Lady test positive 2 months after second shot.

[Aaron]

Good for them. I’m not sure why I should care about their opinion.

Or us your's, complicit little dupe.

 

[Gold Dragon]

Or us your's, complicit little dupe.

Just because RCTs are not perfect in all situations is not at all a proof that the RCTs that have been mentioned have any flaws in them or are misleading or deceptive at all.

Different study types are better for different applications. To determine the efficacy of a drug in a disease, the RCT is the best tool for the job. Way better than anecdote or retrospective trials or observational studies at finding the truth. There are other situations where RCTs are not so useful but questions about HCQ in Covid19 are not that.

 

[Gold Dragon]

Why the 'gold standard' of medical research is no longer enough

Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials

The pitfalls of randomized controlled trials

These are actually really good articles to read and informative for anyone who wants to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of randomized control trials. However none of them say that randomized control trials are used for deception or should not be trusted. You really should read the articles you post.

Here is a quote from the first one.

Why the 'gold standard' of medical research is no longer enough

Randomized controlled trials have long been held up as the “gold standard” of clinical research. There’s no doubt that well-designed trials are effective tools for testing a new drug, device, or other intervention.
...
In a randomized controlled trial (RCT), participants are randomly assigned to receive either the treatment under investigation or, as a control, a placebo or the current standard treatment. The randomization process helps ensure that the various groups in the study are virtually identical in age, gender, socioeconomic status, and other variables. This minimizes the potential for bias and the influence of confounding factors.

But the article's criticism of RCTs are also correct. There are many things that we do and questions we ask in medicine that are not from RCTs or are not best tested with RCT. They do a good job of explaining what those things are and what other methodologies are useful for investigating those questions. But at no point does it say that RCTs are untrustworthy or deceptive, just that they are not the best tool for every situation.

 

[Gold Dragon]

The second article is also useful for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of RCTs.

Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are widely encouraged as the ideal methodology for causal inference. This has long been true in medicine

....

This paper is not a criticism of RCTs in and of themselves, nor does it propose any hierarchy of evidence, nor attempt to identify good and bad studies. Instead, we will argue that, depending on what we want to discover, why we want to discover it, and what we already know, there will often be superior routes of investigation and, for a great many questions where RCTs can help, a great deal of other work—empirical, theoretical, and conceptual—needs to be done to make the results of an RCT serviceable.

Again this article is saying that RCTs are one of many tools that are useful to answer scientific and medical questions and sometimes in certain situations there may be better tools than RCTs. I wholeheartedly agree with that. It is like saying the telescope is a wonderful tool to see things far away but when you want to look at really small things, maybe you should think about using a microscope.

In no way is this article saying that RCTs are untrustworthy or deceptive.

 

[Gold Dragon]

This third article is also a good one.

The pitfalls of randomized controlled trials

No one denies that RCTs have their strengths.

“Randomized trials do two things that are very rare among other designs,” says William R. Shadish, PhD, a professor of psychological science at the University of California at Merced. “They yield an estimate of the effect that is unbiased and consistent.” Although Shadish is reluctant to describe RTCs as the gold standard because the phrase connotes perfection, he does describe himself as a “huge fan” of the methodology.

“If you can do a randomized trial,” he says, “by all means do it.”

But that’s not always possible. By their very nature, he says, some questions don’t permit random assignment of participants. Doing so might be unethical, for example.

Again a great article looking at some of the weaknesses of randomization. And like the article above is perceptive about what situations RCTs may not be appropriate. However a study about HCQ treatment for Covid19 is absolutely the type of scientific question that is appropriate for an RCT to answer. So again, this article is not at all saying that RCTs are untrustworthy and deceptive, just not always the right tool for every situation.


Aaron, thanks for 3 great articles to educate folks about the pros and cons of RCTs. Unfortunately for you, none of them say anything close to what you want them to say which seems to be that you want these articles to suggest that RCTs are somehow untrustworthy and deceptive. In fact all of them say the opposite.

 

[Reformed1689]

I saw that. And I see Biden is still wanting a mask mandate.

Biden doesn't even know what day it is, just reads the cheat cards. What will they do when he can't read anymore?

 

[JonC]

Biden doesn't even know what day it is, just reads the cheat cards. What will they do when he can't read anymore?

Now days hearing aids use Bluetooth and can link to other devices. The party can communicate.

 

[Hannahande]

Is the reason of death because of the new COVID variant? Recently, new variants were discovered and these were not given consideration when they made the vaccines.