COVID. Thought for sure that I was in the clear.

[Postretro]

I do have to backtrack on Ivermectin. The last time I checked on Ivermectin, Oct 2021, there were several positive observational studies. And, there were a few Random Clinical Trials were limited in scope to particular aspects concerning the lessening viral load, which were positive -- but modest.

Since then 2 RCT's on humans with COVID have finished, with no significantly favorable results. There are several more Ivermectin RCT's still in the process. Most will be finished around the Fall of 2022. Observational studies are helpful. But, they don't have the experimental validity of an RCT. Things could still change. And, I am not rushing to judgment. But I am not particularly hopeful. And to be clear, I have never suggested Ivermectin should be used in place of professional medical treatment, or vaccines and neither has John Campbell.

Ivermectin is a serious medicine for humans -- with numerous validated uses other than anti-parasitic. Before a anyone mocks it as a horse-dewormer and nothing else, it would be wise to review the large number of reasearch papers and studies on ivermectin's proven effectiveness against other viral diseases. These papers predate COVID and the 2015 Pulitzer Prize.

But, Ivermectin is looking less promising with regard to COVID-19.

 

[squealie]

Btw folks, I've worked with the FDA, CDC, NIH and the WHO. They are interested in one thing. Money. Their altruistic endeavors ended long ago.

these are serious allegations. If you can provide any proof, we would love to hear it, and it would benefit every citizen to excise bad actors, bad agencies, so that our leaders are acting in our interests.

 

[Postretro]

@atyourlasthourrr, glad you are well! It cheered me up quite a bit to hear about that. And, my compliments to your Doctor friend.

 

[symphx]

India was the biggest test case. I haven't studied this to the nth degree, however I do know the STOPPED using or recommending Ivermectin and plaquenil because they did NOT help. Consider this a HUGE test case vs a random person here or there:

"India stopped recommending the use of ivermectin for the management of the virus in September, citing a lack of scientific evidence of its benefits. Researchers at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) did not find enough evidence for Ivermectin and Hydroxycholoquine as potential therapeutics targeted against COVID-19.*"

https://www.newswise.com/factcheck/...-india-has-not-been-proven/?article_id=761091

 

[symphx]

these are serious allegations. If you can provide any proof, we would love to hear it, and it would benefit every citizen to excise bad actors, bad agencies, so that our leaders are acting in our interests.

I agree, Not sure how are 'government' works for money? It is not a profit making venture to say the least. Do I trust the government to do most things, NO, I wish they stopped stealing my money and wasting it, but they are not able to 'take money' other than our taxes.

 

[squealie]

I agree, Not sure how are 'government' works for money? It is not a profit making venture to say the least. Do I trust the government to do most things, NO, I wish they stopped stealing my money and wasting it, but they are not able to 'take money' other than our taxes.

Agreed.

Be skeptical. Vote for your best interest.

 

[Jeronimo]

We live in an age where we can get instant access to a whole lot of information. If you take the time you can educate yourself to search for medical research data, including medical journals.

Instead, these days many people seem to rely on what happened to people they know and random stories from social media. “I took medicine X and next day I was feeling better” does not prove evidence of efficacy of medication in general. Yes, it could have worked but it also could be a coincidence.

Same goes for side-effects of vaccination, (serious) side effects are registered, which is terrible but you also read the stories like “My neighbor who was perfectly healthy took the vaccination and died next day from cardiac arrest”. Of course this is a tragedy but again does not prove evidence that the vaccine is deadly.

Personally I would rather trust in the medical science, where the safety an efficacy of medication is tested and evaluated in multiple stages of clinical trials with controlled groups of patients and peer review of data.

 

[Moondog Wily]

Unless your house is on fire, or you need a cop, or you are asking the military to defend you from grave threats,
or your water is being polluted upstream by a majour chemical plant, or your civil rights are denied to you based
on sex, gender, race, or ethnicity. Then, by Jove, government is your desperately needed ally and friend.

This whole notion that the government in the US is solely and simply tyrannical shows just way too clearly how many
Americans have no idea what tyranny really is.

By the way, it was Reagan's massive defense spending---i.e., government---that broke the back of the Soviet Union, no?

"I would say the illusion [of freedom] will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move all the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre."
Frank Zappa - April 1977

 

[squealie]

When we finally 'pull back the curtains' the elite class will be safely secured on islands or yachts. They will have private security to blow your f'n head off when you challenge them.

