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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

#91

Post by rory »

myrmidon wrote: post #80
rory wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People take ivermectin instead of vaccinating or complying with NPIs Doing one thing but not another doesn't imply you're doing one thing instead of another. Do you truly believe the people ODing on ivermectin would be lining up for vaccinations if it didn't exist?

Lining up? Not necessarily. But it seems almost certain to me that at least some people feel safe thanks to taking ivermectin (while distrusting mainstream vaccines), and those people would turn eventually to the vaccines if those were the only perceived path towards C19 safety.

Perhaps on the margin some would, but I suspect most would fall into the "natural immunity" camp.

So in my mind, we need to weigh the damage done by blocking safe ivermectin use for some number of people to the damage done by a much-smaller number of people remaining unvaccinated when they otherwise would get the jab.

Seems like it could go either way depending on your specific assumptions.

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

#92

Post by buu700 »

ashtonkem wrote: post #30
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…

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…

In fairness, I see no reason why anyone should be blocked from buying any drug they want, whether it be ivermectin or heroin. The consequence of this restriction is that a subset of the prospective customers will settle for a potentially (more) dangerous alternative source, whether that be horse formulations or black market heroin cut with fentanyl.

It's also a valid point that unproven and disproven aren't equivalent. While I don't think anyone should take medical advice from political sources or for political reasons (therefore, as far as I'm aware, the well studied vaccines should be preferred to ivermectin by the vast majority of people at this time), I do think that it should be anyone's right to have full bodily autonomy and make whatever choices they want. Mainstream consensus is wrong often enough, e.g. the disastrous food pyramid that contributed to today's obesity epidemic.

I agree with the thrust of your point that the idea that there's some kind of widespread anti-Republican medical discrimination or corruption going on is silly. Just pointing out that how things currently are is not how they ought to be, and that this situation is arguably just a subset of the widely reviled War on Drugs.

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

#93

Post by simpleguitar »

ajross wrote: post #17
nradov wrote: post #3

Yes the quality of scientific research in this area has been rather bad with rushes to publish and ineffective peer review. Drs. Paul Marik and Pierre Kory recently updated their meta analysis to remove the retracted Elgazzar paper, and still found a significant effect. I'm not endorsing their letter, just pointing out that it exists and isn't mentioned in this Nature article. https://journals.lww.com/americantherape…

> Yes the quality of scientific research in this area has been rather bad with rushes to publish and ineffective peer review Well, sure, but what else is new? The Ivermectin paper was surely bad, but it wasn't outrageously bad nor unexpectedly so. The mania that resulted isn't, at it's core, about bad science. This won't fix the problem.

> The Ivermectin paper was surely bad, but it wasn't outrageously bad nor unexpectedly so.

Oh, yes it was bad. Very very bad. Outrageously bad. The data was mostly fabricated:

https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on...

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

#94

Post by simpleguitar »

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.

If iver is a good gamble, then wouldn't the vaccine be a better gamble?

After all, unlike iver, there is very good hospitalization data about vaccinated vs unvaccinated now.

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

#95

Post by xtracto »

shadowgovt wrote: post #36
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…

How many users have been taking it in human-designed doses, given that it's not generally prescribed for COVID-19 (and therefore those who are taking it for that purpose are mostly self-medicating)?

Outside of the US is prescribed quite often. It is in the Mexican Health System Protocol ([1] page 6) and has been widely researched [2] in there. Also, in Mexico Ivermectin was widely available (without prescription) before Covid19. It is commonly used in children against lice, and also in the general population as a dewormer once a year (in Mexico, people are used to take these type of medications once a year).

I understand the hesitation Americans have against it, given its lack of availability (I would never consume a medicine made for animals) but from my outside perspective, the issue has been politicized so much that both "left" and "right" Americans get blinded by their views and are not open to even talk about it (it's either, you eat dewormer antivaxxer! or muh freedom!).

I got my two vaccines as soon as I could (I had covid in march 2020 and had a terrible time, and I am totally pro vaccines, shit in Mexico we get a heck of a lot of vaccines haha) but given the safety profile of Ivermectin, I am 100% in favour of people taking it if they get COVID19.

[1] http://educacionensalud.imss.gob.mx/es/system/files/Algoritm...

[2] https://covid19.cdmx.gob.mx/storage/app/media/Articulos/revi...

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

#96

Post by gonational »

fullstop wrote: post #87
_2d30 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ivermectin doesn’t really have significant side effects at appropriate doses. It’s quite safe. Don’t be fooled by overblown “horse dewormer stories”. I don’t say this to advocate Ivermectin, the only RCT I know of/trust found absolutely no effect. I say this to gently point out the mismatch between your claims and the premise in the first sentence.

I agree that it is safe at appropriate doses. The issue is that people are self medicating and incorrectly calculating doses, since the product was intended for livestock.

