In software, my domain of expertise, there is a serious issue with the ability to determine what consequences come from a specific action/change. In this case, we are talking about a different mechanism for why the drug(s) might be effective against the disease agent - the virus.
In the end, the data shall set us free, but acknowledging interesting theories is not acquiescence. It is recognizing that the common understanding of a drug-pathogen interaction may not be properly understood by the medical community.
It is interesting material, but certainly not persuasive, given the lack of empirical evidence as to its correctness. Sometimes, those that “should speak up” are too busy to speak. Other times, they know that to speak up has one of two effects: (1) diminish their reputation (when they gainsay a factual position) or (2) diminish their reputation (when they support a hypothesis absent empirical data).
You are much more closely tied to this community than I am, but I have seen too many instances where expert communities were surprised by the intuition of non-expert commentators.
I’ve been asking for the data every day for a week. Every day goes by there is more data. Every day the answers are becoming clearer. There’s over 20,000 cases to look at. There has to be hundreds of patients in there. If they are still looking and can’t find anything that just tells me any signal that hard to see is because it ain’t there. So every day goes by my suspicions that it doesn’t work grow stronger.
Experts are often too enamoured of their own chosen paradigm. And the medical field is especially bad, eh, Dr. Semmelweis? See also the Nobel in medicine for ulcers...