Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85% • Hacker News Board

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#841

Post by chefkoch » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

ldehaan wrote: post #768

et2o wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Researchers in pharma are working extremely hard and almost always in good faith. I know this is probably tongue-in-cheek but it's not true.

Found the big pharma PR guy. The people in pharma are 100% not in this for the right reasons. Not one. Look into Every Single one of these companies just a tiny bit and you'll see how absolutely evil they are and by working for them you are complicit. You don't have to agree with reality, but that's reality.

Huh, if all people working in pharma are complicit with big evil, what is your alternative?

No one should work in pharma?

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#842

Post by mensetmanusman » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

geraneum wrote: post #835

claytongulick wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose some people would lump me in with "anti-vaxxer" because I don't want to get the Covid vaccine. I'm not anti-vax, btw. I have a medical condition that requires me to receive regular vaccination against several diseases, and I'm strict about doing that on time. I've made a calculated decision in the case of this specific vaccine based on that fact that I've now had Covid twice (first time was a bit nasty, sec…

I hear you and your argument sounds rational. I wonder what do you think about receiving it for the sake of potentially vulnerable people around you. Just to reduce the likelihood of spreading it to someone who, unlike you, might be in real danger. I personally didn’t mind the side effects, but mainly got it because I thought: What if I get Covid and give it to someone and something happens to them? And then I though…

It’s rational argument especially now that we know vaccinated people spread this endemic virus.

Your mindset should be: everyone is going to get this, probably multiple times in your life, vaccines reduce the symptoms, but not as effectively as having survived covid.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#843

Post by tsol » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 10:46 PM UTC

swader999 wrote: post #823

jdhn wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that this will appeal to people who are covid vaccine skeptical. If you're skeptical of the mRNA vaccines, you'd probably be in favor of this treatment than the vaccines.

I had one vaccine dose with severe issues. So maybe I'm skeptical, I won't get a second or third dose. Most people in this camp will just use ivermectin. Including myself, it works and is safe.

The antiviral mechanism of Ivermectin involves the inhibition of nuclear transport by importin α/β1 in the host. It can and has lead to death when improperly dosed.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#844

Post by tsol » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

rajup wrote: post #839

jollybean wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, it's the opposite. Anti-Vaxx people seem to absolutely love non-vax treatments. I don't know if the rationalization is sound, but I'm not sure it's really that. The anti-vaxx stigma pre-COVID I think has had it's toll. The notion of 'government pushing you to take something' as well. Whereas, 'you get sick, you take a pill' is an easy concept. My fear is that a lot of people won't bother with a vax if…

> My fear is that a lot of people won't bother with a vax if they think there's a 'cure'. Interesting. Indeed, should people bother with a vax if there's a highly effective cure? Is it worth all the teeth-gnashing and hair pulling on the part of the medical establishment, political establishment and media about people who would rather get COVID than get the vaccine? IMO this cure (once it starts rolling out ofc) is a…

Then you have the issue of people continuing to spread it to those who can't take a vaccine, including the immunocompromised.

There is also the worry of the effects of long covid. Just yesterday I was reading a thread on here of people complaining about experiences of their loved ones with long term covid after effects not being able to find relief from doctors because, well, we still don't even know what causes it. Better to avoid an infection that let a virus ravage through your body hoping medication can reverse all the effects on the body

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#845

Post by mensetmanusman » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 10:48 PM UTC

oblio wrote: post #816

claytongulick wrote: post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose some people would lump me in with "anti-vaxxer" because I don't want to get the Covid vaccine. I'm not anti-vax, btw. I have a medical condition that requires me to receive regular vaccination against several diseases, and I'm strict about doing that on time. I've made a calculated decision in the case of this specific vaccine based on that fact that I've now had Covid twice (first time was a bit nasty, sec…

The thing is, you're not representative of unvaccinated folks. You're an extreme outlier. Most of them haven't done this research. In my opinion, if you're nice and wear a mask in crowded conditions, don't go around hanging especially indoors in big groups, your position is kind of ok. Though I'd still look at the numbers to check if vaccines reduce infection rates and rate of spread. Because if that's true, it might…

Your priors probably need updating as natural immunity as the OP describes appears to be much more robust, esp compared to the J&J after a year. Also vaccinated people spread delta, so everyone is getting it on some time scale.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#846

Post by anamax » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 10:49 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #702

sokoloff wrote: post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has interesting implications when we consider how much money drug companies “should” be paid for inventing important new life-saving medicines. I frequently hear/read complaints of "that's outrageous [that this medicine costs $X]!" Well, maybe it is; maybe it isn't, but if you make sure it costs $X/100, I can be pretty sure you'll get less drug R&D.

Pharma companies in the US spend about twice as much on advertising as they do on R&D [1]. Recent data compiled by the House Oversight Committee shows the biggest pharma companies spent $56 billion more on stock buybacks and dividends than they did on R&D over the past five years [2]. Very little of the ridiculous prices that US citizens pay for medicine (directly or via insurance) actually goes towards R&D. [1] http…

Advertising includes drug samples given to doctors, which many/most of them give to patients who can't afford said drugs.

How many of them are you willing to cut off?

