Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection • Hacker News Board

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#481

Post by thoughty » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:32 AM UTC

The biggest issues for treatment of covid has been: 1. Ignoring frontline doctors 2. Social media becoming the arbiter of truth. The above have been devastating to countries. For example, India had figured out that Ivermectin was effective last year in august itself and recommending it to everyone as it was easily available. All my friends who took ivermectin had very mild covid. I had prolonged covid and I suspect it was because I was not given Ivermectin.

During the 2nd wave in May, WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan tweeted out against Ivermectin. Some states followed her advise (based on a tweet!) and discontinued it resulting in 10x more deaths.

WHO, sadly, has been wrong about everything in this pandemic. I don’t trust them anymore.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#482

Post by dang » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

guscost wrote: post #424

dang wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something else having less substance does not make your comments substantial.

Well this is another very tricky one, I’ll give you that. So many N-order effects. I still disagree strongly with your characterization of “substance” in this context though. E.g. when another user sent this (ad-hominem) challenge: > Why is it that everyone who pushes Ivermectin as a miracle cure for COVID is also a conspiracy aficionado? I responded with a simple and dispassionate explanation, rather than taking off…

These were super low quality posts, as well as being obviously baity:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27562666

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27562679

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27562717

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27562722

Please stop posting like that. It's not hard, and doesn't need complex argumentation.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#483

Post by iammisc » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:35 AM UTC

boredprograming wrote: post #383

Heyso wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, that is not the only way. You have side effects. And you have the fact that the vaccine is still in test phase. What are the long term side effects, we don't know. And unless they are obvious we will never know, because vaccine are like a religion too many. You don't question a religion.

You're indirectly admitting that I'm right. The anti vaccine crowd is desperate for a non vaccine cure, because the vaccine is so incredibly effective their beliefs fall apart otherwise

The vaccine is empirically way more dangerous than every other vaccine commonly given. I did the vaccines but I don't understand why we can't be honest about it.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#484

Post by iammisc » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:38 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #331

jiofih wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> against the idea that this is such a novel emergency we just need to ignore all the processes that we know and trust There is a pretty well trodden path for new medicine to prove their effectiveness, which all Covid measures have gone through. If ivermectin, hydroxichloroquine or any other alternative drug goes through due course they would have no difficult being accepted. The reason discussions have been censored…

> rallying round a drug like a football club That’s what gets to me too, and this is the major issue I had with Trump saying anything about anything. He was floundering to look like he had a plan and the moment he mentioned HCQ he turned the whole thing political. It was massively irresponsible. It should be left to medical science, which is doing pretty damn well with vaccinations and treatments like dexamethasone.…

> mentioned HCQ he turned the whole thing political.

Trump first mentioned it as a possibility and investigation and that he was taking it after consulting with his doctor. That's it. The media made you think otherwise.

Telling the public what drugs he's on is fine.. shouldn't we know what drugs POTUS is taking?

And the people who politicized it were medical journals who published fake studies with no data or vetting. Otherwise the comments would have passed on like every other trivial statement made by politicians. I mean Trump's statements may have been unwise or not backed by a double blind studies that doesn't make them untrue, not does it make them inherently political.

The immediate condemnation that HCQ was not only ineffective but harmful was based on data that does not exist. It was fake.

The only ones politicizing are the ones telling lies.

If you have genuine disagreements with trump, one ought to make them by issuing truths not made up fake studies.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#485

Post by guscost » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:39 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #482

guscost wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well this is another very tricky one, I’ll give you that. So many N-order effects. I still disagree strongly with your characterization of “substance” in this context though. E.g. when another user sent this (ad-hominem) challenge: > Why is it that everyone who pushes Ivermectin as a miracle cure for COVID is also a conspiracy aficionado? I responded with a simple and dispassionate explanation, rather than taking off…

These were super low quality posts, as well as being obviously baity: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27562666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27562679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27562717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27562722 Please stop posting like that. It's not hard, and doesn't need complex argumentation.

On the other hand, many of my hot takes over the years have been celebrated, but it seems to happen when they are long and dense (and not personal attacks). Perhaps it is because fewer people read/flag them. Perhaps it is because this community values eloquence (or effort) over substance.

