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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

#601

Post by jonnycoder »

hef19898 wrote: post #374
reissbaker wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The blogger didn't produce any new data. I was never an ivermectin proponent — although I thought the "horse dewormer" rhetoric was self-defeating, because it's obviously and well-known to be also a human dewormer (amongst other parasites), and the "horse" part just seemed to be played up to make ivermectin supporters look stupid — but this article is indeed the first one I've seen to make the parasite-COVID-comorbid…

Considering how many people are actually using hose doses instead of those intended for humans, I guess that characterization isn't too wrong.

Please provide sources that "many people" are using horse doses. I only hear of well known people such as Joe Rogan and Aaron Rodgers using human-prescribed pill form ivermectin.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#602

Post by marcodiego »

csee wrote: post #183

While reading this piece I got a little depressed that most journalism is just such utter trash compared to it. I've read so many articles on ivermectin and none of them gave me even ten percent of the clarity that this article gave me. Can you imagine if writing and journalism of this calibre was commonplace among practising "journalists"? And look at how this piece compares to the CDC's and WHO's science communicat…

No no... You can't expect a journalist to carefully make a very detailed and informed article like this carefully evaluating 30 scientific articles of meta-anilisys sites wich favored a specific view. They are not spcialists in most things and this was published long after the peak of of the pandemic.

What they should do is to query specialists to obtain better information, instead of opinions. Consult different views, argue why on view is right or wrong and then inform the public.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#603

Post by fivea »

jacquesm wrote: post #584
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 10…

> Yes, there is some nuance there now, (...)

That does not seem to be true. Wikipedia's article on Jaap van Dissel[1] links to a Reuters news article from September 2020[2] where van Dissel is referred to have made the following claim:

> The head of infectious diseases at the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health (RIVM), Jaap van Dissel, has argued there is no scientific proof of cloth masks’ effectiveness, and that they might do more harm than good by giving users a false sense of security.

Please note that the criticism refers to cloth mask (not surgical), whose effectiveness has been since then reported to be lower than 40%. Also, the thesis is that relying on an ineffective protection measure does more harm than good as this potentiates the spread of the disease.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaap_van_Dissel

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-nether...

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#604

Post by jonnycoder »

stef25 wrote: post #273
csee wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> FWIW, I wouldn't take ivermectin either as a prophylactic or therapeutic, the evidence just isn't strong enough, but I don't really fault anyone that would add it into the stack of treatments upon a diagnosis in the hopes of a small net benefit. If you're familiar with software development, this is akin to "there's a bug in my codebase and I'm just going to add a bunch of code that probably won't affect anything in…

You make a good point even though I take supplements such as vitamin d, etc. I would argue that the human body is already so complex that troubleshooting it similar to how we troubleshoot software is not a fair comparison because software is easier in a relative sense!

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#605

Post by tuatoru »

threeseed wrote: post #570
Wolf_Larsen wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing to learn here is that there's no conspiracy, trials are underway, and science is already working properly. Thank God! I was worried it may be a nuanced situation full of brazen conflicts of interest.

Yes because there's no conflict of interest as to why ivermectin of all drugs is being pushed so hard.

Ivermectin is cheap and out of patent. Cui bono?

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#606

Post by throwawaycuriou »

toolz wrote: post #532
lalaland1125 wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> About 1.5 years ago, ivermectin was discussed in "conspiracy" channels like Reddit, and many people were helped by it. How were they helped by it when the evidence shows that it doesn't work for COVID-19?

how did you read this article and somehow come to the conclusion that ivermectin doesn't work for covid-19?

Happy opposite day. Aside from all the other words, it ends in summary with a first item of 'Ivermectin doesn’t reduce mortality in COVID a significant amount'.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#607

Post by Gibbon1 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #437
coolso wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If there's one thing I've learned over and over during this pandemic, it is that "do your own research" is immediately followed by a train of bullshit that only demonstrates extreme susceptibility to confirmation bias.

It's been a total parade of biases. In particular normalcy bias is a lot stronger than I'd thought it was.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#608

Post by marcodiego »

TLDR:

The Summary 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

Parasitic worms are a significant confounder in some ivermectin studies, such that they made them get a positive result even when honest and methodologically sound: 50% confidence

Fraud and data processing errors are of similar magnitude to p-hacking and methodological problems in explaining bad studies (95% confidence interval for fraud: between >1% and 5% as important as methodological problems; 95% confidence interval for data processing errors: between 5% and 100% as important)

Probably “Trust Science” is not the right way to reach proponents of pseudoscientific medicine: ???% confidence

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#609

Post by jacquesm »

fivea wrote: post #603
jacquesm wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 10…

> Yes, there is some nuance there now, (...) That does not seem to be true. Wikipedia's article on Jaap van Dissel[1] links to a Reuters news article from September 2020[2] where van Dissel is referred to have made the following claim: > The head of infectious diseases at the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health (RIVM), Jaap van Dissel, has argued there is no scientific proof of cloth masks’ effectivenes…

Van Dissel has made quite a few statements prior to September 2020.

https://www.trouw.nl/buitenland/mondkapjes-hebben-geen-zin-z...

"‘Mondkapjes opdoen heeft geen enkele zin’"

"putting on a mask is without any sense"

That's exactly what I meant when I wrote that over time he has moved his position. First it was all masks, then cloth masks, then they didn't work because then other measures wouldn't work etc. But he never came out to say he simply got it wrong.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#610

Post by toolz »

throwawaycuriou wrote: post #606
toolz wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how did you read this article and somehow come to the conclusion that ivermectin doesn't work for covid-19?

Happy opposite day. Aside from all the other words, it ends in summary with a first item of 'Ivermectin doesn’t reduce mortality in COVID a significant amount'.

the final study list he compiled shows 80-85% confidence for Notably though, at no point does the author even suggest it doesn't work - just that the statistical significance isn't high
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