8 ms·

What does that mean for the Covid vaccines?

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
Nothing, I believe. Every drug approval isn't suspect. Just the ones where pharma lobbyists get to spend the power they bought thru beefy campaign contributions. Also - Covid vaccines were under intense public and medical scrutiny, during every bit of their development. Good government and transparency tend to go together.
seriousquestion 5y ago
Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. Big pharma has huge influence in the government. The vaccines are authorized under emergency use, which is predicated on not having alternatives. That there is a campaign to discredit cheap off patent alternatives (Ivermectin) is at least concerning.
- khuey 5y ago
  There's a "campaign to discredit cheap off patent alternatives" because they don't actually work and people are going out and poisoning themselves with pills made for horses.
  - seriousquestion 5y ago
    Taking a horse quantity of any drug is unwise, even one that won the 2015 Nobel Prize (Ivermectin). It still needs large scale RCTs for Covid-19 use, but there are some small trials that at least indicate it should be taken seriously and not outright discredited and smeared. "Meta-analysis of randomized trials of ivermectin to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection" - "there was a 56% reduction in mortality; p=0.004 .. with favorable clinical recovery and reduced hospitalization." https://academic.oup.com/ofid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ofid/ofab358/6316214 https://academic.oup.com/ofid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/of... "Ivermectin was associated with decreased mortality in patients with COVID-19... The certainty of evidence for mortality reduction was low." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187140212100206X?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187140212...
    - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
      We recently learn of strong indicators that the Ivermectin studies were entirely fabricated, much of it was content that was plagiarized from other studies. https://grftr.news/why-was-a-major-study-on-ivermectin-for-covid-19-just-retracted/ https://grftr.news/why-was-a-major-study-on-ivermectin-for-c... If a long life has taught me anything, it's that puzzlingly loud claims of conspiracy are often generated noise to conceal the fact that something simply isn't true.
      - swader999 5y ago
        One bad study that didn't even get past preprint? Try the ones here from reputable journals. https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/ https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/
    - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
      Of course. Veterinary pharmaceuticals have very different manufacturing standards, approvals, and dosages. It's unfortunate that so many have been pushed into this path by authoritarians who have in under a year turned the medical establishment's credibility into a pile of dust.
    - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
      I see a choice of going down the Invermectin rabbit-hole where the framing and presentation feels a lot like an MLM campaign (except saturated w/ conspiracy) - or walking into a local store and getting sound ~95% efficacy w/ a pair of free Moderna shots. The latter really seems more compelling to me.
      - seriousquestion 5y ago
        These shots are not FDA approved yet. Usually that's compelling enough to look for and consider alternatives. Especially existing cheap off patent drugs that have been used billions of times over the course of decades and recently won the Nobel Prize. If that plus many doctors and small trials indicate promise with Covid-19, we should take that seriously. That's all. "The Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine is a vaccine and may prevent you from getting COVID-19. There is no U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19." https://www.fda.gov/media/144638/download https://www.fda.gov/media/144638/download None of this is to say that the vaccines aren't safe or shouldn't be used. They should be, especially for those at risk. The vaccines may well be better than Ivermectin and so far it appears that way. But there is some nuance here and it's valid if people want an alternative until the shots are FDA approved and have long term data. Many are not engaging in critical thinking when it comes to this issue and suddenly have complete trust of big pharma. Which I find bizarre.
