Pre-test probability says it probably won't work.

I'm just saying, know going into it that youre hoping for the 5% outcome, but expect the 95%. Don't expect the huge benefits being claimed like it's a miracle drug that reduces mortality by 50%. That's very unlikely, because your immune system is already really really good. A really fantastic result would be something like tamiflu - reduces symptoms by 2 days maybe if you take it early.

People trading a known 95% risk reduction for serious illness in a vaccine for an unknown ?? risk reduction with ivermectin from tractor supply are making a statistically bad bet. That's all.

Zobel said:

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People trading a known 95% risk reduction for serious illness in a vaccine for an unknown ?? risk reduction with ivermectin from tractor supply are making a statistically bad bet. That's all.

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And, in a situation like covid when 99.6%+ of people will recover absent any treatment whatsoever.

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People often show a good deal of skepticism towards vaccine and mask studies - that's good. A lot of research is crap.

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It's a bad bet to go with a therapeutic that is known to be safe over years of use and is showing evidence, as your Oxford article states...

over a vaccine that was rushed to the market, has proven to have negative side effects for many people, and even caused death? Plenty of scientists and doctors are questioning the safety of it, and it's looking like it is showing less efficacy over time.

for a virus that over 99 percent of people, as you stated, recover from without any treatment at all?

I'm not sure why you don't understand why a large percentage of the population would have reservations about the choice of treating the illness with medications showing efficacy versus taking the vaccine.

Government-funded research isn't usually a problem. Companies and trade groups have even more conflict of interest. The bigger problem with government funded research is that the people seeking funding tend to only ask questions that are likely to get funded. Too often the soup du jour doesn't line up with society's real needs, or reward the brilliant investigator who stands alone.

Yes, it is a bad bet. Not because they're likely to find that if you take ivermectin you'll grow a third arm or something - millions and millions of doses have been taken with it for decades, we know the safety profile. It's a bad bet because it probably won't help. Again, every drug that ever makes it to any kind of human trial has shown promise. This drug has already been tried in multiple studies for covid, and the larger / better the study, the worse it performs. So that actually should make you more pessimistic. The fact that the strongest evidence in its favor was found to be fraudulent should start triggering alarm bells.

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over a vaccine that was rushed to the market, has proven to have negative side effects for many people, and even caused death? Plenty of scientists and doctors are questioning the safety of it, and it's looking like it is becoming less efficacy over time.

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See, this is the problem and exactly why I made the comparison. Yes, absolutely, it is a really bad bet.

All drugs have negative side effects for many people. All of them, even ivermectin. If you don't believe this, you need to start your analysis over from scratch.

If we're going to go with the number of experts on each side argument, I guarantee there are more doctors who will recommend the vaccine over forgoing the vaccine and taking ivermectin instead. But that's a really crappy argument, that's not how medical evidence works.

It's funny you talk about the efficacy over time - yes, when you go from original to delta it looks like the vaccines go from phenomenally, mind-blowingly effective (95%+) to normal vaccine effective (~50% like the annual flu) at preventing symptomatic illness. But it's still mind-blowingly effective at preventing severe disease (90%+). And we have a HUGE amount of data that shows this, beyond any doubt, in actual use, in multiple countries, with hundreds of millions of doses administered.

If you don't think the vaccines work, if that evidence isn't good enough for you, you definitely should not be taking ivermectin based on the evidence we have today that it works.

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for a virus that over 99 percent of people, as you stated, recover from without any treatment at all?

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If it's not serious, why are you posting impassioned pleas about this immense need for therapeutics? It's either a serious disease, in which case vaccination is the obvious way forward - or it's trivial, in which case the hand wringing over an outpatient therapeutic is just noise.

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I'm not sure why you don't understand why a large percentage of the population would have reservations about the choice of treating the illness versus with medications showing efficacy over taking the vaccine.

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There are as many reasons as there are people. Social media exacerbates this, because there are as many experts available for confirmation bias as there are positions, and we know that social media exists to engage you, not to inform you. It exists to drive clicks, and if confirmation bias loops drive clicks, that's what you get.

