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

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#671

Post by WorshipTheState » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 1:06 AM UTC

_djo_ wrote: post #501

Wolf_Larsen wrote: post #495

"The Scott Alexander article misses the whole point. Of course ivermectin on its own is not particularly helpful (unless you want to treat worms, The treatment regimen the American group is recommending includes Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Zinc and a Zinc ionophore (drug that facilitates cellular absorption of Zinc). The ionophore can be Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquine or Quercetin. I have been baffled up until now why stud…

Studies have looked at the supposed I-MASK and MATH+ protocols, or at least similar combinations of Ivermectin and Zinc, and found no benefit there either. Anecdotally I also know a half a dozen people who were doing the I-MASK protocol because they believed the FLCCC and got severe enough COVID to be committed to ICU. Two had to be ventilated. They weren't in particularly high risk groups and their outcomes seemed i…

    Anecdotally I also know a half a dozen people who were 
    doing the I-MASK protocol because they believed the FLCCC 
    and got severe enough COVID to be committed to ICU.

That is an in-credible statement. A half a dozen, that you know, in the ICU, that did I-MASK. Amazing!

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#672

Post by EdwardDiego » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

radu_floricica wrote: post #259

EdwardDiego wrote: post #37

My step-son was recently prescribed a small one off dose of ivermectin by a dermatologist to deal with a rather resistant case of scabies he acquired at a sports tournament. It took the pharmacy a couple of days to source, because signficant controls had to be put in place around prescribing it due to well, I'm just going to say what I think - the amazing capacity for the Internet to deliver dumbassery to people who…

Did you read the article? One of the main points was that it's not dumbassery. You have multiple studies saying a drug works, being contradicted by experts that have been wrong multiple time this year and have a vested interest in what they're claiming. This is the opposite of dumb. It turned out not to be true, but such is life - not all the correct choices are also true in the end. It's also counterproductive in so…

Incidentally, you're right about my throwing labels around not exactly helping things - I'd edit my comment to change it if I was still within the edit window.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#673

Post by s1artibartfast » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 1:16 AM UTC

EdwardDiego wrote: post #661

s1artibartfast wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ironic part of this is that Ivermectin is not FDA approved for the treatment of scabies. Your doctor was prescribing it off label, based on personal judgement that it has therapeutic effect. That is not to say it doesn't work for scabies, I hope it worked for you.

Good thing I'm not American then eh. ;) https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/profs/datasheet/s/Stromectoltab....

I feel this just underscores the silliness of criticizing doctors for assessing the literature and prescribing drugs they think would benefit their patients.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#674

Post by blindmute » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 1:34 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #529

deadpannini wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but that is quite separate from the posture of epistemological submission to experts that's being used to censor "misinformation".

I don't know about that. I'd rather see all of this stuff disappear from youtube and to deny the conspiracy sphere its oxygen than to let this run its course. The damage is very real. Experts tend to communicate via scientific papers and symposia, not via youtube, that's aimed squarely at the masses only a very small fraction of which has the capacity to interpret what they are hearing, but almost all of them have th…

I'd rather allow free speech.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#675

Post by blindmute » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 1:37 AM UTC

judahmeek wrote: post #569

blindmute wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is actually an expert in a subfield of medicine, not only do doctors not understand it at all, but the experts making guidelines often recommend the exact opposite of what is the best treatment for the patient, usually for liability reasons, but occasionally for true lack of understanding. The quality of research is so poor that often times there are more flawed studies showing X than proper studies wh…

I like how you declare yourself an subfield expert & then call an experts in your subfield to be worthless.

Yes, the 'experts' disagree, imagine that! Which ones should we ban from all public discourse?

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#676

Post by selimthegrim » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 1:58 AM UTC

selimthegrim wrote: post #433

shkkmo wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument you are making is directly addressed in the article. > So “believe experts”? That would have been better advice in this case. But the experts have beclowned themselves again and again throughout this pandemic, from the first stirrings of “anyone who worries about coronavirus reaching the US is dog-whistling anti-Chinese racism”, to the Surgeon-General tweeting “Don’t wear a face mask”, to government camp…

Dinstinguished critical care doctors who go to Caribbean medical schools who have to pay hospitals to accept their graduates as residents probably should be given short shrift at first when challenging the CDC.