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    Did you have the same amount of confidence in your opinion when the lab leak theory was forbidden to discuss? If people are going to farm stores for medicine, that's a reflection on the absolutely deplorable state of credibility that the medical establishment has earned themselves over the past year. Doing more of the same isn't going to magically make trust in authority reappear, it's going to erode it even more.
  - lawnchair_larry 5y ago
    No, you need to update your knowledge on that topic.
- phonypc 5y ago
  Even if ivermectin were as effective as some people would like to believe, and widely used for COVID, it wouldn't be an alternative to the vaccines in the sense of preventing their emergency use authorization.
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    Perhaps but being honest instead of resorting to the smear tactics of the past year would help start rebuilding the ruins of the medical establishment's credibility. What good is it to keep pushing out disinformation "for the public's own good" when it results in more and more people looking to alternative (and often very dubious) sources of medical advice? What we need is a policy of absolute honesty with a one-strike-and-your-out-forever punishment for any health authority that engages in propaganda, even if they had good intentions. Credibility matters. It matters a lot. All of these coy little word games and character assassinations being conducted in the name of the common good is achieving the exact opposite result. As it stands now, the credibility of the medical community might be forever tarnished especially since there appears to be no attempt to get it back but rather endless doubling downs on the slime tactics that should be to exclusive province of political campaign directors and used car salesmen.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      > What we need is a policy of absolute honesty with a one-strike-and-your-out-forever punishment for any health authority that engages in propaganda, even if they had good intentions. Won't work, unless there are multiple health authorities – but the average person isn't going to keep track of the reputation of multiple small health authorities, so the authorities will have comparatively less reputation at stake. You are onto something, though. Consider fleshing it out a bit before reading what other people are talking about. (ROT13: cerqvpgvba-onfrq zrqvpvar)
    - mcguire 5y ago
      "All of these coy little word games and character assassinations being conducted in the name of the common good is achieving the exact opposite result." You aren't kidding. That whole hydroxychloroquine thing was a mess.
- pjc50 5y ago
  Ivermectin is not and cannot be a vaccine. Even the people promoting it only claim an improvement in symptoms. And I've not seen an explanation of how it's alleged to work?
pjc50 5y ago
A lot of simultaneous trials have been run globally, and the only contra indication so far seems to be a slight clot risk with AstraZeneca. You might be able to buy off the FDA, but it's a lot more work to buy off all the regulatory authorities of the world, at short notice.
- forcry 5y ago
  >You might be able to buy off the FDA, but it's a lot more work to buy off all the regulatory authorities of the world, at short notice. That is kind of naive. Because you don't buy off FDA, you keep it on your payroll. If you don't already have it on your pay roll, then you make deals with someone who already have it on their payroll. Is that so hard to see?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- forcry 5y ago
  >A lot of simultaneous trials have been run globally.. Where can I read about all these studies, indvidually, say for example, for Moderna vaccine?
rsynnott 5y ago
Not a lot. Notably, phase 3 trials of the various covid vaccines generally show that they work, and regulators have been reluctant to approve vaccines that appear to only marginally work (in fact, regulators have gotten stricter about this; in 2020 there was the general expectation that a vaccine that was 50% effective would work, but in practice a number of candidates hitting that sort of level have not gone forward, because the alternatives are so much more effective).

