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Clinical trials Medicine Popular culture Quackery

Did hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) really kill 17,000 COVID-19 patients?

A recent study concludes that the rampant use of HCQ early in the pandemic could have resulted in 17,000 excess deaths. But did HCQ really do that? Possibly, but it’s complicated.

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Antivaccine nonsense Clinical trials Medicine

How EBM fundamentalism was weaponized against public health in 2023

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has been a very useful paradigm for assessing evidence in medicine. However, like any other framework, it can be misused, particularly when fundamentalist EBM methodolatry leads to its inappropriate application to questions for which it is ill-suited, a misuse that has been weaponized against public health during the pandemic.

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Antivaccine nonsense Medicine Politics

Dr. Joseph Ladapo: Busted lying with statistics about COVID-19 vaccines

Surprise! Surprise! Politico has busted Dr. Joseph Ladapo for having altered a Florida Department of Health study to lie with statistics and make COVID-19 vaccines look more dangerous than COVID-19 for men under 40.

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Clinical trials Medicine Science

Pulse oximetry: Racial disparities pop up in unpredictable places

Evidence increasingly suggests that pulse oximetry overestimates the blood oxygenation in Black patients. It’s a problem that’s been discussed a long time that took a pandemic to bring to public consciousness. How can SBM decrease or eliminate such healthcare disparities?

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Antivaccine nonsense Bad science Medicine Skepticism/critical thinking

Norman Fenton: “It’s not p-hacking if you don’t use p-values.”

Defending an awful paper on COVID-19 vaccine adverse events, Prof. Norman Fenton claims that it can’t be p-hacking if you don’t use p-values. Hilarity ensues.