Doctor Ivette Lozano from Dallas, Texas on treating patients with HCQ Cocktails

_{kairosfocus
May 18, 2020

Defending our Civilization, Medicine, News Highlights, rhetoric, Sci-Tech watch

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Defending our Civilization
Medicine
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Inimitable:

https://youtu.be/coyfWpwxedQ

Food for thought.

U/D: When it reaches the pharmacy . . .

U/D May 19, another Lozano interview:

And, oh yes, breaking 1: Mr Trump is praising — yes, I am NOT using, “touting” — a promising vaccination. Announcement by the firm, here.

Breaking, no 2, courtesy Daily Mail as usual:

Of course, the now standard, it’s risky is in the subheads.

U/D: Video:

Compare our Texas Doctor’s remarks. And then, there is the latest from Dr Raoult:

Whose report do you believe, why? END

Comments

JVL, see my just now to RT on why I take the media and officialdom crescendo less than at face value. A common pattern is breaking the synergy and/or failing the stitch in time test. In the case of Mr Trump, he has insisted on off label use on the FDA second level emergency use approval (which is of course not part of the dominant narrative). I suspect he is on various supplements and multivitamins so C and D are already there, he just added HCQ, Azithro and Zn. This, in a context of the FDA backing away from the ferocious warnings it gave some weeks back: >>The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that taking hydroxychloroquine is "ultimately" a choice between patients and their health-care providers, appearing to soften its earlier advisory against taking the anti-malaria drug outside of a hospital.>> Ask yourself, why are they backing away? KFkairosfocus_{May 23, 2020
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BA77, yes, there are interconnexions in how we address inductive warrant and conclusions. KFkairosfocus_{May 23, 2020
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RT, actually, the routine media construction of dominant but tendentious ideologically loaded, manipulative and too often deceitful and dangerous narratives that is a key part of the situation. We have to counter that bias and seek alternatives. In this case, between the gold standard fallacy, selectively hyperskeptical suppression of evidence, the ongoing 4th gen civil war in the US and a raging pandemic, we are racking up terrible, needless body counts. For, on Raoult's evidence alone [and it is not alone!] we could have reduced the death rates globally by up to 80 - 90+ percent. If, we were in a different world. We need to face where business as usual [BAU] through the balance of faction power games is taking us and seek a credible alternative [ALT]. To do so, we have to change the rules of the game and break the unjustified, power-driven lockouts through promoting participation of the hitherto marginalised, stereotyped and scapegoated. We need thinking spaces (such as UD) and media spaces for more genuinely broad based public participation. Then, gap analysis and linked SWOT-scenario planning can help us shape more robust solutions. (All of this BTW, I have pushed for for twenty years.) And yes, that is sustainability oriented decision theory in action at policy choice level. Now, you are asking good questions about why the role of Zn is not being explained to the public. Sadly, that's because it fits in with one of the plausible modes of action of HCQ: ionophore lock-open allowing Zn to diffuse into the cell in higher than normal concentrations. Which then stops the virus replication cycle. In another plausible mode of action, pH shifts through HCQ affect local fields so shifting vibrational frequencies of receptors targeted by the SARS2 virus. A third mode is routinely used in the treatment of arthritis and lupus: anti-inflammatory action, which Chinese Doctors saw as a first reason to use it. Azithromycin also has both anti secondary infection effects and some antiviral properties. Vitamins C and D of course are good for infections. Cumulative effects count. Where, too, with in vitro effects on the record since 2005 and recently reconfirmed by Raoult et al at plausible cell level concentrations, plausible models and BAU vs ALT differences in not only death rates but consistent reports of felt relief in 5 to 48 hours, and viral clearance in 5 - 6 days, the picture on plausibility would have shifted. Likewise, if Raoult and his IHU with 80+ staff and a peer-reviewed publication "factory" operating in a 3500 or so bed four hospital cluster in Marseilles were fairly reported, the plausibility balance would also shift. So, we can now deconstruct the game, using the plausibility structure, dominant narrative, silencing of the marginalised pattern. A game that is clearly adversely affecting policy and in so doing has credibly cost lives. Then, there is that dismal calculus issue of minimising lives lost through pandemic and lockdown-triggered economic, social and psychological crisis. Deaths of despair is a serious, sobering issue globally and famine is on the table once economic crisis enters stage left, as one of the four infamous horsemen. We need to think again. KFkairosfocus_{May 23, 2020
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Of note to KF, sorry for taking up so much space on your thread, but I thought it was important to expose Darwinists for the scientific frauds that they are, since their false claims could, in this case, potentially, kill some people. And again. I hold that we give Bob the disease in its most virulent form and, for the sake of science, see if he will then choose the HCQ cocktail when he himself faces his own mortality. There is nothing like the real world consequences in their own lives, the consequences of their own thoughts' potential impact on other people lives, to bring the point home to those who live in ivory towers high above all those sme!ly Walmart shoppers.bornagain77_{May 23, 2020
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Darwinists, with their vital dependence on faulty theological presuppositions, instead of on any actual scientific evidence, in order to try to make their case for Darwinian evolution are, as Cornelius Van Til put it, like the child who must climb up onto his father’s lap into order to slap his face.
“In other words, the non-Christian needs the truth of the Christian religion in order to attack it. As a child needs to sit on the lap of its father in order to slap the father’s face, so the unbeliever, as a creature, needs God the Creator and providential controller of the universe in order to oppose this God. Without this God, the place on which he stands does not exist. He cannot stand in a vacuum.” - Cornelius Van Til, Essays on Christian Education (The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company: Phillipsburg, NJ, 1979).
