Against Scientific Gatekeeping

[Kamaji]

Against Scientific Gatekeeping

Science should be a profession, not a priesthood.

JEFFREY A. SINGER
FROM THE MAY 2022 ISSUE OF REASON MAGAZINE

In March 2020, the iconoclastic French microbiologist Didier Raoult announced that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine had cured all 36 COVID-19 patients enrolled in his clinical trial. Many of Raoult's colleagues rejected his conclusions, arguing that the trial was too small and noting that it was not randomized and controlled. But as the deadly coronavirus spread rapidly throughout the world and governments responded with draconian lockdowns, public attention was quickly drawn to the chance that a common and inexpensive drug might rid the world of the danger.

President Donald Trump promoted hydroxychloroquine as a "game changer," which raised the ire of many medical and public health experts. Without randomized controlled trials, they complained, it was irresponsible to prescribe the drug for infected patients. Under pressure from Trump, other Republican politicians, and conservative pundits, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) nevertheless issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for adding hydroxychloroquine to the strategic national stockpile of COVID-19 treatments.

After numerous randomized controlled trials failed to demonstrate the drug's effectiveness, the FDA revoked the EUA, leaving the national stockpile with 63 million unused doses of hydroxychloroquine. Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, had purchased 1 million doses for the state's stockpile, which likewise remained unused.

There is a difference, however, between the claim that a drug has been proven not helpful and the weaker claim that it has not been proven helpful. Despite the failure to validate Raoult's claims, many Americans believed that hydroxychloroquine's potential benefits outweighed its minimal risks. Exercising their right to self-medicate, some people infected by the coronavirus continued to take the drug.

The hydroxychloroquine brouhaha illustrates the roiling conflict between the scientific establishment and its uncredentialed challengers. Because the internet has democratized science, the academy no longer has a monopoly on specialized information. Based on their own assessments of that information, lay people can chime in and may even end up driving the scientific narrative, for good or ill.

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Source:  https://reason.com/2022/04/03/against-scientific-gatekeeping/

[Cyber Liberty]

The Feds were keeping many gates during this madness.  Refusing to allow FL to buy lifesaving and proven effective treatments like monoclonals.

[Kamaji]

The Feds were keeping many gates during this madness.  Refusing to allow FL to buy lifesaving and proven effective treatments like monoclonals.

Yes, but the article goes beyond just the feds to also gore the oxen of the scientific elites who, like any other guild structure, have used gatekeeping as a means of propping up their own importance and - perhaps more importantly - access to funding.

[Cyber Liberty]

Yes, but the article goes beyond just the feds to also gore the oxen of the scientific elites who, like any other guild structure, have used gatekeeping as a means of propping up their own importance and - perhaps more importantly - access to funding.