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Covid-19: Who Fact-Checks the Fact-Checkers?

11. 8. 2021 20:17
Rubrika: Zdraví | Štítky: zdraví , COVID-19 , fakta

Autor: Dr. Sam Bailey

Zdroj: youtube

 

Recently I have been fact-checked.
when I heard that my PCR video had been fact-checked and my video came with a partly false information warning on Facebook, I felt like I was being silenced.

[One thing I learned in the special forces when you cut off an enemy's line of communication you cut them off from help]

As a journalist didn't ask me what my response was, I felt it was only fair to make a video on my channel specifically addressing the effect checking related to COVID-19 PCR tests. I'll list all of my references in the description for you as always and I encourage you to continue your own research so that you can reach your own decision. Please share any information that you think is relevant in the comment section.

Firstly the article has been written as more of an opinion piece by AFP's political reporter Taylor Thompson Fuller and I can only take the quotes from the three experts at face value. 
I'd be more than happy to have a discussion with any of them and they are more than welcome to reach out to me. 
Despite the article supposedly being about my PCR video it links my video to the advanced New Zealand party and its leader who they say has made previous misleading claims. 
In case it needs clarification: I am a political with no links to any political party. Now just quickly I wanted to investigate who the three experts were that fact-checked me.

[First let's check this guy out]
The first is John Mackay who owns a company called dnature - that received New Zealand government funding to help develop a test to diagnose COVID-19. He's also supplied the institute of environmental science and research with viral kits. 
The second is Thomas Lumley who is a professor of biostatistics at the university of Auckland in New Zealand disappointingly the fact-checked article didn't seem to get any statistical analysis from him so it's unclear why he was interviewed.
Thirdly there is microbiologist professor David Murdoch from otago university who has played a leading role in a Bill And Melinda Gates foundation funded global study of childhood pneumonia.
He's also been a key advisor to the New Zealand government during the COVID-19 pandemic and one of three independent international experts selected to advise the Oxford university team developing a vaccine for COVID-19.
Right let's get down to the details. 
In my video I point out that the PCR tests
doesn't test for the virus - and I stand
by this claim.
Thomas Lumley states that "The test looks for RNA sequences that are present in the COVID-19 virus which are not present and other viruses known to infect humans..." 
It may be true that the RNA sequence is present in the 19 virus, but by no means establishes COVID-19 would be the only reason why the particular RNA sequence could be present in a living organism for example we have no idea how many viruses and other microorganisms we have in or on our bodies, that are not yet sequenced resulting in unknown specificity of the test on face value
alone.
John Mackay simply echoes Lumly but also states that "... multiple independent PCR tests confirm the positive result is due to SARS-2-CoV..." 
You'll see in a minute that this may be true in controlled lab studies, but no claims can be established about using the test to diagnose COVID-19 in the community. 
The PCR test is - and always has been - an indirect test -> aimed at detecting a small sequence of RNA. Because the amount of RNA is so minuscule the test requires exponential amplification. And it's even more complicated when the RNA comes from living tissue where we are uncertain of potential contaminants (!!!). Any contamination (!) such as other viruses (!) or debris from old virus genomes (!) can possibly result in false positives. It does not test for the full genome of an entity such as a virus (!) and it's a big leap to conclude that a positive PCR test in a living human is always from one specific virus. 
Call me a stickler - but where is the evidence? Can Lumley or McCain list any studies that show a positive PCR test is reliably correlated with formal isolation of the virus as well as a standardized COVID-19 clinical diagnosis. Tackling the next point: Murdoch is apparently unfazed (!) by the lack of a gold standard (!) with regards to diagnosing COVID-19. He makes a curious statement: How do you know how good it is when it's the best one? (!) This would imply that you don't need to worry about scientific parameters such as sensitivity (!) and specificity (!) in a population setting (!!!) you simply use whatever test you've got! It seems that the test validates itself - therefore the test - validates itself.
[It's just a little airborne. It's still good, it's still good!] 
Murdoch goes on to compare COVID-19 PCR testing with breast cancer screening - to imply that a PCR test can be used for both: screening and diagnosis. I find this to be an inappropriate comparison because with breast cancer we have decades of data (!) involving millions of people comparative trials (!) and established gold standards (!). That is simply not the case with COVID-19!
Lumley states that the COVID-19 PCR test is an excellent screening test but there is no reference to any studies involving patients that would back up this claim. Is Lumley making this claim based on a laboratory study? 
One study is linked from the New Zealand ministry of health COVID-19 test results in the accuracy web page. But wait a minute - these are in vitro lab studies (!!!) - not real clinical studies involving patients (!!!) the laboratory tests assist the accuracy against "cultured viral stocks from a single clinical isolate". And I'm not saying that the methodology is incorrect, but it is in a controlled lab setting with purified samples - and it in no way establishes the accuracy of the PCR test - in real patients in the community. To give credit the ministry of health webpage states it's "important to remember that tests don't work as well in the real world." But this is such a crucial point (!) with a COVID-PCR test. We have no idea of the magnitude of (!) how much they don't work in the real world.
I've seen people claiming. that the COVID-19 PCR test has 95 specificity. Yes! A test kit correctly detects COVID-19 in purified lab samples 95 percent of the time. They don't seem to realize that the specificity in diagnosing COVID-19 and new community cases is (!) completely unknown! In fact, the manufacturers of the PCR test kits usually have some sort of disclaimer about what the test is suitable for. An example here is the real star PCR kit from Altona Diagnostics. Clearly stating "!For research use only!". There are other videos on youtube showing antibody test kit disclaimers that read "Not FDA approved" and that the test results may be positive due to non-COVID-19 coronavirus strains. Have any other authorities realize that there are problems with testing for
COVID-19?
On september 15th the Australian Government department of health released the following statement: "The reliability of COVID-19 tests is uncertain due to the limited evidence base."
Lumley goes on to state that the antibody test "is more reliable in people who have been symptomatic for several days."
The antibody test is another indirect test of viral presence. But in this case of apparent past exposure no study is referenced for us to assess the reliability of antibody testing and how it should be applied at a population level. The ministry of health has a fact sheet that talks about COVID-19 antibody testing but it is unreferenced generic in nature and makes no statement about test reliability. 
Again the Australian government have recently made comments on antibody testing: "There is a window period between virus infection and the production of IGM/IGG antibodies, and the sensitivity and specificity of IGM or IGG antibody tests early in SARS-CoV-2 infection is not well characterized."
And perhaps the most damning statement about the current state of testing "COVID-19 is an emerging viral infectious disease. There is limited evidence available to assess the accuracy and clinical utility of available COVID-19 tests."
So why did I talk about the new surge in cases in New Zealand? The evidence available reveals that we have no idea about how many false positives there will be when PCR testing is used in the community. At this stage the clinical utility of the test is unknown. 
If you widely test there will be positive results. So how do we interpret these? At the end of the day I feel that many of the experts are making overreaching claims about COVID testing that is simply not backed up by medical evidence. The onus is on them to provide this evidence rather than criticize and attempt to silence those of us who remain skeptical and want to engage in open debate.

As always please give this video a like if you found it helpful. Hit the subscribe button for new videos every single week and hit the bell to get notified when I post new videos on tuesdays. Please let me know in the comments what your thoughts are on this topic and feel free to watch my other video on COVID-PCR tests if you haven't already seen it. See you again.

 

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