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COVID Stupid

That's pretty funny. I do some niche research on liposomal delivery systems.🙂 Though as a translational researcher my goal is always and consistently to take it all back to the clinic, so kinda un-niche things. Truth be told there are well-regarded low impact factor journals. A good editor has full control over keeping junk away from reviewers. But predatory publishing has different priorities and what I think is going on is lack of prescreening can serve as a kind of cost reduction. Though I don't know how much the wear down reviewers. I do know that I got 4 or 5 review requests just this week...

The HCQ thing was a huge mess. Essentially, there's no incentive in double checking data source integrity. Surgisphere made up data, and the investigators wanted to be quick like most of us during COVID (hell, even I got a COVID kind of editorial in a very high impact journal). The original HCQ study on the other hand was more than just naïveté. There's a long article on that. I think that paper turned out to have not even been sent out to reviewers. And it only took a 5min read to see that they excluded all patients who went to the ICU on HCQ.



I feel like I know way more about Liposomal delivery systems… and especially their development and testing than anyone should just because I’m friends with this guy. He’s really quite into it and has made some very interesting contributions.

Don’t get me started about those early HCQ studies out of France. I have a number of rants pointing out how flawed the studies were. The first study was ex vivo which obviously means nothing. In the second, I distinctly remember the patients transferred to the ICU being excluded- certainly no problem doing that (sarcasm) As I recall they required two consecutive negative COVID tests to call a patient recovered. Except when you looked at the raw data there were patients positive-negative-negative-positive that they declared cured and patients who would be positive-negative-positive. Honestly it called more into question their COVID testing technique and test reliability than anything. And there were many, many other problems.

It’s amazing how many studies exist (including in peer reviewed studies) where the claims made by the authors are just not supported by the data.

And it’s not just Trump that was duped by Raoult. Many US states spent god knows how much money buying up HCQ inventory. Macron had a spectacle with him, personally visiting him to thank him. Then there were at least a couple countries that adopted HCQ as official treatment and prophylaxis.

There are so many lessons to be learned from COVID about how to and how not to handle a pandemic. I hope we (our government, govt agencies, medical authorities, etc) do.
 
I feel like I know way more about Liposomal delivery systems… and especially their development and testing than anyone should just because I’m friends with this guy. He’s really quite into it and has made some very interesting contributions.

Don’t get me started about those early HCQ studies out of France. I have a number of rants pointing out how flawed the studies were. The first study was ex vivo which obviously means nothing. In the second, I distinctly remember the patients transferred to the ICU being excluded- certainly no problem doing that (sarcasm) As I recall they required two consecutive negative COVID tests to call a patient recovered. Except when you looked at the raw data there were patients positive-negative-negative-positive that they declared cured and patients who would be positive-negative-positive. Honestly it called more into question their COVID testing technique and test reliability than anything. And there were many, many other problems.

It’s amazing how many studies exist (including in peer reviewed studies) where the claims made by the authors are just not supported by the data.

And it’s not just Trump that was duped by Raoult. Many US states spent god knows how much money buying up HCQ inventory. Macron had a spectacle with him, personally visiting him to thank him. Then there were at least a couple countries that adopted HCQ as official treatment and prophylaxis.

There are so many lessons to be learned from COVID about how to and how not to handle a pandemic. I hope we (our government, govt agencies, medical authorities, etc) do.
American politicians deciding that the advice of the medical community didn’t fit their agenda was a massive factor.

Post in thread 'COVID Stupid'
https://thesnug.space/threads/covid-stupid.79/post-6646

And China never came up with a vaccine as effective as the American mRNA ones, so they still have to rely on total lockdowns. Their politicians refused to buy foreign-made vaccines. More on that here:


The lesson should be to listen to the experts. Sadly, it’s a lesson that some politicians will never learn.
 
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@P___X

I’m curious what you make of this Boston University alleged “gain of function” COVID research.

The original article if you’re not aware came from the Daily Mail.

BU then refuted the claims:

Much of the MSM has mirrored BU’s claims without question. But their claims deserve some scrutiny.

The TLDR version is BU took the original wild type COVID-19 virus and gave it to 10 mice, killing 100%. They then took wild type virus and changed its spike protein to the omicron’s, creating a chimeric virus. 80% of the mice this new chimeric virus died, which is more deadly than the original omicron stain.

BU claims the study created a less dangerous variant and that this was not gain of function. The counterpoint to that is that the chimeric virus, while slightly less fatal, is more transmissible, thus in effect could be more dangerous and thus the virus has gained functionality. Keep in mind all these mice were intentionally infected.