It's too late. Play your guitar, and bitch.

 

[Lohengrin]

I would tend to believe in science. Two important things: 1) keep mind open; and 2) listen only to evidence.

There are several levels of evidence. Anecdotic data is not evidence. Formal case reports are at the lowest scale of evidence.

Tips to handle low-level evidence: keep an eye open, do not dismiss, but do not embrace either, and keep researching.

With Ivermectin, low level (observational) evidence was promising. Recent studies of higher level (prospective, randomized) are not so much. This is a randomized study published in Feb 2022 in JAMA Internal Medicine, one of the top journals of the speciality:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/ja...ernal_lim_2022_oi_220006_1644957301.61931.pdf

"In this randomized clinical trial of high-risk patients with mild to moderate COVID-19, ivermectin treatment during early illness did not prevent progression to severe disease. The study findings do not support the use of ivermectin for patients with COVID-19."

Limitations applicable to this discussion: "high-risk patients"

Conclusion nº1: Previous promising lower-level evidence about Ivermectin could be wrong.

Conclusion nº2: Keep researching, evidence is not strong enough yet. We are not at the top level evidence yet: "Data derived from multiple randomized clinical trials or meta-analyses of such studies."

 

[Lohengrin]

(Personal) conclusion nº3: I would not blame a physician for not prescribing Ivermectin in 2021. I would neither blame a physician for prescribing Ivermectin in 2021... as long as they make clear that it is a experimental, not fully researched treatment.

Little is know yet about COVID. The most knowledgeable humans are barelly scratching its surface. We cannot pretend them to know everything and blame them for not knowing.

Epilogue:

People could have a hidden agenda.

Scientists are people. Internet gurus are people.

But... the former are much less prone to have a hidden agenda, simply because they tend to leave public, auditable traces of their work.

The fact that one does not possess enough knowledge to audit those traces doesn't make the simpler and easier to understand opinions of the latter "the truth".

 

[Ron_R]

The FDA would differ. As would accepted medical science. You say you're a "qualified medical professional." Well, your assertions do not adhere to accepted medical science. You are advocating quackery.

You should absolutely frack off. I am using Battlestar Galactica lingo, but please fill in the blanks with what I actually mean.

Did you happen to read the article I linked from PubMed, sir? It actually IS accepted medical science. Just because the TV and internet tells you differently, doesn't mean they are telling you the truth. I've worked with the FDA. You have not a clue what you're talking about. What do you do for a living?

This reminds me of a time in the 80s when a certain doctor whose last name starts with an "F" was destroying anyone that disagreed with him about how AIDS was transmitted. He was wrong then, like he has been for the last 2 years now.

Btw, we can disagree without you resorting to name calling. If you don't like what I have to say, you have various options available to you. Including putting me on your ignore list. Please don't insult me. We are better than that here.

 

[Ron_R]

these are serious allegations. If you can provide any proof, we would love to hear it, and it would benefit every citizen to excise bad actors, bad agencies, so that our leaders are acting in our interests.

Do your own research on the matter. If I post my stories and links to articles, they will just be ignored, regardless of how accurate they are. I've been down this road on internet forums, and I just get vilified. There is PLENTY of data available.

Our "leaders" are in on it. They make a fortune off of these "agencies". I don't want to get into politics, but if you think our "leaders" act in our best interest, do you not see what's going on the world right now? Is $5 a gallon of gas in our best interest?

 

[Ron_R]

Here is a list of actual studies done on Ivermectin and COVID:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=ivermectin+COVID

As you can see, there are no clearly defined prospective, double blind, peer reviewed studies on this. Which means more work needs to be done. Which is not surprising considering that this has only been a thing for two years. That being said, it is something for a patient to talk to their doctor about. Slinging insults and "misinformation" about on an internet forum helps no one.

 

[Stadanko]

Greed. Control. Wanting to look like you're doing something because saying "we need more information" isn't a viable political strategy when people are scared.

As far as Joe Rogan.....literally all he said was a list of everything his doctor prescribed. No one cared about the vaccine drip or monoclonal antibodies. No one cared that he's in great physical condition. No one even cared that it was prescribed.

And no one cared that he was working out 3 days later (IIRC; might have been 4).

CNN edited his instagram video to make him look hideous, though.

You forgot to mention all of the other rhetoric he has been spewing about his doubts about the vaccine and how healthy young people don't need them. the whole idea of that video was to show how he got through it without a vaccine.....sooooo, not quite accurate.

