Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know • Hacker News Board

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#581

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #272

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have scanned through so many forums reading anecdotal stories, also downloaded VAERS data, and I definitely see a pattern, but this is not enough of compelling evidence for anyone. But let's just focus on what could be causing excess deaths during summer. Source: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ Scroll to Excess Mortality See 0-14 age group excess mortality growth during summer (EU approved vaccines for 12+…

VAERS data is not verified, as I said, it's self reported. It's useful but not necessarily great for basing hunches on. According to your graph, excess mortality for ages 0-14 for this year is lower than it was in 2019, before the vaccine or the pandemic hit. And the excess mortality in the 15-44 age group is maybe 5000 people across 28 countries. Without knowing the variance in previous years, which is not given in…

But it did give him what he was looking for: a reason not to get vaccinated. All of the above is just that: justification for that decision, and once looked at through that lens it makes a lot more sense.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#582

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #320

Nursie wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know numbers, but there are credible reports of farming supply companies starting to restrict sales (so greater than zero, but I haven't a clue how many). Differences can be that not all the preparations contain only the one active ingredient. Dosing appears to be whole other kettle of fish, because understandably people have no idea what a therapeutic or prophylactic dose actually might be - because as far a…

Two of my relatives are running Covid wards in a rural part of the country, and they are filled with people who had their vets get them IVM or who had picked it up off the shelf. My next door neighbor told me he had his dog’s vet write him a prescription. You can guess his political persuasion and vaccine status.

That's so sad. And the proponents of that BS will happily continue to push it, what's in it for them I'll never understand. It's like a very indirect way of trying to kill people.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#583

Post by panny » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:12 PM UTC

kaba0 wrote: post #564

panny wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Ivermectin doesn’t reduce mortality in COVID a significant amount (let’s say d > 0.3) in the absence of comorbid parasites: 85-90% confidence That simply armchair science blogging psychiatrist's hypothesis. He even admits as much, >But this theory feels right to me. It feels right to me because it’s the most troll-ish possible solution. Everybody was wrong! None of the studies looked at worms. It is correlation == c…

Nor you can assume any sort of effect on curing COVID without a fair and square trial. The default null hypothesis is that it doesn’t work, period.

As the blog post indicates, there is data proving a positive effect. That's not in question. The author is simply speculating why that is the case at this point, the specific reason for the positive effect.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#584

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #576

jacquesm wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To this day, Jaap van Dissel, the head of the RIVM maintains that masks do not work.

https://www.newsweek.com/netherlands-mask-policy-1522917 I remember this guy. The specific claim was that he does not believe that masks will prevent new infections due to people not socially distancing and wearing them incorrectly, NOT that masks are ineffective. He concedes that the evidence suggests masks themselves work. I've seen this guy get cited in anti-vaxx circles, using extremely simplified claims. Of cour…

Yes, there is some nuance there now, but it wasn't always so. That's his way of very slowly walking back his claims, a bit of a no true Scotsman, but now 'no true mask'. "masks don't work" -> "ordinary masks don't work" -> "ordinary masks don't work because people won't take other precautions when they wear masks" and so on.

The damage was already done by the time he started with the qualifications and to this day 100's of thousands, if not millions of people will quote the head of the RIVM (correctly or not) to support their anti-mask (often coupled with anti-vaxx) stance.

And social distancing + masks = better than social distancing without. Even Fauci called him to task about this, his response was that 'he would study their claims' (their claim: that masks do work).

https://nos.nl/artikel/2350709-van-dissel-blijft-erbij-gewon...

When people like Jaap van Dissel cross the official line published by the country it immediately erodes the platform that we all depend on to get through this. From someone in his position one would assume a basic familiarity with the difference between official policy and scientific fact and when it is appropriate to take which viewpoint.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#585

Post by robbiep » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

coolso wrote: post #346

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…

> Likewise CNN made fun of Joe Rogan for taking Ivermectin because we don't want general public to experiment with alternative medicine. It's better to just stick to the proven stuff. Ivermectin is not alternative medicine. Ivermectin used for COVID symptoms is off-label use. CNN made fun of him because he dared stray from the official narrative and he dared try doing something through his own research rather than do…

And it’s amazing how his own research throws the vaccine out whilst going headlong for monoclonal antibodies, and the cognitive dissonance that makes processing this so deafening is that one is new and there are no long term trials and… the other doesn’t get the same treatment by his brain?

