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Comment by ColanR | Hacker News Reader

It's nice that HN has finally moved beyond labeling Vitamin D's relevance to Covid a conspiracy theory. I put some articles on here about it a month or two (edit: 6 months) ago, and posters went as far as to go through my submission history and call me a conspiracy theorist for my "history of posting debunked vitamin D conspiracies".

Edit 2: how's this for ironic: looking back over the past year, the single source of information about the virus that has turned out to 'get it right' most frequently (not counting noise) is 4chan.

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> (not counting noise)

If you ignore _everything_ said on 4chan which turned out to be wrong, of course what's left has to be correct.

Besides, correlation doesn't necessary mean causation. This paper is just a singular piece of evidence, don't jump to conclusion so quickly.

OTOH, I do also think people jump to the conspiracy bandwagon too quickly as well.

And that's still better than e.g. CNN, which took months to admit that hydroxychloroquine might possibly be useful.

That's the difference: over there, you can actually consider possibilities that aren't part of the official story, and then come to your own conclusions. CNN was simply wrong; 4chan was noisy, but did have the right answer.

If you ignore everything on CNN that was wrong, in some cases (like vitamin D and hydroxychloroquine) there's nothing left at all.

There had been trial and so far there is no evidence that hydroxychloroquine is beneficial to COVID-19 patients.

Probably shouldn't get your news from 4chan.

Last I checked, the hydroxychloroquine studies were looking up. "No evidence"? Maybe you should find some better sources.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24298838

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/02/health/hydroxychloroquine...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23923861

Serious adversarial effect:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/chloroquine-study-ended-in-bra...

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-corona...

Revoked FDA use authorization:

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...

Example of researches that doesn't see an effect of hydroxychloroquine:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2019014?query=RP

Edit:

However, there were researches showing hydroxychloroquine increase arrhythmia risks, which were actually based on fraudulent data and has been retracted:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgisphere#Lancet_and_NEJM_ar...

So the trails might be stopped prematurely. But I still believe there are not conclusive evidences currently. e.g. as shown by this meta-analysis: https://www.clinicalmicrobiologyandinfection.com/article/S11...

> Serious adversarial effect

It's a well-understood drug, and any doctor worth their license would know how to use it safely.

> Revoked FDA use authorization

All that means is that more evidence is required before there's an official stamp of approval. "this drug may not be effective to treat COVID-19..." is what the actual request to revoke authroization said.

> Example of researches [sic] that doesn't see an effect of hydroxychloroquine

And there's other evidence contradicting that.

You said there's "no evidence" it's beneficial. That's pretty clearly false, merely based on what I already linked (maybe you should broaden your reading habits). We can debate the degree of confidence the accumulation of studies can give us, but that's outside both our leagues.

The "therapeutic" dose of HCQ in COVID-19 patients is usually 600mg and up. The therapeutic dose for e.g. rheumatoid arthritis is 400mg or less. These higher doses were linked to arrhythmia and very little evidence of a beneficial effect has been found.

HCQ has been used in petri dishes against many viruses and been successful there. Whenever they use it in vivo, it fails. This is not a new phenomenon. The link below is somewhat dated at this point (May 2020), but I believe it still stands.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01663...

In any case, if the FDA is saying "may not" the drug is not a slam dunk even if it has some beneficial effect. Winning the rhetorical war on HCQ isn't going to make COVID go away or be less serious in a substantial fashion.

> Winning the rhetorical war on HCQ

You said there's "no evidence". I said you were wrong, and apparently could muster better information than you could. That's not rhetoric, that's logic and evidence.

I can't speak for all fact checkers, but I'd suspect that sometimes they might be more nuance provider, or in other words: reality checkers.

For example, it would be exaggerated to believe that vitamin D can cure Covid and prevent its spread.

It would also be a bad idea to start high dosing vitamin D unmonitored.

The kind of misunderstanding of the impact and influence of such thing is often an issue when layman hear about medical and other scientific research. So I think a lot of people get worried of some people overblowing things and taking gambles. Science doesn't put its faith in anything, but sometimes layman will put their faith in preliminary results from a few studies.

And another thing is, the science will change over time, and might contradict itself as well, and the layman will again begin to lose faith, because they make it about faith and beliefs, and that's dangerous.

> nuance provider, or in other words: reality checkers

If that were the case, they would be far less emphatic. In fact, since the science can "contradict itself", they seem to be saying far more than they can justify.

> It would also be a bad idea to start high dosing vitamin D unmonitored.

I think when it's compared to the risk of contracting covid, 1000IU / day of vitamin D is justified.

> exaggerated to believe that vitamin D can...prevent its spread

Would it? I think we're finding that vitamin D is probably more effective than face masks.

> layman will again begin to lose faith

Lose faith in the ability of scientists to solve the problem, or lose faith in the PR folks that (demonstrably, sometimes obviously) don't tell the truth? Science is only 'about faith and beliefs' when the layman is told to believe specific people, or blindly obey the experts.

Fauci says that he takes vitamin D supplements and that they can lessen 'your susceptibility to infection'

https://www.insider.com/fauci-takes-recommends-vitamin-d-and...

Glad he's finally willing to admit it. I hope the factcheckers stop calling it fake news soon. I wonder how many people died because it wasn't taken more seriously sooner.

Sorry you are getting downvoted for having a dissenting view. Everything gets twisted to become political. The same people shaming those for wearing masks initially came around in their own way to advocate strongly for cloth masks. The same people who refused to acknowledge Vitamin D benefits against Covid at the beginning are coming around now. HCQ is even more political ("serious side effects") in the US. It might be less political elsewhere.

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