On 09-08-2020 21:00, John Clark wrote:
On Sun, Aug 9, 2020 at 1:24 PM Jason Resch <[email protected]>
wrote:
_> You, as well as most of the media write ups are confusing "did
not prove a benefit" with "proved no benefit". _
I'm not confused at all. No study has proven that leeches have no
benefit in the treatment of COVID-19, but there is also no
statistically relevant evidence that it does, so scientists could more
productively spend their time studying things other than leeches. I
mean it's not as if there are no other promising leads. And this sort
of thing is the rule not the exception, from cancer to aids to
Alzheimer's disease to you name it the medical literature is cram full
of examples of drugs and treatments that hinted in very early small
scale studies that they might be beneficial but were later shown to be
useless or even harmful in larger more careful studies.
Hydroxychloroquine is not even a controversial drug as far as the
scientific community is concerned, the opinion is almost universal
that it's just like most new ideas in science, it didn't work out, and
so it's time to move on to other things; The drug only becomes
controversial when fascist presidents and nincompoop Fox pundits enter
into the mix.
a statistically powerful result were all late stage studies.
Considered statistically powerful by people who don't understand
statistics, and Humans don't have an intuitive ability to assess
probabilities, we need to calculate them. For example: If AIDS is in
0.3% of the population and the false positive rate of an AIDS test is
1% and I take that test and test positive, is there a 99% probability
that I really have AIDS? No, the chance would be 29.7%,
(.003*[0.99/0.01]).
_John treats HCQ like ESP, with no science behind it. _
Not in the early days of 4 or 5 months ago, back then it was
reasonable to be hopeful about it, but those who hold onto a blind
belief in HCQ and refuse to even modify it one bit even now after much
more information about it has come in then yes, they're just as
fanatical as the ESP nuts. They will never EVER be satisfied with a
negative result, they will ALWAYS want another larger study.
_ __in vitro studies clearly showed its anti-viral properties,_
If in vitro studies were all that mattered people would've stopped
dying from cancer decades ago.
John K Clark
Another thing to keep in mind here is that only a small fraction of the
general public end up becoming severely ill, and that people with
underlying health issues such as obesity, diabetes etc. dominate the
group of people who are at risk of needing hospital care. If we assume
fir argument's sake that HCQ does have an effect when taken in the very
early stages, that effect would then be irrelevant to the vast majority
of healthy people. If you are obese then it could be helpful to you, but
simply losing weight would have a far greater effect. This is why in
Britain they are staring a campaign for people to lose weight.
In general I'm rather skeptical for cures in the form of drugs for the
general healthy public. If modifying a biological mechanism would have a
benefit for the healthy population, then the question is why evolution
did not implement that modification? Usually when taking pills does help
for the general public, this is related to our modern lifestyles causing
certain deficiencies, like e.g. vitamin D deficiency. And we know that
being overweight, being vitamin D deficient, lack of exercise have
negative effects on the immune system:
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-fat-cell-immune-response-obesity.html
"When obesity occurs, a person's own fat cells can set off a complex
inflammatory chain reaction that can further disrupt metabolism and
weaken immune response—potentially placing people at higher risk of poor
outcomes from a variety of diseases and infections, including COVID-19."
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-43308729
"Doing lots of exercise in older age can prevent the immune system from
declining and protect people against infections, scientists say.
They followed 125 long-distance cyclists, some now in their 80s, and
found they had the immune systems of 20-year-olds.
Prof Norman Lazarus, 82, of King's College London, who took part in and
co-authored the research, said: "If exercise was a pill, everyone would
be taking it.
"It has wide-ranging benefits for the body, the mind, for our muscles
and our immune system."
The research was published in the journal Aging Cell.
Prof Janet Lord, director of the Institute of Inflammation and Ageing,
at the University of Birmingham, and co-author of the research, said:
"The immune system declines by about 2-3% a year from our 20s, which is
why older people are more susceptible to infections, conditions like
rheumatoid arthritis and, potentially, cancer.
"Because the cyclists have the immune system of a 20-year-old rather
than a 70- or 80-year-old, it means they have added protection against
all these issues.""
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100307215534.htm
"In order for the specialized immune cells (T cells) to protect the body
from dangerous viruses or bacteria, the T cells must first be exposed to
traces of the foreign pathogen. This occurs when they are presented by
other immune cells in the body (known as macrophages) with suspicious
'cell fragments' or 'traces' of the pathogen. The T cells then bind to
the fragment and divide and multiply into hundreds of identical cells
that are all focused on the same pathogen type. The sequence of chemical
changes that the T cells undergo enables them to both be 'sensitized to'
and able to deliver a targeted immune response.
Professor Carsten Geisler from the Department of International Health,
Immunology and Microbiology explains that "when a T cell is exposed to a
foreign pathogen, it extends a signaling device or 'antenna' known as a
vitamin D receptor, with which it searches for vitamin D. This means
that the T cell must have vitamin D or activation of the cell will
cease. If the T cells cannot find enough vitamin D in the blood, they
won't even begin to mobilize. ""
Saibal
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