Without evidence of benefit, an intervention should not be presumed to be beneficial or safe.

- Rogue Medic

‘Perhaps the End of the Beginning’ on Harm Reduction for Americans

Yesterday, President Biden announced that he is taking three actions to reform the treatment of marijuana possession in America. These will help the federal government to get out of the way of the changes voters are making by referendum in the states to protect American citizens from the bad laws the politicians have refused to change. Voters have been repealing some of the harm their representatives have (in the name of the voters) caused to America. The president is helping those citizens.

Will pardoning simple possession of marijuana do anything to let violent criminals out of prison? No.

Will anti-American politicians claim that laws against non-violent crimes are essential to protect Americans from violence? Liars will continue to lie, but maybe voters will do a better job of rejecting the lies.

Is it reasonable to pretend that non-violent American citizens are violent, because some politicians (and some media) don’t care how many American citizens their laws hurt? No.

Currently, 37 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana, and 19 states have legal adult-use marijuana. Five states are voting on recreational cannabis legalization in the 2022 midterms: Missouri, Arkansas, North and South Dakota, and Maryland.

Biden pardons marijuana offenses, calls for review of federal law – Politico
State-by-State Medical Marijuana Laws – ProCon.org

Americans are refusing to continue to allow their elected representatives to spend citizens’ taxes dollars to lock up their non-violent neighbors for something that is none of the business of the politicians.

Should marijuana be on the schedule of controlled substances or should marijuana just be in a more appropriate place, reflecting the lack of harm compared to alcohol and tobacco, both of which are entirely legal for adults to possess and use?

What about driving while intoxicated/impaired by marijuana? That is already illegal, as it should be.

Harm reduction has been claimed to be the goal of tough criminal laws, but the increase in overdose deaths of Americans shows that tough criminal laws cause harm, not benefit.

Supervised injection sites produce the genuine reductions in harm that criminalization does not.

Results: Seventy-five relevant articles were found. All studies converged to find that SISs [Supervised Injection Sites] were efficacious in attracting the most marginalized PWID [People Who Inject Drugs], promoting safer injection conditions, enhancing access to primary health care, and reducing the overdose frequency. SISs were not found to increase drug injecting, drug trafficking or crime in the surrounding environments. SISs were found to be associated with reduced levels of public drug injections and dropped syringes. Of the articles, 85% originated from Vancouver or Sydney.

Conclusion: SISs have largely fulfilled their initial objectives without enhancing drug use or drug trafficking. Almost all of the studies found in this review were performed in Canada or Australia, whereas the majority of SISs are located in Europe. The implementation of new SISs in places with high rates of injection drug use and associated harms appears to be supported by evidence.

Supervised injection services: what has been demonstrated? A systematic literature review – PubMed

That is from a 2014 meta-analysis of some of the research showing that supervised injection sites are urgently needed to slow down, or reverse, the rate of overdose deaths of Americans. The research since then continues to show the benefits of supervised injection sites, while the morgues continue to show the harms of criminalization the war on drugs, reminiscent of the war on alcohol.

Research makes it clear that supervised injection sites save lives, but the people opposed to supervised injection sites tend to reject evidence and reason, in favor of feelings.

Mike Tyson said he was afraid before every fight, but he didn’t let that fear stop him. We need to accept that fear and recognize that this fear is irrational. We need to stop allowing politicians to use our fear to manipulate us into harming Americans who aren’t harming anyone else.

The NPR radio show/podcast called On Point recently had a segment on supervised injection sites in New York City. While the show and site have similar names, they are not connected (OnPoint NYC). Behind supervised injection sites: A controversial solution to overdose deaths (transcript and link to podcast)

Statement from President Biden on Marijuana Reform – White House

Why ‘Perhaps the End of the Beginning’ on Harm Reduction for Americans? It is not a reference to the 1937 Seán O’Casey play, but to part of the 1942 speech given by Winston Churchill following the victory by the Allies at El Alamein. “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”. That speech indicated that the violently anti-fascist Allies were now fighting an offensive war.

