Docs and scientists of letsrun, please read this article and tell me if what he is writing about Covid-19 treatment is fake news

rojo wrote:

I enjoyed the arstechnica article.

I still can't believe people are mad at me for asking questions. A week or two ago, the CDC cut the quarantine in half from 10 to 5 days. But they don't require a negative test. The head fo the American Medical Association was so upset by this advice that he published a statement on the matter writing in part, “Potentially hundreds of thousands of people could return to work and school infectious if they follow the CDC’s new guidance on ending isolation after five days without a negative test,."

It's not easy to know what to believe and what not to.

https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-cdc-quarantine-and-isolation-guidance-confusing-counterproductive

rojo, the take away here is that the article you linked to was seriously flawed and could not be corroborated. Some posters pointed out the bad standing of the article's author. You have nothing to support the claims made by the rather surprising article.

I think the prudent thing to do is to revise your original post so that it is clear that the general consensus herein is to discredit this article.

And I say that because this site should not be furthering the spread of disinformation. That would be disservice during a pandemic and I hope you would agree.

A site user should not have to dig down through dozens of posts to find if a potentially dangerous health guideline is valid or not. And the fact that the site owner is posting it lends credibility to the article, so that would be very unfortunate to do anything but either remove the article of add the revision as I have said.

Lastly, it is just too easy and frankly lazy to post any unusual, unsupported garbage off the internet and gain user viewer ship by asking if it's true or not. That kind of practice is irresponsible. During a worldwide pandemic that has already killed millions, that is the time to error on the side of caution and safety, not on the side of conjecture which could undermine the belief in real and proven measures to fight this killer.

this is soooo march 2020.

In a few years time, will rojo post about adverse vaxx events?

]

Yes,

Sorry, this is dumb.

Assuming you are not trolling your own site (I appreciate that you occasionally do this, lol)...

Be wary of people quoting science data without actual journal articles. Like this dude, or mercola or whatever. Data with medicine effectiveness is turned into cdc and fda, so they can be quoted for data or, with existing meds, published in peer reviewed papers. Look for names like New England Journal... Or Journal of AMA. Nature or Science Magazines.

So when someone tries out a new treatment or vitamin etc, they publish the results or lack of results. These are all checked by other scientists so that they don't make stuff up. Then, if you are not a scientist or epidemiologist, you look at the abstract and conclusions, and the help you understand what it means. These statements are all also peer reviewed, so are more trustable. See if the substance is making stuff up. (They are). If you have The appropriate science and stats background, you check their statements vs data vs methods etc. Same stuff happens with mortality data, etc. All that state and local stuff gets triple checked before being published, so if Florida is lying by under reporting covid deaths they get found out, or Cuomo is hiding nursing home deaths, he does. Eventually, in science journals. Not generally on substances lol.

That said, there are medicines available.

Serious people in hospital are primarily treated with an inexpensive prescription corticosteroid (it took a while to find which one was the best) along with some smarter management in ICU.

New pills by Pfizer and moderns (Pfizer is maybe better, but both are great) are excellent. Must be taken right as you get symptoms or test positive. Prevention of hospitalizations, mostly, and with vaccinated works almost perfectly.

You should be taking vitamin D anyway. If you are deficient take some, night prevent some lung symptoms.

Last, they made a really cool medicine that you take so you don't get sick. Works better than the new pills with less side effects than overdosing on vitamins. It's taken in three doses by injection.

Cheers

Niarun

[quote]rojo wrote:

A friend sent me the following link from by Pierre Kory 's substack:

https://pierrekory.substack.com/p/the-global-disinformation-campaign

The guy basically writes he thinks it's a disgrace we don't treat Covid. You test positive and then are told to basically go home unless it's bad enough for you to go to the ER. He then cites a bunch of drugs/vitamins - that he claims he claims help against Covid.

Assuming if what he's writing is true, then it seems like a no-brainer. But no one seems to be doing it in large scale in the US so I'm wondering if he's just making stuff up.