Also people who can't spell lol

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#677

Post by angelzen » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 2:06 AM UTC

stef25 wrote: post #290

gardnr wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> many serious anti-Ivermectin arguments in the past I haven't seen any of these. I just run into irrational and offensive people like you that accuse me of wanting to drink bleach when I bring up the topic of Ivermectin. This article removed all doubt for me. I needed to see the thought process while pouring over the studies. You shouldn't make so many assumptions about people based on your political bias. Some peop…

Sam Harris mentioned this theory of it being pointless to engage people who have their own theories because you'll be faced with a never ending stream of "yeah but did you read this random 90 page paper on X?" and all kinds of other questions even the best professional can't counter without wasting huge amounts of time. It's great you changed your mind but I bet there's plenty of people who haven't. Like I wonder wha…

That is lazy. Indeed, there is no point in refuting a random 90 page paper. However, a good professional should be able to quickly summarize the state of the area touched by the paper and provide a short list of key citations and publications. A good professional should also be able to say "this is outside of my area of expertise" and point to the general direction of where expert feedback can be sought.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#678

Post by marstall » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

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…

for free online news, perhaps. pay for stat, nytimes, economist, scientific american etc you will find journalists who cover science with good understanding.

by the way few good science journalists would cover the story this way. instead they would mostly be quoting experts interpreting the significance of the various studies.

And Scott Alexander would never be one of them. Can you imagine a nytimes science writer quoting a psychiatrist on ivermectin's effectiveness? Never happen.

(also all of these sources' coverage of ivermectin has been much more limited because of the fact that the drug is a scam)

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#679

Post by EdwardDiego » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 3:04 AM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #673

EdwardDiego wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing I'm not American then eh. ;) https://www.medsafe.govt.nz/profs/datasheet/s/Stromectoltab....

I feel this just underscores the silliness of criticizing doctors for assessing the literature and prescribing drugs they think would benefit their patients.

Indeed, but the literature on ivermectin for scabies is rather consistent - it works. Whereas the literature on ivermectin as a prophylatic for Covid is...well, still in dramatic flux, and there's some very strong conflicts of interest from some of the authors involved.

I was reading the original meta-analysis[1] by the group Scott mentioned here:

> One of them later revised their results to exclude Elgazzar and still found strong efficacy for ivermectin, but they still included Niaee and some other dubious studies.

And looked into one of the studies authors, and well, it was interesting. Her submission here[2] claims that 2402 people have died due to COVID vaccinations (I'm assuming this was a 2020 submission, as the number of deaths in VigiAccess is farrrr higher now) based on data from the VigiAccess database, which has a massive disclaimer.

> The information on this website relates to potential side effects; that is, symptoms and other circumstances that have been observed following the use of a medicinal product, but which may or may not be related to or caused by that product . Information in VigiAccess on potential side effects should not be interpreted as meaning that the medicinal product or its active substance either caused the observed effect or is unsafe to use. Confirming a causal link is a complex process that requires a thorough scientific assessment and detailed evaluation of all available data. The information on this website, therefore, does not reflect any confirmed link between a medicinal product and a side effect .

And on her company's website, there's a link to a Gofundme, but if you click it you get redirected to a PDF that's... also interesting.

> After 5 months on-line, an account review and a handsome profit from our campaign, GoFundMe have cancelled our account! No notification, no warning, no explanation given. Just summarily pulled. What indecent cowards!

It then links at the bottom to an organisation she founded that accepts donations and sells sweet ivermectin swag.[3]

Sadly only ships to the UK though.

[1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34145166/

[2]: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/36858/pdf/

[3]: https://bird-group.org/birdstore/

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#680

Post by Arete314159 » Thu, Nov 18, 2021, 3:14 AM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #316

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…

> This is worth reading purely for the writing alone. Scott Alexander is a treasure This post is a breath of fresh air for the blog and feels refreshingly well-researched. Between that and the unquestionable popularity of COVID-related discussion, it’s no wonder this article is popular. Scott is undeniably a good blog writer with an entertaining writing style that resonates with his reader base. However, I’ve become…

I actually come from one of those so-called Great Families. Three generations back, there were 3 siblings who all had national or smaller success in creative, financial, and mathematical fields, including one who won a nobel prize. Many of their descendants also had successes, although of a more modest variety.

However, in my generation, there were lots of money problems. And they did what money problems tend to do -- delay, deny, disappoint, cause health problems, and make everything harder.

The "brains," such as they were, were still there. If we take the usual markers* of intelligence there were Ivy League admissions, Fulbright scholarships, and so on. But for me at least, not having affordable healthcare at age 20 impacted my life much more in a negative way than getting a 5 on the Calculus AP impacted it in a positive way.

I'm much less interested in the concept of inherited genius than I am in universal health insurance and free college.

*Which are themselves problematic, and often merely markers of class, but it's the best I can do here for a HN comment