Five Problems With the Study That Claims ‘More Deaths’ From Treating Coronavirus With Hydroxychloroquine
BY Herschel Smith
4 years, 8 months ago
PJM.
The study itself acknowledges that “hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, was more likely to be prescribed to patients with more severe disease.” In such a small study that isn’t representative of the entire population, this would likely impact the results. For starters, there is a direct correlation between advanced age and the severity of side effects. If more severe cases were more likely to be prescribed the drug, it’s possible that these patients were more likely to be fatal cases regardless of the treatment, and perhaps the drugs weren’t administered early enough to alleviate the symptoms to result in recovery. “The findings should not be viewed as definitive because the analysis doesn’t adjust for patients’ clinical status and showed that hydroxychloroquine alone was provided to VA’s sickest COVID-19 patients, many times as a last resort,” a spokeswoman for the Department of Veterans Affairs told Fox News.
That’s enough to do it for me. The claim that this therapeutic is helpful hasn’t been made in a vacuum. The claim is that it is helpful when administered early. It’s ridiculous that the researchers can’t seem to build the proper boundary conditions for the study.
Look, I’m not personally and emotionally committed to this therapeutic. But we still don’t have evidence that it doesn’t work – while we do have evidence that it does work.
If it does, then prove it with studies with the right boundary conditions. If it doesn’t, prove it with studies with the right boundary conditions and then move on to something that shows more promise.
On April 23, 2020 at 10:17 am, ThatWouldBeTelling said:
It’s ridiculous that the researchers can’t seem to build the proper boundary conditions for the study.
This is like your incessant claims that police need to learn how to handle dogs, you don’t allow for malice. It would be a career ending move for most scientists in the US to affirm that TrumpPills™ work. Add the gatekeepers running journals, and all this being at least somewhat true in the West, and it’s entirely possible we’ll never get a study saying they work, even if they do in the right circumstances.
And that’s one reason why Trump is a dangerous sociopath, this reaction from the Left, which controls “science”, was 100% predictable, and already predicted with the hypothetical “If Trump were to cure cancer, then….”