As should be needless to say, if the theory you champion as being science forsakes repeated experimentation and champions faulty theology, then your theory cannot possibly be a 'science' in any meaningful definition of the term 'science', but your supposed scientific theory must instead be a pseudoscience, even a false religion masquerading as science, rather than being a true 'science' Moreover, although Darwinists here on UD and elsewhere are fond of claiming that Intelligent Design is a pseudoscience, even a religion instead of a science, the fact of the matter is that all of science, every nook and cranny of it, is based on intelligent design and is certainly not based on methodological naturalism as is presupposed by Darwinists. From the essential Christian presuppositions that undergird the founding of modern science, i.e. that the universe is rational and that the minds of men, being made in the ‘image of God’, can dare understand that rationality, to the intelligent design of the scientific instruments and experiments themselves, to the logical and mathematical analysis of experimental results, from top to bottom science itself is certainly not ‘natural’. Not one scientific instrument would ever exist if men did not first intelligently design that scientific instrument. Not one test tube, microscope, telescope, spectroscope, or etc.. etc.., was ever just found laying around on a beach somewhere which was ‘naturally’ constructed by nature. Not one experimental result would ever be rationally analysed since there would be no immaterial minds to rationally analyze the immaterial mathematics that lay behind the intelligently designed experiments in the first place. As to essential nature of the immaterial, i.e. 'abstract', realm to science. Darwinists ultimately seek to ‘scientifically’ explain everything in materialistic terms. i.e. Reductive materialism. And yet, if something is not composed of particles or does not have physical properties (e.g., length, mass, energy, momentum, orientation, position, etc), it is abstract, even ‘spiritual’. Numbers, mathematics, logic, truth, distance, time, beauty, ugliness, species, person, information, science, etc.. etc.. all fall into that category of being an abstract property of the immaterial mind. It is amazing how many things fall into that ‘abstract’ category even though most everyone, including atheists, (“atheists” also happens to be an abstract term itself), swear that they exist physically. Perhaps the most devastating place that the denial of the abstract realm is for Darwinists, scientifically speaking, is with their denial of the reality of the immaterial, i.e. abstract, realm of mathematics.
What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? – M. Anthony Mills – April 16, 2018 Excerpt: Barr rightly observes that scientific atheists often unwittingly assume not just metaphysical naturalism but an even more controversial philosophical position: reductive materialism, which says all that exists is or is reducible to the material constituents postulated by our most fundamental physical theories. As Barr points out, this implies not only that God does not exist — because God is not material — but that you do not exist. For you are not a material constituent postulated by any of our most fundamental physical theories; at best, you are an aggregate of those constituents, arranged in a particular way. Not just you, but tables, chairs, countries, countrymen, symphonies, jokes, legal contracts, moral judgments, and acts of courage or cowardice — all of these must be fully explicable in terms of those more fundamental, material constituents. In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html
Mathematics is considered the backbone of all science, engineering, and technology, and yet, in irony of irony, the reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian evolution denies the very reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place. In fact, besides mathematics, the term ‘science’ itself is an abstract term that cannot possibly be grounded within the reductive materialistic framework that provides the foundation for Darwinian evolution! Thus, not only is Darwinian evolution NOT science, it actually denies the physical reality of science. :) Even the term 'species' itself is an abstract term and/or definition of the immaterial mind that cannot be reduced to any possible materialistic explanation. In the reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian evolution, there is simply no way to tell one species from another species, much less is there a way to demarcate humans from non-humans:
Darwin, Design & Thomas Aquinas – Logan Paul Gage Excerpt: The Essences of Species First, the problem of essences. G. K. Chesterton once quipped that “evolution . . . does not especially deny the existence of God; what it does deny is the existence of man.” It might appear shocking, but in this one remark the ever-perspicacious Chesterton summarized a serious conflict between classical Christian philosophy and Darwinism. In Aristotelian and Thomistic thought, each particular organism belongs to a certain universal class of things. Each individual shares a particular nature—or essence—and acts according to its nature. Squirrels act squirrelly and cats catty. We know with certainty that a squirrel is a squirrel because a crucial feature of human reason is its ability to abstract the universal nature from our sense experience of particular organisms. Denial of True Species Enter Darwinism. Recall that Darwin sought to explain the origin of “species.” Yet as he pondered his theory, he realized that it destroyed species as a reality altogether. For Darwinism suggests that any matter can potentially morph into any other arrangement of matter without the aid of an organizing principle. He thought cells were like simple blobs of Jell-O, easily re-arrangeable. For Darwin, there is no immaterial, immutable form. In The Origin of Species he writes: “I look at the term species as one arbitrarily given, for the sake of convenience, to a set of individuals closely resembling each other, and that it does not essentially differ from the term variety, which is given to less distinct and more fluctuating forms. The term variety, again, in comparison with mere individual differences, is also applied arbitrarily, for convenience’s sake.” Statements like this should make card-carrying Thomists shudder.,,, The first conflict between Darwinism and Thomism, then, is the denial of true species or essences. For the Thomist, this denial is a grave error, because the essence of the individual (the species in the Aristotelian sense) is the true object of our knowledge. As philosopher Benjamin Wiker observes in Moral Darwinism, Darwin reduced species to “mere epiphenomena of matter in motion.” What we call a “dog,” in other words, is really just an arbitrary snapshot of the way things look at present. If we take the Darwinian view, Wiker suggests, there is no species “dog” but only a collection of individuals, connected in a long chain of changing shapes, which happen to resemble each other today but will not tomorrow. What About Man? Now we see Chesterton’s point. Man, the universal, does not really exist. According to the late Stanley Jaki, Chesterton detested Darwinism because “it abolishes forms and all that goes with them, including that deepest kind of ontological form which is the immortal human soul.” And if one does not believe in universals, there can be, by extension, no human nature—only a collection of somewhat similar individuals.,,, https://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=23-06-037-f
You don’t have to take my word for it, last year a Darwinist admitted that “The most important concept in all of biology, (i.e. species), is a complete mystery”
