The difference is that the Allies got away with many of these warcrimes, because as the victors they were in a position to get away with them.
There is also the difference that the Allies did not start the unjust war or want the war to continue.
called the virus a "fantasy"
I can't find the actual speech, but I found conflicting reports of what he said and it does not seem like he called COVID-19 a "fantasy". I think what he was saying was the media had overblown the covid-19 and was describing their coverage as a fantasy. A big difference in meaning. Why does the news not report exactly what is said in the context of what is said? We should ask more from our news.
a single properly-executed exploratory study can provide more information than multiple double-blind placebo controlled studies done poorly.
I think the University of Minnesota double blind randomized HCQ trial is an example of this ( https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/... ). I am not saying it was a useless study, but the result of HCQ not working is not as clear cut as the news headlines want to make it out to be.
To begin with it was not well controlled. The drugs were administered by the participants with no oversight. The results were conducted through surveys.
The study was not able to mask very well on whether the participants got the HCQ or placebo. A survey was done to check the masking and of the participants who thought they knew which treatment they were given, 83% (160 / 193) correctly guessed they got the HCQ and 68% (126 / 185) correctly guessed that they got the placebo.
If you look closely at the results, you can find a pattern of HCQ working if given early on. For example if you look at the results for the treatment taken after 1 day of exposure you will find that only 6.5% (5 / 77) in the HCQ group got COVID-19 symptoms versus 12.7% (8 / 63) in the placebo group. Obviously the numbers are not enough to be statistically significant, but on the other hand it reinforces what some of the retrospective studies showed (such as https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/...) and what many of the anecdotal reports claimed. Here is a twitter conversation between someone who pointed this out and David Boulware who helped run the study:
https://twitter.com/TKvakkesta...
The study also threw in some supplementary studies towards the end of the trial on using HCQ with zinc and vitamin-c. This part of the study was just done using a yes/no on whether you took the treatment and did not have any dosage associated with it. Those that answered yes to either zinc or vitamin-c showed a higher rate of getting COVID-19 with or without the HCQ. Maybe taking zinc or vitamin-c makes you more likely to get COVID-19, but it makes you wonder what was going on here. Here is the link to the appendix that contains this part of the study: https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl...
I am not saying HCQ looks like it is working well as a treatment, but the results we have seen so far when it is combined with zinc have been very positive. The sole exception being this U of M study which I explain above has a very odd result for the zinc and vitamin-c.
Here is the link to the only other formal study we have that combined HCQ with zinc and in it the mortality rate was almost cut in half when zinc was added to HCQ. This is a very significant result and so we should be studying this combination treatment further: https://www.medrxiv.org/conten...
Then every asshole wanting to fire a LGTBQ worker would argue that their presence is somehow impairing their business
With the current law, if you really wanted to fire someone because you did not like that they were LGTBQ you could come up with some other reason not covered under the law. For example you could fire that person because they said something you disagree with politically. So making the law more general purpose and more inline with what most reasonable people want from such a law would better protect workers.
I have no problem with guidelines being added to such a law to help our judicial system interpret the intent of such a law and help with the situation you mentioned.
Just don't discriminate based on things unrelated to the job.
That would make a much better law,
And I think you missed the point that one of your doctors had their work retracted. So you have 1 doctor essentially.
No I got your point that Rault had his study retracted. I have not looked into it, but I will take your word for it. I don't follow or read his studies other than see the headlines and mentions. I am interested in the zinc deficiency hypothesis and want to see if there is any truth to it. I am not claiming there is, but there are credible reasons to think there might be. I want to know the truth. I could care less about the politics of it, but I am frustrated that the politics have clouded getting to the bottom of it.
Your other comments are also misunderstanding the reason for this post. I am not saying anything about the pros and cons of the hydroxychloroquine zinc treatment here. I have already said the reasons for the post and so it strange you are misunderstanding the intent.
Yet magically you claim that yes it does have an effect as to whether the patient required hospitalization or oxygen or a ventilator. You'd think that it has an effect on whether someone requires those things, it would also have an effect as to how much long a patient requires those things.
You are misunderstanding. The group given zinc was less likely to go to the ICU. In other words the severity of their symptoms on average were not as severe. I am not magically claiming anything, just explaining what the study shows.
Why was the duration of mechanical ventilation no different between the two groups? Because they only include those that got bad enough to need it. Why do I say that? Because in the table for mechanical ventilation the n is 33 for the zinc group and 82 for the no zinc group which is the same numbers for those who went to the ICU. And obviously if they did not need mechanical ventilation then those other things don't matter (e.g. 02 flowrate).
Why is the length of hospital stay not any different between the two groups? I don't know. Maybe because there were almost twice as many who died in the no zinc group that lowered the average stay for their group. That is all I can think of right now, but it in no way takes away from the result that patients given zinc were less likely to go to the ICU and die.
Your study has not been peer reviewed and does not even cite the number of patients
This is not my study. It does include the number of patients. In fact it breaks them down by sex, race, medical conditions, severity, etc. In fact it even balances the severity using many different bio markers. I have read through many of the hydroxychloroquine studies and I did not see any of the other studies balance and break down the patient groups as detailed as this one did. Maybe you read the abstract and not the actual paper?
The comments you made in bold reflect what the doctors who have been promoting this treatment (like Dr. Zelenko) having been saying which is that it must be given right away to be effective.
At best it says patients who weren't very ill had an increased chance of going home who took it. That doesn't seem like a huge breakthrough.
No that is not what the results suggest. The results suggest that those who took the hydroxychloroquine/zinc had a much better chance at not going to the ICU and dying versus those who just took the hydroxychloroquine. The rate of death is almost cut in half which is very significant if it is an accurate finding. The study claims to have balanced the two groups on severity of sickness (as well as many other factors) at the time of admission into the hospital.
That all said, I agree with you that it would be good to see this study peer reviewed.
I would like to see further studies and analysis on hydroxychloroquine / zinc. At the very least I would like to see zinc deficiency measured in COVID-19 patients. I have not seen any data on this. There is an interesting idea that zinc deficiency could play a role in the patients who are high risk to COVID-19. Take a look at this site for more on this: is_coronavirus_covid-19_feasting_on_zinc_deficency
Why are so many people so heavily invested in this one drug helping or not helping with COVID?
Not everyone is interested in this because of politics. Besides the potential of saving lives, I am interested in the riddle of why COVID-19 affects certain subsets of the population more than others: There is an interesting hypothesis that zinc deficiency might play a role in this and I would like to see if the hypothesis has merit.
is_coronavirus_covid-19_feasting_on_zinc_deficency
All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin
