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Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable

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Re: Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable

#201

Post by lamontcg »

chana_masala wrote: post #192
ashtonkem wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Zero deaths” should have set off your alarm bells. That’s way too neat of a number for the real world; you only get that kind of result with small sample sizes or fraud. Even the vaccines, which are very effective, do not have a 0% death rate from infection.

Officially the FDA and CDC say there have been 0 deaths from adverse events. I agree, that's way too neat of a number for the real world.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...

3 deaths from TTS following J&J as of May 7th where there were 8.73 million doses of J&J administered.

Re: Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable

#202

Post by gonational »

hackingforfun wrote: post #110
gonational wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nationwide report that everybody talked about, pertaining to poison control centers receiving endless calls about this was completely fake. It turned out that rather than 70% of calls it was actually 2% of calls and over half of them were simply people asking questions about dosage. The other nationwide report about the hospitals in Oklahoma being crowded with ivermectin victims to the point where they could not…

> If the TV tells you something, you do not have to believe it. Where do you think most of the people taking ivermectin heard about it? They probably have no idea how ivermectin would actually work, but heard it from some conservative talk show host that they trust more than scientists backing the actual COVID vaccine. I'm astonished by how totally backwards all of this is.

I learned about Ivermectin from MedCram circa May 2020.

Everybody I know personally who did not learn about it from me learned about it from Eric Weinstein on the Joe Rogan podcast.

A good friend of mine watches Fox News no less than three hours a day and took both Pfizer doses months ago.

I suspect you might be projecting, and perhaps you learned about Ivermectin from a neoliberal TV show. Most of the people who believe in the safety and efficacy of Ivermectin believe so precisely because they are not consuming television propaganda, and so they are still able to form their own opinions from real information.

Re: Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable

#203

Post by gonational »

fullstop wrote: post #102
gonational wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The nationwide report that everybody talked about, pertaining to poison control centers receiving endless calls about this was completely fake. It turned out that rather than 70% of calls it was actually 2% of calls and over half of them were simply people asking questions about dosage. The other nationwide report about the hospitals in Oklahoma being crowded with ivermectin victims to the point where they could not…

I never said a word about any of that. I said that people are self medicating and incorrectly calculating an appropriate dosage, and I am not wrong. [1] 1. https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-shoul...

What evidence did you have that people were doing this, which presumably affected your opinion on this topic?

Re: Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable

#204

Post by rualca »

brandonmenc wrote: post #119
sgt101 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get where you are coming from, but I think that there is a nuance that you have missed. Like many, many drugs - and vaccines - ivemectin has some unpleasant and dangerous side effects in some people rarely. You can see these if you look the drug up : https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/ivermectin-oral-ta... for example. The point is that if this drug did help people make it through covid (like the vaccines do…

All of this is for the patient and their doctor to decide. Not the pharmacist. Not the FDA.

> All of this is for the patient and their doctor to decide.

> Not the pharmacist. Not the FDA.

In case you don't know,the FDA is the US regulatory body whose mission is to " [protect] the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices;"

In the US, doctors only prescribe drugs that have been verified by the FDA, and pharmacists only distribute drugs approved by the FDA.

If not the FDA, who do you think is responsible in the US to ensure a drug works and is safe?

The FDA is pretty much the US instition devoted to anti-quackery and anti-fraud. Why is this a problem?

Re: Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable

#205

Post by tootie »

rualca wrote: post #195
tootie wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On The Media did a really good segment with a journalist from Mother Jones of all places. She broke down the rise of Ivermectin and the whiplash response to demonize it even when, as you say, it is safe for human consumption and had at least some positive in vitro test results. As much as it is not worthy of being recommended as a treatment, it's unlikely to be harmful and has/had at least a slim chance of working. h…

> As much as it is not worthy of being recommended as a treatment, it's unlikely to be harmful and has/had at least a slim chance of working. Keep in mind that Ivermectin is being pushed within antivaxers circles as a prophylactic and the true COVID-19 cure, in contrast with all COVID-19 vaccines and even mask mandates. Thus it's false to claim that this push towards Ivermectin is harmless as, at best, it's pushed as…

That's not the argument though. Listen to the segment. Giving people false hope and baseless medical advice is one thing, but the anti-ivermectin crowd was going overboard including amplifying specious stories about rampant ivermectin poisoning. Ivermectin is absolutely prescribed to humans for some conditions and is being actively studied as an anti-viral agent against other illnesses (notably dengue and yellow fever). Doctors can prescribe it to patients unable to be vaccinated within their discretion. The debate here is that you can't counter one form of misinformation with your own or else nobody is credible.

