33 ms·

Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

• pmoriarty 5y ago
  Conclusions: "Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally."
• anonygler 5y ago
  Time for tech companies to blacklist Andrew Bryant from society I guess.
• 99_00 5y ago
  Talking about this study on Youtube is forbidden according to their TOS. "Don’t post content on YouTube if it includes any of the following: Treatment misinformation: Content that recommends use of Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19 Claims that Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine are effective treatments for COVID-19" https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9891785?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9891785?hl=en
  • stephc_int13 5y ago
    I find this extremely worrying, to be honest. They are legal and widely used drugs in most countries. They might not be miracle drugs to treat COVID-19, but I don't see the point in this ban.
    • _Wintermute 5y ago
      Because people are idiots and will try and self-medicate, potentially making themselves really ill.
      • Turing_Machine 5y ago
        You are not their parent, and neither is YouTube. Besides the scads of dubious (or outright dangerous) health-related videos on other topics, YouTube has videos of people flying "wing suits" and engaging in many other risky activities.
        • belltaco 5y ago
          You're not YouTube's parent, to tell them what they can and cannot do with their own website.
          • effie 5y ago
            Youtube is the dominant medium, we are stakeholders and should have a say.
      • kcplate 5y ago
        I know that is the “theory” behind the censorship, but I’d suspect the true number of people choosing to do that is a lot smaller than people think. And frankly…if not censoring kills a few idiots and saves many more by allowing the medical professionals to fine tune a treatment, that’s a lot better than killing many to save a few idiots by making potential lifesaving treatment experimentation off limits.
        • _Wintermute 5y ago
          How are youtube videos by people who haven't studied biology since high school going to help medical professionals to fine tune a treatment?
          • kcplate 5y ago
            How are censoring YouTube videos from scientists who do this for a living going to help medical professionals fine tune a treatment? It’s not just the laymen getting censored. It’s everyone. Also, no offense, but how little faith do you put in our medical professionals and scientists that you think they can’t discern the difference between wheat and chaff?
    • arminiusreturns 5y ago
      Good, you should. This is a major problem that short circuited lots of brains because it was easy to follow the msm narrative which character assassinated anybody who didnt conform, then used that narrative to start censoring. Again on the censorship topic many of us had been ringing warning bells (some great if devolved convos during were had here when the big censorship push happened...) When are all you intelligent hacker news readers going to realize the history of the world is a history of conspiracy, and its the coincidence theorists that are the ones actually ignoring the truth(s)? Let me know when you want to have that convo and Ill show up.
      • reedjosh 5y ago
        > the history of the world is a history of conspiracy ^ 100% This I'll join you on this sinking ship. : ) Thanks for saying it arminiusreturns. I think more people need to argue this. Maybe it'll someday flip the script and people will finally become suspicious of authority. Most people just look at what the majority claims. Maybe if they see enough people arguing for this, they'd flip sides. It's silly, but logic doesn't even seem to matter since logic and evidence is so quickly brushed aside via the ad-hominem of `conspiracy theorist`.
      • dang 5y ago
        Ok, but the "wake up sheeple" approach is guaranteed to (a) not persuade, and (b) take the thread into a predictable rut. So please find a different approach to make your substantive points with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        • arminiusreturns 5y ago
          True enough, which is why I tend to steer away from that conversation here, for the most part, but some of the more recent things are so blatant and have deep impact on the tech community that I thinks its time to start talking about the subject, even if from a tech perspective. Point taken dang, Ill try to make less meta and more substantive points in the future on this divisive topic.
    • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      The issue isn't the drug. It's the claim. The drug could be legal for use in the US, and there would still be an issue (unless there were studies good enough to pass FDA scrutiny that demonstrated the drugs effectiveness). In the US, you don't get to make medical claims that you can't prove are valid. Now, the other questions are whether Youtube should be considered "in the US", and whether Youtube should be an enforcement arm of the FDA. That's the worrying part.
      • ds206 5y ago
        The drug IS legal in the U.S. lol You just need a prescription
      • temp8964 5y ago
        Honest question. Why do they need to ban this claim? Because U.S. doctors follow YouTube video suggestions when they prescribe drugs? > In the US, you don't get to make medical claims that you can't prove are valid. Is this a law or just your opinion? Are we expecting Bret Weinstein to be arrest in coming days?
        • AnimalMuppet 5y ago
          Well... it's the law, and yet the lines aren't quite where we expect them to be. Have you ever seen an informercial or something talking about a drug to fix something, and then it says something like "this drug has not been proven effective for this use"? That's pushing the line but not crossing it. Those people don't get arrested. But if you said "Ivermectin is safe and effective for treating Covid", then you've probably crossed it. If you're making money from it, then you may have worse problems than Youtube banning your videos. I don't know what Bret Weinstein says. If he says "this looks like it may work", he's probably OK. If he says "it's been shown to work", I would be surprised that the FDA hasn't done something. [Edit: If he says "it's been shown to work" and he's selling it, that's where the FDA will almost certainly step in. If he says it but isn't himself selling it... I don't know how they respond to that.] Disclaimer: IANAL.
      • Ivdg3 5y ago
    • joe_the_user 5y ago
      Unproven medical treatments are a kind of speech that the US government has aggressively suppressed with the approval of the courts for many years. That situation was abused to suppress the works of Wilhelm Reich (~70 years ago) but I don't see that kind of abuse here. Youtube isn't subject to the first amendment 'cause it's not the government BUT also the first amendment hasn't protected this kind of expression for a long time. Just sayin'. Edit: and as other said, that the drug is legal is irrelevant and disingenuous. We're talking a new treatment system.
