[bb88]

FTFA:

> Dr. Howard P. Forman (@thehowie) is a professor of public health policy, management, economics and radiology at Yale.

I think you failed to see the "professor of public health policy" in his title. I would expect a professor of public health policy to understand how to read results of studies and then translate them to public health policies.

[OrvalWintermute]

> I think you failed to see the "professor of public health policy" in his title.

No, I did not. Public Health Policy and an MBA are non-clinical.

Clinical Doctors that are actively treating Covid19 patients, that are actively using what will be Standard of Care using antivirals, anti-inflammatories, anticoagulants, steroids, ACE2 inhibitors, and other drugs, using well-known medical therapies for sick patients are the doctors that I want to hear from around treatment A, or treatment B. These are the doctors with the experience and the know-ho for these severe diseases.

Again, as a radiologist, or hospital mgmt, the fine doctor is not a clinical doctor actively performing these treatments with these drugs and immunotherapies. Radiologists diagnose.

This is the domain of an Infectious Diseases specialty in severe cases, and an Internist in less severe cases, with the active support of the associated other specialties (cardio/pulmonologists/vascular/etc for all the involved body parts for which there are specific specialties acutely impacted by covid).

[bb88]

> Public Health Policy and an MBA are non-clinical.

What does that have to do with reading and understanding studies? If you're treating patients, sure. But there are doctors that do research -- particularly those in pharma -- and in public policy.

I'm not sure why you want to continue to beat this dead dog of an argument.

[OrvalWintermute]

> dead dog of an argument.

This is not a dead argument. It is an example of specialists in a particular field that are the height of expertise having the best say about the pros and cons of specific medical interventions.

A younger version of myself, when I wanted to learn how to cook, realized that I needed the proper tools with which to prepare ingredients. Being uninformed and ignorant, I was bombarded with reviews of knives written by marketing folks. I did not trust their judgment because they were intent on selling me something, regardless of whether or not it was best for me with the cooking style I would adopt. Instead, I went and talked with two friends having extensive training in the culinary arts and we discussed the pros and cons of various cutlery. One of my friends had a great deal of experience with many makes and models, and could provide a wisdom about product selections. Likewise, this conversation.

The fine doctor/professor, and his 2 juniors have not actually recounted much of the medical literature on COVID 19 treatments except ones that prove their point. In doing so, they have done us a disservice by pushing a discussion in one direction, without adequately informing us of other perspectives that are more expert than they. Why are they doing this? I don't know. But, I do know of COVID treatment protocols and what they contain. There is a specific category of drugs within those protocols called antivirals. It contains a number of different antivirals, which is not really important which one (they have specific pros and cons, different mechanisms of action and some are oral, and some are IV), but the overall dismissal of what will shortly be Standard of Care for Covid19 treatment includes antivirals.

[bb88]

It is a dead dog of an argument. We have vaccines now, which are proven to save lives.

> The fine doctor/professor, and his 2 juniors have not actually recounted much of the medical literature on COVID 19 treatments except ones that prove their point.

Or maybe they have and refuse to believe everything written on paper should be taken as fact?

The lead author has a twitter account, I'm sure you can reach out to him to figure out if he is in fact qualified to make a claim. Let me know what you find out.