Scrutable

snoozeofreason wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 13, 2020 7:31 pm

We can knock him, I suppose, but Heneghan has helped me arrive at a more relaxed attitude to road safety. I used to worry about being run over by a bus, but my comorbidities mean I would just be dying with a bus on top of me. Knowing that helps me put things in perspective.

Stolen

PeteB wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 13, 2020 3:58 pm

The interview on radio 4 with Charles Walker recited all the lockdown sceptic points and name checked Heneghan and the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine

It's a great name, though, isn't it? Who could object to Evidence-Based Medicine? Isn't that what that slightly eccentric Goldacre chap and his army of people who claim to be skeptical of woo-woo miracle cures and against vaccine denialism and that awful McTeeth woman have been promoting all these years? DO YOU WANT EVIDENCE-FREE MEDICINE INSTEAD? WELL, DO YOU, PUNK?

Maybe Smith and Pell (2003, BMJ) had a point all along.

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:02 am

Maybe Smith and Pell (2003, BMJ) had a point all along.

Quite - without evidence I don't want to be one of the "sheeple" and wear a "back nappy" that inhibits my ability to fall freely from an aircraft - as is my right as a freeman (soon to be spread) on the land.

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:02 am

It's a great name, though, isn't it? Who could object to Evidence-Based Medicine? Isn't that what that slightly eccentric Goldacre chap and his army of people who claim to be skeptical of woo-woo miracle cures and against vaccine denialism and that awful McTeeth woman have been promoting all these years? DO YOU WANT EVIDENCE-FREE MEDICINE INSTEAD? WELL, DO YOU, PUNK?

Maybe Smith and Pell (2003, BMJ) had a point all along.

Together with Heneghan's Trust the Evidence ! Logo

All his followers seem to feel a sense of superiority that they are following the evidence

Quite interesting to scroll down his timeline to see how his tweets have aged and how he jumps between measures to find a short term trend that fits his agenda and then jumps onto something else when that measure reverts back - lots of graphs that end on Sunday/Monday, showing a few days downward trend and then forgets all about it when it starts to trend upward again

Just looking at this


"If you go back to March and April, there was a larger pool of susceptible people, with 1,000 outbreaks in care homes in one week. Now those getting the infection are much younger and they are less affected," says Carl Heneghan, professor of evidence-based medicine at the University of Oxford.

"Secondly, the virus is circulating at a much lower level. With social distancing people are more likely to get a 'glancing blow' and have to deal with a much smaller amount of virus and so be less likely to get seriously ill."

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:02 am

PeteB wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 13, 2020 3:58 pm

The interview on radio 4 with Charles Walker recited all the lockdown sceptic points and name checked Heneghan and the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine

It's a great name, though, isn't it? Who could object to Evidence-Based Medicine? Isn't that what that slightly eccentric Goldacre chap and his army of people who claim to be skeptical of woo-woo miracle cures and against vaccine denialism and that awful McTeeth woman have been promoting all these years? DO YOU WANT EVIDENCE-FREE MEDICINE INSTEAD? WELL, DO YOU, PUNK?

It's not just the name, it's literally the same institution as Goldacre. They've co-authored quite a lot together: https://scholar.google.pt/scholar?hl=en ... n+goldacre

I think the weaknesses of the kind of scientism espoused by the early 'skeptic' movement became apparent as soon as people stopped shooting homeopaths in a barrel and started trying to tackle more complex issues, the pandemic being a case in point. Evaluating and synthesising evidence is complex and inevitably rests on value judgements.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 12:30 pm

It's not just the name, it's literally the same institution as Goldacre. They've co-authored quite a lot together: https://scholar.google.pt/scholar?hl=en ... n+goldacre

Heneghan's peer-reviewed published work might be fine.

But although he purports to be an expert on COVID-19 epidemiology and transmission dynamics - he doesn't seem to have published a single peer-reviewed journal article on the subject. Just blog posts and tweets.

