no go comfort zone
PART ONE
By Malcolm Kendrick, doctor and author who works as a GP in the National Health Service in England. His blog can be read here and his book, 'Doctoring Data – How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense,' is available here.
Evidence that a cheap, over-the-counter anti-malarial drug costing £7 combats Covid-19 gets trashed. Why? Because the pharmaceutical giants want to sell you a treatment costing nearly £2,000. It’s criminal.
A few years ago, I wrote a book called ‘Doctoring Data’. This was an attempt to help people understand the background to the tidal wave of medical information that crashes over us each and every day. Information that is often completely contradictory, viz ‘Coffee is good for you... no, wait it's bad for you... no, wait, it’s good for you again,’ repeated ad nauseam.
I also pointed out some of the tricks, games and manipulations that are used to make medications seem far more effective than they truly are, or vice versa. This, I have to say, can be a very dispiriting world to enter. When I give talks on this subject, I often start with a few quotes.
For example, here is Dr Marcia Angell, who edited the New England Journal of Medicine for over 20 years, writing in 2009:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor.â€
Have things got better? No, I believe they’ve got worse – if that were, indeed, possible. I was recently sent the following email about a closed-door, no-recording-allowed discussion, held in May of this year under no-disclosure Chatham House rules:
“A secretly recorded meeting between the editors-in-chief of The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine reveal both men bemoaning the ‘criminal’ influence big pharma has on scientific research. According to Philippe Douste-Blazy, France’s former health minister and 2017 candidate for WHO director, the leaked 2020 Chatham House closed-door discussion was between the [editor-in-chiefs], whose publications both retracted papers favorable to big pharma over fraudulent data.
The email continued with a quote from that recording: ‘Now we are not going to be able to … publish any more clinical research data because the pharmaceutical companies are so financially powerful today, and are able to use such methodologies, as to have us accept papers which are apparently methodologically perfect, but which, in reality, manage to conclude what they want them to conclude,’ said The Lancet’s editor-in-chief, Richard Horton.â€
A YouTube video where this issue is discussed can be found here. It’s in French, but there are English subtitles.
The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet are the two most influential, most highly resourced medical journals in the world. If they no longer have the ability to detect what is essentially fraudulent research, then… Then what? Then what, indeed?
In fact, things have generally taken a sharp turn for the worse since the Covid-19 pandemic struck. New studies, new data, new information is arriving at breakneck speed, often with little or no effective review. What can you believe? Who can you believe? Almost nothing would be the safest course of action.
One issue has played out over the past few months, stripping away any remaining vestiges of my trust in medical research. It concerns the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine. You may well be aware that Donald Trump endorsed it – which presents a whole series of problems for many people.
However, before the pandemic hit, I was recommending to my local NHS trust that we should look to stock up on hydroxychloroquine. There had been a great deal of research over the years strongly suggesting it could inhibit the entry of viruses into cells, and that it also interfered with viral replication once inside the cell.
This mechanism of action explains why it can help stop the malaria parasite from gaining entry into red blood cells. The science is complex, but many researchers felt there was good reason for thinking hydroxychloroquine may have some real, if not earth-shattering, benefits in Covid-19.
This idea was further reinforced by the knowledge that it has some effects on reducing the so-called ‘cytokine storm’ that is considered deadly with Covid-19. It’s prescribed in rheumatoid arthritis to reduce the immune attack on joints.
The other reason for recommending hydroxychloroquine is that it’s extremely safe. It is, for example, the most widely prescribed drug in India. Billions upon billions of doses have been prescribed. It is available over the counter in most countries. So, I felt pretty comfortable in recommending that it could be tried. At worst, no harm would be done.
Then hydroxychloroquine became the center of a worldwide storm. On one side, wearing the white hats, were the researchers who’d used it early on, where it seemed to show some significant benefits. For example, Professor Didier Raoult, of the Institut Hospitalo-universitaire Méditerranée Infection, in France:
“A renowned research professor in France has reported successful results from a new treatment for Covid-19, with early tests suggesting it can stop the virus from being contagious in just six days.
