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The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

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Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#161

Post by jgalt212 »

NoPie wrote: post #56
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…

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…

> Equally we have many studies showing that vitamin D helps to reduce risk from covid (hint: it doesn't).

How so?

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#162

Post by ZeroGravitas »

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…

More info on these corporate propagandists for hire:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Institute_of_Economic_Affairs

> Naturally, it is supportive of tobacco companies, given that they have been quite charitable to the institute. (This includes funding some of Roger Scruton's pro-tobacco publications.)[25] Being that it received funding from BP oil, it is no wonder that it also engaged in climate denialism: in 2019 The Guardian said the IEA had "published at least four books, as well as multiple articles and papers, over two decades suggesting manmade climate change may be uncertain or exaggerated".[26][27]

> t complained to media regulator Ofcom when radio presenter James O'Brien (hardly a Marxist firebrand) characterised it as a "hard-right lobby group for vested interests of big business, fossil fuels, tobacco, junk food" in 2019.[1] He also called an IEA spokesperson "some Herbert" and stated the IEA was of "questionable provenance, with dubious ideas and validity" and funded by "dark money". Ofcom judged that nothing O'Brien said was a distortion of the facts, and he had offered them a right of reply; the IEA's complaint was rejected.[28]

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#163

Post by akimball »

Fomite wrote: post #155

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." T…

It is very actionable: Give nicotine to patients. No smoking required.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#164

Post by jumanjijumanji »

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…

> But duration is very difficult to reduce, because of the way the learning process of the immune system works. There's a bunch of sequential processes that occur sequentially.

I'm genuinely very curious for more detail about this. Can you describe what some of the processes are (or better, where I can go to learn about it)?

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#165

Post by srj »

There are random bits of correlation everywhere and investigating whether there's an underlying causative reason is laborious. It's no surprise then that not every one gets looked at, and people pick what is most likely to yield an interesting result.

In this case IMO it'd be quite surprising if smoking actually impeded any virus. I don't think it's a conspiracy that this isn't getting attention.

Other commenters have listed some possible confounding variables here, but the first one that popped into my mind is that people who know they have a higher risk from past smoking are more likely to be cautious and not get exposed. This is true for one of my relatives with COPD who was very careful to not get it before vaccines were available.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#166

Post by [deleted] »

akimball wrote: post #163
Fomite wrote: post #155

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." T…

It is very actionable: Give nicotine to patients. No smoking required.

[deleted]

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#167

Post by jumanjijumanji »

Alex3917 wrote: post #67
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…

> Equally we have many studies showing that vitamin D helps to reduce risk from covid (hint: it doesn't). But we know the reason for this; in order to get the circulatory and anti-viral benefits of vitamin D, you need to be exposed to a sufficient amount of UVA. But most folks who are getting a sufficient amount of UVA are also getting enough UVB to make enough vitamin D in the first place, which is what always cause…

I'm sure I'm just misunderstanding, but I don't follow the explanation. What do UVA and UVB have to do with this, and why does that lead to weird results?

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#168

Post by RajT88 »

akimball wrote: post #163
Fomite wrote: post #155

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." T…

It is very actionable: Give nicotine to patients. No smoking required.

Yes. That is also a terrible idea. Worse than off-brand uses of other medications, because it is addictive on top of being unproven.

Re: The great Covid and smoking cover-up?

#169

Post by akimball »

WhackyIdeas wrote: post #149
ipaddr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they would have been right.

It seems controversial even saying this, and a bit absurd… But I am a heavy smoker and have somehow managed to dodge Covid so far. It is probably coincidence, but I would love it to be studied into more no matter how inconvenient it may be…

I'm a non-smoker but use nicotine daily. My mother (nicotine free) died of COVID, but I have never had it. But we are mere anecdotes, and prove nothing.
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