- This is a crude hit piece Archived Message
Posted by walter
on May 8, 2020, 2:31 am, in reply to "Plandemic video analysis. Did Dr Mikovits connect the dots?"
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A transcript of Dr Mikovits' video is here: https://members5.boardhost.com/xxxxx/msg/1588865720.html. She didn't use that phrase - which is interesting because the fellow (a Dr Grande) asserts that: "She uses every conspiracy theory catchphrase in one video, including two of my favourites - conspirators are out to make billions of dollars by killing millions of people, and this idea that she knows how to connect the dots." You'd think a doctor making an explicit claim that another doctor used every catchphrase, would have selected an example that she actually used. Did he presume he would get away with that claim because, of course, you can't tell it is false without going through her whole video and taking everything down? I only happened to do that, inspired by the rapid Youtube deletions. Incidentally, the first is not a catchphrase, and she didn't say that either - she didn't refer to conspirators or conspiracies. So no catchphrase evidence given. Of course pharmaceutical companies will make billions from a coronavirus vaccine, though the stakes could be considerably higher than that. In his keenness to smear Dr Mikovits, Dr Grande drips with disrespect and scorn to such an extent that you wouldn't know he was talking about a medical professional that had a high flying carer. This should set off warning bells as to his motivation. He dismisses her as adopting a "classic anti-vax position". What, a general anti vax position? Hardly! Dr Mikovits' claims were too specific to be dismissed with such a broad brush. And she said she was not antivax. The personal attack continues as undisguised verbiage in lieu of substance, as he says she claimed she was imprisoned, without due process, evidence etc and that she turns that around in classic conspiracy theorist fashion. He simply asserts she was arrested for stealing lab books, a computer, but was not convicted. He says there must be a presumption of innocence. See how long the presumption of innocence lasted with him. She stole the computer, he says! No evidence is referred to why the court might be wrong. He says she flipped a negative into a positive, and this tactic is exceedingly popular with conspiracy theorists; building on his own non-examples. Note the audience is part of the target, too. He says her (in)famous article on retrovirals and CFS was retracted as it had poor research methodology. That was claimed by those aggravated by it. Well as a neutral I'd say that that kind of criticism should then lead to lots of papers being retracted but it's quite rare; it's funny in the world of corporate medicine, significant counter-current papers are retracted by eminent scientists 'at professional gunpoint', by leaning on the journal or authors. But Dr M did not retract. She was arrested, Grande asserts again, for taking something that wasn't hers (did I mention the presumption of innocence? Oh that's right, it was him!) and she doesn't understand research methodology. But it is this that makes her credible in the eyes of conspiracy theorists, he says. This confirms that the audience are also the target here. Ironically, in swiping at them on the basis of nothing more than his own assertion that a court was wrong, he is making conspiracy theorists look good. He attacks Dr Mikovits' claim that the influenza vaccination increases the chances of getting coronaviruses. This is worth a look as it is the only potential candidate for substance in his video. The basis of Dr M's claim is a study that noted this connection from a secondary analysis ie those who had the influenza vaccination were 36% more likely to have a coronavirus. The basis of Dr G's criticism is that another study referenced in that study did not find this connection between the influenza vaccination and the coronavirus. He repeats his previous claim that this shows that she didn't understand the research (a favourite of his?); another wild swipe...as if someone doing medical research can not understand the simplest of points. But let's see. Dr M's study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7126676/ Dr G's study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7107973/ In fact (or in my view) it is he who is missing a simple point. One positive and negative study do not together amount to zero evidence, as a 'negative' is not the opposite of a positive, just a miss or a neutral. This is because a positive conclusion requires a high statistical threshold to be met, ie according to the calculation from the data in the study, a positive result must have less than a 5% probability (known as a p-value) of occurring through chance. A p-value of 6% is recorded as a 'negative' result (despite the 'near miss'), meaning that the study didn't find the association, according to the high bar threshold of p<5%. It certainly does not show that there is no association. In fact a near miss suggests a slightly bigger study would have a good chance of being positive. Suppose in two comparable studies, of the same size, one study reached the p-value for a positive outcome (say the minimum required, ie p just under 5%) and the other, with a 'negative outcome', had a p-value of 50% (meaning that it 'looked like' no effect or association). Suppose also that they were comparable enough to add the data together and calculate a new p-value. If you did add them together, the result would be a 'negative' - not quit a near miss, but would have a p-value of about 12%. At that point a bigger study is suggested by the data. The key point here with a lowish p-value is that it's not the proportion of the data that makes it fail to reach the threshold for 'statistical significance' but the size. However Dr M's study had a p-value of <1%, a numerically very strong result. Dr G's study didn't give a p-value. In my hypothetical combined study, a p-value of 1% combined with a neutral p-value of 50% would produce a p-value of just under 5%, ie a result that is just statistically significant. I'm not suggesting this was the basis for Dr M's claim - it wasn't, but she may have been in her mind omitting a weak adverse numerical result due to there being a strong one. In fact looking at the respective study sizes seems to indicates that the coronavirus data subsets in Dr M's study are much higher than in Dr G's - 507+170 in Dr M's (Table 5) vs 122 in Dr G's. I'm not sure I've read the latter study correctly, but if right then this coronavirus subgroup would likely have been under-powered with only 100-odd items to produce a p-value of <5% from a 36% increase. Fair enough as this was only a secondary analysis, but it doesn't constitute strong evidence against a strong result. Dr G then accuses Dr M of cherry picking. He says she over-generalizes but that behaviour (sic) should not be surprising from someone who does not understand research methodology. What-the-f. This stringing together his own assertions is just flak. And see how he tries to use his tone to sway viewers! Not a scientific attack - but a political attack. He also said that the coronavirus was not SarsCov2; however, Mikovits hadn't said that it was. That's almost at the end, I didn't think I needed to see any more. Cheers |