- Ivermectin has a surprisingly interesting origin, it was discovered in soil near a Japanese golf course and developed from a bacterium that kills parasites. It went on to treat diseases like river blindness and became widely used in both human and veterinary medicine. Despite all that, it’s definitely not some miracle drug or cure-all like some would have you believe. Though that didn’t stop my grandpa from stockpiling it after watching too many Fox News ads.
- > it’s definitely not some miracle drug or cure-all like some would have you believe
I agree. Anyway, there is a nice post about Ivermectin in 2020 by Derek Lowe (In the Pipeline) https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/what-s-ivermectin the most relevant quotes are:
> The drug is effective against a wide number of parasites and arthropods in general
> Its ion-channel mechanism of action against parasites has no application to viruses.
- It would’ve been very nice to show early in Covid the scale size of parasites vs viruses. Calling it a horse dewormer created the opposite, conspiracy effect.
- "Well if it can kill that big ol' thing, surely it can absolutely destroy those microscopic bastards!"
A whole lot of people will ignore or rationalize away evidence that disagrees with what they have already decided is true.
- it really is gloomy to see one who now realizes how mistaken it is, and have to help them through the aftermath.
- Golf is awesome...I know that much for sure.
- Yes, I really am always shocked by the Joe Rogans et. al. who spout off about random fad pharmaceuticals like this (with microscopic grains of truth that’s been twisted), they don’t even understand the basics of what is done to prove anything at all works effectively but in complete stupidity there’s a certainty I don’t think I have about anything.
People are more likely to believe Mel Gibson than a scientist on this stuff, it’s going to lead to absolute disaster.
- I believe it was a licensed MD who prescribed Ivermectin to him. It might be that we all have some parasites that worsen COVID immune reactions.
- Get involved in sports and you'll learn you can find a crooked doctor to prescribe anything and I mean ANYTHING.
- Yet there was zero evidence to suggest it would work for COVID, and people like him going around saying it worked, or they had "good results", based on nothing. Then they caused a shortage of the drug in places it was needed. So he actually caused harm with his BS.
I also got a fairly early strain of COVID and didn't have Ivermectin and I got over it pretty easily too? I just thought I pushed it too hard in the gym and felt a bit tired. My cousin got it, ended up in hospital on Oxygen.
Joe Rogan is just a fool and a propagandist.
- iirc, this is what caused the hype with ivermectin. I went to Fleet Farm and bought several tubes as soon as I read this. Because why not? By the time the Joe Rogan types started talking about it, my stash was already expired. I've periodically taken it when I've been exposed to bed bugs and fleas. And as a preventative thing when I'm going into areas with a lot of ticks. The apple flavored horse paste is nasty.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016635422...
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- When you talk about politicians… are you including Donald Trump in that, who said that if you stop testing, we would actually have very few cases?
Donald Trump, who talked about injecting bleach and sunlight into people to treat COVID, doing real time word association instead of educating the public during a pandemic?
Donald Trump, who promoted hydroxycholoroquine as the miracle cure for COVID despite no evidence that it was?
Donald Trump, who had his son-in-law run a team of unqualified volunteers for a “supply chain task force” during a pandemic, who announced that the federal stockpile of medical supplies (previously understood to be available for the states) was only to be used by the federal government?
The pandemic was ended by the vaccine. Donald Trump could take credit for that, but he won’t because his base of supporters is knee-deep in conspiracy theories about it. How sad.
- Of course I’m including him. He’s an idiot.
- I didn't say the response was perfect and all advice was accurate, but neither is selling bullshit like Ivermectin for COVID with zero evidence it was effective.
It's wild to suggest the best way to deal with the next pandemic is less science, less experts. No it's more science and more experts, that's what's required to solve the next pandemic and climate change, and super bugs and more.
Your comment seems to suggest that we should throw away all knowledge and faith in institutions because the knowledge we had at the time of a very dynamic situation wasn't perfect or to your liking.
It's painful to read honestly.
Next pandemic, we should just try random off the shell treatments until we find something that sticks I guess. Screw the experts?
- Not the author of the comment you replied to but I don’t believe that is the point. No one is saying that it is not important to listen to experts, but in fact many experts tried to say these things and were quickly shut down by the main stream media for not going along with what we were supposed to believe.
- No. Next time people like yourself should listen to what he actually said about certain topics versus what you were told he said by those with an axe to grind. Then you might temper your language and accusations of propaganda, or at least properly aim them in the opposite direction.
- Since 2016 I've listened to hundreds of hours of his podcast, maybe more. He is a useful idiot. At this point he has to know that, but continues doing what he does for the money. He is an entertainer and his show is entertaining, sure, but that is all it is. It's not factual, he does no journalism, he will repeat whatever nonsense suits his world view.
I now listen to it just to see what kind of BS I should expect to find in my daily interactions with other "bros. If you think he is offering some kind of alternative view point to the MSM, you've just not realized he is the MSM. He is the "swamp".
- Ah, now we get to the crux of it. Despite him being a comedian, who hosts a podcast in pretty much the same format he has since 2009, just doing unscripted long-form unedited with friends and people he finds interesting, and despite him saying ten thousand times he’s not an expert and not to take his advice just because something worked for him:
You’ll now pivot to some narrative that because he’s popular and people might take the wrong message away that he has a duty not to talk about certain things, not have certain people on, have others on to balance it out when someone says false things, push back on his guests and argue with them etc.
- “Unscripted” :)
- Yes, and there are licensed MDs working for RFK specifically to demonize vaccines (while there are many other licensed MDs who see vaccines as being very positive and efficacious). A license doesn't make you right.
- I would rather trust an MD over a rando on the Internet sorry.
