Category Archives: Alternative Medicine

The 15-year-old Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva had already made headlines at the Olympics in Beijing for landing two quadruple jumps on February 7, a feat no other female competitor has ever pulled off at the games.

Then came the news that a doping test shed taken in advance of a competition in December 2021 showed signs of trimetazidine (TMZ), a heart medication that has been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency since 2014.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled on February 14 that Valieva could continue to compete in the games; the International Olympic Committee announced that she will not be eligible for any medals until her case is resolved.

While its hard to predict how events will play out, heres whats known about the drug at the heart of the controversy, and some input from a sports medicine doctor on whether this medication can give athletes an edge.

Trimetazidine has been widely used in some European countries since the 1970s but is not approved in the United States. Doctors prescribe the drug to treat chest pain (angina) when more standard medications such as aspirin or beta-blockers arent working. Physicians also prescribe TMZ to treat ringing in the ears (tinnitus), dizziness (vertigo), and some vision disturbances.

Angina occurs when arteries fail to deliver enough blood to a part of the heart that needs oxygen. Though the pain often goes away with rest, angina is usually a warning sign of heart disease.

Though some studies have shown that trimetazidine works well as an adjunct to or alternative to standard treatments for angina, there have been very few randomized double-blind trials of TMZ, and studies that do exist have had conflicting results.

The medication can cause side effects such as restless legs and other movement issues similar to symptoms of Parkinsons disease. Because of these side effects, in 2012, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) recommended that doctors limit the use of TMZ for angina and stop prescribing it to treat other conditions.

Trimetazidine helps the heart work more efficiently by making it easier to access energy.

Normally, the heart gets the energy it needs first by oxidizing fatty acids, then by utilizing glucose as energy a faster and more efficient process.

What trimetazidine does is decrease reliance on the slower fatty acids path and encourage more immediate glucose use, increasing the hearts efficiency. This is helpful for people with angina whose hearts may be deprived of adequate oxygen.

In a study published in a 2018 issue of Advances in Therapy, patients with recently diagnosed angina had fewer incidences of chest pain and were also able to increase their walking distance after being treated with the drug.

Trimetazidine is thought to give endurance athletes a boost because it may help the heart work more efficiently.

TMZ enhances the bodys ability to utilize oxygen under stress. Theoretically, that could provide an athlete in competition and under physical stress with an advantage, enabling them to utilize more oxygen than they normally would, says Cayce Onks, DO, a primary care sports medicine physician at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

Thats precisely why it has been banned, though the connection between TMZ and improved performance is still largely theoretical. All Olympic athletes are looking for an edge, says Dr. Onks. When youre talking about a few extra seconds in the air, or a microseconds difference in a race, any advantage can be beneficial.

Unlike some other banned performance-enhancing drugs, like beta-blockers, TMZ does its work without affecting heart rate or blood pressure, explains Onks. Beta-blockers, on the other hand, can slow heart rate and lower blood pressure, obviously a negative for athletes.

As for Valieva, Onks agrees that a clear violation of doping rules occurred. There is no reason for a healthy 15-year-old to be on this medication, he says.

Onks does think the drug might help an athlete get to gold. The difference between first and second place, at this level, can be so infinitesimal that its not measurable, says Onks. Well just never really know the role TMZ might play in terms of that edge.

See the article here:

What Is the Heart Drug Behind the Olympic Skating Controversy? - Everyday Health

Segment 1: Ilyce Glink, owner ofThink Glink MediaandBest Money Moves, joins John to talk about the stock market being down in 2022, what is causing the market fluctuation this week, the continuing strength of the real estate market, how inflation is impacting the real estate market, and the top 10 states with the highest marriage scores.

Segment 2:Chicago Innos Senior EditorJim Dallketells John about the latest in startup innovation includinghow Tocks Nick Kokonas survived the pandemic, and a Chicago startup that wants to be the WeWork of alternative medicine.

Segment 3: WGN reporter andCrains Daily GisthostAmy Guthgives us a round-up of the latest business stories including the Coinbase Super Bowl ad and the amount of crypotcurrency advertising during the game, the U.S. suspending Mexican avocado imports, the price of used cars surging, and how inflation has hit popular Valentines Day items.

Link:

Wintrust Business Lunch 2/14/22: How inflation is impacting the real estate market, used car prices surging, and a cryptocurrency app crashes after...

Amitkumar Mehta, MD, detailed encouraging data presented at the 63rd ASH Annual Meeting for treating mantle cell lymphoma.

Amitkumar Mehta, MD, associate professor of medicine hematology & oncology and director of the Lymphoma Working Group at the University of Alabama Birmingham School of Medicine, spoke with CancerNetwork at the 2021 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting about a handful of studies focused on the treatment of lymphoma.

Mehta mentioned the POLARIX trial (NCT03274492)1, which looked at standard regimens plus polatuzumab vedotin (Polivy) in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL). He also detailed takeaways from the TRANSFORM (NCT03575351)2 and ZUMA-7 studies (NCT03391466),3 focused on lisocabtagene maraleucel (Breyanzi) vs standard of care for transplant-eligible relapsed/refractory aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas and axicabtagene ciloleucel (Yescarta) vs standard of care for relapsed/refractory DLBCL, respectively.

Transcript:

If you look at frontline data in the POLARIX trial where R-CHOP [rituximab (Rituxan) plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, and prednisone] was compared with R-CHP [rituximab plus cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, and prednisone], [both plus polatuzumab vedotin], that study was positive. Im hopeful that in a select population of large cell lymphoma, especially high-risk, high IPI [International Prognostic Index] disease, a novel combination is emerging for the first time in many years. We will be looking at a treatment which is better than R-CHOP.

For second-line data in the relapse [setting for] large cell lymphoma, you see the CAR T data where primary refractory patients were [treated] with either standard of care consolidated autologous transplant versus CAR T. Two studies, the TRANSFORM study as well as the ZUMA-7 study were positive in that setting. Im hopeful that in the future well have CAR T approved in the second-line setting.

Lastly, parsaclisib was looked at in the marginal zone lymphoma and the follicular lymphoma settings. If you look at marginal zone lymphoma, [which is a] very rare lymphoma, the toxicity profile and the trial design were similar in the weekly and daily dosing group. We saw good activity in marginal zone lymphoma which Im hopeful is also another alternative treatment in [MZL] and in follicular lymphoma. There are many PI3K [inhibitors] approved, but parsaclisib was designed specifically to avoid hepatotoxicities and transaminitis which we did not see in all 3 studies.

Read the original:

Amitkumar Mehta, MD, on Compelling Data From ASH in the Treatment of Lymphoma - Cancer Network

Inoperable lung cancer may refer to different types of lung cancer that doctors cannot treat with surgery. They may also use the term unresectable lung cancer.

Although a diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer may feel devastating, it does not mean the same as a terminal diagnosis.

Cancer does not respond to treatment in terminal cancer, and doctors have no cure. Conversely, with inoperable cancer, doctors have various other treatments that can improve a persons symptoms and slow down disease progression.

