4 ms·

The problem is that Ivermectin is off patent, so no drug company can make any money from it. Since there is no money for expensive research studies or clinical

The problem is that Ivermectin is off patent, so no drug company can make any money from it. Since there is no money for expensive research studies or clinical trials, all the research studies that get done will be low budget and subject to being called "lousy science". How about just properly reporting and studying the actual facts from one of the very large real world trials, like the one in India?

tzs 5y ago
> The problem is that Ivermectin is off patent, so no drug company can make any money from it. How then do you explain the numerous off-patent drugs that are currently in widespread production by the major drug companies?
- superflit2 5y ago
  Imagine that you are creating a new patented drug that you could charge a lot and the whole govts in the world needed. Then have this other drug without patent that could do the same? or 80%? People got enraged about the Epi-Pen patent price gouging years back imagine what would happen if some rigorous study confirm that ivermectin is as good as or better? This is a sample on how media distorts the narrative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHzGH3aLSgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHzGH3aLSgc
juanani 5y ago
I think how effective modern ad campaigns are run are part to blame. You don't just shove your product as gold, you make sure to throw dirt on the alternatives. Which includes online troll armies these days. We're talking about leaving billions on the table and possibly being pushed out by your competition. A death sentence in modern day economy. it just sounds anti-narrative and is hard to swallow.
catawbasam 5y ago
Seems like governments should be funding proper studies, as they might benefit from a low cost treatment option.
- andrew_ 5y ago
  that makes the assumption that there's incentive for the people running the government to do so. there's been a lot of information that's come to light, some of which some consider to be common knowledge, which indicates that there may be more incentive for our lawmakers not to do so
geofft 5y ago
I'm skeptical of the "there's no money in it" angle. Ivermectin advocates seem to be suggesting that you take it as a preventative measure for covid - i.e., that the way to stop the pandemic is to have everyone take ivermectin. Each individual ivermectin tablet, at current levels of demand and quality control, costs a couple of dollars. Compare that with the vaccine, which costs governments a couple tens of dollars, but people get at most four shots per year. I agree that there isn't money in licensing the ivermectin patent, but there is absolutely a lot of money to be made in manufacturing ivermectin itself, convincing people to take preventative ivermectin, and meeting worldwide demand. And every single pharmaceutical company can play that game - not just a couple of very rich ones in rich countries with research labs capable of making their own covid vaccine. Frankly, it should be a little bit surprising that not even one of them has tried this strategy.
jcranmer 5y ago
As I understand it, the largest produce of ivermectin is... one of the largest drug companies. Which doesn't have a COVID-19 vaccine, and whose website openly states that you should not take ivermectin for COVID-19. Your theory just doesn't make any sense.
- lambdaba 5y ago
  It's way too cheap, iirc Dr. Kory was estimating it would cost like $12 per person to use Ivermectin as a preventative, and this is at current prices. Also, said company, Merck, is in the process of releasing a new drug that will cost in the thousands.
  - geofft 5y ago
    $12 per person per what unit of time? $12 gets you like three tablets. That's according to some claimed protocols enough to (probably) get you out of the hospital alive, but that's not a long-term preventative. Meanwhile, the government pays about $20 per dose of the vaccine. The difference between $12 and $20 is not substantial.
    - lambdaba 5y ago
      The dose for prevention is a fraction of the dose for people already infected. Maybe per year? I don't know, I don't recall the details, but even so that's without the economies of scale that would intervene if it was a worldwide effort. Re: vaccines, JP Morgan estimated Pfizer alone will make $100B from vaccines. I don't think manufacturing Ivermectin is complex enough that it would net ANY profit, the effort would be organized completely differently. Lastly, I don't think this is a conspiracy, either for money or politics, going for vaccines was just the easiest sell for both people and governments, and doing anything different would have been extremely difficult (see Sweden and lockdown policies).
      - OminousWeapons 5y ago
        > Lastly, I don't think this is a conspiracy, either for money or politics, going for vaccines was just the easiest sell for both people and governments, and doing anything different would have been extremely difficult (see Sweden and lockdown policies). This is not true. Governments were and are being hammered by their inability to manage COVID. There is a massive incentive to find a therapeutic that can treat the infected rather than just a vaccine, which is how crazes surrounding Ivermectin and other unproven therapeutics got started to begin with. Not only that, but generic therapeutics that could be easily manufactured and transported to poorer nations are clearly the best option to solve this problem. Vaccines were the hardest sell and the worst option for governments given their long developmental timeline, the FUD surrounding them, and the clear complexities surrounding distribution and scarcity.
User23 5y ago
And why is Covid not really a thing in subsaharan Africa where everyone takes ivermectin anyway, because it’s a marvelous antiparasitic drug. You’d think the poorest parts of Africa with the worst medical systems in the world would be hit harder, but they’re not. And it’s probably not genetic since the African diaspora is hit hard by covid.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- geofft 5y ago
  There's a whole lot of other possible confounding hypotheses here: more frequent outdoor activity, increased ventilation in buildings, increased sunlight, lower population density, lower spread from international travelers, less robust reporting, the "worst medical systems in the world" resulting in a smaller relative fraction of the population at high risk of covid surviving everything else, less cultural offense at being told to wear a mask, etc.
- papandada 5y ago
  Everyone takes it, routinely? Or gets prescribed it easily in the case of certain symptoms? My surface-level, limited perception in a couple countries I have friends/family in (Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria) is that there's little to no testing, but also not apparently a hospital emergency. Then again, these same people also seem to go to their local hospital for what is understood as typhoid and malaria every year or two at least. As a born and raised North American I get told by them that's normal.
- dreyfan 5y ago
  Low population density, a largely outdoor existence, and a very low rate of testing and reporting.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    > Low population density, a largely outdoor existence, I'm not sure that I buy that; cities in Africa have large dense slums, where it's going to be hard to distance. And crowded transport to/from work. https://www.kulturevulturez.com/story-south-africa-slums-gangs/ https://www.kulturevulturez.com/story-south-africa-slums-gan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi
Azsy 5y ago
The problem with Ivermectin studies is that people will actually review them, so no academic can build a reputation on fraudulent data. Since there is no way to fake thousands of data point, now expensive research studies and clinical trials are getting done, all the research studies that get done will be of higher budget and subject to being called "basic science" How about just properly reporting and studying the actual facts that some scientists will just make shit up, publication bias exists, and they can draw the wrong conclusions, like that one on Ivermectin? P.S. I would be happy if Ivermectin turned out to work, but statistically you expect a few false positives to emerge from doctors in the field doing small studies that agree and appear to point to a cure. If Ivermectin was as effective as say, antihistamine pills, you would get a flood of agreement.
shlant 5y ago
> all the research studies that get done will be low budget and subject to being called "lousy science" This is not true. Keep an eye out for TOGETHER[1], I-TECH[2], PRINCIPLE[3] and ACTIV-6[4] results (with TOGETHER already having dropped IVM for futility) [1] https://www.togethertrial.com/ https://www.togethertrial.com/ [2] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04920942 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04920942 [3] https://www.principletrial.org/ https://www.principletrial.org/ [4] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04885530 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04885530
phonypc 5y ago
The lousy studies aren't lousy because of the constraints of an insufficient budget. They're based on fraudulent/fabricated data. As far as the "real world trial" of India, the peak of their delta wave roughly coinciding with an updated treatment guideline including ivermectin is hardly strong evidence. A) Correlation isn't causation. B) An updated treatment guideline doesn't indicate people were actually taking ivermectin. C) Using it as a treatment (i.e. after a case occurs) can't possibly be responsible for preventing cases. There was some buzz about it being offered as a prophylactic, but it never panned out. D) The peak of the wave coinciding with the update necessitates that the reproduction rate was dropping before the update Further, just look at Peru for a clear demonstration that it isn't the miracle some would like to believe it is.