In general I think the hesitancy is a combination of general mistrust of government, the grand tradition of American anti-intellectualism, and an unwitting championing of antivaxxer arguments that most people would have (rightly) rejected out of hand just years ago.

The only fix for these is good information, presented clearly, from credible sources.

Zobel, we get it. You don't think it works.

Others have differing opinions and even Oxford says it shows promise if taken early.

Good lord. It's like you are getting a google alert for any post on this site on ivermectin, whether on this forum or politics, and have to respond to crush anything positive about the drug.

Give it a rest.

COVID-19 Protocols | FLCCC | Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (covid19criticalcare.com)

Good website with the evidence linked. I have no problem prescribing Ivermectin I just explain the proof is still murky but the risk of harm is exceedingly low.

Not of fan of HCQ/Azithro that is super risky with cardiac arrhythmias and the evidence is out there that it is not effective.

aggierogue said:

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Zobel said:

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Nothing at all. You shouldn't listen to anyone, you should look at data. This is the problem with appealing to expert opinion. There are literally experts on both sides of every issue.

I'm not saying you should believe me. I'm saying you should be skeptical, and actually go read the studies. If you can't do that, talk to someone you trust who can. The worst thing to do is get medical advice from social media, because you'll only find confirmation bias there.

I'm not a doctor but I have a research background and I like to read about medicine and scientific research. If you're interested in some of the fun you can get into read this (it is off topic but it shows the pitfalls of expert opinion AND scientific studies).
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/

People often show a good deal of skepticism towards vaccine and mask studies - that's good. A lot of research is crap. But they should use that same standard toward ivermectin. No one who rejects the vaccines on the basis of the available research would take ivermectin if held to the same standard. Not a single one.

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Agree on the expert opinion. I also don't trust all the studies. I generally don't trust the government or much of "research" that is dependent on government funding. So there lies the problem. You can literally find studies on both sides of many issues just as there are "experts."

I don't know if Ivermectin works. But there seems to be enough evidence that doctors are willing to use it as a treatment, and larger studies are in the works.

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So did you get the vaccine? I mean if that's enough reason to take Ivermectin I'd imagine there is definitely enough evidence to support the vaccine as exponentially more doctors are willing to recommend it over those willing to use ivermectin.....

It's plain and simple. There are doctors who learned to practice medicine and others that learned to listen to the consensus. Unfortunately, the latter do not "practice" medicine, they do what they are told. A real doctor that practices medicine would uphold the hypocratic oath and do all they can. But they'll send people home with no treatment when something may be available. That's ridiculous.

Cue the narrowminded and the shadow ban. I really don't care anymore. I'm confident that the truth will come out.

Another Doug said:

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For the first time ever the 2021 Nobel prize winner will be a reaction video from a nurse that watched Joe Rogan.

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Maybe the Nobel prize should go to the doctors that send people home with no treatment when there is a possible treatment with low chances of side effects. Or maybe to the health workers that bash people for not taking a vaccine.

Also, for all our double blind study proponents...are there double blind studies showing success for redemisvir (spelling) or steroids?

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Also, for all our double blind study proponents...are there double blind studies showing success for redemisvir (spelling) or steroids?

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yes. here is a meta-analysis of remdesivir with five randomized controlled trials (some double blind, some open label)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33758946/

here is one for steroids
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8014848/

One thing that is important is that the RECOVERY trial is basically driving most of the steroid benefit in analysis, because it was so large. Other trials didn't find as much benefit. It may be that they work ok, or that it's kind of hard to see the benefit. In a kind of paradox, these kind of results seem more believable than a small trial with 50 people showing a 50% reduction in mortality.

