6 ms·

Johns Hopkins: Heart Disease Deaths Dropped in 2020 [pdf]

32 points by 11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

SubiculumCode 6y ago
Reduced commute stress? More family time? Schedule flexibility? Better eating? More sleep?
- jack_riminton 6y ago
  I went looking for studies to support those suggestions because they make sense, but I ended up finding contrary evidence: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/remote-working-from-home-increase-stress-anxiety-mental-health/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/remote-working-from-h... Although this is pre-COVID so perhaps the stress was because it was the minority of people at a company who were working remotely, therefore feeling left-out, stressed etc
- mikecoles 6y ago
  Nope. Deaths are being attributed to COVID whether that was the actual cause or not. Fell off of a ladder? COVID. Motorcycle cycle accident? COVID.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Increased stress due to joblessness, more family time might mean more abuse for some, lack of schedule can have mental health effects, many people are gaining weight from stress-eating food that is always available, some aren’t sleeping as well.
- frockington1 6y ago
  The link goes in detail, but the main point is that deaths were attributed to covid even if the underlying cause for the death was heat disease. In some states you actually received a discount on medical expenses if you said your loved one died from covid
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    The link is misleading garbage, and was retracted.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  In this case, garbage data.
mrpickels 6y ago
of course, all of the heart disease deaths were added to covid deaths. #SCAMVIRUS
f0ff 6y ago
Tl;dr: "This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19."
- amelius 6y ago
  https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
- fullstop 6y ago
  If I had heart disease, but would have lived for five more years without being infected by covid-19, what was the primary cause of death?
  - artvark11 6y ago
    Covid because the hospital gets a fat fed check everytime they handle a covid death.
    - user-the-name 6y ago
      Bull fucking shit. Conspiratorial garbage.
    - nfRfqX5n 6y ago
      even if numbers were inflated due to the monetary incentive, this would only account for numbers in the USA. look at the excess deaths world wide and you can see the average is up everywhere.
    - TaupeRanger 6y ago
      Link evidence of widespread conspiratorial fraud please. I won't hold my breath.
    - jmcqk6 6y ago
      This is a lie
base698 6y ago
Web archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20201126163323/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19 https://web.archive.org/web/20201126163323/https://www.jhune...
zalkota 6y ago
Wait, you’re telling me all 250k of the deaths aren't directly related to covid????
mox1 6y ago
So eventually we are going to have an answer to these questions. There is a notion of "excess deaths" (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm). It will be pretty hard to lie / manipulate these numbers. We (the US, probably other countries) have pretty good statistics for how many people die every year (and what killed them). We can use this historical data to estimate how many people would have died in a normal 2020. Compare that to what actually happened, and its a pretty good argument for how many people COVID killed.
- adjkant 6y ago
  I couldn't recommend the CDC link above more. The various dashboards tell the clearest story here.
- SubiculumCode 6y ago
  This is addressed in the article extensively, although with factual error. That said, neither the article or your comment address the fact that 2020 had a large effects on behavior and lifestyle which could effect death numbers.
- LoSboccacc 6y ago
  the 2 and 5 year average are interesting too, because another important matter for a age-skewed disease is how much it impacted life expectancy
- TMWNN 6y ago
  >We (the US, probably other countries) have pretty good statistics for how many people die every year (and what killed them). Similarly, homicides are the only type of crime that statistics can be reliably compared across countries, because the definition of "murder" is consistent in a way that other crimes aren't.
admiralspoo 6y ago
Not surprising. There is a strong economic incentive, passed by Congress, for hospitals and providers to milk covid-positive patients. Elective procedures are also down substantially, so they have to make a living somewhere.
- TaupeRanger 6y ago
  Stop using imprecise language to imply unproven conspiracies. Tell us what you really mean. Are you saying that there is widespread fraud in hospitals' reporting of Cause of Death? Why is this more likely than the many other possible explanations for heart disease death reduction?
Kosirich 6y ago
Perhaps this should be added to discussion: https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19 https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-... Briand was quoted in the article as saying, “All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers.” This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. According to the CDC, there have been almost 300,000 excess deaths due to COVID-19.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- elhudy 6y ago
  Article One: >After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September Addendum: > This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. Am I the only person confused with the language here? What is the difference between "Total deaths per age category" and "total raw death count"?
  - espadrine 6y ago
    > > This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. > Am I the only person confused with the language here? What is the difference between "Total deaths per age category" and "total raw death count"? The article has multiple items of incorrect analysis. One is that having constant percentages of deaths per age category, does not show that the death count is itself constant. A separate one is that the claim that “total death numbers are not above normal death numbers” is factually incorrect. While reading the link, and before reading the retractation, I made myself these exact remarks. One thing I saw in the article, which the retractation implies, but does not emphasize, is that this assertion: > Briand also noted that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths are seen both before and after COVID-19, indicating that this number of deaths was normal long before COVID-19 … is a non-sequitur. The fact that a large number of deaths has been reached in the past, does not imply that it being reached with COVID-19 is normal.
jrumbut 6y ago
It's pretty misleading to call this Johns Hopkins when it was a student newsletter and also retracted.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  Not only retracted, but this link specifically uses the Google cache to avoid showing you that it was actually retracted. This is malicious.
BearsAreCool 6y ago
