121–130 of 247 posts
SSRI should not be used unless their potential benefit is greater than the potential risk of permanent sexual dysfunction.
Even short term SSRI administration can be very uncomfortable and lead to short term SSRI discontinuation syndrome.
I know doctors treat SSRI like „let’s try, might help, can’t hurt“ candy, but they really shouldn‘t.
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...
If it’s a good study, you probably want it to be scrutinized. If it holds up in other studies that it works, congrats, we just did science! If it doesn’t, it’s just a belief that it works.
It's a lot easier to work on AnotherCure(TM) for baldness, than touch this pile of political crap.
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> 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%). That seems problematic. Did they stop the study because they had achieved statistical significance?
Another issue is that they were testing multiple drugs, none of which had a statistically significant effect. Classic p hacking. https://xkcd.com/882/
Is science allowed to research only one substance for specific purpose at any time to sufficiently avoid p-hacking for you?
Also if I read correctly they got >0.60 not >0.05
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> When a medical doctor prescribes a drug for a purpose that is currently being studied scientifically, that is not "alternative medicine". It really is, as there is absolutely no evidence it has any effect whatsoever and at best it only serves as a placebo. In short, it's snake oil. Worse: politically-motivated snake oil.
Are the people participating in the scientific studies of the drug participating in alternative medicine?
Please let me know when a reputable study that undergoes peer review in an established and respected journal reports that the drug does work as their fans and militants claim.
Until then, keep in mind that "alternative" in "alternative medicine" stands for "hand-waving". As the old adage goes, alternative medicine that works does have a special name. It's called medicine.
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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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Perhaps they were more interested in saving people's lives than waiting for the trial to conclude... I mean the downside is people are less depressed while on a ventilator.
> Perhaps they were more interested in saving people's lives than waiting for the trial to conclude... The bit "waiting for the trial to conclude" actually means "determine if the drug actually has any effect or not". No matter how much you are interested in saving people's lives, or any other moralistic fallacy that might pop up, you can only help them if you give them treatments that actually work. Cutting short a…
So now you are faced with a conundrum. You made sure that it has an effect to the degree you wanted. Now the math says that you either might get even surer by continuing the trial, or save 30% people from hospitalisation.
Also in treatment group just one person died while in control it was 12.
So what's it going to be? Making little bit more sure or saving few lives?
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No. It's called p-hacking, and it's a sleazy way to get published. https://youtu.be/42QuXLucH3Q
This is not p-hacking. p-hacking is when you don't pre-register your hypothesis and you hunt for ones which hit .05 after the fact. There was a single hypothesis being tested here.
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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.
>"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. Th…
Just use google directly to find the trials I’m talking about, instead of being blinded by the ivm meta site creators (who created a similar site last year for HCQ). IvmMeta mixes in poor quality studies with studies that actually found no significant effect for IVM and claims they all are pro IVM.
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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.
>"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. Th…
I couldn't help but notice your use of purposely vague and misleading weasel words such as "positive effect".
Meanwhile I recall reading one of those ivermectin studies presented on another discussion on HN, and it certainly raised some red flags regarding how it was put together. For instance, if my memory doesn't fail me, it relied on an astonishingly small sample (100 patients, all reported as mild cases, divided into control and treatment) and to make matters worse the control group was given hydroxychloroquine instead of a placebo, effectively comparing ivermectin to hydroxychloroquine.
In the end the study reported that the fatality rate in the control and treatment groups was the same, and the only claim was that the statistical analysis suggested more patients from the ivermectin group were discharged earlier, which could very well be just statistical noise. Other than this the paper reported no benefit at all.
So, this is what weasel words buy: they are used to hide facts and misguide people. So unless you actually substantiate your claims and point exactly the very best study you feel shows that said "positive effect" is and how it was quantified, I have to dismiss your claim as something between a baseless assertion and blatant misinformation.
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If you continue having issues, consider taking NAC. It's very commonly used to treat bronchitis and my asthmatic mother has had tremendous success with it.
FDA banned OTC NAC sales after it found out it might help with COVID [1]. Can't have that. And yeah, I know you're suggesting it for something else, but it's hard to get now. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7649937/
And you can still purchase it online:
https://www.bulksupplements.com/products/n-acetyl-l-cysteine...
https://www.lifeextension.com/vitamins-supplements/item01534...