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The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

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Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#151

Post by jmull »

orangecat wrote: post #123
jmull wrote: post #76

On the balance, aren't the risks still heavily against smoking? So what's the point of promoting one benefit of smoking when you still want to advise everyone to stop or never start smoking? This article suggests a coverup, but as the author points out, there's no shortage of science showing that smoking is associated with a lower chance of getting Covid. The author is really complaining about the interpretations and…

On the balance, aren't the risks still heavily against smoking? Yes. So what's the point of promoting one benefit of smoking when you still want to advise everyone to stop or never start smoking? The first point is honesty, and that should be sufficient on its own. But even ignoring that, the obvious next step is to figure out the mechanism by which smoking inhibits Covid, which may lead to better vaccines or treatme…

> ...honesty...

I agree honesty is good. But the author published an article "Smoke [cigarettes], save lives", which leads with a fat lie, so we're not getting it here.

> ...the obvious next step is to figure out the mechanism by which smoking inhibits Covid...

Of course. But that's separate from the media the author is complaining about.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#152

Post by Izkata »

notahacker wrote: post #116
josefresco wrote: post #8

I immediately check out whenever someone says "Google it and see what comes up" as "evidence" proving some conspiracy. Also, this is weird hill to die on. This dude has amassed a mega-blog post with a ton of aggregated studies - it's not a small amount of work. Anecdotally my only family member who regularly smokes just got COVID.

The author has spent his entire career attacking anti-smoking campaigns both as an author and the reason why the Institute for Economic Affairs was Big Tobacco's favourite think tank, so assembling this sort of list of "evidence" is par for the course for him. Back in the day when "long COVID" was an unknown phenomenon and vaccines a dim and distant dream, the medical profession had already spotted the interesting co…

> Back in the day when "long COVID" was an unknown phenomenon

It's rebranded post-viral syndrome/fatigue, there's nothing new about it.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#153

Post by lstodd »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #14

Author compiled a lot of studies on his web log: https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2021/08/smoking-and... The studies do appear to show that smoking cigarettes is correlated with a lower probability of getting the Covid, for a lot of different definitions of "getting the Covid." They also appear to be, by eyeball aggregate, inconclusive as to whether the risk of dying from the Covid is higher or lower for smok…

One doesn't actually need to smoke cigarettes -- mixing my own vape juice (no flavours, tuned pg/vg and nicotine levels no one dictates) works just fine.

Edit: in any case rolling tobacco is way better than any cigarette one can buy (not to mention 36mg Indonesian killsticks)

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#154

Post by nvrspyx »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #73
gopalv wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The studies do appear to show that smoking cigarettes is correlated with a lower probability of getting the Covid The problem is that non-smokers is not a single category of people, so the confounding factor for the correlation is "why X does not smoke". For example, if you had a study which compared moderate drinkers to non-drinkers, but not carve out "cannot drink due to other medication" from the second group, y…

There is no such thing as a confounding factor for a correlation. It only matters for causality. I will continue to maintain that, given this evidence amidst the existing evidence that smoking is not good for you, you should not start smoking for reasons related to health risks from the Covid.

> There is no such thing as a confounding factor for a correlation.

Sure there is.

As an example, let's say there's a positive correlation between the dose of some antidepressant and the probability of suicide. There could be a confounding variable with respect to the severity of depression in those samples such that people with more severe depression are more likely to take larger doses and more likely to commit suicide. The original correlation may not necessarily be between the dose of the antidepressant and the probability of suicide, but rather the severity of the depression and the probability of suicide. In other words, the correlation could be a correlation of the wrong thing because you didn't control for depression severity.

It does not matter only for causality, but also for correlation. In both cases, it's important to control for confounding variables so that you're measuring and analyzing the actual variable(s) that you're trying to, not some other variable(s) (i.e., confounding) indirectly. Otherwise, it may no longer be a relationship, whether causal or correlative, of the thing you think it is, but of some other thing.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#155

Post by Fomite »

I don't think this has been particularly ignored - in epidemiology circles, the reaction, by and large was "Huh. That's weird - I wonder why that is?"