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Book Bans Keep Exposing Censorship to Ridicule

Welcome to Banned Books Week, which ends today, but can be celebrated all of the time – not celebrating that books are banned to punish thought crime, but to read something we might not otherwise read – to expand our awareness of what other people think – to be independent.

Some politicians claim that censorship is wrong, while using the government to prevent citizens from reading unapproved books. These politicians claim that they are protecting citizens from harm, because those citizens are students and too young to think for themselves in the schools that are supposed to teach these students to think for themselves.

The book banning politicians do not want the students to grow up to be voters who think for themselves, but want to control the information that is allowed to students, so that when they are adults, these citizens will do as they are told without questioning what they are told.

This is not new. Banning books has been around for hundreds of years and has always failed.

What is it about Toni Morrison that must be kept from students?

In 1616 the Catholic Church banned Galileo from even thinking about the Copernican hypothesis, because the Copernican hypothesis is a thought crime. In 1632 Galileo took a creative approach to the ban. Galileo wrote a dialogue discussing the superiority of the geocentric system and the heliocentric system, in spite of the evidence.

The evidence that the Earth does not move was that, if the Earth moved, we would feel it and we would be able to observe stellar parallax (when a star is viewed from one extreme of the Earth’s orbit to another, it will appear to have moved). These are common sense arguments, but common sense also tells us that the Earth is flat.

The evidence that must be ignored centered on a book written by Copernicus in 1543, later work by Johannes Kepler, and on evidence produced by Galileo with his telescopes beginning in 1609. Galileo had not invented the telescope, but had improved on it so much that he had the best telescopes in the world at that time. Using the telescope Galileo was able to show that the Earth was not the center of everything in the universe, since the moons of Jupiter revolve around Jupiter, not Earth. The existence and movement of Sun spots supported the Copernican system. The strongest argument was that Venus has phases, just like our Moon, but not consistent with revolution around Earth. Galileo was wrong about the tides, and should have known that he was wrong, but that was not an essential part of heliocentric theory.

After being threatened with torture and execution 69 year old Galileo recanted what he wrote and was sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life. Giordano Bruno had been tortured for 7 years before being burned alive in public as an example to those who would think for themselves. Bruno was convicted of the same charge as Galileo – Heresy, which is thought crime.

The Church banned On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres by Copernicus (unless edited to mean the opposite of what Copernicus meant), and the books of Galileo, Kepler, and other books that provide evidence that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Some of those prohibitions lasted until 1835.

Only 45 years after the death of Galileo, long before there was evidence of stellar parallax, Isaac Newton ignored the prohibition on thought crime in his explanation of gravity. The theory of gravity requires the Earth to revolve around the Sun. If someone can show that the Sun revolves around the Earth, they can disprove gravity. Those who ban books would be ecstatic.

In 1992 Pope John Paul II gave a partial apology for the actions of the Church to punish thought crimes, but was criticized for going too far. The Catholic Education Resource Center still promotes disingenuous arguments to support the actions of the Church. Ironically, the Catholic Church does not oppose evolution (perhaps because their treatment of Galileo was so pathetically bad), but some Protestants, especially Evangelicals, do. Maybe they view evolution denial as their chance to grab their own science denial award – a Darwin Award, given to people who kill themselves through extreme stupidity.

In history, there are also books that are banned, because the evidence presented in the books may make the reader feel bad. This is not out of concern that the reader will feel bad about being lied to by their parents, teachers, and politicians. This is of a desire to protect the lies told by parents, teachers, and politicians.

The American Civil War was started by parts of America deciding to take all of their people and their land and all of the federal government land in their states and declare themselves a separate country, in order to protect slavery from the not yet elected Abraham Lincoln. This was when the Republicans were the radical progressive party and the Democrats were the unapologetic white supremacist party promoting slavery.