 

[sprint]

 

[200man]

Ivermectin and zinc.

We discussed way back in April of 2020…
and this is what the NIH has to say 2 years later?

• There is insufficient evidence for the COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19. Results from adequately powered, well-designed, and well-conducted clinical trials are needed to provide more specific, evidence-based guidance on the role of ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19.

 

[marsonic]

these are serious allegations. If you can provide any proof, we would love to hear it, and it would benefit every citizen to excise bad actors, bad agencies, so that our leaders are acting in our interests.

Well, one anecdote to support my assertion that regulators and politicians don't understand science...

I used to work in a neuropharmacology lab and was published as an undergraduate for research on drugs of abuse. My primary investigator was one of the people who testified regarding the scheduling of Salvinorin A. He did, essentially, the standard study to figure out whether the drug supported self-administration in animals, which is a widely accepted model for testing whether or not a drug is addictive in humans.

Turns out, that no, it didn't.

The thing is....that kind of study can only come out 3 ways: yes, no, or inconclusive (which is insanely rare but technically possible). And the problem is that there are some illegal drugs that aren't addictive (LSD is the common example) and others that are (cocaine and amphetamine are the best examples). And that study can really only produce a graph that looks like the same graph for LSD or the same graph for cocaine, or show that you probably did something wrong.

So, when he tested salvia, the graph looked like LSD, indicating that it wasn't addictive.

The people who decide on such matters couldn't understand why that graph looking like the graph for LSD wouldn't mean that the drug should be illegal.

My PI immediately got depressed about all the mice that he sacrificed for the study.

I agree, Not sure how are 'government' works for money? It is not a profit making venture to say the least. Do I trust the government to do most things, NO, I wish they stopped stealing my money and wasting it, but they are not able to 'take money' other than our taxes.

The government is not, but the people who work for it are. Do you have any idea how much they made buying pharma stocks over the last few years?

There are basically no good people in government.

Personally I would rather trust in the medical science, where the safety an efficacy of medication is tested and evaluated in multiple stages of clinical trials with controlled groups of patients and peer review of data.

I would too. But, again, the problem was data and reports being hidden, people being silenced for bringing up the wrong studies, and half the world deciding on the answer before they had any cause to do so.

That isn't science.

This reminds me of a time in the 80s when a certain doctor whose last name starts with an "F" was destroying anyone that disagreed with him about how AIDS was transmitted. He was wrong then, like he has been for the last 2 years now.

I could easily be wrong about this...I was born in the mid 80s. But, my understanding of that story is that it's actually a whole lot worse than that.

Why anyone trusts that man without him proving those stories false is completely beyond me.

You forgot to mention all of the other rhetoric he has been spewing about his doubts about the vaccine and how healthy young people don't need them. the whole idea of that video was to show how he got through it without a vaccine.....sooooo, not quite accurate.

You know....that's halfway fair. Except that I actually listen to Rogan occasionally. And he never advised people not to get a vaccine. He only ever said that it shouldn't be mandated and that people should listen to their own doctors and make the decision based on their evaluations of their own risk factors.

Frankly, that's the only public medical advice that makes any sense. It's the same thing people said at the start of this thread....to go talk to a doctor and not to get medical advice from the internet.

And even if he was flat out telling people to do things that were flat-out wrong....I'm a free speech absolutist. Anyone, who silences anyone else, through any methods other than a better argument, is in the wrong.

 

[sprint]

There are basically no good people in government.

What a rediculous statement - I worked in public service most of my life with few perks, long hours, and not-so-great compensation - insider things I could have gained from would have been illegal to gain from, and anyway something like that never occurred to me to do - same for those I knew above, below, and beside me during those 30+yrs.

Don't mean to add another lame anecdotal tale to this thread but gotta do it in response to an absurd generaliztion that sadly tends to cancel out anything sensible a person might otherwise have to say.

 

[marsonic]

What a rediculous statement - I worked in public service most of my life with few perks, long hours, and not-so-great compensation - insider things I could have gained from would have been illegal to gain from, and anyway something like that never occurred to me to do - same for those I knew above, below, and beside me during those 30+yrs.

Don't mean to add another lame anecdotal tale to this thread but gotta do it in response to an absurd generaliztion that sadly tends to cancel out anything sensible a person might otherwise have to say.

Public service and government are not the same thing.