This article looks at inoperable lung cancer, the reasons why surgery is not a viable option, and alternative treatment choices.

No single factor makes lung cancer inoperable, and no two cases are the same.

However, because lung cancer surgery is complex and can have severe effects on other aspects of a persons health, surgeons must carefully consider the following factors:

Surgery for lung cancer has the most chance of success when cancer is in the early stages and has not spread.

However, one of the challenges doctors face is that lung cancer symptoms do not usually appear until the disease is at a late stage. In these cases, doctors may recommend other forms of cancer treatment instead of surgery.

There are two main types of lung cancer and surgeons may consider both as inoperable depending on the above factors.

This is the most common form of lung cancer, making up around 8 in 10 cases. It has three subtypes:

Sometimes called oat cell cancer, SCLC makes up around 1015% of all lung cancers. It grows and spreads faster than NSCLC, meaning that for 7 in 10 people, cancer has spread at the time of diagnosis.

However, because cancer grows quickly, chemotherapy and radiation therapy are usually good treatment options.

Inoperable means that surgery is not a viable option and does not mean the same as terminal. Doctors may not be able to cure the cancer, but they can provide treatment that slows its growth, eases symptoms, and allows an individual to live longer.

Additionally, research into finding the best therapies for lung cancer treatment continues. For example, a 2017 study looked at using radiation therapy alongside a newly formulated chemotherapy regime. The researchers found that the new protocol improved survival rates in people with metastatic NSCLC by up to one year.

Thanks to advances in medicine, lung cancer treatment does not now rely on surgical control of the disease.

Doctors may suggest the following treatment options for individuals with inoperable lung cancer:

A persons outlook depends on the type of lung cancer and the stage at diagnosis. It may also depend on their general health.

In the United States, the overall 5-year survival rate for lung cancer is 21.7%, according to the National Cancer Institute. This means that about 1 in 5 people diagnosed with lung cancer live for 5 years or longer after diagnosis.

This 5-year survival rate is 25% overall for non-small-cell lung cancer and 7% overall for small-cell lung cancer.

Five-year survival rates for people who have NSCLC are:

Five-year survival rates for people who have SCLC are:

Inoperable lung cancer is lung cancer that surgeons cannot remove. Surgery is the best option for localized lung cancer that has not yet spread. However, doctors often diagnose lung cancer at a later stage when it has already spread, meaning that surgery is no longer an option.

Sometimes, lung cancer is inoperable because of the tumors location or because an individual has other health conditions that affect their breathing or mean their general health is poor.

Although a diagnosis of inoperable lung cancer is serious, doctors still have various options for treatments that can ease symptoms, prolong life, and may shrink tumors. Potential treatment options include chemotherapy, radiation therapy, immunotherapy, and photodynamic therapy using lasers.

Additionally, researchers are continuing to seek new therapies that can help people with inoperable lung cancer live longer.

Originally posted here:

Inoperable lung cancer: What to know - Medical News Today

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Allied health and complementary therapy usage in Australian women with chronic pelvic pain: a cross-sectional study - BMC Women's Health - BMC Blogs...

Veganism in the post-pandemic world has become a way of living for many Indians. The mind-shift in being eco-conscious and sustainable has led to different interpretations of veganism, at times confusing it with being vegetarian. However, it's a lifestyle choice that many are making either on ethical grounds or for the sake of their and the planets health. As responsible brands in this transparent and digital era, it is our responsibility to educate the consumers and spread awareness of the concept to drive more adoption. What started out as a food trend has now transcended itself into the beauty industry as well. Social media conversations and celebrities are driving millennials to ask more questions building curiosity around Beauty with compassion. These pro-social shoppers are now digging deeper to understand the ingredients of their daily use products and take into account animal derivatives used in the beauty/cosmetic industry while making purchasing decisions. To put things into perspective, from rabbit eyes, honey, beeswax, gelatin from cows or pigs to ambergris (whale vomit), and so much more is a part of almost every beauty and personal care product we use. So, what happens if everyone on this planet went vegan? Will it impact us positively? The University of Oxford believes it will. It could save 8 million human lives by 2050, which is more than the population of Iceland, Croatia, and Lithuania combined! It could also reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture by two-thirds and lead to healthcare-related savings, and avoided climate damages of $1.5 trillion which is more than the combined GDP of UK, Germany, and France!

What's driving adoption?Conscious consumers, who understand the core concepts of Vegan and Vegetarian well, are majorly driving adoption. However, this radical lifestyle choice is not just ethics-driven. Social media, influencers, and celebrity advocates are making the conversation mainstream. Documentaries like Save Ralph, Cowspiracy are hard-hitting and directly speak to millennials. As next steps, the debate on vegan and vegetarian needs to be further amplified to draw awareness. Beauty brands need to talk about how the adoption of a vegan lifestyle will save more lives and be more transparent about their manufacturing processes.

Making a mindful choice

So many labels and buzzwords can be confusing to even a discerning consumer. While regulations exist, they're not stringent. As consumers, you need to educate yourself on labels and read the fine print; understand what 'clean', 'environment-friendly', 'cruelty-free', 'vegan', and such labels actually mean for a brand. While many have taken to Ayurveda, the popular alternative medicine system is not entirely plant-based.

A responsibility, no longer an option

Read this article:

Vegan beauty is the new fad in 2022 - Times of India

Vaccine hesitancy and opposition to vaccinations were already a much-discussed topic before the pandemic. However, little is known about long-term trends due to a lack of data. Claudia Diehl and Christian Hunkler have now investigated this development. Based on the KiGGS cohort longitudinal study on the health of children, adolescents and young adults in Germany by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), they analyze the attitudes of parents and corresponding vaccination rates of children born until the beginning of the 2000s and compared them with those of parents whose children were born around the end of the 1980s. Their focus is on childhood vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR). Vaccine-hesitant parents are those who irrespective of their actual vaccination decisions have reservations about the MMR vaccination, i.e. they worry about side effects or consider the corresponding diseases to be harmless.

The results have now been published in the journalPLOS ONE. They show that vaccination rates have increased, and the proportion of vaccine-hesitant parents has decreased across birth cohorts from around 10% of children born at the end of the 1980s to around 6% among those born around the year 2000. According to KiGGS data, the group of vaccination sceptics more often includes people with middle and high levels of education as well as people living in large cities, and less often immigrants and East Germans.

However, when taking a closer look at the data, the authors also found an opposite trend namely among the small and shrinking group of vaccine-hesitant parents. Their children are not vaccinated more frequently across the birth cohorts, but on the contrary, less and less frequently. In the corresponding period, the proportion of vaccinated children in this group fell from around 50 to a good 20 percent. The group of vaccine-hesitant parents has apparently become smaller, but also more determined, concludes Claudia Diehl, author of the study. This means that they are more likely to act in line with their vaccine-hesitant views and actually do not have their children vaccinated. Until the end of the 1980s, vaccine-hesitant parents apparently frequently followed the experts recommendations and had their children vaccinated despite their reservations, Diehl suspects. This was less often the case with children born later. In fact, scepticism towards scientifically based medicine was already growing at that time, as was interest in supposed experts from the field of alternative medicine and homoeopathy, who are more often sceptical of vaccines, Diehl notes.

