Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know • Hacker News Board

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#51

Post by thaumaturgy » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:47 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #27

jacquesm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the first anti-Ivermectin argument that you want to believe, but there have been many serious anti-Ivermectin arguments in the past. It's just that you don't have the background knowledge to digest them, but that doesn't stop you from wanting to believe that there is some kind of miracle cure that 'they' are suppressing. Now consider that this is just one example of a class of such issues and that there is an…

> This is the first anti-Ivermectin argument that you want to believe... I discounted a highly biased echo chamber in social media and more traditional media and went with 30-odd studies that appear to have been assembled in good faith even now. I changed my mind immediately on seeing "Parasitic worms are a significant confounder in some ivermectin studies, such that they made them get a positive result even when hon…

May I ask, completely sincerely, what approach you would settle on for trying to discriminate truth from fiction if you believed you couldn't get reliable information from reading 30-odd studies?

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#52

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:52 AM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #43

jacquesm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's science working as intended: theories getting replaced by better theories. There is plenty that we are probably going to find out more about in the future that will invalidate some of what we believe today to be true. But that's fine, as long as we stick to the scientific method that will all come out, even if it takes a while. Science has brought us further in 400 years than anything that came before. Right n…

Sure, but my point is "consensus" doesn't necessarily mean "truth", even though the vast majority of people use the terms interchangeably. "Everyone but one person is wrong" is a situation we've seen numerous times before in the history of science. And when the matters of social acceptability, prestige, politics, and just plain ability to make a living enter into the consideration, very, very few people would even be…

The consensus in the medical world is that if there is a link it is extremely weak, far weaker than you'd need to establish that 'millions died while they didn't have to' as you write, and that if it works it probably needs very high doses, higher than considered safe.

At the same time, we have vaccines, which do work (though the slow roll-out and the many, many hold outs certainly don't help, as well as that it leaves the question of how to deal with children for the moment mostly unanswered).

And propagating this Ivermectine (and Hydroxychloroquine as the predecessor) nonsense has caused a lot of people to forego their vaccinations. And that does have very clear effects.

So even if consensus doesn't mean truth typically it is the experts that go against the grain with hard proof in their pocket that win out over the long term.

It is very rarely going to happen that new scientific truth will come from conspiracy theorists rather than from the establishment, though I guess if you live long enough that too will one day happen.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#53

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:55 AM UTC

nzmsv wrote: post #47

jacquesm wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a pretty good memory for comment histories and you've been pushing this for far more than it is worth. That this single article would change your mind is fortunate, but I do not suspect that to hold true for the bulk of the conspiracy peddlers that remain.

Isn't this an example of some rigid and ineffective thinking patterns? Article publishes sound arguments, doesn't talk down to the audience, admits problems with appeals to authority... and converts a conspiracy believer! ...No way, there is no way that can possibly work, the others are way too dumb, and the convert is a bad person... basically anything to just go back to pretending appeals to authority work. Despite…

I've been following with some amazement the number of conspiracy peddlers on HN for the last 18 months or so and one case of conversion isn't going to make me overly happy. It is a bit like the story about the lie getting halfway around the world before the truth puts their shoes on, in the extreme long term the truth will come out, meanwhile, the damage is done. This guy until yesterday wanted his mother to take some ivermectin, 'just in case'. I want my mother to take her doctors advice, not mine.

edit: just one exhibit: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=mewpmewp2

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#54

Post by cbg0 » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:59 AM UTC

tehjoker wrote: post #22

We have multiple vaccines and two (EUA) proven oral treatments now.

Yes, but the sneaky government is offering those freely, so that's very suspicious to some folks that would rather have "the good stuff" off of the black market.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#55

Post by jmcgough » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:59 AM UTC

Shank wrote: post #49

This is worth reading purely for the writing alone. Scott Alexander is a treasure: > As best I can tell, this is some kind of Egyptian trial. It might or might not be an RCT; it says stuff like “Patients were self-allocated to the treatment groups; the first 3 days of the week for the intervention arm while the other 3 days for symptomatic treatment”. Were they self-allocated in the sense that they got to choose? Doe…

Oh, no wonder this was so entertaining to read, didn't even catch that this was astral codex. I laughed out loud at Cadegiani et al:

> A crazy person decided to put his patients on every weird medication he could think of, and 585 subjects ended up on a combination of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, and nitazoxanide, with dutasteride and spironolactone "optionally offered" and vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, apixaban, rivaraxoban, enoxaparin, and glucocorticoids "added according to clinical judgment". There was no control group, but the author helpfully designated some random patients in his area as a sort-of-control, and then synthetically generated a second control group based on “a precise estimative based on a thorough and structured review of articles indexed in PubMed and MEDLINE and statements by official government agencies and specific medical societies”.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#56

Post by fallingknife » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:59 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #23

roenxi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I changed my mind. I was making pro-Ivermectin comments just yesterday. This is the first serious anti-Ivermectin argument I've seen.

