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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

#271

Post by NotSammyHagar »

defaultprimate wrote: post #157

Studies are irrelevant at this point, when we have population level data of over a billion people across India and Africa, and the massive disparities between states/countries that utilized Ivermectin, and those that did not. The drug is safe enough to be used based on this data alone. https://www.thedesertreview.com/opinion/columnists/indias-iv... https://www.thedesertreview.com/news/national/indias-ivermec... https…

If you are fixated on conspiracy claims against your amazing scientific discovery - pretty much you are always wrong, that's true for perpetual motion machines, faster than light drives (that's the one I hope could be right), extra-ordinary life extensions for microbes applies to humans (wish that one could be right), and covid. If you use opinion columns from obscure news sources to prove you are right, almost always wrong too.

Ivermectin is safe enough to take, the important question is does it do any good against covid. At best it doesn't hurt you and it's unclear, but probably does nothing. It's certain there is no international pharmaceutical conspiracy trying to block discussion of it. That's different than trying to avoid showing incorrect medical information to people during a worldwide medical emergency. The hospitals in my state are full of idiotic non-vaxed covid victims. The latest thing is a conspiracy that the hospital won't treat them with ivermectin because they want them to die.

People are just killing themselves because of their bizarre and irrational resistance to safe, life-saving vaccinations and preference for random spoutings on the internet to research proven treatments. Do people challenge their math professors in college because they don't consult fox news for the truth? No. I don't have much hope for our future when we can't get these simple things right. It's like a new dark ages has come upon us. But the truth is we humans were always this foolish.

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

#273

Post by NotSammyHagar »

mechE321 wrote: post #71

The Bayesian gambler in me wants to think this: The studies on ivermectin seem to be split between "good effect" and "no effect," and there don't seem to be any (by my extremely informal review! going off of memory here) in the camp of "bad effect." Seems reasonable to take ivermectin as a decent gamble to me while we wait on the dang science to get its head out of its butt.

The reasonable thing is get vaccinated immediately. You could also stick chili peppers in your butt, that probably won't hurt either. It has as much ability to help as horse dewormer.

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

#274

Post by tigershark »

atty wrote: post #218

What I find almost more interesting than the article itself is the comments that show a non-zero portion of the HN community (which I think is generally more intellectually curious and educated than average) are actually strongly arguing that ivermectin has strong effect, and even crazier, that it may be safer or more effective than the mRNA vaccines. Is this from being incapable of following science and drawing rati…

It’s because on this website there is a huge number of people that just drink whatever is the kool-aid du jour that goes around in the right side disinformation circles and social networks.

Imagine to oppose a perfectly safe vaccine that has been administered 6 BILLION times all around the world and that has a proven efficacy of at least one order of magnitude against delta variant and to push for a horse dewormer (that bear in mind it’s perfectly effective for what is used for.. killing parasites, not viruses)

I think it’s because a lot of the HN demographic has quite a big overlap with the people that use social networks where all this bullshit originates and it is amplified and it spreads.

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

#275

Post by angelzen »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #216
angelzen wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a hypothetical. How many people got ivermectin against their doctor prescription, and how many got adverse effects from that? 1 in 100M?

Who said anything about adverse effects?

GGP: ivemectin has some unpleasant and dangerous side effects in some people rarely. [...] people are taking a risk of having a horrid side effect with no chance of the pill working.

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

P: They're [often] using the horse formulation because their doctor said no.

X: How many got the horse formulation and how many got adverse effects from [horse formulation]?

C: Who said anything about adverse effects?

It this human brain on Twitter? We can't possibly read 4 short stanzas in a row and keep the context?

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

#276

Post by [deleted] »

atty wrote: post #218

What I find almost more interesting than the article itself is the comments that show a non-zero portion of the HN community (which I think is generally more intellectually curious and educated than average) are actually strongly arguing that ivermectin has strong effect, and even crazier, that it may be safer or more effective than the mRNA vaccines. Is this from being incapable of following science and drawing rati…

[deleted]

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

#278

Post by heavyset_go »

brandonmenc wrote: post #54
ashtonkem wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are literally taking horse formulations of ivermectin because doctors are rightfully refusing to prescribe ivermectin for an off label and ineffective use. Oh, and the access to this medicine is “marginalized” BECAUSE IT DOESNT WORK TO TREAT COVID. We generally do not expect doctors to prescribe medicine that will not work or is not appropriate for the patients condition. Complaining about their access being m…

> People are literally taking horse formulations of ivermectin People are taking the horse formulation because most pharmacists won't even fill an off-label prescription for the drug, which - even if it has no effect on COVID - is safe and taken by a quarter billion people every year. Let people take it. It's not harmful. Or, make a big huge deal about people taking it and, well, then it becomes a big huge deal.

It's not a placebo pill, it's an active medication that has effects on the body and undergoes metabolism. Ivermectin inhibits cytochrome P450, which the majority of prescription and OTC drugs are metabolized by.

Administration of a P450 inhibitor will cause the levels of other medications in a person's blood to rise, and will cause some prodrugs to be ineffective due to reduced metabolism.

I can't even walk into a doctors' office and get prescribed Singulair, an allergy medication, without giving them a reason to believe that I need it. And if I was a doctor, I'd err on the side of caution, as well, when it comes to prescribing things I don't think my hypothetical patients need. Not only is it a question of ethics, it's also a question of legal liability and keeping a license to practice.

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

#279

Post by 8note »

cma wrote: post #106
brandonmenc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are literally taking horse formulations of ivermectin People are taking the horse formulation because most pharmacists won't even fill an off-label prescription for the drug, which - even if it has no effect on COVID - is safe and taken by a quarter billion people every year. Let people take it. It's not harmful. Or, make a big huge deal about people taking it and, well, then it becomes a big huge deal.

> is safe and taken by a quarter billion people every year. Usually yearly or bi-yearly. Not bi-weekly. There is much less safety data on doses that frequent.

There is some data though, such as it causeing your intestinal lining to strip off and look like worms in your poo

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

#280

Post by oezi »

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.

Nitpick: there were plenty of deaths reported as adverse events. It was just found that they were mostly expected in a normal population.

I know in Germany we did have over 20 dead from AZ thrombosis.

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