One could assume that the internet, providing easy access to vaccine-critical disinformation, is responsible for this development. But to our surprise, it turned out that the trend described began even before the mass use of the internet. This does not mean that the internet does not play a role in explaining vaccine hesitancy today, however: The trend we are describing ends in the late 1990s, and it was only around that time that a significant part of the population started to use the internet as a source of information.

Although the data do not allow statements about the last two decades, important conclusions can be drawn for the current situation, Claudia Diehl explains: In the case of measles vaccinations, it has become evident that even a small group of determined vaccination sceptics is enough to prevent the elimination of highly contagious viruses despite great efforts.

Go here to see the original:

Vaccine Hesitancy And Vaccine Refusal: The Long-Term Development In Germany - Eurasia Review

Rosemarys doctor, Narayanan Namboothiri, disclosed that she was undergoing an alternative form of treatment known as Ayurvedic medicine. This seems to have intrigued the Azimio La Umoja presidential candidate.

I came to India for my daughter's eye treatment in Kochi, Kerala. After three weeks of treatment, there was a substantial improvement in her eyesight. It was a big surprise for my family that our daughter could see almost everything, said Odinga.

He further stated that he has discussed this matter with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that he would like to bring this treatment method to Kenya and use similar indigenous plants for therapeutics.

What exactly is Ayurvedic medicine?

According to National Center for Complementary Health Ayurveda (NCCH), a natural system of medicine, originated in India more than 3,000 years ago.

The term Ayurveda is derived from the Sanskrit words ayur (life) and veda (science or knowledge). Thus, Ayurveda translates to knowledge of life.

Based on the idea that disease is due to an imbalance or stress in a person's consciousness, Ayurveda encourages certain lifestyle interventions and natural therapies to regain a balance between the body, mind, spirit, and the environment.

Ayurveda treatment starts with an internal purification process, followed by a special diet, herbal remedies, massage therapy, yoga, and meditation.

Goals of treatment aid the person by eliminating impurities, reducing symptoms, increasing resistance to disease, reducing worry, and increasing harmony in life.

Herbs and other plants, including oils and common spices, are used extensively in Ayurvedic treatment.

Read this article:

Details about alternative Indian medicine that has impressed Raila - Pulse Live Kenya

If there are certain titles and sentences that I never expected to use for a blog post and certain sentences that I never, ever expected to write as part of a blog post, near the very top of the list has to be anything resembling John Ioannidis uses the Kardashian Index to attack critics of the Great Barrington Declaration. Has to be. Its a sentence and title so off-the-wall that, even in the most fevered flight of ideas that sometimes run through my fragile eggshell mind as I contemplate what Im about to write in this and my personal blog, I could never have strung these words and thoughts together unaided unless I had actually seen John Ioannidis publish a paper in which he did, indeed, weaponize the Kardashian Index in order to attack the signatories of the John Snow Memorandum, which, to my utter disbelief, really happened last week in the form of a paper authored by John Ioannidis and no one else published in BMJ Open Access titled Citation impact and social media visibility of Great Barrington and John Snow signatories for COVID-19 strategy.

Ill stop right here for a second to reassure readers that I fully realize that those who dont know who John Ioannidis is and are not familiar with the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), the John Snow Memorandum (JSM), or, for that matter, the Kardashian Index (K-index) are very likely scratching their heads right now wondering whether Gorski has gotten a little too much into the single malt scotch. That is entirely understandable, but I assure you that I was stone cold sober when I wrote this. (Actually, I have to wonder if Ioannidis was sober when he wrote his paper!) However, because of the bizarreness of the paper that Im about to discuss, before I delve into it I will now take a moment to try bring everyone up to speed, so that you can all understand why the paper is a combination of bonkers and awful, not to mention a continuation of Ioannidis ongoing assault on science communicators with a significant social media presence who have criticized him. Regular readers, however, will likely be familiar with at least two things, though. First, we here at Science-Based Medicine have written a fair amount about the GBD and John Ioannidis. Some might even be familiar with the John Snow Memorandum, a response by public health scientists to the GBD. As for the Kardashian index, that seems to have started as a joke, leading me to wonder why someone like John Ioannidis would take it seriously enough to write a paper like this about it. In any event, before I get to the paper, heres some relevant background. If youre familiar with this, feel free to skim or skip the next couple of sections, but I think that it will still be worthwhile for even those familiar with all these terms and the background to review them, because doing so will really help put this paper into context.

As I alluded to above, John Ioannidis has for a while been more or less at war with science communicators who have criticized him. Of course, given his reputation and his pivot to questionable takes on COVID-19, he is a huge target. How did we get here? First, part of the reason Ioannidis is such a huge target is because he is a physician-scientist at Stanford UniversityProfessor of Medicine and Epidemiology and Population Healthwho is also one of the most published scientists in the world (if not the most published living scientist), with well over 1,000 peer-reviewed papers indexed in PubMed as of yesterday and eleven papers already in 2022. (By comparison, I have one co-authored paper in 2022 thus far, and thats just because it took longer to be published than expected, pushing its publication date to a week ago.) As Ive said many times, John Ioannidis was at one time a personal scientific hero and, I daresay, a hero of SBM bloggers in general. Pre-pandemic, we featured general laudatory commentary about a number of his papers, including papers about bad epidemiology regarding diet and cancer risk, the life cycle of translational research, whether popularity leads to unreliability in science, problems with reproducibility in science, and the reliability of scientific findings, all of which contributes to the puzzlement many of us at SBM have expressed over Ioannidis evolution into a COVID-19 contrarian who has been wrong about so much about the pandemic and has even credulously regurgitated outright conspiracy theories about it. Maybe, however, this development should not have been such a surprise. Lets see why.

Ioannidis is most famous for having written the 2005 paper Why Most Published Research Findings Are False, which investigated why so much of what is published in the biomedical literature later turns out to be incorrect. It is, of course, a paper whose findings have been endlessly misused by cranks, quacks, antivaxxers, science deniers, and conspiracy theorists to claim that most science is false or at best a coin flips worth of certainty (and therefore their pseudoscience and quackery should be taken seriously as being correct), but that doesnt mean it wasnt a worthwhile endeavor. Those of us who support science- and evidence-based medicine recognized it as simply trying to quantify something that we had long intuitively known, namely that one should never take any single paper as the be-all and end-all, that we should base our medicine on a confluence of mutually supporting evidence, because the initial papers published on a topic, the bleeding edge sorts of papers if you will, often are later shown to be mistaken. Indeed, theres even now a term for it, the decline effect, or, as I like to call it, science correcting itself, even if the process is often messy and slow.

