Genuine question. I once had a medical doctor who swore by saline nose/throat gargling for upper respiratory tract illnesses—he was a by the book, orthodox, evidence-based doc. I did not research it. Anyone know the evidentiary status of his claim? I did not see a recent review.
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presumably very hard for an RCT to rule out *all* heterogeneous treatment effects, so it's not irrational to say "it seems to work for me despite the lack of evidence"
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It is not irrational, though a trial could uncover harms. (The studies we do have on this tend to find no effect or mild benefit (though usually underpowered) so I think harm is less likely in this case, but not so for all folk-remedies.
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Would it have to be a school that tests this? I don't see a pharmaceutical company doing this.
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You are talking about ivermectine?
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That one has been repeatedly trialed, no convincing evidence of any benefit. Dexa and fluvoxamine, the other way around.
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It's not as sexy to research treatments for colds/mere annoyances, as for cancer and such. And saline is not as sexy as high-tech meds. I wonder how much of medical research is driven by these considerations.
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A properly performed and powered randomized, double blind clinical trial is a very expensive enterprise. Anything less is going to likely be unhelpful. So, researchers usually line up things where it is bigger impact or (if commercial) could lead to a new drug (use).
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Yes. Resonates with "Arrowsmith" from 1925. However, any ineffective medicine--folk, homeopathic or pharmaceutic--that diverts a person from taking effective medicines is a detriment to the person and in the case of infectious diseases, a detriment to the population.pic.twitter.com/Iwtcj0vzxH
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In this case we are seeing people volunteer as controls
For proper medical studies, controls for severe disease is usually just another treatment with fairly well understood effects.
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Here's a current clinical trial with links to other recent research...https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04802408 …
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