3 ms·

As the Surgisphere affair has showed, publishing null results opens its own can of worms: No one will bother replicating them. Surprising positives at least hav

As the Surgisphere affair has showed, publishing null results opens its own can of worms: No one will bother replicating them. Surprising positives at least have a kind of target drawn on them, but a negative result that matches people's expectations is really not something anyone disinterested would want to replicate -- there is no fame in that. Fraudulent non-results will be blocking fruitful directions. I wish I had a panacea for these things...

zozbot234 5y ago
The Surgisphere papers were not "null" results. They found significantly higher risk of death after HCQ treatment, based on what turned out to be highly flawed data. The problem was with the original dataset. (Not to be outdone, the Surgisphere folks also contributed their data to a preprint which purported to show horse dewormer^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ivermectin could be a successful SARS-CoV2 treatment).
- sampo 5y ago
  > horse dewormer^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ivermectin You are not being truthful, labeling ivermectin only a "horse dewormer". Ivermectin is used as an antiparasitic drug also for people. And not only as a dewormer, but also against lice and mites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin
  - kragen 5y ago
    Indeed. One of the most disheartening things about the covid pandemic has been seeing how many people are willing to propagate the most egregious health-related misinformation, such as that ivermectin is only or primarily a horse dewormer or that it is dangerous, as long as it identifies them with the desired faction. Such depravity should not have come as a surprise to me, but it did. I've taken ivermectin—for parasites, not for covid. I wonder how many people will die of parasitic infections or more toxic antihelminthics and acaricides in the next few years because they or their neighbors refused to take ivermectin after they heard it was a dangerous veterinary-only drug from unscrupulous liars during the covid pandemic.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  Scott Alexander had a long post on ivermectin-related papers. He noticed that some of the papers that purported a positive effect came from developing countries that have a bigger parasitic problem than the rich world. Could it be that ivermectin helped third world patients with undetected worm infestation get rid of it and thus improved their covid-19 outcomes?

zozbot234 5y ago

The Surgisphere papers were not "null" results. They found significantly higher risk of death after HCQ treatment, based on what turned out to be highly flawed data. The problem was with the original dataset. (Not to be outdone, the Surgisphere folks also contributed their data to a preprint which purported to show horse dewormer^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ivermectin could be a successful SARS-CoV2 treatment).

sampo 5y ago
> horse dewormer^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H ivermectin You are not being truthful, labeling ivermectin only a "horse dewormer". Ivermectin is used as an antiparasitic drug also for people. And not only as a dewormer, but also against lice and mites. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin
- kragen 5y ago
  Indeed. One of the most disheartening things about the covid pandemic has been seeing how many people are willing to propagate the most egregious health-related misinformation, such as that ivermectin is only or primarily a horse dewormer or that it is dangerous, as long as it identifies them with the desired faction. Such depravity should not have come as a surprise to me, but it did. I've taken ivermectin—for parasites, not for covid. I wonder how many people will die of parasitic infections or more toxic antihelminthics and acaricides in the next few years because they or their neighbors refused to take ivermectin after they heard it was a dangerous veterinary-only drug from unscrupulous liars during the covid pandemic.
inglor_cz 5y ago
Scott Alexander had a long post on ivermectin-related papers. He noticed that some of the papers that purported a positive effect came from developing countries that have a bigger parasitic problem than the rich world. Could it be that ivermectin helped third world patients with undetected worm infestation get rid of it and thus improved their covid-19 outcomes?