Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

French Scientist Didier Raoult Given Rusty Razor Award For Pseudoscience

skeptic.org.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 74 posts

Re: French Scientist Didier Raoult Given Rusty Razor Award For Pseudoscience

#61

Post by polka_haunts_us »

rich_sasha wrote: post #41
dmix wrote: post #30

Technically the Chinese Wuhan Institute was first to recommended hydroxychloroquine as a possible solution (among at least one other drug) months before this guy and the politicians ever published anything about it. There was also a small town US doctor who claimed anecdotal success among his hundreds of clients who was highly influential very early on. And tons of other speculative ‘experts’ talking about it on YouT…

I spoke to a senior academic in respiratory disease, and also a practicing doctor, from a top UK university. He was absolutely convinced that HCQ helps in moderate Covid cases, with near-immediately observable effects. Thia still puzzles me, presumably he understands things like placebo effect and double-blind studies intuitively, and yet studies show no improvement. On a similar note, the WHO recommendation against…

I think the core issue is that the real answer science has had for months to most of these questions is "We don't know yet, we need some time to find out", and for many people living in a global pandemic that answer simply wasn't good enough.

Re: French Scientist Didier Raoult Given Rusty Razor Award For Pseudoscience

#62

Post by me_me_me »

_Wintermute wrote: post #11

As an actual pharmacologist I find it fascinating how the general public has suddenly taken such a poorly informed interest in drug discovery. For the HN audience it would be like people taking an almost tribal approach to go-lang vs rust, debating it on national television, without any of them knowing what a loop is.

> debating it on national television, without any of them knowing what a loop is.

That's a great analogy, a perfect to pickup my mood for a Friday :D

Re: French Scientist Didier Raoult Given Rusty Razor Award For Pseudoscience

#63

Post by GuB-42 »

ekianjo wrote: post #53
hyper_reality wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fed up of people repeating this over-simplified putdown of WHO on HN. The advice about masks was on their website on March 2020 largely because they were worried about mass public buying of masks, leaving a shortage for frontline medical workers ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-who/ma... ). The guidance was updated as more evidence came in and production of masks scaled up. This should not…

> The advice about masks was on their website on March 2020 largely because they were worried about mass public buying of masks, That did not change the fact that they lied and misled the public and killed people.

They didn't lie. They always stop short of saying that masks don't work. They said that it is not a substitute for distancing (true), that health workers should be prioritized (true), that masks don't provide the expected level of protection when not properly fit (true), etc...

It is a bit misleading, sure, but no lies, they let secondary sources lie for them. So about misleading the public, I think we can say it is the case.

Now about "killing people". Did they kill or did they save people? Remember that people fought about toilet paper, even though there was no real shortage and it is just a comfort item (protip: you can wash your ass in the shower).

With masks, there was a real shortage, and it is an essential item for health care workers. We couldn't let nobodies stockpile hundreds of masks while people who are supposed to treat you get sick. That would really have killed people. And despite downplaying the importance of masks, is was still a mess.

I know a pharmacist who got tasked with supplying masks to health care workers who had masks "disappear" in transit, and health care didn't get their masks. Herself should have got N95 masks, but she didn't, instead only having surgical masks, and she had to keep them longer than recommended. She also had to deal with hysterical customers who "needed a mask" for no good reason. And it was as the importance of masks was downplayed. I don't want to imagine what would have happened if it wasn't.

Re: French Scientist Didier Raoult Given Rusty Razor Award For Pseudoscience

#64

Post by dang »

singemonkey wrote: post #6
rq1 wrote: post #5

Didier Raoult is one of the brightest scientists in the world. Period. There’s no “major” flaw in his studies as people keep repeating. He was studying viral load in patients and excluded those who were in ICU because they did not have enough virus left. Thus suggesting his cocktail as an early treatment. There is indeed pseudoscientists and corrupt ones who published the famous now but ridiculous study in “the lance…

I genuinely feel sorry for you. I have no idea what it's like to be so disconnected from reality, but I hope you find your way back one day. (Downvotes = proof I am right. Period)

We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines.

