Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

astralcodexten.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 805 posts

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#131

Post by Cthulhu_ »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #17

This is wonderfully fun stuff to read: This is from ivmmeta.com, part of a sprawling empire of big professional-looking sites promoting unorthodox coronavirus treatments. I have no idea who runs it - they’ve very reasonably kept their identity secret - but my hat is off to them...Putting aside the question of accuracy and grading only on presentation and scale, this is the most impressive act of science communication…

I want to know who's behind those sites, the fact that nobody knows who's behind them is shady. Or is having sites pushing meta-studies about anything normal and I just missed it?

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#132

Post by jacquesm »

falrh wrote: post #123
jacquesm wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden, the country where the authorities apologized for messing up, that Sweden? People on average gained 10 kg? Really, I have no idea where you get this nonsense but clearly you are not interested in a factual debate but in one that gives you what you want: the ability to ignore this pandemic as though it doesn't exit. There are no ICU beds for the gerontocracy, there are simply ICU beds, and there is a limited nu…

It is easy to find: https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2021/03/one-year-pan... "APA’s survey of U.S. adults, conducted in late February 2021 by The Harris Poll, shows that a majority of adults (61%) experienced undesired weight changes (weight gain or loss) since the pandemic started, with 42% reporting they gained more weight than they intended. Of those, they gained an average of 29 pounds (the median amount g…

You really have a reading comprehension issue.

61 percent could have gone either up or down, and 42% said they gained more weight than they intended, of those that gained some gained more than 10 kg, and a smaller fraction gained more than 50 pounds.

So, what does this say:

(1) that people should adapt their eating habits to their needs

(2) that it is possible to lose weight and to gain weight unintended (which is something that isn't really news, see also: weight watchers and the whole weight loss industry)

(3) that the study did not correct for what would have been the result of the poll had COVID not happen

(4) that the word 'lockdown' that you ascribe to the cause does not appear in the article text, but the word 'stress' does

and finally

(5) that you link to this article because you think it supports your statement above when in fact that really isn't the case.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#133

Post by rscho »

roenxi wrote: post #65
jacquesm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been following with some amazement the number of conspiracy peddlers on HN for the last 18 months or so and one case of conversion isn't going to make me overly happy. It is a bit like the story about the lie getting halfway around the world before the truth puts their shoes on, in the extreme long term the truth will come out, meanwhile, the damage is done. This guy until yesterday wanted his mother to take som…

You could try spreading the truth instead of bullying people? I do care about my mothers health you know. And if a doctor isn't convinced by a large number of studies I want them to explain why not rather than call me a conspiracy peddler. The way someone gets ivermectin is to walk a doctor through the evidence they've seen and then ask them to prescribe it.

I am a doc. I am also a medical researcher, but you (and most other people here) _have_ to realize that the vast majority of practicing MDs are _not_ scientists, and understand almost nothing when reading medical studies. And that's fine, because it's not their job. The profession is bound by guidelines and expert opinion. Experts do research, formulate guidelines, and guidelines get applied by practitioners. And no, that absolutely does not mean you know better than the average doc because you've read 10 studies. That's telling a highly specialized labourer that you know the job better because you've read 0.0001% of the theory.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#134

Post by elcomet »

robocat wrote: post #71

With a meta-analysis, if you detect a high number of fraudulent studies, shouldn’t that negatively affect your trust of the studies which you didn’t detect any problem with? Let us imagine you looked at 100 papers, and you could tell 99 of them had severe problems, and one looked OK. That information would make you suspicious that the one paper also had severe problems, but that you just didn’t detect the problems. F…

> and 6 because Dr. Meyerowitz-Katz was suspicious of them.”

That's a bit frightening, of course someone would be suspicious if results were going against his/her opinions

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#135

Post by jacquesm »

capableweb wrote: post #130
jacquesm wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good rule is to simply wait. Bad science has a way of being negated over the longer term. But if you want results today you could always try to replicate the experiment (which is one of the reasons why asking scientists to show their data in raw from should be mandatory in my opinion).

> Bad science has a way of being negated over the longer term. Humans started to experiment with Lobotomy around 1930s and it wasn't until after 1950s that we started to realize that it probably did more harm than good. António Egas Moniz even won a Nobel Prize for "discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses". Yes, bad science will probably be negated over long term, but what about the harm…

If you can improve on the scientific method I'm sure lots of people would be very happy but for now it is the best we've got, the results speak for themselves.

Science makes mistakes, all the time. But it does learn from those mistakes. The harm done during the intervening years is terrible, but likely a price we can not avoid.