Even pre-pandemic, though, I found myself not as enthusiastic about several of Ioannidis takes on issues. The first time I found myself seriously at odds with an Ioannidis study was in 2012, when he tried to argue (badly) that the NIH funding crisis is completely broken and favors conformity and mediocrity. If you want the full explanation, read this and, for background, this, but the CliffsNotes version is simple. He operated from the unproven assumption that funding more risky research would lead to more scientific breakthroughs and also assumed that publication indices are the be-all and end-all of scientific importance. (This is a recurring theme throughout his career that has contributed to his COVID-19 issues.) Consistent with this sort of disagreement, I also thought that Ioannidis exaggerated when he claimed there was a reproducibility crisis in biomedical science, although my disagreement wasnt as sharp as it was about Ioannidis apparent dismissal of the NIH funding process as being a bunch of sheep rewarding only safe scientific proposals with funding. Then there was the time when Ioannidis argued that evidence-based medicine (EBM) was being hijacked by industry while totally ignoring how pseudoscientific integrative medicine and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) had taken advantage of the huge blind spot of EBM with respect to scientific plausibility to integrate quackery with medicine.

Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the pandemic hit, Ioannidis has arguably been one of the most prolific producers in the scientific literature of articles that downplay the severity of the pandemic, many based on methodolatry. Examples abound and have been documented mainly by Jonathan Howard and myself, the most egregious example being when Ioannidis credulously repeated a conspiracy theory from early in the pandemic claiming that doctors were intubating COVID-19 patients willy-nilly who didnt really need intubation, thereby killing them. Less egregious (but still quite egregious) examples include downplaying the death toll from the pandemic by misrepresenting how death certificates are filled out to claim that it was comorbidities killing patients rather than COVID-19 and that COVID-19 mortality statistics were therefore hugely exaggerated (another conspiracy theory); downplaying the impact of the pandemic on hospitals; and publishing articles that overestimated the prevalence of COVID-19 and underestimated its infection fatality rate (IFR), among other things.

As Ioannidis started to receive something he wasnt used to, namely large amounts of harsh (and, to my mind, justified) criticism for his conclusions, he started firing back with scientific papers that indulged in what can only be described as ad hominem attacks. For example, in one paper he indulged in the most gratuitous ad hominem attack Ive ever seen in a scientific paper against a graduate student named Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, who had published an article that found an IFR far higher than Ioannidis had estimated. More recently, I discussed Ioannidis in the context of the Carl Sagan effect, in which scientists who take the time to engage with the public to communicate science tend to be viewed by many of their peers as inferior scientists, based on a stunningly lazy exercise in bibliometrics in which Ioannidis concluded that science communicators who are interviewed in the media are not, by and large, members of the top 2% of scientists in terms of bibliometric metrics. It was as big a Well, duh! conclusion as Ive ever seen, given that theres no evidence that effective science communication correlates with the publication metrics that Ioannidis used and served more as yet another attack on his critics on social media than anything else.

This latest paper by Ioannidis takes his lashing out at critics to the next level, but to understand why and how, you need to understand the conflict between the GBD and the John Snow Memorandum and why it is not surprising that Ioannidis has clearly allied himself with the signatories of the GBD against their critics and has used an even more ridiculous and lazy analysis to do it.

Regular readers will likely recall that the Great Barrington Declaration is a statement that arose out of a weekend conference in early October 2020 held in Great Barrington, MA at the headquarters of the American Institute for Economic Research, a free market right wing think tank. This Declaration was written and signed by academics favoring a natural herd immunity approach to the pandemic, basically a let er rip strategy in order to hasten reaching natural herd immunity, with a poorly definedactually, almost completely undefinedstrategy of focused protection to protect the groups most vulnerable to severe disease and death from COVID-19, such as the elderly, those with serious co-morbid chronic medical conditions (e.g., type II diabetes and heart disease), all so that society could reopen and life could go back to normal.

In response to the GBD, a group of public health scientists and physicians published the John Snow Memorandum. This memorandum was named in tribute to John Snow, the 19th century English physician who was one of the founders of modern epidemiology, for his finding that the source of a cholera outbreak in London was a public water pump on Broad Street, leading authorities to remove the pump handle, an action that ended the outbreak. In essence, the JSM countered the GBD by arguing for continuing traditional public health measures (masking, social distancing, etc.) to minimize death and suffering from COVID-19 by slowing its the spread at least until safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics became available. Again, remember that this was before COVID-19 vaccines were available to the public and that at the time these vaccines were still in clinical trials. The memorandum noted, correctly even in October 2020:

The arrival of a second wave and the realisation of the challenges ahead has led to renewed interest in a so-called herd immunity approach, which suggests allowing a large uncontrolled outbreak in the low-risk population while protecting the vulnerable. Proponents suggest this would lead to the development of infection-acquired population immunity in the low-risk population, which will eventually protect the vulnerable. This is a dangerous fallacy unsupported by scientific evidence.

Any pandemic management strategy relying upon immunity from natural infections for COVID-19 is flawed. Uncontrolled transmission in younger people risks significant morbidity(3) and mortality across the whole population. In addition to the human cost, this would impact the workforce as a whole and overwhelm the ability of healthcare systems to provide acute and routine care.

Furthermore, there is no evidence for lasting protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 following natural infection(4) and the endemic transmission that would be the consequence of waning immunity would present a risk to vulnerable populations for the indefinite future. Such a strategy would not end the COVID-19 pandemic but result in recurrent epidemics, as was the case with numerous infectious diseases before the advent of vaccination.

Indeed, the signatories of the GBD, Martin Kuldorff of Harvard University, Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford University, have always seemedshall we say?unconcerned that, as a practical matter, it is impossible to protect the vulnerable when a highly contagious respiratory virus is spreading unchecked through the healthy population. (After all, who takes care of the vulnerable?) Moreover, as was noted even then, for natural herd immunity even to be achievable, immunity after infection must be durable, preferably lifelong. Unfortunately, if theres one thing that the rise of variants such as Delta and Omicron, the latter of which has been particularly prone to reinfect those previously infected with prior variants of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, has shown us, its that post-infection immunity (i.e., natural immunity) is nowhere near durable enough for such a strategy, given the propensity of this coronavirus to produce variants that can evade immunity from previous infections and waning immunity from vaccination. It is for those reasons that, when I originally wrote about the GBD, I described it as eugenicist in that it basically uses the observation that young people are far less likely to suffer severe disease and die from the disease as an excuse to argue, in essence, Screw the elderly and let COVID-19 rip in order to achieve natural herd immunity. This was especially true given that the GBD was published and promoted before there were safe and effective vaccines available against COVID-19.

Now that there are safe and effective vaccines against COVID-19, even if since the rise of the Delta and Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants they are no longer as effective as they once were because these variants can evade both post-infection and vaccine-induced immunity to some extent, emphasizing natural immunity as somehow being superior to vaccine-induced immunity is even more dangerous because its clearly not. If the rise of the Delta and Omicron variants, which are transmissible even in the vaccinated, hasnt demonstrated that to you, I dont know what will. Thats why its particularly disturbingalbeit not particularly surprisingthat the Brownstone Institute, founded by former AIER Editorial Director Jeffrey Tuckerwho was in the room where it happened as the GBD was drafted, describes his new institute as the spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration, and recruited Kulldorff as its scientific directorhas pivoted to spreading antivaccine misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, even going so far as to compare vaccine mandates to the othering that lead to the Holocaust, slavery, and Rwandan genocide and the public health response to COVID-19 to the Chinese Cultural Revolution, all while its signatories claim to have been silenced.