DISCLAIMER: I initially did not have access to the original presentation. The original presentation is far better from what I can tell compared to how it has been represented in both right wing and left wing media at presenting their claims with nuance that has largely been left out of other reports. Many of the conclusions drawn in the paper and in articles reporting on it are overblown or misleading on their own. There was good reason John Hopkins added a five paragraph disclaimer and a "RETRACTED" watermark to this on their own site. If you doubt me or disagree, look at the claim of the paper that has been reported on by various media outlets. It essentially states that looking at cdc data there is drop in other forms of death that was replaced with covid deaths, meaning that there was no actual increase in deaths. Now, go pull up the cdc data that breaks down how many people died of each cause per week for 2019 and 2020 [1]. Using either the on-website graph creator, python notebooks, excel, or your data scientist tool of choice try to recreate a graph showing all causes of death by week that supports this paper. I quickly got a graph that showed a simple reality, compared to 2019 there has been an increase in deaths per week that almost precisely corresponds with the numbers of covid deaths per week. If you want to argue the number of covid deaths is too low to worry about or it was handled well, go for it. Just don't get sheeped into believing that covid deaths aren't real. [1] https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Weekly-Counts-of-Deaths-by-State-and-Select-Causes/muzy-jte6 https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Weekly-Counts-of-Deaths-by-State-a... EDIT: Apparently the video presentation this paper is based on is out there at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TKJN61aflI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TKJN61aflI . Since I have not finished it I've amended the post considerably and added a disclaimer since I used some strong words originally. Many thanks to the commenter who pointed me to the youtube presentation.
- https443 6y ago
  > overblown, misleading, and potentially outright lies I agree with you that her claims could be wrong, but please watch the original source material (https://youtu.be/3TKJN61aflI https://youtu.be/3TKJN61aflI) - I think she is being much more nuanced that you're giving her credit for. She is presenting her findings, showing exactly how she did it, and asking for feedback ("I hope I hear more from people who have done more than me" - 43:10). You can follow her workflow and disagree - and probably will! But that's ok - that's how science works. I look forward to many well-written posts going through her analysis and showing alternate interpretations. I'm guessing she looks forward to this too.
owenversteeg 6y ago
One thing I find very interesting is the effect of other factors on the total number of deaths. For example, the 2008 recession was linked with over 260,000 excess deaths from cancer alone [0]. All of the things associated with a lockdown - high stress, decreased social contact, less movement, less economic activity - are also associated with serious increases in other deaths. At what point does a lockdown have negative EV in terms of general public health? To copy a previous comment of mine - regardless of the actual effect of lockdowns, I think this has become such a political issue in the US that the American left would be very hard pressed to publicly change course. I really hope that statisticians are able to look past their own personal convictions and look at possible ways our assumptions may have been incorrect. (Personally speaking, I wear a mask, I don't think the coronavirus is a giant conspiracy by the lizard people etc. but I do recognize that the modern scientific community has a tendency to think one way, and then remain cemented in that way for a while.) [0] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-downturn-excess-cancer-deaths-atun/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-do...
- frockington1 6y ago
  The positive side to a stubborn scientific community are the money making opportunities it presents. For those who were able to get past the doom and gloom of the media and scientific communities 2020 has been a fantastic year of growth
- Pyramus 6y ago
  The study you cited doesn't really support your point - it basically says the 260k deaths would have been preventable with basic universal healthcare in place: > "In countries with UHC—defined in the study as [...]—the link between unemployment and excess cancer deaths disappeared, suggesting that greater access to health care played a key role in mitigating the problem." If you are really interested in the effect of lockdown on public health my suggestion is to decouple your thinking from American politics and view it as a global problem. How did lockdown affect public health in {China, South Korea, Italy, Germany, etc.}? As a counter-example, how did Sweden fare? > I really hope that statisticians are able to look past their own personal convictions and look at possible ways our assumptions may have been incorrect. This is pretty vague, what do you mean?
https443 6y ago
This article was retracted (referenced in another thread), but it was essentially a summary of the source webinar that is still posted (but oddly unlisted) here: https://youtu.be/3TKJN61aflI https://youtu.be/3TKJN61aflI I encourage you to watch that video and judge the analysis yourself. In this video I feel like she is very balanced and is taking a scientific approach ("Here's how I did the analysis and here's what I'm saying - please let me know what you think") vs the media/twitter trying to summarize/polarize.
- user-the-name 6y ago
  Yet it is still incredibly misleading and dishonest. That should really teach you something about relying on the style of presentation for judging whether a claim is reasonable. In this case, it's garbage.
  - https443 6y ago
    I think you're being over sensationalist. In today's world I think it's healthy to assume someone is trying to reach for the truth instead of assuming malice. She's trying to present her findings and asking for feedback. I don't think that should be demonized - we've all been wrong before. Please watch the video.
    - user-the-name 6y ago
      Why is the video still up, even after being shown to be wrong? This is a subject where incorrect information is actually endangering lives. Why keep this up, when it is known to be wrong? That, to me, implies malice. I do not see any other way to interpret that.
Narretz 6y ago
Where did she get the numbers of total deaths from? Does the US publish death rates during the year or only afterwards? For Europe, there's a pretty obvious excess death rate this year with two spikes: https://www.euromomo.eu/bulletins/2020-47 https://www.euromomo.eu/bulletins/2020-47 I would be very surprised if the same wasn't true for the US.
- sampo 6y ago
  > Does the US publish death rates during the year or only afterwards? At least Our World in Data website has those numbers: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-death-count https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-deat...
evanelias 6y ago
This post is highly misleading, and is essentially a duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25229194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25229194. These claims are not from "Johns Hopkins" as an institution. The instructor making the claims is associated with a rolling-admission adult extension school, and the article discussing them appeared only in the general-purpose undergraduate campus student newspaper, which does not validate the scientific or academic accuracy of instructors' claims. Disclaimer: I'm a JHU alum and former staff member of said student newspaper

