5 ms·

I think everyone (who is reasonable) agrees the vaccine is the most effective tool we have against covid based on current scientific studies However this artic

by dfdz 5y ago

I think everyone (who is reasonable) agrees the vaccine is the most effective tool we have against covid based on current scientific studies However this article about Ivermectin is not well reasoned: > As infection rates soared, some people were taking excessively high doses of the medicine every day, hoping to stave off COVID-19, but in a few rare cases that move prompted liver failure. >Other patients were unknowingly given the "kit" drugs by doctors in private hospitals instead of more standard treatments — and some of them died. These quotes from the article don’t support … anything. People had Covid, they took a treatment, but some died? Really? Could they at least pretend to use some statistics or even an antidotal control group?

rargramble 5y ago
No, because that goes against the narrative of demonizing ivermectin as some sort of dangerous drug. There's a reason all these outlets have been pushing the idea that it's a "horse dewormer."
- oblio 5y ago
  What's the angle, though. Cui bono?
  - jbotz 5y ago
    It's cheap? No US-based pharma corps are reaping big profits from it? Btw., I live in Brazil, and I went with one of my daughters to see a GP a few days ago because she had symptoms of respiratory illness and was worried it might be Covid (she had had recent contact with peers who afterward tested positive). The physician told her to get a test, and if it were positive (it wasn't) she should take Vitamin C, N-acytilcholine, Ivermectin, and Hydroxychloroquine. I'm not saying that I think this makes sense, just reporting what a Brazilian physician said 5 days ago. I also want to add that I'm fairly convinced that Ivermectin is probably useless for Covid, but I raise livestock and am a big fan of Ivermectin as a medication of first resort for my animals, and in some cases for ourselves as well... long before Covid I've taken Ivermectin for diverse parasitic infections with good results and no adverse effects.
    - oblio 5y ago
      Vaccines are cheap.
    - vcoelho 5y ago
      Once everyone starts taking it preemptively for covid, would it still be cheap?
simtel20 5y ago
Clinics distributed a box of pills with no proven efficacy for the SARS CoV-2 virus, but with significant downsides, and with no tracking. This was not a controlled experiment, this was negligent homicide, recklessly endangering a population by abusing their misplaced faith in careless medical and pseudo-medical "professionals".
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  “Negligent homicide” is hyperbole. The medication itself is safe, safer than paracetamol / acetaminophen. If you are saying it gave too many people false hope and they died from Covid, isn’t that the problem everywhere else without false hope? Are deaths in Australia “better” than deaths in Brazil because Ozzies didn’t attempt the same treatment? Does ivermectin not function extremely well as a protease inhibitor? It probably doesn’t work anything for Covid, but it scientifically can prevent some viral binding despite that not being it’s primary function. So making an educated guess wrong is one thing, having people abuse pills is another, and killing people unintentionally through criminal actions is another still. Be rationale and reasonable. Because going overboard on accusations isn’t helping anyone nor adding to any scientific discussion.
  - IntrepidWorm 5y ago
    To be clear- many of the cases of serious injury or death were people taking wildly high doses of ivermectin, beyond any reasonable dosage. Ivermectin does have some safe use cases for human prescription: there is no acceptable evidence that it is effective in the least for treating or preventing Covid. https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-100956/v4 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-100956/v4 Much of the buzz was generated by the above preprint study, now retracted for some serious concerns that large portions were plagiarized and cherry-picked, and in some instances fabricated completely. https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/93658 https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/9365... One of the problems with ivermectin is that it is widely available and cheap. This is great if you are trying to treat river blindness or prevent your horse from contracting worms, but terrible when a deeply flawed (yet widely cited) purports it to be a miracle cure.
ciconia 5y ago
> I think everyone (who is reasonable) agrees the vaccine is the most effective tool we have against covid based on current scientific studies. Vaccination is perhaps the best solution in the short term, but to me it seems that preventive public health measures might be more effective over the long term. We know that the severe cases mostly happen to people who are already medically vulnerable (overweight, diabetic, cardiovascular disease etc). Governments could have used the last two years to execute on policies to reduce these chronic diseases: better food, better air quality, better water quality, a less stressful lifestyle. High blood pressure, high blood sugar, air pollution and obesity (not to mention smoking) are responsible for far more deaths than Covid-19 [1]. In addition, being exposed to any of those conditions is a risk factor for Covid-19. Logically, if we reduce the risk factors we can reduce both Covid-19 deaths and non-Covid-19 deaths! [1] https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution#air-pollution-is-responsible-for-5-million-deaths-each-year https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution#air-pollution-is-re...
- bigodbiel 5y ago
  >air quality And that’s the reason why covid is still “not airborne”, despite the fact that, semantics aside, it’s anything but. The whole issue has become over politicized and academia has let itself take center stage of public policy. So now we have this fixation on pharmaceutical intervention, as it could have been some miracle panacea. The more time passes, the less reasonable it is sounding and the more the same academia turned public policy maker is doubling down on them.
- javagram 5y ago
  > Governments could have used the last two years to execute on policies to reduce these chronic diseases: better food, better air quality, better water quality, a less stressful lifestyle. Governments have been working on these problems for decades already. Food/obesity is only getting worse in rich countries, air quality and water quality have seen marked improvements over the last half-century from lead reduction, decommissioning coal plants, emissions regulations for cars etc. However expecting government to dramatically reduce the number of overweight people suffering from diabetes in just 2 years without extreme authoritarian measures (e.g. concentration camp where they monitor your food intake) is pretty much just fantasy. Many different methods have been tried all over the world like education, food labeling, soda taxes, etc. and people continue to be fat when they can access and freely buy modern foods. The nice thing about a vaccine is that it’s far easier and cheaper to use and deploy than any of these other improvements. A vaccine costs $1 to $100 per person, while transitioning the entire economy to solar, wind, and nuclear power within a few years to improve air quality would cost what, $10,000s per person? If even possible at all.

