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Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

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Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#631

Post by dang »

mistermann wrote: post #630
dang wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've considered things like that over the years, but I think these and similar ideas suffer from a common flaw: people who disagree about X would disagree about reasons for upvoting/downvoting X or the level of "epistemic strictness" re X. So you'd just get the same arguments repeated at a meta level, which would not be a win. I'm sorry to sound so dismissive; it's at least partly because I'm writing hastily. I don'…

re: epistemic strictness You don't think HN users are capable of realizing when they are engaged in mind/future reading, even if it was an explicit rule ? You surely know the userbase better than me, but this seems unlikely. If you want nothing to change, so be it, but the idea that functionality changes cannot have an effect is very frustrating.

Correct. Not only HN users but humans in general—I just don't think we work that way. The way we work is that we have our preference on X and then we propagate that preference through every edge in our mental graph of associations from X.

One can imagine a user saying something like "Although I personally am against nuclear power, since this is the 'optimism' thread it isn't the best place for my counterarguments so I'll post them in the 'pessimism' thread instead". However, such people are so rare that statistically they may as well not exist.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#632

Post by mistermann »

dang wrote: post #631
mistermann wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re: epistemic strictness You don't think HN users are capable of realizing when they are engaged in mind/future reading, even if it was an explicit rule ? You surely know the userbase better than me, but this seems unlikely. If you want nothing to change, so be it, but the idea that functionality changes cannot have an effect is very frustrating.

Correct. Not only HN users but humans in general—I just don't think we work that way. The way we work is that we have our preference on X and then we propagate that preference through every edge in our mental graph of associations from X. One can imagine a user saying something like "Although I personally am against nuclear power, since this is the 'optimism' thread it isn't the best place for my counterarguments so…

> Correct. Not only HN users but humans in general—I just don't think we work that way.

I am curious if this is actually true (that humans are unable, with concentration, to realize they cannot read minds), but maybe I have an excess of curiosity! :)

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#633

Post by giarc »

kcplate wrote: post #572
giarc wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely a CYA situation. There were people that took aquarium chloroquine after Trump promoted hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID.

There were two people, a husband and wife. It was also reported after that police were investigating her for homicide because she was actually very much anti-Trump and had a history of brutalizing her husband publicly. Appears that she gave him a large dose that killed him and took a tiny one herself likely to create some sort of weird alibi.

>But people certainly listened to his words as officials from the Maryland Emergency Management Agency sent out an alert one day after receiving more than 100 calls about ingesting disinfectants as a possible treatment for COVID-19, according to the Governor’s office, and reported by ABC News.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2020/04/25/calls-...

I'm sure some can be chalked up to simply people increasing their cleaning during a pandemic, but 100 in a day for a single state... come on.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#634

Post by XorNot »

iammisc wrote: post #561
XorNot wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the times Trump promoted hydroxychloroquine: https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/05/22/all-t... Trump ongoingly and repeatedly pushed hydroxychloroquine, criticized published research showing it was ineffective, and most likely lied about taking hydroxychloroquine seeing as how no evidence or independent confirmation that he was on the drug ever surfaced. It was not a one off thing, and it was not "m…

> likely lied about taking hydroxychloroquine seeing as how no evidence or independent confirmation that he was on the drug ever surfaced. White house physician said he was on it. Also studies are mixed on it's efficacy. The ones showing it was supposedly harmful were fake.

tl;dr The White House physician seems to have carefully avoided saying in public that he actually prescribed it to Trump. (others noticed this too: https://www.justsecurity.org/70253/nine-questions-for-the-wh...)

The only evidence we have that Trump took it is Trump saying he was taking it, and the press secretary while not giving a white house briefing directly saying it was prescribed[1], and the White House physician saying that he didn't see any harm in Trump taking it...[3] but I cannot find a single authoritative report [2] where someone claims to have actually prescribed the drug to Trump - from either the physician, or from Trump himself (remembering it is a prescription drug). The White House press office also never used those words that I can see, instead deflecting that whatever Trump said should be believed (while on the podium at a briefing, where there would be an accountability issue).

So, short version: it was implied by the people who would've had to prescribe it to him that they saw no problem giving it to him if he wanted it...but it seems like everyone carefully avoided saying they actually did prescribe it.

Now, on some level this is irrelevant whether he took it. Because he used the presidential podium to contradict medical professionals and push an ineffective treatment, created a shortage for a drug which a lot of people actually depended on (I knew a colleague who suddenly ran into trouble with this), which as it turned out provided no useful effect in preventing the president from actually catching COVID-19 and has since then continuously proven to be completely ineffective.

[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/498803-white-hou...

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/19/trump-hydrox...

[3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/19/sean-conley-...