Please don't create accounts to do that with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: French Scientist Didier Raoult Given Rusty Razor Award For Pseudoscience

#65

Post by polotics »

fbr wrote: post #50
leftyted wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this makes his research "pseudoscience".

> Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence Can we claim that we have some evidence based on a sample of 6 people?

Yes you can! At least with russian roulette!

Re: French Scientist Didier Raoult Given Rusty Razor Award For Pseudoscience

#66

Post by ebalit »

GuB-42 wrote: post #63
ekianjo wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The advice about masks was on their website on March 2020 largely because they were worried about mass public buying of masks, That did not change the fact that they lied and misled the public and killed people.

They didn't lie. They always stop short of saying that masks don't work. They said that it is not a substitute for distancing (true), that health workers should be prioritized (true), that masks don't provide the expected level of protection when not properly fit (true), etc... It is a bit misleading, sure, but no lies, they let secondary sources lie for them. So about misleading the public, I think we can say it is…

Saying they didn't lie but that they misled the public is really nitpicky. They betrayed the trust that people had in their opinion. Maybe it was worth it to manipulate people "for their own good" but I doubt it.

Re: French Scientist Didier Raoult Given Rusty Razor Award For Pseudoscience

#67

Post by s1artibartfast »

helen___keller wrote: post #18
_Wintermute wrote: post #11

As an actual pharmacologist I find it fascinating how the general public has suddenly taken such a poorly informed interest in drug discovery. For the HN audience it would be like people taking an almost tribal approach to go-lang vs rust, debating it on national television, without any of them knowing what a loop is.

My mother-in-law is an architect by training but she was convinced (by youtube) that she ought to have some HCQ so she had family members ship us some. She's even suggested out of the blue that she should start taking it as a preventative for no particular except that she read amazon workers have been contracting covid and we get a lot of amazon packages. When we told her that's not a good idea she felt compelled to…

I think the MSM weighing in and taking a position was exactly the problem. The question of HCQ efficacy would have been solved much faster without it being politicized..

The actual story of HCQ is pretty boring. It was a plausible treatment with a mixed bag of weak evidence for and against efficacy. It is not particularly dangerous.

Trump oversold and lied about the benefits. The MSM lied about the data against and the risks.

In such an environment, it's not surprising people take sides and dig in.

Re: French Scientist Didier Raoult Given Rusty Razor Award For Pseudoscience

#69

Post by finndark »

fbr wrote: post #50
leftyted wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this makes his research "pseudoscience".

> Science is the pursuit and application of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world following a systematic methodology based on evidence Can we claim that we have some evidence based on a sample of 6 people?

Sometimes. It depends on what you are observing and what the question is. E.g., if I'm in a room with others and see 6 people apparently fall over dead, then I will leave the room. Afterwards, if questioned, I will submit my observations as "evidence" that I was right to leave immediately.

Re: French Scientist Didier Raoult Given Rusty Razor Award For Pseudoscience

#70

Post by finndark »

DanBC wrote: post #7
tomohawk wrote: post #3

This is really counter productive and snarky. How does this advance science? There have been multiple studies on this, and it has been a mixed bag. This one is positive: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32418114/ There are others that are positive, and still others that are negative.

This award isn't about those other studies, it's about his choice to over-egg his research. > Subsequent analysis of Raoult’s data found that his sample size was incredibly small, with only 6 patients given the hydroxychloroquine/azithromycin combination. The study was also found to be improperly controlled, and data was excluded for a number of patients whose condition worsened as they were either transferred to int…

DanBC says >"His not very good research caused huge amounts of interest in hydroxychloroquine and distracted attention from other, far more beneficial, treatment[s]."

And what, pray tell, were those "other, far more beneficial, treatment[s]."

Post reply on HN