by dfdz 5y ago

rargramble 5y ago

No, because that goes against the narrative of demonizing ivermectin as some sort of dangerous drug. There's a reason all these outlets have been pushing the idea that it's a "horse dewormer."

oblio 5y ago
What's the angle, though. Cui bono?
- jbotz 5y ago
  It's cheap? No US-based pharma corps are reaping big profits from it? Btw., I live in Brazil, and I went with one of my daughters to see a GP a few days ago because she had symptoms of respiratory illness and was worried it might be Covid (she had had recent contact with peers who afterward tested positive). The physician told her to get a test, and if it were positive (it wasn't) she should take Vitamin C, N-acytilcholine, Ivermectin, and Hydroxychloroquine. I'm not saying that I think this makes sense, just reporting what a Brazilian physician said 5 days ago. I also want to add that I'm fairly convinced that Ivermectin is probably useless for Covid, but I raise livestock and am a big fan of Ivermectin as a medication of first resort for my animals, and in some cases for ourselves as well... long before Covid I've taken Ivermectin for diverse parasitic infections with good results and no adverse effects.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Vaccines are cheap.
  - vcoelho 5y ago
    Once everyone starts taking it preemptively for covid, would it still be cheap?

simtel20 5y ago

Clinics distributed a box of pills with no proven efficacy for the SARS CoV-2 virus, but with significant downsides, and with no tracking. This was not a controlled experiment, this was negligent homicide, recklessly endangering a population by abusing their misplaced faith in careless medical and pseudo-medical "professionals".

SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
“Negligent homicide” is hyperbole. The medication itself is safe, safer than paracetamol / acetaminophen. If you are saying it gave too many people false hope and they died from Covid, isn’t that the problem everywhere else without false hope? Are deaths in Australia “better” than deaths in Brazil because Ozzies didn’t attempt the same treatment? Does ivermectin not function extremely well as a protease inhibitor? It probably doesn’t work anything for Covid, but it scientifically can prevent some viral binding despite that not being it’s primary function. So making an educated guess wrong is one thing, having people abuse pills is another, and killing people unintentionally through criminal actions is another still. Be rationale and reasonable. Because going overboard on accusations isn’t helping anyone nor adding to any scientific discussion.
- IntrepidWorm 5y ago
  To be clear- many of the cases of serious injury or death were people taking wildly high doses of ivermectin, beyond any reasonable dosage. Ivermectin does have some safe use cases for human prescription: there is no acceptable evidence that it is effective in the least for treating or preventing Covid. https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-100956/v4 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-100956/v4 Much of the buzz was generated by the above preprint study, now retracted for some serious concerns that large portions were plagiarized and cherry-picked, and in some instances fabricated completely. https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/93658 https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/9365... One of the problems with ivermectin is that it is widely available and cheap. This is great if you are trying to treat river blindness or prevent your horse from contracting worms, but terrible when a deeply flawed (yet widely cited) purports it to be a miracle cure.

ciconia 5y ago

> I think everyone (who is reasonable) agrees the vaccine is the most effective tool we have against covid based on current scientific studies. Vaccination is perhaps the best solution in the short term, but to me it seems that preventive public health measures might be more effective over the long term. We know that the severe cases mostly happen to people who are already medically vulnerable (overweight, diabetic, cardiovascular disease etc). Governments could have used the last two years to execute on policies to reduce these chronic diseases: better food, better air quality, better water quality, a less stressful lifestyle. High blood pressure, high blood sugar, air pollution and obesity (not to mention smoking) are responsible for far more deaths than Covid-19 [1]. In addition, being exposed to any of those conditions is a risk factor for Covid-19. Logically, if we reduce the risk factors we can reduce both Covid-19 deaths and non-Covid-19 deaths! [1] https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution#air-pollution-is-responsible-for-5-million-deaths-each-year https://ourworldindata.org/air-pollution#air-pollution-is-re...

bigodbiel 5y ago
>air quality And that’s the reason why covid is still “not airborne”, despite the fact that, semantics aside, it’s anything but. The whole issue has become over politicized and academia has let itself take center stage of public policy. So now we have this fixation on pharmaceutical intervention, as it could have been some miracle panacea. The more time passes, the less reasonable it is sounding and the more the same academia turned public policy maker is doubling down on them.
javagram 5y ago
> Governments could have used the last two years to execute on policies to reduce these chronic diseases: better food, better air quality, better water quality, a less stressful lifestyle. Governments have been working on these problems for decades already. Food/obesity is only getting worse in rich countries, air quality and water quality have seen marked improvements over the last half-century from lead reduction, decommissioning coal plants, emissions regulations for cars etc. However expecting government to dramatically reduce the number of overweight people suffering from diabetes in just 2 years without extreme authoritarian measures (e.g. concentration camp where they monitor your food intake) is pretty much just fantasy. Many different methods have been tried all over the world like education, food labeling, soda taxes, etc. and people continue to be fat when they can access and freely buy modern foods. The nice thing about a vaccine is that it’s far easier and cheaper to use and deploy than any of these other improvements. A vaccine costs $1 to $100 per person, while transitioning the entire economy to solar, wind, and nuclear power within a few years to improve air quality would cost what, $10,000s per person? If even possible at all.