I'll take my chances with the corona. Don't want SSRI
I agree. I lost a lot of weight and have done a lot of cardio work as well for the past 11 months. I'll take my chances with the big 'rona.
Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19
31–40 of 247 posts
Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
16% > 11% represents a 31% decrease in the absolute number of hospitalizations. That's nearly a ONE THIRD improvement in the hospitalization rate. In places where hospitals are at or near capacity, that would make a huge difference. Or were you trying to make a statement about the statistical validity of the result, because the outcomes differ by 5%? Because that's not how statistics work. A well constructed study of…
N = 1500 One sample had 79-86 out of 750 hospitalized, and the other had 117-123 out of 750. Does that seem sufficient to demonstrate statistical significance? Edit: found the actual numbers in the study 79 [11%] of 741 vs 119 [16%] of 756
I ran it through an AB test significance calculator using the upper bound for each.
p value was 0.9972 and the power was 92.40% it's a significant result.
"Variant B’s conversion rate (11.47%) was 30.08% lower than variant A’s conversion rate (16.40%). You can be 99% confident that variant B will perform worse than variant A."
Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
N = 1500 One sample had 79-86 out of 750 hospitalized, and the other had 117-123 out of 750. Does that seem sufficient to demonstrate statistical significance? Edit: found the actual numbers in the study 79 [11%] of 741 vs 119 [16%] of 756
I ran it through an AB test significance calculator using the upper bound for each. p value was 0.9972 and the power was 92.40% it's a significant result. "Variant B’s conversion rate (11.47%) was 30.08% lower than variant A’s conversion rate (16.40%). You can be 99% confident that variant B will perform worse than variant A."
> When the DSMC met on Aug 5, 2021, it recommended that the TOGETHER trial stop randomly assigning patients to the fluvoxamine group, as this comparison had met the prespecified superiority criterion for the primary endpoint (prespecified superiority threshold 97·6%).
That seems problematic. Did they stop the study because they had achieved statistical significance?
Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The results, published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Global Health, were so strong that independent experts monitoring the study recommended stopping it early because the results were clear.
> When the DSMC met on Aug 5, 2021, it recommended that the TOGETHER trial stop randomly assigning patients to the fluvoxamine group, as this comparison had met the prespecified superiority criterion for the primary endpoint (prespecified superiority threshold 97·6%). This... is not how it's supposed to work.
Perhaps they were more interested in saving people's lives than waiting for the trial to conclude... I mean the downside is people are less depressed while on a ventilator.
Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The results, published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Global Health, were so strong that independent experts monitoring the study recommended stopping it early because the results were clear.
This sounds suspiciously vague. What experts? How did they become involved? Did they stop it because the study proved an effect, or because it was clearly not designed to be able to prove an effect?
How does your ad hominem questioning of their expertise / how they became involved invalidate the results?
The study reached its statistical significance goal, and thus the study was ended as it would be immoral beyond that point to continue to give people placebos when they knew the drug was working. I'd suggest reading up on the Tuskegee syphilis study for the ethics behind why studies are ended early once treatments have been statistically validated.
Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19
#36> In the group that took the drug, 11% needed hospitalization or an extended ER stay, compared to 16% of those on dummy pills. Is that really promising? Very close to margin of error if not within.
16% > 11% represents a 31% decrease in the absolute number of hospitalizations. That's nearly a ONE THIRD improvement in the hospitalization rate. In places where hospitals are at or near capacity, that would make a huge difference. Or were you trying to make a statement about the statistical validity of the result, because the outcomes differ by 5%? Because that's not how statistics work. A well constructed study of…
Intro to stats says that studies are very difficult and that bias is everywhere. Reinforces how stats can be whatever you want them to be.
Larger Number of people in the sample is a good start. However, bias is also a human element. Therefore you need that study reproduced independently, multiple times.
Researchers don't like this because studies are expensive and hard, and their boss is telling them to publish and get funding. The system is broken.
Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19
#37I wonder what rate of adverse effects will be considered acceptable for a drug administered to people known to have the virus? For vaccines, our tolerance seems very low. I suspect we don’t actually think prevention is better than a cure.
It would depend greatly on their age, I would posit for that those over 65, any drug that killed less than 10% of the people who took it would be acceptable.
Vaccines are part of a broader political debate, the problem in politics is people are picking sides. It's very rare to run into a person who doesn't support the vaccine mandates but did get vaccinated. People are generally either anti-vax & anti-mandate, or vaccinated and pro-mandates.
The antivax crowd uses the same persuasion techniques to discourage vaccination that media uses to convince young people that COVID poses any risk of mortality to those under 17. That is to say one or two extremely rare outcomes are trumpeted loudly in order to convince society at large of the danger that is virtually non-existent.
Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When the DSMC met on Aug 5, 2021, it recommended that the TOGETHER trial stop randomly assigning patients to the fluvoxamine group, as this comparison had met the prespecified superiority criterion for the primary endpoint (prespecified superiority threshold 97·6%). This... is not how it's supposed to work.
Perhaps they were more interested in saving people's lives than waiting for the trial to conclude... I mean the downside is people are less depressed while on a ventilator.
No. It's called p-hacking, and it's a sleazy way to get published.
Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19
#39Re: Cheap antidepressant shows promise treating early Covid-19
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I ran it through an AB test significance calculator using the upper bound for each. p value was 0.9972 and the power was 92.40% it's a significant result. "Variant B’s conversion rate (11.47%) was 30.08% lower than variant A’s conversion rate (16.40%). You can be 99% confident that variant B will perform worse than variant A."
> When the DSMC met on Aug 5, 2021, it recommended that the TOGETHER trial stop randomly assigning patients to the fluvoxamine group, as this comparison had met the prespecified superiority criterion for the primary endpoint (prespecified superiority threshold 97·6%). That seems problematic. Did they stop the study because they had achieved statistical significance?
Another issue is that they were testing multiple drugs, none of which had a statistically significant effect. Classic p hacking.