"I am the science." With that attitude, who needs data? Before the pandemic, my attitude toward the CDC, FDA, Big Pharma, etc. was "they're not perfect, but I'll generally give them the benefit of the doubt." How wrong I was. I no longer have any confidence in their policies and pronouncements. Unfortunately, this extends to some of my personal health care providers who continue to hold these policies as gospel either because they believe them or have to in order to keep their job. I'm not sure which reason is more disappointing.
They ran none because all previous studies showed no significant effect for community measures, because "community" measures are never applied at home and that's where most transmissions occur...
Thank you for the article. I couldn't agree more, and they need to be defrocked. While all this nonsense has been going on, it might be more useful to name names. Certainly for anyone who knows some of the major players, the name Anthony Fauci would be prominent. And while the CDC was a complete bust (which just about anyone with a scintilla of discrimination or knowledge of by whom and how the CDC is constituted) there have been a lot of usable studies which, for instance, can statistically tell us that masking was pretty much useless, as were a whole range of "dumb ass" public health responses: 6 ft. distancing, school closures, vaccine mandates, repeated vaccinations, delicensing, idiot laws against repurposed drugs, wave after wave of fear porn, and my personal favorite---doctors who by the millions refused to look at any evidence whatsoever, sending thousand to their deaths. Like the propagandistic approach to the waves of fear porn, I think repeating the names and crimes of the perpetrators, over and over and over, would be useful. To not do so may be more kind and forgiving, but it's also bringing a knife to a gun fight.
What do they even do? All this time to prepare for something like this, centers for disease control? Really?! Protocols moving forward on what they have learned? Nope.
that and also, they have failed at every stage, if that is what science is, non-stop failure, then science doesn't work (science does work, but science doesn't happen when people can't say and do their own thing, science can't exist without liberty, that's why the enlightenment and liberalism have been so successful, because they enable science, collectivism destroys them all)
Vinay, Please give a simple example of such a cluster RCT you have been recommending. How would it be different from the usual RCT with large sample size. Would statistical analysis be different or easier?
Dr. Prasad, I would love to get your take on this Cochrane Review of randomized controlled trials and observations studies. It seems to me that during a pandemic, understanding this may have been really beneficial to public health policy makers.
As Dr Atlas revealed - he arrived to meetings armed with papers to discuss with the technical staff who were not prepared to address the science. They were all about policy matters. So very odd that the technical staff were so ill informed, seemingly uninterested. Policy making is the power to influence and direct the public and should only be made by those accountable for those policies - by Congress representing the public. Seems like the technical advice was opinion rather than science despite all of Dr Fauci's posturing. Then groupthink took over to even eliminate any debate. Now I can't be sure of all that because I wasn't there so depend on observers like Atlas. Still I can't begin to understand how our officials did so poorly despite much funding.
Then Dr Brix complained about the data arriving to be interpreted. Three years in and we STILL don't have an adequate system of collection nor analyses. And now it seems there are efforts to even hide data that doesn't adhere to assumptions. The essence of science rests on refinement of data, development of new hypothesis to understand that data. We seem to have abandoned that and witness the failure of public health policy.
Clearly the CDC is run by people with a very special combination of skills rarely pulled together so effectively. Sadly those are hubris, incompetence and delusions of grandeur. The result wasn’t simply that they didn’t use the opportunity to learn something, contribute to science and help save lives. Instead, they published garbage, became a source of derision and misleading direction that has contributed significantly to loss of life and the unnecessary continuation of fear of simple unknowns.
It would be a reasonable thing for them to do, I'm just pointing out that that would be asking them to change their mission mid-public health crisis, and mid-budget cycle. Hard to run a trial without budget for it.
I guess the real critique is that there was not a war chest set aside to run these trials when the need arose. Like you, I sure wish there were. But that seems more a critique of the short-sightedness of representative democracy in general than of the CDC per se.
"I am the science." With that attitude, who needs data? Before the pandemic, my attitude toward the CDC, FDA, Big Pharma, etc. was "they're not perfect, but I'll generally give them the benefit of the doubt." How wrong I was. I no longer have any confidence in their policies and pronouncements. Unfortunately, this extends to some of my personal health care providers who continue to hold these policies as gospel either because they believe them or have to in order to keep their job. I'm not sure which reason is more disappointing.