Zobel said:

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Yes, it is a bad bet. Not because they're likely to find that if you take ivermectin you'll grow a third arm or something - millions and millions of doses have been taken with it for decades, we know the safety profile. It's a bad bet because it probably won't help. Again, every drug that ever makes it to any kind of human trial has shown promise. This drug has already been tried in multiple studies for covid, and the larger / better the study, the worse it performs. So that actually should make you more pessimistic. The fact that the strongest evidence in its favor was found to be fraudulent should start triggering alarm bells.

Quote:

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over a vaccine that was rushed to the market, has proven to have negative side effects for many people, and even caused death? Plenty of scientists and doctors are questioning the safety of it, and it's looking like it is becoming less efficacy over time.

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See, this is the problem and exactly why I made the comparison. Yes, absolutely, it is a really bad bet.

All drugs have negative side effects for many people. All of them, even ivermectin. If you don't believe this, you need to start your analysis over from scratch.

If we're going to go with the number of experts on each side argument, I guarantee there are more doctors who will recommend the vaccine over forgoing the vaccine and taking ivermectin instead. But that's a really crappy argument, that's not how medical evidence works.

It's funny you talk about the efficacy over time - yes, when you go from original to delta it looks like the vaccines go from phenomenally, mind-blowingly effective (95%+) to normal vaccine effective (~50% like the annual flu) at preventing symptomatic illness. But it's still mind-blowingly effective at preventing severe disease (90%+). And we have a HUGE amount of data that shows this, beyond any doubt, in actual use, in multiple countries, with hundreds of millions of doses administered.

If you don't think the vaccines work, if that evidence isn't good enough for you, you definitely should not be taking ivermectin based on the evidence we have today that it works.

Quote:

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for a virus that over 99 percent of people, as you stated, recover from without any treatment at all?

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If it's not serious, why are you posting impassioned pleas about this immense need for therapeutics? It's either a serious disease, in which case vaccination is the obvious way forward - or it's trivial, in which case the hand wringing over an outpatient therapeutic is just noise.

Quote:

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I'm not sure why you don't understand why a large percentage of the population would have reservations about the choice of treating the illness versus with medications showing efficacy over taking the vaccine.

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There are as many reasons as there are people. Social media exacerbates this, because there are as many experts available for confirmation bias as there are positions, and we know that social media exists to engage you, not to inform you. It exists to drive clicks, and if confirmation bias loops drive clicks, that's what you get.

In general I think the hesitancy is a combination of general mistrust of government, the grand tradition of American anti-intellectualism, and an unwitting championing of antivaxxer arguments that most people would have (rightly) rejected out of hand just years ago.

The only fix for these is good information, presented clearly, from credible sources.

---

I still have frequent dizzy spells and forearm pain 4 months after taking the Pfizer vaccine. Others are reporting the same symptoms. If I could do it all over again, I would have skipped the vaccine and just treated my long haul covid symptoms with ivermectin. The only reason I got the vaccine was because I heard it helped some long haulers get rid of their symptoms.

Now I have to treat my long haul Covid AND long haul Vaccine symptoms with Ivermectin.

ea1060 said:

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Zobel said:

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Yes, it is a bad bet. Not because they're likely to find that if you take ivermectin you'll grow a third arm or something - millions and millions of doses have been taken with it for decades, we know the safety profile. It's a bad bet because it probably won't help. Again, every drug that ever makes it to any kind of human trial has shown promise. This drug has already been tried in multiple studies for covid, and the larger / better the study, the worse it performs. So that actually should make you more pessimistic. The fact that the strongest evidence in its favor was found to be fraudulent should start triggering alarm bells.

Quote:

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over a vaccine that was rushed to the market, has proven to have negative side effects for many people, and even caused death? Plenty of scientists and doctors are questioning the safety of it, and it's looking like it is becoming less efficacy over time.

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See, this is the problem and exactly why I made the comparison. Yes, absolutely, it is a really bad bet.

All drugs have negative side effects for many people. All of them, even ivermectin. If you don't believe this, you need to start your analysis over from scratch.

If we're going to go with the number of experts on each side argument, I guarantee there are more doctors who will recommend the vaccine over forgoing the vaccine and taking ivermectin instead. But that's a really crappy argument, that's not how medical evidence works.