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#847

Post by pfisherman » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

nkozyra wrote: post #733

tshaddox wrote: post #721

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fad treatments are "still medicine," but crucially are not generally approved of by the "mainstream medical establishment." This lack of approval is the key feature of these treatments.

> This lack of approval is the key feature of these treatments. Lack of approval + length of use as medicine. There's a narrative that drug X has been used for 50 years (despite what it's used for) and therefore the pharma industry is uninterested in its success because they can't get rich off of it. The latter is a common thread, along the lines of "what THEY don't want you to know."

But this makes absolutely no sense. Plenty of previously approved drugs, such as anticoagulants and dexamethasone, are part of the current standard of care; and their effectiveness has unambiguously been borne out by the data with multiple independent studies / analyses that all agree.

So why are THEY for these but against ivermectin?

Of course the whole idea of THEY is nutty. The idea that there is this level of coordination / cooperation among pharma companies is ridiculous enough to be the punchline of a joke.

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#848

Post by nradov » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

ralmeida wrote: post #117

nradov wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I encourage everyone eligible to get vaccinated if they can, but it does little to prevent spread. Over the long run we'll all be exposed no matter what we do. The real benefit of vaccines is in reducing the risk of severe symptoms. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02689-y https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-immu...

> it does little to prevent spread How much, exactly? > Over the long run we'll all be exposed no matter what we do Plausible, but your sources don't appear to support that, other than the claim from Mr. Pollard. Is there anything I'm missing?

“The most statistically significant data point is that vaccinated people certainly have a faster rate of viral decline,” said Ferguson, “so they may potentially be infectious for less time, but they don’t necessarily have any reduced peak of viral load. Most transmission probably happens around that peak of viral load, which is why we think we’re still seeing substantial transmission rates from vaccinated people, both to unvaccinated people and to other vaccinated people.”

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2638

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#849

Post by acdha » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

pjkundert wrote: post #815

acdha wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stop spreading disinformation. This has gone through studies showing significant positive benefits. Ivermectin has small studies with dubious methodology showing possible effects and larger studies with better methodology showing no benefit, along with substantial side-effects. https://ebm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/05/26/bmjebm-2021-111... https://www.cochranelibrary.com/content?templateType=full&ur...

You are misinformed: c19early.com c19ivermectin.com 128 studies, 83 peer-reviewed. The money quote, from ivmmeta.com: - There is evidence of a negative publication bias, and the probability that an ineffective treatment generated results as positive as the 65 studies is estimated to be 1 in 403 billion. So, ... stop spreading misinformation?

No, I’m not. You’re citing notorious disinformation sites whose anonymous creators are relying on you seeing big numbers and not noticing the problems with methodology and analysis. When actual experts look at those studies, the results have not held up.

https://ebm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/05/26/bmjebm-2021-111...

> Different websites (such as https://ivmmeta.com/, https://c19ivermectin.com/, https://tratamientotemprano.org/estudios-ivermectina/, among others) have conducted meta-analyses with ivermectin studies, showing unpublished colourful forest plots which rapidly gained public acknowledgement and were disseminated via social media, without following any methodological or report guidelines. These websites do not include protocol registration with methods, search strategies, inclusion criteria, quality assessment of the included studies nor the certainty of the evidence of the pooled estimates. Prospective registration of systematic reviews with or without meta-analysis protocols is a key feature for providing transparency in the review process and ensuring protection against reporting biases, by revealing differences between the methods or outcomes reported in the published review and those planned in the registered protocol. These websites show pooled estimates suggesting significant benefits with ivermectin, which has resulted in confusion for clinicians, patients and even decision-makers. This is usually a problem when performing meta-analyses which are not based in rigorous systematic reviews, often leading to spread spurious or fallacious findings.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8050401

> Meta-analysis/observational studies (https://ivmmeta.com) are circulating in the scientific community and over the Internet, demonstrating the efficacy of IVM during the pandemic. However, most of the listed references fail to provide adequate methodologies, making them difficult to be validated. Major limitations include, small sample sizes, doses and frequency of IVM use, open-label studies, in which neither the participants nor the investigators were blinded to the treatments, the use of concomitant medications in addition to IVM, assuming that the efficacy resulted from IVM (https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/antiviral-the...).

Re: Pfizer's oral Covid-19 antiviral cuts hospitalization, death by 85%

#850

Post by mensetmanusman » Fri, Nov 05, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

jollybean wrote: post #758

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the main difference is one has to necessarily take on vaccine risk without catching covid, so you balance chance of vax complications vs chance of getting covid multiplied by chance of getting bad case of covid. So 1 * P(bad vax) vs P(getting covid) * P(bad covid case). While most of other proposed treatments are after you already got it. So P(bad side effects) vs 1 * P(bad covid case). Depending on your prio…

Well, kind of. 1) There really is no such thing as 'Vaccine Risk' in the material sense, any more than we would us language such as 'Flying Risk'. Esp. in the US where thee is no AZ vaccine, the risk is negligible. 'The Vaccine Risk' in the minds of many people isn't consistent with the reality, and it's a major communications problem. Anti-vaxxers are internalizing and propagandizing a degree of risk that just isn't…

For endemic viruses that also spread through domestic pets 95% becomes unobtainable unless we start going after the 100,000,000 domestic pets in the US alone.