Hydroxychloroquine rated ‘most effective therapy’ by doctors for coronavirus:

[HarryStotle]

Really? Is this how you justify slumming around on the dark web?

The entire world is a “dark” place and has been since Adam and Eve. We may as well say we are all “slumming” in this dark world. We just can’t avoid that, somehow.

However…

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." (John 1:5)

The fact that there is some darkness on the “web” does not mean it is all dark. See my Post #167.

Are those sites all part of the “dark web” in your estimation?

A reminder: You still haven’t addressed the issue of what the good doctor himself has raised. Why not?

Also: Thank you for your service in warning of the pitfalls of the Internet, but that shouldn’t take the place of considering the doctor may be on to something.

This is still about hydroxychloroquine, isn’t it? The mere mention of it set you off, right?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Then cite from a respectable source what Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell says.

The video I provided is him speaking in person. Did you miss that in your exuberance to debunk the article?

When you start with one really disreputable source, I don’t feel compelled to look at all the other ones.
But now I will…(pause, pause…)
OK, I watched the video. I didn’t find anything wrong with it. He is not the only doctor who is questioning the characterization of Covid-19 as an ARDS disease.
…However…
This video says nothing about the effectiveness of HCQ in treating Covid-19. And that was the only thing I was complaining about.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

LeafByNiggle:

Then cite from a respectable source what Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell says.

The video I provided is him speaking in person. Did you miss that in your exuberance to debunk the article?

When you start with one really disreputable source, I don’t feel compelled to look at all the other ones.

Another excuse.

I started with the “disreputable” source because I thought it was a particularly clear and more complete explanation of what Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell was getting at than he detailed in the video. But, of course, feel free to impugn my motives further if you like.

Perhaps you could go back and actually read the article to see if it is a clear and plausible explanation of the science? (Tell the truth: It was the Trump reference at the beginning that set you off, wasn’t it?)

I didn’t realize clarity of science had to pass your test for “reputability” before it could be read and assessed on its own merits.

Besides, the post wasn’t a reply to you, it was intended for anyone, with an interest, to read it and think about it.

But good on you for playing the role of hall monitor (or school marm) to make sure no one is reading stuff in this thread that they shouldn’t, for no particular scientific reason, just that you judge it to be from a “disreputable” source.

Good to see censorship is living and active and working to assure that science only comes from “reputable” sources, whether or not the science happens to be true — which, of course, is only a secondary consideration as to whether or not it is “reputable.”

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

HarryStotle:

LeafByNiggle:

Then cite from a respectable source what Dr. Cameron Kyle-Sidell says.

The video I provided is him speaking in person. Did you miss that in your exuberance to debunk the article?

When you start with one really disreputable source, I don’t feel compelled to look at all the other ones.
But, of course, feel free to impugn my motives further if you like.

Another excuse.

And as I said, I went on to watch the video too.

Perhaps you could go back and actually read the article to see if it is a clear and plausible explanation of the science? (Tell the truth: It was the Trump reference at the beginning that set you off, wasn’t it?)

Talk about impugning motives…

I didn’t realize clarity of science had to pass your test for “reputability” before it could be read and assessed on its own merits.

Well, I hope you realize it now.

Besides, the post wasn’t a reply to you, it was intended for anyone, with an interest, to read it and think about it.

And my post wasn’t just for you, but for any other reader who might have missed the fact that disreputable source was being cited as if it were reputable. We all need to learn how to vet information in this age of disinformation overload.

But good on you for playing the role of hall monitor (or school marm) to make sure no one is reading stuff in this thread that they shouldn’t, for no particular scientific reason, just that you judge it to be from a “disreputable” source.

Thank you.

Good to see censorship is living and active…

Warning people about the reliability of sources and teaching how to vet information is not censorship.

 

[HarryStotle]

Warning people about the reliability of sources and teaching how to vet information is not censorship.

When “vetting” information amounts to vetting it based mostly or entirely on political affiliation or perspective, yes it begins to encroach on censorship — depending upon the power of the political side to control the information.

One sign that censorship is occurring is when the completeness of information becomes tainted or restricted by political persuasion.

You keep declaring “right-wing” sources to be “unreliable.” How is that not a clear sign that your politics are influencing what source you think is reliable or not?

 

[HarryStotle]

This video says nothing about the effectiveness of HCQ in treating Covid-19. And that was the only thing I was complaining about.

Right, which is the reason why I cited the article. It does explain in a reasonable way why — if Dr Kyle-Sidell is correct about ARDS — HCQ might be effective.

