2530: Clinical Trials

2021-10-18T22:38:01Z

172.69.62.203:

{{comic
| number = 2530
| date = October 18, 2021
| title = Clinical Trials
| image = clinical_trials.png
| titletext = We don't need to do a clinical trial of this change because the standard of care is to adopt new ideas without doing clinical trials.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by MEDICAL PROCEDURE STEP DERF - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The purpose of clinical trials in medicine is to make sure that a new medicine works and doesn't have serious side-effects. One example of the dangers of failing to make sure that it doesn't have serious side effects is {{w|thalidomide}}, which caused a lot of birth defects.

At the time that this comic was published, the world was in the middle of the {{w|COVID-19 pandemic}} for which a number of treatments had been suggested. Given the medical, social and economic impact of this pandemic, many felt the need for an urgent answer. Many of these were based on new ideas (step 1) and led to public approval (step 2), leading to the demand to immediately deploy these treatments in medical practice (step 4). The missing Step 3 - proving the net benefits of taking that particular medicine - has led to great concern about patients' demands for ineffective treatments.

For example, many opinion leaders recommended the use of the toxic chemical chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine despite no evidence of their effectiveness. Internationally, treatments such as cow urine and anti-worming treatments have been promoted without the evidence that the likes of dexamethasone, remdesivir, toclizumab and casirivumab/indevimab have for effectiveness.

The title text refer to "usual care" which indicates the current expected treatment. For example, a patient might receive oxygen, anaesthetic drugs and the exacting care of healthcare professionals. In many COVID-19 trials, a particular treatment was evaluated with one group having this, one group having this plus a particular drug. The comedy indicates that the healthcare professionals for that particular care don't give two toots about {w:Evidence-based medicine} and will give their patient whatever a former gameshow host/racist tweeter/president is being bribed with this week.

//Yeah, you lot's gonna have to do all the citations for this one//

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[A list in a box.]

:1. Come up with new idea

:2. Convince people it's good

:[Scrawled in red handwriting, as an afterthought, an arrow indicating it is between item 2 and the original item 3] 3. Check whether it works

:3. [Now scribbled over and amended to "4."] New idea is adopted

:[Caption below the box] The invention of clinical trials.
{{comic discussion}}

Talk:1395: Power Cord

2021-09-02T22:07:49Z

172.69.62.203:

Is there any reason why you would have to avert your eyes... i would think that it may create a dust cloud from the keyboard... but it is a fictional situations, so there may be other reasons...[[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.218|108.162.249.218]] 06:02, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Has anyone noticed Beret's uncanny ability with power cords? [[User:Thendenster|Thendenster]] ([[User talk:Thendenster|talk]]) 06:29, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

What a stupid unrealistic comic. Things that are blown up with air don't float! >:-C --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.254.97|108.162.254.97]] 07:26, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
:: They do if you start off underwater, or start off in your living room, and then dunk the balloon in crazy glue (to give the balloon shell some rigidity), and then take the inflated balloon underwater, or into a caisson, or a hyperbaric chamber - both 'easily' found at underwater worksites.
:: Or if you're blowing a balloon using a straw that has a one way valve, which goes from your mouth, through your space-suit, and to a balloon which is outside your spacesuit, when you're on the Venusian surface.
:: They can do so, even on Earth, if the air coming out of your mouth is filtered such that the only bits let through are the components of air that are lighter than the natural mixture of air. (For example, a power line that's been highly charged, could ionise Oxygen atoms much more preferentially than ionising Nitrogen atoms as the flow past the sharp edges of the prongs. The ionised oxygen would react with surrounding bits, and be fixed into a solid state... leaving only the Nitrogen to continue flowing). Nitrogen is lighter than Air. Do this for long enough (a big enough balloon) and it will start floating. If you want to do it faster, and with a smaller balloon - pass the exhaled air over some chemical that absorbs and reacts with carbon-di-oxide (Alkali[ne] hydroxides), absorbs and reacts with water vapour (dessicant), absorbs and reacts with oxygen (bacteria), and absorbs and reacts with nitrogen (nitrogen fixing bacteria). [[Special:Contributions/108.162.208.169|108.162.208.169]] 17:39, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

