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Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

astralcodexten.substack.com

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Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#151

Post by jacquesm »

throwawayacc2 wrote: post #128
jacquesm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Have I missed anything? I don’t think the discussion is about vaccines. For what is worth, I think both the vaccines and ivermectin work. I just think multinational profit driven companies are more incentivised to promote vaccines, which generate a huge profit, over ivermectin which doesn’t make that much of a profit.

If you think ivermectin works then you are essentially disqualified because as the article linked here nicely explains there are some hypothesis about how it might work if it works but there is no proof, in which case the medical establishment would be all over it, because they too want this pandemic to end asap.

Whether they could make more profit off this probably factors for some people but on the whole the medical profession is result driven.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#152

Post by bschne »

elcomet wrote: post #134
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

> I asked him about his decision-making, and he listed a combination of serious statistical errors and small red flags adding up. I was pretty uncomfortable with most of these studies myself, so I will err on the side of severity, and remove all studies that either I or Dr. Meyerowitz-Katz disliked

From further up, though we don't _quite_ know the details, but it's not like he went "Oh well some random person disagrees with them so better throw them out"

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#153

Post by raxxorrax »

nzmsv wrote: post #47
jacquesm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a pretty good memory for comment histories and you've been pushing this for far more than it is worth. That this single article would change your mind is fortunate, but I do not suspect that to hold true for the bulk of the conspiracy peddlers that remain.

Isn't this an example of some rigid and ineffective thinking patterns? Article publishes sound arguments, doesn't talk down to the audience, admits problems with appeals to authority... and converts a conspiracy believer! ...No way, there is no way that can possibly work, the others are way too dumb, and the convert is a bad person... basically anything to just go back to pretending appeals to authority work. Despite…

"Listen to science!" is ironically a profoundly unscientific statement.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#154

Post by WithinReason »

dkga wrote: post #140
DoreenMichele wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You mean you believe that a widespread administration of ivermectin would lead to development of ivermectin resistance in parasites?

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#155

Post by cyahn »

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…

Since the star HN user cannot use Google and resorts to insults here and elsewhere in the thread, let us spoonfeed him:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1257041/average-weight-g...

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#156

Post by jacquesm »

nzmsv wrote: post #94
nzmsv wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

Chain got too deep to reply. We did adopt his methods, but many years and hundreds of deaths too late, and not before declaring him insane for his beliefs and putting him in an asylum. What I'm saying is that authority has a dark side. Sometimes the establishment is actually wrong. Regardless of right or wrong, it always chooses to erase its critics. Some of us disagree with the erasure, even in cases where the criti…

Yes, so you trust in the scientific method in the long term and in the expert consensus in the short term.

The thing where the case you linked went off the rails for me is that there was no downside to trying his methods earlier, but ego got in the way, and ego is by definition unscientific. But people will be people, that you won't be able to fix, I'm afraid.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#157

Post by beagle3 »

jacquesm wrote: post #26
roenxi wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That literally isn't an argument. It is a statement. And if anyone who said "many scientists/doctors believe it to work against Covid-19" is getting banned, then that statement has 0 signal. As Scott points out in this article, without knowing about the parasitic worm situation https://ivmmeta.com/ is both reasonable and moderately convincing.

This article doesn't move the needle at all for those that have a basic understanding of the mechanisms at work and who don't fall for the first conspiracy theory that gets lobbed their way. What you should do instead is to listen to your medical authorities who even if they do make mistakes have your best interests at heart, contrary to those that are pushing the quackery in an attempt to further destabilize our soc…

You may disregard my pseudonymous self’s statement, but one of my children had a weird disease, which I managed to figure out watching YouTube videos of similar symptoms and reading Wikipedia (at first, then pubmed etc)

Over 40 doctors, most of them MD/PhDs, from 4 of the 10 top ranked hospitals in the world for the relevant issue, told me I’m an idiot, because that disease is a 1:10,000,000 thing, it can’t be the cause. It’s probably a virus and I should just go home and wait a few weeks.