This is the first anti-Ivermectin argument that you want to believe, but there have been many serious anti-Ivermectin arguments in the past. It's just that you don't have the background knowledge to digest them, but that doesn't stop you from wanting to believe that there is some kind of miracle cure that 'they' are suppressing. Now consider that this is just one example of a class of such issues and that there is an…

> make it seem like it is the establishment that does this

The establishment very clearly does do this, and it's why the whole playbook you listed works in the first place.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#57

Post by roenxi » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:59 AM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #16

roenxi wrote: post #6

This is exactly the sort of thing that YouTube, Twitter, et al are suppressing. Someone thoughtfully listening seriously to what the proponents of Ivermectin are saying, weighing it up and saying "looks good but you forgot...". You can't get this sort of excellent rebuttal without allowing a site like https://ivmmeta.com/ into the debate.

There is little evidence of such analysis being suppressed. I think it is just relatively rare, because it is a lot of work and takes particular skill. Most people who care about this research are indeed crackpots, unfortunately. Those who aren't have mostly moved on from Ivermectin because they have better things to do. Ivermectin is being tested in large RCTs, as it should. If it works, it will be used. If it doesn…

Going through one of those studies from https://ivmmeta.com/ on YouTube would be a risky proposition for a YouTuber. It goes against YouTube's medical misinformation policy [0]. It is pretty clear that a study with that sort of effect size could encourage someone to take Ivermectin. Particularly the "Categorical claims that Ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID-19 " would be a worry depending on how the censors feel that day. They'd potentially be arguing a technicality against some Silicon Valley type with an axe to grind.

Despite the fact that it appears those studies were honest, and picking up an actual factual effect. Now it turns out, laughably in hindsight, that the effect is probably whether people had parasites or not and I hadn't thought of that. But it isn't obvious how I'm going to figure that out without someone pointing it out to me. Ideally on YouTube where there are some really good channels covering COVID, often with actual doctors involved.

No-one else seems to have figured it out either, given I've seen lots of people shouting at each other and none suggested it as a possibility.

[0] https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9891785?hl=en

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#58

Post by nzmsv » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 8:59 AM UTC

bayesian_horse wrote: post #18

roenxi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I changed my mind. I was making pro-Ivermectin comments just yesterday. This is the first serious anti-Ivermectin argument I've seen.

"Most scientists/doctors believe it to not work against Covid-19" wasn't a serious argument for you? It is a strange phenomenon that people are so ready to disagree with people who spent decades achieving exactly that kind of knowledge.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignaz_Semmelweis

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#59

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 9:02 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #45

bayesian_horse wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion it should be an argument, especially for people who don't have that expertise. Also, even the "moderately convincing" evidence is in my opinion not nearly enough. It might be if Covid-19 were a modestly important disease with only a few labs and clinics running working on it. But it's not. Throw enough shit against the wall, eventually something will stick by chance. This is a globally distributed exper…

> In my opinion it should be an argument, It is a fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority . To make an argument, there needs to be an argument.

It is only a fallacy when you are an expert as well, but when you are a layperson in a field and you are discarding real expert opinions because you don't like them you don't get to claim that their opinions are arguments from authority and therefore by definition fallacies. Maybe actually read that wikipedia page instead of just linking to it?

This seems to be a common and recurring theme: my opinion is worth as much as the opinion of an expert in the field because their argument can be discarded as an argument from authority. But they are an authority and I'll be happy to believe them compared to believing you, who are not active in their field at all.

See:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28067406

and

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29235584

"I'm no medical anything but I do have extensive academic and statistical training."

But you forgot that that only applies to those fields that you actually know something about, otherwise this is about as transparent an appeal to authority as one can make. Who cares about your extensive academic and statistical training if you start off with nonsense? Garbage in, garbage out, no matter how good the program is.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#60

Post by bsaul » Wed, Nov 17, 2021, 9:03 AM UTC

Funny how all this article ends up saying it's all a matter of trust.

Which is exactly what medecine has always been about, and why ultimately you end up getting prescriptions by you own doctor, that you have a bound with and that you trust.

The most insane thing that happened with this pandemic ( at least in europe) is how we decided to throw all this through the window and let states impose medical decisions on people and their children, not realizing people were still considering them highly incompetent in general.