China has concealed the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in its country, under-reporting both total cases and deaths it’s suffered from the disease, the U.S. intelligence community concluded in a classified report to the White House, according to three U.S. officials. The officials asked not to be identified because the report is secret, and they…
Tag: Bias
The Spotlight reports “Fast Science and the Philosophy of Science”
We are living through one of the strangest and most anxiety-provoking times that most of us can remember—in lockdown, separated from friends, lovers, colleagues, work, extended family, and in some cases immediate family, to slow the spread of this new virus, SARS-CoV-2. The threat of this virus, and the effectiveness and harms of the social…
Medical Xpress reports “Coronavirus: why it’s dangerous to blindly ‘follow the science’ when there’s no consensus yet”
In the face of the virus emergency, research standards have been relaxed to encourage faster publication and mistakes become inevitable. This is risky. Ultimately, if expert advice on the pandemic turns out to be wrong, it will have dire consequences for how reliable scientific evidence is treated in other policy areas, such as climate change. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-coronavirus-dangerous-blindly-science-consensus.html
Scientific American reports “Shortcuts in COVID-19 Drug Research Could Do Long-Term Harm, Bioethicists Worry”
Compassionate use of experimental medicine needs to coexist with scientific rigor to help patients, researchers write in the journal Science Does a widespread medical emergency justify speedier, and sometimes less rigorous, ways to test treatments and evaluate results? Doctors and patients urgently need to get their hands on drugs for the COVID-19 pandemic.But bioethicists Jonathan Kimmelman…
CDC releases “guidance on classifying Covid-19 deaths”
It is important to emphasize that Coronavirus Disease 2019 or COVID-19 should be reported on the death certificate for all decedents where the disease caused or is assumed to have caused or contributed to death. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvss/coronavirus/Alert-1-Guidance-for-Certifying-COVID-19-Deaths.pdf