51–60 of 247 posts
From my own experience I can very much believe an SSRI could have an effect on the immune system and/or the respiratory system. I was a heavy cigarette smoker in my 20s, and over those years, I experienced worsening asthma and also worsening anxiety and depression. Eventually I was prescribed an SSRI (Zoloft), and found that not only did my mood change, my asthma completely abated, even though I was still smoking jus…
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5% is not a pointwise prediction at the individual level. You can't interpret it like you did.
In a way it is though. There is a 84% chance you wouldn't go to the hospital either way, an 11% chance that you will go to the hospital either way, and a 5% chance that you will be saved from going to the hospital. So there is a 1 in 20 chance that this drug will save you from being hospitalized. It could also make your illness less severe in the other scenarios though.
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Yes, as a matter of fact, it does demonstrate statistical significance.
For what minimum detectable effect?
Glad to see this being spoken about! I’ve been assisting with data analysis for an eclectic group of people (who funded this study). Been really disheartening to watch the politics around alternative treatments. Personally, I expect this to be attacked as well, but am hopeful! The stuff really does seem effective, particularly when combined with other drugs...
I hope this isn't attacked, because this isn't an "alternative" drug. Things move from "alternative medicine" to being "medicine" when people do good, peer-reviewed science to actually study the effects and find them to be effective. "Alternative medicine" like ivermectine or hydroxychloroquine have no scientific, properly studied basis for being used.
I wonder what rate of adverse effects will be considered acceptable for a drug administered to people known to have the virus? For vaccines, our tolerance seems very low. I suspect we don’t actually think prevention is better than a cure.
It would depend greatly on their age, I would posit for that those over 65, any drug that killed less than 10% of the people who took it would be acceptable. Vaccines are part of a broader political debate, the problem in politics is people are picking sides. It's very rare to run into a person who doesn't support the vaccine mandates but did get vaccinated. People are generally either anti-vax & anti-mandate, or vac…
Or it's very rare for them to say so in the presence of fear mobs. Mixed opinions are far more common than their (in)visibility would suggest.
Glad to see this being spoken about! I’ve been assisting with data analysis for an eclectic group of people (who funded this study). Been really disheartening to watch the politics around alternative treatments. Personally, I expect this to be attacked as well, but am hopeful! The stuff really does seem effective, particularly when combined with other drugs...
I hope this isn't attacked, because this isn't an "alternative" drug. Things move from "alternative medicine" to being "medicine" when people do good, peer-reviewed science to actually study the effects and find them to be effective. "Alternative medicine" like ivermectine or hydroxychloroquine have no scientific, properly studied basis for being used.
There are more than 60 peer reviewed studies showing positive effect for ivermectin. Similarly the single trial that the media touted as "proof" that HCQ did not work administered what amounted to an overdose to terminally ill patients, in contrast to the recommended early/prophylactic regimen.
These lies have gone on for far too long - no thanks to irresponsible and, frankly, inexcusable censorship by fb, youtube et al on grounds of "misinformation".
This site[0] has been up for over a year now and the citation count has continued to grow.
It seems people are more interested in poo pooing proponents of ivermectin/HCQ than actually examining evidence. Medicine should not be a political team sport.
0. ivmmeta.com
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> The results, published Wednesday in the journal Lancet Global Health, were so strong that independent experts monitoring the study recommended stopping it early because the results were clear.
> When the DSMC met on Aug 5, 2021, it recommended that the TOGETHER trial stop randomly assigning patients to the fluvoxamine group, as this comparison had met the prespecified superiority criterion for the primary endpoint (prespecified superiority threshold 97·6%). This... is not how it's supposed to work.
Sarcasm and hyperbole incoming but… Surely there could be no side effects of putting even more people on SSRIs! well how many more people you thinking? Covid-many .
IANAD but I'd expect taking it during an infection to have different risks from taking it over a long period or permanently.
In my personal experience from both a multi-year experience with fluoxetine and (~5 years later) a short (~4-weeks-ish? I think?) experience with tramadol, there were serious side effects that lasted many months after I stopped taking the drug. I think I was still getting regular 'brain zaps' for almost a year.
Every medication requires weighing the expected benefits vs the adverser effects and risks. I'm not saying SSRIs/etc are bad. I just urge caution and respecting them like the powerful tools they are. Powerful tools - like SSRIs, opiates, or a table saw - are great if you need them, but you do need to understand them properly or you might loose a finger.
(that said, any SSRI side effects is almost certainly a better option than dying from covid, but... seriously... get vaccinated and do what you can (masks, limiting crowds, etc) so you - and the people you interact with - hopefully don't get covid at all)
[1] or anything that messes with serotonin like the SNRIs, SNDRIs, MDMA and related phenethylamines, or even stuff like the painkiller tramadol (it's also an SNRI)
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16% > 11% represents a 31% decrease in the absolute number of hospitalizations. That's nearly a ONE THIRD improvement in the hospitalization rate. In places where hospitals are at or near capacity, that would make a huge difference. Or were you trying to make a statement about the statistical validity of the result, because the outcomes differ by 5%? Because that's not how statistics work. A well constructed study of…
Intro to stats says that studies are very difficult and that bias is everywhere. Reinforces how stats can be whatever you want them to be. Larger Number of people in the sample is a good start. However, bias is also a human element. Therefore you need that study reproduced independently, multiple times. Researchers don't like this because studies are expensive and hard, and their boss is telling them to publish and g…
A cheap, simple observational study like this is merely a first step. No reasonable expert is claiming that this study proves anything worth making medical policy changes over. This study's sole purpose is to establish whether it's worth investing in further studies, or if we can just shitcan the idea now. Subsequent studies will cost more money, and involve larger samples, better controls, and get a lot more scrutiny from peers.
Time and money are finite resources. You have to have some kind of system for deciding where to spend those resources.
This is how medical science works. It's got a ton of pitfalls, but we still do it this way because so far nobody has come up with a better alternative.
I'll take my chances with the corona. Don't want SSRI
SSRIs are pretty serious, which is why you should probably just get vaccinated instead.