients? This seems a pretty bad-faith comment. In the early days of COVID-19 there was no "tested" treatment, so doctors use reasoning to try to find something. This is a completely normal thing to do.
    - bena 6y ago
      Throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks is a good way to get people killed. Doctors are not researchers and they shouldn't be. It's not a bad-faith comment.
      - nl 6y ago
        This is all news to the medical profession. They have always and are trained to deal with novel situations by trying treatments based on inferring likely response based in symptoms.
nl 6y ago
> At what point do you say, "Ok, I guess we should move on". This is a weird question. By "we" do you mean the media or politicians or scientists? Politician should not ever be making claims that aren't backed up by strong studies. It's fine to say "I'm hopeful this will prove useful" etc, but to advocate for treatment using unproven medicines is irresponsible. The media has a pretty difficult job here. Medical studies (particularly early ones) on treatments are rarely decisive (because doctors are trying anything to save someone's life, and that creates co-founding factors. Generally trying for balance ("this is a good study with promising results. Others show different results, and the differences are X and Y. Specialist Dr ABC says "XXXX") is about the best someone can do. Scientists should keep studying it until we understand what is causing the different responses.
- bena 6y ago
  They've studied it enough to know that it doesn't have any appreciable effect. To keep studying it would be to appease either the politicians or media. In science, failure is actually an option.
  - nl 6y ago
    > They've studied it enough to know that it doesn't have any appreciable effect. Well results seem conflicted on this. This very study (the one linked here!, ie[1]) shows a significant result. It's an observational study, but that is a normal part of the scientific process during medical research. There are plenty of other studies showing no result. But this is hardly the only one showing positive results. So I don't think the science is settled on this (and it would be astonishing if it was in the 4 months since this process started!). I think Trump's behaviour on this has been atrocious and has caused harm, but that doesn't mean anything regarding if it works or not. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920303423 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092485792...

by bena 6y ago

esyir 6y ago

It was. Long before the bulk of the studies even processed, the media had flipped right over to "hcq is the devil and a hoax". This, from what I observed, was essentially independent of any actual scientific research or result.

IvyMike 6y ago
The initial "hcq works" was also independent of any actual scientific research or result. If someone says "Take this magical cure, maybe it could work... but I don't have any evidence of it yet", it's not so terrible to start from a position of skepticism. Could hcq work? Maybe, although with every randomized trial it seems less likely. But the people who initially pushed it did so from a position of wishful thinking, not actual science. This might have been a hoax of ignorance not evil, but in the end, I say it's still a hoax.
- esyir 6y ago
  The issue here isn't that one side was correct, or one side was wrong. The issue here is that both sides talking points were barely even touched the actual results. You're right, "hcq works" was independent of the scientific work done then. However, "HCQ doesn't work" was the same. The reason we had those studies in the first place is because preliminary work showed some promise, and researchers decided to dig in to confirm this. What many people don't know is that the biomedical scientific process is fraught with false starts and failures to replicate. The results are subsequently slow. At that time, the only responsible answer, and the answer that any biomedical scientist with integrity would give is: "Early results show X, though further follow up studies would be needed to replicate these results to confirm their validity" But that's not what we got. What we got was a binary split between miracle cure and worse than homeopathy, depending on which side of the political divide you were on.
  - lucd 6y ago
    Both-sidism: in evidence-based medecine, a treatment is ineffective until it is proven effective. Now that some monthes have passed, at least five peer-reviewed RCTs were conducted. In each of them hydroxychloroquine is ineffective.
  - IvyMike 6y ago
    > or one side was wrong I argue that when someone declares, without evidence, that "X works", that is a hoax and should be criticized. Even if later evidence shows it works! Because it's easy to make a random guess, and it's hard to fight the collateral damage that wrong guess can cause. There are a million things that might be the covid miracle cure (colloidal silver? high protein diet? grapeseed extract? etc, etc, etc). If I pick one of these on a hunch and start pushing it as a cure, I would rightly deserve to be called out.
- nl 6y ago
  There was a (very bad!) study done in France that showed some initial promise which is what kicked off the whole thing.
- giardini 6y ago
  IvyMike says>The initial "hcq works" was also independent of any actual scientific research or result.< No, there were Chinese, French and other reports and observational studies during the pandemic that supported use of HCQ: >"Wuhan was the epicenter, and the Chinese physicians at the People’s Hospital of Wuhan University told their Western counterparts that they got the idea of using HCQ because none of the 178 patients they had admitted for COVID-19 had lupus—a surprise, since lupus is an immune disease, and some thought it might have made these patients especially vulnerable. They wondered why this might be, and whether HCQ, which these patients had been taking for this preexisting condition, might in some way be protecting them against COVID-19."< taken from "Hydroxychloroquine: A Morality Tale": https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/hydroxychloroquine-morality-tale https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/hydroxyc...
  - IvyMike 6y ago
    That's a potential reason to investigate, not a conclusion.
    - smichael 6y ago
      That's one of the points made in the fine article. Recommended, thanks for linking it.
bena 6y ago
Have you considered that maybe your observations are nowhere near complete enough to make a determination?
gl00pp 6y ago
It's not really the media though. It's respected doctors and their ep·i·de·mi·ol·o·gy. Trump isn't pushing sound science. He's hoping to buffalo people (like you) into thinking he's on to something. AND THE MEDIA IS SO AGAINST HIM. EVEN THO IT REALLY HELPS THE FAKE NEWS JUST WANTS TO HURT HIM. BECAUSE THEY LOVE HILLARY