(Most experts however seem to agree that this virus wouldn’t have posed significant risk to the public if released given the circumstances)

BU claims the research was approved by the Boston Public Health Commission… but it was approved in March 2020 well before omicron existed. So I’m not sure how whatever approval they obtained was relevant to the study they executed.

BU claims they did not directly receive NIH funding and therefore we’re not subject to oversight. Also because they don’t consider their research GoF. There is some argument as to whether or not NIH funds were directly used or not and whether reporting was required. This is being investigated.

I’m not opposed to gain of function research, but it definitely seems like there’s a tremendous amount of confusion and lack of oversight. Given the risks involved, there should be a very thorough approval and monitoring process- not to mention clear definitions as to what gain of function is or is not. It seems to me if you take a very deadly virus and mix it with a very transmissible virus, there is potential for GoF and should be considered as such.

If nothing else this highlights a severe lack of communication and understanding, not to mention disorganization, between researchers and the government and the public. And this needs to be sorted out.
 
@P___X

I’m curious what you make of this Boston University alleged “gain of function” COVID research.

The original article if you’re not aware came from the Daily Mail.

BU then refuted the claims:

Much of the MSM has mirrored BU’s claims without question. But their claims deserve some scrutiny.

The TLDR version is BU took the original wild type COVID-19 virus and gave it to 10 mice, killing 100%. They then took wild type virus and changed its spike protein to the omicron’s, creating a chimeric virus. 80% of the mice this new chimeric virus died, which is more deadly than the original omicron stain.

BU claims the study created a less dangerous variant and that this was not gain of function. The counterpoint to that is that the chimeric virus, while slightly less fatal, is more transmissible, thus in effect could be more dangerous and thus the virus has gained functionality. Keep in mind all these mice were intentionally infected.

(Most experts however seem to agree that this virus wouldn’t have posed significant risk to the public if released given the circumstances)

BU claims the research was approved by the Boston Public Health Commission… but it was approved in March 2020 well before omicron existed. So I’m not sure how whatever approval they obtained was relevant to the study they executed.

BU claims they did not directly receive NIH funding and therefore we’re not subject to oversight. Also because they don’t consider their research GoF. There is some argument as to whether or not NIH funds were directly used or not and whether reporting was required. This is being investigated.

I’m not opposed to gain of function research, but it definitely seems like there’s a tremendous amount of confusion and lack of oversight. Given the risks involved, there should be a very thorough approval and monitoring process- not to mention clear definitions as to what gain of function is or is not. It seems to me if you take a very deadly virus and mix it with a very transmissible virus, there is potential for GoF and should be considered as such.

If nothing else this highlights a severe lack of communication and understanding, not to mention disorganization, between researchers and the government and the public. And this needs to be sorted out.
What is MSM, a source that publishes primary facts, and non-MSM publish alternative facts? Is the Daily Mail not MSM these days, because when it was about bashing Trump it was considered MSM.

Which really takes me to one specific issue: the topic has been plagued by politicization and politicians like Trump, Paul, Jordan did a lot of damage to the discourse without any added value.

1) I still don't know (or really care about) what "gain-of-function" research is. When you're dealing with pathogens with as low replicational fidelity as viruses, anything can lead to the new mutants gaining new functions (though this is statistically much much less likely than loss-of-function from random mutations). You can achieve gain-of-function when you use animal models, etc. So the definition really matters, and I personally lack the expertise (or the interest to train myself) on the topic as it takes much much more than listening to dishonest arguments by an ophthalmologist or a wrestling coach.

2) I'm still baffled how people find it acceptable that Republicans can refute human-induced climate change despite piling evidence while embrace the lab-virus hypothesis with very little evidence. They have a clear double standard there.

3) Trying to imply something nefarious ongoing because they got an approval for their research in 2020 is along the lines of saying you're up to no good because your license was approved in 2020 and you're driving a 2022 car model.

4) NIH funding. Sure it should be scrutinized but even that is not super cut and dry when there can be non-expendable equipment (let's say a microscope) that could have been used that was previously purchased using NIH funding. There are regulatory people for a reason. This isn't straight forward.

5) I looked at the manuscript and the research question appears valid and relevant. Such recombination event may happen in the real world (if wildtype virus did not completely go extinct)

Lastly, the best indicator of how much to trust a media source on this is how definite the statements they make or quote on the topic. Too definite in my perspective.
 
This kind of qualifies as overall stupid, as well as covid stupid.