Nothing, I believe. Every drug approval isn't suspect. Just the ones where pharma lobbyists get to spend the power they bought thru beefy campaign contributions. Also - Covid vaccines were under intense public and medical scrutiny, during every bit of their development. Good government and transparency tend to go together.

seriousquestion 5y ago

Maybe nothing, maybe a lot. Big pharma has huge influence in the government. The vaccines are authorized under emergency use, which is predicated on not having alternatives. That there is a campaign to discredit cheap off patent alternatives (Ivermectin) is at least concerning.

khuey 5y ago
There's a "campaign to discredit cheap off patent alternatives" because they don't actually work and people are going out and poisoning themselves with pills made for horses.
- seriousquestion 5y ago
  Taking a horse quantity of any drug is unwise, even one that won the 2015 Nobel Prize (Ivermectin). It still needs large scale RCTs for Covid-19 use, but there are some small trials that at least indicate it should be taken seriously and not outright discredited and smeared. "Meta-analysis of randomized trials of ivermectin to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection" - "there was a 56% reduction in mortality; p=0.004 .. with favorable clinical recovery and reduced hospitalization." https://academic.oup.com/ofid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ofid/ofab358/6316214 https://academic.oup.com/ofid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/of... "Ivermectin was associated with decreased mortality in patients with COVID-19... The certainty of evidence for mortality reduction was low." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187140212100206X?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S187140212...
  - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
    We recently learn of strong indicators that the Ivermectin studies were entirely fabricated, much of it was content that was plagiarized from other studies. https://grftr.news/why-was-a-major-study-on-ivermectin-for-covid-19-just-retracted/ https://grftr.news/why-was-a-major-study-on-ivermectin-for-c... If a long life has taught me anything, it's that puzzlingly loud claims of conspiracy are often generated noise to conceal the fact that something simply isn't true.
    - swader999 5y ago
      One bad study that didn't even get past preprint? Try the ones here from reputable journals. https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/ https://covid19criticalcare.com/ivermectin-in-covid-19/
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    Of course. Veterinary pharmaceuticals have very different manufacturing standards, approvals, and dosages. It's unfortunate that so many have been pushed into this path by authoritarians who have in under a year turned the medical establishment's credibility into a pile of dust.
  - WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
    I see a choice of going down the Invermectin rabbit-hole where the framing and presentation feels a lot like an MLM campaign (except saturated w/ conspiracy) - or walking into a local store and getting sound ~95% efficacy w/ a pair of free Moderna shots. The latter really seems more compelling to me.
    - seriousquestion 5y ago
      These shots are not FDA approved yet. Usually that's compelling enough to look for and consider alternatives. Especially existing cheap off patent drugs that have been used billions of times over the course of decades and recently won the Nobel Prize. If that plus many doctors and small trials indicate promise with Covid-19, we should take that seriously. That's all. "The Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine is a vaccine and may prevent you from getting COVID-19. There is no U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19." https://www.fda.gov/media/144638/download https://www.fda.gov/media/144638/download None of this is to say that the vaccines aren't safe or shouldn't be used. They should be, especially for those at risk. The vaccines may well be better than Ivermectin and so far it appears that way. But there is some nuance here and it's valid if people want an alternative until the shots are FDA approved and have long term data. Many are not engaging in critical thinking when it comes to this issue and suddenly have complete trust of big pharma. Which I find bizarre.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Did you have the same amount of confidence in your opinion when the lab leak theory was forbidden to discuss? If people are going to farm stores for medicine, that's a reflection on the absolutely deplorable state of credibility that the medical establishment has earned themselves over the past year. Doing more of the same isn't going to magically make trust in authority reappear, it's going to erode it even more.
- lawnchair_larry 5y ago
  No, you need to update your knowledge on that topic.
phonypc 5y ago
Even if ivermectin were as effective as some people would like to believe, and widely used for COVID, it wouldn't be an alternative to the vaccines in the sense of preventing their emergency use authorization.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Perhaps but being honest instead of resorting to the smear tactics of the past year would help start rebuilding the ruins of the medical establishment's credibility. What good is it to keep pushing out disinformation "for the public's own good" when it results in more and more people looking to alternative (and often very dubious) sources of medical advice? What we need is a policy of absolute honesty with a one-strike-and-your-out-forever punishment for any health authority that engages in propaganda, even if they had good intentions. Credibility matters. It matters a lot. All of these coy little word games and character assassinations being conducted in the name of the common good is achieving the exact opposite result. As it stands now, the credibility of the medical community might be forever tarnished especially since there appears to be no attempt to get it back but rather endless doubling downs on the slime tactics that should be to exclusive province of political campaign directors and used car salesmen.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    > What we need is a policy of absolute honesty with a one-strike-and-your-out-forever punishment for any health authority that engages in propaganda, even if they had good intentions. Won't work, unless there are multiple health authorities – but the average person isn't going to keep track of the reputation of multiple small health authorities, so the authorities will have comparatively less reputation at stake. You are onto something, though. Consider fleshing it out a bit before reading what other people are talking about. (ROT13: cerqvpgvba-onfrq zrqvpvar)
  - mcguire 5y ago
    "All of these coy little word games and character assassinations being conducted in the name of the common good is achieving the exact opposite result." You aren't kidding. That whole hydroxychloroquine thing was a mess.
pjc50 5y ago
Ivermectin is not and cannot be a vaccine. Even the people promoting it only claim an improvement in symptoms. And I've not seen an explanation of how it's alleged to work?

pjc50 5y ago

A lot of simultaneous trials have been run globally, and the only contra indication so far seems to be a slight clot risk with AstraZeneca. You might be able to buy off the FDA, but it's a lot more work to buy off all the regulatory authorities of the world, at short notice.

forcry 5y ago
>You might be able to buy off the FDA, but it's a lot more work to buy off all the regulatory authorities of the world, at short notice. That is kind of naive. Because you don't buy off FDA, you keep it on your payroll. If you don't already have it on your pay roll, then you make deals with someone who already have it on their payroll. Is that so hard to see?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
forcry 5y ago
>A lot of simultaneous trials have been run globally.. Where can I read about all these studies, indvidually, say for example, for Moderna vaccine?

rsynnott 5y ago

Not a lot. Notably, phase 3 trials of the various covid vaccines generally show that they work, and regulators have been reluctant to approve vaccines that appear to only marginally work (in fact, regulators have gotten stricter about this; in 2020 there was the general expectation that a vaccine that was 50% effective would work, but in practice a number of candidates hitting that sort of level have not gone forward, because the alternatives are so much more effective).