Meanwhile, the GBD was hugely influential, with its signatories seemingly having had easy access to the Trump Administration in the US and the Johnson Administration in the UK, whose policies then essentially aligned with the Declaration, as well as leaders like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who appointed a GBD devotee and member of the crank organization Americas Frontline Doctors to head up Floridas public health apparatus and declared that a single positive COVID-19 antibody test proves lifelong immunity and no need for a COVID-19 vaccine ever. Even now, GBD signatories, allies, and flacks falsely argue that natural immunity undercuts the case for vaccine mandates, which, according to them, harm patients when required for healthcare workers and damage labor markets. Even after Joe Biden became US President, in this country the GBD remains enormously influential, and its hard to miss the rapid push to eliminate mask mandates and block vaccine mandates as having been influenced by it.

Enter John Ioannidis, using bad methodology and a joke of an index to argue that in reality the dominant narrative is not the GBD.

I had always ignored the Kardashian Index (or K-index), viewing it as more of a joke than anything valuable. It was originally proposed in 2014 by Neil Hall in a BMC Genome Biology publication entitled The Kardashian index: a measure of discrepant social media profile for scientists and named after Kim Kardashian, a celebrity who in my estimation is famous mainly for being famous (which was the point of the name) and compares the number of followers a scientist has on Twitter to the number of citations they have for their peer-reviewed work. The idea, clearly, was to denigrate scientists with a large social media presence as not being good scientists. Hall even said so:

While her Wikipedia entry describes her as a successful businesswoman [[2]], this is due most likely to her fame generating considerable income through brand endorsements. So you could say that her celebrity buys success, which buys greater celebrity. Her fame has meant that comments by Kardashian on issues such as Syria have been widely reported in the press [[3]]. Sadly, her interjection on the crisis has not yet led to a let-up in the violence.

I am concerned that phenomena similar to that of Kim Kardashian may also exist in the scientific community. I think it is possible that there are individuals who are famous for being famous (or, to put it in science jargon, renowned for being renowned). We are all aware that certain people are seemingly invited as keynote speakers, not because of their contributions to the published literature but because of who they are. In the age of social media there are people who have high-profile scientific blogs or twitter feeds but have not actually published many peer-reviewed papers of significance; in essence, scientists who are seen as leaders in their field simply because of their notoriety. I was recently involved in a discussion where it was suggested that someone should be invited to speak at a meeting because they will tweet about it and more people will come. If that is not the research community equivalent of buying a Kardashian endorsement I dont know what is.

I dont blame Kim Kardashian or her science equivalents for exploiting their fame, who wouldnt? However, I think its time that we develop a metric that will clearly indicate if a scientist has an overblown public profile so that we can adjust our expectations of them accordingly.

Of course, Hall is on record recently as saying that he had always intended the K-index to be satire mocking the preoccupation with metrics measuring citations, even protesting that there are a number of tells. Ill be honest. Most of his tells werent super obvious to me as I reread the paper. (Maybe thats on me. Maybe not. Maybe Im one of those old farts who didnt get it.)

Lets at least quote Hall, though:

I suppose the description of picking a randomish selection of 40 scientists to examine and that he had intended to collect more data but it took a long time and I therefore decided 40 would be enough to make a point were likely two of his tells, but in retrospect I have a hard time not coming to the conclusion that this whole exercise, satire or not, backfired rather spectacularly. If the K-index is satire, its perhaps a bit too opaque a satire, as certainly Ioannidis appears not to have seen it as satire; either that, or Ioannidis use of the K-index is satire thats even more opaque and less recognizable as satire than the original paper.

I did take one of Halls recommendations to heart, however:

I propose that all scientists calculate their own K-index on an annual basis and include it in their Twitter profile. Not only does this help others decide how much weight they should give to someones 140 character wisdom, it can also be an incentive if your K-index gets above 5, then its time to get off Twitter and write those papers.

In the interests of full of transparency, I will note that my own K-index, calculated yesterday using Halls original formula, varies depending on how I calculate it. The K-index is calculated as the ratio of Twitter followers divided by 43.3C0.32, where C is the total citations received in ones career. Hall came up with that denominator when he fitted a curve to a graph of the number of Twitter followers versus number of citations as a means of estimating how many Twitter followers a scientist should have based on his citations. (Remember, he only used 40 nonrandomly chosen scientists.) In any event, if I use Google Scholars estimate of my citations (which, as you will see, Ioannidis says that he does in his paper) my K-index is 104; if I use Web of Knowledge metrics, its even higher, at 118. I guess that makes me a science Kardashian. Do I care? Not really, given that I have over 69K Twitter followers and Halls silly metric says that I should only have 585-664 followers. Instead, I view my Twitter follower count as overachieving on Twitter rather than evidence of underachieving in science!

Seriously, this image kept coming to my mind the more I read Ioannidis embarrassment of a paper.

That Ioannidis would, apparently more or less seriously, use such an utterly ridiculous old man yells at a cloud metric (that was likely intended to mock the very sort of exercise he uses it to indulge in) to strike back at critics of the GBD and, not coincidentally, of him, boggles the mind. On the other hand, Ioannidis does not have a Twitter account, making his K-index by definition zero, making me think that his entire conclusion from the K-index is that scientists should not have Twitter accounts. I also note that young scientists, who, being relatively new scientists, likely havent amassed a lot of publications and citations yet, could easily have a really high K-index with just a modest number of Twitter followers. Thats how ratios work. Does Ioannidis not understand this?

I wasnt alone in thinking this:

So now, finally, lets look at what Ioannidis did. I realize that some of you must be wondering why I took so long to get to this. Youll just have to trust me that knowing the background is very important, and I hope that after you conclude this section youll agree.

You can tell from the introduction of Ioannidis paper that hes really cheesed about how the GBD and its signatories and supporters have been portrayed negatively, and he definitely vents:

The optimal approach to the COVID-19 pandemic has been an issue of major debate. Scientists have expressed different perspectives and many of them have also been organised to sign documents that outline overarching strategies. Two major schools of thought are represented by the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD)1 and the John Snow Memorandum (JSM)2 3 that were released with a short time difference in the fall of 2020. Each of them had a core team of original signatories and over time signatures were collected for many thousands of additional scientists, physicians and (in the case of GBD) also citizens.4 A careful inspection is necessary to understand the differences (but also potential common points) of the two strategies.4 5 The communication of these strategies to the wider public through media and social media has often created confusion and tension. The communication includes what endorsing scientists state and how opponents describe the opposite strategy. Oversimplification, use of strawman arguments, and allusions of conflicts, political endorsements and ad hominem attacks can create an explosive landscape.49

I like that part about ad hominem attacks, given Ioannidis previous punching down ad hominems against Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz and my perception that this entire article is basically an exercise in ad hominems marshaled to discredit JSM signatories. Maybe his irritation at criticism is part of the reason he treated a likely satirical index with the utter seriousness of a funeral director arranging a memorial service. Nowhere in his paper did I find any indication whatsoever that Ioannidis recognized the ridiculousness of the K-index or that it was likely intended as satire directed at the very sort of bibliometric analyses that he routinely does.