PeteB wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 12:18 pm

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:02 am

It's a great name, though, isn't it? Who could object to Evidence-Based Medicine? Isn't that what that slightly eccentric Goldacre chap and his army of people who claim to be skeptical of woo-woo miracle cures and against vaccine denialism and that awful McTeeth woman have been promoting all these years? DO YOU WANT EVIDENCE-FREE MEDICINE INSTEAD? WELL, DO YOU, PUNK?

Maybe Smith and Pell (2003, BMJ) had a point all along.

Together with Heneghan's Trust the Evidence ! Logo

All his followers seem to feel a sense of superiority that they are following the evidence

Quite interesting to scroll down his timeline to see how his tweets have aged and how he jumps between measures to find a short term trend that fits his agenda and then jumps onto something else when that measure reverts back - lots of graphs that end on Sunday/Monday, showing a few days downward trend and then forgets all about it when it starts to trend upward again

The bolded bit. You should see the responses to @FatEmperor. They're really bad. And tink that someone who seems to have started out recommending crank diet books is remotely qualified.

PeteB wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 12:18 pm

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 9:02 am

It's a great name, though, isn't it? Who could object to Evidence-Based Medicine? Isn't that what that slightly eccentric Goldacre chap and his army of people who claim to be skeptical of woo-woo miracle cures and against vaccine denialism and that awful McTeeth woman have been promoting all these years? DO YOU WANT EVIDENCE-FREE MEDICINE INSTEAD? WELL, DO YOU, PUNK?

Maybe Smith and Pell (2003, BMJ) had a point all along.

Together with Heneghan's Trust the Evidence ! Logo

All his followers seem to feel a sense of superiority that they are following the evidence

Much as I don't want to be seen as coming to the defence of Hancock - but Sunetra Gupta has fired off another article (not in a journal of course) which makes some extraordinary claims...

https://unherd.com/2020/10/matt-hancock ... -immunity/

She claims...

- That the four "seasonal" coronaviruses that already circulate in our communities (i.e. that cause about 15% of common colds) are not "intrinsically milder" than SARS-CoV-2.

- That COVID-19 is "less virulent in the healthy elderly and younger people than influenza." (Tell that to the ONS. And remind me how many under 60s are killed by influenza in a typical year in the UK???)

- Work in her "lab in Oxford" is showing that getting one coronavirus (e.g. common cold) offers some protection against other coronaviruses (e.g. COVID-19) (Published any papers on this? I didn't know that as a Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology she had a wet lab or ran clinical studies? Whether this is true is an empirical question)

bob sterman wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 6:13 pm

- Work in her "lab in Oxford" is showing that getting one coronavirus (e.g. common cold) offers some protection against other coronaviruses (e.g. COVID-19) (Published any papers on this? I didn't know that as a Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology she had a wet lab or ran clinical studies? Whether this is true is an empirical question)

She says

We are able to test for antibodies – and my lab in Oxford has been doing so since early April

suggesting she has a wet lab.

bob sterman wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 6:13 pm

Much as I don't want to be seen as coming to the defence of Hancock - but Sunetra Gupta has fired off another article (not in a journal of course) which makes some extraordinary claims...

https://unherd.com/2020/10/matt-hancock ... -immunity/

She claims...

- That the four "seasonal" coronaviruses that already circulate in our communities (i.e. that cause about 15% of common colds) are not "intrinsically milder" than SARS-CoV-2.

- That COVID-19 is "less virulent in the healthy elderly and younger people than influenza." (Tell that to the ONS. And remind me how many under 60s are killed by influenza in a typical year in the UK???)

- Work in her "lab in Oxford" is showing that getting one coronavirus (e.g. common cold) offers some protection against other coronaviruses (e.g. COVID-19) (Published any papers on this? I didn't know that as a Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology she had a wet lab or ran clinical studies? Whether this is true is an empirical question)

On the last one, if she's saying "is showing" rather than "has shown" that suggests to me that perhaps she's not finished this work yet and is excitedly telling us about some preliminary results. Of the work she has finished on covid, it all seems to be pre-prints rather than anything that's actually made it into a journal.