You obviously don't know how gross a keyboard can be...
Also, if you think this is unrealistic, you obviously haven't read enough XKCD. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.249.220|108.162.249.220]] 07:41, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
:Yes and as can be seen someone has already added a link to the previous comic on gross keyboards so... [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:45, 16 July 2014 (UTC) And who says that it is not blown up with helium or the like. First of all we would never see if a stick character was inflated - so Beret guy could be big and filled with helium. Or it is just his crazy ability that makes his blow into the socket turn the "air" into helium in the PC - or something much lighter since the shown inflation would never be enough to carry a laptop. In the end the whole comic is just an excuse to make three crazy puns (like them or not, that is up to the reader) and refeer back to [[237]] [[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 07:45, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

:I think 108.162.254.97 is being sarcastic. Pointing out the fact that things filled with air don't float instead of the obvious impossibility of blowing air through an electric wire. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.216.88|108.162.216.88]] 14:46, 16 July 2014 (UTC)BK

:An object filled with air wont go up, but may still bounce out of hand and foat. In this case the sudden increase in volume have ejected the inflated laptop. Since an object almost-as-light-as-air is really sensitive to move of air, the laptop could (in the unlikely case of it happening) behave that way.[[Special:Contributions/141.101.70.103|141.101.70.103]] 09:11, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Given that Beret Guy often does crazy correctitive things when he perceives something is amiss in his (surreal) visions of the world, I'm wondering if that's a specific protest against having the power chord plugged into the laptop but not the wall (during normal operation, I presume, rather than deliberately depleting the battery of testing the reduced-power settings, or temporarily while other powered devices require the power sockets with more urgency). I don't know whether I personally find this set-up more or less disturbing than a power-chord plugged into the wall but ''not'' plugged into the intended laptop. Although (apart from the risk of leaving residue across the pins), the comic's version is at least safer than the opening text of the explanation would suggest. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.99.192|141.101.99.192]] 12:11, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

...inflation in an xkcd comic? Cue the inflatophobes... [[User:Greyson|Greyson]] ([[User talk:Greyson|talk]]) 13:34, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Beret Guy is obviously exhaling a lighter-than-air gas, either by just taking a large breath of helium beforehand or by a very special cellular breathing process. Moreover, it should be noted that one averts one's eyes before something holy. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.220.41|108.162.220.41]] 11:02, 16 July 2014 (UTC)
:You also avert your eyes when you know something is going to be propelled at your head from a compressed air keyboard... -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/162.158.2.221|162.158.2.221]] 02:49, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Transcript accuracy: is Cueball actually looking up in panel 2? He's still typing after all. (Also, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0f0QzMNk-E&t=17 power chords?]]) --[[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.87|108.162.221.87]] 00:48, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

why are all the ips from cloudfare servers? sockpuppets?[[Special:Contributions/173.245.53.121|173.245.53.121]] 09:08, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
: explainxkcd is hosted through Cloudflare's cdn and all of us connect through Cloudflare. --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.141.146|172.68.141.146]] 17:05, 9 July 2020 (UTC)
My mother once blown a lighter than air balloon, our best guess was that it was hot air from some fever or something. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.210.233|108.162.210.233]] 19:56, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
:That would only work for as long as the air in the balloon is warmer than the air surrounding it. I doubt that the balloon is that good as an isulator to have this occur for long. --[[User:Lupo|Lupo]] ([[User talk:Lupo|talk]]) 11:13, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

We can see his screen a bit in panel 3. Can anyone tell what he's doing? [[Special:Contributions/172.69.62.203|172.69.62.203]] 22:07, 2 September 2021 (UTC)

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2530: Clinical Trials

Talk:1395: Power Cord