But it's also not particularly actionable. In terms of a modifiable intervention, "Quick, everyone take up smoking!" is a horrible idea, so it remains in the domain of "A scientific curiosity, and a rare 'W' for one of the worst voluntary health risks one can have."

That's not a cover up.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#156

Post by johnnymorgan »

jiggawatts wrote: post #119
NoPie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equally we have many studies showing that vitamin D helps to reduce risk from covid (hint: it doesn't). More studies show that ivermectin has a positive effect in covid patients. In fact, ivermectin has no effect or has only a very weak effect in certain patients. In medicine observational studies suffer from certain problems that are hard to overcome. The biggest is that the groups are not equal. For example, smoker…

It’s easy to be confidently wrong with statistics. Ivermectin improves outcomes in a hospital setting… but only in developing nations. There’s two confounding effects there! One, you have to be sick enough to be treated in hospital and two, living in a place with high levels of endemic parasite infections. Ivermectin treats parasites. Parasites are helped by the steroids given for severe infections. Treating the para…

Have we seen studies from India, Peru and a few other countries, japan as well I believe, on ivermectin?

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#157

Post by a1369209993 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #119
NoPie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equally we have many studies showing that vitamin D helps to reduce risk from covid (hint: it doesn't). More studies show that ivermectin has a positive effect in covid patients. In fact, ivermectin has no effect or has only a very weak effect in certain patients. In medicine observational studies suffer from certain problems that are hard to overcome. The biggest is that the groups are not equal. For example, smoker…

It’s easy to be confidently wrong with statistics. Ivermectin improves outcomes in a hospital setting… but only in developing nations. There’s two confounding effects there! One, you have to be sick enough to be treated in hospital and two, living in a place with high levels of endemic parasite infections. Ivermectin treats parasites. Parasites are helped by the steroids given for severe infections. Treating the para…

> Tamiflu reduces symptom severity but not duration. So apparently it's "worthless", because it improves only outcomes that aren't measured.

To be fair, that's not really "being confidently wrong with statistics" so much as "being confidently wrong by ignoring all of the statistics that are inconvenient to collect".

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#158

Post by 2devnull »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #14

Author compiled a lot of studies on his web log: https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2021/08/smoking-and... The studies do appear to show that smoking cigarettes is correlated with a lower probability of getting the Covid, for a lot of different definitions of "getting the Covid." They also appear to be, by eyeball aggregate, inconclusive as to whether the risk of dying from the Covid is higher or lower for smok…

People just stand farther away from smokers, even outdoors. Because smokers stink. And if your having trouble breathing cause of the Covid, you will go to even greater lengths to not get close to smokers.

But also, people with chronic respiratory problems, ie pretty much all smokers, you won’t notice you have mild Covid. Everyday of being a smoker is like having mild Covid, so less likely to get tested etc.

Lastly smokers are on average lower IQ, lower SES, etc. very hard to control for that health research. I think we do know that lower SES communities were less likely to seek health care including vaccines and testing.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#160

Post by hooverd »

nradov wrote: post #74
NoPie wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equally we have many studies showing that vitamin D helps to reduce risk from covid (hint: it doesn't). More studies show that ivermectin has a positive effect in covid patients. In fact, ivermectin has no effect or has only a very weak effect in certain patients. In medicine observational studies suffer from certain problems that are hard to overcome. The biggest is that the groups are not equal. For example, smoker…

We have many studies showing that hypovitaminosis D is correlated with the risk of severe COVID-19 symptoms. What's not clear is whether there is a direct causative relationship, or if higher blood vitamin D levels are just a proxy for other generally healthy lifestyle factors. Some studies have shown a protective effect from vitamin D supplementation and others have not. The general flaw in most of those studies has…

I wonder if people with higher vitamin D levels are more likely to touch grass. It's good for your immune system to go outside.
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