19 ms·

As a nerdy stoner myself this is the perfect counterpoint. The ("my"? "our"?) answer to the hydroxychloroquine/ivermectin/bleach worship coming from the "scien

by loxias 5y ago

As a nerdy stoner myself this is the perfect counterpoint. The ("my"? "our"?) answer to the hydroxychloroquine/ivermectin/bleach worship coming from the "scientifically challenged" antivax set. It'll probably be disproven in some followup paper, or the results will be insignificant, or something like that, but I don't care. It's "true enough" to sooth the soul, and another indication that the universe might have a sense of humor. :) Now, back to enjoying all the wine, hash, and hot chicks.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
francis-io 5y ago
> As a nerdy stoner myself this is the perfect counterpoint. The ("my"? "our"?) answer to the hydroxychloroquine/ivermectin/bleach worship coming from the "scientifically challenged" antivax set. Nitpick: As much as I agree that some people are as you describe, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking everyone in favour of therapeutics are also "anti vax". Vaccinations and therapeutics can live side by side as vectors of attack for certain illnesses. I've caught my self falling into this trap my self recently. It's hard not to knee-jerk react when someone mentions something like ivermectin and then make wild generalisations on that persons political opinions, mental ability and then judge them as a person.
- croon 5y ago
  > I've caught my self falling into this trap my self recently. It's hard not to knee-jerk react when someone mentions something like ivermectin and then make wild generalisations on that persons political opinions, mental ability and then judge them as a person. I agree it's important not to, but playing devil's advocate, has that specific generalization ever been wrong, for anyone? Genuine question.
  - sanedigital 5y ago
    One can be anti-mandate without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-therapeutic without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-investigation of therapeutics without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-doctoral autonomy (with regards to off label prescription) without being anti-vaccine. I'm thankful for the vaccine, it's saved a lot of lives, especially of those at high risk. I don't think it should be mandated and I certainly don't think it should be given to children. I think we should be investing as much into early treatment as we are into vaccines. We certainly shouldn't be limiting access to things that have been proven to work, like monoclonal anti-bodies. I think things like Ivermectin should be investigated for use. I don't think we should be calling it "horse dewormer" when it's an FDA-approved medication with billions of doses distributed worldwide. And while we shouldn't be promoting anything that isn't proven, we shouldn't be sanctioning physicians for prescribing a safe drug off-label. In short: yes, the opposite side of the political spectrum is more diverse than you're currently accounting for. Lumping "the other" into a single category is natural and well described by Social Identity Theory [1], but not helpful to discussions like this. [1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_theory]
    - loxias 5y ago
      > One can be anti-mandate without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-therapeutic without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-investigation of therapeutics without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-doctoral autonomy (with regards to off label prescription) without being anti-vaccine. Hear hear! More of this. I am nearly all of these things. I'm staunchly pro "let's quit lumping concepts and people into an absurdly small number of categories". And staunchly against "everyone who believes X, Y and Z must ALSO believe Q R S T U... or you're out".
    - croon 5y ago
      > One can be anti-mandate without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-therapeutic without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-investigation of therapeutics without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-doctoral autonomy (with regards to off label prescription) without being anti-vaccine. Sure, I agree with that, and neither of those were in the quote I responded to, which is why I asked about "that specific generalization". Is there anyone taking Ivermectin that also isn't anti-vaccine, right of center politically, and don't know that the risks with vaccines are also the risks of covid itself, only lower with vaccines? I'm asking because here I think the issue is deeper than the generalizations, in that politics has engulfed views (science/anti-science) that shouldn't be political to begin with.
