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Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

theatlantic.com

51–60 of 93 posts

Re: Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

#51
post #25
post #2

The problem is that Ivermectin is off patent, so no drug company can make any money from it. Since there is no money for expensive research studies or clinical trials, all the research studies that get done will be low budget and subject to being called "lousy science". How about just properly reporting and studying the actual facts from one of the very large real world trials, like the one in India?

And why is Covid not really a thing in subsaharan Africa where everyone takes ivermectin anyway, because it’s a marvelous antiparasitic drug. You’d think the poorest parts of Africa with the worst medical systems in the world would be hit harder, but they’re not. And it’s probably not genetic since the African diaspora is hit hard by covid.

> And why is Covid not really a thing in subsaharan Africa

I follow news out of South Africa. COVID really is a thing there. It is a big deal there. There have been curfews. (1)

> where everyone takes ivermectin anyway,

No; they don't all take ivermectin every day at breakfast.

> You’d think the poorest parts of Africa with the worst medical systems in the world would be hit harder, but they’re not.

You would think that, yes. it's actually interesting: when the pandemic dawned in early 2020, the medical systems of US and UK were thought best prepared to deal with it (2). That clearly has not been the reality since then. (3)

Why is that? One theory is that recent experience with disease control matters. UK and US were complacent about controlling a virulent pandemic. Whereas asian counties with good economies and recent experience with SARS did very well at doing it again. (4)

African countries did .. not as bad as you might assume, given "the worst medical systems in the world", maybe because of a population the skews younger than the west, and maybe because of experience with various diseases from HIV+TB (In South Africa and other countries) to Ebola (in Central Africa)

1) https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/south-africas-president...

2) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/11/countries-preparednes...

3) https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/all-bets-are-measu...

4) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/027507402094370...

Re: Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

#52
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's way too cheap, iirc Dr. Kory was estimating it would cost like $12 per person to use Ivermectin as a preventative, and this is at current prices. Also, said company, Merck, is in the process of releasing a new drug that will cost in the thousands.

grifters are making millions off of selling HCQ, IVM, and consultations: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/28/covid-telehealth-hydroxy... https://archive.md/eyopT

Took a look through through that Intercept article. It reads like any of the biased opinion based drivel passing for journalism these days. Trying to conflate politics with medicine and say Doctors who risked their careers to speak up for Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are "extremely pro Trump". Immediate red flag.

They call out Simone Gold for posting anti-vax content on Twitter by retweeting Joe Rogan's experience that he got covid and treated it with a cocktail of drugs including Ivermectin. This first hand account of recovery was apparently not true because... Ivermectin isn't shown to be effective.

Re: Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

#53
post #27
post #15

The Actually Real Scandal About Ivermectin is something like the anthropic principle but about the fact that I know that nothing positive about Ivermectin would ever be allowed on the Atlantic. Is Ivermectin at best barely above useless for covid? Maybe. Is it crucial and it's a crime against humanity for being suppressed? Maybe, and I'm inclined to say probably because the same people who lie about everything are mi…

The people saying ivermectin works are the same people saying hcq worked last year. The people pushing the vaccine are the only people who have consistently been curing serious illnesses for the last 100 years. The ivermectin group are the people who have been pushing snake oil for the last 1000 years and cured nothing.

You heard it hear first: Ivermectin people have been pushing snake oil (nothing specific, just general snake oil.. like Ivermectin!) for 1000 years.

Should I ask him for a source?

Re: Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

#54
post #32
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why is Covid not really a thing in subsaharan Africa where everyone takes ivermectin anyway, because it’s a marvelous antiparasitic drug. You’d think the poorest parts of Africa with the worst medical systems in the world would be hit harder, but they’re not. And it’s probably not genetic since the African diaspora is hit hard by covid.

Low population density, a largely outdoor existence, and a very low rate of testing and reporting.

> Low population density, a largely outdoor existence,

I'm not sure that I buy that; cities in Africa have large dense slums, where it's going to be hard to distance. And crowded transport to/from work.

https://www.kulturevulturez.com/story-south-africa-slums-gan...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibera

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi

Re: Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

#55
Why take the biased article at its word? Luckily we have access to all of these studies and can do the research ourselves (thanks Internet!)

https://ivmmeta.com/

The current count of medical studies that show Ivermectin being beneficial for treating or preventing COVID-19 is 64. Out of those 64, 44 of them are peer reviewed.