Pray continue, though, Dr. Ioannidis:

It is often stated in social media and media, by JSM proponents in particular, that JSM is by far the dominant strategy and that very few scientists with strong credentials endorse GBD.69 GBD proponents are often characterised as fringe, arrogant and wrong by their opponents.69 However, are these views justified based on objective evidence on scientific impact or they reflect mostly perceptions created by social media and their uptake also by media?

Here, an analysis is being performed to try to evaluate the scientific impact and the social media visibility of the key signatories who have led the two strategies. Scientific impact is very difficult to evaluate in all its dimensions and no single number exists that can measure scientific excellence and scholarship. However, one can use citation metrics to objectively quantify the impact of a scientists work in terms of how often it is used in the scientific literature. Adjustments for coauthorship patterns, relative contributions and scientific field need to be accounted for.10 Concurrently, an additional analysis evaluated the social media visibility of signatories, as denoted by Twitter followers.

Surely Dr. Ioannidis must realize that there are social media platforms other than Twitter. What about Instagram and YouTube, for instance? Or Facebook? Or Tik Tok. (If Twitter irritates Ioannidis so much, Tik Tok will likely break his mind. Maybe its best that he never look at Tik Tok.) Also, notice how hes trying to argue that the JSM narrative doesnt really dominate in public health science but only appears to dominate because of the social media presences of its signatories. And how does he propose to prove that? First, he looks at H-index metrics for the key signatories of both documents. H-index is a commonly used measure of publication productivity and citation metrics. Mine, for instance, is 26. Using the same methodology, Ioannidis H-index is 162. (To be honest, I thought that the discrepancy would be an order of magnitude larger.) Then he goes to Twitter and starts calculating the K-index for the signatories.

Ioannidis is sloppy from the start. He states that he uses the Google Scholar citation index for this reason:

The original publication14 defining the index used citations from Google Scholar. However, given that many signatories did not have Google Scholar pages and Google Scholar citations may be more erratic, Scopus citations (including self-citations) as of 2 April 2021 were used instead. Scopus citation counts may be slightly or modestly lower than Google Scholar citations, and this may lead to slightly higher K-index estimates, but the difference is probably small.

I went back and reread Halls original paper proposing the K-index, referenced by Ioannidis. Hall only mentions Google once in the context of Kim Kardashian being the most searched-for person on Google in 2014. In fact, Hall did not use Google Scholar at all, but rather stated explicitly: I used Web of Knowledge to get citation metrics on these individuals. So already, I sense somemanipulation and cherry picking here. Did Ioannidis try using Halls original formula and find something that didnt fit with his narrative? One wonders, one does.

Actually, one doesnt, given how Ioannidis picks the signatories he looks at:

The two documents were retrieved online.13 For the main analysis, the 47 original key signatories of the GBD who were listed on its original release online, and the 34 original key signatories who authored the first release of the JSM in a correspondence item published in the Lancet3 were considered for in-depth citation analysis.

He also takes care to use his previous database, the one that he used to denigrate scientists with a media and social media presence, to look at the top 2% of scientists in terms of his citation index. In any event, hes unable to show that the original Great Barrington Declaration signatories are significantly better by these metrics than the original JSM signatories, concluding:

Among the 47 original key signatories of GBD, 20, 19 and 21, respectively, were among the top-cited authors for their career impact, their recent single-year (2019) impact or either. Among the 34 original key signatories of JSM, 11, 14 and 15, respectively, were among the top-cited authors for their career impact, their recent single year (2019) or either. The percentage of top-cited scientists is modestly higher for GBD than for JSM, but the difference is not beyond chance (p>0.10 for all three definitions).

He had a similar lack of luck when it came to comparing how many scientists were among the top 2% for each group. Then he produced what has to be one of the most ridiculous figures Ive ever seen (and the only figure in the paper), showing the Twitter counts:

What does this figure even mean, other than that a lot of GBD signatories dont have Twitter accounts?

He then notes:

Only 4/47 GBD signatories versus 17/34 JSM signatories had over 30000 Twitter followers (3/47 vs 10/34 for signatories with over 50000 Twitter followers). Twitter and citation data, and inferred Kardashian K-indices for the scientists with >50,000 followers appear in table 2. The values of K-index in these scientists were extraordinarily high (3632569).

An updated search for Twitter accounts and followers on 25 November 2021 found that 22/47 key GBD signatories versus 34/34 key JSM signatories had a retrievable Twitter account (p<0.001). The median number of followers was 0 vs 34600 (p<0.001). The number of key signatories with >50000 followers was 13 vs 4.

If I were a peer reviewer for this article, I would have noted that Ioannidis got it wrong describing Halls original methodology (such as it was) and appears to have cherry picked an index that hes more comfortable with. Even accepting that his findings described a reasonable comparison (which they dont), Id ask: So what? Theres no evidence that social media presence does or should correlate with citation metrics in the peer-reviewed literature. Id even point out that, if you look at Table 2, which includes signatories with more than 50K Twitter followers, some of the GBD signatories have K-indices much higher than even mine calculated using Google Scholar; e.g., Martin Kulldorff (363), Michael Levitt 451), and Karol Sikora (2,569).

Of course, if I were a reviewer, normally I would expect to see my peer review of the manuscript published. Why? Because BMJ Open Access also publishes the peer review reports of the papers it publishes, all in the name of transparency. Yet in this one case, a paper written by John Ioannidis as single author (and single author papers are also unusual), it has been observed:

BMJ responded:

A technical error? Why is it that I find this explanation ratherconvenient.

Whether the failure to post the peer reviews was an honest mistake or something less innocent, Ioannidis discussion section made me laugh out loud at a number of points. Running through his commentary is the apparent idea that the number of Twitter followers is a valid metric for influence, coupled with the implicit Carl Sagan effect-like assumption that GBD signatories are better scientists because they dont have as large a social media presence. For instance, get a load of this backhanded compliment:

The key JSM signatories have a very large number of followers in highly active personal Twitter accounts. The most visible Twitter owners include some of the most cited scientists in the analysed cohorts (Trisha Greenhalgh, Marc Lipsitch, Florian Krammer, Rochelle Walensky, Michael Levitt, Martin Kulldorff, Jay Bhattacharya) and others who have little or no impact in the scientific literature, but are highly remarkable and laudable for their enthusiastic activism (eg, Dominic Pimenta).

You can almost sense Ioannidis patting Dr. Pimenta on the head in a condescending fashion.

