6 ms·
Endemic Pathogens Are Making You Crazy and Then Killing You
- vmception 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- FredPret 4y agoBruh
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago> they arent checking people with worms because nobody knows they have worms, thanks to the state of our healthcare I have decent healthcare. I don’t think I’ve been explicitly checked for worms recently. Maybe in the bloodwork? This is honestly one of the better ivermectin hypotheses I’ve come across. It doesn’t deserve to be downvoted, particularly within the context of the article, which set a low bar for evidence.
- jjulius 4y agoThe "rural squalor" assumption doesn't help with the downvotes. That's a fairly derogatory blanket generalization, and whether or not statistics back OP up they could choose better verbiage.
- vmception 4y agoOh, I didn't think that part would be controversial, its where you get parasites and why the combination is a hit with one political party. A subset live in the middle of nowhere with poor infrastructure, the people out there aren't of other political parties because those other parties dont acknowledge them as well. I thought that would be clear. Its not about people that dont live in those environments and are also republican. You have to understand us identity politics to know why that wasn’t supposed to be derogatory. its supposed to be emphasis for effect, and accurate. this is an example of other political parties not even giving them the benefit of the doubt to look into why it could possibly be working out for them. or even considering the errors in the models.
- jjulius 4y ago>You have to understand us identity politics to know why that wasn’t supposed to be derogatory. For what it's worth, I live in the US, completely understand identity politics and am fully aware of the stereotypes - accurate or not - about how right-leaning individuals largely live "in squalor" relative to other political parties. I understand where you're coming from, I would just suggest that you be a little more thoughtful in how you approach that subject next time. Saying, "Ivermectin saves republican lives because they already have worms in their body (from living in rural squalor)," sounds a lot like you've generalized every single Republican in the country as both having worms and "living in squalor". In point of fact, not every Republican has worms, and certainly not every Republican lives in squalor. Living in squalor is also not a prerequisite for getting worms. A better way to approach it would be to say something along the lines of, "It's my understanding that states whose climates are more prone to worms are red states, so - correct me if I'm wrong - I would assume that we're more likely to see worm infections in Republicans than Democrats. This is also bolstered by the fact that 3 million more Republicans live in poverty compared to Democrats[1]." [1]https://www.brookings.edu/research/poverty-crosses-party-lines/#AL https://www.brookings.edu/research/poverty-crosses-party-lin... Just a thought.
- vmception 4y agothanks, I'll consider that tact
- maxerickson 4y agoSome small subset of the US doesn't have indoor plumbing and electricity. People don't live in squalor. This article says that not having working plumbing is more common in cities: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/27/water-almost-half-million-us-households-lack-indoor-plumbing https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/27/water-almost... And then there's the problem where the ivermectin studies apparently went out of their way to have a statistically significant portion of those people?
- vmception 4y agoThanks, I was thinking about rewording it because it hits trigger words so fast People react to that and cant even process the rest verbatim
- iinnPP 4y agoI always thought it was just the placebo effect.
- BizarroLand 4y agoHookworm infestations are pretty common in the south. Ivermectin is a potential treatment for hookworm, so that part makes some sliver of sense.
- giardini 4y agoJumpCrisscross says >"I have decent healthcare."< You thought you had decent healthcare! FTFY! As a child I lived in the South where parasites are endemic. I had my shit analyzed every physical. I shat in a jar in the comfort of my home and brought it to the physical; the doctor's job was to make slides and search for parasites. It was obvious that the doctor didn't enjoy the tests, much to my amusement. As an adult I've never had a similar test. Yet I live in a similar climate and often do the same things I did as a child (e.g., walk barefoot, swim in a river, etc.). I asked my doctors about parasites but they always ho-hummed, claiming any parasitic infestation would show up on blood tests. I think they're wrong and so treat myself to the occasional anti-parasitic. FWIW it isn't a new "ivermectin hypothesis": it's been discussed ad nauseum, even on HN.
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoI'm wondering how https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy relates to that. I've read it can be good for some people with MS. Depends on the sort of worms, apparently. Quackery?
- giardini 4y agoThere's also the "hygiene hypothesis" which states roughly that early exposure to various pathogens helps the immune system learn what is dangerous and what is not. If you've ever visited someplace like, say, Cambodia (parts of which are underwater much of the year) you were likely impressed by the difference between their children's exposure to the elements and those of most children in the USA. https://dhvi.duke.edu/staying-home-harming-your-child’s-immune-system https://dhvi.duke.edu/staying-home-harming-your-child’s-immu...
- jjulius 4y ago>Make sense or nah? Nah. Hard nah. I don't quite understand how you went from, "I'm an enthusiastic researcher who enjoys..." to, "Ivermectin works on Republicans because Republicans live in squalor so they have worms but we don't know if Ivermectin actually works against COVID or not because our healthcare system sucks."
- vmception 4y agoWe know that ivermectin doesnt work on covid, it works on worms People with worms only notice they have a problem after getting sick with covid How did you read that differently Read it again
- jjulius 4y agoThat's a minor detail that I, admittedly, got incorrect while paraphrasing you but ultimately doesn't change the crux of my point.
- vmception 4y agoIts about a crossover and assumption error in the models The patient and their doctor are assuming the wrong thing and coincidentally get a nice result And the people trying to make a controlled review are assuming the wrong thing Its a dewormer acting as a dewormer and thats actually saving people’s lives, would be useful policy wise to acknowledge why that is, instead of invalidating that group of people
- ben_w 4y agoI suspect the thing people are anchoring on is the word “republican”. I’ve heard a similar claim about the mechanism you describe, but it was with regard to a group actually likely to have worms — I don’t have a strong reason to think the USA has a worm problem, despite all the anger I see directed at the American medical system.