  • guscost 5y ago
    Yikes. If this doesn’t wake you up, maybe just sleep through the next few years.
  • epicureanideal 5y ago
    This is an interesting link. I wasn’t aware they specifically discouraged talking about specific medications. I’m not sure why you’re being downvoted heavily as if you said something offensive..
  • peytn 5y ago
    > Claims that an approved COVID-19 vaccine will alter a person’s genetic makeup Wow, that’s insane. Time to report some talks on somatic hypermutation…
  • giarc 5y ago
    It's likely a CYA situation. There were people that took aquarium chloroquine after Trump promoted hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID.
    • kcplate 5y ago
      There were two people, a husband and wife. It was also reported after that police were investigating her for homicide because she was actually very much anti-Trump and had a history of brutalizing her husband publicly. Appears that she gave him a large dose that killed him and took a tiny one herself likely to create some sort of weird alibi.
      • giarc 5y ago
        >But people certainly listened to his words as officials from the Maryland Emergency Management Agency sent out an alert one day after receiving more than 100 calls about ingesting disinfectants as a possible treatment for COVID-19, according to the Governor’s office, and reported by ABC News. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2020/04/25/calls-to-poison-centers-spike--after-the-presidents-comments-about-using-disinfectants-to-treat-coronavirus/?sh=633811bb1157 https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertglatter/2020/04/25/calls-... I'm sure some can be chalked up to simply people increasing their cleaning during a pandemic, but 100 in a day for a single state... come on.
        • kcplate 5y ago
          According to the Maryland tweet it was “several”. The others referenced “exposure”. I suspect the media worried and reported the outrage about this far more than people took it seriously enough to do it. Gonna sound harsh, but if you are dumb enough to ingest a poison on the say so of an obnoxious real estate developer, the world is better off without you. I’m ok with those folks removing themselves from the gene pool.
• deadalus 5y ago
  Reminder that Twitter/Facebook banned people for talking about Ivermectin as a Covid treatment. Youtube channels also got banned/demonetized.
  • jiofih 5y ago
    Same as they would ban someone selling Paracetamol as a cancer treatment.
    • AndrewBissell 5y ago
      Who is "selling" anything? This is just one more facile such comparison in the thread, alongside "injecting bleach," "snake oil," etc. Whether ivermectin is effective or not, to describe the state of the evidence as though it were equivalent to pure quackery is very dishonest.
• drno123 5y ago
  Is Ivermectin used in Covid treatment protocols?
  • ds206 5y ago
    The FLCCC has 2 protocols that include Ivermectin among other things: https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/ https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/
  • slumdev 5y ago
    Yes https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_medicine/Marik-Covid-Protocol-Summary.pdf https://www.evms.edu/media/evms_public/departments/internal_...
• goldemerald 5y ago
  I heard about Ivermectin for the first time this week and was shocked how much it seemed that I had stepped into conspiracy theory land. There seemed to be an overwhelming amount of evidence over the last year that this repurposed drug is effective at treating Covid during a variety of stages (preventative, first positive test, ICU admittance, and even long haul). But since there hadn't been a randomized trial the drug had, not only been dismissed, but heavily censored over social media. I still cannot believe how much the discussion has been silenced in the same way people discuss "covid vaxx causes magnetism". The fact the interview between Bret Weinstein and Pierre Kory was banned from youtube for non-WHO/CDC/NIH approved covid treatments is a tragedy. I truly hope in the coming years the censorship of this topic will be the catalyst for allowing free speech to prevail on social media.
  • 13415 5y ago
    Without randomized trials you cannot recommend a drug because you cannot exclude confounders. It seems wrong to me to even speak of "overwhelming evidence" without a randomized trial or other sound ways to control or identify for confounders (e.g. causal models).
    • mgamache 5y ago
      Actually a meta analysis can offer better evidence then a single RCT. https://ascopost.com/issues/june-10-2014/randomized-trials-vs-meta-analyses-which-is-the-better-bet/ https://ascopost.com/issues/june-10-2014/randomized-trials-v...
      • Tenoke 5y ago
        The best meta-analyses are those made out of RCTs at any rate.
      • MilnerRoute 5y ago
        Wait a minute... This post is a debate between two opposing viewpoints. So it also makes the exact opposite point: The primary difference between a randomized controlled trial and meta-analysis is that the former “provide the highest level of evidence because they contain the least amount of bias. Randomized controlled trials reduce bias, while meta-analyses increase bias." This Hacker News story is about a recent meta-analysis. But an actual randomized control trial of Ivermectin in March (on 476 patients) found the duration of symptoms on treated and untreated patients "was not significantly different." https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777389 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777389
• kitcar 5y ago
  The FDA has a page on Invermectin for Covid treatment, which provides a reminder that veterinary drugs are not designed for human consumption. https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19 https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-shoul... "For one thing, animal drugs are often highly concentrated because they are used for large animals like horses and cows, which can weigh a lot more than we do—a ton or more. Such high doses can be highly toxic in humans. Moreover, FDA reviews drugs not just for safety and effectiveness of the active ingredients, but also for the inactive ingredients. Many inactive ingredients found in animal products aren’t evaluated for use in people. Or they are included in much greater quantity than those used in people. In some cases, we don’t know how those inactive ingredients will affect how ivermectin is absorbed in the human body."
  • whoooooo123 5y ago
    Ivermectin isn't a "veterinary drug", it's been used as a human medicine for decades.
    • kitcar 5y ago
      The link I provided from the FDA says: "There seems to be a growing interest in a drug called ivermectin to treat humans with COVID-19. Ivermectin is often used in the U.S. to treat or prevent parasites in animals. The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses."
