[conspire] When to get a covid test, brains, and a weird case, and a cardiology vs. immunology joke

[Ruben Safir]

On Thu, Aug 06, 2020 at 02:03:02AM -0700, Deirdre Saoirse Moen wrote:
> On Aug 6, 2020, at 12:50 AM, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:
> > 
> > Quoting Elise Scher (elise.scher01 at gmail.com):
> > 
> >> So Ruben, why don't you believe it?
> > 
> > I'm curious, too.  This was a peer-reviewed study in _The Lancet_, which
> > (for any who really don't know) has been one of the most respected
> > medical journals in the world, for just short of 200 years.
> > 
> > That doesn't make them infallible:  In 1998, it published a paper by
> > Andrew Wakefield and 11 co-authors suggesting the MMR vaccine is
> > implicated in children's autism and colitis.  The paper was later proven
> > to be fraudulent, although (predictably) it's still to this day cited by
> > antivaxers as if it were credible.
> 
> _The Lancet_ and others were caught up in outright data fraud trying to sell snake oil in the form of chloroquine / hydroxychloroquine (which, to be clear, do work for some autoimmune diseases and malaria, and some side effects in some viruses) earlier this year:
> 
> https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/mysterious-company-s-coronavirus-papers-top-medical-journals-may-be-unraveling
> 
> The peer review process is not designed to catch data fraud that deep.
> 

It is catching it.  BTW  that article SUPPORTS the case for the use of
the snake oil (as you put it)..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On its face, it was a major finding: Antimalarial drugs touted by the
White House as possible COVID-19 treatments looked to be not just
ineffective, but downright deadly. A study published on 22 May in The
Lancet used hospital records procured by a little-known data analytics
company called Surgisphere to conclude that coronavirus patients taking
chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine were more likely to show an irregular
heart rhythma known side effect thought to be rareand were more likely
to die in the hospital.

Within days, some large randomized trials of the drugsthe type that
might prove or disprove the retrospective studys analysisscreeched to a
halt. Solidarity, the World Health Organizations (WHOs) megatrial of
potential COVID-19 treatments, paused recruitment into its
hydroxychloroquine arm, for example. (Update: At a briefing on 3 June
WHO announced it would resume that arm of the study.)
Related


 But just as quickly, the Lancet results have begun to
 unraveland Surgisphere, which provided patient data for
 two other high-profile COVID-19 papers, has come under
 withering online scrutiny from researchers and amateur
 sleuths. They have pointed out many red flags in the
 Lancet paper, including the astonishing number of
 patients involved and details about their demographics
 and prescribed dosing that seem implausible. It began to
 stretch and stretch and stretch credulity, says Nicholas
 White, a malaria researcher at Mahidol University in
 Bangkok.