But take a different extreme, for perspective. It’s totally legal to write a blog post saying “this drug worked for me!” The fact that this is legal tells you *nothing* about how much credence to put in the post. Free speech doesn’t come with a quality guarantee.
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It’s possible that if we allow more crappy studies *and amp up skepticism accordingly* there will be valuable signal amid the noise. Signal that we’re not allowed to generate today.
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I actually *agree* with
@Dereklowe that most attempts to make medicines that bypass the regulatory system are crap. And I appreciate his work in explaining to the public *why* they’re crap.1 reply 0 retweets 4 likesShow this thread -
The *ethical* position I take (which I know most people don’t agree with) is that you have a right & responsibility to decide for yourself what is crap. And if you want to take risks with your own health, that’s your business.
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The *empirical* hypothesis I’m making, which I *do* expect to be a question even skeptics should care about investigating, is that the “optimal” minimum standard for clinical trials is looser than the present standard.
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In other words, if there were a proliferation of sloppier trials, would the benefit of getting true positives sooner (& thus faster, cheaper drugs) outweigh the harms of people getting sick from ineffective or dangerous drugs that were reported as good?
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I could imagine a world where lower-quality trials were so useless that nobody intelligent believed them. In that case, legalizing them would be morally correct according to me, but a loss from a societal benefit perspective.
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Fortunately we have a great natural experiment right now! COVID19 drug & vaccine development is moving at much faster than usual speeds and skipping a lot of typical precautionary steps.
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If this “works” for generating drugs or vaccines that actually work, faster or cheaper than average, then we’ll know that there can be value in streamlining these processes.
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Replying to @s_r_constantin
My thought yesterday: What if all the clinical trials ever conducted happened just as they did, but were approved for marketing when safe. Would there have be an explosion in misinformation? Or would companies stop wasting time on ineffective things sooner without the sunk costs?
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Depends if docs/hospitals/payors still insisted on efficacy before they’d prescribe or reimburse.
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