France ordered to pay up after epilepsy drug manufactured by coronavirus vaccine firm Sanofi caused birth defects
Then came this research from a Moroccan scientist at the University of Lille:
“Jaouad Zemmouri … believes that 78 percent of Europe’s Covid-19 deaths could have been prevented if Europe had used hydroxychloroquine... Morocco, with a population of 36 million [roughly one tenth that of the US], has only 10,079 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and only 214 deaths.
“Professor Zemmouri believes that Morocco’s use of hydroxychloroquine has resulted in an 82.5 percent recovery rate from Covid-19 and only a 2.1 percent fatality rate, in those admitted to hospital.â€
Just prior to this, on May 22, a study was published in The Lancet, stating that hydroxychloroquine actually increased deaths. It then turned out that the data used could not be verified and was most likely made up. The authors had major conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies making anti-viral drugs. In early June, the entire article was retracted by Horton.
Then a UK study came out suggesting that hydroxychloroquine did not work at all. Discussing the results, Professor Martin Landray, an Oxford University professor who is co-leading the Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) trial, stated:
“This is not a treatment for Covid-19. It doesn’t work. This result should change medical practice worldwide. We can now stop using a drug that is useless.â€
The study has since been heavily criticized by other researchers, who state that the dose of hydroxychloroquine used was potentially toxic. It was also given far too late to have any positive effect. Many of the patients were already on ventilators.
This week, I was sent a pre-proof copy of an article about a study that will be published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. Its author has found that hydroxychloroquine “significantly†decreased the death rate of patients involved in the analysis. The study analyzed 2,541 patients hospitalized in six hospitals between March 10 and May 2 2020, and found 13 percent of those treated with hydroxychloroquine died and 26 percent of those who did not receive the drug died.
.
By Malcolm Kendrick, doctor and author who works as a GP in the National Health Service in England. His blog can be read here and his book, 'Doctoring Data – How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense,' is available here.
Evidence that a cheap, over-the-counter anti-malarial drug costing £7 combats Covid-19 gets trashed. Why? Because the pharmaceutical giants want to sell you a treatment costing nearly £2,000. It’s criminal.
A few years ago, I wrote a book called ‘Doctoring Data’. This was an attempt to help people understand the background to the tidal wave of medical information that crashes over us each and every day. Information that is often completely contradictory, viz ‘Coffee is good for you... no, wait it's bad for you... no, wait, it’s good for you again,’ repeated ad nauseam.
I also pointed out some of the tricks, games and manipulations that are used to make medications seem far more effective than they truly are, or vice versa. This, I have to say, can be a very dispiriting world to enter. When I give talks on this subject, I often start with a few quotes.
For example, here is Dr Marcia Angell, who edited the New England Journal of Medicine for over 20 years, writing in 2009:
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgement of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as editor.â€
Have things got better? No, I believe they’ve got worse – if that were, indeed, possible. I was recently sent the following email about a closed-door, no-recording-allowed discussion, held in May of this year under no-disclosure Chatham House rules:
“A secretly recorded meeting between the editors-in-chief of The Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine reveal both men bemoaning the ‘criminal’ influence big pharma has on scientific research. According to Philippe Douste-Blazy, France’s former health minister and 2017 candidate for WHO director, the leaked 2020 Chatham House closed-door discussion was between the [editor-in-chiefs], whose publications both retracted papers favorable to big pharma over fraudulent data.
The email continued with a quote from that recording: ‘Now we are not going to be able to … publish any more clinical research data because the pharmaceutical companies are so financially powerful today, and are able to use such methodologies, as to have us accept papers which are apparently methodologically perfect, but which, in reality, manage to conclude what they want them to conclude,’ said The Lancet’s editor-in-chief, Richard Horton.â€
A YouTube video where this issue is discussed can be found here. It’s in French, but there are English subtitles.
The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet are the two most influential, most highly resourced medical journals in the world. If they no longer have the ability to detect what is essentially fraudulent research, then… Then what? Then what, indeed?
In fact, things have generally taken a sharp turn for the worse since the Covid-19 pandemic struck. New studies, new data, new information is arriving at breakneck speed, often with little or no effective review. What can you believe? Who can you believe? Almost nothing would be the safest course of action.