- loxias 5y ago
  TL;DR: I'm Strongly In Favor of therapeutics, just not disproven fake-therapeutics. Firstly a heartfelt thanks for your reply, I appreciate it when people say helpful things like this. But to nitpick on your nitpick, I am just as aggressively pro therapeutics as I am pro vaccine. I completely agree re: "Vaccinations and therapeutics can live side by side as vectors of attack for certain illnesses". The more weapons we have against diseases, the better. I'm comfortable and cozy with my 3x shots, AND was quite hyped when Paxlovid got approved. To be specific, the intended target of my light derision isn't anyone pro-therapeutics. Just those pro-bunk-therapeutics. Like my mother, who for some reason went through a phase insisting one could be healed sometimes with quartz crystals. (poking fun at myself or my family seems safe). I never did deep research into the topic, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought hydroxychloroquine was quite securely in the "not a chance, there have been tons of studies, it's 100% bunk" category? (as far as being a treatment for COVID-19) Again, pro-therapeutics! Really, pro-anything-science-technological-advancement. Was an early Regen-Cov (the name of Regeneron's med) cheerleader too.
  - edmcnulty101 5y ago
    Those HCQ studies were retracted because the authors were lying about their data. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/health/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/health/coronavirus-hydrox... Co-incidentally the FDA is fighting an FOIA request to release the data they used to approve the vaccines saying it will take 75 years. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importance-judge-orders-fda-hasten-release-pfizer-vaccine-docs-2022-01-07/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importanc...
  - smokey_circles 5y ago
    A point that I always find interesting to remember is that although we've proven there's no measurable benefit to crystal therapy, there's no discounting the people it's helped. We think that's probably placebo (seems like a reasonable assumption at least) but the people it's helped are going to be devout believers. Experience is a powerful motivator
bigyellow 5y ago
Imagine thinking Ivermectin is only "worshiped" by the "scientifically challenged". What an ignorant and stupid-ass thing to say, and the only reason for saying it is a consumption of crap from mainstream media outlet.
- loxias 5y ago
  OK. Prove me wrong? How about at least an attempt at offering a counterpoint with cited sources? EDIT: (added all this word soup) In my non-scientific opinion, which is purely anecdotal, a while ago, back when ivermectin was a thing, there's was high overlap between the people excited about it and those with no grasp of common sense, let alone science. To my eyes, the same people were afraid of bill gates microchipping them and evil Jewish space lasers. This is my first hand lived experience. > What an ignorant and stupid-ass thing to say, and the only reason for saying it is a consumption of crap from mainstream media outlet. That response sucks -- you can do better. I'll help you, I'm pro-science and pro-discourse. Instead of offering your own guess as to what motivates my thoughts (which is both incorrect, and makes you look dumb, lol), what you want to do instead say something appealing to reason, with content. Something like: "I don't think you should lump ivermectin in with those injecting bleach. Though ridiculed by many, there's some reason to suspect it may be useful. For example, did you know that there was $STUDY and $STUDY that showed $INTERESTING_RESULT, published in $RESPECTED_JOURNAL?" But then you'd have to find values for those variables, and good luck with that. Much of the misinformation on ivermectin draws on sparse low-quality studies, including studies that were later retracted and one that was rife with fraud. One of the key studies (to the ivermectin delusion) not only has blatant plagiarism, but also "they had reported the study as starting on the eighth of June. And they included a number of patients who had died before that date". :P Once you catch something like that, are you