Forums

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

I've spoken to four different docs who say it does actually work. And these are hardcore Trump haters.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/07/michig...aved-her-life/

If you read the stories saying the proof is weak, you're swallowing a bit of sophistry. The proof is weak when compared to empirical studies done over a longer term. There are no analogues but for frenzied studies done on novel viruses like MERS or SARS. The only apt comparison to the few studies we have would be equally small studies performed on SARS and MERS within the month or two after those diseases emerged. Those studies would be similarly incomplete.

To compare a study done under emergent conditions with a novel virus to studies done over a long period of time is classic apples and oranges.

To a degree, we must rely on "anecdata" in regard to any new treatment offered for Covid-19.

I think some in the media understand that. Some are dumb and don't. The latter are to be ignored, the former loathed.

And all of their arguments are a bit silly. When someone points a gun at your head, you don't get to say, "Wait. I'll need time to run a rigorous assessment of possible reactions to see what my best reply is." You play the best hand you can come up with in the moment.

Logic dictates we throw every drug we have at this thing and explore all options. The malaria drug is showing promise, and its cheap and easy to produce. And please don't sing me a song about how it's killing lupus patients. It's not. That's a facile argument. There's a factory pumping that drug out like mad an hour from my house. The docs I've spoken to about it also say the risk of a heart attack on it, while real, is the size of a rounding error.

I wish Biden had touted the drug. We'd be able to have much more honest conversations about it.

Yes, because what we need right now is more politicians touting untested drugs.

Are you even listening to yourself? The proof is not "weak," it's entirely anecdotal. You dismiss the risk of heart attacks as "real" but "the size of a rounding error." Any "proof" is -- likewise -- no more than a rounding error. And not necessarily real. That's why you want hospitals to figure it out, and not to do medicine on the basis of what you read in the New York Post. Do you really think the doctors in all the hospitals treating all the people dying from this virus aren't interested in "exploring all options"? That if they only read the New York Post then lives would be saved? Get real. My wife is treating Covid-19 patients at a teaching hospital, and I eagerly anticipate the day when she comes home at says this is helping people. Hasn't happened yet.

The strong desire for a miracle cure is completely understandable, and it's great TV, but it is depressing to see so many people succumbing to wishful thinking. It's getting people killed. Imagine if Trump spent all that energy telling people to avoid contact with each other.