One issue has played out over the past few months, stripping away any remaining vestiges of my trust in medical research. It concerns the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine. You may well be aware that Donald Trump endorsed it – which presents a whole series of problems for many people.
However, before the pandemic hit, I was recommending to my local NHS trust that we should look to stock up on hydroxychloroquine. There had been a great deal of research over the years strongly suggesting it could inhibit the entry of viruses into cells, and that it also interfered with viral replication once inside the cell.
This mechanism of action explains why it can help stop the malaria parasite from gaining entry into red blood cells. The science is complex, but many researchers felt there was good reason for thinking hydroxychloroquine may have some real, if not earth-shattering, benefits in Covid-19.
This idea was further reinforced by the knowledge that it has some effects on reducing the so-called ‘cytokine storm’ that is considered deadly with Covid-19. It’s prescribed in rheumatoid arthritis to reduce the immune attack on joints.
The other reason for recommending hydroxychloroquine is that it’s extremely safe. It is, for example, the most widely prescribed drug in India. Billions upon billions of doses have been prescribed. It is available over the counter in most countries. So, I felt pretty comfortable in recommending that it could be tried. At worst, no harm would be done.
Then hydroxychloroquine became the center of a worldwide storm. On one side, wearing the white hats, were the researchers who’d used it early on, where it seemed to show some significant benefits. For example, Professor Didier Raoult, of the Institut Hospitalo-universitaire Méditerranée Infection, in France:
“A renowned research professor in France has reported successful results from a new treatment for Covid-19, with early tests suggesting it can stop the virus from being contagious in just six days.
France ordered to pay up after epilepsy drug manufactured by coronavirus vaccine firm Sanofi caused birth defects
Then came this research from a Moroccan scientist at the University of Lille:
“Jaouad Zemmouri … believes that 78 percent of Europe’s Covid-19 deaths could have been prevented if Europe had used hydroxychloroquine... Morocco, with a population of 36 million [roughly one tenth that of the US], has only 10,079 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and only 214 deaths.
“Professor Zemmouri believes that Morocco’s use of hydroxychloroquine has resulted in an 82.5 percent recovery rate from Covid-19 and only a 2.1 percent fatality rate, in those admitted to hospital.â€
Just prior to this, on May 22, a study was published in The Lancet, stating that hydroxychloroquine actually increased deaths. It then turned out that the data used could not be verified and was most likely made up. The authors had major conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies making anti-viral drugs. In early June, the entire article was retracted by Horton.
Then a UK study came out suggesting that hydroxychloroquine did not work at all. Discussing the results, Professor Martin Landray, an Oxford University professor who is co-leading the Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 Therapy (RECOVERY) trial, stated:
“This is not a treatment for Covid-19. It doesn’t work. This result should change medical practice worldwide. We can now stop using a drug that is useless.â€
The study has since been heavily criticized by other researchers, who state that the dose of hydroxychloroquine used was potentially toxic. It was also given far too late to have any positive effect. Many of the patients were already on ventilators.
This week, I was sent a pre-proof copy of an article about a study that will be published in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. Its author has found that hydroxychloroquine “significantly†decreased the death rate of patients involved in the analysis. The study analyzed 2,541 patients hospitalized in six hospitals between March 10 and May 2 2020, and found 13 percent of those treated with hydroxychloroquine died and 26 percent of those who did not receive the drug died.
.
Feds nab Ghislaine Maxwell over sex trafficking for Epstein. Will she now cut a deal and throw sweaty Prince Andrew to the sharks?
Damian Wilson
is a UK journalist, ex-Fleet Street editor, financial industry consultant and political communications special advisor in the UK and EU.
Damian Wilson
is a UK journalist, ex-Fleet Street editor, financial industry consultant and political communications special advisor in the UK and EU.
By Peter Andrews, Irish science journalist and writer based in London. He has a background in the life sciences, and graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in genetics.
The so-called outbreak of Covid-19 in the English city of Leicester, which has precipitated a second lockdown there, has been driven by the young and people under 40. The very people who arent much at risk of death.
