52 Comments

Vinay, That paper is seriously flawed for a number of reasons. JAMA editorial quality has fallen down a deep hole somewhere. But Topol is worse than that -- having run into this for many, many years now, he has a history of being all bluster, no brains. Always recites the required state diktat. One of the most dangerous "experts" out there that I know.

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He was a witness in the Vioxx trial, it did not work out well for him, he almost lost his carrier and he learned the lesson - never go against the pharma.

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I agree. He learned his lesson and now he's not going to do anything controversial, like give rational objective viewpoints, or else his sweet Executive VP at Scripps Research in La Jolla could evaporate.

By his own admission.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/business/doctor-suggests-merck-trial-may-have-led-to-demotion.html

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"It is concerning to me that the media so frequently quotes someone who is not reading papers in a detailed way. The real reason the public is misinformed is because we have a crisis where many doctors, even those with long titles, do not read papers at a high level."

That is not the real reason. The reason that the public is misinformed is that the media will not quote doctors (or researchers) who read such papers in a detailed way. So if a researcher wants to be quoted by the media, he/she will make sure to read it superficially and come to the conclusion that the media likes.

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Not surprising, given mainstream media is “brought to you by Pfizer....”

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Vinay, you should release a “masterclass” series teaching the general public how to correctly interpret medical studies. Seriously.

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But the papers nowadays are often written in a purposely confusing, misleading way, so that such erroneous conclusions as Topol's can easily be drawn. And the really good data will be hidden away in some supplemental appendix that no one looks at...

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I don't know about the adverb "purposely" as used here. I would have thought the same but for being reminded by my skydiving teacher Megan of an old aphorism (probably goes all the way back to ancient Greece): "Do not infer malice when simple ignorance is explanatory for some flawed behavior".

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It is not malice per se. It is selection bias. When a paper is written clearly and has an "undesirable conclusions," it gets ignored by the mainstream media and by the "experts" who like to be quoted by the media. But when a paper is confusing enough so that erroneous (and desirable) conclusions can be seemingly drawn, it gets the attention of such experts and the media.

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UH......yes.

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Thank you for continuing to expose these frauds. Sadly they have broken too many people psychologically. Meanwhile, Novak djokovic is still not allowed to enter the US to play big tournaments in California and Florida. Disgraceful.

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Dude, I am an oral and maxillofacial surgeon (BTW, aside from respiratory therapists, THE specialty most likely to contract or spread URI's) and I tip my hat to what you have been bringing to the COVID conversation and your willingness to

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Thank you for even mentioning Respiratory Therapists! The profession that “nobody knows what we do”!

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i had great respect for Topol after hearing him on Peter Attia's The Drive podcast. i bought one of his books. but he's been sooooooo disappointing, swallowing covid insanity hook, line and sinker. he immediately demonized Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying for not reflexively jumping on the mRNA bandwagon. he accused them of "killing people," completely forgetting how he had been tormented and targeted for "destruction" when he was a whistle blower on Vioxx. i guess what's good for his goose isn't good for someone else's gander. he was unwilling to see if they might have some point of view, just dismissed them as evil and dangerous.

now, all these foolish papers and tweets. he'll say and do anything to keep the covid bubble aloft.

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He also conveniently forgets his own role in delaying the vaccine for political reasons: https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/10/19/1010646/campaign-stop-covid-19-vaccine-trump-election-day/

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Especially like the reasoning against Trump that Topol himself is now convicted of: “If Trump badgered the US Food and Drug Administration into prematurely releasing a vaccine that wasn’t effective, or even caused harm, it could shake the public’s trust in any covid-19 vaccine. And if we are to achieve wide immunity against SARS-CoV-2, we'll need to vaccinate more people than the number that get flu shots each year. Releasing a vaccine that people are afraid of could do more harm than good.”

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But was the political act pushing for early release with EUA in October when in fact 600 people a day were dying of COVID then, or was the political act marshalling your social media influence to delay the vaccine so no political benefit could accrue to the incumbent to the benefit of Biden?

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Turns out both of these are misuses of power on behalf of those who sought to gain political advantage at the expense of people's health and lives: Trump wanted to rush it through to get votes to win the election, then Biden and team wanted to stonewall it until after the election to neutralize the effect. Both should have been concentrating on safety and effectiveness and neither were. In fact Biden MANDATED vaccines at the very time CDC had confirmed from Barnstable, MA that the vaccines did not stop the spread. In CDC's own slide show they used the term "vaccine failure". So now we have tens of thousands dead from a rushed vaccine exposure and promotion that BOTH Trump and Biden are guilty of. Both have blood on their hands. There are no good guys here.

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Wow, I had no idea. Thanks for this. The whole thing was political

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As the voice of many, JAMA accurately reflects how misinformed many doctors are. Don’t forget it’s the American Medical Association’s journal.

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I can't tell you how grateful I am that doctors like you are doing the deep dive and correcting such egregious errors of interpretation. And regarding this: "The real reason the public is misinformed is because we have a crisis where many doctors, even those with long titles, do not read papers at a high level." The second reason the public is misinformed is that we have a remarkably lazy and incurious media.

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Love the statistical analysis and interpretation. So helpful to know what’s really accurate rather than rely on a headline

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I've written a white paper for a social media platform that (among many other things) uses a collaborative peer review mechanism. It is possible to remedy this kind if misreporting with good design.

It's also possible to remedy the publication of such bad studies by stacking a journal system on top of a social media platform. The first requirement for publishing? Universal preregistration that is collaboratively peer-reviewed. Fix the study before it is done and wastes everyone's time and money and misleads.

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The question of the year: what does Eric Topol get right? It's a better question, and a shorter list in answer.

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Thanks so much, dear one, for doing the detailed reading and sharing your analysis with all of us. I am waaaay too tired to do it for myself, because everything in life at the moment seems to require this kind of attention. Bless you for being on world sanity patrol. Hugs and gratitude!

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I’m so happy to say it again, Topol is a total tool.

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Just remove the “p” from his last name and get what he is... a tool. Coincidence? I think not.

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Topol the to(ta)ol tool.

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Topol and others like him get away with this because, as his Scripps Research profile says, he “maintains a strong presence on social media on Twitter (@erictopol) with over 675,000 followers.” Of course, many of his followers follow him because he has a lot of followers. The press then quotes him because he has a lot of followers who follow him because he has a lot of followers. So far, few other than Vinay have stepped up and said that the emperor is not wearing a lab coat.

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Blame everything on 'long covid'. The vaxxers will believe it so long as CNNBBC tell them to believe it.

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I just sat in on this course for medical reporters. It was excellent and covered many of the ways pharma has tried to deceive people in journal articles, press releases and ads. https://lisaschwartzfoundation.org/about-medicine-in-media Maybe next year they'll add a segment on docs on Twitter. There are two big problems that have come out of Twitter. The first is that high quality reporting takes time and people will gravitate toward those who throw out instant answers. The second problem is that much of the high quality reporting is behind paywalls and people want stuff that's free.

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