They ran none because all previous studies showed no significant effect for community measures, because "community" measures are never applied at home and that's where most transmissions occur...
The CDC should be dismantled, and all 20K employees sent home. They are an affront
Bad Cattitude just did an excellent post on this. The CDC is woo-woo. They are done.
Thank you for the article. I couldn't agree more, and they need to be defrocked. While all this nonsense has been going on, it might be more useful to name names. Certainly for anyone who knows some of the major players, the name Anthony Fauci would be prominent. And while the CDC was a complete bust (which just about anyone with a scintilla of discrimination or knowledge of by whom and how the CDC is constituted) there have been a lot of usable studies which, for instance, can statistically tell us that masking was pretty much useless, as were a whole range of "dumb ass" public health responses: 6 ft. distancing, school closures, vaccine mandates, repeated vaccinations, delicensing, idiot laws against repurposed drugs, wave after wave of fear porn, and my personal favorite---doctors who by the millions refused to look at any evidence whatsoever, sending thousand to their deaths. Like the propagandistic approach to the waves of fear porn, I think repeating the names and crimes of the perpetrators, over and over and over, would be useful. To not do so may be more kind and forgiving, but it's also bringing a knife to a gun fight.
I would love to see the CDC mask study on mice!
Hope the CDC reads this.
What do they even do? All this time to prepare for something like this, centers for disease control? Really?! Protocols moving forward on what they have learned? Nope.
that and also, they have failed at every stage, if that is what science is, non-stop failure, then science doesn't work (science does work, but science doesn't happen when people can't say and do their own thing, science can't exist without liberty, that's why the enlightenment and liberalism have been so successful, because they enable science, collectivism destroys them all)
Vinay, Please give a simple example of such a cluster RCT you have been recommending. How would it be different from the usual RCT with large sample size. Would statistical analysis be different or easier?
Dr. Prasad, I would love to get your take on this Cochrane Review of randomized controlled trials and observations studies. It seems to me that during a pandemic, understanding this may have been really beneficial to public health policy makers.
https://www.cochrane.org/MR000034/METHOD_comparing-effect-estimates-of-randomized-controlled-trials-and-observational-studies
As Dr Atlas revealed - he arrived to meetings armed with papers to discuss with the technical staff who were not prepared to address the science. They were all about policy matters. So very odd that the technical staff were so ill informed, seemingly uninterested. Policy making is the power to influence and direct the public and should only be made by those accountable for those policies - by Congress representing the public. Seems like the technical advice was opinion rather than science despite all of Dr Fauci's posturing. Then groupthink took over to even eliminate any debate. Now I can't be sure of all that because I wasn't there so depend on observers like Atlas. Still I can't begin to understand how our officials did so poorly despite much funding.
Then Dr Brix complained about the data arriving to be interpreted. Three years in and we STILL don't have an adequate system of collection nor analyses. And now it seems there are efforts to even hide data that doesn't adhere to assumptions. The essence of science rests on refinement of data, development of new hypothesis to understand that data. We seem to have abandoned that and witness the failure of public health policy.
Great post. The failure was systemic. Where and how to reassemble the pieces of public health?
Clearly the CDC is run by people with a very special combination of skills rarely pulled together so effectively. Sadly those are hubris, incompetence and delusions of grandeur. The result wasn’t simply that they didn’t use the opportunity to learn something, contribute to science and help save lives. Instead, they published garbage, became a source of derision and misleading direction that has contributed significantly to loss of life and the unnecessary continuation of fear of simple unknowns.
The CDC runs trials? Since when? Example?
It would be a reasonable thing for them to do, I'm just pointing out that that would be asking them to change their mission mid-public health crisis, and mid-budget cycle. Hard to run a trial without budget for it.
I guess the real critique is that there was not a war chest set aside to run these trials when the need arose. Like you, I sure wish there were. But that seems more a critique of the short-sightedness of representative democracy in general than of the CDC per se.
Yes