      • krona 5y ago
        The most common way to treat onchocerciasis (river blindness) is by using ivermectin.
      • ds206 5y ago
        It's also been given to people around the world billions of times for 4 or 5 decades. Yeah, don't take the horse dose lol, take the human dose.
• mgamache 5y ago
  Countdown to Tess Lawrie being attacked 3,2,1....
  • mgamache 5y ago
    keep downvoting. She's already had her Twitter account suspended. https://twitter.com/marybethpf/status/1404880155537985541 https://twitter.com/marybethpf/status/1404880155537985541
    • dang 5y ago
      Can you please not post unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments to HN? If you have substantive information to share, please share it thoughtfully. If you post like you're doing in this thread, it's just pouring fuel on the flames, and no one learns anything from that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Moreover, you discredit your own view by posting like this, which isn't in your interest—and if your view happens to be correct, then you're actually discrediting the truth as well, and that's a harmful thing to do. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=truth%20discredit%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
      • mgamache 5y ago
        A world-famous scientific authority (and co-author of the paper in question) being banned from Twitter because her professional opinion doesn't match the allowed narrative? With 3.8 million dead (and counting) How is this not substantive and relevant to the discussion?
        • dang 5y ago
          It could be, but your comment wasn't; it was just standard flamebait. Please don't do that here.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• mgamache 5y ago
  Remember if Ivermectin was considered a safe treatment, there would have been no Emergency Use Authorization for vaccines. There was huge incentives to suppress the Ivermectin story until the vaccines were approved. Merck claimed it's own drug (off patent) did not have enough safety data. This is a drug taken by millions of people every month for decades.
  • jhayward 5y ago
    This is a conspiracy theory. Why is it that everyone who pushes Ivermectin as a miracle cure for COVID is also a conspiracy aficionado?
    • guscost 5y ago
      Simple. You have defined the latter as some variation on the former.
      • jhayward 5y ago
        No, "there is a worldwide conspiracy to suppress Ivermectin so that Big Pharma can make vaccines" is clearly a conspiracy theory, it's not a tautology. Seriously, why all the tinfoil?
        • mgamache 5y ago
          Why the tinfoil? When the WHO and the CDC/NIH and public officials lie repeatedly and demonstrably you can not trust them. Sort of invites wondering what the game is, because it's not public health.
        • andreilys 5y ago
          People called the lab leak theory a conspiracy theory (because it was associated with Trump and “racism”). Now we have blue-chip liberal celebrities like Jon Stewart coming out in favor of the lab leak hypothesis.
          • 5y ago
• donezo 5y ago
  We weren't allowed to say a lot if things in 2020. Weird!
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• guscost 5y ago
  And the hits just keep coming. What a pair of years.
• deadalus 5y ago
  This URL is blacklisted from Google. Try it. * "Few people know that Google voluntarily removes some search results" : https://twitter.com/kashhill/status/1402986015107653647 https://twitter.com/kashhill/status/1402986015107653647
  • selimthegrim 5y ago
    Dedicated Frank Zappa fans might.
• kcplate 5y ago
  I think the future is going to look back on this pandemic and be simply amazed that the public allowed social media companies to dictate to the world what scientists and the people could and could not discuss. Much in the same way we look at the 16th century with Galileo and the Catholic Church.
  • hannob 5y ago
    This thread is literally under a scientific publication investigating the effectiveness of Ivermecitin, but yeah, basically like Galileo Galilei. Except not at all.
    • andreilys 5y ago
      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.
      • jiofih 5y ago
        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.
        • effie 5y ago
          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.
          • 5y ago
• jhayward 5y ago
  "Ivermectin has been shown to inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in cell cultures.13 However, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies suggest that achieving the plasma concentrations necessary for the antiviral efficacy detected in vitro would require administration of doses up to 100-fold higher than those approved for use in humans." "Since the last revision of this section of the Guidelines, the results of several randomized trials and retrospective cohort studies of ivermectin use in patients with COVID-19 have been published in peer-reviewed journals or have been made available as manuscripts ahead of peer review. Some clinical studies showed no benefits or worsening of disease after ivermectin use,21-24 whereas others reported shorter time to resolution of disease manifestations that were attributed to COVID-19,25-28 greater reduction in inflammatory marker levels,26,27 shorter time to viral clearance,21,26 or lower mortality rates in patients who received ivermectin than in patients who received comparator drugs or placebo.21,26,28 However, most of these studies had incomplete information and significant methodological limitations, which make it difficult to exclude common causes of bias." https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/antiviral-therapy/ivermectin/ https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/ant...
  • slumdev 5y ago
    > doses up to 100-fold higher than those approved for use in humans. Drugs are approved according to their use. If they have multiple uses, they will have multiple approved dosages. Someone with sudden sensorineural hearing loss might be prescribed 60mg of prednisone per day, while someone who takes it for rheumatoid arthritis will take only 10 mg per day. One dose is six times the other dose. Both are safe, and both are approved. It's also necessary to consider the drug's therapeutic index. Therapeutic index is a ratio that measures the difference between the effective dose of a drug and its lethal dose. [1] NIH data indicates that administering ivermectin (at these "100-fold higher" dosages) to treat COVID-19 is no more dangerous than placebo. [2] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therapeutic_index 2. https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/ivermectin#section=Toxicity https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/ivermectin#section...
