Version 1
: Received: 29 September 2022 / Approved: 11 October 2022 / Online: 11 October 2022 (03:43:10 CEST)
How to cite:
Wimalawansa, S.J.; Polonowita, A.K. Logical Analysis of Response of Health Officials’ Worldwide, to Cost-Effective Early Remedies for COVID19. Preprints2022, 2022100135. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202210.0135.v1
Wimalawansa, S.J.; Polonowita, A.K. Logical Analysis of Response of Health Officials’ Worldwide, to Cost-Effective Early Remedies for COVID19. Preprints 2022, 2022100135. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202210.0135.v1
Wimalawansa, S.J.; Polonowita, A.K. Logical Analysis of Response of Health Officials’ Worldwide, to Cost-Effective Early Remedies for COVID19. Preprints2022, 2022100135. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202210.0135.v1
APA Style
Wimalawansa, S.J., & Polonowita, A.K. (2022). Logical Analysis of Response of Health Officials’ Worldwide, to Cost-Effective Early Remedies for COVID19. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202210.0135.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Wimalawansa, S.J. and Athula K Polonowita. 2022 "Logical Analysis of Response of Health Officials’ Worldwide, to Cost-Effective Early Remedies for COVID19" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202210.0135.v1
Abstract
With the advent of COVID19, the attitude of health authorities around the world, led mainly by the West, demanded a level of proof as evidence for cheap, non-patented remedies while promoting expensive, patented, and untested remedies by using emergency use authorization and special provisions afforded to the status of a pandemic emergency. Western science has neither a tested nor a valid historical basis of a logical system that informs to authenticate scientific practices. Here we use a logical heuristic derived from ancient Buddhist logic, which is consistent with the conduct of modern science. We applied the heuristic to show that enough evidence was available for using cost-effective early therapies such as vitamin D supplementation as a public health measure during the first half of 2020. Strong supporting evidence has since accumulated. Apart from political and financial decisions incompatible with science and other conflicts of interest, a critical barrier to evaluating and approving early therapies appears to be the fallacy that the randomized controlled trial (RCT) is the superior proof method in medical hypotheses, including those for nutrients. Logically, no reason exists why properly designed retrospective, ecological, and naturalistic studies with adequate sample sizes and applied appropriate statistical methods would not be as valid as RCTs, especially when elucidating a causative factor instead of treatment. That assertion is particularly true for nutrient deficiencies, interventions, and other cost-effective therapies. Leading health authorities’ failure or refusal to consider other study types (because of either poor logic or vested interest) probably contributed to the spread of misinformation, symptomatic disease, complications, and deaths from COVID19. Partial immunity derived from vaccines and the later development of more contagious variants—and thus a sense of acceptance that SARS-CoV-2 had progressed from a pandemic to an endemic—shows the hollowness of the initial promotions and mandates of vaccines as a cure. Adequate knowledge was available in 2020 to advise that SARS-CoV-2 will continue to mutate, with variants emerging a few times per year, making the vaccine less effective. Emerging evidence confirms that natural immunity better protects against new variants than vaccination against the spike protein. Had vitamin D been adopted as part of the public health measure through a broader supplementation program in 2020 or even today (through sun exposure or as a prophylactic or adjunct therapy early on), the viral spread and symptomatic disease may have been suppressed, with minimal lockdowns and quarantine, and economic harm. The pandemic could have been halted with a significantly reduced need for hospitalization, complications, and deaths, potentially saving millions of lives.
Medicine and Pharmacology, Epidemiology and Infectious Diseases
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Received:
29 October 2022
Commenter:
Priyanka Bandara
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.
Comment:
“Logical Analysis of Response of Health Officials’ Worldwide, to Cost-Effective Early Remedies for COVID-19” by Drs Wimalawansa and Polonowita present fascinating ancient knowledge to build a logical heuristic model that can be applied to modern medical practice as well as valuable insights into the evidence base around Covid-19 treatment/prophylaxis.
Why the Western medical establishment suddenly deviated from evidence-based medicine (EBM) during the Covid-19 pandemic in a dubious manner, i.e. with double-standards for repurposed treatments vs. novel experimental treatments, introduction of draconian measures without supporting evidence, is a complex matter still remaining to be asked by most. The evidence supports that the factors identified by the authors have been at play during the highly synchronised Covid-10 response around the world, viz. “political and financial decisions incompatible with science and other conflicts of interest”.
It is indeed a fallacy to assume that the randomized controlled trial (RCT) is the best proof method in medical hypotheses. Particularly considering that there is also no time to set up RCTs in an emergency situation like a pandemic with a novel pathogen, the experience of seasoned clinicians should be relied upon to test already existing medicines and share the knowledge as the first priority. Instead, over the last couple of years major barriers were imposed upon them, as we unfortunately witnessed. While this is simple common sense, deviation from that, as it happened, is not simple. Moreover, resourceful pharma sector dominates the RCTs, and therefore excludes large numbers of primary care physicians who can independently provide treatment without delay to their patients.
The case of vitamin D in Covid-19 treatment and prophylaxis is a very interesting one that the authors have covered well. How the authorities did not recommend its use given the evidence of efficacy and safety, not to mention the extremely low cost, is unfathomable. Our lessons from the poor handling of Covid-19 indicate that the Western medical system needs an overhaul to establish truly evidence-based medicine without complications of financial conflicts of interest. There should be a renewed focus on medical ethics. Authors present a material for a paradigm shift that is much needed.
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.
