Quoted: Ajay Sethi, associate professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, said no one is discouraging the use of the remedies Johnson is proposing but the public should know they are not proven to be effective in protecting against COVID-19 infection.
“Things like home remedies, vitamins and supplements, new diets have been advertised to and used by people in our society for decades, centuries even, for all sorts of ailments. No one is discouraging their use, but they do not provide tangible benefit against Covid, and they are not a substitute for vaccination,” Sethi said.
Patrick Remington, a former epidemiologist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s preventive medicine residency program, said the NIH relies on proven treatments.
“Simply put, the NIH and other researchers set a high bar for proving that a treatment is effective. Studies done in the lab or in animals, or clinical anecdotes play an important part in the research process, and lead to hypotheses that are then tested in rigorous, controlled trials,” Remington said.