gonna still believe the study? Which, by the way, was never actually published in a peer reviewed journal, just posted as a preprint! Source: https://www.sideeffectspublicmedia.org/coronavirus/2021-12-08/how-shaky-ivermectin-studies-overseas-wreaked-havoc-in-the-u-s https://www.sideeffectspublicmedia.org/coronavirus/2021-12-0... Notice how I was able to back up my central assertion "ivermectin people are believing in nonsense" with a motivating *actual reason* "the papers they are basing their opinions on are of low quality, unpublished, non-peer reviewed, and below any sensible standard of quality" and that I can even *cite a source*? Do that instead of what you did. :) Also, I can't help but laugh at the notion of "mainstream media" as an insult. :D Like, "Oh, I don't trust those fools at the BBC, or the Reuters cabal. I get all MY facts exclusively from my neighbor Bob and his facebook group."
s1artibartfast 5y ago
On the Ivermectin front, I think it's too soon to call it bunk science. There's at least enough plausibility for the NIH and major research hospitals in the US to be currently running a large 15,000 patient study on its efficacy. It is far too soon for any one side to go all in on a conclusion.
- loxias 5y ago
  Your comment should be higher. I had no idea NIH was doing a 15k patient study before reading your comment! If I had, I would have mentioned it explicitly when writing my above comment, and never lumped it in with bleach drinkers and flat earthers. I was wrong! thanks for the info! My (previous!) perception that it's bunk science was rooted in the story of its origin. https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/ivermectin-misinformation/ https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/ivermectin-misinforma... After reading that, I dug into the sources they cite. Then the sources they cited. The whole thing STINKS! (which I know is not an objective scientific measure) -- and the more familiar you are with academia, the more the narrative of "this stinks like something bad" rings true. You've got plagiarism, a non-peer reviewed preprint with OBVIOUS data fraud being cited and used as a large source in a meta-study, now-retracted papers, and _political motivations of the scientists_... they all reinforce the narrative of "this is BS". Check out the paper https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1003006/v1 https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1003006/v1 "Ivermectin for COVID-19: addressing potential bias and medical fraud" Money quote: "These observations demonstrate that the significant effect of ivermectin on survival was dependent on the inclusion of studies with a high risk of bias or potential medical fraud." ALL THAT BEING SAID, it's undoubtedly true (to me, anyway) that the NIH doesn't do a 15k person study unless there's some scientific merit! So there's gotta be something worth investigating, the process is working, and, today I learned, thanks to you, that it's "not as stupid as bleach". It just rose to prominence in a quite sketchy way.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    Thanks! It's always nice to hear that some information was taken to Heart. As with many scientific topics, the early data was all over the board. There were dozens of studies ranging form fraudulent garbage to honest and very promising. This provided lots of fuel for people and the media to polarize on the topic.
netizen-936824 5y ago
I hope this gets investigated further, the proposed mechanism is actually pretty interesting My interpretation is that the primary mechanism can be summed up to a modulatory effect lowering the activation threshold on the IRE1α and interferon pathways for breakdown of viral RNA I'd like to understand if/how/where CBD may actually be binding/interacting to modulate these pathways The authors also bring up the issue of CBD forming large micelles and being captured by the liver limiting the amount distributed to other tissues. I'm unsure if the formation of micelles is the issue at hand here, but there are cannabinoids products available while have been sonicated and sprayed into small particles with a surfactant to make them water soluble. This could be an interesting delivery method to achieve greater tissue distribution. I'm not sure how much its been studied (if at all) but my personal anecdote with these products is that they do achieve a high blood plasma concentration very rapidly compared to "normal" edibles in a fatty carrier.