What is a species? The most important concept in all of biology is a complete mystery – July 16, 2019 Excerpt: Enough of species? This is only the tip of a deep and confusing iceberg. There is absolutely no agreement among biologists about how we should understand the species. One 2006 article on the subject listed 26 separate definitions of species, all with their advocates and detractors. Even this list is incomplete. The mystery surrounding species is well-known in biology, and commonly referred to as “the species problem”. Frustration with the idea of a species goes back at least as far as Darwin.,,, some contemporary biologists and philosophers of biology have,,, suggested that biology would be much better off if it didn’t think about life in terms of species at all.,,, https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-species-the-most-important-concept-in-all-of-biology-is-a-complete-mystery-119200
As should be needless to say, the inability for a supposedly scientific theory, a supposedly scientific theory that seeks to explain the “Origin of Species” in the first place, to be able to clearly define what a species actually is, is a clear indication that that supposedly scientific theory cannot possibly be the proper ‘scientific’ explanation for the “Origin of Species” in the first place. The reason why Darwinists will forever be stymied in their efforts to provide any rigid definition for the term ‘species’ actually is because the term species is an abstract property and/or definition of the immaterial mind that cannot possibly be reduced to any possible materialistic explanations. i.e. How much does the concept of species weigh? Does the concept ‘species’ weigh more in English or in Chinese? How long is the concept of species in millimeters? How fast does the concept go? Is the concept of species faster or slower than the speed of light? Is the concept of species positively or negatively charged? Or etc.. etc..?.. Besides the denial of the reality of the entire concept of species, Darwinists also deny, because they are also immaterial concepts, the reality of many other things that everyone, especially including Darwinists, resolutely hold to as being real and concrete, even though they are, in fact, immaterial concepts of the immaterial mind.
Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the reality of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, Darwinian Materialism and/or Methodological Naturalism vs. Reality – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaksmYceRXM
Thus, although the Darwinian Atheist firmly believes he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for methodological naturalism), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of his materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.
2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;
bornagain77_{May 23, 2020
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KF in 155 has, as usual for KF, done an excellent job of summarizing the strong evidence in favor using the HCQ cocktail as a effective therapeutic, early in treatments, for the disease, and also of noting the deficiencies in the studies that seek to dismiss the HCQ cocktail's effectiveness. But what strikes me most about the people on UD who have been, for weeks now, and who are currently, eager to dismiss the effectiveness of the HCQ cocktail as a therapeutic, and to thus potentially negatively impact people who are tying to recover from the disease, is that all these HCQ skeptics on UD are Darwinists. That is to say that they promote Darwinian evolution as somehow being unquestionably scientifically true. Many times saying that Darwinian evolution is scientific and also dismissing Intelligent Design as somehow being unscientific, some even going so far as to claim that Intelligent Design is a pseudoscience. Despite oft repeated claims to the contrary, the 'pseudoscientific' shoe is squarely on the other foot. I hold that if someone is going to argue that their opinions on scientific matters should be taken seriously, (as is the current argument with the HCQ cocktail), it might first greatly behoove them to first demonstrate the capacity to differentiate real science from pseudoscience in the first place with the ID vs Darwinism debate. In their general claim that Darwinian evolution is unquestionbly science and Intelligent Design is just a pseudoscience, I hold that these Darwinists on UD have forsaken any right to their claim that their present opinions on the HCQ cocktail in particular should be trusted. By any reasonable standard that one might use to judge whether a theory is even scientific of not, Darwinian evolution simply utterly fails to meet those criteria for being a science.
“There are five standard tests for a scientific hypothesis. Has anyone observed the phenomenon — in this case, Evolution — as it occurred and recorded it? Could other scientists replicate it? Could any of them come up with a set of facts that, if true, would contradict the theory (Karl Popper’s “falsifiability” tests)? Could scientists make predictions based on it? Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science? In the case of Evolution… well… no… no… no… no… and no.” – Tom Wolfe – The Kingdom of Speech – page 17 Darwinian Evolution Fails the Five Standard Tests of a Scientific Hypothesis - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7f_fyoPybw
Darwin himself honestly admitted that his theory was unscientific.,, i.e. “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.” and “What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work is grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction.”
Anti-Science Irony Excerpt: In response to a letter from Asa Gray, professor of biology at Harvard University, Darwin declared: “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.” When questioned further by Gray, Darwin confirmed Gray’s suspicions: “What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work is grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction.” Darwin had turned against the use of scientific principles in developing his theory of evolution. http://www.darwinthenandnow.com/2011/10/anti-science-irony/
When Charles Darwin honestly admitted that "large parts (of my theory) are by no means worthy of being called induction”, Darwin was honestly admitting that he had forsaken the criteria of repeated experimentation that was set forth by Francis Bacon when he founded the scientific method,
Welcome To The Brave New World Of “Science” – Emily Morales – January 1, 2020 Excerpt: Darwin, in his day was excoriated by Adam Sedgewick (his mentor of the past) for abandoning the tram-road of inductive thinking (Baconian methodology, repeated experimentation) in favor of embracing the methodologies associated with deductive reasoning carried out by the likes of Aristotle. Sedgewick was not alone in his criticism of Darwin. Louis Agassiz, at Harvard similarly rebuked Darwin for a thesis having no support in the known fossil record (refer to Stephen Meyer’s book Darwin’s Doubt). Note that neither of these men pushed back against Darwin because they were creationists – it was rather that Darwin drew some conclusions on the diversity of life and origin of species that were presumptuous to say the least. As it turns out, Bacon addressed the dangers of this manner of “logic” and “reasoning,” at length, warning us of its ability to stifle scientific inquiry two hundred and thirty years before Darwin’s published work. Bacon today, would not be impressed with where the brave new world of science is heading. Rather than holding on to those facts that are the fruit of repeated experimentation or steadied observation, society is clinging to fallacies that are oftentimes the fruit of a past college professor’s wild imagination. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/welcome-to-the-brave-new-world-of-science/#comment-690388