Re: Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable

#207

Post by nradov »

Spellman wrote: post #90
gwerbret wrote: post #44

I'm going to make what is probably a controversial statement, which is that, in my experience, most meta-analyses are trash. A meta-analysis is usually grounded on the assumption that an aggregation of multiple, well-conducted studies can provide significant information that may not be evident by taking each study individually. Essential to this assumption is the premise that those studies included in the meta-analys…

Meta-analysis have a good place. But they also have known flaws/assumptions. Often it is impractical to perform large studies. Partially by logistics and often by funding. But if there are lots of smaller studies you can aggregate the data to check for overall significant results. But mainly they are helpful to give a "survey" of the current research instead of having to link to 10 different studies and hope someone…

The federal government has specific guidance on how to meet the legal criteria for de-identifying clinical data. Once researchers meet that standard they're generally free to publish raw data, unless there's a stricter standard imposed by state law or some sort of institutional review board.

https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-professionals/privacy/special-...

Re: Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable

#208

Post by rualca »

tootie wrote: post #205
rualca wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As much as it is not worthy of being recommended as a treatment, it's unlikely to be harmful and has/had at least a slim chance of working. Keep in mind that Ivermectin is being pushed within antivaxers circles as a prophylactic and the true COVID-19 cure, in contrast with all COVID-19 vaccines and even mask mandates. Thus it's false to claim that this push towards Ivermectin is harmless as, at best, it's pushed as…

That's not the argument though. Listen to the segment. Giving people false hope and baseless medical advice is one thing, but the anti-ivermectin crowd was going overboard including amplifying specious stories about rampant ivermectin poisoning. Ivermectin is absolutely prescribed to humans for some conditions and is being actively studied as an anti-viral agent against other illnesses (notably dengue and yellow feve…

> That's not the argument though.

It's not the argument? It is a statement of fact. There is no way around it. Consuming a placebo to subsequently validate and provide incentives to put yourself and others at risk is the whole reason why Ivermectin poses a major problem. No one complains that people take paracetamol even though it is not effective at reducing Covid19 spread. Why is that?

Re: Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable

#209

Post by gonational »

acdha wrote: post #133
gonational wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because nothing says "recognize the current scientific understanding" like dismissing hundreds of studies because of a couple bunk meta-analysis. Also, nothing says "recognize the current scientific understanding" like injecting an untested medicine into your veins to avoid what amounts to the common cold for younger people; while ignoring the fact that it does not help prevent the spread, and according to the…

You're packing enough untrue things into that comment that it's hard to believe you're acting in good faith but: * It's dismissing the studies which show effects due to errors, which leaves the studies not showing beneficial effects. Science is built on evidence and thus far it hasn't been shown that Ivermectin has a benefit for COVID. * Similarly, it's untrue to the point of being a flagrant lie to claim that the va…

For anybody else that comes across the above comment, ignore the fake news, do some reading of scientific studies (e.g., nih.gov, etc.), and you will come to the same conclusion: that everything stated in the comment above is untrue (except for the countries with the vaccination rates - I don't actually know the latest stats on that).

I've been trying to do my part to help prevent the spread of misinformation that's been spread by corporations and Big Pharma, but I don't have time to dissect every fake point in a diatribe written by a random person; however, all of the claims are very easily debunked.

Re: Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable

#210

Post by nradov »

tantalor wrote: post #82
gwerbret wrote: post #44

I'm going to make what is probably a controversial statement, which is that, in my experience, most meta-analyses are trash. A meta-analysis is usually grounded on the assumption that an aggregation of multiple, well-conducted studies can provide significant information that may not be evident by taking each study individually. Essential to this assumption is the premise that those studies included in the meta-analys…

FiveThirtyEight weights its averages by pollster accuracy/methodology. Next, we determine how much weight to give each poll in our average. First, polls conducted by pollsters with higher FiveThirtyEight pollster ratings — a letter grade measuring how accurate and methodologically sound pollsters are — are given more weight https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-were-tracking-joe-b...

There is no equivalent feedback mechanism in medical research. Other than looking for retracted papers, we don't have a reliable way to quantify whether a particular author is "correct" more often than another.
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