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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

#461

Post by gunapologist99 »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #339

In my opinion, the main crux is this: there are moneyed interests who are motivated to generate mistrust and otherization based on political parties. In the USA, Fox News has a strong incentive to inspire hatred and fear of Democratic policy, and MSNBC has a strong incentive to inspire hatred of the GOP. The same is true for Twitter, FB, NYT, WSJ, WaPo, literally any media outlet. Hatred, fear, outrage, worry, anxiet…

I appreciate that you drew a distinction, because being anti-science and anti-scientist are not the same thing at all.

The current way that science, i.e., research, is being funded has very little to do with the Scientific Method and seems very broken.

That seems to be the GOP stance; that huge funds are flowing from big corporate interests into universities. It seems quite simple to purchase nearly whatever research you like.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#462

Post by qqqwerty »

csee wrote: post #192
qqqwerty wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the correct answer to wait for more reliable studies? Which is what most "anti-ivermectin" folks were saying to begin with? If your primary goal is to have a miracle cure in hand that would allow you to push back against vaccine mandates, then this approach probably won't sit well. But if you are interesting in actually finding truth, than waiting for larger, more robust studies was the answer.

Why wait? Why not take ivermectin as a precautionary therapeutic given it is well tolerated with low risk of side effects? There's a chasm between the epistemic question of "does this drug really work?" and the pragmatic question of "does a risk-reward analysis under uncertainty say that I should take this mostly safe drug that might slightly reduce my covid severity?" FWIW, I wouldn't take ivermectin either as a pro…

The issue is that folks who are taking ivermectin are doing it in lieu of getting vaccinated. If you get vaccinated and want to take ivermectin for the heck of it, no one is going to stop you. But if you claim that ivermectin is a miracle cure for covid and as such vaccines are no longer necessary, then that is a problem.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#463

Post by gunapologist99 »

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…

"6 because Dr. Meyerowitz-Katz was suspicious of them"?

That... seems like cherry-picking for the results you are looking for.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#464

Post by blitzar »

naasking wrote: post #457
WhompingWindows wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should clarify that Ivermectin works better in higher-worm-prevalence areas. It's not remotely true that 10% of Americans have undetected worms. The praised study in the post highlights 12.5% as "high" prevalence, so 10% would be nearly high -- not true in the developed world.

According to the CDC, 3.7 million people in the US are infected with Trichomoniasis. That's at least 10%. https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2014/p0508-npi.html

3.7/329.5 != 10%

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#465

Post by s1artibartfast »

low_tech_love wrote: post #129

It was a fun read, but implying that a drug dealer from Kern county is related to a published researcher from Mexico just because they have the same surname is not really cool.

I think you missed the point of the comparison. It wasn't a real claim that they are literally the same person. It was a joke that that the study was so suspicious and potentially fraudulent that the author could be a criminal drug dealer...

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#466

Post by gunapologist99 »

oblio wrote: post #308
RubberMullet wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There is little evidence of such analysis being suppressed. ... >Most people who care about this research are indeed crackpots, unfortunately. Where is the evidence to support this statement?

He replies to your question afterwards: > Those who aren't have mostly moved on from Ivermectin because they have better things to do. Ivermectin is being tested in large RCTs, as it should. If it works, it will be used. If it doesn't, it won't. Until we know, doctors will do what works.

.. which many doctors believe is ivermectin based on their own mini-trials, so we're right back to where we started.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#467

Post by mnw21cam »

> People are going to fight hard against this, partly because it’s annoying and partly because of (imho exaggerated) patient privacy related concerns. Somebody’s going to try make some kind of gated thing where you have to prove you have a PhD and a “legitimate cause” before you can access the data, and that person should be fought tooth and nail...

I have a huge amount of respect for Scott, and the rational thinking that he shares with us. However, I'd like to make two arguments against the above.

1. Personally-identifiable information is protected by law over on this side of the pond. This is one of those cases where the thinking is quite different between the US and Europe. In Europe, you need to get the permission of everyone involved in the study before you can publish your data about them, if there is any chance that they can be identified from that data. In a lot of ways this is good, but one way in particular is that it encourages pre-planned proper studies, where you set it all up properly and get every participant to sign the permission sheet, which is good for science.

2. Sometimes absolutely full data release is overkill and inappropriate. For example, if I'm planning to publish a paper saying that mutations in a particular small region of the human genome cause a particular disease, then it is sufficient to publish the list of causative mutations. Full data release would mean publishing the entire sequencing run for the patient - that's inappropriate because you can identify someone from it, and you also then know a huge amount of information about them - their traits and congenital conditions. A lot of journals are pushing for this, and the compromise that we seem to have reached is to store the full sequencing data in a secure repository and provide access given a really good reason. Likewise, a census will report statistics about areas of a country, but the raw data is kept back because it is deeply personal in nature.

So my points are that data shouldn't go into a study unless it can be openly published, and that there are types of raw data that are too personal or voluminous to openly release, and the data derived from it should be released instead.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#468

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

idrios wrote: post #368
romeros wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WHO has no other option than being inaccurate. Society needs a simple answer. Do this. Do that etc. Put on a mask. Wash your hands. Practice social distancing. Use approved vaccines. Take booster shots etc are pretty simple to follow. Likewise don't take non approved stuff. Easy to understand and simple to follow. Nuances will likely hurt and confuse the common man. That's why the news and celebs and politicians etc…

This is also why trust in these institutions is at an all time low. When your decision-makers are telling you lies and half truths for your own good, it becomes harder to know when they're telling the truth. This is the environment that causes fringe groups and theories to thrive.

When the same people (and more) that are in the fringe groups try to create a storm of complaint when scientific/medical advice/understanding changes, it's non-trivial for decision-makers to figure out what to say.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#470

Post by gunapologist99 »

pjc50 wrote: post #165
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.

> is both reasonable and moderately convincing No it isn't, it's full of obvious fraud! That's what the entire rest of the article points out. And they put an unwarranted warning against one of the few non-fraudulent studies because it doesn't go their way: [re: Lopez-Medina et al] > "I’m making a big deal of this because ivmmeta.com - the really impressive meta-analysis site I’ve been going off of - puts a special w…

> "full of obvious fraud"

That's a pretty sensational claim.

Who benefits from this fraud?

The ivermectin manufacturers, researchers receiving funding from pharmaceutical company or the government, or the ivmmeta.com website itself (I see no third party ads or assets at all -- not even GA)?

Meanwhile, back at the Pfizer ranch, they just bought a few small countries for cash.

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