32 points by 11thEarlOfMar 6y ago

SubiculumCode 6y ago

Reduced commute stress? More family time? Schedule flexibility? Better eating? More sleep?

jack_riminton 6y ago
I went looking for studies to support those suggestions because they make sense, but I ended up finding contrary evidence: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/remote-working-from-home-increase-stress-anxiety-mental-health/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/10/remote-working-from-h... Although this is pre-COVID so perhaps the stress was because it was the minority of people at a company who were working remotely, therefore feeling left-out, stressed etc
mikecoles 6y ago
Nope. Deaths are being attributed to COVID whether that was the actual cause or not. Fell off of a ladder? COVID. Motorcycle cycle accident? COVID.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Increased stress due to joblessness, more family time might mean more abuse for some, lack of schedule can have mental health effects, many people are gaining weight from stress-eating food that is always available, some aren’t sleeping as well.
frockington1 6y ago
The link goes in detail, but the main point is that deaths were attributed to covid even if the underlying cause for the death was heat disease. In some states you actually received a discount on medical expenses if you said your loved one died from covid
- user-the-name 6y ago
  The link is misleading garbage, and was retracted.
user-the-name 6y ago
In this case, garbage data.

mrpickels 6y ago

of course, all of the heart disease deaths were added to covid deaths. #SCAMVIRUS

f0ff 6y ago

Tl;dr: "This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19."

amelius 6y ago
https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid
fullstop 6y ago
If I had heart disease, but would have lived for five more years without being infected by covid-19, what was the primary cause of death?
- artvark11 6y ago
  Covid because the hospital gets a fat fed check everytime they handle a covid death.
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    Bull fucking shit. Conspiratorial garbage.
  - nfRfqX5n 6y ago
    even if numbers were inflated due to the monetary incentive, this would only account for numbers in the USA. look at the excess deaths world wide and you can see the average is up everywhere.
  - TaupeRanger 6y ago
    Link evidence of widespread conspiratorial fraud please. I won't hold my breath.
  - jmcqk6 6y ago
    This is a lie

base698 6y ago

Web archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20201126163323/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19 https://web.archive.org/web/20201126163323/https://www.jhune...

zalkota 6y ago

Wait, you’re telling me all 250k of the deaths aren't directly related to covid????

