4 ms·

They chose 14 studies of more than 50 available. Their method for screening studies looks biased towards finding an inconclusive result. Bear in mind that 'bia

They chose 14 studies of more than 50 available. Their method for screening studies looks biased towards finding an inconclusive result. Bear in mind that 'bias' with regard to ivermectin is less likely to come from doctors than it is pharma companies. Doctors stand to gain nothing from the efficacy of ivermectin since it's a generic drug on the market since 1987. Pharma companies have a lot to lose if it's proven effective. To control for bias one ought to look at larger sample sizes. And each time that happens there's a significant result.

geofft 5y ago
Assuming it works, you have to take ivermectin constantly, and the pro-ivermectin studies generally only say that it reduces mortality / severe outcomes, not thy it significantly prevents infection or transmission. So if the world goes the ivermectin route, there's still a lot of value in the vaccines, and until the virus is eradicated we have to keep taking ivermectin. This is an obvious financial win to any slightly competent evil pharmaceutical - e.g., make some small chemical variant of ivermectin, patent it, and p-hack a bit. Or just manufacture the generic and sell lots of it; plenty of companies have a good business selling aspirin, which literally grows on trees. I'm not buying the "big pharma is trying to censor it" angle. Also, like any conspiracy theory, it requires a whole lot of people to be perfectly loyal and silent. If ivermectin is actually effective, some pharma exec with family in a part of the world with poor vaccine access is going to push for it.
- tmn 5y ago
  Regarding your last sentence, 'If ivermectin is actually effective.." Pharma execs wouldn't have to push for it? They would just tell their family member to take it. I know anecdotes are not medical studies, but I know two people who caught covid, were feeling relatively 'incapacitated'. They were prescribed ivermectin by a doctor I know personally. They took it and started getting significantly better very quickly. Just anecdotes, but it's real life data point for me (high confidence). Not for you as you cannot know if I'm telling the truth unfortunately.
  - geofft 5y ago
    What I mean is that it would be hard to collectively keep a secret that ivermectin works. Your acquaintance's doctor happened to prescribe it - but I'm guessing most doctors would not. So this pharma exec (or researcher, or whomever) would need to tell their family to go find a doctor willing to prescribe it, or would send information to the doctor to convince them to prescribe it, or something. And that would leak. Also I'm mostly referencing the idea, which I believe I've seen in some of these papers, that people should take ivermectin on an ongoing basis to protect against getting infected in the first place. If I were a pharma exec who knew that ivermectin secretly worked, I wouldn't want my family to get sick at all if I could help it - I'm pretty sure no paper is claiming it's 100% effective, it just reduces the chance of poor outcomes. So I'd have to tell them to find a doctor willing to prescribe ivermectin even before they're sick, and that would definitely leak.
    - tmn 5y ago
      So I hope I'm not talking past you, my perspective on the situation seems to somewhat oppose your intuition. Ivermectin is not a tightly kept secret. It has just been suppressed in the mainstream channels. Bret Weinstein has discussed this. https://covid19criticalcare.com/guide-for-this-website/take-action-and-share-the-infos-with-your-doctor/ https://covid19criticalcare.com/guide-for-this-website/take-... That website lists doctors who will hotline you a prescription. Maybe it's harder outside the US, but I know you can get off branded forms of it (perhaps those are worth less confident in?) I would argue the secret isn't being kept. It just circulates in one silo and not all silos of our reality schism.
      - Phaedor 5y ago
        Like how hydroxychloroquine was suppressed in mainstream channels? Like ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine also had some initial positive studies, but when large scale studies were done it was shown to actually cause more deaths than not taking it. Brett Weinstein has made a lot of dubious claims so I am skeptical to what he says. He at one point has claimed that Ivermectin is 100% effective when taking prophylactically based on a single study that has received a lot of criticism for having numbers that dont make sense. To me it seems that he needs to be more critical of the sources he uses.

geofft 5y ago

Assuming it works, you have to take ivermectin constantly, and the pro-ivermectin studies generally only say that it reduces mortality / severe outcomes, not thy it significantly prevents infection or transmission. So if the world goes the ivermectin route, there's still a lot of value in the vaccines, and until the virus is eradicated we have to keep taking ivermectin. This is an obvious financial win to any slightly competent evil pharmaceutical - e.g., make some small chemical variant of ivermectin, patent it, and p-hack a bit. Or just manufacture the generic and sell lots of it; plenty of companies have a good business selling aspirin, which literally grows on trees. I'm not buying the "big pharma is trying to censor it" angle. Also, like any conspiracy theory, it requires a whole lot of people to be perfectly loyal and silent. If ivermectin is actually effective, some pharma exec with family in a part of the world with poor vaccine access is going to push for it.

tmn 5y ago
Regarding your last sentence, 'If ivermectin is actually effective.." Pharma execs wouldn't have to push for it? They would just tell their family member to take it. I know anecdotes are not medical studies, but I know two people who caught covid, were feeling relatively 'incapacitated'. They were prescribed ivermectin by a doctor I know personally. They took it and started getting significantly better very quickly. Just anecdotes, but it's real life data point for me (high confidence). Not for you as you cannot know if I'm telling the truth unfortunately.
- geofft 5y ago
  What I mean is that it would be hard to collectively keep a secret that ivermectin works. Your acquaintance's doctor happened to prescribe it - but I'm guessing most doctors would not. So this pharma exec (or researcher, or whomever) would need to tell their family to go find a doctor willing to prescribe it, or would send information to the doctor to convince them to prescribe it, or something. And that would leak. Also I'm mostly referencing the idea, which I believe I've seen in some of these papers, that people should take ivermectin on an ongoing basis to protect against getting infected in the first place. If I were a pharma exec who knew that ivermectin secretly worked, I wouldn't want my family to get sick at all if I could help it - I'm pretty sure no paper is claiming it's 100% effective, it just reduces the chance of poor outcomes. So I'd have to tell them to find a doctor willing to prescribe ivermectin even before they're sick, and that would definitely leak.
  - tmn 5y ago
    So I hope I'm not talking past you, my perspective on the situation seems to somewhat oppose your intuition. Ivermectin is not a tightly kept secret. It has just been suppressed in the mainstream channels. Bret Weinstein has discussed this. https://covid19criticalcare.com/guide-for-this-website/take-action-and-share-the-infos-with-your-doctor/ https://covid19criticalcare.com/guide-for-this-website/take-... That website lists doctors who will hotline you a prescription. Maybe it's harder outside the US, but I know you can get off branded forms of it (perhaps those are worth less confident in?) I would argue the secret isn't being kept. It just circulates in one silo and not all silos of our reality schism.
    - Phaedor 5y ago
      Like how hydroxychloroquine was suppressed in mainstream channels? Like ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine also had some initial positive studies, but when large scale studies were done it was shown to actually cause more deaths than not taking it. Brett Weinstein has made a lot of dubious claims so I am skeptical to what he says. He at one point has claimed that Ivermectin is 100% effective when taking prophylactically based on a single study that has received a lot of criticism for having numbers that dont make sense. To me it seems that he needs to be more critical of the sources he uses.