Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable • Hacker News Board

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

#401

Post by bb88 » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 3:30 AM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #338

trts wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I saw with the Ivermectin metastudies (which I did a fair amount of research on given that people close to me had decided to employ it as a prophylactic against Covid) was that the people who did the metanalyses were trained to read the results rather than grapple with the methodology and statistics. None of the study results were robust, but many of the study outcomes were positive. So they were counting…

In my mind, there is also underlying all this the idea that if a drug actually works, then there will be many doctors going on CNN to say that it totally works; that they're super excited by their patients recovering. In other words, the effect should be profound. If the effect is marginal, why bother, even if it is a real measurable effect in well conducted trials? I mean : that doctors observe that some therapy or…

> ...then there will be many doctors going on CNN to say that it totally works...

I don't think we can trust "doctors" anymore.

There were a bunch of doctors (aka America's Frontline Doctors) that were trying to go around and say Ivermectin works. Same with HCQ. The "needle rape" doctor in Idaho said the vaccine is dangerous, but Ivermectin saves lives.

In Idaho, I assure you, doctor's are prescribing patients Ivermectin in the ICU. If it really did work Boise would be the groundswell of Ivermectin miracles, where people are walking out of the ICU, ending the crisis.

Unfortunately, that's not happening. ICU's are primarily being freed up from death now it seems like. ICU's are in the high 90's capacity.

https://idahocapitalsun.com/2021/09/22/today-in-idaho-hospit...

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

#402

Post by mythrwy » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

stefan_ wrote: post #335

anshorei wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something being designed to help people doesn't make it good. There's reason to believe vaccinating using a non-sterilizing vaccine during a pandemic exerts an evolutionary pressure on the virus that will lead to the vaccine becoming ineffective and the the virus endemic. Considering the current effectiveness of the vaccines a fully vaccinated population will be worse off than a fully recovered population (though the…

It's 2021, some 40 years since the eradication of smallpox and nearing the eradication of measles, the latter absurdly contagious on a level much higher than COVID ever was. But what's that? "anshorei" on HN wants us to stop vaccines, cause clearly that will just cause a super mutation to evolve? If you believe that, you might just jump off a bridge right now. Because if it's not a COVID mutation, it will just be ano…

You really ought to re-read and try to understand his post before engaging in that sort of rhetoric.

This isn't measles. These aren't measles vaccines.

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

#403

Post by NotSammyHagar » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 3:42 AM UTC

defaultprimate wrote: post #321

NotSammyHagar wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alway…

If you don't know how citations and data work and are incapable of following them, even in an "opinion" piece, that's your problem. >Safe and effective... Every day that becomes more untrue in highly vaccinated populations like the UK and Israel, whose hospitals and morgues are full of vaccinated people. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-... https://www.gov.il/en/departments/guides/informati…

So will you refuse to go to the hospital if you get covid - because they aren't following the same sources of what is effective treatment that you do? If you break your leg or have a heart attack will you study up or go to alternative places for treatment? I suspect you would go to the hospital in those cases, because people are only convinced that in this one instance there's a giant lie or something.

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

#404

Post by jpfed » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 4:05 AM UTC

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…

What would happen if people just followed recognized experts, but those experts were wrong? Bad things like the "masks don't help" messaging early on.

What would happen if you got to be the contrarian that predicted the experts' wrongness? That would prove you're smart.

And a lot of us want to feel smart. So that makes us more vulnerable to certain cognitive weaknesses.

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

#405

Post by rubatuga » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 4:08 AM UTC

rubatuga wrote: post #139

pjc50 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be very careful how much you take: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0... Remember that the in vitro study that gets cited a lot used a concentration that would be lethal in humans.

Poison control center calls are not poisonings. There were no significant increases in hospitalizations due to ivermectin. It's a fear-mongering article.

Lol, parent comment was edited so my comment is out of context.

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

#406

Post by NaturalPhallacy » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 4:16 AM UTC

sydthrowaway wrote: post #339

There is no good faith argument against the vaccine. Just take it.

>There is no good faith argument against the vaccine.

Factually false.

1. It isn't a vaccine. It's a chemical signal to make your body make things.

2. It doesn't have the efficacy against the plethora of variants that all coronaviruses like the cold continuously create. You can still get COVID-19 after being "fully vaccinated". Human beings lack the technology to vaccinate against coronaviruses, including COVID and the cold.

3. It has caused blood clots. And the proteins created cluster in reproductive organs.

4. There are no long term studies of its effects.

5. If it kills your spouse, you can't sue the manufacturer.

Stop spreading misinformation about this pseudo-vaccine.

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

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Post by manwe150 » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 4:16 AM UTC

brandonmenc wrote: post #132

cma wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 much less safety data on doses that frequent. You can say the same thing about COVID boosters.

Yes, but we also have efficacy data on vaccine boosters from small trials that seems reproducible. We don’t have that for ivermectin (the original article here). And the FDA is still arguing about who benefits sufficiently from a booster, but has not yet made it widely available either.

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

#408

Post by NaturalPhallacy » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 4:18 AM UTC

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #182

rory wrote: post #25

Ivermectin probably doesn't do anything to fight Covid-19, but the American media has really shown their corruption in the way they've treated it. It's clearly a safe drug to take in human-designed doses, and it's cheap to produce. Laughing at people for poisoning themselves with "horse dewormer" instead of pointing out that they are turning to the vet store because their access to medicine has been marginalized is s…

The vaccine is free, so I'm confused about where you get that this is an access issue.

It's not free. It's a massive wealth transfer from the working class to the same pharma companies that charge $600 for insulin. We paid for it.

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

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Post by manwe150 » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 4:18 AM UTC

brandonmenc wrote: post #367

snovv_crash wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet there is a wealth of data on both the safety and the efficacy of covid vaccines, and there is also a wealth of data on the effects of getting covid. So why are people going for something without any data?

I specifically said boosters. However, there is no data on the long-term effects of the COVID vaccines, mRNA or otherwise. That's an indisputable scientific fact. They just haven't existed long enough for that data to be available. Hopefully a decade from now we'll discover that they were safe. We do have data on the long-term effects of Ivermectin. Someone who is not concerned about COVID will take neither a vaccine…

The long term effect of ivermectin seems to be long-COVID (according to the article), which is rare, but just as bad as being unvaccinated, if not worse.

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

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Post by NaturalPhallacy » Thu, Sep 23, 2021, 4:21 AM UTC

_2d30 wrote: post #27

gonational wrote: post #9

Because there are so many studies of ivermectin and because it is so widely used, of course there are going to be bunk studies and scientifically invalid studies. Do you know how I know this? I know this because it was recently shown (within the past ten years) that something like 70% of scientific studies can't be reproduced (read: they're BS). So if were going to use scientific studies at all, to inform our decisio…

> There are literally no studies proving that the Pfizer or Moderna gene therapies are safe and effective, or even that they are safe or effective, at both treating and preventing the spread of COVID-19. This is... wildly incorrect.

No it isn't.

Long term studies of them are not possible without time travel.