The dishonest historical claim is that the Civil War was fought over states’ rights, but before the war the slave states insisted that the Fugitive Slave Act be enforced everywhere in America, even though it completely violated the rights of the states that prohibited slavery. Why would they lie about something that is so easy to show to be false? Because if you are taught that thinking is a crime, you won’t check the facts. If you do check the facts, you are easier to target as a thought criminal.

Another example of the dishonesty of the claim that the Civil War was not fought to expand Christian slavery. Christian slavery does not mean slavery of Christians, although some did convert enslaved people, but slavery by Christians. Christians were the first people to enslave people based on the color of their skin. Slavery has been around probably as long as people have been around, but it was only when Europeans started exploring other parts of the world, that the business of slavery of people for looking different became established. Greece, Rome, the Ottoman Empire, . . . had slavery, but they did not have the racial slavery that Christianity created in the Age of Exploration, justified by the Bible.

Article I, Sec. 9, “(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.” – Constitution of the Confederate States; March 11, 1861

Article IV, Sec. 3, “(3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.” – Constitution of the Confederate States; March 11, 1861

The states also give their reasons for their insurrection:

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

“In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world.”

Confederate States of America – Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

“We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.”

Most of the Confederate states declared that they were not American before Lincoln was president. South Carolina, in the statement of their reasons does not sound much different from those claiming that Obama was going to close all of the churches and take everyone’s guns. President Obama never tried to do either one, in spite of the promises of his enemies. That is one of the reasons for banning books – to keep people from knowing the truth.

As with the memory holes in 1984, “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” George Orwell condemned authoritarians on the left and on the right. An important part of that condemnation is the way they try to prevent citizens from having access to information, as we see in so many states with book bans.

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Forcing Nurses Out of Nursing to “Save Money”

There are laws being proposed, and some have passed, to limit the pay for nurses, because the legislators assume that nurses are overpaid. The problem is that healthcare is expensive and that nurses are not treated well by employers – most of whom do not seem to be capable of providing the care that nurses provide.

Who has created this problem? It isn’t the nurses, who are overworked, underpaid, and abused by some of their patients.

But a nurse makes more than a paramedic, so they shouldn’t complain! A nurse generally has more education and more responsibility than a paramedic, so why shouldn’t a nurse make more? Before the pandemic, I told people not to go into EMS, because there are few options in what you do for work and the standards are low.

A quick way of eliminating people, while claiming to be making things better, is to put a pay cap on the people actually doing the work. But which people do we lose with a pay cap?

With a pay cap, we lose the people who hit the pay cap, which means the highest paid people. If pay is supposed to have something to do with ability, we will lose the best employees first – and it is not likely to stop with just a few people, because this is a system that has been failing for a long time.

The increased demands of the pandemic and the attacks from the people who demand that doctors, nurses, paramedics, EMTs, … put up with abuse from the least educated, because of the “Freedom” of the least intelligent, there are not many reasons to stay. We keep telling the best nurses, that it is time to find some other way to make a living, because we don’t want competence – we only want compliance.

The way to make healthcare better is not to cap the pay of the people who do the work.

Why aren’t we limiting at the pay of the people who run things and did a lot to get us into this mess?

If we want to decrease the number of people in beds in the hospitals, we should promote vaccination, masking, and social distancing. The corruption of some politicians, partying without masks, is not a reason to avoid wearing masks, but a reason to enforce the rules without exceptions for the politically powerful.

COVID-19 has killed millions with the help of the anti-vaxers and the anti-maskers. We shouldn’t be part of the group sickening/killing our neighbors, our families, or ourselves.

Vaccines and masks are safe and effective and save lives, if we are smart enough to use them.

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Update on the Moderna Vaccine Candidate

Today Moderna issued another press release to update the information available on their vaccine candidate. The results are consistent with the previously released results and will be followed by a much more detailed release of information at an FDA advisory panel meeting, expected to be on December 17, 2020.

