Comment by lucd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lucd | Hacker News Reader

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What do you mean by media politizing HCQ ?

I saw some media posting medical disinformation like the claim that in Italy lupus patients treated with HCQ were protected from covid.. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/media-lied-people-d... Denial from the Italia reumatology society: https://www.iltempo.it/cronache/2020/05/02/news/idrossicloro... And claiming that people who do not think HCQ is effective do so because of their anti-Trump feelings.. So that seems to match your claim about media politizing..

What I saw on Twitter is many GOP/Trump militants making dubious claims about HCQ effectiveness and branding everyone who disagree victims of TDS..

And I'm all for medium or others censoring medical disinformation as it was the case with the article you linked to.

Looking at the many studies that were made in the last monthes (including RCTs) and their respective shortcoming it is clear that HCQ isn't effective..

What about this one?

https://www.henryford.com/news/2020/07/hydro-treatment-study

> What I saw on Twitter is many GOP/Trump militants making dubious claims about HCQ effectiveness and branding everyone who disagree victims of TDS..

I also saw the opposite, people saying "we knew all along", before some solid evidence was out (RECOVERY, and the UMN study: the latter however has limits due to lack of PCR-confirmed viral tests). Or they believed the flawed Lancet paper unconditionally (count me among them, it was a mistake).

The whole matter was politicized too heavily and the first victim was science, as far as I can see.

I say "some" and not "the" evidence because there are still some large studies going on, like COPCOV.

This is one of the reasons many experienced politicians choose not to comment on things that they know will only politicize a thing. As soon as Trump decided to tie his political fortunes to something, it created negative motivations for others to see it fail. And with Trump's record, as soon as he mentions something, a lot of people are going to instantly assume the truth must be elsewhere.

This does not excuse people (in particular well-educated people) from not using their brains.

I'd go further, and say that actually a lot regarding this disease is still heavily polarized, without any room for more nuanced positions.

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