I suggest reading the research! Researchers think of all these obvious things, you know.
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In the case of bike helmets I accept that the evidence is mixed. But in general it is reasonable for public health professionals to carefully weigh the possibility of increased risky behavior in the context of a medication that is perceived to be effectivehttps://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2334-11-118 …
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Replying to @YIMBY_Princeton @zeynep and
Especially when it comes to a treatment (BCG vaccine) for which the evidence of efficacy is very poor, and for which there are other good reasons to think that trying to push it out to the wider population would have other adverse consequences.
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1-Helmets are not just for bikes! Is biking high-risk? Depends where/how. 2-If there are reasons to be concerned, and I don't disagree, we can talk about the actual reasons. Making up stuff backfires. It did with masks.
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They're not "making stuff up" though. They are applying the best public health practice and a precautionary approach, instead of recommending things for which they have no evidence of efficacy.
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You can do that without making up threats that have been debunked and aren’t real. Also for masks, the precautionary principle was clearly on the side of mask wearing except for the made up threats. The threats were literally made up. No relevant citations ever.
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With availability of HIV triple therapy, public health professionals were concerned about increased risky behavior. That was a reasonable concern, and there is some evidence to support that it was a valid concern. The same principle holds for face masks or anything else...
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Replying to @YIMBY_Princeton @zeynep and
...the way I would frame this is "the WHO has regularly taken a cautious approach before recommending treatments where there is limited evidence of efficacy". I definitely would not write "these so-called experts are making stuff up".
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No, delaying a literally no-risk intervention with a lot of arguments/evidence in its favor is not precaution. That's the problem. I'm for precaution when it's due. (BCG, sure). Masks are like hand-washing, you can make the same (evidence-free) increased risk argument there.
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I wasn't in the room, but I doubt the WHO had population-level evidence that cloth masks are really effective. For hand-washing, they probably did. So the two things are maybe not exactly the same. And they are certainly different to BCG.
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They had zero evidence of increased risk from mask use through any mechanism including false sense of security, and whatever they thought it applied equally well to handwashing. Rest has been litigated and science won. Almost everyone but the WHO has moved on. I'll leave it here.
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