How does chloroquine work? Same way as it does for malaria. You see, malaria is this little parasite that enters the red blood cells and starts eating hemoglobin as its food source. The reason chloroquine works for malaria is the same reason it works for COVID-19 — while not fully understood, it is suspected to bind to DNA and interfere with the ability to work magic on hemoglobin. The same mechanism that stops malaria from getting its hands on hemoglobin and gobbling it up seems to do the same to COVID-19 (essentially little snippets of DNA in an envelope) from binding to it. On top of that, Hydroxychloroquine (an advanced descendant of regular old chloroquine) lowers the pH which can interfere with the replication of the virus. Again, while the full details are not known, the entire premise of this potentially ‘game changing’ treatment is to prevent hemoglobin from being interfered with, whether due to malaria or COVID-19.

So we are back to the question — irrespective of the “reputability” of the article — of whether the point made is correct and good science.

The way to resolve that question is not to point at the “disreputability” of the article, but to demonstrate whether the point made above is correct or not.

Do you have anything to show whether or not THAT particular point is true of false based on science?

Certainly, it can only be resolved with science — and not by pointing at the disreputability of the messenger — so your engagement at the level of genetic fallacy thinking means your illusive point about the source has been one giant irrelevant detour away from that question — which remains a valid scientific possibility, and which cannot possibly be resolved by skirting around it entirely because one’s political sensitivities have been triggered.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Warning people about the reliability of sources and teaching how to vet information is not censorship.

When “vetting” information amounts to vetting it based mostly or entirely on political affiliation or perspective…

Nope. Not doing that. As I have said before, there are publications on the far left that I dismiss just as fast as publications on the far right. What counts is not the party of the paper’s owner, but the reputation for journalistic integrity. Some have it and some don’t. It has nothing to do with political ideology.

You keep declaring “right-wing” sources to be “unreliable.” How is that not a clear sign that your politics are influencing what source you think is reliable or not?

“Occupy Democrats” (the organization that sources so many memes on Facebook. Is very unreliable too.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Right, which is the reason why I cited the article. It does explain in a reasonable way why — if Dr Kyle-Sidell is correct about ARDS — HCQ might be effective.

Ah, but now you are asking me to draw a technical medical conclusion. One that is not shared by the majority of the medical profession.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

LeafByNiggle:

Warning people about the reliability of sources and teaching how to vet information is not censorship.

When “vetting” information amounts to vetting it based mostly or entirely on political affiliation or perspective…

Nope. Not doing that. As I have said before, there are publications on the far left that I dismiss just as fast as publications on the far right. What counts is not the party of the paper’s owner, but the reputation for journalistic integrity. Some have it and some don’t. It has nothing to do with political ideology.

You keep declaring “right-wing” sources to be “unreliable.” How is that not a clear sign that your politics are influencing what source you think is reliable or not?

“Occupy Democrats” (the organization that sources so many memes on Facebook. Is very unreliable too.

Yeah, I doubt that this restores your legitimacy. Just finding one “far left extremist site” isn’t sufficient to balance dismissal of all the right leaning sites. It also depends upon how “far” to the left or right you are willing to go before you dismiss presentative sites all together.

Besides that, it isn’t a question of right wing or left wing, it is a question of particular issues and what is the most reasonable position with regard to each of those. Some left wing sites might have a better perspective than some right wing sites on some issues and vice versa.

The truth about any one issue isn’t necessarily in the middle somewhere (or center left), as you suppose it might be. Some issues might have better solutions somewhere further to the left or to the right, so dividing analysis according to political leaning doesn’t help uncover what the truth is, it just polarizes things as left, right or center.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

Right, which is the reason why I cited the article. It does explain in a reasonable way why — if Dr Kyle-Sidell is correct about ARDS — HCQ might be effective.

Ah, but now you are asking me to draw a technical medical conclusion. One that is not shared by the majority of the medical profession.

Technically, I didn’t ask you to do anything except explain why you would dismiss an explanation based purely on “reputability” without even bothering to find out whether the science in the article could be true or not.

It was you who offered your inexpert opinion dismissing the article based on nothing but reputability — which has nothing to do with the science involved, just your preferred manner of resolving scientific questions by referring to “authority” without bothering to even try to understand the issues themselves.

Fine, if you want to operate under the rubric of “leave it to the experts.” I just think that is a dangerous way to operate overall because it assumes the experts will correct themselves. Perhaps they will, but at least in some fields the proclivity of the established perspective to reinforce its own advocates is a problem inbuilt into the system. Questioning the established “authorities,” especially by requiring that they provide even to lay observers why and how they can be trusted would seem to be a proper way of keeping them honest — in particular, when so much (for example, public policy) hangs on whether they are right or not.

Unfortunately, you seem very willing to go along with the experts WITHOUT even considering whether they can justify their position or not. We are to just trust them BECAUSE they are experts. Even having opinions for good reasons that might not align with the experts is something you find problematic, in principle.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Yeah, I doubt that this restores your legitimacy.

