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Feb 22 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This is such a beautiful example of how myths begin and spread. An Australian news program called A Current Affair shows ivermectin for a second in a bit about the Queen having COVID-19

Immediately, people assume this is part of her treatment plan
Now, worth noting the report never says this. It simply references "approved treatments" in Australia vaguely, and first shows sotromivab (which IS approved) first, then a quick shot of ivermectin with the voice-over
Indeed, one might consider the fact that ivermectin is SPECIFICALLY PROHIBITED in Australia currently as a treatment for COVID-19, so it makes more sense that this would be an error than fact
And now, @ACurrentAffair9 has officially acknowledged that this was an error and that there is no indication that the Queen is taking ivermectin

9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affa…
I wonder if all of the people who've spread this myth will now delete their tweets and statements

My guess is probably not

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More from @GidMK

Health Nerd Profile picture
Feb 21
It feels like the entirety of the Australian media has been making errors about COVID-19 deaths in the last few days, so here's a brief explanation of the issue 🧵1/10
2/10 The Australian Bureau of Statistics recently released a report looking at registered/reported deaths as of Jan 2022. The numbers don't match crude COVID-19 reporting because this is a more complete system abs.gov.au/articles/covid…
3/10 This report is based on death registry systems, which themselves are based largely on death certifications performed by (mostly) doctors. These are assigned ICD-10 codes based on the reported causes of death and comorbidities
Read 13 tweets
Health Nerd Profile picture
Feb 21
Genuinely fascinating study. The authors took a very large representative dataset, and tested a number of hypotheses about drinking and health

Basically, they found that drinking probably doesn't improve health
The study is worth reading, but the main thing that they demonstrated was that using "non-drinkers" as a reference group is very misleading. Most people who NEVER drink avoid alcohol for a reason
Indeed, the group of people who never drank, from the UK Biobank data, had higher rates of almost every chronic disease, and most likely had higher rates of unmeasured diseases too
Read 8 tweets
Health Nerd Profile picture
Feb 4
This paper has been doing the rounds, claiming that lockdown was useless (the source of the 0.2% effect of lockdown claim). Dozens of people have asked my opinion of it, so here we go:

In my opinion, it is a very weak review that doesn't really show much, if anything 1/n Image
2/n The paper is a systematic review performed by three very highly-regarded economists who have also been extremely anti-lockdown since March 2020. You can find it here: sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022…
3/n As others have noted, this is a "working paper", which essentially means it's not peer-reviewed and reflects only the opinions of the three authors named Image
Read 35 tweets
Health Nerd Profile picture
Feb 3
I actually think this study is a really interesting example of how school closures have become a political battleground where scientific evidence largely doesn't matter
No one has ever argued, as far as I know, that ALL homeschooling is bad for kids. The discussion is always around a specific form of homeschooling where underprepared teachers with no resources are forced to homeschool kids during a pandemic
"Closing schools" isn't really about CLOSING the schools, but about whether the relative impact on kids when they learn from home IN A SPECIFIC SITUATION is bad
Read 8 tweets
Health Nerd Profile picture
Feb 2
"Most people who died of COVID-19 have underlying health conditions"

Most people who die OF ANYTHING have underlying comorbidities

MOST ADULTS in many countries have at least 1 underlying health problem!
I mean, obesity is usually defined as a risk factor for Covid-19, as is hypertension. The combined prevalence of just those two issues in many countries is above 1 in 3 adults
Here's an estimate of the "at risk" population from the UK, which aggregated together cancer, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, severe obesity, and CKD. At age ~60, more than half of the population had at least one condition bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…
Read 8 tweets
Health Nerd Profile picture
Jan 28
Fascinating: a vast (>20k) gold-standard RCT has failed to find any benefit for vitamin D supplementation on mortality in older people:

"vitamin D supplementation is unlikely to have influence on all-cause mortality" sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
This was a MASSIVE trial, that took place over more than 5 years, and thus is really quite a convincing answer to the question "can taking a vitamin D supplement reduce your risk of death if you don't have a diagnosed deficiency?"
Perhaps even more interestingly, even when stratifying by only those with reduced vitamin D levels, there was no benefit for supplementation
Read 5 tweets

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