mox1 6y ago

So eventually we are going to have an answer to these questions. There is a notion of "excess deaths" (https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm). It will be pretty hard to lie / manipulate these numbers. We (the US, probably other countries) have pretty good statistics for how many people die every year (and what killed them). We can use this historical data to estimate how many people would have died in a normal 2020. Compare that to what actually happened, and its a pretty good argument for how many people COVID killed.

adjkant 6y ago
I couldn't recommend the CDC link above more. The various dashboards tell the clearest story here.
SubiculumCode 6y ago
This is addressed in the article extensively, although with factual error. That said, neither the article or your comment address the fact that 2020 had a large effects on behavior and lifestyle which could effect death numbers.
LoSboccacc 6y ago
the 2 and 5 year average are interesting too, because another important matter for a age-skewed disease is how much it impacted life expectancy
TMWNN 6y ago
>We (the US, probably other countries) have pretty good statistics for how many people die every year (and what killed them). Similarly, homicides are the only type of crime that statistics can be reliably compared across countries, because the definition of "murder" is consistent in a way that other crimes aren't.

admiralspoo 6y ago

Not surprising. There is a strong economic incentive, passed by Congress, for hospitals and providers to milk covid-positive patients. Elective procedures are also down substantially, so they have to make a living somewhere.

TaupeRanger 6y ago
Stop using imprecise language to imply unproven conspiracies. Tell us what you really mean. Are you saying that there is widespread fraud in hospitals' reporting of Cause of Death? Why is this more likely than the many other possible explanations for heart disease death reduction?

Kosirich 6y ago

Perhaps this should be added to discussion: https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19 https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-... Briand was quoted in the article as saying, “All of this points to no evidence that COVID-19 created any excess deaths. Total death numbers are not above normal death numbers.” This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. According to the CDC, there have been almost 300,000 excess deaths due to COVID-19.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
elhudy 6y ago
Article One: >After retrieving data on the CDC website, Briand compiled a graph representing percentages of total deaths per age category from early February to early September Addendum: > This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. Am I the only person confused with the language here? What is the difference between "Total deaths per age category" and "total raw death count"?
- espadrine 6y ago
  > > This claim is incorrect and does not take into account the spike in raw death count from all causes compared to previous years. > Am I the only person confused with the language here? What is the difference between "Total deaths per age category" and "total raw death count"? The article has multiple items of incorrect analysis. One is that having constant percentages of deaths per age category, does not show that the death count is itself constant. A separate one is that the claim that “total death numbers are not above normal death numbers” is factually incorrect. While reading the link, and before reading the retractation, I made myself these exact remarks. One thing I saw in the article, which the retractation implies, but does not emphasize, is that this assertion: > Briand also noted that 50,000 to 70,000 deaths are seen both before and after COVID-19, indicating that this number of deaths was normal long before COVID-19 … is a non-sequitur. The fact that a large number of deaths has been reached in the past, does not imply that it being reached with COVID-19 is normal.

jrumbut 6y ago

It's pretty misleading to call this Johns Hopkins when it was a student newsletter and also retracted.

user-the-name 6y ago
Not only retracted, but this link specifically uses the Google cache to avoid showing you that it was actually retracted. This is malicious.

BearsAreCool 6y ago

DISCLAIMER: I initially did not have access to the original presentation. The original presentation is far better from what I can tell compared to how it has been represented in both right wing and left wing media at presenting their claims with nuance that has largely been left out of other reports. Many of the conclusions drawn in the paper and in articles reporting on it are overblown or misleading on their own. There was good reason John Hopkins added a five paragraph disclaimer and a "RETRACTED" watermark to this on their own site. If you doubt me or disagree, look at the claim of the paper that has been reported on by various media outlets. It essentially states that looking at cdc data there is drop in other forms of death that was replaced with covid deaths, meaning that there was no actual increase in deaths. Now, go pull up the cdc data that breaks down how many people died of each cause per week for 2019 and 2020 [1]. Using either the on-website graph creator, python notebooks, excel, or your data scientist tool of choice try to recreate a graph showing all causes of death by week that supports this paper. I quickly got a graph that showed a simple reality, compared to 2019 there has been an increase in deaths per week that almost precisely corresponds with the numbers of covid deaths per week. If you want to argue the number of covid deaths is too low to worry about or it was handled well, go for it. Just don't get sheeped into believing that covid deaths aren't real. [1] https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Weekly-Counts-of-Deaths-by-State-and-Select-Causes/muzy-jte6 https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Weekly-Counts-of-Deaths-by-State-a... EDIT: Apparently the video presentation this paper is based on is out there at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TKJN61aflI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TKJN61aflI . Since I have not finished it I've amended the post considerably and added a disclaimer since I used some strong words originally. Many thanks to the commenter who pointed me to the youtube presentation.

