Comments on: A Conversation with John Ioannidis

By: Miket

Miket — Wed, 07 Oct 2020 20:37:48 +0000

Remy, Lockdowns are extreme measures and were explicitly nor recommended in the WHO pandemic guidelines because of social and economic costs that they entail. We now have widespread social unrest, democracies sufferng under authoritarian government policies, with estimate 140K non Covid deaths attributable to these policies in the US alone.

By: Rémy

Rémy — Fri, 11 Sep 2020 12:33:03 +0000

I am a bit disappointed by Dr. Ioannidis’ position on what he had originally said in his interviews with Journeyman Pictures on YouTube and how he interprets his words now. I think the very essence of science is to be able to change and adapt based on available data. There should be no shame in admitting that he was wrong at the time of those interviews. He clearly called the lock downs “extreme measures”. I am surprised that him being a prominent scientist and an amazing debunker of dogma in medicine and a pioneer in evidence-based medicine only tried to clarify his previous comments by denying.

By: JB

JB — Sun, 30 Aug 2020 21:47:50 +0000

Useful interview, but Ioannidis comes off as defensive. He is a tenured professor at a leading academic institution with a deservedly positive professional reputation. It would be helpful to him and the broader community if he could point out where he thought he was wrong in hindsight: too optimistic/too pessimistic/too conservative/too aggressive in his assumptions, etc. He seems unwilling or unable to admit anything he said was perhaps out of line with expert consensus in hindsight. Comes off as arrogance and unscientific at its core.

By: KC Al

KC Al — Thu, 27 Aug 2020 07:55:00 +0000

Fine he said she said doesn’t matter now, we should all be in agreement that covid19 has been the biggest hype job I hope we never see again. Everything from inflated death tolls , to over estimated infection rates.
Now why are we allowing these lies to continue? We should by now have more than enough data to see the truth. How its Not as contagious as first hyped up or reported. Its Not as deadly as first reported. Numbers of deaths with , without or because of covid19 just are not adding up to a pandemic regardless how they fudge the numbers, plus or minus influenza deaths.
Now Wearing of masks among health People is ridicules controlling and political .
For the first six months of this so-called pandemic I was out in public everyday I watch store clerks and others not wearing any type of face protection. Didn’t see any of these essential store clerks become ill from late February to late June . In July Washington state has ridiculous Governor mandates for mask wearing , no science behind the democratic governors mandateThe Only persons needing a mask should be anyone with underlying health problems over ages of whatever to ,80,90,110 . So if covid19 , influenzas , pneumonia or a serous cold virus will kill you that group should be wearing a mask , sheltering in safe clean germ free spaces. Not shutting down k-12 schools, not shutting down college campuses, not shutting down peoples employment. Most people and most kids stay home if they have any kind of a fever. People would rather check their temperature before leaving their homes and just staying home for the day week however long your fever lingers without taking any kind of a fever reducer.
Most of us know now how this was hyped up Facebook people got scare of death, fake propaganda networks scared more people of death . Sorry bla bla bla same old info for a hyped up virus let’s all wake up stop being scared of early death from covid19. Shoot people who are most vulnerable who most likely will die if infected with covid19 are not as scared as some 20,30,40,50 somethings who if infected and are healthy no big deal ?
One or all these fake news stations will pay for yelling” fire ” in a full theater with no real fire and people died because they lied.
Just watch lawsuits will be coming for yelling “pandemic everyone is dying ” when it was mostly hype people didn’t need to be scared to death from hype,

By: Tina

Tina — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:19:25 +0000

Dr. Ioaniddis, Thank you for taking the time to do this interview and provide clarification.

By: Tina

Tina — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 00:18:06 +0000

It might be good to go back onto Fox and clarify for them, because Republican Senator Chip Roy of Texas just told CNN to refer to Ioaniddis of Stanford as a reason to not support lockdowns!

By: Michael Martinez

Michael Martinez — Mon, 27 Jul 2020 18:25:24 +0000

Once politics gets its hand in science it’s very difficult to untangle fiction from fact. I’m referring both to government politicians and also to politically minded scientists. Both sometimes (usually) have their own agendas that are often not in line with the science itself. Any and every item up for discussion needs to be regarded with suspicion, regardless of whether it comes from the left, the right, the media, the government, scientists, whatever. The impact of this fact cannot be underestimated. There is no point in forming any opinion at all about the issue unless you go to the source and do a literature survey.

Who has the time to do that? I don’t. Therefore I rely on my eyes. If I see people keeling over and dying in my neighborhood, then I will regard it as a real threat. If I don’t, then I will regard the claims as suspicious.

Common sense goes a long ways.

If people were reasonable and rational creatures then there would be no debate whatsoever on these type of issues, one would simply look at the unfiltered facts and provide an unbiased response that is best for society as a whole. But people are not, and therefore any response that happens is likely to be seriously flawed.

By: Mike Darrish

Mike Darrish — Sat, 18 Jul 2020 14:09:39 +0000

Dr. Ioannidis,

Thank you for clarifying your views and for educating us all.

One aspect of the pandemic that was not discussed is the large proportion of those who experience long running, moderate to severe symptoms, but do not die from or with Covid-19. In the Vietnamese War, the Viet Cong and NVA realized that it was a more effective tactic to severely injure, rather than kill a US or South Vietnamese soldier, as it took more uninjured soldiers and healthcare professionals to care for that one injury, than to repatriate the remains.

Of course, there is no going back from a fatal infection, so it is critical to place great emphasis on preventing death. However, would you comment on the analogous impact on healthcare facilities, workers, educational institutions and the economy, of relatively long term recovery times and ongoing post-discharge symptoms of non-fatal infections?

By: Kenneth Straus

Kenneth Straus — Tue, 14 Jul 2020 23:41:21 +0000

Mr. Jha,
You claim you were not trying to play a “gotcha” game with John Ionnadis. I think that’s exactly what you were trying to do. It’s fine to challenge or be skeptical of an interviewee’s statements; but it should be part of trying to really understand his ideas. In other words, to really listen to him. John Ionnadis comes across to me as a very intelligent researcher well worth listening to; he’s a non-conformist and independent thinker, but that’s good when you realize that most scientists (as with most people in general) tend to act like sheep and go along with the establishment narrative and not rock the boat. You seemed much more interested in catching him in a (an often trivial) mistake (like a smarty-pants schoolboy) than actually understanding him. Some of your questions were good and necessary, but your overall tone and thrust was not.

By: William Palmer MD

William Palmer MD — Sun, 12 Jul 2020 01:36:49 +0000

Are there people who carry the virus and are not responding to it in any way, e.g., by an acute phase reaction? Like increase in CRP or sed rate? I.e. they are acting like living fomites?
Are there people who have the infection but the virus is only in the GI tract but not the nasopharynx?
The PCR only looks for a stretch of RNA that matches the probe, which I think is only about 30 base pairs. Are there carriers of dead virus that would still have fragments of RNA that would match the probe? And hence false positive.
Some people have unequivocal exposure to diagnosed sick patients and nevertheless do not get sick. Are these folks being intensively studied with GWASs? This reeks of chemistry and a simple answer. Maybe large doses of vit D and zinc and selenium and arginine?
Do you think that convalescent plasma is being secretly given to VIPs?
Are the blood bank people cranking up the system for the use of convalescent plasma?
Is someone thinking of all the ways to boost innate immunity like interleukin 6?