I'd really like to see the evidence she's basing the first two points on. Is it in the article you link to?

jdc wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 6:52 pm

On the last one, if she's saying "is showing" rather than "has shown" that suggests to me that perhaps she's not finished this work yet and is excitedly telling us about some preliminary results. Of the work she has finished on covid, it all seems to be pre-prints rather than anything that's actually made it into a journal.

I'd really like to see the evidence she's basing the first two points on. Is it in the article you link to?

On the last point - sorry the word "showing" was mine. The exact quote is...

"Also, all the coronaviruses in circulation — including the Covid-19 virus— have some features in common which means that getting one coronavirus will probably offer some protection against other coronaviruses. This is becoming increasingly clear from work in many labs, including my lab in Oxford."

Regarding the first two points - she doesn't cite any evidence for those claims. Just makes those assertions.

bob sterman wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 7:18 pm

jdc wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 6:52 pm

On the last one, if she's saying "is showing" rather than "has shown" that suggests to me that perhaps she's not finished this work yet and is excitedly telling us about some preliminary results. Of the work she has finished on covid, it all seems to be pre-prints rather than anything that's actually made it into a journal.

I'd really like to see the evidence she's basing the first two points on. Is it in the article you link to?

On the last point - sorry the word "showing" was mine. The exact quote is...

"Also, all the coronaviruses in circulation — including the Covid-19 virus— have some features in common which means that getting one coronavirus will probably offer some protection against other coronaviruses. This is becoming increasingly clear from work in many labs, including my lab in Oxford."

Regarding the first two points - she doesn't cite any evidence for those claims. Just makes those assertions.

Ah, if it's 'work in many labs' on cross-protection then I think this *might* be what she's talking about: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0389-z

wrt this being relevant to herd immunity, I wouldn't have though that 'possibly influencing disease severity' was quite the same as 'making someone immune to catching and transmitting the disease' but hey ho.

T cell reactivity against SARS-CoV-2 was observed in unexposed people; however, the source and clinical relevance of the reactivity remains unknown. It is speculated that this reflects T cell memory to circulating ‘common cold’ coronaviruses.

What are the implications of these observations? The potential for pre-existing crossreactivity against COVID-19 in a fraction of the human population has led to extensive speculation. Pre-existing T cell immunity to SARS-CoV-2 could be relevant because it could influence COVID-19 disease severity.

It is frequently assumed that pre-existing T cell memory against SARS-CoV-2 might be either beneficial or irrelevant. However, there is also the possibility that pre-existing immunity might actually be detrimental, through mechanisms such as ‘original antigenic sin’ (the propensity to elicit potentially inferior immune responses owing to pre-existing immune memory to a related pathogen), or through antibody-mediated disease enhancement. While there is no direct evidence to support these outcomes, they must be considered.

Oh well, so much for the baked in 500 deaths a day in mid November

Some good commentary here...

https://twitter.com/jamesannan/status/1 ... 9470440450

The four cold coronaviruses are 229E, NL63, OC43 & HKU1. They are endemic across the world, causing frequent illness. It's likely we all get infected by all four several times in our lifetimes.

There are no vaccines. It does not appear possible to get permanent immunity. It is possible that sometimes these cold viruses cause unusual complications in a tiny minority of people, e.g. are a root cause of other diseases or conditions. It might also be the case that these 4 cold viruses were once novel coronaviruses that caused deadly pandemics in history, before mutating into milder forms (1890 flu epidemic might have been one).

So I'm not sure how to take the claim that these 4 are "not intrinsically milder" than SARS-CoV-2. They are not milder in the sense that all 4 are remarkably good at defeating our immune systems, same as Covid. They obviously are milder in terms of killing humans.

And I'm not sure why Gupta thinks it's good news about being "mild" like the 4 - the lack of immunity shouts out that we should delay, delay, delay. If it follows their pattern, immunity will be temporary only (months, not years) so we have to win time to develop treatments, processes and possible partial vaccines.

lpm wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:42 pm

The four cold coronaviruses are 229E, NL63, OC43 & HKU1. They are endemic across the world, causing frequent illness. It's likely we all get infected by all four several times in our lifetimes.