I also love the blinkered trope he continues to roll out that public health doesn’t tell everyone to exercise and not smoke and eat healthily. Which it does constantly, but he can’t see this because he can’t compute that the magnitude of the response to covid drowns out the baseline public health messages that have been in widespread adoption and classroom teaching for 30 years.

As much as he’d like to be, he’s not an independent thinker - him saying ‘I hate tribes’ doesn’t make it so - he’s part of tribes as well

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#586

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #571

SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it was not related to Covid. If someone with heart problems is admitted with Covid they will receive their heart medications in the hospital, that doesn't mean that now heart medication is a Covid medication, so doesn't get mentioned in studies. The same goes for dewormer, it was in normal use against worms. Only after people started believing that it could be a treatment for Covid, that it started being stud…

Except in this case the dewormer is the central focus of the study. The relationship between worms in the population and its influence on covid outcomes makes that highly relevant to the publications. If it's known to be present in the general public, then not controlling for that in your study is just shoddy science.

More likely: a case of wishful thinking. Need miracle cure, found miracle cure, look no further.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#587

Post by kaba0 » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

panny wrote: post #583

kaba0 wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nor you can assume any sort of effect on curing COVID without a fair and square trial. The default null hypothesis is that it doesn’t work, period.

As the blog post indicates, there is data proving a positive effect. That's not in question. The author is simply speculating why that is the case at this point, the specific reason for the positive effect.

There is data with bad methodology on all fronts. The only thing they prove is the lack of knowledge of the scientific method of their writers.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#588

Post by fivea » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

leppr wrote: post #502

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Scientific consensus didn't change on masks. It was known very early that they best prevent the spread of Covid. When Western governments lied to get around supply issues, while distracting people with quasi-religious rituals around hand hygiene, they not only caused preventable deaths among populations at risk, they planted the seed for long term education and trust issues. More than a year later westerners still ha…

> When Western governments lied to get around supply issues (...)

I don't know what you interpreted as a lie. What I saw was two updates that sparked advisories to curtail surgical mask runs:

* the initial WHO position from between late 2019 to early 2020 on the risk of COVID spread, back when COVID was still the Wuhan epidemic and little was known about it, where they quoted Chinese health officials on how the risk of airborne transmission was deemed low. Therefore, based on those observations, surgical masks and gloves were deemed unnecessary.

* The updated WHO position around early 2020 after airborne transmissions started to be reported and corroborated by multiple sources which caused a supply crunch of surgical masks and gloves which were putting frontline workers in risk.

* a call to the widespread adoption of masks from around mid 2020, whether surgical masks or cloth, when their availability started to not be put into question.

Updating advisories based on new data on a developing problem might be seen as flipfloping in politics, but it's not lying or a bad thing.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#589

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:20 PM UTC

robbiep wrote: post #577

jacquesm wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A doctor I know described it like this: "Doctors are like monkeys with hammers trying to fix computers. We bang against stuff and will try a lot of things if we don't know what you've got. We may even get it right. But if you have a broken leg, an appendix that needs removal, a clear case of something that can be treated with anti-biotics, then we can perform small miracles." I don't know enough of the profession to…

This is unfortunately fairly accurate. There is a deep and wide ocean of the things we know inexactly, and a growing pool of things we can work miracles on. However as the complexity of patients grows and the burden of disease shifts from infectious disease to chronic causes with lifestyle origins and aging, and anxiety - particularly in the teenage and young adults (a shift that has been underway at the top end for…

Thank you. I hold that person in very high regard and it stuck with me through the years as something that I see more and more confirmation of and yet, it seems to be a pretty harsh judgment.

I wouldn't be any less harsh about my own profession though.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#590

Post by s1artibartfast » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:23 PM UTC

comicjk wrote: post #552

s1artibartfast wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think the joke could be joke could be viewed as anathema to liberals in particular? I was trying to dissect this comment and couldn't figure out the political angle.

It's not liberal vs conservative in a policy sense, but in a cultural sense, much more important for signaling. I think many liberals (I include myself) would say it's racially tinged to joke that a doctor and a drug dealer must be related because they have the same Spanish name.

I see, so it separates the people that assume that it is an example of racial profiling because there is a POC involved? Is the assumption that the person being mocked is singled out because of their Spanish last name.