On Monday, the UK government announced that schools in Leicester will be shut to all children except those of essential workers. Furthermore, all non-essential shops and businesses have been closed. Theyre back in the deep freeze, so to speak.
The lockdown was not based on a report, but rather the whisperings and rumours surrounding a report, which was released only on Wednesday evening. This report is by Public Health England specifically a crack department of people who have given themselves the spiffy name Rapid Investigation Team, as if they are Power Rangers in spectacles.
Read more
Fears dozens of local lockdowns are days away prompts dismay among Britons, as UK battles to contain coronavirus flare-ups
These boffins got worried when they expected testing over a 10-day period in Leicester to reveal 582 infections, but shock horror! 711 were recorded. Hardly a spike. Is it even a blip? Clearly these crack minds have never seen Forrest Gump, who taught us the eternal lesson: My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what youre gonna get.
Apparently, for the Rapid Investigation Team, not guessing the exact piddling number of cases was unacceptable, and the citizens of Leicester had to pay.
Gotta do Gupta again sorry
Its getting to the point where Im having to cite Professor Sunetra Gupta in every article, and her statement (of what should be the obvious) that case numbers are too dependent on the level of testing to be relevant, and only the number of Covid-19 deaths should be important.
The MSM wont shut up about cases these days, presumably because there arent enough deaths for them to scare people with. So, suddenly, the dials being turned up on testing, tracking, tracing, only its about four months too late.
Back to the report, which states The rise in pillar 2 diagnoses is probably linked, in part, to the availability of testing to the general public rather than a true increase in the number of new infections occurring. In other words, plain English ones, this is all bunkum, because whats increasing is the number of tests and not the true level of infections. Someone should tell Public Health England that the number of positive Covid-19 tests bears only the flimsiest of relations to public health.
One would expect the line after this to provide a counterargument, a reason why there may actually be some any reason to believe Leicester needed to be locked down. But no. The next line explains how the change in case numbers over time is not characteristic of unconstrained growth of an epidemic. And to cap it off, the report ends with the conclusion: Evidence for the scale of the outbreak is limited. So, WTF?
Cant anyone in the government count?
Sometimes one wonders what the point is in making an argument against government policy, when the policies themselves are repeatedly based on juvenile misunderstandings and blunders.
Read more
People tested for Covid-19 in England NOT asked to give addresses during peak of pandemic, complaints of incomplete data
Councillor Francesco Lari, leader of the independents in Nottingham, which neighbours Leicester, tweeted on Friday to show how the UK government had over-reported the number of cases by 29,726 because it counted some twice. Deduplication is the fancy term it uses for not being able to do sums, because you cant expect the Rapid Investigation Team to get every calculation right! After all, when it comes to decisions of great importance that will profoundly affect the lives of hundreds of thousands, rapidity is the name of the game!
Even if they had got all their sums right, and there was an upsurge in cases that warranted action, the report makes clear that it is in the under 19-year-old group. That is, children. You know, those small humans who dont get Covid-19, or if they do, are infinitesimally at risk of dying if they do? Just 0.05 percent of deaths from coronavirus have been of people aged under 19, and those under 40 represent only 0.7 percent. If the purpose of a lockdown is to save lives, whose lives do Public Health England think they are saving here?
In conclusion, there was patently no cause to lock down the people of Leicester, just as previously there was no real cause to lock down Britain, unless you wanted to kill more people through a deep and lasting recession than Covid-19 ever will.
As Mr Lari has pronounced, Leicester is a whole city locked down on wrong data, and the only two possible reasons for that are gross incompetence or a nefarious ulterior motive. Perhaps well be able to deduce which by whether we see a spate of sackings as a result of this latest omnishambles. And I know who Id start with, Prime Minister.
The so-called outbreak of Covid-19 in the English city of Leicester, which has precipitated a second lockdown there, has been driven by the young and people under 40. The very people who arent much at risk of death.
On Monday, the UK government announced that schools in Leicester will be shut to all children except those of essential workers. Furthermore, all non-essential shops and businesses have been closed. Theyre back in the deep freeze, so to speak.