There is simply no experimental evidence, (nor mathematics), to be found in Darwin's book 'Origin of Species'.
Someone tries telling the truth: Darwin wasn’t that great but he met an elite need – July 29, 2014 Excerpt: he (Charles Darwin) devoted almost every bit of his magnum opus (Origin Of Species) to tedious examples of artificial selection in domestic animals. He brushed away the glaring advantage of artificial over natural selection with rhetoric along the lines of “I see no reason why” natural selection might not have fashioned the eye or any other organ or living thing. For such schoolboy ineptitude he was roundly criticized by his contemporaries, all of whom are now consigned to history’s dustbin, regardless of their skills and biological competency. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/someone-tries-telling-the-truth-darwin-wasnt-that-great-but-he-met-an-elite-need/
To this day, over a century and a half later, there simply is no experimental evidence that Darwinists can appeal to so as to establish the validity of Darwinian evolution as a proper experimental science.
Scant search for the Maker - 2001 Excerpt: But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. - Alan H. Linton - emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=159282 Darwin vs. Microbes (Where’s the substantiating evidence for Darwinian evolution?) - video https://youtu.be/ntxc4X9Zt-I
In fact, besides having no actual experimental evidence to substantiate their claims, Darwinists will often completely ignore evidence that directly falsifies their claims. Here are a few falsifications of Darwinian evolution that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory:
Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. Darwin’s theory holds there to be an extremely beneficial and flexible mutation rate for DNA which was ultimately responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. The mutation rate to DNA is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record(disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.” Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution.
Verse:
1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.
In fact Charles Darwin, in his book ‘Origin”, instead of any actual experimentation or mathematics, (in fact Darwin said that he found mathematics to be ‘repugnant’), Darwin instead relied mainly on flawed theological argumentation in order to try to make his case for evolution
Charles Darwin, Theologian: Major New Article on Darwin’s Use of Theology in the Origin of Species – May 2011 Excerpt: The Origin supplies abundant evidence of theology in action; as Dilley observes: I have argued that, in the first edition of the Origin, Darwin drew upon at least the following positiva theological claims in his case for descent with modification (and against special creation): 1. Human beings are not justified in believing that God creates in ways analogous to the intellectual powers of the human mind. 2. A God who is free to create as He wishes would create new biological limbs de novo rather than from a common pattern. 3. A respectable deity would create biological structures in accord with a human conception of the ‘simplest mode’ to accomplish the functions of these structures. 4. God would only create the minimum structure required for a given part’s function. 5. God does not provide false empirical information about the origins of organisms. 6. God impressed the laws of nature on matter. 7. God directly created the first ‘primordial’ life. 8. God did not perform miracles within organic history subsequent to the creation of the first life. 9. A ‘distant’ God is not morally culpable for natural pain and suffering. 10. The God of special creation, who allegedly performed miracles in organic history, is not plausible given the presence of natural pain and suffering. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/05/charles_darwin_theologian_majo046391.html
To this day, instead of any actual experimentation to try to make their case, Darwinists are still heavily reliant on flawed theological argumentation in order to try to make their case for Darwinian evolution.
Methodological Naturalism: A Rule That No One Needs or Obeys - Paul Nelson - September 22, 2014 Excerpt: It is a little-remarked but nonetheless deeply significant irony that evolutionary biology is the most theologically entangled science going. Open a book like Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True (2009) or John Avise's Inside the Human Genome (2010), and the theology leaps off the page. A wise creator, say Coyne, Avise, and many other evolutionary biologists, would not have made this or that structure; therefore, the structure evolved by undirected processes. Coyne and Avise, like many other evolutionary theorists going back to Darwin himself, make numerous "God-wouldn't-have-done-it-that-way" arguments, thus predicating their arguments for the creative power of natural selection and random mutation on implicit theological assumptions about the character of God and what such an agent (if He existed) would or would not be likely to do.,,, ,,,with respect to one of the most famous texts in 20th-century biology, Theodosius Dobzhansky's essay "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution" (1973). Although its title is widely cited as an aphorism, the text of Dobzhansky's essay is rarely read. It is, in fact, a theological treatise. As Dilley (2013, p. 774) observes: "Strikingly, all seven of Dobzhansky's arguments hinge upon claims about God's nature, actions, purposes, or duties. In fact, without God-talk, the geneticist's arguments for evolution are logically invalid. In short, theology is essential to Dobzhansky's arguments.",, - per evolution news Damned if You Do and Damned if You Don't - Steve Dilley- 2019-06-02 The Problem of God-talk in Biology Textbooks Abstract: We argue that a number of biology (and evolution) textbooks face a crippling dilemma. On the one hand, significant difficulties arise if textbooks include theological claims in their case for evolution. (Such claims include, for example, ‘God would never design a suboptimal panda’s thumb, but an imperfect structure is just what we’d expect on natural selection.’) On the other hand, significant difficulties arise if textbooks exclude theological claims in their case for evolution. So, whether textbooks include or exclude theological claims, they face debilitating problems. We attempt to establish this thesis by examining 32 biology (and evolution) textbooks, including the Big 12—that is, the top four in each of the key undergraduate categories (biology majors, non-majors, and evolution courses). In Section 2 of our article, we analyze three specific types of theology these texts use to justify evolutionary theory. We argue that all face significant difficulties. In Section 3, we step back from concrete cases and, instead, explore broader problems created by having theology in general in biology textbooks. We argue that the presence of theology—of whatever kind—comes at a significant cost, one that some textbook authors are likely unwilling to pay. In Section 4, we consider the alternative: Why not simply get rid of theology? Why not just ignore it? In reply, we marshal a range of arguments why avoiding God-talk raises troubles of its own. Finally, in Section 5, we bring together the collective arguments in Sections 2-4 to argue that biology textbooks face an intractable dilemma. We underscore this difficulty by examining a common approach that some textbooks use to solve this predicament. We argue that this approach turns out to be incoherent and self-serving. The poor performance of textbooks on this point highlights just how deep the difficulty is. In the end, the overall dilemma remains. https://journals.blythinstitute.org/ojs/index.php/cbi/article/view/44
