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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

#121

Post by jdub »

fallingknife wrote: post #98
jacquesm wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of a pandemic it is probably pretty good advice, unless you are of the opinion that your authorities are acting against your interest. The problem with this pandemic is that a lot of people in places of power have made mistakes, sometimes really bad ones (for instance, such as pursuing herd immunity) rather than to follow the WHO expert advice. This could easily be construed as authorities acting against…

Yeah, I agree, that in the case of a pandemic, the health authorities interests are pretty well aligned with a member of the general public. However, there are always issues in this kind of situation when the authorities got it wrong. In a political environment, changing course is seen as an admission of being wrong, and a loss of face. So we continue on with the initial policy. We are currently facing this problem a…

"You don't need to wear masks" was bad advice from well-meaning people who should've known better. The researchers who did know better couldn't push past deeply-entrenched anti-miasma attitudes quickly enough.

"Use social distancing and isolation to avoid COVID and get vaccinated as quickly as possible" is good advice from well-meaning people who do know better. Sorry it's unpleasant, but if the USA behaved rationally, there wouldn't be 750K+ dead today.

Sweden readily admits that its approach was a terrible mistake. It's just not as embarrassingly bad as other countries, particularly ones that, with sensible leaders, should have done much better (UK, USA).

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#122

Post by jacquesm »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #115
jacquesm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm not talking about the vaccines in this context. The discussion is a lot more nuanced than that.

Sure...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29250789

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29140325

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29140176

and so on.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#123

Post by falrh »

jacquesm wrote: post #106
cbakt wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Sweden, the country where the authorities apologized for messing up, that Sweden? People on average gained 10 kg? Really, I have no idea where you get this nonsense but clearly you are not interested in a factual debate but in one that gives you what you want: the ability to ignore this pandemic as though it doesn't exit. There are no ICU beds for the gerontocracy, there are simply ICU beds, and there is a limited nu…

It is easy to find:

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2021/03/one-year-pan...

"APA’s survey of U.S. adults, conducted in late February 2021 by The Harris Poll, shows that a majority of adults (61%) experienced undesired weight changes (weight gain or loss) since the pandemic started, with 42% reporting they gained more weight than they intended. Of those, they gained an average of 29 pounds (the median amount gained was 15 pounds) and 10% said they gained more than 50 pounds, the poll found."

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#124

Post by Pyramus »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #115
jacquesm wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm not talking about the vaccines in this context. The discussion is a lot more nuanced than that.

No it's not. What you are saying is everything is biased by money, therefore I can't trust anyone. What people are telling you is that you don't really understand the bias, not that the bias doesn't exist.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#125

Post by roenxi »

jacquesm wrote: post #59
roenxi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In my opinion it should be an argument, It is a fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority . To make an argument, there needs to be an argument.

It is only a fallacy when you are an expert as well, but when you are a layperson in a field and you are discarding real expert opinions because you don't like them you don't get to claim that their opinions are arguments from authority and therefore by definition fallacies. Maybe actually read that wikipedia page instead of just linking to it? This seems to be a common and recurring theme: my opinion is worth as muc…

> It is only a fallacy when you are an expert as well...

This is wrong to the point where you really might want to take a deep breath. The point of experts is they have thought about a field more and are better at making sound arguments in that field. "Most scientists/doctors believe..." is literally, exactly and unambiguously a fallacious argument. The only thing that matters is why they would believe that.

And if that why is "statistical significance", I'm friends with enough doctors to know I'm better at interpreting stats than they are. If the answer they go to is parasitic worms then yeah, that is why they are experts and I'm not. It is a compelling argument.

I stand by my comments and disagree that they make the point you want them to. The 1st isn't even about medical opinion if you read it closely, it is scepticism of politics.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#126

Post by adrianN »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #120
DoreenMichele wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, as the author cites from another researcher, the trials are a strong piece of evidence for "add[ing] ivermectin to mass drug administration programs." In other words, global medical welfare, where we just give everyone a bunch of a cheap and effective medications to counteract the most prolific diseases. When they invented antibiotics, people began predicting "the end of disease." Fast forward a few decades…

>When they invented antibiotics, people began predicting "the end of disease." Fast forward a few decades and we have the rise of scary antibiotic-resistant infections. I think this is an extremely jaded take, resulting from growing up in a post-antibiotics society. The risk factor for those "scary antibiotic-resistant infections" is still an order of magnitude less than the class of diseases antibiotics almost total…

The major reason why we have antibiotic resistant bacteria is because we use literal tons of the stuff for meat production and too many countries have too lax controls for antibiotic use in humans, which means they are taken for things were they don't help, or are not necessary, and are taken in the wrong dosage and for the wrong duration.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#127

Post by jacquesm »

adrianN wrote: post #126
LordDragonfang wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When they invented antibiotics, people began predicting "the end of disease." Fast forward a few decades and we have the rise of scary antibiotic-resistant infections. I think this is an extremely jaded take, resulting from growing up in a post-antibiotics society. The risk factor for those "scary antibiotic-resistant infections" is still an order of magnitude less than the class of diseases antibiotics almost total…

The major reason why we have antibiotic resistant bacteria is because we use literal tons of the stuff for meat production and too many countries have too lax controls for antibiotic use in humans, which means they are taken for things were they don't help, or are not necessary, and are taken in the wrong dosage and for the wrong duration.

Exactly, if we only used it when there was a chance of it being effective that would be that, but instead your average cow is a walking antibiotic laboratory.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#128

Post by throwawayacc2 »

jacquesm wrote: post #108
throwawayacc2 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? I think he has a point. We live in a society that is geared around profit. That is literally how our society functions. Economic activity is incentivised by the profit motive, important national metrics like GDP focus primarily on profit driven output and growth, even engineering or medical problems are often framed in economic terms like cost/benefit. I think it’s silly in this kind of context to ignore the pro…

[flagged]

Have I missed anything? I don’t think the discussion is about vaccines. For what is worth, I think both the vaccines and ivermectin work. I just think multinational profit driven companies are more incentivised to promote vaccines, which generate a huge profit, over ivermectin which doesn’t make that much of a profit.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#130

Post by capableweb »

jacquesm wrote: post #76
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…

A good rule is to simply wait. Bad science has a way of being negated over the longer term. But if you want results today you could always try to replicate the experiment (which is one of the reasons why asking scientists to show their data in raw from should be mandatory in my opinion).

> Bad science has a way of being negated over the longer term.

Humans started to experiment with Lobotomy around 1930s and it wasn't until after 1950s that we started to realize that it probably did more harm than good. António Egas Moniz even won a Nobel Prize for "discovery of the therapeutic value of leucotomy in certain psychoses".

Yes, bad science will probably be negated over long term, but what about the harm it does during those years? Can't we find a way to reduce the harm of experimental science? Maybe things aren't that long as my example today, but I still feel we can do more to prevent bad science in the first place.

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