• DoreenMichele 5y ago
  The antiparasitic ivermectin, with antiviral and anti-inflammatory properties That makes me wonder at the mechanism and biological pathways involved in how this works at all on anything and how that intersects with Covid-19. I'm alive in part because for some years my best friend was a former registered nurse who had let her nursing license lapse while she raised her special-needs sons and pursued training in various alternative medicines to try to keep them alive. I remember asking her once in exasperation after several rounds of back and forth still hadn't really answered my question "Yes, but exactly what does this drug do in the body at the cellular level?" And she told me "You are asking questions for which they don't have answers. That's not how drug studies work." Everything I have read and experienced suggests to me that covid-19 is so deadly largely because of what it does to your blood, not your respiratory system. One of the things that kills people with covid-19 is blood clots. And parasitic infections sometimes infect your blood cells. This is how malaria works and it's why Sickle Cell trait is protective against it. So I'm really wondering at that connection. If this is an antiparasitic, does it work by impacting your blood in a particular way? Could that be the connection here for why it seems effective against covid-19? And I'm wondering if we even have that type of information about this drug nearly twenty years after my friend told me "They don't know that. Drug studies don't answer that." Do we answer those questions these days?
  • ds206 5y ago
    From what I understand, it's the anti-inflammatory piece of Ivermectin that can help with covid because, apparently, the respiratory issue with covid is not caused by covid directly but rather an overexcited autoimmune response. I'm not a doctor but that's what some doctors on YouTube have said ;)
    • DoreenMichele 5y ago
      Antiinflammatories are generally useful against all kinds of things. Inflammation is a common side effect of infection. I find that answer unsatisfactory. If "it's an anti-inflammatory!" is The Answer, there are lots of antiinflammatories out there.
• _gtly 5y ago
  @dang why was this flagged?
  • guscost 5y ago
    Users with enough karma can flag things they don’t like.
    • oDot 5y ago
      Yes, very unfortunate.
      • dang 5y ago
        That's an illusion; it only seems that way when you judge by specific prominent cases that you care about. Turning off flagging on HN would have the same effect as turning off the immune system in a human body, only faster.
        • oDot 5y ago
          Didn't mean it wasn't useful, just that it has unfortunate side effects
        • cracker-news 5y ago
          Horseshit and you know it. You must see by now, if you have any decency, that HN is a hellhole of idiots masquerading as experts and that anyone half-way intelligent outside of the software world would never stick around here.
      • guscost 5y ago
        I don’t agree, it’s a necessary evil.
  • wrycoder 5y ago
    Thanks to the mods for unflagging this as of 1419 EDT Sat
  • 5y ago
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• seventytwo 5y ago
  Ivermectin is the new hydroxychloroquine.
  • Gwypaas 5y ago
    Not even the new, just haven't been picked on up on HN earlier. The sciency Covid-19 subreddit was all over it last summer when HCQ had been proven ineffective. https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/search/?q=Ivermectin&sort=top&restrict_sr=on&t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/search/?q=Ivermectin&sort=t...
• rkagerer 5y ago
  This is the same active ingredient used to treat heartworm in dogs and kill other types of parasites.
  • andreilys 5y ago
    It’s also been used to treat river blindness in humans, with billions of doses administered over several decades
    • meowface 5y ago
      Both of these are parasites, though. Things that kill parasites don't necessarily kill viruses. It shows that it's probably not that risky to take at certain doses, but it implies nothing about efficacy.
  • nojokes 5y ago
    It has known antiviral properties https://www.nature.com/articles/s41429-020-0336-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41429-020-0336-z
• spadez 5y ago
  List of Ivermectin studies: https://c19ivermectin.com/ https://c19ivermectin.com/ FLCCC Alliance Response to All National and International Health Agency Recommendations Against Ivermectin in COVID-19: https://covid19criticalcare.com/videos-and-press/flccc-releases/flccc-alliance-response-to-all-national-and- https://covid19criticalcare.com/videos-and-press/flccc-relea... international-health-agency-recommendations-against-ivermectin-in-covid-19/ Response to W.H.O s rejection of the studies: https://covid19criticalcare.com/videos-and-press/flccc-releases/flccc-alliance-response-to-all-national-and-international-health-agency-recommendations-against-ivermectin-in-covid-19/ https://covid19criticalcare.com/videos-and-press/flccc-relea... https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/FLCCC-Statement-on-Weak-Guidance-on-Ivermectin-from-WHO-March-31-2021.pdf https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/F...
• gmnash 5y ago
  It's banned on YouTube because of multiple authoritative sources indicating it's not a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19. Here is the FDA's stance: https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19 https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-shoul... Here is the European equivalent of the AMA advising against it's use: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/ema-advises-against-use-ivermectin-prevention-treatment-covid-19-outside-randomised-clinical-trials https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/ema-advises-against-use-iv... Here is an RCT in JAMA finding it ineffective: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777389 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777389 And here is Merck, that sells Ivermectin, but whose vaccine didn’t make it through clinical trials, discouraging the use of Ivermectin for COVID-19: https://www.merck.com/news/merck-statement-on-ivermectin-use-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/ https://www.merck.com/news/merck-statement-on-ivermectin-use... If Ivermectin worked on COVID-19, the manufacturer of Ivermectin that has made no money on vaccines for COVID-19 would probably be pushing it wouldn't they? There have been some studies that found it effective in vitro, but as noted in other comments, at several times the safe dosage in vivo.