tzs 5y ago

> The problem is that Ivermectin is off patent, so no drug company can make any money from it. How then do you explain the numerous off-patent drugs that are currently in widespread production by the major drug companies?

superflit2 5y ago
Imagine that you are creating a new patented drug that you could charge a lot and the whole govts in the world needed. Then have this other drug without patent that could do the same? or 80%? People got enraged about the Epi-Pen patent price gouging years back imagine what would happen if some rigorous study confirm that ivermectin is as good as or better? This is a sample on how media distorts the narrative. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHzGH3aLSgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHzGH3aLSgc

juanani 5y ago

I think how effective modern ad campaigns are run are part to blame. You don't just shove your product as gold, you make sure to throw dirt on the alternatives. Which includes online troll armies these days. We're talking about leaving billions on the table and possibly being pushed out by your competition. A death sentence in modern day economy. it just sounds anti-narrative and is hard to swallow.

catawbasam 5y ago

Seems like governments should be funding proper studies, as they might benefit from a low cost treatment option.

andrew_ 5y ago
that makes the assumption that there's incentive for the people running the government to do so. there's been a lot of information that's come to light, some of which some consider to be common knowledge, which indicates that there may be more incentive for our lawmakers not to do so

geofft 5y ago

I'm skeptical of the "there's no money in it" angle. Ivermectin advocates seem to be suggesting that you take it as a preventative measure for covid - i.e., that the way to stop the pandemic is to have everyone take ivermectin. Each individual ivermectin tablet, at current levels of demand and quality control, costs a couple of dollars. Compare that with the vaccine, which costs governments a couple tens of dollars, but people get at most four shots per year. I agree that there isn't money in licensing the ivermectin patent, but there is absolutely a lot of money to be made in manufacturing ivermectin itself, convincing people to take preventative ivermectin, and meeting worldwide demand. And every single pharmaceutical company can play that game - not just a couple of very rich ones in rich countries with research labs capable of making their own covid vaccine. Frankly, it should be a little bit surprising that not even one of them has tried this strategy.

jcranmer 5y ago

As I understand it, the largest produce of ivermectin is... one of the largest drug companies. Which doesn't have a COVID-19 vaccine, and whose website openly states that you should not take ivermectin for COVID-19. Your theory just doesn't make any sense.