The new cases are more than double the 95 cases from the November 16 press release. The total is now 196 symptomatic cases – 185 in the placebo group and 11 in the mRNA-1273 group – efficacy of 94.1%. There were 30 severe cases, including 1 death, in the placebo group and no severe cases in the mRNA-1273 group.

We do not know how many asymptomatic cases are in either group, so this route of transmission by vaccinated people is still a possibility.

Another part of the press release raises different questions.

Efficacy was consistent across age, race and ethnicity, and gender demographics. The 196 COVID-19 cases included 33 older adults (ages 65+) and 42 participants identifying as being from diverse communities (including 29 Hispanic or LatinX, 6 Black or African Americans, 4 Asian Americans and 3 multiracial participants).

But . . .

The study includes more than 11,000 participants from communities of color, representing 37% of the study population, which is similar to the diversity of the U.S. at large.

The minority rate in the study is stated to match the 37% minority rate of America, but the symptomatic infection rate among American minorities in the study is 42 out of 196 (21.4%), but according to a meta-analysis of over 18 million patients in the Lancet, the symptomatic infection rate among minorities is significantly higher than 37%:

Patients from ethnic minority groups are disproportionately affected by Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to explore the relationship between ethnicity and clinical outcomes in COVID-19.

How is this study of randomized volunteers, who are allegedly representative of the American population, producing symptomatic infection rates that are much less than half of what is expected among minorities?

The November 18 Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine candidate press release only states:

Efficacy was consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity demographics.

I did not find any details of the actual numbers in the press release, nor in any of the links. The Moderna press release has a similar statement, even though the numbers provided disagree with that statement: “Efficacy was consistent across age, race and ethnicity, and gender demographics.” Is the Pfizer/BioNTech statement more trustworthy, because it does not provide any numbers? No, but this is something that needs to be addressed for all of the vaccine candidates.

What are the Pfizer/BioNTech numbers for minorities? The FDA meeting for Pfizer/BioNTech is scheduled for December 10, so we should learn a lot more from that open to the public by video FDA meeting.

Why does the Moderna press release list such disproportionate numbers, but not mention that they are disproportionate? There is no reason to expect that a placebo would provide this kind of disproportionate protection.

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Why 90% vs. 62% for the Efficacy of the AstraZeneca Vaccine Candidate?

 

There was a press release from AstraZeneca at 7 AM today. It includes two different dosing methods with two dramatically different rates of efficacy. One group received half a dose, followed by a month later by a full dose. The other group received a full dose, followed by a month later by another full dose.

 

One dosing regimen (n=2,741) showed vaccine efficacy of 90% when AZD1222 was given as a half dose, followed by a full dose at least one month apart, and another dosing regimen (n=8,895) showed 62% efficacy when given as two full doses at least one month apart. The combined analysis from both dosing regimens (n=11,636) resulted in an average efficacy of 70%. All results were statistically significant (p<=0.0001). More data will continue to accumulate and additional analysis will be conducted, refining the efficacy reading and establishing the duration of protection.

 

Usually, the result of the differences in dosing is to use the lowest effective dose, in order to minimize any side effects, which are usually dose related. A higher dose is expected to be more effective, but also to have more side effects.

 

The part people are having a hard time explaining is that the 90% efficacy is in the smaller dose group. This does not seem to make medical sense, but this is what people who understand statistics expect.

 

Why?

 

Daniel Kahneman explains this in his excellent book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. He uses the following example as an introduction:

 

A study of the incidence of kidney cancer in the 3,141 counties of the United States reveals a remarkable pattern. The counties in which the incidence of kidney cancer is lowest are mostly rural, sparsely populated, and located in traditionally Republican states in the Midwest, the South, and the West. What do you make of this?

 

This is known informally as the Law of Small Numbers. Intuitively, we can come up with many different explanations about a healthy rural lifestyle, or something else. Kahneman follows that with the statistics on counties with the highest incidence of kidney cancer, which are also mostly rural, sparsely populated, and located in traditionally Republican states in the Midwest, the South, and the West.

