Thread by @trikomes

1/n, Several people asked me about this headline, on a recent preprint claiming that #cannabis extracts high in #CBD have, "the potential of reducing [#coronavirus] infection by 70 to 80 percent.” Quite a claim. Let's briefly look at the study...

2/n, Remember, this a preprint, so hasn't been peer-reviewed and people are rushing to get #COVIDー19 related studies out ASAP. Let's briefly look at what they did and some results. Are the experiments/results compelling, or is this an absurd rush job (place your bets now!) ...

3/n, Basically, what they did was take cultures of human-derived cells (e.g. oral epithelial cells), put #cannabis extracts onto them, and ask if transcript (mRNA) or protein levels of ACE2 were impacted. ACE2 is an important protein #coronavirus uses to infect cells.

4/n, Fig 2A shows two extracts that decrease ACE2 transcript levels. Error bars are standard deviations, bars are averages... of TWO samples each. Every experiment is like this. Dubious stats on two-sample comparisons. This is... not compelling. Just for fun, let's finish Fig 2.

5/n, Fig 2B. After results above, they do "a larger scale follow-up experiment." Same idea, using more #cannabis extracts. They do not bother replicating their "significant" results for extracts #81 and #130 above. Here, no results reach significance by their own analysis...

6/n, Fig 2B. And yet, they report three #cannabis extracts (9, 45, 167) down-regulate ACE2 mRNA in this tissue. Naturally, they follow-up on this non-significant result by looking at ACE2 protein levels for the same extracts (but not for the extracts used in Fig 2A)...

7/n, Fig 2C, they report in the text, "levels of ACE2 protein... were significantly (p<0.05) down-regulated by extracts #7, #9, #157, #167 and #169." This doesn't even match the results shown in the figure. Extract #9 results don't match this. Again, people are rushing...

8/n, Others can comment on the experiments further. Let's jump to the end, to the competing interests section:

"Pathway Research and Swysh are startup companies engaged in medical cannabis and disease research."

So, this work is funded by two #startups in the #cannabis space.

9/n, Presumably, these companies will soon be working to, "develop additional easy-to-use preventative strategies
such as mouth wash and throat gargle products," as the authors of this preprint suggest.

10/10, People have already been asking me what #CBD strains and products to buy to prevent #Covid_19 after reading the headlines.

Any #cannabis scientists care to comment? Am I missing something? Was anything in this study compelling? Is this type of reporting the new normal?