The nationwide report that everybody talked about, pertaining to poison control centers receiving endless calls about this was completely fake. It turned out that rather than 70% of calls it was actually 2% of calls and over half of them were simply people asking questions about dosage.

The other nationwide report about the hospitals in Oklahoma being crowded with ivermectin victims to the point where they could not even get gunshot victims in to see a doctor... well, at least one of the hospital systems responded with an open letter stating that this was completely fake and that they had not seen even a single patient. I find it hard to believe that one hospital system would not see a single patient while all the other hospitals in the state would be completely flooded with them.

If the TV tells you something, you do not have to believe it.

Use your brain.

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

#97

Post by mikeyouse »

gonational wrote: post #81
mikeyouse wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling them gene therapies too.. wow. I hope the more science-literate proponents of IVM can appreciate how much it harms their case for the vast majority of IVM advocates to be this loud and wrong..

The United States CDC literally changed the definition of "vaccine" this year, so that these products could still be identified as vaccines. You're going to tell me that it's "science illiterate" to consider mRNA therapy as gene therapy, because the genes are not actually changed, but instead only expressed to create the therapeutic effect. But it is "scientifically literate" to call such a therapy a "vaccine"? I hop…

> You're going to tell me that it's "science illiterate" to consider mRNA therapy as gene therapy, because the genes are not actually changed ..

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. Read your sentence back to yourself.

> But it is "scientifically literate" to call such a therapy a "vaccine"?

Yes. Of course it is. Regardless of what the copy on some obscure CDC website says, mRNA vaccines have been in development for decades.

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

#98

Post by programmarchy »

sjg007 wrote: post #24
programmarchy wrote: post #15

How does the current field of studies compare to Remdesivir? Remdesivir is a repurposed antiviral (originally designed for Ebola) with fairly low efficacy, and very severe side effects, and it breezed through FDA emergency authorization. I don't understand why it seems that the bar is set so low for Remdesivir, but so high for Ivermectin.

Are you sure about that? https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2007764

No, I don't think anyone is, because there are also studies that show no benefit: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

However, I've also heard there's a new study coming out from Gilead that demonstrates Remdesivir is highly effective when administered in early treatment.

So perhaps the efficacy depends when treatment is given. And if that's the case, then meta-studies actually become very important, because they can reveal hidden factors like dosage, demographic, when to administer treatment, etc.

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

#99

Post by hackingforfun »

With all the criticism of the mRNA and other COVID vaccines, which actually do have science backing them up, what is the science that would make ivermectin actually work? It's an antiparasitic drug. I see a lot of criticism of the COVID vaccines, especially from the right, but then they are fine taking hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin if there is any glimmer of hope that they will work. I just don't get it. Maybe, just maybe, it's not all some big conspiracy, and the vaccines were actually designed to help people? Is that so far fetched? Doesn't taking something random like hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin seem more far fetched? It does to me.

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

#100

Post by _2d30 »

gonational wrote: post #73
_2d30 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Would you mind linking me to the evidence that this is incorrect? Posts like mine are being censored across-the-board on the Internet because of "interests". I mean, how much more evidence could you possibly linked to then 119 studies, yet my comment was flagged out of existence. We are literally living in a George Orwell novel and the people with jackboots are just ordinary citizens, putting the boots on their own n…

I vouched for your comment. You're allowed to believe whatever irrational things you'd like and comment about them as much as you'd like as far as I'm concerned. Seems it got flagged to death even after the vouch, though.

Let's, however, consider your inane views on the RNA vaccines (note that not only is this what everyone refers to them as, it's also the case that they are very specifically NOT therapies as they are meant to be prophylactic to disease rather than treat disease).

> such as the Israeli pre-print from three weeks ago showing that The gene therapy is less effective than natural immunity by a factor of 13 to 27 times)

Do you really have no idea why that's a stupid attack on the vaccines? The idea that natural immunity is superior to vaccine acquired immunity says NOTHING about whether or not a vaccine provides immunity. If A > B, that doesn't mean that B = 0.

Not only that, but the same study showed that natural immunity + vaccine > natural immunity. So by your inane logic, natural immunity alone does nothing!

But even with this study by all accounts being valid, what policy decisions would you change based on it? It's not like we would stop vaccinations!

What's more you're concerned that people are ignoring these 119 studies but you yourself claimed there was literally no evidence of effect for the vaccines when there are hundreds of studies (including your cited Israeli study for God's sake!) showing their effectiveness!

Beyond all of that, I know of 1 good RCT for Ivermectin in the Together Trial (1500 patients unlike the comedy of many of the studies you quote) and uh, no effect. Weirdly, they do find really great effect from Fluvoxamine and yet you quacks never decided to pursue that for some reason...

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