 

The important factor is not lifestyle, not politics, and not geography. The important factor is that these are all sparsely populated counties, which means that the number of cases of kidney cancer will be disproportionately affected by the addition/subtraction of a tiny number of cases.

 

The small sample size is the most likely explanation for the 90% efficacy in the half dose, then full dose group. When more cases of COVID-19 are diagnosed among those who have received the half dose, then the full dose, expect the estimate of benefit to drop closer to 70%. The 70% efficacy is also based on small numbers, but those numbers (including the 90% sample) are more than four times the size of the 90% sample. This is not certain. This is statistical probability. A reasonable person should feel comfortable in placing a wager on the results dropping to near 70%.

 

In other words, the news is worse than expected, although still good news. There is another vaccine candidate that, based on the preliminary numbers, meets the approval criteria of better than 50% efficacy.

 

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What Do the Moderna Vaccine Candidate Press Releases Tell Us?


 

I had thought that the vaccine studies would only be recruiting people up to 55 years old, which was the age limit on the phase 1 studies, but there is significant representation of people over 65 and people with serious comorbidities. This is excellent news.

 

According to one press release from Moderna:

The COVE study includes more than 7,000 Americans over the age of 65. It also includes more than 5,000 Americans who are under the age of 65 but have high-risk chronic diseases that put them at increased risk of severe COVID-19, such as diabetes, severe obesity and cardiac disease.

 

The other important concern I had was the need to store the vaccine at around -80 degrees C, which would limit access for a lot of people, even in America. From another press release, dated 4 minutes earlier, Moderna:

today announced new data showing that mRNA-1273, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, remains stable at 2° to 8°C (36° to 46°F), the temperature of a standard home or medical refrigerator, for 30 days. Stability testing supports this extension from an earlier estimate of 7 days. mRNA-1273 remains stable at -20° C (-4°F) for up to six months, at refrigerated conditions for up to 30 days and at room temperature for up to 12 hours.

 

There is an excellent analysis of the press release on preliminary efficacy results at STAT News, which has been ahead of the rest of the media in recognizing the serious nature of this pandemic.

 

It is important to remember that a press release, even about something this serious, is a commercial, intended to promote the company’s product. The information provided by Moderna in the press releases has not been peer reviewed. The numbers may change as mistakes are caught and conclusions are examined. That is OK, because there will be thorough analysis of the results before any vaccine candidate is approved for use outside of these experiments.

 

How will we know when a vaccine is safe and effective? I provided my criteria in August, when I wrote about a vaccine approved by President Putin, based on inadequate research:

I want to see recommendation of a vaccine by the people who know the most about vaccines – Paul Offit, Michael Osterholm, Peter Hotez, and Anthony Fauci. They need to be able to see all of the evidence. The only reasonable conclusion about a refusal to share the evidence with any of them is that there is something bad being hidden. These are not politicians. None of these medical experts have shown signs of being influenced by political pressure.

 

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What Treatments Will the Anti-Science President Use?

Now that President Trump’s attempts to prevent himself from developing COVID-19 have failed, for the president and for many of those around him, will the president continue to reject science, when it comes to treatment?

President Trump promoted hydroxychloroquine[1], [2], [3], which is a useful treatment for several medical conditions, but not effective against COVID-19. Should President Trump expose himself to the side effects, when there is no expectation of any benefit?

A reasonable person would not take hydroxychloroquine. A superstitious person might. This is a version of Pascal’s wager.[4] You have everything to gain, but nothing to lose. Except that Pascal’s wager ignores the more probable harms that comes from the preferred choice and assumes that all harm comes from not making the preferred choice. Therefore, Pascal’s wager is actually, You have everything to lose, but only a ridiculously long shot at any gain. Being unreasonable, Pascal’s is a losing wager.