Add to that the built-in handicap because this community (like every other) values in-group opinions much more than out-group opinions, and it doesn’t make sense to even try better/longer arguments. I’m going to stop participating in controversy on this site, and move the infowar project over to audio chatrooms, where a conversation like this actually has a chance.

To everyone else: Arguing controversial topics with strangers, in Reddit-style text threads, is primitive and ineffective. The technology is insufficient for the task, and it will never get better.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#486

Post by effie » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:43 AM UTC

jiofih wrote: post #254

andreilys wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any discussion of ivermectin on platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and twitter is met with ceremonial bans or deletion. Even when the discussion is between doctors or is part of a senate hearing (see: dark horse podcast with Bret and Cory, and Cory’s testimony to the senate which have both been taken off YouTube) So yes it is an apt comparison.

YouTube and Facebook are public platforms. Nobody benefits from the general public being sold unsubstantiated theories of miracle medicine X before there is scientific consensus. My beetroot-cures-cancer video has no right to be there either.

We are talking about scientists presenting important evidence about existing and useful treatments, and about the public discussing it, and about large companies censoring that debate. That is not anywhere near "selling miracle cures". Discussing good news, even if they may be incomplete or inaccurate is beneficial to many people.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#487

Post by drtournier » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:46 AM UTC

I am an MD, Data Scientist and epidemiologist. There are three pieces of information which makes me feel something fishy about the study: 1. Sample sizes for all selected studies are very small, and even though they used mixed effects models to treat confounding, there is no way to check what the authors did, since they didn’t shared the code or the data, which is inadmissible since this is a meta analysis and there is no private data involved 2. Any tree chart of Risk Ratios or Odds Ratios that show drastic positive effects must raise one’s eyebrow about partiality in the authors 3. Real world data from Brazil, where they have great death data surveillance AND mass-distribution of ivermectin didn’t show any excitement. Brazil just crossed more than half million deaths as of Jun 19th 2021, and there is a high likelihood of surpass U.S. in deaths.

Based on what we already know about vaccine and PFF2/N95 mask efficacy and safety, it becomes hard to defend approaches such as ivermectin, instead of promoting practices and technologies that showed undeniable success in the real world, instead of doubtful medicines supported by obscure statistics and ideological discourse.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#488

Post by effie » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:47 AM UTC

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #180

dang wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post flamebait to HN, and especially not on divisive topics. That amounts to trolling, in effect if not in intention, and it leads to exactly the opposite of what we're trying for here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you posted this right after I asked you to stop doing it ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27563671 ). If you pull a trick like that again, we will ban you.

Citing Roman et al. > Conclusions: In comparison to SOC or placebo, IVM did not reduce all-cause mortality, length of stay or viral clearance in RCTs in COVID-19 patients with mostly mild disease. IVM did not have effect on AEs or SAEs. IVM is not a viable option to treat COVID-19 patients. [1] [1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.21.21257595v... I would prefer to see a single RCT with at least a few t…

That study by Roman et al. is heavily criticized in the comments (link to comments is on that page), apparently they made some mistakes.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#489

Post by effie » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:51 AM UTC

throwaway4good wrote: post #337

hosteur wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He did not encourage others to do that.

I think he is very much doing so. In particular as a safe alternative to the mRNA vaccines which he describes as dangerous.

Ivermectin is known to be safe (for decades now) when taken in small enough doses.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#490

Post by acituan » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

unparagoned wrote: post #300

bmarquez wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone died because of a "Take Ivermectin and you'll survive COVID" video on YouTube, who's to blame? Ivermectin is a prescription drug in the United States. A doctor would most likely reject the request if a patient asked for it solely on a YouTube recommendation. So to answer your question, a prescribing doctor. IMO YouTube isn't medically qualified to censor ongoing research or debate, just stick a disclaime…

Bret implied he got it from a potentially dodgy source. He was also pointing out "risks" with the vaccine. Even in comments you had people saying they were going to avoid the vaccine and take this drug instead.

> He was also pointing out "risks" with the vaccine.

Whoa whoa whoa. 1 year old mRNA vaccine's risks don't come with scare quotes. He often talks about the lack of long term data. mRNA covid vaccines might have been exceptionally safe so far, yet intellectual honesty demands we admit that indeed we don't have the long term data yet. Implying there would absolutely be no such risk is a fundamentalistic position itself.