https443 6y ago
> overblown, misleading, and potentially outright lies I agree with you that her claims could be wrong, but please watch the original source material (https://youtu.be/3TKJN61aflI https://youtu.be/3TKJN61aflI) - I think she is being much more nuanced that you're giving her credit for. She is presenting her findings, showing exactly how she did it, and asking for feedback ("I hope I hear more from people who have done more than me" - 43:10). You can follow her workflow and disagree - and probably will! But that's ok - that's how science works. I look forward to many well-written posts going through her analysis and showing alternate interpretations. I'm guessing she looks forward to this too.

owenversteeg 6y ago

One thing I find very interesting is the effect of other factors on the total number of deaths. For example, the 2008 recession was linked with over 260,000 excess deaths from cancer alone [0]. All of the things associated with a lockdown - high stress, decreased social contact, less movement, less economic activity - are also associated with serious increases in other deaths. At what point does a lockdown have negative EV in terms of general public health? To copy a previous comment of mine - regardless of the actual effect of lockdowns, I think this has become such a political issue in the US that the American left would be very hard pressed to publicly change course. I really hope that statisticians are able to look past their own personal convictions and look at possible ways our assumptions may have been incorrect. (Personally speaking, I wear a mask, I don't think the coronavirus is a giant conspiracy by the lizard people etc. but I do recognize that the modern scientific community has a tendency to think one way, and then remain cemented in that way for a while.) [0] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-downturn-excess-cancer-deaths-atun/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/economic-do...

frockington1 6y ago
The positive side to a stubborn scientific community are the money making opportunities it presents. For those who were able to get past the doom and gloom of the media and scientific communities 2020 has been a fantastic year of growth
Pyramus 6y ago
The study you cited doesn't really support your point - it basically says the 260k deaths would have been preventable with basic universal healthcare in place: > "In countries with UHC—defined in the study as [...]—the link between unemployment and excess cancer deaths disappeared, suggesting that greater access to health care played a key role in mitigating the problem." If you are really interested in the effect of lockdown on public health my suggestion is to decouple your thinking from American politics and view it as a global problem. How did lockdown affect public health in {China, South Korea, Italy, Germany, etc.}? As a counter-example, how did Sweden fare? > I really hope that statisticians are able to look past their own personal convictions and look at possible ways our assumptions may have been incorrect. This is pretty vague, what do you mean?

https443 6y ago

This article was retracted (referenced in another thread), but it was essentially a summary of the source webinar that is still posted (but oddly unlisted) here: https://youtu.be/3TKJN61aflI https://youtu.be/3TKJN61aflI I encourage you to watch that video and judge the analysis yourself. In this video I feel like she is very balanced and is taking a scientific approach ("Here's how I did the analysis and here's what I'm saying - please let me know what you think") vs the media/twitter trying to summarize/polarize.

user-the-name 6y ago
Yet it is still incredibly misleading and dishonest. That should really teach you something about relying on the style of presentation for judging whether a claim is reasonable. In this case, it's garbage.
- https443 6y ago
  I think you're being over sensationalist. In today's world I think it's healthy to assume someone is trying to reach for the truth instead of assuming malice. She's trying to present her findings and asking for feedback. I don't think that should be demonized - we've all been wrong before. Please watch the video.
  - user-the-name 6y ago
    Why is the video still up, even after being shown to be wrong? This is a subject where incorrect information is actually endangering lives. Why keep this up, when it is known to be wrong? That, to me, implies malice. I do not see any other way to interpret that.

Narretz 6y ago

Where did she get the numbers of total deaths from? Does the US publish death rates during the year or only afterwards? For Europe, there's a pretty obvious excess death rate this year with two spikes: https://www.euromomo.eu/bulletins/2020-47 https://www.euromomo.eu/bulletins/2020-47 I would be very surprised if the same wasn't true for the US.

sampo 6y ago
> Does the US publish death rates during the year or only afterwards? At least Our World in Data website has those numbers: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-death-count https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-deat...

evanelias 6y ago

This post is highly misleading, and is essentially a duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25229194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25229194. These claims are not from "Johns Hopkins" as an institution. The instructor making the claims is associated with a rolling-admission adult extension school, and the article discussing them appeared only in the general-purpose undergraduate campus student newspaper, which does not validate the scientific or academic accuracy of instructors' claims. Disclaimer: I'm a JHU alum and former staff member of said student newspaper