bornagain77_{May 23, 2020
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Jerry @ 145 -
The Lancet study with its 96;000 patients is fake news because it evaluates HCQ out of context. So any conclusions about HCQ’s effectiveness is irrelevant because they used a bogus method to evaluate the drug.
I'm not sure "looking at whether people die" would be described as a bogus method for seeing if a drug works. That's about as primary as a primary endpoint can be. I also suspect that testing a drug on patients with COVID-19, when they start treatment within 48 hrs of a positive test is pretty much within the context of using a drug to treat a disease.Bob O'H_{May 23, 2020
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RavenT @ 151 -
However quite awhile ago one study did show zinc has improve the survivability of patient. Can we then assume HCQ and zinc does improve survivability against no treatment at all?
It doesn't look like it, although I'd caution against trusting any estimates too much. The study you mention compares HCQ + AZ + Zn to HCQ + AZ, and has an odds ratio of 1.53, i.e. the patients who received zinc in addition to HCQ and AZ were about 50% more likely to be discharged. The big study we're now discussing compares HCQ + AZ(*) to a control, and has an odds ratio for death of 1.45. That would suggest that using HCQ + AZ + Zn compared to neither has an odds ratio of 1.53/1.45 = 1.05, i.e. about a 5% greater chance of surviving. This is (a) not large, and (b) really uncertain. (*) actually AZ or equivalents.Bob O'H_{May 23, 2020
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RavenT: Near the bottom his full sentence is “So I’m taking the two: the zinc and the hydroxy” Thanks for that!JVL_{May 23, 2020
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You can find DT remark about his intake of HCQ in https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-roundtable-restaurant-executives-industry-leaders/ Near the bottom his full sentence is "So I'm taking the two: the zinc and the hydroxy"RavenT_{May 23, 2020
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Kairosfocus: There seems to be more and more reports saying HCQ has no beneficial (and maybe even detrimental) effects on COVID-19 patients. Also, there seems to be few new positive reports. So, I'm just wondering . . . what is your tipping point? Would a full-blown, gold-standard RCT showing HCQ is ineffective against COVID-19 change your mind? What about an RCT of HCQ + zinc? President Trump has said he is already taking HCQ (without zinc I believe) prophylactically; are you doing the same? And why. Thanks!!JVL_{May 23, 2020
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KF, My main argument is basically to show that since there is a study that show HCQ + Zinc has improved survivability compared to HCQ alone, we should be able to extrapolate it to say HCQ + Zinc has improved survivability compared to no treatment. I am also curious why the study about HCQ + Zinc doesnt seems to have alot of media exposure after 2 weeks than the study that show HCQ doesnt have any different to no control, which the media will trumpet it within hours, but to me that should be discussion for another time.RavenT_{May 23, 2020
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RT, kindly, scroll up to OP and work through it. Watch Dr Locano, and particularly note Dr Raoult's results. Go to the front page of the IHU site and learn a little about whose work is being systematically sidelined here. There is a reason why the two most populous countries and the two most populous in this hemisphere have -- along with a significant number of others -- given significant, emergency levels of approval for HCQ based cocktails in treatment of CV19. It is highly noteworthy that physicians and researchers suggesting its credible utility as a rule emphasise that early use is indicated; contrast studies that break the synergy in the cocktail and push the use to points where it is likely to be too late. Note, that eyewitness and patient reports or reasonably recorded cases are not mere dismissible bad or even no evidence, that tendency reflects a disregard for truth, and for sound prudence in empirically grounded warrant. Refusal to acknowledge this and similar dismissal of urgency and do no harm ethical concerns are all tellingly diagnostic. Indeed, we may note how, in critiquing the study on VA data, Dr Raoult specifically pointed out that in some cases where onward damage and complications are being addressed, the disease is in a post-viral phase where tests may not detect the virus. The general point is, we need to look very carefully at how we tend to think, believe and make decisions as a civilisation on matters tied to epistemology and associated inductive logic. The problems we are seeing with relatively accessible here and now issues extend a fortiori to questions on origins and sciences that study origins. We need to think again, before fatal disaffection sets in irreversibly. But then, if I take Machiavelli or Santana or Plato seriously, I should not be amazed to find that we ever so often march off the cliff as a civilisation. KF PS: Similarly, we must reckon that once pandemic broke out, large scale loss of life was unavoidable. So, for instance, CV19 kills, but so too, economic recession and depression. Just the suicide numbers and other deaths of despair are significant. In less developed parts of the world, famine, malnutrition and deterioration of health care are material. So, the issue is to reduce, not eliminate deaths. PPS: One of the plausible antiviral action modes of HCQ is promotion of Zn transfer into cells.kairosfocus_{May 22, 2020
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EG, what part of, Placebo controlled studies will take far too long in the teeth of a fast moving pandemic is so hard to understand? (As in, did you notice what Maryaline Catillon and Richard Zeckhauser cited from Dr Fauci on the implications of time/urgency?) Similarly, what part of it is harmful to give people suffering a fast-moving significantly fatal disease deliberately mislabelled sugar pills violates the core first do no harm principle is so implausible to you that you contemplate turning people into little more than lab rats as if it could be justified? (Guess who did that about eighty years ago, why?) Yet again, what part of a stitch in time saves nine is so abstruse, given the repeated point that delaying treatment undermines its efficacy? (Do I need to cite Machiavelli on hectic fever and the costs of undue delay?) Or is it that you are so sure that you and your ilk have so cornered the market on soundness that you don't need to do more than snip, snipe and type up shibboleths or talking points without bothering to consider that there may be more to the issue and consequences than you came here comfortably armed with? Something is seriously wrong, wrong in the face of actual harm being done. KFkairosfocus_{May 22, 2020