Face it. None of us have any legitimacy. If you had any, you lost a good chunk of it by citing libertymavenstock without even checking its reputation.

The truth about any one issue isn’t necessarily in the middle somewhere (or center left), as you suppose it might be.

No, I do not subscribe to the theory that if you take the far left and the far right political views and average them you get some semblance of the truth. It all comes down to only one thing: reputation for truthfulness. Sources that have had a long history of providing the truth with journalistic integrity are likely to be the ones that you can trust today.

Technically, I didn’t ask you to do anything except explain why you would dismiss an explanation based purely on “reputability” without even bothering to find out whether the science in the article could be true or not.

Because it is not worth my time.

Fine, if you want to operate under the rubric of “leave it to the experts.” I just think that is a dangerous way to operate overall because it assumes the experts will correct themselves.

I think it is much more dangerous for one to give credence to anything that sounds good to his non-professional ears.

If HCQ has got some better effectiveness than, say, Remdesivir or the combination of drugs including Remdesivir that was reported yesterday, then find a reputable source saying so. Dr. Fauci recently stated that various trials are underway for both these drugs. He did not go on to favor one over the other. He is a smart man, and I think it would be smart to take the same approach he is taking, which is to just see where the data leads us.

Just out of curiosity, could you please explain why you are so anxious to promote HCQ as the best current treatment, as opposed to one of several potential treatments?

 

[HarryStotle]

No, I do not subscribe to the theory that if you take the far left and the far right political views and average them you get some semblance of the truth. It all comes down to only one thing: reputation for truthfulness.

Nah, it all comes down to what is the truth. No need to rely on reputation — the plain, simple, unvarnished, verified truth. That’s it. No middlemen or women.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

Yeah, I doubt that this restores your legitimacy.

Face it. None of us have any legitimacy. If you had any, you lost a good chunk of it by citing libertymavenstock without even checking its reputation.

As if you focussing entirely on the reputation of someone explaining how a treatment might work instead of exploring whether the scientific explanation bears out proves your legitimacy.

You haven’t even attempted to look at whether what was claimed in the article might be true, your sole strategy is to disparage the source rather than address the science — and that fully on the grounds that you are incapable of addressing the science.

That kind of demonstrates that since you don’t have the capacity to address actual claims all you have left is to launch ad hominems and genetic fallacies at the messenger.

Well, okay, so we know that where an actual scientific or medical claim is in question we have no reason to think you will explain why it might or might not be correct, but we can count on you to discredit the source if it happens to offend your sense of political correctness.

In case anyone is interested…

Some validation for what was explained in the contentious article:

COVID-19:Attacks the 1-Beta Chain of Hemoglobin and Captures the Porphyrin to Inhibit Human Heme Metabolism | Biological and Medicinal Chemistry | ChemRxiv | Cambridge Open Engage

https://www.atsjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1164/rccm.202003-0817LE

COVID Clinical Discussion w/Cameron Kyle-Sidell: NYC ED/ICU doc in the trenches. #FOAMed | thinking critical care

Also, this was one of the original comments on the Medium site — before the article was removed — by a reader named Chad Roach, who I believe is a licensed physician, according to his profile.

Good summary, this Is a hypothesis I’ve been screaming on social media. | by Chad Roach | Medium

On the other hand, here is a long comment on the original article explaining why the science in the article doesn’t appear to bear out and why the Chemrxiv paper (cited above) might be in error.

Covid-19: Debunking the Hemoglobin Story | by Matthew Amdahl, MD, PhD | Medium

See Leaf, this provides both sides of the discussion to help us all understand the issue better.

Why is this important? CAF is not a medical site, but it is a discussion forum where points of view can be expressed and discussed.

We need to be more careful about what we count as information.

We need to be “more careful” about what we count as information by addressing the information NOT by merely going about discrediting sources.

If we are all going to take your approach that merely discrediting the source is sufficient to replace informed discussion, then let’s lobby to change the name of the forums from “discussion forums” to “forums for the discrediting of sources,” and be done with it.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

Just out of curiosity, could you please explain why you are so anxious to promote HCQ as the best current treatment, as opposed to one of several potential treatments?

I am not anxious to promote it, I just think it should have a fair chance at being tested instead of the left taking a political position to discredit it.

It is being test. It is not being discredited either. The only thing that is being discredited is unsubstantiated claims of effectiveness. In a few weeks those claims may be substantiated, and then you can go ahead and say so without complaint from me.

Even the attorney general has noticed a “jihad” against the drug on the part of the media.

“Even the attorney general”? You mean Trump’s own loyal defender? Imagine that.