lambdaba 5y ago
It's way too cheap, iirc Dr. Kory was estimating it would cost like $12 per person to use Ivermectin as a preventative, and this is at current prices. Also, said company, Merck, is in the process of releasing a new drug that will cost in the thousands.
- geofft 5y ago
  $12 per person per what unit of time? $12 gets you like three tablets. That's according to some claimed protocols enough to (probably) get you out of the hospital alive, but that's not a long-term preventative. Meanwhile, the government pays about $20 per dose of the vaccine. The difference between $12 and $20 is not substantial.
  - lambdaba 5y ago
    The dose for prevention is a fraction of the dose for people already infected. Maybe per year? I don't know, I don't recall the details, but even so that's without the economies of scale that would intervene if it was a worldwide effort. Re: vaccines, JP Morgan estimated Pfizer alone will make $100B from vaccines. I don't think manufacturing Ivermectin is complex enough that it would net ANY profit, the effort would be organized completely differently. Lastly, I don't think this is a conspiracy, either for money or politics, going for vaccines was just the easiest sell for both people and governments, and doing anything different would have been extremely difficult (see Sweden and lockdown policies).
    - OminousWeapons 5y ago
      > Lastly, I don't think this is a conspiracy, either for money or politics, going for vaccines was just the easiest sell for both people and governments, and doing anything different would have been extremely difficult (see Sweden and lockdown policies). This is not true. Governments were and are being hammered by their inability to manage COVID. There is a massive incentive to find a therapeutic that can treat the infected rather than just a vaccine, which is how crazes surrounding Ivermectin and other unproven therapeutics got started to begin with. Not only that, but generic therapeutics that could be easily manufactured and transported to poorer nations are clearly the best option to solve this problem. Vaccines were the hardest sell and the worst option for governments given their long developmental timeline, the FUD surrounding them, and the clear complexities surrounding distribution and scarcity.

User23 5y ago

And why is Covid not really a thing in subsaharan Africa where everyone takes ivermectin anyway, because it’s a marvelous antiparasitic drug. You’d think the poorest parts of Africa with the worst medical systems in the world would be hit harder, but they’re not. And it’s probably not genetic since the African diaspora is hit hard by covid.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
geofft 5y ago
There's a whole lot of other possible confounding hypotheses here: more frequent outdoor activity, increased ventilation in buildings, increased sunlight, lower population density, lower spread from international travelers, less robust reporting, the "worst medical systems in the world" resulting in a smaller relative fraction of the population at high risk of covid surviving everything else, less cultural offense at being told to wear a mask, etc.
papandada 5y ago
Everyone takes it, routinely? Or gets prescribed it easily in the case of certain symptoms? My surface-level, limited perception in a couple countries I have friends/family in (Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria) is that there's little to no testing, but also not apparently a hospital emergency. Then again, these same people also seem to go to their local hospital for what is understood as typhoid and malaria every year or two at least. As a born and raised North American I get told by them that's normal.
dreyfan 5y ago
Low population density, a largely outdoor existence, and a very low rate of testing and reporting.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  > Low population density, a largely outdoor existence, I'm not sure that I buy that; cities in Africa have large dense slums, where it's going to be hard to distance. And crowded transport to/from work. https://www.kulturevulturez.com/story-south-africa-slums-gangs/ https://www.kulturevulturez.com/story-south-africa-slums-gan... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Share_taxi

Azsy 5y ago

The problem with Ivermectin studies is that people will actually review them, so no academic can build a reputation on fraudulent data. Since there is no way to fake thousands of data point, now expensive research studies and clinical trials are getting done, all the research studies that get done will be of higher budget and subject to being called "basic science" How about just properly reporting and studying the actual facts that some scientists will just make shit up, publication bias exists, and they can draw the wrong conclusions, like that one on Ivermectin? P.S. I would be happy if Ivermectin turned out to work, but statistically you expect a few false positives to emerge from doctors in the field doing small studies that agree and appear to point to a cure. If Ivermectin was as effective as say, antihistamine pills, you would get a flood of agreement.

shlant 5y ago

> all the research studies that get done will be low budget and subject to being called "lousy science" This is not true. Keep an eye out for TOGETHER[1], I-TECH[2], PRINCIPLE[3] and ACTIV-6[4] results (with TOGETHER already having dropped IVM for futility) [1] https://www.togethertrial.com/ https://www.togethertrial.com/ [2] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04920942 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04920942 [3] https://www.principletrial.org/ https://www.principletrial.org/ [4] https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04885530 https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04885530

phonypc 5y ago

The lousy studies aren't lousy because of the constraints of an insufficient budget. They're based on fraudulent/fabricated data. As far as the "real world trial" of India, the peak of their delta wave roughly coinciding with an updated treatment guideline including ivermectin is hardly strong evidence. A) Correlation isn't causation. B) An updated treatment guideline doesn't indicate people were actually taking ivermectin. C) Using it as a treatment (i.e. after a case occurs) can't possibly be responsible for preventing cases. There was some buzz about it being offered as a prophylactic, but it never panned out. D) The peak of the wave coinciding with the update necessitates that the reproduction rate was dropping before the update Further, just look at Peru for a clear demonstration that it isn't the miracle some would like to believe it is.