jbritton 6y ago

In April, Dr Zelenco stated he had treated some 600 patients with HCQ+Zinc+Zpac with good results. And now more doctors are saying the same. Not a single trial has tested this treatment. This is why people won’t give up hope. From my reading it seems to be Zpac that creates the most heart risk and doxycycline is now sometimes used instead.

bena 6y ago
Zithromax is an antibiotic. Which is useless against a virus. And why are doctors giving untested treatments to patients?
- Khelavaster 6y ago
  >Zithromax is an antibiotic. Which is useless against a virus. "Azithromycin Induces Anti-Viral Responses in Bronchial Epithelial Cells" has over 220 citations. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20150207/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20150207/)
- nl 6y ago
  To be clear, I think this is a pretty bad "study". But there are plenty of reasons why antibiotics are given to people with Covid-19 to deal with secondary infections. > And why are doctors giving untested treatments to patients? This seems a pretty bad-faith comment. In the early days of COVID-19 there was no "tested" treatment, so doctors use reasoning to try to find something. This is a completely normal thing to do.
  - bena 6y ago
    Throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks is a good way to get people killed. Doctors are not researchers and they shouldn't be. It's not a bad-faith comment.
    - nl 6y ago
      This is all news to the medical profession. They have always and are trained to deal with novel situations by trying treatments based on inferring likely response based in symptoms.

nl 6y ago

> At what point do you say, "Ok, I guess we should move on". This is a weird question. By "we" do you mean the media or politicians or scientists? Politician should not ever be making claims that aren't backed up by strong studies. It's fine to say "I'm hopeful this will prove useful" etc, but to advocate for treatment using unproven medicines is irresponsible. The media has a pretty difficult job here. Medical studies (particularly early ones) on treatments are rarely decisive (because doctors are trying anything to save someone's life, and that creates co-founding factors. Generally trying for balance ("this is a good study with promising results. Others show different results, and the differences are X and Y. Specialist Dr ABC says "XXXX") is about the best someone can do. Scientists should keep studying it until we understand what is causing the different responses.

bena 6y ago
They've studied it enough to know that it doesn't have any appreciable effect. To keep studying it would be to appease either the politicians or media. In science, failure is actually an option.
- nl 6y ago
  > They've studied it enough to know that it doesn't have any appreciable effect. Well results seem conflicted on this. This very study (the one linked here!, ie[1]) shows a significant result. It's an observational study, but that is a normal part of the scientific process during medical research. There are plenty of other studies showing no result. But this is hardly the only one showing positive results. So I don't think the science is settled on this (and it would be astonishing if it was in the 4 months since this process started!). I think Trump's behaviour on this has been atrocious and has caused harm, but that doesn't mean anything regarding if it works or not. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920303423 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092485792...