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University of Michigan cardiologist Dr. Venk Murthy is questioning data used by the Big Ten to cancel its fall sports season. “It could be reasonable to cancel, just not on the basis of this paper which is highlighted extensively,” Murthy, professor of Preventive Cardiology at The UM Samuel and Jean Frankel Cardiovascular Center, tweeted in reference to a paper being relied upon by the Big Ten. Murthy and Darrel Francis, Professor of Cardiology at the National Heart and Lung Institute at Imperial College in London have laid out why the Big Ten shouldn’t be using the flawed paper as basis for cancellation.
“If we as a profession are happy to retweet gibberish, we can’t blame universities, sports associations and governments for talking nonsense,” Francis said about the paper in question.
Murthy concludes the paper being used by the Big Ten shouldn’t have been used. “Bad statistics and lots of moderate to severe effusions, LGE, etc in their controls means to me it is a paper that we should put little stock in this paper, regardless,” he wrote on Twitter.
Professor Francis agrees: “Yes, I do think we should disregard it for now. The lead author did message me after my thread. I recommended they temporarily retract it pending changes, because otherwise it would keep misleading people.”
Earlier this week, Outkick’s Dr. David Chao addressed the myocarditis study divide between the Big Ten and the SEC.
7) Why after six months of prevalence in the USA is the heart issue only to come to light now?
Big Ten: We always were aware of myocarditis risk but a key study published just two weeks ago in the major medical publication Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) alerts us that a whopping 78% of patients had myocardial inflammation. This study can’t be ignored.SEC: Yes, we read JAMA too but that study involved patients whose youngest age was 45, used cardiac MRI and was only an imaging study. In other words, it was a much older demographic with MRI findings of questionable clinical significance.
The Big 10 report on COVID relies heavily on this paper which found rampant abnormalities among normal controls and had many statistic that make no sense.
Time to retract or correct this paper. https://t.co/JY86C3zBBQ
— Venk Murthy (@venkmurthy) August 14, 2020
It could be reasonable to cancel, just not on the basis of this paper which is highlighted extensively.
— Venk Murthy (@venkmurthy) August 15, 2020
TBH I'm not a football guy so whether they put off a year doesn't really affect me, but the Big 10 is a majorly respected organization and many Americans get their news from @espn.
Unfortunately much of the messaging centers around a flawed paper.
— Venk Murthy (@venkmurthy) August 14, 2020
If we as a profession are happy to retweet gibberish, we can't blame universities, sports associations and governments for talking nonsense.
😎
Venk Murthy has just sent me this. I have no idea what a Big Ten is, but it is getting taken in by the nonsensical numbers. pic.twitter.com/fK06xtd9mf
— Prof Darrel Francis ☺ Mk CardioFellows Great Again (@ProfDFrancis) August 14, 2020
Murthy is referencing this report from Sports Illustrated that is now a broken link on Google so I’ll provide screenshots because Murthy is very focused on how the Big Ten used a flawed paper as part of its basis for cancelling the fall season – Google cache here:
I would venture a guess the league may have known the gibberish was what appears to be world class gibberish, but used it as another prop for their decision. I continue to believe they wanted a way to shut down the season and were going to do so one way or another. The “risks” they weighed were to their institutions being sued if a player/fan/coach/whomever died from Covid-19. Too many lawyers (sorry, Clay).
Big 10 has some of the most liberal lefty institutions compared to the others.
These bad decisions are about hurting people and hurting Donald Trump at the same time.
By deciding not to play, these schools have opened themselves up to litigation. They elevated a weak virus to the status of the plague.
If the virus can kill, according to Ohio State and the Big 10, then certainly two athletes running into each other with the force of a car accident can also kill.
In the law, precedent matters. A league sets a precedent by actions. It’s an admission that they claim to know or should know that something is too dangerous to engage in. Like people breathing the same air in a room.
Good luck ever playing football again without waivers. And no such blanket waiver exists. Boxers don’t sign such waivers.
Do Olympic ski jumpers sign waivers?
Most of the data out there is false i like the term fake anyway to support any certain agenda certain institutions or political types nothing to do with football. I believe as long as this sport has been around there have been tons of concussions, broken bones, even paralysis, yet the game has went on. Now all of a sudden these so called “experts” which seem to pop up everywhere it’s not safe well so what it never has been safe. If you want safe i would recommend table tennis or golf. Let the individual choose it’s called freedom and it’s great nothing like it.
I did my residency and fellowship at Michigan a few years ago. Murthy is wicked smart, great researcher. If he says the study is flawed, you take that to the bank. Like Clay always preaches, you have to get your facts right. The Big Ten used incorrect facts leading them to the wrong conclusion.
Only 3 things matter…the facts, the facts and the facts.
It’s just another manufactured way to misuse science to create more hysteria. The fact that it’s being promulgated by doctors makes it more deplorable.
Another piece of evidence that Sports Illustrated is a big fat joke.
You got that right. I cancelled my long-time subscription years ago when SI decided to stop writing about sports and instead did “social justice” and other leftist advocacy 24/7. The final straw was there “where are they now” issue that featured Bruce Jenner. You would have had to have been in a coma for years or living on Mars to not know where “she” was at the time .