President Trump promoted oleandrin[5], which is not a useful treatment for anything, unless you are trying for suicide or murder. Should President Trump take poison, when there is no expectation of any benefit? I suspect that many of the people who have been harmed by President Trump would say, Yes, but that is not the way medicine works.

The role of medicine is to provide the most effective treatment, taking into consideration the potential harm, in order to improve the outcome for the patient. Killing people, other than as part of medically assisted suicide (where the goal is to end the suffering of the patient at the request of the patient), is for other professions.

President Trump promoted convalescent plasma[6], which is only supported by low quality evidence and no completed high quality research. Maybe convalescent plasma works, but we may not know for a long time, because the high quality research will have trouble continuing. The EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) makes convalescent plasma available to patients outside of controlled research.

Since doctors have trouble understanding science, how do we expect patients to understand?

I was involved in a discussion with one experienced emergency physician who claimed that he should be able to give hydroxychloroquine to patients outside of controlled trials, because he would be giving hope. I asked how this is any different from what alternative medicine does? He responded just as an alternative medicine promoter would – with logical fallacies about What if . . . ? We should actually hope for better from doctors, who are supposed to understand medicine. This willful ignorance is probably the most deadly medicine doctors prescribe.

Will President Trump be as smart as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and leave the science to the scientists? President Trump has not provided any evidence to expect reasonable decisions, yet.

What does work? If given early, remdesivir might be effective.[7] On the other hand, remdesivir might not be that effective.[8] If oxygen is used to treat low oxygen saturation, dexamethasone[9], [10] is the most effective treatment.

If you want to minimize your chances of having to make these choices, wear a mask and eye protection, stay physically away from other people, and wash your hands.

Footnotes:

Some of the footnotes are to what I have previously written about these treatments. They contain links to the research on the proposed treatments, rather than add footnotes for all of links to research and other evidence.

[1] Hydroxychloroquine – The More You Know, The Worse It Looks

Rogue Medic

May 22, 2020

Article

[2] What’s the Good News on Hydroxychloroquine?

Rogue Medic

June 6, 2020

Article

[3] Is Hydroxychloroquine Effective Against COVID-19?

Rogue Medic

July 31, 2020

Article

[4] Pascal’s wager

Wikipedia

Article

Criticism of Pascal’s Wager began in his own day, and came from both atheists, who questioned the “benefits” of a deity whose “realm” is beyond reason, and the religiously orthodox, who primarily took issue with the wager’s deistic and agnostic language. It is criticized for not proving God’s existence, the encouragement of false belief, and the problem of which religion and which God should be worshipped.[4][15]

[5] The Oleandrin Scam Exposes Incompetent Doctors

Rogue Medic

August 23, 2020

Article

[6] Is convalescent plasma safe and effective? We answer the major questions about the Covid-19 treatment

STAT

Lev Facher

August 23, 2020

Article

[7] Effect of Remdesivir vs Standard Care on Clinical Status at 11 Days in Patients With Moderate COVID-19: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Christoph D Spinner 1, Robert L Gottlieb 2, Gerard J Criner 3, José Ramón Arribas López 4, Anna Maria Cattelan 5, Alex Soriano Viladomiu 6, Onyema Ogbuagu 7, Prashant Malhotra 8, Kathleen M Mullane 9, Antonella Castagna 10, Louis Yi Ann Chai 11, Meta Roestenberg 12, Owen Tak Yin Tsang 13, Enos Bernasconi 14, Paul Le Turnier 15, Shan-Chwen Chang 16, Devi SenGupta 17, Robert H Hyland 17, Anu O Osinusi 17, Huyen Cao 17, Christiana Blair 17, Hongyuan Wang 17, Anuj Gaggar 17, Diana M Brainard 17, Mark J McPhail 18, Sanjay Bhagani 19, Mi Young Ahn 20, Arun J Sanyal 21, Gregory Huhn 22, Francisco M Marty 23, GS-US-540-5774 Investigators

JAMA. 2020 Sep 15;324(11):1048-1057. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.16349.