  • reedjosh 5y ago
    There's a large body of evidence in the opposite direction as well. I just pulled the following from Bret Weinstein's show notes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSWjl-JOIqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSWjl-JOIqs British Ivermectin Recommendation Development group: https://bird-group.org https://bird-group.org The BIRD Recommendation on the Use of Ivermectin for Covid-19: Executive Summary: https://bird-group.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/bird-executive-summary-1.pdf https://bird-group.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/bird-execu... Carvallo et al 2020. Study of the efficacy and safety of topical ivermectin+ iota-carrageenan in the prophylaxis against COVID-19 in health personnel. J. Biomed. Res. Clin. Investig., 2. https://medicalpressopenaccess.com/upload/1605709669_1007.pdf https://medicalpressopenaccess.com/upload/1605709669_1007.pd... Cobos-Campos et al 2021.Potential use of ivermectin for the treatment and prophylaxis of SARS-CoV-2 infection: Efficacy of ivermectin for SARS-CoV-2. Clin Res Trials, 7: 1-5. https://www.readkong.com/page/potential-use-of-ivermectin-for-the-treatment-and-2189857 https://www.readkong.com/page/potential-use-of-ivermectin-fo... Database of all ivermectin COVID-19 studies. 93 studies, 55 peer reviewed, 56 with results comparing treatment and control groups: https://c19ivermectin.com https://c19ivermectin.com Karale et al 2021. A Meta-analysis of Mortality, Need for ICU admission, Use of Mechanical Ventilation and Adverse Effects with Ivermectin Use in COVID-19 Patients. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2021/05/04/2021.04.30.21256415.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2021/05/04/202... Kory et al 2021. Review of the Emerging Evidence Demonstrating the Efficacy of Ivermectin in the Prophylaxis and Treatment of COVID-19. American Journal of Therapeutics, 28(3): e299: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/ Nardelli et al 2021. Crying wolf in time of Corona: the strange case of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. Is the fear of failure withholding potential life-saving treatment from clinical use?. Signa Vitae, 1: 2. https://oss.signavitae.com/mre-signavitae/article/20210508-344/pdf/3-4%20SV2021022602.pdf https://oss.signavitae.com/mre-signavitae/article/20210508-3... Yagisawa et al 2021. Global trends in clinical studies of ivermectin in COVID-19. The Japanese Journal of Antibiotics, 74: 1. https://www.psychoactif.org/forum/uploads/documents/161/74-1_44-95.pdf https://www.psychoactif.org/forum/uploads/documents/161/74-1...
• hannob 5y ago
  This looks less ridiculous than the last metaanalysis on Ivermectin that was posted here. Still if you look at it there's some reason for caution. Not all of the included studies were RCTs, some were not blinded. If you look at the "Risk of Bias"-Table there are really only three studies that could qualify as high quality. I'm waiting for judgement from medical experts.
  • andreilys 5y ago
    Unfortunately medical experts are not allowed to discuss this in public, so we’re left with back door meetings where Pharma execs will inevitably push outcomes that will be favorable for their bottom line. Who wants to invest billions of dollars into a new vaccine/anti-viral drug only to lose out on all that investment by Ivermectin which will not contribute a single cent to the Pharma execs year-end bonus?
    • belltaco 5y ago
      Merck sells Ivrmectin and recently had their vaccine candidate fail, they might be behind this push for IVR, with all the behind the scenes PR for it and the questionable speciality anonymous websites in this thread.
      • leesalminen 5y ago
        Merck is developing a new anti-viral drug that would be much more profitable than Ivermectin. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-25/merck-mrk-molnupiravir-pill-could-change-the-fight-against-covid https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-03-25/merck-mrk...
    • hannob 5y ago
      > Unfortunately medical experts are not allowed to discuss this in public I've heard and read quite a bunch of them discuss this in public in the past, they must've been unaware that this is illegal. Or maybe it just isn't.
      • 5y ago
• ralph84 5y ago
  Whether ivermectin helps with covid or not, it's certainly not an advertising company's role to censor the debate.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • belltaco 5y ago
    And it's certainly not right wing politicians' and talking heads' role to promote unproven medical treatments and be anti-vaxx to their huge audience, but here we are.
  • takeda 5y ago
    We don't have extensive studies that injecting bleach helps as well. There is a huge liability to those companies if it would end with deaths or health issues ("Facebook only looked for profits and didn't care that people were killed by misinformation") You should not get medical advice from social media, and Facebook is also not the right place to discuss medical research. Ironically few days ago people here commented that HN was linking to a rant on Facebook about performance in Python affected by shared libraries. FB was considered not suitable for that kind of discussion and link was changed to bug database, yet some people don't have problem about discussing medical treatment there.
    • dang 5y ago
      Just to be clear, if we changed a URL from one source to another, that would be rooted in 10+ years of HN moderation practice and would have been about the specific articles, for example we would tend to replace a "rant" with a more substantive/original source. It would imply nothing about FB being "considered not suitable". Plenty of FB articles have been discussed here over the years; though there tend to be issues with login walls and whatnot and I think the community tends to prefer the open web for content.
• throwaway4good 5y ago
  What is this thing with alt-right figures like Bret Weinstein (and others) promoting particular medicines / self-medication through theirs shows? It is weird and cult like - why not just stick to politics?
  • deleted 5y ago
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  • stephc_int13 5y ago
    Why do you think that Bret Weinstein is alt-right? This is contradictory to what I've seen on his Wikipedia page.
  • throwkeep 5y ago
    Speaking of cult like, what is this thing with calling people who are on firmly on the left, like Bret Weinstein and Joe Rogan, alt-right?
  • hosteur 5y ago
    Why makes you think Bret Weinstein is alt right?
    • throwaway4good 5y ago
      I have watched his shows. Intellectual alt right is a quite suitable label for this guy.
      • hosteur 5y ago
        I am genuinely curious to know what made you come to that conclusion? Assuming you mean darkhorse, what episode and what in that episode makes him alt right? Please be specific. If there are multiple examples then just provide a few.