It's funny you talk about the efficacy over time - yes, when you go from original to delta it looks like the vaccines go from phenomenally, mind-blowingly effective (95%+) to normal vaccine effective (~50% like the annual flu) at preventing symptomatic illness. But it's still mind-blowingly effective at preventing severe disease (90%+). And we have a HUGE amount of data that shows this, beyond any doubt, in actual use, in multiple countries, with hundreds of millions of doses administered.

If you don't think the vaccines work, if that evidence isn't good enough for you, you definitely should not be taking ivermectin based on the evidence we have today that it works.

Quote:

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for a virus that over 99 percent of people, as you stated, recover from without any treatment at all?

---

If it's not serious, why are you posting impassioned pleas about this immense need for therapeutics? It's either a serious disease, in which case vaccination is the obvious way forward - or it's trivial, in which case the hand wringing over an outpatient therapeutic is just noise.

Quote:

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I'm not sure why you don't understand why a large percentage of the population would have reservations about the choice of treating the illness versus with medications showing efficacy over taking the vaccine.

---

There are as many reasons as there are people. Social media exacerbates this, because there are as many experts available for confirmation bias as there are positions, and we know that social media exists to engage you, not to inform you. It exists to drive clicks, and if confirmation bias loops drive clicks, that's what you get.

In general I think the hesitancy is a combination of general mistrust of government, the grand tradition of American anti-intellectualism, and an unwitting championing of antivaxxer arguments that most people would have (rightly) rejected out of hand just years ago.

The only fix for these is good information, presented clearly, from credible sources.

---

I still have frequent dizzy spells and forearm pain 4 months after taking the Pfizer vaccine. Others are reporting the same symptoms. If I could do it all over again, I would have skipped the vaccine and just treated my long haul covid symptoms with ivermectin. The only reason I got the vaccine was because I heard it helped some long haulers get rid of their symptoms.

Now I have to treat my long haul Covid AND long haul Vaccine symptoms with Ivermectin.

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Great example of the point I'm trying to get across to Zobel.

aggierogue said:

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Why does Rogan trigger some of you so much?

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Because a lot of what he states is based on logic and not FEELZ

aggierogue said:

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Why does Rogan trigger some of you so much?

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I'm really waiting for a medical expert like Dr. Oz to chime in.

All you can do is follow evidence.

If you're referring to HCQ
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22446-z

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34265436/

https://academic.oup.com/jac/article/76/1/30/5919602

aggierogue said:

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Gizzards said:

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aggierogue said:

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Gizzards said:

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According to her, the "first lie" we are hearing is that there are "no treatments for Covid". I have never actually heard that said anywhere. Loses all credibility with that statement as we know that there are multiple treatments for Covid and they are known far and wide. You can't try to share your viewpoint by starting your own speech claiming that "you are being lied to". Just link the Joe Rogan podcast and be done with it. Her anecdotes are just that, not science. I am sure she is a good nurse, passionate, and only wants to help, but her speech does little to help. Ivermectin may be useful, but the hard science on it is still developing. I have no problem trying it along with other treatments, but the whole conspiracy theory shtick gets old.

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What are the treatments?

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Steroids (usually dexamethasone) were probably the first mainstream agreed upon treatment, and they also check the box of being cheap and readily available (doesn't fit the conspiracy narrative). Remdesivir is standard of care for appropriate patients as are monocolonal antibody treatments (at least four different ones I can think of).

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I've read Remdesivir has been proven to not be an effective treatment.

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The overall data is pretty meh, but there's a window around when hypoxia first sets in that there is fairly compelling data for some benefit.

The benefit of steroids in hypoxic patients is significant however, and is by far our best treatment for people admitted with hypoxia.

The data for IL-6 inhibitors looks better and better, and anecdotally across several hundred patients I've noticed a benefit in those heading towards intubation. We're looking at age/comorbidity matched cohorts in our hospitals and it does appear that toci helps prevent intubation in patients with rapidly progressing disease.