PMID: 32821939 PMCID: PMC7442954 DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.16349

Free Full Text from JAMA

[8] Remdesivir and COVID-19

The Lancet

October 3, 2020 (Yes, that is tomorrow’s date.)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32021-3

Article

[9] Dexamethasone in Hospitalized Patients with Covid-19 – Preliminary Report

RECOVERY Collaborative Group; Peter Horby 1, Wei Shen Lim 1, Jonathan R Emberson 1, Marion Mafham 1, Jennifer L Bell 1, Louise Linsell 1, Natalie Staplin 1, Christopher Brightling 1, Andrew Ustianowski 1, Einas Elmahi 1, Benjamin Prudon 1, Christopher Green 1, Timothy Felton 1, David Chadwick 1, Kanchan Rege 1, Christopher Fegan 1, Lucy C Chappell 1, Saul N Faust 1, Thomas Jaki 1, Katie Jeffery 1, Alan Montgomery 1, Kathryn Rowan 1, Edmund Juszczak 1, J Kenneth Baillie 1, Richard Haynes 1, Martin J Landray 1

July 17, 2020

N Engl J Med. 2020 Jul 17; NEJMoa2021436. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa2021436. Online ahead of print.

PMID: 32678530 PMCID: PMC7383595 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2021436

Free Full Text from NEJM

[10] The RECOVERY Trial: Dexamethasone for COVID-19?

REBEL EM

June 23, 2020

Article

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Mask vs. Vaccine – Which is More Effective?

Currently, mask vs. vaccine is an easy answer. Masks are 100% more effective than something that is not available. Eventually, mask plus vaccine may be the best answer.

According to the evidence, the the masks decrease the amount of virus that is able to be detected on the other side of the mask, regardless of whether the mask is being worn by an infectious person trying to avoid infecting others or the mask is being worn by a healthy person trying to avoid becoming infected.

The dose of virus does seem to matter in transmission of disease.

This does not mean that vaccines will not help, assuming that a safe and effective vaccine is eventually available. The stated cut off level to be applied for approval of a vaccine is currently at least 50% effective. Masks are already more than 50% effective.

“I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine, because the immunogenicity may be 70%,” Redfield said in testimony before a Senate appropriations committee. “And if I don’t get an immune response, the vaccine is not going to protect me. This face mask will.”[1]

That statement was later contradicted by President Trump, but that statement was not contradicted by any credible scientist and was not contradicted by any credible physician. Oddly, the article title suggests that Dr. Redfield walked back his statement, although the article never states that. This may be because the headline is often not written by the person writing the article, but by an editor, looking to get more clicks.

Masks work.

Vaccines are not available and probably will not be available until sometime next year.

If we want the economy to recover, we need to be aggressive about wearing masks to protect others and to protect ourselves.

This is from a paper written in 2009 about influenza, which is transmitted the same way SARS-CoV 2 is transmitted. These were people with influenza, wearing masks, and coughing. The results with an N95 mask and a surgical mask show that both decreased the amount of virus, that would be spread by a cough, to the undetectable level.[2]

Masks do not protect your eyes, so you should consider wearing eye protection. Masks also do not protect your hands, so wash your hands. Typhoid Mary might not have killed anyone if she had washed her hands.

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Footnotes:

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[1] CDC Chief Walks Back Masks v. Vaccine Comments
By Ralph Ellis
WebMD
Article

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[2] A Quantitative Assessment of the Efficacy of Surgical and N95 Masks to Filter Influenza Virus in Patients with Acute Influenza Infection
D. F. Johnson, J. D. Druce, C. Birch, M. L. Grayson
Clinical Infectious Diseases, Volume 49, Issue 2, 15 July 2009, Pages 275–277, 
https://doi.org/10.1086/600041 Published: 15 July 2009

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