RepeatVille
A couple of weeks ago I wrote the following about a report, published in the Lancet, that announced the 92% efficacy of the adenovirus-based, dual-jab Sputnik V vaccine:
...The Lancet is a top of the ladder clinical research journal so I am confident that the conclusions made are solid based on the data presented.
However, and this is not a scientific opinion but rather a socio-political one, it is difficult to ignore the fact that Russian state actors have fiddled with 'presented' data in other realms when the national interest stakes are high, most notably when it comes to athlete doping.
I really hope I'm wrong about this but, regardless, I think we should wait to see confirming data from trials and/or independently monitored clinical data from other jurisdictions before jumping for joy at that 90+ percent number...
A couple of weeks ago I wrote the following about a report, published in the Lancet, that announced the 92% efficacy of the adenovirus-based, dual-jab Sputnik V vaccine:
...The Lancet is a top of the ladder clinical research journal so I am confident that the conclusions made are solid based on the data presented.
However, and this is not a scientific opinion but rather a socio-political one, it is difficult to ignore the fact that Russian state actors have fiddled with 'presented' data in other realms when the national interest stakes are high, most notably when it comes to athlete doping.
I really hope I'm wrong about this but, regardless, I think we should wait to see confirming data from trials and/or independently monitored clinical data from other jurisdictions before jumping for joy at that 90+ percent number...
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Now, there are indeed ongoing external clinical trials and even a joint trial in which the Sputnik and AstraZeneca vacccines (which is also adenoviral-based) are being combined, so, hopefully, all will be confirmed.
However, having said all that, it is impossible to ignore a report from Tariq Panja in yesterday's NY Times that describes the lengths that the a very fine group of folks from Russia went to cover-up the doping of a single high jumper:
With investigators closing in, the high jumper Danil Lysenko needed a paper trail to support his story. Top Russian track officials provided it by creating a fake hospital...
{snip}
...The hospital was a lie. So were the tests and the excuses and even the names of the doctors on Lysenko’s medical reports. By the time the scheme fell apart, it involved a half-dozen top Russian track officials and an Olympic hopeful who could clear a two-meter high-jump bar but couldn’t hold up under questioning.
On Wednesday, investigators from track and field’s investigative body — the Athletics Integrity Unit — published the full details of their investigation in the Lysenko case. The report underscored not only how brazen Russia could be in its efforts to obstruct antidoping investigations, and how top Russian officials often played an integral role in such schemes...
With investigators closing in, the high jumper Danil Lysenko needed a paper trail to support his story. Top Russian track officials provided it by creating a fake hospital...
{snip}
...The hospital was a lie. So were the tests and the excuses and even the names of the doctors on Lysenko’s medical reports. By the time the scheme fell apart, it involved a half-dozen top Russian track officials and an Olympic hopeful who could clear a two-meter high-jump bar but couldn’t hold up under questioning.
On Wednesday, investigators from track and field’s investigative body — the Athletics Integrity Unit — published the full details of their investigation in the Lysenko case. The report underscored not only how brazen Russia could be in its efforts to obstruct antidoping investigations, and how top Russian officials often played an integral role in such schemes...
So.
If Russian officials will go to extreme lengths to create an artificial data construct for a relatively unimportant case of track and field nationalism, can anyone be vilified for wanting to see independent verification of any and all data supporting a very different, and clearly much more important, type of nationalism?
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For those looking for something like it, Derek Lowe has a great, and quite comprehensive piece up on COVID variants...Here.
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3 comments:
On Monday, I read in a foreign newspaper an interview relating to when science is used to baffle science. There seems to be science and commercial science and woe to those who can't distinguish when the good news is primarily for shareholders.
It certainly behooves us to be wary of Russian behaviour, Ross. They may have hacked into other vaccine manufacturers activities to get a leg up on their own vaccines, allowing their Sputnik vaccine to provide 92% efficacy. As for the Russian high-jumper, over 100 'Mericans were guilty using performance enhancing drugs between 1988 and 2000. That included Carl Lewis, who constantly badgered Ben Johnson. RG
Agreed Danneau--
One way to guard against this is rigorous peer review when it works properly. In this case the data presented were rigorously vetted through the Lancet's process. Thing is, reviewers can only review the data that are presented to them.
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Anon-Above--
If it is 92%, at least against classic SARS-CoV-2, it would be a great thing all 'round.
Take your point on rampant doping and cover-ups in many nationos...But this is the first time I've heard of federal officials making up an entire hospital and doctors in it.
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