Comment:
Thank you for your comments. With regard to a paradigm shift, our aim here has been rather modest in this paper in using a logical heuristic to expose two fundamental fallacies in science since the west took leadership in science in the 19th century:
1) adherence to a belief in continuity
2) placing deduction ahead of empiricism
While the Indians debated about continuity (aether or akasa both meaning blue sky), there was never a debate about empiricism.
Scientists educated in the modern system may pretend to empiricism. But when you scratch the surface we reveal the underlying belief about deduction being superior (as opposed to merely being an error correcting mechanism) and a belief that the ability to make experimental predictions is the strength of a theory. The latter is subtle. It firstly hides belief in prophesy. Secondly, a theory is always a set of deductions, even those based on empirical evidence. When we do an experiment we test if the empirical evidence is true and not the theory. The theory is usually a tautology based on the empirical evidence but its deductions cannot be tested (e.g. motion in a straight line, continuous deformation of space-time). Scientists need training to be aware of these pitfalls. EBM attached to uniqueness of RCT remains a (bad) theory. The deduction here is a belief in an exact proof.
Rather than a paradigm change (I think Kuhn's scientific revolutions have only occurred in the past 200 years due to this adherence to wrong ideology) we need to return to the paradigm which existed in India for millenia with evolution rather than revolution. This is another fascinating story.
We also present a dichotomy after demonstrating sufficient evidence for vitamin D insufficiency and susceptibility to COVID-19. That is, decision makers in the west are,
1) either illogical
2) or they have other motives (such as vested interests)
An example of a paradigm shift is the work by Prof CK Raju in the early 1990's and published in 1995 regarding the physical nature of time. This led to a justification of using differential equations differently (discarding continuity) and in the manner it was developed for use by 15 Century in India. Unfortunately, neither mathematicians nor physicists have paid attention to this except for scanty proposals that cover aspects of Raju's work (without attribution). Thus scientific theories have been heading for a crisis in the 21st Century. We're seeing the beginnings of this with the response to the Pandemic. The paradigm shift to follow could involve the use of AI and neural networks. Again, this is another story.
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Commenter: Priyanka Bandara
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.
Why the Western medical establishment suddenly deviated from evidence-based medicine (EBM) during the Covid-19 pandemic in a dubious manner, i.e. with double-standards for repurposed treatments vs. novel experimental treatments, introduction of draconian measures without supporting evidence, is a complex matter still remaining to be asked by most. The evidence supports that the factors identified by the authors have been at play during the highly synchronised Covid-10 response around the world, viz. “political and financial decisions incompatible with science and other conflicts of interest”.
It is indeed a fallacy to assume that the randomized controlled trial (RCT) is the best proof method in medical hypotheses. Particularly considering that there is also no time to set up RCTs in an emergency situation like a pandemic with a novel pathogen, the experience of seasoned clinicians should be relied upon to test already existing medicines and share the knowledge as the first priority. Instead, over the last couple of years major barriers were imposed upon them, as we unfortunately witnessed. While this is simple common sense, deviation from that, as it happened, is not simple. Moreover, resourceful pharma sector dominates the RCTs, and therefore excludes large numbers of primary care physicians who can independently provide treatment without delay to their patients.
The case of vitamin D in Covid-19 treatment and prophylaxis is a very interesting one that the authors have covered well. How the authorities did not recommend its use given the evidence of efficacy and safety, not to mention the extremely low cost, is unfathomable. Our lessons from the poor handling of Covid-19 indicate that the Western medical system needs an overhaul to establish truly evidence-based medicine without complications of financial conflicts of interest. There should be a renewed focus on medical ethics. Authors present a material for a paradigm shift that is much needed.
Commenter:
The commenter has declared there is no conflict of interests.
1) adherence to a belief in continuity
2) placing deduction ahead of empiricism
While the Indians debated about continuity (aether or akasa both meaning blue sky), there was never a debate about empiricism.
Scientists educated in the modern system may pretend to empiricism. But when you scratch the surface we reveal the underlying belief about deduction being superior (as opposed to merely being an error correcting mechanism) and a belief that the ability to make experimental predictions is the strength of a theory. The latter is subtle. It firstly hides belief in prophesy. Secondly, a theory is always a set of deductions, even those based on empirical evidence. When we do an experiment we test if the empirical evidence is true and not the theory. The theory is usually a tautology based on the empirical evidence but its deductions cannot be tested (e.g. motion in a straight line, continuous deformation of space-time). Scientists need training to be aware of these pitfalls. EBM attached to uniqueness of RCT remains a (bad) theory. The deduction here is a belief in an exact proof.
Rather than a paradigm change (I think Kuhn's scientific revolutions have only occurred in the past 200 years due to this adherence to wrong ideology) we need to return to the paradigm which existed in India for millenia with evolution rather than revolution. This is another fascinating story.
We also present a dichotomy after demonstrating sufficient evidence for vitamin D insufficiency and susceptibility to COVID-19. That is, decision makers in the west are,
1) either illogical
2) or they have other motives (such as vested interests)
An example of a paradigm shift is the work by Prof CK Raju in the early 1990's and published in 1995 regarding the physical nature of time. This led to a justification of using differential equations differently (discarding continuity) and in the manner it was developed for use by 15 Century in India. Unfortunately, neither mathematicians nor physicists have paid attention to this except for scanty proposals that cover aspects of Raju's work (without attribution). Thus scientific theories have been heading for a crisis in the 21st Century. We're seeing the beginnings of this with the response to the Pandemic. The paradigm shift to follow could involve the use of AI and neural networks. Again, this is another story.