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#635

Post by perryizgr8 »

spacial wrote: post #575
perryizgr8 wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doesn't help at all. I have a coworker who as using ivermectin as prophylactic and went to ICU (he is recovering now). This is an anecdote, and it is dangerous to generalize from it. I have several family members who seemed to respond well to Ivermectin, and recovered better than their initial condition would have indicated.

ok, show me good science. I drank beer all this time, didn't got any covid yet. MAYBE BEER IS THE MEDICIN. BIG PHARMA IS HIDING FROM US.

I am not saying it is definitely a great medicine for Covid and everyone should use it, but we must be careful to not mandate the opposite as well. Let individual patients make the decision to use it with help from their respective doctors. If there is a genuine beneficial effect, it will emerge naturally and more doctors will urge their patients to go for it. If there isn't, the opposite will happen.

Banning it from the top is not going to help most people.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#636

Post by iammisc »

jiofih wrote: post #617
iammisc wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> mentioned HCQ he turned the whole thing political. Trump first mentioned it as a possibility and investigation and that he was taking it after consulting with his doctor. That's it. The media made you think otherwise. Telling the public what drugs he's on is fine.. shouldn't we know what drugs POTUS is taking? And the people who politicized it were medical journals who published fake studies with no data or vetting…

Telling the world that you’re taking an unapproved drug, and recommending it for everyone, while being a public figure is not a “trivial statement”. It becomes political the moment that statement is made, since now it’s his word vs the medical establishment. And that’s not gonna be a technical discussion. > medical journals who published fake studies There is someone else who thrives on calling things “fake” when the…

> There is someone else who thrives on calling things “fake” when they disagree with his opinions…

Is Donald Trump a scientific journal?

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#637

Post by sjwalter »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #292
goldemerald wrote: post #7

I heard about Ivermectin for the first time this week and was shocked how much it seemed that I had stepped into conspiracy theory land. There seemed to be an overwhelming amount of evidence over the last year that this repurposed drug is effective at treating Covid during a variety of stages (preventative, first positive test, ICU admittance, and even long haul). But since there hadn't been a randomized trial the dr…

> There seemed to be an overwhelming amount of evidence.... > ....there hadn't been a randomized trial the drug You don't see the contradiction here? Edit: because it must be made 100% obvious, clinical trial results are the definition of evidence in medical science.

Large RCTs are considered the "gold standard" but you are outright misleading if you are saying that large RCTs are the SOLE definition of evidence in medical science.

Or you know nothing about medical science.

Observational trials, natural experiments, etc. all constitute evidence.

As well, there have been over 25 RCTs performed globally on Ivermectin to date.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#638

Post by sjwalter »

jacquesm wrote: post #614
ghoward wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FUD like the fact that the vaccines have had no completed studies on their long-term effects? Or being part of a demographic that has a low risk from COVID?

Yes, that's FUD. You can't have a completed long term study when a vaccine has not been on the market for a long enough term. That's pretty obvious.

Right, so how is it FUD if you simply want to avoid being part of a clinical trial? Vaccines take at least 7 years (usually 10ish) to complete long-term trials.

For young people, the cost-benefit analysis isn't clear at all--much less risk of anything bad at all from covid itself, plus far more years of life to lose or suffer from vaccine injury, which is a totally unknown risk.

To boot, the vaccines contain at least three entirely new technologies never before adopted in vaccine treatment.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#639

Post by javagram »

fda_hates_u wrote: post #491
javagram wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dexamethasone is an approved drug recommended by the FDA for treatment of Covid and it didn’t stop the vaccine EUA. The vaccines are 95-100% effective in trials, no other drug comes close.

Please do not spread fake news. All current vaccines are less than 1% effective. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5...

As your article notes “ Vaccine efficacy is generally reported as a relative risk reduction (RRR).”

There is nothing fake about what I said. It’s simply the common sense way to think about the effectiveness of a vaccine.

According to your reasoning the polio and smallpox vaccines are 0% effective because those viruses have been eradicated in the USA currently.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#640

Post by javagram »

jimmydorry wrote: post #508
fda_hates_u wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please do not spread fake news. All current vaccines are less than 1% effective. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanmic/article/PIIS2666-5...

For anyone reading the above comment: * The quoted 95% etc. numbers are in terms of Relative Risk (ie, the ratio of attack rates with and without a vaccine—which is expressed as 1–RR) * These numbers are essentially a reported efficacy and useless to compare between studies held under different conditions. With this in mind, from the lancet article linked above: > However, RRR should be seen against the background ri…

“ ARRs tend to be ignored because they give a much less impressive effect size than RRR”

This is an odd statement. Why would that be the reason to ignore it? ARR is extremely specific to a time frame and location.

Without wide deployment of vaccines, almost everyone would eventually naturally catch the coronavirus at some point in the next several years. As vaccines are deployed, the risk reduces since vaccines reduce the R0 of the virus in that population. Any calculation of ARR would be highly speculative and have to include models about how widely the vaccine would be deployed, the transmissibility and mutation of the virus, and the RRR of the vaccine itself, as well as being stated only for a specific timeframe and location.

Given all this it’s obvious why RRR is the typically reported number and the one that makes sense to use in discussions.

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