Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 348 posts

Re: Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

#141

Post by 7sidedmarble »

roenxi wrote: post #105
jiggawatts wrote: post #6

Ivermectin works because the first trials were done in developing economies where the average person had a high chance of parasitic infections. The steroids used as a standard front-line treatment for severe COVID decreases the immune response to parasites, allowing them to multiply unchecked. This killed patients indirectly, but dead is dead , and they "checked in" with COVID, not parasite complaints. Ivermectin is…

> The misunderstandings around this drug stem from misunderstandings of basic statistics and the scientific method So I agree with your post both in letter of what is written and in spirit, but... The misunderstandings around this drug also stem from the fact that its detractors were unhinged and anti-scientific. They were dismissing a large, obvious statistical effect without any argument. The publicised pushback ar…

Now I'm not sure if this mechanism of helping secondary parasite infections was understood at the time of the initial 'buzz' by researchers. I'm sure at least some of them had a pretty good idea. Regardless, what I remember the initial scuffle being about was that some people wanted to go out and try ivermectin before any good studies had been done to confirm these earlier hopes.

That doesn't sound very scientific to me. It sounds desperate. You can argue Ivermectin might have a good enough safety profile to have warranted experimenting on yourself. And I tend to err on the side of trusting people to understand a little about taking their healthcare into their own hands. That said, it's not exactly how medical professionals see things. And people did get poisoned here and there after all. The average person doesn't know how to self administer medicine. I think this is why the 'worth a shot' opinion on ivermectin wasn't a great idea and it wasn't because the people excited about it were better persuaded by facts and logic.

Re: Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

#142

Post by bananabiscuit »

jiggawatts wrote: post #6

Ivermectin works because the first trials were done in developing economies where the average person had a high chance of parasitic infections. The steroids used as a standard front-line treatment for severe COVID decreases the immune response to parasites, allowing them to multiply unchecked. This killed patients indirectly, but dead is dead , and they "checked in" with COVID, not parasite complaints. Ivermectin is…

I think it’s interesting how quick everyone is to use 3rd world parasites hypothesis to explain away promising ivermectin results. It’s a valid hypothesis for sure, but should be tested with as much rigor as you demand the hypothesis that ivermectin is helpful against covid is tested.

On that front I think it is not totally plausible that parasites explain these discrepancies. Here is a large study in the United States https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122... that found ivermectin to be effective against death.

Re: Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

#143

Post by moistofreason »

baumandm wrote: post #86
tux1968 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The misunderstandings around this drug stem from misunderstandings of basic statistics and the scientific method. This is why you shouldn't get your medical advice from Joe Rogan. You're 100% correct, of course. But the prevalent MSM response, of calling it horse medicine, was equally damaging. Since it is a well known, effective, and respected medicine used in humans, this characterization as "horse paste" made it…

Sure it's click-bait, but people were actually taking livestock versions of Ivermectin, in paste form. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/08/23/covid-...

Many major pharmacies in the US refused to fill prescriptions for off-label use of IVM, due to the media freak out about it…

Some people decided to go to farm supply stores and take the sterile bovine injectable form of IVM orally.

This whole situation would not have happened if social media, YouTube, and major news outlets didn’t make such a stink about using a drug. It has virtually no negative side-effects, over 40 years of safety track record, and is safely taken prophylactically for other uses around the world. Its efficacy has yet to be proven and there are conflicting studies on this, but its safety is not disputable.

Re: Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

#144

Post by spaetzleesser »

chefandy wrote: post #97
leereeves wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: What media doesn't choose their guests to fit their opinions or their political stance? I'd like to watch that one.

Honestly— PBS News Hour. You’re just as likely to see current or former GOP talking heads like Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich, or Pat Buchanan as some DNC talking head. In fact, scrolling down their page just now, McConnell is the only actual politician I saw interviewed, though they did have a Biden speech clip. Keep in mind that inviting Political opponents into your show can advance your political message if you l…

Agreed. News Hour is definitely left leaning but they let people talk and seem to make a genuine effort to provide information. Which is something most other news programs have stopped doing. They just want to produce outrage and conflict. You can listen to CNN, MSNBC or Fox for hours and the only thing you have learned is what you should be angry about. You will have learned nothing about the actual topic.

Re: Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

#145

Post by helen___keller »

bsuvc wrote: post #130

I've never understood why ivermectin is such a hot button issue that gets people worked up. If someone else has a doctor that prescribes it to them, and a pharmacy that fills the prescription, that should not be a problem, right? It's not like they are telling people they have to take ivermectin against their will. What am I missing?