Amazingly, Ioannidis then cites Halls original paper, a paper that the Ioannidis of 2014 would likely have dismissed as a joke (which it is) as though it were serious scholarship:

Previous work that introduced the Kardashian K-index stated that K-index values above 5 suggest an overemphasis of social media versus scientific literature presence and called such researchers Science Kardashians.14 This characterisation has not caught up with evolutions in the last few years. Many signatories, especially of JSM, have extraordinarily high K-index, with values in the hundreds and thousands. However, one should account that the volume of Twitter users and followers has increased markedly since the K-index was first proposed, even before the COVID-19 pandemic and even for specialists in disciplines that are not very likely to attract massive social media interest (eg, urology).15 As COVID-19 has attracted tremendous social media attention, Kardashian K-indices are skyrocketing. While no past data were available for the number of followers of the analysed scientists pre-COVID, anecdotal experience suggests that many, if not most, saw their followers increase tremendously during the pandemic. Substantial increases were documented even in the short 7-month interval between April and November 2021.

The massive advent of social media contributes to a rampant infodemic1618 with massive misinformation circulating. If knowledgeable scientists can have strong social media presence, massively communicating accurate information to followers, the effect may be highly beneficial. Conversely, if scientists themselves are affected by the same problems (misinformation, animosity, loss of decorum and disinhibition, among others)19 20 when they communicate in social media, the consequences may be negative.

Ioannidis, predictably, ignores his own role in contributing to this infodemic. He also finally reveals whats really at the heart of this paper. After acknowledging that he had only sampled a small number of other signatories of both documents and that both citation indices and Twitter followers have limitations in face validity and construct validity as measures of impact, he nonetheless pivots to claim victimhood for GBD signatories and their narrative:

Acknowledging these caveats, the data suggest that the massive superiority of JSM over GBD in terms of Twitter firepower may have helped shape the narrative that it is the dominant strategy pursued by a vast majority of knowledgeable scientists. This narrative is clearly contradicted by the citation data. The Twitter superiority may also cause, and/or reinforce also superiority in news coverage. In a darker vein, it may also be responsible for some bad publicity that GBD has received, for example, as evidenced by plain Google searches online or searches in Wikipedia pages for GBD, its key signatories or even for other scientists who may espouse some GBD features, for example, scepticism regarding the risk-benefit of prolonged lockdowns. Smearing, even vandalisation, is prominent for many such Wikipedia pages or other social media and media coverage of these scientists. This creates a situation where scientific debate becomes vitriolic, and censoring (including self-censoring) may become prominent. Perusal of the Twitter content of JSM signatories and their op-eds suggests that some may have sadly contributed to GBD vilification.24

In addition, although Ioannidis is mostly correct that the narrative in the media has generally portrayed JSM as the scientific consensus, he fails to recognize that the reason for this dominance is more because JSM has been far closer to the scientific consensus in public health than the GBD, always a minority fringe viewpoint, ever was, rather than anything having to do with Twitter activity of JSM signatories. Indeed, Tim Caulfield and colleagues have argued that what predominated in the media regarding natural herd immunity strategies was more false balance than anything else, and I find that argument persuasive, particularly given the effectiveness of organizations like AIER and its offspring the Brownstone Institute.

Ioannidis also casts GBD signatories and supporters as victims, with a bit of what borders on conspiracy mongering:

A major point of attack has been alleged conflicts of interest. However, GBD leaders have repeatedly denied conflicts of interest (see also the site of GBD1). Key JSM signatories appropriately and laudably disclosed upfront all potential conflicts of interest in their original letter publication in the Lancet; the long list is available in public.3 Based on this list, it is possible that JSM leaders have more conflicts than GBD leaders, but the social media superiority of JSM controls also the narrative surrounding conflicts. A similar vitriolic attack has been launched against the American Institute of Economic Research that offered the venue for hosting the launch of GBD.24 Experimental studies show that mentioning conflicts may have the same degree of negative impact as attacks on the empirical basis of the science claims; allegations of conflict of interest are as influential as allegations of outright fraud, when the value of scientific evidence is appraised.25 Non-scientists trust is eroded by allusions of conflicts of interest, while it is not affected much by perception of scientific (in)competence (which is also impossible for a non-expert to appraise).25 26 In good faith, reporting of potential conflicts of interest should be encouraged and transparency maximised. However, spurious allegations of hidden agendas and conflicts should not become a weapon for invalidating one or the other document. While exceptions may exist, probably the vast majority of scientists who signed either document simply had good intentions towards helping in a major crisis.

I find it interesting that nowhere does Ioannidis appear to cite the document that, to AIER and GBD signatories, is one of the vitriolic attacks against them, namely the article I co-authored with Gavin Yamey (one of the JSM signatories) last spring, in which we documented how right wing forces and think tanks were promoting a GBD narrative and how influential that narrative had been to governments. Indeed, Ioannidis himself was promoting a GBD-like argument against lockdowns with his friend Bhattacharya to the Trump administration months before there was even a GBD, and Trumps COVID-19 czar Dr. Scott Atlas even acknowledged him for it on Tucker Carlsons Fox News show a month ago. Meanwhile, Im hard-pressed to find any JSM signatories having been invited to have such close contact with the Trump or Johnson administrations.

Interestingly, Martin Kulldorff and Jay Bhattacharya, both GBD signatories, with Kulldorff being the person who was first enticed by AIER to get the other GBD signatories together for the Great Barrington conference that spawned the GBD, are quite capable of some serious vitriol themselves, for example:

Kulldorff himself loves to dismiss doctors critical of the GBD as laptop class, claiming false solidarity with working class people who didnt have the option of working from home during the pandemic, which Kulldorff no doubt did. Kulldorff also has a penchant for referring to his opponents as being a cult:

Covidian church? (I suppose I should be grateful that Kulldorff refrained form using Branch Covidian, a favorite of antivaxxers to describe scientists.) Kulldorff does know, doesnt he, that referring to scientific findings as religion and scientists you dont like as cult members is exactly the same thing that antivaxxers love to do. Similarly, Kulldorff and Bhattacharya, the latter a good friend of Ioannidis, have accused critics of the GBD of being part of the mob, egoists making the poor suffer for their egos, and so deluded that they know lockdowns dont help but they continue.

Just last week, a Stanford University medical student named Santiago Sanchez challenged GBD signatory Dr. Bhattacharya. I think its worth citing some of the Tweets:

Not only did Bhattacharya sic his Twitter followers on Sanchez, but, suspiciously, a charity affiliate of the GBD known as Collateral Global Charity called him a snake. When criticized harshly for it, whoever runs its Twitter account deleted the original Tweet and then unconvincingly claimed that it had been hacked:

One wonders if the ever-so-civil Ioannidis, who decries any form of ad hominem and nastiness in his search for only the purest possible scientific discourse has had a little chat with his good buddy Jay Bhattacharya and his other friends at the GBD about how bad it looks to punch down this way. I wont even go into how Bhattacharya also challenged Santiago to a debate moderated byI kid you not!Dr. Vinay Prasad.