Here is one doctor in Texas who is reporting a positive result…

In a rigorous study with controls? Or just his own impromptu uncontrolled test?

I just want to add one point here as to why political correctness or proclivity to “take sides” is counter-productive.

I deny that I am taking sides based on political proclivity. I simply oppose bad science.

On reading more of the criticism of HCQ, there are a number of physicians, doing ad hoc treatments, concluding that HCQ or chloroquine is triggering heart arrhythmia in patients being treated by them, yet the comment by Chad Roach is interesting because he notes arrhythmia being triggered by respiratory failure and hypoxemia, as the RESULT of the lack of oxygen.

That may be, but what is still missing is solid evidence of effectiveness. At present, it might be that there is more evidence for effectiveness in ad hoc trials for a cocktail including Remdesivir than there is for HCQ. But I’m not going to make a claim to that effect because then I would be engaging in bad science too. We will see, then we will know. I don’t care which drug works. I just hope something does works.

your sole strategy is to disparage the source rather than address the science — and that fully on the grounds that you are incapable of addressing the science.

Yup. You got that right. If the science is solid, it will appear in a more reliable source. I have very little confidence in claims that appear only in shady sources, and I do not as a rule waste my time with them.

launch ad hominems and genetic fallacies at the messenger.

It is a fallacy only if the message is something that can be verified. When the message relies on the truthfulness of the messenger, such as an opinion, it is not a fallacy.

Also, this was one of the original comments on the Medium site — before the article was removed

Why was it removed?

 

[HarryStotle]

“Even the attorney general”? You mean Trump’s own loyal defender? Imagine that.

Right, as if that isn’t a politically charged statement on your part.

Wasn’t Holder “Obama’s own loyal defender?”

Oh, yes he was (and still is).

https://twitter.com/x/status/1156765471854796800

Could you point to any comparable “fawning” over Trump by Barr?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

LeafByNiggle:

“Even the attorney general”? You mean Trump’s own loyal defender? Imagine that.

Right, as if that isn’t a politically charged statement on your part.

Wasn’t Holder “Obama’s own loyal defender?”

Oh, yes he was (and still is).

https://twitter.com/EricHolder/status/1156765471854796800?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1156765471854796800&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2F2020-election%2F2019%2F08%2F01%2Feric-holder-warns-2020-democrats-be-wary-of-attacking-the-obama-record%2F

Could you point to any comparable “fawning” over Trump by Barr?

I didn’t complain about Barr fawning over Trump. I complained about using his fawning as evidence that HCQ is unfairly treated in the media.

 

[HarryStotle]

Why was it removed?

Why are Twitter Accounts, Facebook Accounts, YouTube videos, etc., etc., of those deemed “right wing” unceremoniously terminated or restricted much of the time? Why are conservative and Republican speakers banned from college speaking engagements after protests against them?

The reason has more to do with the political climate and the proclivity of the left to shut down voices they don’t agree with, rather than give everyone a fair hearing to properly discuss alternative views by listening and presenting counter evidence.

You know, kind of like your approach to the issue ignore what is being stated because you won’t or can’t take up the discussion, then go directly to discrediting the source as your first option.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

LeafByNiggle:

“Even the attorney general”? You mean Trump’s own loyal defender? Imagine that.

Right, as if that isn’t a politically charged statement on your part.

Wasn’t Holder “Obama’s own loyal defender?”

Oh, yes he was (and still is).

https://twitter.com/EricHolder/status/1156765471854796800?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1156765471854796800&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.breitbart.com%2F2020-election%2F2019%2F08%2F01%2Feric-holder-warns-2020-democrats-be-wary-of-attacking-the-obama-record%2F

Could you point to any comparable “fawning” over Trump by Barr?

I didn’t complain about Barr fawning over Trump. I complained about using his fawning as evidence that HCQ is unfairly treated in the media.

I see. So politically objectionable when Trump or Barr do or say anything whatsoever to defend a conservative or originalist position on any political issue; but politically unobjectionable when Obama or Holder go beyond defending to “fawning.”

But, of course, you operate under no political pretensions.

 

[HarryStotle]

I have done more research on libertymavenstock. Definitely conspiracy theory guy.

Adam Schiff and Chuck Schumer are “conspiracy theory” guys who keep trying to push their latest conspiracy or collusion narratives — even when they have been thoroughly debunked — but for some reason only certain “conspiracies” register as conspiracies on your radar.

There wouldn’t be a political motive behind that, would there? Nah, I didn’t think so.

 

[Peaceable]

Arrhythmia risk is on the package label for hydroxychloroquine. So, it’s a known side effect of the medication. Not only that, it’s been a known risk for a long time. The question is is this risk outweighed by the potential benefit in covid patients, which is what is being studied.