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RH7 et al, It is obvious that you are filtering out and dismissing without serious consideration, seemingly implausible evidence, argument and counsel that do not sit easily with the plausibility frameworks informed by currently dominant evolutionary materialistic scientism and/or fellow traveller ideologies, underlying worldviews and associated cultural/policy agendas. Several weeks ago, I pointed out issues, concerns and a sustainability oriented decision theory framework that would serve our civilisation far better in the face of pandemic. But of course, who is that IDiot to suggest something different from our comfortable Gold Standard approaches and shibboleths? The problem is, THIS IS NOT AN ACADEMIC EXCHANGE, we are dealing with a pandemic and with people dying of a fast moving highly contagious pandemic. That's why business as usual [BAU] is not likely to be a successful strategy. That is why ethical considerations such as do no harm and the CI/GR ethical premise that each person is a quasi-infinitely valuable neighbour and end in him-/her- self, not a convenient means to my -- or, "our" [i.e. our ideology's] -- end is pivotal. That's why prudence should be restored to centrality among intellectual virtues rather than selective hyperskepticism fed by ideologies as outlined. The consequences are playing out as we see the clearly rising trend beyond polarisation to fatal disaffection. Newsflash, the problem with humanity is not Western Civilisation or the lingering legacy of Christendom (often contemptuously equated to "fascism" which itself speaks to ideological distortions). No, it is the moral hazard of being human. In that context, the lessons of sound history were paid for with blood and tears. Those who neglect, dismiss, deride or demonise such doom themselves to pay the same coin over and over and over again. Fair warning. KF PS: I again highlight what you have so tellingly, insistently, willfully refused to engage in the days since it was first clipped at 56 above. That failure speaks to the fundamental, ideologically driven, deeply polarised way you have acted. Especially, as the core counsel being offered from members of the Kennedy School of Government is actually independent of the final balance on the merits of HCQ cocktails. Let us duly note the decision making, sound governance issues being put on the table:
Observe:
Unleash the Data on COVID-19 By Maryaline Catillon and Richard Zeckhauser* Given the lethality of the COVID-19 pandemic, the urgent need is for actionable information directing care towards treatments offering higher probabilities of improving outcomes and preventing death. In normal times, randomized control trials (RCTs) would be the gold standard for determining whether innovative medical treatments are safe and effective. But with 1,500 Americans dying every day, these are hardly normal times. There is an urgent need for high quality studies based on real world experience, which has already accumulated for many thousands of patients. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s pandemic physician in chief, said that RCT results will not be available "for months". The disease will not wait. RCTs, which randomly assign patients to a treatment or a control group, are only ethically acceptable when the safety and performance of a treatment is unknown. When ample data exists, as now, that criterion is not met. Analyzing real world data on actual outcomes, when it exists in abundance, offers an alternative approach to learn almost immediately. Moreover, it avoids the ethical challenge of an RCT, given that available data could predict outcomes. Massive numbers of COVID-19 patients are currently being administered "unproven" drugs based on medical decisions made by doctors. Massive numbers are not receiving any such drugs. Thus, carefully designed case control studies could leverage differences between ongoing protocols at large hospital systems and detailed information from patients’ electronic medical records. That could determine whether widely employed hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, provides significant benefits, and at which stages to which patients, and could provide similar information on the risks it imposes. It could yield the same information about remdesivir, and about many other drug treatments currently in use. [--> sounds familiar? That's been a line of argument I have pointed to for weeks] For each patient, doctors strive to optimize treatment in the current, uncertain environment. These drug versus non-drug decisions constitute an ongoing large observational study, in which the allocation to treatment and control groups varies widely. The large numbers of patients treated eliminates concerns that random variation might lead to misleading results. Those large numbers also yield results by demographic, comorbidities, and stage of disease. Leveraging real world evidence is more acceptable ethically when extensive information is already available. As decision theorists who have studied the methodological quality of vast numbers of RCTs, we are enthusiasts for well-conducted RCTs. But delaying public health recommendations till RCTs are completed is not appropriate in the present circumstance. Imminent threats are enormous and widespread data is easily at hand. The outcomes of the thousands of individuals who have already received drug therapies on an ad hoc basis should inform practice now . . . . High quality case control studies based on thousands of cases, the silver standard we recommend, are immensely faster than RCTs. Recent articles in the world’s leading medical journals show that they consistently yield the same major findings. Experience with the recommendations of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV provides an instructive warning. Even though 20 years of observational studies demonstrated its enormous benefits, the World Health Organization waited until 2015 and the publication of the first set of RCT results (which reached the same conclusions) to make a "treat all" recommendation. Many lives were lost as the world waited for its recommendation. COVID-19 presents its own example. Through late March, medical authorities recommended the general public not employ masks to protect against it. In early April, that all switched: masks became strongly recommended. No RCT supported this reversal; little evidence was mounted. Yet officials applauded, the public widely complied, and the world was better off.
Well conducted includes ethical criteria. Of course. But such is obviously at a discount today. And notice the by now familiar context: decision theory.
kairosfocus_{May 22, 2020
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Some studies already have been done on hydroxychloroquine and the closely related chloroquine, including one published on Friday showing a higher risk of death and heart rhythm problems for coronavirus patients who used them compared to those who did not. But doctors are waiting for the debate about the usefulness of these drugs for COVID-19 to be settled by gold-standard scientific trials, with some results due as soon as next week. Such research involves randomized trials comparing these drugs to a placebo, with neither doctors nor patients aware of who gets what. Worldwide, many gold-standard trials are underway. They explore whether hydroxychloroquine can prevent or treat COVID-19, which patients might benefit, when treatment might start, how long it might continue and what dose might be best. The University of Minnesota may have some results next week. It is testing whether hydroxychloroquine prevents infection in people exposed to the coronavirus and whether it alleviates COVID-19 symptoms. Other placebo-controlled trial results are expected starting this summer. https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-tr-idUSL1N2D41QVrhampton7_{May 22, 2020