        • throwaway4good 5y ago
          Just browse the latest videos - these are clearly political and they are classical alt-right subjects: anti-vax, lab leak theory, how we are not racists, how we are being censored, something about trans-sexual people, portland riots ...
• reedjosh 5y ago
  Also, and feel free to downvote... > multiple authoritative sources Gross! Authority is the problem. We need to use our own minds. The very idea that an ad tech co is backing an amorphous group of authoritative governmental bodies is repugnant. > And here is Merck, that sells Ivermectin Ivermectin has been out of patent for years--so it is not particularly profitable anyway. The initial claim insinuates that Merck went against its own interest, but there was never much profit to be made from an old and proven safe drug that can be sold by generic manufactures.
  • gmnash 5y ago
    It's impossible to be an expert in every field, particularly those as complicated as medicine. Furthermore, you don't have to rely on authority, I linked to an RCT showing it was ineffective. "Not particularly profitable", which is speculative, is still profitable. I highly doubt any one at Merck is actively working against selling a drug they already manufacture at a profit, but feel free to provide evidence otherwise.
    • isoskeles 5y ago
      Can you explain how the RCT is more useful than the meta-analysis that was posted as the OP?
  • lph 5y ago
    > Authority is the problem. We need to use our own minds. No offense, but that depends on the quality of minds. What you've just said is exactly what Q-Anon proponents say, just before they go on to repeat absolutely baseless conspiracy theories they heard about on YouTube.
• MilnerRoute 5y ago
  I Googled Ivermectin meta-analysis. But instead of finding the article we're discussing now, I found a different meta-analysis. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.21.21257595v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.21.21257595v... It concluded Ivermectin "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." But wait... Before you upvote or downvote me, I want to say this proves something entirely different than what we may think. It proves that there's lots of studies -- some say one thing, some say another. I can produce a study which seems to convincingly prove one side of an issue -- and somebody else can produce a different study which seems to show the opposite.
  • zanethomas 5y ago
    compare to duckduckgo results https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=+Ivermectin+meta-analysis&atb=v126-1&ia=web https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=+Ivermectin+meta-analysis&a...
  • jiofih 5y ago
    Or it proves that meta-analyses are meaningless when you can pick the target studies at will.
  • loceng 5y ago
    The issue I've seen with various studies who claim statistically insignificance when using Ivermectin is because they use too low of a dose and/or don't use it long enough (3 to 5 days instead of 14 days) and/or they don't start using it at first symptoms (in part I've read this can be because can take days for COVID positive tested person to enrol in a study hence giving the virus more time to replicate/take strong hold).
  • 6nf 5y ago
    Google results for Ivermectin is inorganic
  • isolli 5y ago
    This article is a pre-print with severe mistakes (in particular they inverted the results for the treatment and control groups in one of the studies, you can't make this up). Read the comments. It's highly unlikely the piece will be published. Read this peer-reviewed and accepted meta-analysis instead [0]. Conclusion: low- to moderate-certainty evidence of a positive effect depending on the endpoint. Higher certainty would come from higher-powered studies. [0] https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0009446 https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journa...
• mikeytown2 5y ago
  N=1. Me and my 2 year old had covid. My wife started ivermectin and never got sick. Shared bed and sick 2 year old wants mommy. Ivermectin didn't work for me (diarrhea) but my fever went from 102.7 down to 99 12 hours after HQC after 6 days of a slow downward spiral (fever kept going up and up every day). So for me, my take is the drugs absolutely worked.
  • f38zf5vdt 5y ago
    I had a raging case of COVID19, and deep into a 39C fever I began burning offerings and meat and honey to the moon. It was late at night, and I figured maybe the Moon God would be awake. There was no effect on the fever. Once the dawn came, I gyrated wildly in the direction of the sun while burning incense. Within hours, my fever broke and was down to a lukewarm 38C! Now I see that COVID19 is the domain of the Sun God. I was a fool for praying to the moon the whole time. My relatives had COVID19 too. Two were completely asymptomatic and two had moderate disease in a family of 4. Since half of COVID19 cases are asymptomatic, many people think because they're taking foo, it had effect bar against the disease and that is why they aren't sick. But it turned out they're just one of the lucky 1 in 2.
    • dang 5y ago
      Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, especially not on divisive topics. We all know that anecdotes aren't statistical evidence. That doesn't make them offtopic. They're interesting, and they're the lifeblood of conversation. Generally on HN the approach is to trust readers to be able to make their own minds. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20anecdotes%20conversation&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful. Note these ones: "Don't be snarky.", "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.", and "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
• raphlinus 5y ago
  For the curious, reasonably recent discussions from several TWiV episodes on Ivermectin. [3] is quite recent (Jun 9). [4] reviews a study which is mildly encouraging. I think it's fair to say that the jury is still out, and it does deserve more investigation. Fun fact: Vincent Racaniello's wife worked on Ivermectin at Merck, and on a recent livestream (the 6/16 one) he suggested it would be reasonable to take it, especially because it's known to be safe. [1]: https://youtu.be/4hGVeZGfEnU?t=5414 https://youtu.be/4hGVeZGfEnU?t=5414 [2]: https://youtu.be/N0-H28vzOps?t=1452 https://youtu.be/N0-H28vzOps?t=1452 [3]: https://youtu.be/teJ1wXyEf1Q?t=1905 https://youtu.be/teJ1wXyEf1Q?t=1905 [4]: https://youtu.be/kz1Ja5zH1n8?t=1720 https://youtu.be/kz1Ja5zH1n8?t=1720
  • raphlinus 5y ago
    Another great review from the last couple weeks, by Derek Lowe: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/06/07/ivermectin-as-a-covid-19-therapy https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/06/07/iv... Same tl;dr. It's possible it works, but the evidence for it is not strong.
