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Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

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Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#761

Post by newbamboo »

Arete314159 wrote: post #680
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 -…

Sometimes it skips a generation.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#762

Post by analyte123 »

jacquesm wrote: post #730
analyte123 wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "relative" interpretation of the VAERS data looks worse for the COVID vaccines than almost any other interpretation. There have been more adverse events reported in the past year for the COVID vaccines than for all other vaccines combined since the database's inception in 1990.

But of course there have been. Because there hasn't been a drive for a vaccine as strong as this one in decades.

A drive? Every child born in the US is recommended to take 15+ doses of various vaccines. Most of them are required to enter public school. Multiple new vaccines (like HPV and shingles) have been launched with millions of doses delivered in the same time period.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#763

Post by unanswered »

jacquesm wrote: post #727
unanswered wrote: post #687

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> contrarianism in search of evidence But that is literally what this article is, and Scott admits as much! He says that he chose worms as the most "trollish" possible response, despite a lack of any strong evidence at all that worms are the answer.

The funny thing is that for all of their supposed smarts the bulk of the commenters in favor of the 'new' worm theory are jumping on it, just like they jumped on Ivermectin in the first place. It is in a way an interesting experience to see this happen in real-time.

If they're anything like me, they've always wanted the ivermectin thing to be worms-at-best-crap-at-worst, but have refused to accept "shut up and stop listening to the wrong science" as evidence in favor of that proposition. From that perspective their behavior is not only rational, it's far more rational and pro-science than the mainstream. Not surprising given who the audience is.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#764

Post by weeblewobble »

I think if the IVM proponents were operating in good faith, their message would have been something like "There's some evidence that IVM can mitigate severe COVID infections, but it's relatively weak so you shouldn't rely on it to the exclusion of other ways of protecting yourself."

But that's not what happened. IVM (like HCQ before it) is a prop, a cudgel, a red herring in the ongoing and well-funded political project to undermine faith in government and polarize the electorate

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#765

Post by nomel »

astrange wrote: post #659
nomel wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For one thing, you'd get tired. Suggesting that there's no way someone could have the mental stamina to read 30 papers, over the course of two years, is completely ridiculous, insulting, and invalidates your viewpoint, in my opinion.

I was talking about all at once. If it’s over years I would rather wait for a meta analysis, but it depends on the reliability of the early papers.

Why are you assuming they tried to read it in one sitting? Nothing remotely suggests that in the comment thread. All we know is that they read 30 papers sometime within the last two years or so. You chose a perspective, and just reinforced it, that they were incapable of extracting anything useful from reading those papers, which is insulting. It could be that they read a paper every couple of days, or perhaps when they became available. For some reason, it seems you've already decided that they're incompetent.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#767

Post by roenxi »

mcguire wrote: post #530
roenxi wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the first anti-Ivermectin argument that you want to believe... I discounted a highly biased echo chamber in social media and more traditional media and went with 30-odd studies that appear to have been assembled in good faith even now. I changed my mind immediately on seeing "Parasitic worms are a significant confounder in some ivermectin studies, such that they made them get a positive result even when hon…

An interesting theory with no backing evidence changed your mind?

It is obvious that ivmmeta.com is picking up something that is a real signal. The only question is a signal of what. Fraud? Bias by the site authors? One of many complex statistical effects? A working drug?

There were loud, even unreasonable, voices in the debate but nobody was raising an actual problem with the results. Ivermectin has a respectable safety profile. "Maybe it works, no obvious downside" was a reasonable position.

It was always a long shot, the evidence was weak. But loudest voices in the anti-ivermectin crowd are people like, eg, jacquesm in this thread. A lot of bluster, a smidge of bullying and a weak-sauce appeal to authority for why statistical evidence should be ignored. And YouTube et al. believe it to be convincing evidence or they wouldn't bother to censor discussion of it. If that is the opposition then they don't seem to have uncovered a methodological problem yet or they'd raise it.

But Scott raises an interesting theory that would be enough to explain ivmmeta.com. Since it was only ever weak evidence that is enough for me to change my mind.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#768

Post by jacquesm »

analyte123 wrote: post #762
jacquesm wrote: post #730

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But of course there have been. Because there hasn't been a drive for a vaccine as strong as this one in decades.

A drive? Every child born in the US is recommended to take 15+ doses of various vaccines. Most of them are required to enter public school. Multiple new vaccines (like HPV and shingles) have been launched with millions of doses delivered in the same time period.

As you are probably aware: people tend to die somewhere between 50 and 100 with high regularity, leading to more entries in VAERS if large numbers of people in that age range are vaccinated.

It's children that have not been vaccinated in large numbers this time around.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#769

Post by saalweachter »

mgamache wrote: post #481
philosopher1234 wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not live in a society with two equal sides. The GOP has made destroying democracy/hating "the media" core to their platform, as opposed to centering their platform on some sort of policy goal. Do democrats hate the GOP? Sure, but their coalition is not nearly as structurally oriented around this fact.

The 2020 DNC platform was Orange Man Bad.

https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#770

Post by dang »

Wolf_Larsen wrote: post #475
tristor wrote: post #400

I don't understand the point of the image of the meth seizure when discussing this study [1]. The last name is the same, but if you understand Mexican surnames, it is strongly unlikely that the two different people are in any way closely related. I like reading Scott's writing, but this really detracts from the overall quality of the article, because it seems like a vaguely racist dig without any relevance. [1]: http…

You may be a good candidate for Ivermectin, sir. I believe you have worms in your brain. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/bakersfieldcity...

Posting like this will get you banned here, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. Please review the site guidelines and don't post like this again. It's enough to respectfully provide correct information.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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