What I want to know is this guy correct in saying that plenty of studies show Vitamin D, A help against Covid? I'm not even going to mention the I word.

Mainly, what I want to know is this chart accurate:

https://cdn.substack.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff21cb2eb-f7f0-4c88-9481-018bbd9c7742_1268x1486.png

I have no idea who Kory was and figured I'd ask here if he's legit or not.

Don't turn this into a thread about the vaccines. I'm triple vaxxed and there is a thread about that.[/quote

TMADDDHASFNE wrote:

You don’t need a PHD in front of your name to know money corrupts even the most well intentioned people.

I literally have never known a single person with a PHD in front of his/her name.

And I've worked in academia most of my life.

Unfortunately, at every level of Medicine, the discussion about Covid has become totally political. You can find the most brilliant scientists, MD's, who will argue both extremes depending on their agendas both personal or political.

tshr wrote:

TMADDDHASFNE wrote:

You don’t need a PHD in front of your name to know money corrupts even the most well intentioned people.

I literally have never known a single person with a PHD in front of his/her name.

And I've worked in academia most of my life.

^^^

Dollars are always the bottom line in this country. I don't need a PhD. *after* my name to say that with authority.

So your statement is at least correct on that score.

A professor at one of the top two medical schools in the country who doesn't know how to spell "peddles" correctly?

Ouch.

Hey OP,

I give you kudos for questioning the narrative.

One thing I got out of all the years in studying the sciences is that it is our duty to question everything, including “studies”

I don’t want to turn this into a vax thread either, but early on I questioned why “emergency use authorization” was put into place so quickly. This has never been done. Health care administrators went ballistic that I questioned this and more than anything, I was stunned at why they were so openly angry that I asked a simple question. It’s no different than any MD that raises a question, they are immediately labeled “idiots” and like me, get fired . Nobody likes to hear it, but I know more than a few injured by the jab and MDs yell at these poor patients for even raising a question about the jab. Seriously just imagine if you got paralyzed or heart trouble after the jab, who do you tell? Your doc will deny it, social media will take it down, and friends will say “ oh I got jabbed and I’m fine”

Sorry to get off point, but the response you’ll get from raising a simple question about treatment will be met with the same hostility. That alone should at least be a flag that something isn’t right.

Hi rojo, I'm a scientist and I agree with Wise Old Man. The author loses all credibility for me when he argues in favor of retrospective observational trials against double-blind, randomized controlled trials. Double-blind randomized trials are one of the foundations of science. Retrospective / observational trials have a lot of hidden biases and can't be considered on the same footing.

As someone else mentioned, the author also refers to RFK Jr in the discussion. RFK Jr is possibly the most visible anti-vaxxer in the world, whereas the science of vaccines is well established. I think that's another strong indicator the author is more dogmatist than scientist.

rojo wrote:

What I want to know is this guy correct in saying that plenty of studies show Vitamin D, A help against Covid? I'm not even going to mention the I word.

Mainly, what I want to know is this chart accurate:

Don't turn this into a thread about the vaccines. I'm triple vaxxed and there is a thread about that.

The simple answer to the first sentence quoted is that Vitamin D has been linked to immune system function and it is quite mainstream for doctors to recommend Vitamin D supplementation for patients with levels below the accepted "optimal range" and this includes a large portion of the population. There's no reason to believe this doesn't extend to Covid specifically, but there probably isn't any Covid specific research.

That said, to request others parse this article from a strictly "fact-checker" point of view is to shift the burden of proof to the "Docs and Scientists of letsrun" (or whatever) which leads to the "bullsh!t asymmetry principle" , that is, "The amount of energy needed to refute bullsh!t is an order of magnitude larger than is needed to produce it."

This has been the essence of the "dialog" on letsrun over the pandemic. The moderation policy has given free reign to bullsh!tters when it would have been straightforward enough to limit that "dialog" to a single or limited number of threads. You're getting blow back on this because anyone qualified and interested in good faith discussions of the specifics of alternative treatments on this forum has probably already done so dozens of times and come to the conclusion that there is little good faith discussion to be had here, largely because the moderation practices do not favor it.

