Friday, April 24, 2020

Trump, ever the salesman, is peddling dangerous cures for coronavirus

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/24/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-disinfectant-sunlight-science/index.html
Roll up for Donald Trump's old West traveling medicine show.
He's marketed steaks and real estate, board games and vodka, but nothing the incorrigible salesman has tried to hawk measures up to his latest routine as he speculated on a possible new cure for Covid-19.
For most of his life as a pitchman, Trump has only had his own reputation on the line. But now, in the middle of a generational health crisis, lives are at stake.
In an eye-popping moment, Trump doubled down on his claim that sunlight and the festering humidity of high summer could purge the virus in his latest grab for a game-changer therapy.
Then, he asked aides on camera whether zapping patients with light or injecting disinfectant into the lungs to clean sick patients from inside could cure them of the disease.

26 comments :

  1. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8230775/Is-proof-live-saving-ventilators-actually-deathtraps.html

    More evidence suggesting that ventilators may be killing people. Perhaps it's not viral pneumonia at all!

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  2. Well actually here's the interesting part. Data out of New York is turning up lots of patients who come in with oxygen saturations less than 90% who look fine.
    Background: oxygen saturation in a normal health person should be greater than 95%. In people with chronic lung diseases, it runs around 88-91%. Less than that is considered harmful. Yet New York ER's are apparently seeing people come in with saturations as low as 50% who are sitting up, talking and, other than breathing rapidly, are in no other distress.
    So the approach until now has been to shout "OMG! This guy's sat is 50% Intubate it" and then to intubate and ventilate. And it's these folks who aren't doing well on the ventilator. But some ER's are starting to say "Hang on, the guy may have a lousy saturation but he looks fine. Why not just give him oxygen by mask?"
    It's starting to appear that intubation should be guided by appearance, not saturations, which is a huge shift in thinking in intensive care. All because God did not provide us with a proper user manual for CoVID19.

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  3. Here's what he actually said
    "So, supposing when we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful."
    Fact check: he doesn't know a lot of thinks when it comes to medicine, that should be clear to everybody. So just before this he was told UV light kills the virus, which it does. Disinfectants kill the virus, which is does. So for someone who is not medically inclined, it's not a stretch to ask "Well how can we do this to a human and clean him up?" Yes, it's not the smartest question but it's still a legitimate one, especially as he did not recommend what the press is saying he did.

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  4. Let's have some rachmanus on Trump. He's not a scientist. He said something stupid that came to his mind because of his lack of knowledge. Your average frum Jew would make plenty of likewise ignorant and uninformed comments or suggestions without scientific basis. (Case in point: A certain frequent commenter here). You gently correct them with the facts you were blessed to learn and you move on. The insistence on ridiculing and making a mountain out of this is probably indicative of a corrupt spirit. But hey, that's CNN fakenews for ya.

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  5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4oBPmUZ5KU

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  6. you are right the average idiot would have asked the same dumb questions

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  7. you are right the average idiot would have asked the same dumb questions

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  8. actually, many drugs are toxic - antibiotics, anti-cancer drugs, these are all cyto-toxic, i.e. they kill cells in the human body as well as the pathogens. So an effective drug often has side effects, as does, for example, radiation for cancers.

    So his question is not at all out of the realms of scientific enquiry.

    There are 2 valid questions he raises:


    a) can the achilles heel of the virus, which is easily found outside (in vitro) also be found to be a useful target inside the patient (in vivo)?


    b) Can the drugs be delivered with minimal toxicity?

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  9. maybe he has a point
    maybe certain natural substances that are edible or at least not harmful could have an anti-viral effect, doesn't need to be detergent

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  10. The average person with an Israeli haredi education that has never learned science would ask these questions and more!

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  11. And without the ventilators how would they have fared? That's the other side of this equation. Who will answer that and demonstrate lives being saved after parameters necessitating ventilator were reached but they chose NOT to put them on? Only after something like that happens will the world be convinced ventilators are the problem.... And I'm afraid to say that is a very unlikely outcome.
    We may go from saving 10% to saving 0%.
    Doctors aren't using ventilators because they think they have other options and they toss a coin.

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  12. They usually give oxygen first, chief.

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  13. Johnson is a good example - he was given oxygen and recovered, without ventilator. But yes, there is no guarantee that the sickest will survive with less invasive ventilation.

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  14. It's possible that the low oxygen is not due to viral pneumonia, but something else. But this needs further research.

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  15. Yes, that may be the case, namely the sickest sample of patients are most likely to die, and this group are most likely to be put on ventilators. However, the few doctors who have questioned this orthodoxy are claiming that clinically , these patients are conscious and talking, but biologically their O2 is very low, and they survive without ventilator . But thus is anecdotal. Until a study of treatment with /without ventilator and standard measures of breathing problems is undertaken, then we have no reliable data either way.

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  16. "these patients are conscious and talking, but biologically their O2 is very low,"

    Only in some cases. Many are put on ventilator and are not at all like this. They are referring to a subset of patients, and wondering maybe they can survive without it despite the extreme hypoxia? Maybe there is a better approach? Maybe the ventilator might even make it worse? (either of these possibilities would have to be demonstrated)

    To extrapolate that and assume that everyone going on a ventilator is in this condition is false and not being stated by any doctors. It is a subset of people.

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  17. To my knowledge, patients are given oxygen first in vast majority of cases, and only advance to a ventilator when it doesn't help. So I'm not sure these are proper conclusions being drawn from the available info. (Namely, that regular oxygen tank will save the day)

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  18. Could be. I'm just stating that patients ARE being given oxygen too, before the ventilator, and it doesn't always help.

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  19. https://youtu.be/g4VzozLIt7M

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  20. WasTrump actually Right (like usual)?


    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4783265/

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  21. that is not the way it is being told by some doctors


    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8230775/Is-proof-live-saving-ventilators-actually-deathtraps.html


    He is saying that it was standard procedure to knock people out and then intubate them, but they are changing things now. Whether this saves more lives, has not yet been established.

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  22. I didn't extrapolate, look above, my comment has not been edited :)

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  23. It is at the moment a cute hypothesis - but we need to see evidence in trials


    this article suggests it is being trialled

    https://www.latintimes.com/coronavirus-treatment-update-virgin-coconut-oil-vco-being-tested-possible-cure-covid-457886

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  24. Look up "Aytu" for the light treatment approach. I'm skeptical of that being workable ultimately, but it is something being explored.

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  25. We don't take medical advice from the president or any other non scientific expert, including many doctors.

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