There are no vaccines. It does not appear possible to get permanent immunity. It is possible that sometimes these cold viruses cause unusual complications in a tiny minority of people, e.g. are a root cause of other diseases or conditions. It might also be the case that these 4 cold viruses were once novel coronaviruses that caused deadly pandemics in history, before mutating into milder forms (1890 flu epidemic might have been one).

...[snip]

Re bold.
Interesting. The sweating sickness of the Tudor times?

It's possible Covid will infect all children, with minimal effects. Then will repeat infecting many times for the rest of their lives, with partial immune response making it a mild cold-like cough. Potentially end up being fatal in old age - elderly can currently die from the complications of colds.

The problem is for us adults - much more serious impact in the first infection. The subsequent infections appear to be milder, but with too few examples.

I doubt these viruses mutate much to become milder. More that they are endemic and weak against children, leading to partial defences in adults.

The 4 cold coronaviruses reinfect on a average of 9 months.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1889%E2%8 ... 0_pandemic

OC43 linked to 1890 pandemic. Looks a bit dubious to me - they are just doing an age calc of the RNA and estimating 130 years and assigning the 1890 pandemic to it.

lpm wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:42 pm

So I'm not sure how to take the claim that these 4 are "not intrinsically milder" than SARS-CoV-2. They are not milder in the sense that all 4 are remarkably good at defeating our immune systems, same as Covid. They obviously are milder in terms of killing humans.

Your second definition of mild is the better one, I think.

AMS wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 10:35 pm

lpm wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 14, 2020 8:42 pm

So I'm not sure how to take the claim that these 4 are "not intrinsically milder" than SARS-CoV-2. They are not milder in the sense that all 4 are remarkably good at defeating our immune systems, same as Covid. They obviously are milder in terms of killing humans.

Your second definition of mild is the better one, I think.

It's like the old joke,

"What did they die of?"
"Oh, nothing serious"

More Heneghan. This time explaining The ten worst Covid data failures in an article co-authored with Tom Jefferson in the Spectator, where Heneghan seems to be a regular presence.

Heneghan and Jefferson wrote:1) Overstating of the number of people who are going to die

This starts with the now-infamous Imperial College London (ICL) ‘Report 9’ that modelled 500,00 [sic] deaths if no action was taken at all, and 250,000 deaths if restrictions were not tightened. This set the train of lockdown restrictions in motion. Some argue that Imperial’s modelling may have come true had it not been for lockdown. But this does not explain Sweden. Academics there said its assumptions would mean 85,000 deaths if Sweden did not lock down. It did not – and deaths are just under 6,000.

The sentence about 85,000 deaths in Sweden is hyperlinked to an article on the website of Radio Sweden (evidence based medicine's journal of record) which quotes Professor Paul Franks, an expert in genetic and molecular epidemiology at Lund University as saying

There's a massive difference between the number of individuals who the Swedish public health agency think will show up at hospitals and test positive for covid-19 compared with the numbers if you apply the Imperial College model,

The figure of 85,000 doesn't appear in the Radio Sweden article, and there's no indication of how Heneghan and Jefferson have arrived at it. But it is suspiciously close to the figure you would get if you took the 500,000 UK deaths mentioned in the first sentence (after adding the zero they missed out) and then just decide to divide by 6 because Sweden's population is about 1/6 of the UK. I am not sure it works like this. As the More or Less program has pointed out a few times, you would expect the progress of the virus in Sweden to behave more like that in Norway or Finland - both of which have vastly lower death rates - than the UK.

snoozeofreason wrote: ↑

Sun Oct 25, 2020 4:55 pm

Heneghan and Jefferson wrote:But this does not explain Sweden. Academics there said its assumptions would mean 85,000 deaths if Sweden did not lock down. It did not – and deaths are just under 6,000.

"Academics . . . said its assumptions would mean 85,000 deaths..." So they didn't actually run the model? They simply used their intuitions to extrapolate from the assumptions? E.g. perhaps just divide by 6 as you suggest?

Comedy Carl doesn't seem to publish articles on COVID in peer-reviewed journals - so it shouldn't be surprising that he doesn't bother to cite them either.

Thread on seasonal effects
https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/132743 ... 02337?s=21