by loxias 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

francis-io 5y ago

> As a nerdy stoner myself this is the perfect counterpoint. The ("my"? "our"?) answer to the hydroxychloroquine/ivermectin/bleach worship coming from the "scientifically challenged" antivax set. Nitpick: As much as I agree that some people are as you describe, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking everyone in favour of therapeutics are also "anti vax". Vaccinations and therapeutics can live side by side as vectors of attack for certain illnesses. I've caught my self falling into this trap my self recently. It's hard not to knee-jerk react when someone mentions something like ivermectin and then make wild generalisations on that persons political opinions, mental ability and then judge them as a person.

croon 5y ago
> I've caught my self falling into this trap my self recently. It's hard not to knee-jerk react when someone mentions something like ivermectin and then make wild generalisations on that persons political opinions, mental ability and then judge them as a person. I agree it's important not to, but playing devil's advocate, has that specific generalization ever been wrong, for anyone? Genuine question.
- sanedigital 5y ago
  One can be anti-mandate without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-therapeutic without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-investigation of therapeutics without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-doctoral autonomy (with regards to off label prescription) without being anti-vaccine. I'm thankful for the vaccine, it's saved a lot of lives, especially of those at high risk. I don't think it should be mandated and I certainly don't think it should be given to children. I think we should be investing as much into early treatment as we are into vaccines. We certainly shouldn't be limiting access to things that have been proven to work, like monoclonal anti-bodies. I think things like Ivermectin should be investigated for use. I don't think we should be calling it "horse dewormer" when it's an FDA-approved medication with billions of doses distributed worldwide. And while we shouldn't be promoting anything that isn't proven, we shouldn't be sanctioning physicians for prescribing a safe drug off-label. In short: yes, the opposite side of the political spectrum is more diverse than you're currently accounting for. Lumping "the other" into a single category is natural and well described by Social Identity Theory [1], but not helpful to discussions like this. [1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_theory]
  - loxias 5y ago
    > One can be anti-mandate without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-therapeutic without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-investigation of therapeutics without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-doctoral autonomy (with regards to off label prescription) without being anti-vaccine. Hear hear! More of this. I am nearly all of these things. I'm staunchly pro "let's quit lumping concepts and people into an absurdly small number of categories". And staunchly against "everyone who believes X, Y and Z must ALSO believe Q R S T U... or you're out".
  - croon 5y ago
    > One can be anti-mandate without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-therapeutic without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-investigation of therapeutics without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-doctoral autonomy (with regards to off label prescription) without being anti-vaccine. Sure, I agree with that, and neither of those were in the quote I responded to, which is why I asked about "that specific generalization". Is there anyone taking Ivermectin that also isn't anti-vaccine, right of center politically, and don't know that the risks with vaccines are also the risks of covid itself, only lower with vaccines? I'm asking because here I think the issue is deeper than the generalizations, in that politics has engulfed views (science/anti-science) that shouldn't be political to begin with.
loxias 5y ago
TL;DR: I'm Strongly In Favor of therapeutics, just not disproven fake-therapeutics. Firstly a heartfelt thanks for your reply, I appreciate it when people say helpful things like this. But to nitpick on your nitpick, I am just as aggressively pro therapeutics as I am pro vaccine. I completely agree re: "Vaccinations and therapeutics can live side by side as vectors of attack for certain illnesses". The more weapons we have against diseases, the better. I'm comfortable and cozy with my 3x shots, AND was quite hyped when Paxlovid got approved. To be specific, the intended target of my light derision isn't anyone pro-therapeutics. Just those pro-bunk-therapeutics. Like my mother, who for some reason went through a phase insisting one could be healed sometimes with quartz crystals. (poking fun at myself or my family seems safe). I never did deep research into the topic, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought hydroxychloroquine was quite securely in the "not a chance, there have been tons of studies, it's 100% bunk" category? (as far as being a treatment for COVID-19) Again, pro-therapeutics! Really, pro-anything-science-technological-advancement. Was an early Regen-Cov (the name of Regeneron's med) cheerleader too.
- edmcnulty101 5y ago
  Those HCQ studies were retracted because the authors were lying about their data. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/health/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/health/coronavirus-hydrox... Co-incidentally the FDA is fighting an FOIA request to release the data they used to approve the vaccines saying it will take 75 years. https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importance-judge-orders-fda-hasten-release-pfizer-vaccine-docs-2022-01-07/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importanc...
- smokey_circles 5y ago
  A point that I always find interesting to remember is that although we've proven there's no measurable benefit to crystal therapy, there's no discounting the people it's helped. We think that's probably placebo (seems like a reasonable assumption at least) but the people it's helped are going to be devout believers. Experience is a powerful motivator

bigyellow 5y ago

Imagine thinking Ivermectin is only "worshiped" by the "scientifically challenged". What an ignorant and stupid-ass thing to say, and the only reason for saying it is a consumption of crap from mainstream media outlet.

