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- Thread starter CdnGuy
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There was a super-spreader event last week in the United States Senate. It wasn’t the coronavirus, however, that was spreading, but misinformation.
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing about early treatment for Covid-19. Yet instead of a robust discussion about promising emerging therapies or what Congress might do to accelerate such treatments, the conversation was all about the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine.
That’s right. Almost nine months into the pandemic, during a surge, with 1,500 daily deaths, senators saw fit to rehash a medical dead end. Trial after trial has found no evidence that hydroxychloroquine improves outcomes for Covid-19 patients; some studies have found that it causes more harm than good.
The hearing and the theater around it are a window into the disinformation campaigns that have hobbled our national response to the crisis and undermined belief in science.
The purpose of congressional hearings is to inform policy with evidence and analysis from expert witnesses. For those of us whose life’s work is the production and evaluation of data, participation is a highlight — a chance to help shape the national debate. But this hearing, at which I testified, was different.
Neither Ron Johnson, the Wisconsin Republican senator who is the chairman of the committee, nor his chosen witnesses — three doctors who have pushed hydroxychloroquine — displayed more than a passing interest in evidence. Intuition and the personal experiences of individual doctors were acclaimed as guiding principles.
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