A study that stoked enthusiasm for the now-disproven idea that a cheap malaria drug can treat COVID-19 has been retracted — more than four-and-a-half years after it was published.
… Its eventual withdrawal, on the grounds of concerns over ethical approval and doubts about the conduct of the research, marks the 28th retraction for co-author Didier Raoult, a French microbiologist, formerly at Marseille’s Hospital-University Institute Mediterranean Infection (IHU), who shot to global prominence in the pandemic. French investigations found that he and the IHU had violated ethics-approval protocols in numerous studies, and Raoult has now retired.
“Why it took more than four-and-a-half years after the study was initially published for the journal to come to this conclusion is not clear. It is also somewhat surprising that most of the paper’s authors still stand by study’s findings and conclusions despite its obvious inconsistencies, methodological flaws and potential ethical issues as outlined in the retraction note,” says Søgaard.
The paper (now marked as retracted): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijantimicag.2020.105949
That’s how he runs. It’s like those people “summoning spirits” doing a cold reading, but in a much larger scale.
“I sense you are bothered by roads, airplanes, children, jobs”
“Yes, jobs. How did you know?”
“And it’s all the fault of trees, donkeys, cars, doctors, immigrants.”
“I really hate immigrants.”
“so we’ll build a bicycle, sidewalk, front door, barbed wire, a wall”
“Oh yes, we need a wall to keep them out. This guy is really telling it like it is.”
When asked later why he suggested a bicycle, this is vehemently denied even when recordings are shown.
There’s also a feedback loop. He rants about what they want to hear and they worry about what he tells them to worry about frequently enough. This is how people who had been afraid of immigrants but otherwise normal wind up terrified of antifa and queer people making them stop eating meat. And while this is happening there are people like Steve bannon who’ve been intentionally developing techniques to indoctrinate people to the far right.