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I’m thinking about the possibility of a GOP-led House. They will probably waste 2 years “investigating” every far right conspiracy theory out there. Get used to a steady litany of the same type of BS seen above.
There's this bias I criticized AG for in the past. Republicans have a adopted a "reverse scientific approach" to hypotheses. Republicans amplify rumors at a high rate and position their communication so they are to be judged by the few of these that turn out to be even partially true, while their audience ignores all the stuff they got wrong.
(For example, I still remember Rand Paul talking about him being immune to COVID after catching it once and saying that only N95s work.)
Experts/scientists get a reverse treatment and are judged by their misses, no matter what the proportion of those are relative to what they got right.

The strategy is pretty effective for their base:
1) It gives the power to feel right/superior about topics one is ignorant about in reality
2) Provide alternative financial ("low taxes") or "moral" (abortion ban) incentive to those who see thru the BS

So the next 2 years will all be about this. BS sprayed, see what sticks, hammer the sticky stuff. The hard part's gonna be perpetuating conspiracy theories, but also convincing the voter base that Trump wasn't conspired against when he got sidelined.
 
To me it's a hard toss up to choose which has been the greater sickness. The pandemic or the ever increasing rise and pathological need of grifting




Like Skelton, Louisiana-based Desselle received her Covid-19 vaccine, the Pfizer/BioNTech one, because she works in a healthcare facility. According to subsequent videos posted on Facebook, and interviews her son Brant Griner gave to RT and to fact-checking website Politifact, she received her jab in New Orleans on January 5. A picture included as a still in one of the videos shows Desselle holding up a pamphlet about the vaccination campaign in what looks like a medical practice. She then claims to have developed symptoms – abnormal heartbeat, trembling, difficulty moving, pounding headaches – on January 9, when she was admitted to hospital. In a video published from what appears to be her hospital bed, Desselle says that, after her hospitalisation, she was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a congenital heart condition that can cause an irregular heartbeat. She does not explain whether the doctors who visited her linked her symptoms to the syndrome or to the vaccine.

In another video, she says that her doctor thinks that her symptoms were “related to the vaccine. He said there are some metals in the vaccine that have done this to my body.” The Pfizer vaccine contains no metal. A Pfizer spokesperson says that neuromuscular disorders are not among the known side effects of its vaccine.

Neither Griner nor Desselle responded to requests for an interview; a receptionist at the clinic where Desselle works said that no one was available for comment. In their videos, and when speaking to the press, Griner and Desselle declined to disclose where the vaccine had been administered, and the names of the facility and the doctors treating Desselle, saying they wanted to protect their privacy.

VAERS data do not show any cases of adverse reaction in Louisiana in the last month whose symptoms resemble Desselle’s, nor feature reports of adverse reactions linked to the Pfizer vaccine batch she mentions in one of the videos. In January 2021, only four women in Louisiana appear to have suffered from an adverse reaction to the Covid-19 vaccines, and all of them were older than 50 – Desselle said in a video that she is 45. A spokesperson for the CDC says that the health protection agency has “no adverse event data regarding a case of this nature out of Louisiana”.

Mindy Faciane, a spokesperson for the Louisiana Department of Health, says that the only case of an adverse reaction leading to hospitalisation in Louisiana, as of January 18, concerned a person whose “side effects were gastrointestinal distress and lightheadedness”. The person, she adds, was treated, released, and has since recovered. “We would not count any case as a serious adverse effect until the investigation was completed and it was confirmed,” Faciane says. “To date, there remains one confirmed vaccine-related serious adverse event in Louisiana.”


Brant Griner, Desselle’s son, appears to have been taken aback by the viral success of his videos. On January 16, the videos vanished from Facebook. In a subsequent video Griner explained that he had taken them down at his mother’s request. “We didn’t expect that the video would get almost five million views in a couple of days, she is overwhelmed,” he said. He added that when Desselle first sent him the videos, “she didn’t know [the condition] was going to be a fast thing – something that would go away in a day or two.” The videos, which had seemingly been set to private, were briefly made public some days later, and then again made private, or deleted, by Griner on January 21.
 
To me it's a hard toss up to choose which has been the greater sickness. The pandemic or the ever increasing rise and pathological need of grifting


You got me with this one because I clicked on the Twitter link. All I can say is that it makes me happy not having to deal with inpatient neurology. (If someone distracts her, her gait would normalize....)
 
To me it's a hard toss up to choose which has been the greater sickness. The pandemic or the ever increasing rise and pathological need of grifting



As I said, I don't what's the worse sickness anymore



 
Once again proving stupid shouldn't breed, it's harmful to the kids.


These self-centered mofos forget one thing when going to a hospital: they share airspace with immunosuppressed or infected people and the function of an ER is not being a mixer for communicable respiratory diseases. All they can think about is themselves.
 
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