On second thought, I cant resist:

I couldnt resist giving this intrepid medical student, whom I admire for his bravery in standing up to a famous professor at his medical school, a little advice about not debating cranks, using my SBM post from a couple of weeks ago:

Ill stop now, because I know that some of you dont like a lot of embedded Tweets, but I think that in this case it is more than justified to feature them. In addition, I realize that this is a bit of a tu quoque fallacy to bring this up, but on the other hand the hypocrisy of GBD signatories and advocates never ceases to astound me. Indeed, Ioannidis paper can be viewed in this context as a rather obvious ploy to portray JSM signatories as social media prima donnas, as unserious science Kardashians, and hes so intent on such an ad hominem attack that he appears to have completely missed the point about the K-index and took it as a serious metric supported by research; that is, unless he has written a satire so incredibly subtle that no one can detect the satire.

Ill conclude by asking about John Ioannidis the same thing that I ask about every scientist and physician whom before the pandemic I had considered reasonable or even someone to be admired for their scientific and medical rigor: Did something about them change, or where they always like this and I just didnt see it? For someone like Dr. Vinay Prasad, I think that the answer is the latter explanation. In the case of John Ioannidis, I still dont know. Everyone with whom Ive interacted who knows him says hes such a supportive, honorable, and nice man. A paper like his K-index paper, however, is not consistent with such a characterization, and thats why more and more Im leaning towards the latter explanation for his behavior and scientific takes since the pandemic hit. Whatever the reason, Ill conclude once again that, sadly, Ioannidis appears to have come full circle. He first became famous because of his paper about how most scientific findings turn out to be wrong, and now hes contributing to the very problem that he identified.

And now hes gone beyond that and led me to write a sentence that I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined and actually use it as a title of a blog post.

See the rest here:

John Ioannidis uses the Kardashian Index to attack critics of the Great Barrington Declaration - Science Based Medicine

Dublin, Feb. 02, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The "Complementary And Alternative Medicine For Anti Aging & Longevity Market Size, Share & Trends Analysis Report by Intervention (Botanicals, Mind Healing), by Customer, by Region, and Segment Forecasts, 2021-2028" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global complementary and alternative medicine for anti aging and longevity market size is expected to reach USD 182.9 billion by 2028. It is expected to expand at a CAGR of 22.2% from 2021 to 2028.

Growing household income in developed countries, acceptance of herbal and ayurvedic medicine, and increasing age-related diseases have majorly the market for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for anti aging and longevity.

In the traditional alternative medicine/botanicals intervention segment, Ayurveda led the market in 2020 as cosmetic market players are involved in the R&D of Ayurveda-based anti-aging cosmeceuticals. The mind healing segment is expected to witness steady growth from 2021 to 2028 due to the rising acceptance of meditation and mindfulness in corporate offices.

The sensory healing segment is expected to expand at a considerable CAGR over the forecast period due to the increasing popularity in hospitals and clinics. For instance, in October 2021, Spatial, an audio platform, partnered with HealthTune scientific and Catalyst by Wellstar to use sensory healing to reduce stress and anxiety of frontline healthcare workers.

Ayurveda is acknowledged as a medicine in 16 countries including Brazil, Switzerland, Hungary, Nepal, Bahrain, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Whilst, some regions such as Romania, Hungary, Ontario, and Turkey regulate ayurvedic practices. In the U.K., it is a part of the National Health Policy.

Thus, increasing acceptance of ayurvedic medicine is expected to drive the complementary and alternative medicine market to a major extent. In addition, insurance coverage by public and private players is anticipated to fuel market growth.

COVID-19 has become a catalyst for the implementation of CAM therapies in day-to-day life. Owing to the pandemic, online yoga classes witnessed a 25% increase in enrollment level.

Similarly, in the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for yoga equipment accelerated by154%. Key players and governing regulatory bodies are undertaking various strategic initiatives such as regional expansion to develop their presence in the market.

Complementary And Alternative Medicine For Anti Aging & Longevity Market Report Highlights

Key Topics Covered:

Chapter 1 Methodology And Scope

Chapter 2 Executive Summary

Chapter 3 Market Variables, Trends, & Scope3.1 Market Lineage Outlook3.1.1 Parent Market Outlook3.1.2 Related/Ancillary Market Outlook3.2 Market Dynamic3.2.1 Market Driver Analysis3.2.1.1 Increasing aging population and related diseases3.2.1.2 Increasing awareness of traditional medicines3.2.1.3 Government Initiatives and Encouraging Regulation3.2.2 Market Restraints3.2.2.1 FDA and medically approved drugs for aging3.2.2.2 Target anti-aging related diseases indirectly (not the primary solution)3.2.3 Market Opportunity3.2.3.1 Development of Meditation centers3.2.4 Market Threat3.2.4.1 Rising consumption of anti age cosmetics3.3 Penetration and Growth Prospect Mapping for Test Type 2020 (USD Million)3.4 COVID-19 Impact Analysis3.5 Business Environment Analysis3.5.1 Swot Analysis; By Factor (Political & Legal, Economic And Technological)3.5.2 Porter's Five Forces Analysis3.6 Pricing Analysis3.7 Antiaging Medicine3.7.1 Integrative Medicine3.7.2 Holistic Medicine3.7.3 Functional Medicine3.7.4 Nutritional Therapy3.7.5 Exercise Therapy3.7.6 Mental Therapy

Chapter 4 Intervention Business Analysis4.1 Complementary And Alternative Medicine Market for Antiaging and Longevity: Intervention Movement Analysis4.2 Traditional Alternative Medicine/Botanicals4.2.1 Global Traditional Alternative Medicine/Botanicals Market For Antiaging And Longevity Estimates And Forecast, 2017-2028 (USD Million)4.2.2 Ayurveda4.2.3 Naturopathic Medicine4.2.4 Traditional Chinese Medicine4.2.5 Zang Fu Theory4.3 Body Healing4.3.1 Global Body Healing Cam Market For Antiaging And Longevity Estimates And Forecast, 2017-2028 (USD Million)4.3.2 Yoga4.3.3 Acupuncture & Massage4.3.4 Chiropractic4.3.5 Qigong & Tai Chi4.3.6 Kinesiology4.3.7 Reflexology4.3.8 Eurythmy4.4 Mind Healing4.4.1 Global Mind Healing Based Market For Antiaging And Longevity Estimates And Forecast, 2017-2028 (USD Million)4.4.2 Meditation & Mindfulness4.4.3 Relaxation4.5 External Energy Healing4.5.1 Global External Energy Healing Based Market For Antiaging And Longevity Estimates And Forecast, 2017-2028 (USD Million)4.5.2 Magnetic & Electromagnetic Therapy4.5.3 Chakra Healing4.5.4 Reiki4.6 Sensory Healing4.6.1 Global Sensory Healing Based Market For Antiaging And Longevity Estimates And Forecast, 2017-2028 (USD Million)4.6.2 Aromatherapy4.6.3 Sound Healing

Chapter 5 Customers Business Analysis5.1 Complementary And Alternative Medicine Market for Antiaging and Longevity: Customer Movement Analysis5.2 High net worth (HNW) individuals5.3 Very high net worth (VHNW) individuals5.4 Ultra-High Net Worth (Uhnw) Individuals

Chapter 6 Regional Business Analysis

Companies Mentioned

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/fee7xb

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Global Anti-Aging & Longevity Complementary and Alternative - GlobeNewswire