The fallacy of Covid19 ‘fact checking’

[Wandering Eyes]

Covid Plan B was ‘fact checked’ as ‘misleading’ for publishing on Facebook our article which used the existing conventional standard of statistical interpretation to find that a Danish study on mask wearing meant there was no significant benefit to wearing a mask against Covid19.

This so-called ‘fact check’ used a non-conventional approach which would mean that any study showing no significant effect of the studied intervention would mean the intervention does work.

This is clearly astounding. It reverses decades of scientific interpretation. It defies common-sense. But that is what ‘fact checking’ has become in the Covid19 era: a means of upholding the establishment policy position (using non-scientist media staffers).

It is not a means of checking facts. It is a means of denying them.

We outlined this deeply worrying development in an article in the British Medical Journal. Danish mask study: masks, media, fact checkers, and the interpretation of scientific evidence | The BMJ

Should we abandon convention altogether? If we did, we may eventually promote ineffective treatments. As an example, electrostimulation, laser therapy, and acupuncture are not generally thought to improve smoking cessation success, yet several promising pooled effects were calculated in a meta-analysis, although the majority were not“statistically significant.”

The tone of the“fact checking”piece that apparently supports mass masking as having a“small protective effect”over a conventional interpretation  as“misleading”turns usual scientific practice on its head. Pointingto observational evidence to contradict trial results is another subversion of usual epidemiological practice. While this may seem trivial, it is a subtle distortion of results and the politicisation of evidence in the covid-19 era.

Full PDF here: bmj.m4919.full

 

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