To look at the Pierre Kory narrative at a microscopic level, "Is what he's saying true?", is an enormous task and misses the larger question of, "What is he doing?". What he's doing is casting broad negative aspersions on the medical establishment under the thin and questionable cover of alternative treatments. The issue with alternative treatments is not that they are all necessarily ineffective, it is that they are generally brought into the conversation as alternatives to the vaccinations and approved treatments, the use and effectiveness of which are much more well established. This is not to say that the medical establishment is perfect and beyond question, it is not. It is not to say that the pharmaceutical companies are beyond being corrupted by profit motives, they aren't. However, the broad course of the established scientific process is the best we have at converging on objective truths and effective treatments and "some guy on the internet" might be the worst.

What is WOW worthy is that you eschew reputable sources of information. Instead you crowdsource scientific analysis to your message boards.

It's beyond ridiculous. Honestly, you are creeping towards Q-anon.

rojo wrote:

I enjoyed the arstechnica article.

I still can't believe people are mad at me for asking questions. A week or two ago, the CDC cut the quarantine in half from 10 to 5 days. But they don't require a negative test. The head fo the American Medical Association was so upset by this advice that he published a statement on the matter writing in part, “Potentially hundreds of thousands of people could return to work and school infectious if they follow the CDC’s new guidance on ending isolation after five days without a negative test,."

It's not easy to know what to believe and what not to.

https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-cdc-quarantine-and-isolation-guidance-confusing-counterproductive

Dude, think about how you'd feel about a flat-earther "asking questions" about the earth being round.

That's akin to what you are doing with this crap.

Monkeys Skyping wrote:

The issue with alternative treatments is not that they are all necessarily ineffective, it is that they are generally brought into the conversation as alternatives to the vaccinations and approved treatments, the use and effectiveness of which are much more well established.

What are some of the approved treatments for covid? And don't say "vaccines" because that's not a treatment.

Agree. I'm also "in the business" and this is exactly right.

The notion that there is some unused cure just being purposefully ignored is ridiculous.

Snake oil salesman sell snake oil. Buyer beware.

rojo wrote:

What I want to know is this guy correct in saying that plenty of studies show Vitamin D, A help against Covid? I'm not even going to mention the I word.

I was one of the earliest advocates of vitamin D on LetsRun. I even penned Op-Ed's to major newspapers in the summer of 2020, but they weren't published. Here is what I've found.

Nearly half of Americans are deficient in vitamin D. Demographics hit hardest by covid are also deficient in vitamin D... African Americans, darker-skinned cohorts, the elderly, the obese, and those with certain co-morbidities. The normal range of vitamin d is 20-30ng/ml. Most seniors, Blacks, and the obese are below 20. Getting higher than 30 is almost impossible unless you live in the sun. Worse, it takes 6-8 months of steady supplementation for D levels to plateau in the body so it's difficult to study it as a preventive. The good news is that it will ramp up a lot in the first few weeks so it's not too late to start.

I'm 74, unvaccinated, and I just got over Omicron this weekend. My D level in my most recent blood test was 95, IIRC. I never experienced the knee-jerk cytokine storm reaction around Day 7. In fact, by Day 7, I was recovered.

Vitamin D is not just an anti-viral. It modulates the immune system, which is vital to prevent the cytokine storm that is so deadly with covid.

Over a hundred clinical trials are ongoing on vitamin D, but why wait for the results when vitamin D is less than ten cents per day? Taking it should be a no-brainer. Taking it as an early treatment might help prevent the cytokine storm, but I'd recommend that everyone take it.

It is medical malfeasance that covid positive subjects are sent home and told, "Come back if you can't breathe." Early treatments exist. Since doctors/Fauci will NOT tell you about early treatments, you need to be proactive and learn about them yourself. I'm not saying that vitamin D is a miracle cure.