- vmception 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kajic 4y agoThe author mentions they “put considerable effort into reducing my HSV-1 (cold sore) viral load”. What are some effective ways to do that?
- 0x20cowboy 4y agoI have no proof (or way to test this), but I’ve thought for a while that some pathogen has infected a good number of people, and damaged their brains. I find it hard to understand many people’s transition into madness any other way. I am not talking about “I believe bubble up economics you believe trickle down so you’re crazy” kind of disagreements, I mean stuff like “lizard people from planet nibiru are eating the children of flat earth which is why the shadow government is injecting you with 5g to make you magnetic” kind of stuff. I have watched several seemingly normal people go more and more crazy, and a pathogen (or maybe long Covid?) seems like a possible reason. At least that’s what I tell myself.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- WFHRenaissance 4y agoI think that the current legitimacy crisis is the cause for this. Once you have one core source/belief invalidated, it's super easy to slide into more fringe views.
- Tehchops 4y agoIt is possible they were always that susceptible(I suspect they were), someone just needed the means for mass delivery and when it was available(social media) they weaponized it at just the right time.
- 77pt77 4y agoHow do you think religions came about?
- JohnJamesRambo 4y agoAnyone that has had to deal with any sort of customer support after Covid knows that things just aren’t right. It’s like talking to people from another planet. I don’t know if it is Covid brain or what.
- 4y ago
- Tehchops 4y agoWell that's terrifying. As a serious cat owner I have to imagine I am riddled with TPG.
- tanjtanjtanj 4y agoCats (especially indoor cats) are an extremely uncommon human vector for toxoplasmosis, as noted in the article.
- darkerside 4y agoThis is highly speculative stuff, but... that's the point. I think people sometimes forget that the was a time when nothing was scientifically proven. I'm surprised Lyme disease wasn't mentioned, as I think it also falls into the bucket of latent diseases that can cause unquantified effects much later down the line.
- ad8e 4y agoAt least the title, "Endemic Pathogens Are Making You Crazy And Then Killing You", can be accepted as a default prior, rather than an extraordinary claim. Many diseases are both prevalent and not under heavy study. Funding and interest in studying a disease is partially caused by individuals being able to link the disease to a symptom, and this is hard without data. (You rolled a 4, but is the die biased toward 4? It's impossible to tell from a single roll.) When these diseases are occasionally looked into, such as with hookworm and toxoplasmosis, the track record finds harms at an alarming rate, so we should expect the remaining diseases, which are not yet looked into, to have similar rates of danger. Thus, without making assertions on the article's individual claims, the general thrust is broadly true. The reason people hold the "these diseases are generally harmless" prior is likely from another prior, "if X disease were so harmful, doctors would be studying it", and that unfortunately does not match current practice. Covid-19 provides an example of how hard it is to link symptoms. We know now that anosmia is solidly connected to Covid-19, but this was not known for a while. The CDC only listed three official symptoms six months after the outbreak [0], reflecting the understanding at the time. Doctors talked about their patients and found commonalities; this bubbled anecdotes into attention. So even with intense and joint attention by the world, with a clear and reliable symptom, the symptom can evade notice for a while. When nobody's attention is on a disease, and the symptoms are chronic, the symptoms become invisible. Caveat: this is not my field, and I do not study it. An epidemiologist could likely present a more accurate picture. [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20200415000910/https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/symptoms-testing/symptoms.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200415000910/https://www.cdc.g...
- fswd 4y agomy doctor and I had a recent discussion about exactly this. Just incredibly bizarre behavior from people with no explanation. I asked if it could be caused by parasites. She brought up a study in LA where they tested the homeless for Babesia, and many people tested positive. Sorry I did not get the link for this study, but it is plausible. I'm not even sure how we can as a society even address this. One of the treatments is now so politically polarized during the pandemic, even mentioning it out loud is a conversation killer.
- xkbarkar 4y agoOut of curiosity, what is the treatment?
- dyim 4y agoalso curious; nothing on this page looks controversial (https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/babesiosis/health_professionals/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/babesiosis/health_professional...), unless you believe that doctors are wrongly overprescribing azithromycin. (which is fair! but probably not conversation-killingly controversial)
- macintux 4y agoI’d assume ivermectin, since it’s a parasite treatment.
- 77pt77 4y agoThat's what I though but it's not mentioned as a standard treatment.
- Zak 4y agoChloroquine/hydroxychloroquine would be the other likely candidates. A quick web search suggests they've been tested and found ineffective for Babesia. Of course, their being found ineffective for treating a disease in a scientific study does not always stop people from trying them. There's a mouse study from 2019 suggesting ivermectin is likely to be effective against Babesia, but it is not a standard treatment as far as I can tell.
- reader_x 4y agoThe article left me wondering, how many of these endemic pathogens are treatable? If they aren’t treatable, it makes sense for doctors not to routinely test for them. (Basic research to find new treatments is another matter.)
- samth 4y agoThat the first example is a statement about the invention of vaccines that is about 80 years off is not confidence inspiring.
- alexfromapex 4y agoMany methodologies have unintentionally introduced bias, like the article mentions. Another example, ear infections are generally assumed to be caused by bacteria instead of viruses leading to prescription of antibiotics which may cause dysbiosis or antibiotic resistance leading to chronic ear infections and/or digestive issues. Why don’t clinicians test for viruses or parasites first to see if maybe that is weakening the immune system and leading to a bacterial overgrowth?