  • jiofih 5y ago
    Known to be safe as in “you may get hepatitis”.
    • AndrewBissell 5y ago
      The best way to prevent this from happening would be to allow doctors to prescribe it, so people don't screw up the dose by buying it from veterinary supply stores. You may get myocarditis from the vaccines, but that doesn't stop anyone from calling them "safe."
      • PragmaticPulp 5y ago
        Doctors can prescribe it off-label. At least in the United States.
• christmm 5y ago
  Discussions about ivermectin must be banned from youtube. It smells of Trump too much. Any scientific dissent, even justified, should not be tolerated.
  • dang 5y ago
    Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. We're trying for a different sort of internet here, if possible. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
• turnerc 5y ago
  I highly recommend Dr. John Campbell video's on the Ivermectin topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0-90kvoQac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0-90kvoQac https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLWQtT7dHGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLWQtT7dHGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2ju5v4TAaQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2ju5v4TAaQ
• f38zf5vdt 5y ago
  Ivermectin has to be one, presumptuously, of the most ridiculous foreign PSYOP interventions in recent memory. I believe that somewhere there's a bet going on for how many Westerners they can get taking dog medication thinking it makes them immune to COVID19. We already have a cure! In most countries, it's even _free_! And yet I read paranoid blogs online from conspiracy theorists who refuse a vaccine but guzzle down veterinary medication user to treat heartworm and digestive parasites. Pound me with downvotes, I'll hold my breath until I see a large scale randomized double-blind trial.
  • dang 5y ago
    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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27563671). If you pull a trick like that again, we will ban you.
    • f38zf5vdt 5y ago
      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/10.1101/2021.05.21.21257595v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.21.21257595v... I would prefer to see a single RCT with at least a few thousand patients, but the early results aren't looking positive. It's a repeat of HCQ-AZ and that people are lending credence to RCTs with double digit cohorts is what causes people to rush out and eat medications intended for dogs. It _actively promotes harm to individuals who take medications for no reason, which have side effects_. I would prefer that HN not allow discussion of what appears to be medicine advice without a basis in clinical results.
      • selimthegrim 5y ago
• christmm 5y ago
  Who are the scientists that instructed YouTube to take down the "Bret Weinstein and Pierre Kory" video?
  • ds206 5y ago
    Link to the censored video: https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f/COVID-Ivermectin-and-the-Crime-of-the-Century-DarkHorse-Podcast-with-Pierre-Kory-Bret-Weinstein https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f/COVID-Ivermectin-and-the...
• beervirus 5y ago
  Let’s not forget the censorship of the lab leak hypothesis. A few months ago it was a racist theory that constituted thoughtcrime and couldn’t be mentioned, and now the mainstream thinking is that it’s the most likely explanation.
  • Wistar 5y ago
    I remember it differently as not a "lab leak hypothesis" but a claim that the virus was not from nature but was a man-made virus, to wit: "I can present solid scientific evidence to our audience that this virus, COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 virus, actually is not from nature. It is a man-made virus created in the lab." — Dr. Li-Meng Yan on the Tucker Carlson show.
    • blumomo 5y ago
      That could be what you call a „limited hangout“. You only admit what you can’t hide any longer. Firstly it was a no-go to claim it came from the lab. „It came from a wet market“ was the only truth you were allowed to claim without getting censored. Now that Fauci‘s emails are visible, it becomes more evident that the origin is a lab. Now you are only allowed to claim that it accidentally escaped from a lab. What’s next? Maybe we will see new evidence coming out that it was created and released on purpose. Let’s wait and see what we will be allowed to say then on social media.
      • emn13 5y ago
        Where exactly is this positive evidence it leaked from the Wuhan lab - and not just emails that considered the possibility it might have?
        • Wistar 5y ago
          Nowhere, man.
        • plebianRube 5y ago
          There is no 'smoking gun' but you will never see one without the fog of propaganda cast over it. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-inside-the-fight-to-uncover-covid-19s-origins https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/the-lab-leak-theory-...
• akimball 5y ago
  Given the dose response, it seems trials should be done on nebulized ivermectin for serious cases. But who would pay for them?
• FriendlyNormie 5y ago
  You belong in a coffin.
• atum47 5y ago
  I was living in São Paulo when the pandemic started, so when I went into lock down mode, it made no sense for me to stay in SP, since the cases over there was high (compared to the small city my parents live), so I went to stay with my parents. Fast forward 6 months the company I was working for went full remote, new contracts and everything. So I decided to terminate my rent contract for the condo I was pay (but not living in) in SP. So, in the middle of the pandemic I had to go to SP to get my stuff and return the apartment. As prevention I took a lot of Vitamin C (with zinc) and Ivermectin. My rationale was: every one needs to take vermin medicine once a year, so why not Ivermectin, who some people are saying that is showing some results in the prevention and treatment of the COVID? So I took the recommend dose for my weight and went on my way. I did take care of my self with the default stuff as well, mask, alcohol for the hands, staying away from people... Glad to say that I did not contract the disease. At least I did not have any symptoms and wasn't sick.
• coliveira 5y ago
  If Ivermectin saved anyone, Brazil wouldn't be hotbed for COVID that it is right now. Doctors are prescribing Ivermectin to pretty much anyone who arrives with any signs that appear to be COVID-related. Some people are even taking it by themselves as a form of "prevention". It has not worked as the numbers clearly show.
  • xikrib 5y ago
    It's a treatment, not a cure
  • loceng 5y ago
    When the numbers are accurately being tracked it seems to be the opposite to what you say.