- Which licensed MD?
If there are 100 licensed MDs telling you it’s BS, and 1 telling you it’s a miracle cure…
- What do you call someone who graduates last in their class in medical school?
“Doctor.”
There’s no shortage of credentialed quacks out there.
- It's not about lack of knowledge, it's greed. For doctors with flexible morals, garbage medicine is a shortcut to wealth.
Since non evidence based treatments aren't covered by health insurance, these practices are cash only. And cash only = $$$ because the doctor is getting the full payment and not just a fraction of it.
Dr. Oz is a good example. He was a CT surgeon at Columbia, which is considered the mecca for American CT surgery. But even if you are at the very top of your field as a doctor, there will be a cap on wealth, and you will never find fame. Oz gave up surgery, started hawking essential oils and is now very likely the only CT surgeon in the country with a net worth in the 9 figures.
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- There’s zero evidence and many clinical trials showing ivermectin is not effective against COVID. I don’t watch CNN I just believe we should use the scientific method to figure things out not theories people post on YouTube.
- Some Americans literally bought and consumed horse medicine because they thought it would cure covid. That’s not misinformation.
- If Joe Rogan says he wears permethrin coated clothing to prevent Lyme disease by killing ticks and people go out and drink termite spray and lice shampoo because CNN said that’s what permethrin is and implied that’s how he uses it, who is spreading the misinformation?
- > Yes, I really am always shocked by the Joe Rogans et. al. who spout off about random fad pharmaceuticals like this
Why shocked?
It seems quite normal since we live in an age where there is no accountability for spouting that stuff, and probably a major economic upside for the person spouting it.
Snake oil has never had a bigger market than it has today, aided by the Internet as a platform.
- Of course but the real question is how good the competition / alternative to Joe Rogan is. If he replaces MSM (all their lies and manipulation), then he’s better, even if he has low proof for what he talks about
- Might makes right?
Success in a media marketplace is not the same as quality, honesty, or integrity.
- Why was this flagged?
- I didn't flag it, but possibly because it pretends that Joe Rogan doesn't count as "mainstream media" despite being extremely mainstream, or alternatively because it pretends that "mainstream media" is somehow inherently untrustworthy in a way that Joe Rogan is immune to despite his acknowledged detachment from reality.
- New medias grow and become mainstream yes. You have to interpret each word in when they happened chronologically…
- The false narrative that there's a 'mainstream media' which is lies and propaganda, as compared to plucky unafraid truth-telling upstarts like Fox and Sinclair and Joe Rogan.
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- I wonder how many years it will take for the emotional response to the word “ivermectin” to subside so that every mention of it doesn’t erupt into a two minute hate. I worry that the unintended consequence of these marketing campaigns, whether well intentioned or not, is going to be a growing list of trigger words that send people into deep mental anguish. As there seems to be a new outrage every few months, I would think there has to be some kind of real damage that accumulates from a lifetime of this.
- 22.3 years is the standard amount of time before something tragic can become funny.
This standard may also apply here.
- > It has now been shown to reduce malaria transmission by killing the mosquitoes that feed on treated individuals.
That seems like it will interfere with careless randomized controlled trial design. If the drug kills mosquitos, it could easily do less well at preventing the user from getting infected by a mosquito, but it could potentially prevent an infected patient from spreading an infection via mosquito or even kill a mosquito that would otherwise subsequently spread an infection between two other people.
In any case, here’s a better article. It seems the authors are very much aware of this issue, and they randomized entire clusters of people:
https://www.science.org/content/article/well-known-drug-coul...
- Ivermectin: much more than you wanted to know
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-y...
Spoiler: this finding fits
- The discoverers of ivermectin shared a Nobel Prize in 2015 [0] with a discoverer of a novel malaria treatment. Interesting coincidence.
[0] https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2015/press-releas...
- https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/features/116436
> Four states -- Tennessee, Arkansas, Idaho, and Louisiana -- have passed OTC ivermectin laws
> [Nine] other states have bills moving through their legislatures
- You can just go buy it at any farm supply store. Same thing with DMSO
- State legislative processes have multiple functions.
- it doesnt stop you from being infected, it is administered, in such dosage as to make the blood toxic to mosquitoes.
the reduction of infection is by reduction of mosquito population.
- Well something needs to be done about malaria. Since there is no hope in solving Climate Change, seems malaria and other disease are slowing heading north.
I remember reading some nasty mosquito diseases already landed in Florida and Southern Texas. And seems malaria use to be as far north as NH.
So, if work does not start soon, malaria could cover a decent area of the US. Of course we know the politicians will completely ignore this threat and some may even say it is no worse than the common cold. Just look at the progress on Climate Change, if decent work was done on that 30+ years ago, it would have solved lots of potential issues.
- This paper seems misleading to me because ivermectin was dosed only once a month at about a standard dose. Based on the drug's pharmacology, there is no way in which it could maintain any effectiveness over a week.
If the paper is legitimate, then the effect could be better with weekly dosing and much better with twice-a-week dosing.
- This research must have been conducted by a bunch of conspiracy nuts - after all Ivermectin is a horse dewormer and that's all you need to know about it (source: CNN)
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- It wasn't being "smeared for political reasons"; people were actively taking Ivermectin in preference to vaccines and therapeutics we knew worked on COVID. Whatever else Ivermectin might do, it was not a meaningful therapeutic for COVID.
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- Still waiting for the people who got vaccinated to start dropping dead like I was promised.
- and the people who didn't get vaccinated are still waiting for "a winter of severe illness and death for the unvaccinated - for themselves, their families and the hospitals they'll soon overwhelm."
43 points by rguiscard 8 hours ago | 49 comments