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Flawed coronavirus studies (view source)
Revision as of 00:53, August 10, 2020
, 00:53, August 10, 2020continuing to update
{{cquote|Those receiving hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, or both were more likely than those not receiving either drug to have diabetes, respiratory rate >22/min, abnormal chest imaging findings, O2 saturation lower than 90%, and aspartate aminotransferase greater than 40 U/L.<ref name=Rosenburg/>}}
{{cquote|Those receiving hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, or both were more likely than those not receiving either drug to have diabetes, respiratory rate >22/min, abnormal chest imaging findings, O2 saturation lower than 90%, and aspartate aminotransferase greater than 40 U/L.<ref name=Rosenburg/>}}
==A Randomized Trial of Hydroxychloroquine as Postexposure Prophylaxis for Covid-19==
This is one of two studies that come from the University of Minnesota that are commonly cited by the media to suggest that hydroxychloroquine does not have a benefit when it is used early. This are several reasons to doubt that conclusion, one of which is that the study was approaching statistical significance when one looks at the patients who received the drugs within two days of their exposure. The other reasons to doubt this study are as follows:
*Only 3% of patients tested positive for COVID-19.<ref>[https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638?query%3Dfeatured_home= A Randomized Trial of Hydroxychloroquine as Postexposure Prophylaxis for Covid-19] by David R. Boulware et. al. (June 3, 2020) ''The New England Journal of Medicine''</ref>}}<ref name=Cohen>[https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2020388 Hydroxychloroquine for the Prevention of Covid-19 — Searching for Evidence] by Myron S. Cohen (June 3, 2020) ''The New England Journal of Medicine''</ref><ref name=CBoul>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llZ1uurWLmA&list=PLRgTUN1zz_oeQpnJxpeaEkFimDeepqyWf&t=510 Too Much Damage Is Being Done By The Bungled Response To Covid-19] by Dr. Chris Martenson (Jun 4, 2020) ''PeakProsperity''</ref>
*The data was self-reported (as opposed to being recorded by a researcher).<ref name=Cohen/><ref name=CBoul/>
*The treatment was delayed as it was being delivered through the mail.<ref name=Cohen/><ref name=CBoul/>
*The sample size might not have been large enough to achieve statistical significance (see the next study for a more thorough explanation).
==Hydroxychloroquine in Nonhospitalized Adults With Early COVID-19: A Randomized Trial==
This is the second of the two studies that come from the University of Minnesota. The following are its flaws:
*Only 58% of patients tested positive for COVID-19.
*The data was self-reported
*The treatment was delayed as it was being delivered through the mail.
*The sample size was not large enough to achieve statistical significance.
*The assessment "overall symptom severity" was subjective and not rigorous.<ref>[https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32673060/ Hydroxychloroquine in Nonhospitalized Adults With Early COVID-19: A Randomized Trial] by Caleb P Skipper et. al. (2020 Jul 16) ''Annals of Internal Medicine''</ref>
During the course of this study, the researchers discovered that the low event rate of hospitalization and deaths among the participants meant that the trial would have required 6000 participants in order to achieve meaningful results. Consider the following example in order to understand the nature of the problem. Lets say that 1 out of 100 people infected with SARS CoV-2 will need to be hospitalized, the study has 400 participants evenly divided between the control and placebo groups, and hydroxychloroquine is known to be 50% effective. The study is executed and 2 people in the control group are hospitalized whereas only 1 person in the treatment group was hospitalized. One could argue that confirms the hypothesis, but anyone familiar with statistics would tell you that that is not correct. The difference between 1 and 2 people being hospitalized could have easily happened due to chance and thus the difference is not statistically significant. The only way to achieve statistical significance would be to increase the sample size, in this example to 6000 people, which would result in 30 people being hospitalized in the control group and 15 being hospitalized in patients treated with hydroxychloroquine. That wasn't done and so the results are meaningless. What was done was analyzing whether or not one self-reported having a cough after 14 days in both the placebo and treated groups and then trying to use that to determine if the treatment was successful or not. That, to be perfectly frank, is not science (unless one was trying to evaluate the effectiveness of cough medicine).