A bigger problem in my opinion is the degree to which science allows itself to be 'bought' by commerce, for instance in the case of smoking, climate change denial and other major issues that end up harming lots of people in very concrete ways. The man or woman in the white coat has a lot of authority and squandering that by throwing the scientific method out of the window to be replaced by a stack of green bills is a real problem.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#136

Post by Nursie »

jesterson wrote: post #79
jmnicolas wrote: post #24

Interesting read, I appreciate that the author isn't dogmatic and is open to discussion. However I think he misrepresent some anti-vaxxers: it's not a matter of trusting science, it's a matter of trusting scientists with heavy conflict of interest to tell the truth while most of us don't have the required scientific knowledge to evaluate if they're telling the truth. Pfizer and Moderna combined are making more than $…

> However I think he misrepresent some anti-vaxxers: it's not a matter of trusting science, it's a matter of trusting scientists with heavy conflict of interest to tell the truth while most of us don't have the required scientific knowledge to evaluate if they're telling the truth. That's an excellent point - unfortunately people who are easily labeled as "anti-vaxxers" and perceived as uneducated anti-scince crowd q…

Studies have been done. It has been found lacking. You're getting mocked because you're blind to this and sticking to something that bad actors are touting as a miracle cure, while science and medicine move on in the search for things that actually help.

Like dexamethasone, remdesivir etc etc

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#137

Post by jmnicolas »

phreeza wrote: post #117
jmnicolas wrote: post #24

Interesting read, I appreciate that the author isn't dogmatic and is open to discussion. However I think he misrepresent some anti-vaxxers: it's not a matter of trusting science, it's a matter of trusting scientists with heavy conflict of interest to tell the truth while most of us don't have the required scientific knowledge to evaluate if they're telling the truth. Pfizer and Moderna combined are making more than $…

> However I think he misrepresent some anti-vaxxers: it's not a matter of trusting science, it's a matter of trusting scientists with heavy conflict of interest to tell the truth while most of us don't have the required scientific knowledge to evaluate if they're telling the truth. But you don't have to trust only scientists directly or indirectly employed by those companies. There are plenty of subject-matter expert…

> who would have very little to lose from criticising the rollout

I beg to differ, here is an example: Luc Montagnier, a Nobel prize recipient, has been completely marginalized after emitting doubts about vaccine safety and is now absolutely inaudible in anything mainstream.

It's just an example, there are several more. Anybody that saw how he was treated probably though really hard before emitting any dissenting opinion in public.

It feels like the Inquisition.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#138

Post by raverbashing »

Joking_Phantom wrote: post #46

Love the final explanation for how ivermectin can be incidentally good for COVID-19 patients, even if it does nothing to COVID-19 directly. In fact, as the author cites from another researcher, the trials are a strong piece of evidence for "add[ing] ivermectin to mass drug administration programs." In other words, global medical welfare, where we just give everyone a bunch of a cheap and effective medications to coun…

For real, prophylaxis of enteral worms should have been more popular in developed countries.

It's amazing how hygiene practices are sometimes poor and tropical diseases are unknown in developed countries

But then you go visit somewhere and/or some animal product is imported in questionable ways and you get a worm. Which for 95% of people will be mildly inconsequential but it might also cause problems.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#139

Post by jacquesm »

jdub wrote: post #121
fallingknife wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I agree, that in the case of a pandemic, the health authorities interests are pretty well aligned with a member of the general public. However, there are always issues in this kind of situation when the authorities got it wrong. In a political environment, changing course is seen as an admission of being wrong, and a loss of face. So we continue on with the initial policy. We are currently facing this problem a…

"You don't need to wear masks" was bad advice from well-meaning people who should've known better. The researchers who did know better couldn't push past deeply-entrenched anti-miasma attitudes quickly enough. "Use social distancing and isolation to avoid COVID and get vaccinated as quickly as possible" is good advice from well-meaning people who do know better. Sorry it's unpleasant, but if the USA behaved rationall…

Spot on. The developed world really has no excuses.

Mixed messaging by people in the media undercut a lot of support for the countermeasures, which was then further amplified using social media to pretend that scientists are divided in their opinions when in fact they weren't, except for a few lone holdouts, who - yay controversy - were given a disproportionate amount of airtime.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#140

Post by dkga »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #67
Joking_Phantom wrote: post #46

Love the final explanation for how ivermectin can be incidentally good for COVID-19 patients, even if it does nothing to COVID-19 directly. In fact, as the author cites from another researcher, the trials are a strong piece of evidence for "add[ing] ivermectin to mass drug administration programs." In other words, global medical welfare, where we just give everyone a bunch of a cheap and effective medications to coun…

In fact, as the author cites from another researcher, the trials are a strong piece of evidence for "add[ing] ivermectin to mass drug administration programs." In other words, global medical welfare, where we just give everyone a bunch of a cheap and effective medications to counteract the most prolific diseases. When they invented antibiotics, people began predicting "the end of disease." Fast forward a few decades…

Veterinarian here, used to ivermectin as it should be used - as an anti parasitic.

I fully agree with this view above.

Post reply on HN