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Hi, I am new to this forum. Just want to add-in on the discussion about HCQ. As I understand it alot of studies has shown it doesnt produce any effect. However quite awhile ago one study did show zinc has improve the survivability of patient. Can we then assume HCQ and zinc does improve survivability against no treatment at all? https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.02.20080036v1RavenT_{May 22, 2020
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How is it that Remdesivir can already have results from an RCT when the treatment devised by the French doctors was first to field?rhampton7_{May 22, 2020
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Another example, published in the New England Journal of Medicine... We conducted a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of intravenous remdesivir in adults hospitalized with Covid-19 with evidence of lower respiratory tract involvement. Patients were randomly assigned to receive either remdesivir (200 mg loading dose on day 1, followed by 100 mg daily for up to 9 additional days) or placebo for up to 10 days. The primary outcome was the time to recovery, defined by either discharge from the hospital or hospitalization for infection-control purposes only. total of 1063 patients underwent randomization. The data and safety monitoring board recommended early unblinding of the results on the basis of findings from an analysis that showed shortened time to recovery in the remdesivir group. Preliminary results from the 1059 patients (538 assigned to remdesivir and 521 to placebo) with data available after randomization indicated that those who received remdesivir had a median recovery time of 11 days (95% confidence interval [CI], 9 to 12), as compared with 15 days (95% CI, 13 to 19) in those who received placebo (rate ratio for recovery, 1.32; 95% CI, 1.12 to 1.55; P<0.001). The Kaplan-Meier estimates of mortality by 14 days were 7.1% with remdesivir and 11.9% with placebo (hazard ratio for death, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.47 to 1.04). Serious adverse events were reported for 114 of the 541 patients in the remdesivir group who underwent randomization (21.1%) and 141 of the 522 patients in the placebo group who underwent randomization (27.0%). Remdesivir was superior to placebo in shortening the time to recovery in adults hospitalized with Covid-19 and evidence of lower respiratory tract infection. (Funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and others; ACCT-1 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04280705. opens in new tab.) https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2007764?query=RPrhampton7_{May 22, 2020
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R7
However, if you’re the kind of person who thinking RCTs are not needed right now, then it’s very hard to dismiss this study without also dismissing the work of the French doctors whose study also has fundamental flaws.
But don’t hold your breath.Ed George_{May 22, 2020
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Clinical studies are being conducted AS patients are being treated. For example, in Ohio... Kettering Health Network is using three different clinical trials as they care for COVID-19 patients. IL-6 inhibitor ruxolitinib: This drug appears to slow immune system problems that occur in some COVID-19 patients. Convalescent plasma trial: Plasma donated by patients that have recovered from COVID-19 is given to current COVID-19 patients. The antibodies in the plasma support the patient’s recovery. This effort is being led by the Mayo Clinic. Remdesivir: An anti-rival drug, which has shown in preliminary trials to help COVID-19 patients recover more quickly “We’ve got a lot more testing available to us now, so it certainly allows us to test more of the patients in the hospital. It’s allowing us to start testing patients before surgery, and I think on a larger note it’s giving us a better idea of the prevalence of the disease within our communities,” said Infectious Disease Specialist Jeffrey Weinstein. https://www.wdtn.com/news/local-news/kettering-health-using-3-clinical-trials-in-treatment-of-covid-19-patients/rhampton7_{May 22, 2020
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The Lancet study is a real study with limitations that the authors pointed out, as is customary (Note that those who support the French doctors do not do the same). They method they used is legitimate, but not determinative. For that you need RCTs. However, if you’re the kind of person who thinking RCTs are not needed right now, then it’s very hard to dismiss this study without also dismissing the work of the French doctors whose study also has fundamental flaws.rhampton7_{May 22, 2020
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The Lancet study with its 96;000 patients is fake news because it evaluates HCQ out of context. So any conclusions about HCQ’s effectiveness is irrelevant because they used a bogus method to evaluate the drug. It is being used probably knowingly in an invalid way. A lot of countries are having low mortality rates and associating it with use of HCQ soon after diagnosis. But not the US which is misusing it.jerry_{May 22, 2020
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KF
May 22, 2020 at 5:30 pm EG, again, you indulge in elevating a claimed gold standard and dismissing whatever does not fit but which would be instantly recognised as a business as usual vs alternative, apart from polarisation.
No, I am elevating a 96,000 strong high quality retrospective study above a much smaller, lower quality, retrospective study. Neither were rigorously controlled nor random. But if I am going to have to give weight to one, I will have to lean in favour of the larger, more comprehensive one.Ed George_{May 22, 2020
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Whatever EG, their overt, even hostile, political bias towards Trump, and the authors own words, undermines any credibility the study may have had as to drawing firm conclusions. It might seem more than a little prudent to not air open hostility towards a political opponent just one week before you release a study casting that political opponent in bad light, a study which according to the authors own words, was questionable in that "a cause-and-effect relationship between drug therapy and survival should not be inferred.” But hey, if we can't infer a cause and effect relationship, at least we can cast doubt on our political opponent, eh EG? Pathetic! Lancet has lost a lot of respect since it decided to get into politics.bornagain77_{May 22, 2020
