Tag: COVID-19
COVID-19 Testing
Currently available tests for COVID-19 are imperfect but useful if used properly, with rapidly evolving research on new tests underway.
Medical conspiracy theories and COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned almost innumerable conspiracy theories, and conspiracists like the antivaccine movement have joined forces with COVID-19 conspiracy theorists. To combat the proliferation of pseudoscience rooted in conspiracy theories, it is useful to step back and examine the nature of conspiracy theories, including ones that are not medical, even ones like QAnon. Critical thinking is the key to inoculating...
Smoking and COVID
Does smoking worsen COVID infections? Or is it protective? As more evidence emerges, the smoke is starting to clear.
Do Masks Work?
Let's review the evidence for the effectiveness of wearing face masks during a pandemic (reprinted from NeuroLogica).
Plandemic: Judy Mikovits and the mother of all COVID-19 conspiracy theories (some final thoughts)
Last Friday, I deconstructed Plandemic, a misinformation conspiracyfest of a video that went viral last week. It turns out that Judy Mikovits, the disgraced scientist featured in the video has even more conspiracy theories and misinformation up her sleeve.
Plandemic: Judy Mikovits and the mother of all COVID-19 conspiracy theories
Judy Mikovits is a disgraced scientist who published a paper claiming that a retrovirus called XMRV causes chronic fatigue syndrome, results that other investigators were unable to replicate. Since then, she's been a regular on the antivaccine circuit, but now she's been reborn as a "Fire Fauci" COVID-19 conspiracy theorist. Sadly, it worked. Her book is #1 on Amazon.
COVID-19: Out-of-control science and bypassing science-based medicine
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there hasn't just been a pandemic of coronavirus-caused disease. There's also a pandemic of misinformation and bad science. It turns out that doctors today are just as prone as doctors 100 years ago during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic to bypass science-based medicine in their desperation to treat patients.
Hydroxychloroquine, retinal toxicity, and COVID-19
Hydroxychloroquine is being promoted as a treatment or prevention for COVID-19 based on questionable evidence. The long-term impact of hydroxychloroquine on the retina introduces another reason to be cautious about its use outside of clinical trials.
Stroke in COVID-19 Patients
A case series of five patients with COVID-19 and young strokes sparks many questions.
Hydroxychloroquine and the price of abandoning of science- and evidence-based medicine
Based on anecdotal evidence early in the pandemic and then-unreported clinical trials, followed by hype and bad studies by French "brave maverick doctor" Didier Raoult, antimalarial drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine became the de facto standard of care for COVID-19, despite no rigorous evidence that they worked. A steady drip-drip-drip of negative studies has led doctors and health authorities to rethink and backtrack,...