The lockdown was not based on a report, but rather the whisperings and rumours surrounding a report, which was released only on Wednesday evening. This report is by Public Health England specifically a crack department of people who have given themselves the spiffy name Rapid Investigation Team, as if they are Power Rangers in spectacles.
Read more
Fears dozens of local lockdowns are days away prompts dismay among Britons, as UK battles to contain coronavirus flare-ups
These boffins got worried when they expected testing over a 10-day period in Leicester to reveal 582 infections, but shock horror! 711 were recorded. Hardly a spike. Is it even a blip? Clearly these crack minds have never seen Forrest Gump, who taught us the eternal lesson: My mom always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what youre gonna get.
Apparently, for the Rapid Investigation Team, not guessing the exact piddling number of cases was unacceptable, and the citizens of Leicester had to pay.
Gotta do Gupta again sorry
Its getting to the point where Im having to cite Professor Sunetra Gupta in every article, and her statement (of what should be the obvious) that case numbers are too dependent on the level of testing to be relevant, and only the number of Covid-19 deaths should be important.
The MSM wont shut up about cases these days, presumably because there arent enough deaths for them to scare people with. So, suddenly, the dials being turned up on testing, tracking, tracing, only its about four months too late.
Back to the report, which states The rise in pillar 2 diagnoses is probably linked, in part, to the availability of testing to the general public rather than a true increase in the number of new infections occurring. In other words, plain English ones, this is all bunkum, because whats increasing is the number of tests and not the true level of infections. Someone should tell Public Health England that the number of positive Covid-19 tests bears only the flimsiest of relations to public health.
One would expect the line after this to provide a counterargument, a reason why there may actually be some any reason to believe Leicester needed to be locked down. But no. The next line explains how the change in case numbers over time is not characteristic of unconstrained growth of an epidemic. And to cap it off, the report ends with the conclusion: Evidence for the scale of the outbreak is limited. So, WTF?
Cant anyone in the government count?
Sometimes one wonders what the point is in making an argument against government policy, when the policies themselves are repeatedly based on juvenile misunderstandings and blunders.
Read more
People tested for Covid-19 in England NOT asked to give addresses during peak of pandemic, complaints of incomplete data
Councillor Francesco Lari, leader of the independents in Nottingham, which neighbours Leicester, tweeted on Friday to show how the UK government had over-reported the number of cases by 29,726 because it counted some twice. Deduplication is the fancy term it uses for not being able to do sums, because you cant expect the Rapid Investigation Team to get every calculation right! After all, when it comes to decisions of great importance that will profoundly affect the lives of hundreds of thousands, rapidity is the name of the game!
Even if they had got all their sums right, and there was an upsurge in cases that warranted action, the report makes clear that it is in the under 19-year-old group. That is, children. You know, those small humans who dont get Covid-19, or if they do, are infinitesimally at risk of dying if they do? Just 0.05 percent of deaths from coronavirus have been of people aged under 19, and those under 40 represent only 0.7 percent. If the purpose of a lockdown is to save lives, whose lives do Public Health England think they are saving here?
In conclusion, there was patently no cause to lock down the people of Leicester, just as previously there was no real cause to lock down Britain, unless you wanted to kill more people through a deep and lasting recession than Covid-19 ever will.
As Mr Lari has pronounced, Leicester is a whole city locked down on wrong data, and the only two possible reasons for that are gross incompetence or a nefarious ulterior motive. Perhaps well be able to deduce which by whether we see a spate of sackings as a result of this latest omnishambles. And I know who Id start with, Prime Minister.
In a superb 3,700-word essay, she explained why she had spoken out. She had researched the arguments, read the papers, talked to those involved including a transsexual friend and wanted no more than womens concerns to be heard; not to be met with threats and abuse.
Debbie Hayton is a teacher and a transgender campaigner, based in the UK. She tweets @DebbieHayton
The best-selling author has been vilified for warning about how children struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery by trans activists. But she is brave and right to speak out.
Debbie Hayton is a teacher and a transgender campaigner, based in the UK. She tweets @DebbieHayton
The best-selling author has been vilified for warning about how children struggling with their mental health are being shunted towards hormones and surgery by trans activists. But she is brave and right to speak out.