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EG, again, you indulge in elevating a claimed gold standard and dismissing whatever does not fit but which would be instantly recognised as a business as usual vs alternative, apart from polarisation. And again, you dismiss the ethical failure of refusal to see what it means to give deliberately mislabelled sugar pills under solemn colours of medicine to those suffering a rapid acting, contagious significantly fatal disease. And yet again you point to sources that fail to deal with such issues even as you brush aside cumulative evidence of effective and responsibly safe treatment. I point others to the OP yet again, and will again append what you and too many others refuse to face regarding decision theory. KF PS: Again
Observe:
Unleash the Data on COVID-19 By Maryaline Catillon and Richard Zeckhauser* Given the lethality of the COVID-19 pandemic, the urgent need is for actionable information directing care towards treatments offering higher probabilities of improving outcomes and preventing death. In normal times, randomized control trials (RCTs) would be the gold standard for determining whether innovative medical treatments are safe and effective. But with 1,500 Americans dying every day, these are hardly normal times. There is an urgent need for high quality studies based on real world experience, which has already accumulated for many thousands of patients. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s pandemic physician in chief, said that RCT results will not be available "for months". The disease will not wait. RCTs, which randomly assign patients to a treatment or a control group, are only ethically acceptable when the safety and performance of a treatment is unknown. When ample data exists, as now, that criterion is not met. Analyzing real world data on actual outcomes, when it exists in abundance, offers an alternative approach to learn almost immediately. Moreover, it avoids the ethical challenge of an RCT, given that available data could predict outcomes. Massive numbers of COVID-19 patients are currently being administered "unproven" drugs based on medical decisions made by doctors. Massive numbers are not receiving any such drugs. Thus, carefully designed case control studies could leverage differences between ongoing protocols at large hospital systems and detailed information from patients’ electronic medical records. That could determine whether widely employed hydroxychloroquine, with or without azithromycin, provides significant benefits, and at which stages to which patients, and could provide similar information on the risks it imposes. It could yield the same information about remdesivir, and about many other drug treatments currently in use. [--> sounds familiar? That's been a line of argument I have pointed to for weeks] For each patient, doctors strive to optimize treatment in the current, uncertain environment. These drug versus non-drug decisions constitute an ongoing large observational study, in which the allocation to treatment and control groups varies widely. The large numbers of patients treated eliminates concerns that random variation might lead to misleading results. Those large numbers also yield results by demographic, comorbidities, and stage of disease. Leveraging real world evidence is more acceptable ethically when extensive information is already available. As decision theorists who have studied the methodological quality of vast numbers of RCTs, we are enthusiasts for well-conducted RCTs. But delaying public health recommendations till RCTs are completed is not appropriate in the present circumstance. Imminent threats are enormous and widespread data is easily at hand. The outcomes of the thousands of individuals who have already received drug therapies on an ad hoc basis should inform practice now . . . . High quality case control studies based on thousands of cases, the silver standard we recommend, are immensely faster than RCTs. Recent articles in the world’s leading medical journals show that they consistently yield the same major findings. Experience with the recommendations of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV provides an instructive warning. Even though 20 years of observational studies demonstrated its enormous benefits, the World Health Organization waited until 2015 and the publication of the first set of RCT results (which reached the same conclusions) to make a "treat all" recommendation. Many lives were lost as the world waited for its recommendation. COVID-19 presents its own example. Through late March, medical authorities recommended the general public not employ masks to protect against it. In early April, that all switched: masks became strongly recommended. No RCT supported this reversal; little evidence was mounted. Yet officials applauded, the public widely complied, and the world was better off.
Well conducted includes ethical criteria. Of course. But such is obviously at a discount today. And notice the by now familiar context: decision theory.
kairosfocus_{May 22, 2020
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BA77
Rhampton7; claims the Lancet is ‘not fake’.,,, Yet, In the authors own words,... [they provide possible weaknesses in their interpretations of the data]
Is it really necessary to point out the inanity of this statement?Ed George_{May 22, 2020
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KF
PS: I again point to what Dr Raoult is, what he directs and the accumulation of evidence on this case.
Yes, he represents a single non-controlled retrospective study, and you buy it hook, line and sinker. But when a more comprehensive high quality retrospective study covering a far greater number of patients fails to find a benefit, you choose to ignore it. And you accuse others of not following the evidence.Ed George_{May 22, 2020
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Rhampton7; claims the Lancet is 'not fake'.,,, Yet, In the authors own words, from the new study in the Lancet that supposedly conclusively showed Hydroxychloroquine to be harmful,,,
"Our study has several limitations. The association of decreased survival with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine treatment regimens should be interpreted cautiously. Due to the observational study design, we cannot exclude the possibility of unmeasured confounding factors,,,, , a cause-and-effect relationship between drug therapy and survival should not be inferred. These data do not apply to the use of any treatment regimen used in the ambulatory, out-of-hospital setting." https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31180-6/fulltext
Also of note, The Lancet has a history of political bias such as being anti-Israel.. In regards to potential bias in the current study, they have recently expressed open hostility towards Donald Trump:
"On 16 May 2020, The Lancet published an article on the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that, amongst other things,,, concluded with a call to the American people to elect someone other than Trump in November 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lancet#Reviving_the_US_CDC
If there was any study that was ever ripe for suspicion of political bias, this one is it!bornagain77_{May 22, 2020
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BO'H, It is clear that what is going to happen is that vulnerable people will continue to pay a horrific price for the ever deepening polarisation in our systems. The mere evidence and logical balance will not resolve the issue, it is going to be the lottery of fatal disaffection. Our situation reminds me unhappily of 1914 and 1989, or 628. KF PS: I again point to what Dr Raoult is, what he directs and the accumulation of evidence on this case.kairosfocus_{May 22, 2020
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