Clearly. I'm probably also faking all of these clinical studies, too. Us big pharma guys are pretty devious and we have access to powers you can't possibly imagine.

aggierogue said:

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No I didn't. That's literally the point I'm trying to make. I don't know the long term risk of the vaccines. None of us do, and there are doctors and scientists saying the exact same.

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we don't know the long term risks of covid either. for all we know, they could be orders of magnitude worse than whatever long term risks you suspect the vaccines might have.

WesMaroon&White said:

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Have your doctor looked at any other dormant viruses? Epstein-Barr virus is suspect cause of my long haul symptoms, which may have been triggered by COVID.

My joint aches went away with the moderna vaccine, but the tinnitus has not gone away.

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This is a variation of the point I was making. I was reading an interview with Francis Collins, and the question of long haulers came up. He said there are apparently pockets of virus that are hiding in some people. As we know, your immune system is the only wall of defense you have, and so why not try to get the immune system more active to find the residual invaders? IOW, vaccinate more, not less.

I was making a related argument with ivermectin. Maybe it clears up a secondary infection so the immune system is more able to fight Covid.

Decent meta analysis and I agree with their summary. You have to note there are a lot of possible and may in their statement which is reasonable based on their data set.

The risk is so low that the only downside I really see is people having too much confidence in it and putting themselves at unnecessary risk of severe disease.

NicosMachine said:

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The largest meta study to date indicates that Ivermectin is very effective as a prophylaxis and therapeutic. Why is this so controversial? Is seems very safe based on past usage. What is the harm?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34145166/

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Because they, like many others, used the Elgazzar study which was retracted for fraud and plagiarism. That paper alone accounted for 15% of the effect in the meta analysis.

Meta analysis, so instead of one bias studied, you could have multiple, and then have the "meta analyst" compound it with more bias on top by picking which studies to use.

The paper you linked was co-wrote by the founder of BIRD....

The British Ivermectin Recommendation Development Group (BIRD) is a truly grassroots initiative bringing together clinicians, health researchers and patient representatives from all around the world to advocate for the use of ivermectin against covid-19.

So its awfully convenient that she founds BIRD, then starts writing papers that "prove" Ivermectin works.


The author also has a GoFundMe, complete with a video that says Ivermectin is the "cure" and "prevents death"

Eh, meta analyses have an inherently subjective component to them in how they weight risk of bias and handle heterogeneity. So undisclosed bias in one of the authors is relevant.

But none of that matters when the largest study in your meta analysis by far is pulled for fraud.

NicosMachine said:

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Another Doug said:

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Meta analysis, so instead of one bias studied, you could have multiple, and then have the "meta analyst" compound it with more bias on top by picking which studies to use.

The paper you linked was co-wrote by the founder of BIRD....

The British Ivermectin Recommendation Development Group (BIRD) is a truly grassroots initiative bringing together clinicians, health researchers and patient representatives from all around the world to advocate for the use of ivermectin against covid-19.

So its awfully convenient that she founds BIRD, then starts writing papers that "prove" Ivermectin works.


The author also has a GoFundMe, complete with a video that says Ivermectin is the "cure" and "prevents death"

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Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the genetic fallacy. That said, is there a methodological flaw in the study? If not, you are simply making yourself look silly.

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Yes or no? Would this quality as a methodological flaw?

A person who is

• begging for money on the internet,
• that says Ivermectin is the "Cure" (with no qualifiers)
• that says Ivermectin "Prevents Death" (with no qualifiers)
• runs a group dedicated to promoting Ivermectin
• And in her spare time says we should put an "immediate halt to the vaccine programme"

Is the one picking and choosing which studies can be included in the study.


I say yes, but I might just be being "silly"

Read this.

https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on-fraudulent-research-5cc079278602

Elgazzar (included in the meta analysis you shared) is the study in question.

Then read this
https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on-fraudulent-research-part-2-a4475523b4e4

It's a mess.