Or we could throw the baby out with the bathwater because this article cherry picked a few of the worst studies to shape a narrative.

Re: Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

#56
post #15

The Actually Real Scandal About Ivermectin is something like the anthropic principle but about the fact that I know that nothing positive about Ivermectin would ever be allowed on the Atlantic. Is Ivermectin at best barely above useless for covid? Maybe. Is it crucial and it's a crime against humanity for being suppressed? Maybe, and I'm inclined to say probably because the same people who lie about everything are mi…

> Is it crucial and it's a crime against humanity for being suppressed? Maybe, and I'm inclined to say probably because the same people who lie about everything are mighty certain that Ivermectin is something that doesn't help covid and anyone who says otherwise is a horse paste eating moron.

It is truly an indictment of our time that this is deemed a useful standard of evidence.

Re: Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

#57
It's probably not a coincidence that the same people saying "Masks don't work and the proof is I can smell my farts when I wear them", "The virus is a hoax", "The vaccines have a tracking chip in them" are the same folks saying "ivermectin prevents and cures covid".

I live in the Missouri Ozarks, near Branson, and I am surrounded by them. I've been following the use of ivermectin since around June 2020 and still have not seen any definitive proof it works better than a placebo.

But I did suspect there might be a run on it over a year ago so I bought an extra package of it for my two burros. Just a few days ago I had to use it. About a month ago I asked an employee at the feed store I buy it at how their stock of it was holding up. He told me "We're selling out within 24 hours of getting a shipment in."

It won't matter if rigerous studies determine it doesn't work at all, they won't care. These are folks who are still refusing to get vaxxed, wear a mask, and social distance. They don't care that over 670,000 of their fellow citizens have been killed by it here. They don't believe that either. They're "Mad as hell" and they're "not going to take it anymore".

Re: Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

#58
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

grifters are making millions off of selling HCQ, IVM, and consultations: https://theintercept.com/2021/09/28/covid-telehealth-hydroxy... https://archive.md/eyopT

Took a look through through that Intercept article. It reads like any of the biased opinion based drivel passing for journalism these days. Trying to conflate politics with medicine and say Doctors who risked their careers to speak up for Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are "extremely pro Trump". Immediate red flag. They call out Simone Gold for posting anti-vax content on Twitter by retweeting Joe Rogan's experien…

Only, politicians have insinuated themselves into medicine, so that ship has sailed. When a medical professional is both sending strong political signals and their professional opinion is strongly aligned with the party line (and also conspiracy theorists), far out of line with the vast majority of their profession, that's suspect.

Joe Rogan's treatment is a single anecdote, and invermectin was one component of a "cocktail." He recovered, yes, but there's more noise than signal and most people recover from covid without any treatment.

Re: Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

#59

Why take the biased article at its word? Luckily we have access to all of these studies and can do the research ourselves (thanks Internet!) https://ivmmeta.com/ The current count of medical studies that show Ivermectin being beneficial for treating or preventing COVID-19 is 64. Out of those 64, 44 of them are peer reviewed. Or we could throw the baby out with the bathwater because this article cherry picked a few of…

How do we know that this article is biased and yours is not?

Why should we trust this source and not the one linked above?

Re: Ivermectin shows that not all science is worth following

#60

Why take the biased article at its word? Luckily we have access to all of these studies and can do the research ourselves (thanks Internet!) https://ivmmeta.com/ The current count of medical studies that show Ivermectin being beneficial for treating or preventing COVID-19 is 64. Out of those 64, 44 of them are peer reviewed. Or we could throw the baby out with the bathwater because this article cherry picked a few of…

That website is such obvious bunk that I'm close to assuming anyone still linking it is literally a paid shill. They still have a copycat up in hcqmeta.com touting similar claims for hydroxychloroquine. And a dozen other drugs/vitamins.

Here's a nice read on the subject: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1422044335076306947.html

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