And after 3 months (10 days of which were in-patient) and 40 or so specialists, and 5 hospitals), a doctor looked at all the data and said “of course you are right, we start treatment tomorrow” and we did.

All it cost was some irreversible brain and CNS damage, a few years at home - not much, right?

And through the years and some Facebook groups, I’ve met other parents in similar situations. Some had a 5 year delay in diagnosis because it’s a rare disease, stories about the medical system incredibly similar. That’s 5 years of irreversible brain damage and general suffering. Also, it’s more likely severely under diagnosed and actually more like 1:1,000,000

It was just the beginning of a journey. An eye opening one about incompetence and incentives.

The assumption that health authorities in particular (and authorities in general) have your best interest at heart, and are competent, are severely lacking in evidence. You might not have been bitten by that, and I’m happy for you that you weren’t.

Health authorities and professionals optimize for a lot of things, that only sometimes coincide with your interests as an individual. E.g. they might prefer you stay sick than get better, if there’s a 1:10,000 chance you’ll sue them (regardless of merit). I am intimately familiar with such a case.

Of note, the pharmaceutical industry, which is intimately intertwined with regulatory agencies and health authorities, is incentivized to make you a paying regular customer (Office 365) rather than selling you a one time product. Unfortunately, that means managed chronic illness rather than cure.

Which is not to say HCQ or IVM or whatever are the cure. But the idea of “trusting the authorities” is something you only do until it bites you hard.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#158

Post by WithinReason »

Shank wrote: post #49

This is worth reading purely for the writing alone. Scott Alexander is a treasure: > As best I can tell, this is some kind of Egyptian trial. It might or might not be an RCT; it says stuff like “Patients were self-allocated to the treatment groups; the first 3 days of the week for the intervention arm while the other 3 days for symptomatic treatment”. Were they self-allocated in the sense that they got to choose? Doe…

The patients got Sunday off of course

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#159

Post by fcurts »

havkd wrote: post #85
cbg0 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the sneaky government is offering those freely, so that's very suspicious to some folks that would rather have "the good stuff" off of the black market.

Ivermectin is completely safe (even if it doesn’t work). The rest of treatments, well, we will know in a few years or decades.

People betting on Ivermectin instead of vaccines, masking, social distancing, and proven treatments is extremely dangerous.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#160

Post by jacquesm »

beagle3 wrote: post #157
jacquesm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article doesn't move the needle at all for those that have a basic understanding of the mechanisms at work and who don't fall for the first conspiracy theory that gets lobbed their way. What you should do instead is to listen to your medical authorities who even if they do make mistakes have your best interests at heart, contrary to those that are pushing the quackery in an attempt to further destabilize our soc…

You may disregard my pseudonymous self’s statement, but one of my children had a weird disease, which I managed to figure out watching YouTube videos of similar symptoms and reading Wikipedia (at first, then pubmed etc) Over 40 doctors, most of them MD/PhDs, from 4 of the 10 top ranked hospitals in the world for the relevant issue, told me I’m an idiot, because that disease is a 1:10,000,000 thing, it can’t be the ca…

And for every story like yours - and I know of a few of those - there are examples of people who were absolutely convinced that their child had 'x' or 'y' when it in fact wasn't the case. It is great that you had the perseverance to see this through, and unfortunately it isn't rare at all that local medical care is not up to speed with rare diseases or misdiagnosing a rare disease as a more common one.

I lost a sister (at the ripe old age of 23) to such a case so I'm quite familiar with the territory. In spite of that the default for me is to follow what my doctors tell me, and only if it doesn't work would I start to read up more and to try to come up with suggestions, but not with diagnosis.

Health authorities preferring you to stay sick rather than to get better should re-read the oath of the medical profession, that's despicable.

And agreed that there is a lot wrong in mixing business and health care, but those are the kind of setups that we apparently favor. I recall a doctor here in NL remarking to me that money and health are mutually exclusive, because if doctors have to make decisions based on finance they are immediately transgressing their oath. I can see his point, but I also understand basic resource allocation issues and the medical profession does not operate in a vacuum.

These are hard problems.

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