> What am I missing?

Talking about ivermectin is almost always done in the context of political discourse, and political discourse is a shitshow

In this particular case, (some) advocates for ivermectin promoted it as a miracle drug alternative to getting vaccinated, which became tied at the hip to anti-vaccine ideology, which is tied to particular political ideologies

So ivermectin became a subset of a larger political debate, wielded as a weapon to show that your opponents are anti science (either because it’s effective and the other side won’t admit it because they’re tied to vax; or it’s ineffective and the other side won’t admit it because they’re tied to antivaxx)

If this weren’t true nobody would have ever cared for or against ivermectin

Re: Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

#146

Post by greydius »

janmarsal wrote: post #81

I don't get it. I don't understand anything about medicine but as far as I know the Japanese used ivermectin to treat COVID so it's not just some developing countries that use it. I'm from Finland and our national news company even reported about some Finnish pharma companies that developed a nasal spay that could treat COVID. That nasal spray included ivermectin and they said it's such a shame ivermectin has such a…

> the Japanese used ivermectin to treat COVID

This is not true.

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-japan-ivermectinan...

Re: Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

#147

Post by _ea1k »

Loughla wrote: post #121
tux1968 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The misunderstandings around this drug stem from misunderstandings of basic statistics and the scientific method. This is why you shouldn't get your medical advice from Joe Rogan. You're 100% correct, of course. But the prevalent MSM response, of calling it horse medicine, was equally damaging. Since it is a well known, effective, and respected medicine used in humans, this characterization as "horse paste" made it…

I think its less that MSM called the human, prescribed version "horse medicine" and more that people were actually taking horse medicine as a "preventative". In my part of flyover country, you had to provide evidence, from a veterinarian or a sale bill from an auction house, that you owned livestock to be able to buy livestock ivermectin. Because people were buying it to use on themselves. That's where the 'horse med…

Those rules have been common in a lot of places in the US for a long time now. They were made to prevent people from using them on dogs, as livestock ivermectin is much less expensive than the various forms that are marketed for dogs.

Re: Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

#148

Post by xadhominemx »

alecst wrote: post #119
jiggawatts wrote: post #6

Ivermectin works because the first trials were done in developing economies where the average person had a high chance of parasitic infections. The steroids used as a standard front-line treatment for severe COVID decreases the immune response to parasites, allowing them to multiply unchecked. This killed patients indirectly, but dead is dead , and they "checked in" with COVID, not parasite complaints. Ivermectin is…

Your first paragraph is a wild guess. There’s no reason having parasites should make Covid-19 more severe, and many human parasites do not even multiply inside the body during their life cycle. In fact there’s even a paper floating around showing an anti-correlation between helminth infection and Covid-19 severity. My point being: the “obvious” mechanism of action may not be as obvious as you think.

> There’s no reason having parasites should make Covid-19 more severe

That is simply not true. Parasites do have an impact on the immune system and can amplify or reduce response to other pathogens. This is a very well known effect and an important area of study due to the prevalence of parasitic infections in tropical regions.

Re: Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

#149

Post by michaelcampbell »

maskil wrote: post #113
jiggawatts wrote: post #6

Ivermectin works because the first trials were done in developing economies where the average person had a high chance of parasitic infections. The steroids used as a standard front-line treatment for severe COVID decreases the immune response to parasites, allowing them to multiply unchecked. This killed patients indirectly, but dead is dead , and they "checked in" with COVID, not parasite complaints. Ivermectin is…

Ivermectin isn't popular because of Joe Rogan and he hasn't especially promoted it. At the time that Rogan did have the episode with Dr Kory and Bret Weinstein, Ivermectin was already very popular and he hasn't been promoting it since (yes, he may have had a guest or two that brought it up during the conversation, but it was peripheral). The media had a collective freakout because when he got Covid he mentioned on In…

> Blaming him or Spotify for all of society's ills

That's a leap only you took so far.

Re: Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date

#150

Post by mcv »

analogdreams wrote: post #139
mcv wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the horse thing came from the fact that some people were actually buying the horse version of ivermectin and presumably self-medicating. There were some reports of shops restricting horse-ivermectin purchases to people who could prove they owned a horse. The absurd response seemed to be in response to absurd behaviour, as far as I can tell.

....which itself was a result of the insane overreaction to covid from the same media convincing people they were all going to die.

Not all, but millions of people did die, including over half a million Americans. That's not exactly nothing.
Post reply on HN