3 ms·

It’s easy to be confidently wrong with statistics. Ivermectin improves outcomes in a hospital setting… but only in developing nations. There’s two confounding

It’s easy to be confidently wrong with statistics. Ivermectin improves outcomes in a hospital setting… but only in developing nations. There’s two confounding effects there! One, you have to be sick enough to be treated in hospital and two, living in a place with high levels of endemic parasite infections. Ivermectin treats parasites. Parasites are helped by the steroids given for severe infections. Treating the parasite infections does -- demonstrably -- help outcomes, but not uniformly. It's not a prophylactic and it won't do much of anything in developed nations where less than 1% of the population has parasites. I noticed just how bad these studies were when I took Tamiflu for the worst flu I had ever had. I went from crying in pain to "this feels like a mild sniffle" in less than 12 hours, the fastest I had ever experienced flu symptoms subsiding. My doctor recommended against taking Tamiful because it was expensive (not really) and that studies showed that its effects were marginal, something like reducing the duration of symptoms by a mere 1/2 a day out of 2-3 weeks. Reducing the duration... reducing the duration. You see, there's no objective method for measuring symptom severity, so during studies of new medications, they don't. They measure duration. But duration is very difficult to reduce, because of the way the learning process of the immune system works. There's a bunch of sequential processes that occur sequentially. Tamiflu reduces symptom severity but not duration. So apparently it's "worthless", because it improves only outcomes that aren't measured. Whether you're crying in pain or not is apparently not objective enough...

outworlder 4y ago
> Ivermectin improves outcomes in a hospital setting… but only in developing nations. Precisely. The only studies I could find that were well done and did show correlation were in developing nations. Turns out that having parasites + a severe viral infection can be bad for you. However, most intestinal parasites are cleared with a much lighter regimen that many ivermectin advocates were suggesting, some with megadoses that are harmful to the liver. There are other dewormers that are much better - some are even single dose.
johnnymorgan 4y ago
Have we seen studies from India, Peru and a few other countries, japan as well I believe, on ivermectin?
a1369209993 4y ago
> Tamiflu reduces symptom severity but not duration. So apparently it's "worthless", because it improves only outcomes that aren't measured. To be fair, that's not really "being confidently wrong with statistics" so much as "being confidently wrong by ignoring all of the statistics that are inconvenient to collect".
jumanjijumanji 4y ago
> But duration is very difficult to reduce, because of the way the learning process of the immune system works. There's a bunch of sequential processes that occur sequentially. I'm genuinely very curious for more detail about this. Can you describe what some of the processes are (or better, where I can go to learn about it)?
- chasil 4y ago
  I read about this process in the Immune book by Dettmer. Your dendritic cells are specialized to ingest pathogens, rip them apart with peroxide, then push their broken parts into cellular windows all over the dendritic cell's surface. The dendritic cell is also traveling in the lymph system while this is going on, and upon arrival at a lymph node it searches for a t-cell that matches some part that it is presenting. Once a t-cell is found that matches, that cell activates and clones thousands of copies. Half of the clones go towards the problem sites (where they trigger "ultra killer mode" on macrophages, among other things), and half stay behind to find and activate b-cells, which will then produce antibodies. This entire process does take a few days. https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/02/17/dettmer-immune/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/02/17/dettmer-immu... Here are some videos that this group made: Bacterial infection: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lXfEK8G8CUI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lXfEK8G8CUI Compliment system: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BSypUV6QUNw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BSypUV6QUNw Measles: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y0opgc1WoS4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y0opgc1WoS4 Rabies: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4u5I8GYB79Y https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4u5I8GYB79Y
j33zusjuice 4y ago
There are plenty of studies that have participants rate the severity of their symptoms based on some questionnaire inputs. That they didn’t do it on Tamiflu isn’t reflective of an inability to gather that data, it’s just reflective of the fact that it wasn’t gathered. And, of course the results aren’t totally objective, but absolute objectivity isn’t needed in all circumstances, particularly not when we have no objective way to measure a thing.

outworlder 4y ago

> Ivermectin improves outcomes in a hospital setting… but only in developing nations. Precisely. The only studies I could find that were well done and did show correlation were in developing nations. Turns out that having parasites + a severe viral infection can be bad for you. However, most intestinal parasites are cleared with a much lighter regimen that many ivermectin advocates were suggesting, some with megadoses that are harmful to the liver. There are other dewormers that are much better - some are even single dose.

johnnymorgan 4y ago

Have we seen studies from India, Peru and a few other countries, japan as well I believe, on ivermectin?

a1369209993 4y ago

> Tamiflu reduces symptom severity but not duration. So apparently it's "worthless", because it improves only outcomes that aren't measured. To be fair, that's not really "being confidently wrong with statistics" so much as "being confidently wrong by ignoring all of the statistics that are inconvenient to collect".

jumanjijumanji 4y ago

> But duration is very difficult to reduce, because of the way the learning process of the immune system works. There's a bunch of sequential processes that occur sequentially. I'm genuinely very curious for more detail about this. Can you describe what some of the processes are (or better, where I can go to learn about it)?

chasil 4y ago
I read about this process in the Immune book by Dettmer. Your dendritic cells are specialized to ingest pathogens, rip them apart with peroxide, then push their broken parts into cellular windows all over the dendritic cell's surface. The dendritic cell is also traveling in the lymph system while this is going on, and upon arrival at a lymph node it searches for a t-cell that matches some part that it is presenting. Once a t-cell is found that matches, that cell activates and clones thousands of copies. Half of the clones go towards the problem sites (where they trigger "ultra killer mode" on macrophages, among other things), and half stay behind to find and activate b-cells, which will then produce antibodies. This entire process does take a few days. https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/02/17/dettmer-immune/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/02/17/dettmer-immu... Here are some videos that this group made: Bacterial infection: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lXfEK8G8CUI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lXfEK8G8CUI Compliment system: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BSypUV6QUNw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BSypUV6QUNw Measles: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y0opgc1WoS4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y0opgc1WoS4 Rabies: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4u5I8GYB79Y https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4u5I8GYB79Y

j33zusjuice 4y ago

There are plenty of studies that have participants rate the severity of their symptoms based on some questionnaire inputs. That they didn’t do it on Tamiflu isn’t reflective of an inability to gather that data, it’s just reflective of the fact that it wasn’t gathered. And, of course the results aren’t totally objective, but absolute objectivity isn’t needed in all circumstances, particularly not when we have no objective way to measure a thing.