  • deleted 5y ago
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• deleted 5y ago
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• somewhereoutth 5y ago
  I present this post, the fact that it made the front page, and many of the comments on it, as evidence that the US is sliding into idiocy.
  • xanaxagoras 5y ago
    If your evidence were instead your own comment, I would whole heartedly agree.
• deleted 5y ago
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• AzzieElbab 5y ago
  It doesn’t even matter whether either hcq/zinc and ivermectin 100% effective or even work at all. We still have no options for early treatment, and therefore both/either should have been used heavily
  • cesarb 5y ago
    > It doesn’t even matter whether either hcq/zinc and ivermectin 100% effective or even work at all. There were no alternatives for early treatment, and therefore both/either should have been used heavily The possible outcomes are not only in the range between "100% effective" and "not work at all"; beyond that point on the line there's also "it's harmful", and it's known that these drugs do have negative side effects (in fact, IIRC one of the reasons for the early hope that HCQ would work was that its harmful side effects were already known, and less harmful than the then observed effects of the disease it was supposed to treat). Worse, "using heavily" a drug increases the chance and severity of its side effects. And even for "not work at all", there's still a harmful effect, in that people can delay or avoid seeking more effective treatments, believing that whatever they're taking would work.
    • AzzieElbab 5y ago
      This is wrong on both points 1 - both drugs are safer than Tylenol, 2 - you can’t seek a more effective treatment as they do not exist. Well, there is remdisvir which is only available in the US and actually is dangerous and unproven
• RebelisTech 5y ago
  There is nothing more "anti-science" than censorship. Science is about free and open discussions.
• gfodor 5y ago
  - ivermectin works - ivermectin might work - we should censor people suggesting ivermectin might work Three different claims. Notice people talking about them all as if they were the same claim.
  • ALittleLight 5y ago
    I think censoring people responsibly discussing Ivermectin is deplorable. It might be a good idea to censor people advocating for using horse-Ivermectin, or selling fake Ivermectin, but there is no excuse for censoring a reasoned discussion of the facts. I am ambivalent about whether or not it does work. I have read articles that make it seem promising and I have read articles that suggest it does very little or nothing. Not sure how to come to a conclusion there. However, everything I have read does seem to agree that it is safe to take and cheap so it certainly seems reasonable to try.
• The_rationalist 5y ago
  Or just use thymalin.. It's really sad how groundbreaking scientific knowledge keeps being niche.
• The_rationalist 5y ago
  Why could explain Ivermectin effectiveness pharmacologically?
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• maesij 5y ago
  One thing that's not a conspiracy, people are getting censored for discussing Ivermectin with respect to Covid-19 treatment. It's not surprising that foments distrust. Tech should never have gotten into the business of censoring. It seems like a good way to get regulated.
• thoughty 5y ago
  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.
• drtournier 5y ago
  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.
  • vfclists 5y ago
    > instead of promoting practices and technologies that showed undeniable success in the real world What are the practices and technologies that showed undeniable success in the real world. What is the "real world"? Does anyone have to take your scientific credentials seriously when you make a "scientific" argument using the term "the real world"? Is there some "alternate unreal world" where these trials were carried out?
    • drtournier 5y ago
      Thanks for the relevant comment - it must be intriguing for anyone who is not used with hearing about the “real world evidence” term in medical sciences. Usually the highest level of evidence is attributed to randomized controlled trial studies. As the name says, they are performed in a high level of control, to evaluate in a more “insulated” way, the effects of a drug/intervention in a given outcome (reduce death, cure a disease, etc). Unfortunately, we can’t always relate these academic studies with the “real world”, due to an almost infinite number of confounding variables, or in the worst case scenario, if a scientist is manipulating the experiment environment (e.g. selecting a patient population with more likelihood for the desired effect). This is one of the reasons why you will see with increasing frequency the terms “Real World Evidence (RWE) study” in reputable journals, such as the New England Journal of Medicine, or The Lancet. These studies occur taking data from epidemiological surveillance, or patient medical records, and usually do a “reality check” on data found in these trials. A lot of these RWE studies are famous to find problems that trials missed. Here is a classic example https://thalidomide.ca/en/what-is-thalidomide/ https://thalidomide.ca/en/what-is-thalidomide/
• rburhum 5y ago
  Peru is the country with the most deaths per capita in the world. It also had a government-sponsored program to give away free Ivermectin most of last year. The region/state with the highest death count in Peru you ask? Ica. The city with the highest death count? Chincha (in Ica). It is also the city and state with the highest use of Ivermectin - mainly because the lab that sold it and the veterinarian that owns that company and promoted its use (millions spent here), lives there. It did not matter that Merck (the lab that discovered Ivermectin), said to not use it for COVID. Tons of money made and people died. I have never cussed in HNs, but with all due respect F** tha* shi*!
• seasily 5y ago
  If we all used generics to treat disease, how would pharma companies make tens of billions on vaccines and boosters and re-boosters, market less-effective drugs with five-figure price tags, and who would repay YouTube and Twitter for the fortune they make on pharma advertising? Pharma profits, big tech profits, and nurse tik-toks must take priority over disease prevention.
• dm808 5y ago
  Here is an overview of the issue, with a timeline of events related to ivermectin, from April 2020 to March 2021. http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.13705.36966 http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.13705.36966 Earlier developments are described here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348077948 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348077948
• spacial 5y ago
  This is how I picture anybody who brings HCQ and Ivermectin to "treat" covid: https://twitter.com/corprteUnicorn/status/1406762096512147461 https://twitter.com/corprteUnicorn/status/140676209651214746... ><