loxias 5y ago
OK. Prove me wrong? How about at least an attempt at offering a counterpoint with cited sources? EDIT: (added all this word soup) In my non-scientific opinion, which is purely anecdotal, a while ago, back when ivermectin was a thing, there's was high overlap between the people excited about it and those with no grasp of common sense, let alone science. To my eyes, the same people were afraid of bill gates microchipping them and evil Jewish space lasers. This is my first hand lived experience. > What an ignorant and stupid-ass thing to say, and the only reason for saying it is a consumption of crap from mainstream media outlet. That response sucks -- you can do better. I'll help you, I'm pro-science and pro-discourse. Instead of offering your own guess as to what motivates my thoughts (which is both incorrect, and makes you look dumb, lol), what you want to do instead say something appealing to reason, with content. Something like: "I don't think you should lump ivermectin in with those injecting bleach. Though ridiculed by many, there's some reason to suspect it may be useful. For example, did you know that there was $STUDY and $STUDY that showed $INTERESTING_RESULT, published in $RESPECTED_JOURNAL?" But then you'd have to find values for those variables, and good luck with that. Much of the misinformation on ivermectin draws on sparse low-quality studies, including studies that were later retracted and one that was rife with fraud. One of the key studies (to the ivermectin delusion) not only has blatant plagiarism, but also "they had reported the study as starting on the eighth of June. And they included a number of patients who had died before that date". :P Once you catch something like that, are you gonna still believe the study? Which, by the way, was never actually published in a peer reviewed journal, just posted as a preprint! Source: https://www.sideeffectspublicmedia.org/coronavirus/2021-12-08/how-shaky-ivermectin-studies-overseas-wreaked-havoc-in-the-u-s https://www.sideeffectspublicmedia.org/coronavirus/2021-12-0... Notice how I was able to back up my central assertion "ivermectin people are believing in nonsense" with a motivating *actual reason* "the papers they are basing their opinions on are of low quality, unpublished, non-peer reviewed, and below any sensible standard of quality" and that I can even *cite a source*? Do that instead of what you did. :) Also, I can't help but laugh at the notion of "mainstream media" as an insult. :D Like, "Oh, I don't trust those fools at the BBC, or the Reuters cabal. I get all MY facts exclusively from my neighbor Bob and his facebook group."

s1artibartfast 5y ago

On the Ivermectin front, I think it's too soon to call it bunk science. There's at least enough plausibility for the NIH and major research hospitals in the US to be currently running a large 15,000 patient study on its efficacy. It is far too soon for any one side to go all in on a conclusion.

loxias 5y ago
Your comment should be higher. I had no idea NIH was doing a 15k patient study before reading your comment! If I had, I would have mentioned it explicitly when writing my above comment, and never lumped it in with bleach drinkers and flat earthers. I was wrong! thanks for the info! My (previous!) perception that it's bunk science was rooted in the story of its origin. https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/ivermectin-misinformation/ https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/ivermectin-misinforma... After reading that, I dug into the sources they cite. Then the sources they cited. The whole thing STINKS! (which I know is not an objective scientific measure) -- and the more familiar you are with academia, the more the narrative of "this stinks like something bad" rings true. You've got plagiarism, a non-peer reviewed preprint with OBVIOUS data fraud being cited and used as a large source in a meta-study, now-retracted papers, and _political motivations of the scientists_... they all reinforce the narrative of "this is BS". Check out the paper https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1003006/v1 https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1003006/v1 "Ivermectin for COVID-19: addressing potential bias and medical fraud" Money quote: "These observations demonstrate that the significant effect of ivermectin on survival was dependent on the inclusion of studies with a high risk of bias or potential medical fraud." ALL THAT BEING SAID, it's undoubtedly true (to me, anyway) that the NIH doesn't do a 15k person study unless there's some scientific merit! So there's gotta be something worth investigating, the process is working, and, today I learned, thanks to you, that it's "not as stupid as bleach". It just rose to prominence in a quite sketchy way.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  Thanks! It's always nice to hear that some information was taken to Heart. As with many scientific topics, the early data was all over the board. There were dozens of studies ranging form fraudulent garbage to honest and very promising. This provided lots of fuel for people and the media to polarize on the topic.

netizen-936824 5y ago

I hope this gets investigated further, the proposed mechanism is actually pretty interesting My interpretation is that the primary mechanism can be summed up to a modulatory effect lowering the activation threshold on the IRE1α and interferon pathways for breakdown of viral RNA I'd like to understand if/how/where CBD may actually be binding/interacting to modulate these pathways The authors also bring up the issue of CBD forming large micelles and being captured by the liver limiting the amount distributed to other tissues. I'm unsure if the formation of micelles is the issue at hand here, but there are cannabinoids products available while have been sonicated and sprayed into small particles with a surfactant to make them water soluble. This could be an interesting delivery method to achieve greater tissue distribution. I'm not sure how much its been studied (if at all) but my personal anecdote with these products is that they do achieve a high blood plasma concentration very rapidly compared to "normal" edibles in a fatty carrier.