I thought Ivermectin would have been vindicated, or at least given a fair chance by now. With people suffering rebound infections and Merck's drug having some concerns, that the floor would open up to other treatments. I guess in for the penny in for the pound. There is no relenting now.
Yeah, this pandemic sure has been an interesting epistemological ride. Im used to finding myself on the minority side of an argument; but they are usually in relatively obscure matters. With this much public pressure on these questions, with such clear empirically testable matters, I suppose I would have expected the usual levels of self-deception and herd-mentality to crack at some point sooner. But im seeing little signs of it yet.
Then again, it usually takes decades for medical controversies to settle into an agreed upon answer; and perhaps it will also be the case that we need to wait for the entire current professional class to retire before there will be room to reconsider the current 'consensus'.
I hate how right you sound to me when it comes to the timeline for when the consensus will be reconsidered. Which makes it that much more likely you're right.
Some interesting characters along the way of this Pandemic. Not quite sure what to make of some insofar as if they are genuine actors who are just mistaken, or schills, etc.
Curious what people make of Ivermectin critics such as Avi Bitterman. Or even Alex Berenson.
Alex , I would lead off every single rebuttal to KidMK with a reminder of his endorsement of roundup back in the day. That's getting A LOT of negative press right now in MSM. Cancers, bees dying and so on. Something people are pissed off about that shills like GidMK enabled.
It's not just molnupiravir, which by the way, in a recent study was walked all the way down to 0 efficacy. Even Paxlovid is producing at best - mixed results. At worst, enhanced disease.
I think we should switch the entire narrative to exposing EBM for the corrupt fraud that it is. People are brainwashed by "the science". We need to win over the centrists who are now also starting to think pharma evidence is heavily conflicted and hence low quality by definition. Those are the people that are we should be targeting in winning mind share.
that guy and Gorski are something else. Gorski drove me crazy the other day with a sneering Tweet noting that its clear now that the 'herd immunity' the great barrington declaration was hoping for through natural immunity was clearly a pipe dream. As if herd immunity wasn't an essential platform for team vaccine.
From the get-go, the thing that irked me most about Scotts IVM piece was his seeming infatuation with GidMK. Leaving opinions about IVM aside, it had seemed to abundantly clear to me on so many levels that this was no dispassionate observer with an interest in striving for objective truth; and I had to wonder what goggles Scott was viewing him though, to be copy-pasting his opinions around with such abandon. Im still not sure.
Scotts factual errors are for him to clear up of course; but it does seem to me that outsourcing his thinking to this particular twitter user was one of the prime causes making that article into what it was.
Loved the line about health officials of the world shouting “horse dewormer!”. Ours, in New Zealand, did exactly that. A pivotal moment in the political history of this for me.
The Scott et. al. ongoing depute frankly makes my eyes glaze over but I watched the Prof Schwartz video and his study design seemed excellent, the results clear cut and Prof. Schwartz himself seems highly reasonable and knowledgeable. I still find it weird and possibly criminal that this drug was not used more widely. Thanks for staying on the case!
On one hand, I think it's really great that Alexandros is surfacing all of these inconsistencies around the interpretation of Ivermectin research that just so happen to all go in the same direction. OTOH, this whole substack has felt rather quixotic for a while now.
As far as Scott Alexander goes, I really haven't taken him all that seriously ever since those emails leaked where he admitted to misrepresenting his own views as a matter of political expediency. Granted, nearly everyone does that from time to time but I believe rationalism really only works when one makes a good faith effort to accurately represent one's own views and personal biases. Which probably means rationalism doesn't work at all.
This is important work. This is useful to me. I think it's easy to underestimate how much is riding on these apparently minor skirmishes in the context of the wider war. Thanks for your dedication and humility, Alexandros.
This is all rather interesting. Taking your analysis of Scott as it is presented, it looks like Scott just relied on GidMK's breakdown of the study rather than conduct his own analysis of the study and see if he could either corroborate or refute his findings (which you did here). This is such an egregious flaw, and I'm not sure why there's been a perplexing issue in which people would rather have others tell them what a study says, rather than hear one perspective and check for themselves. Maybe Scott is a very busy man, or maybe he's starting with a biased perspective where he may not find it worth his time to continuously dive into such matters.
I will be candid and say that all of this is coming with me not having read the Israeli study for myself yet, but if Scott did no analysis of his own to parse the information than that by itself is a pretty dangerous thing to do.
The world could absolutely use more of your analyses regarding ivermectin and the world's disinformation campaign against using it for COVID-19. An in-depth analysis on ACTIV-6 would be great, as it seems like the worst high-profile ivermectin study to date: terrible regimen (only 3 days of treatment after a weeklong delay), terrible selection of participants (far too low-risk to benefit from IVM- only 1 death in ~1600 COVID patients!), and some questionable data reported in the preprint (I can specify if you're interested).
But right now, something that deserves even more urgent attention is the supposedly "safer" Novavax. Some of its clinical trial findings are so alarming that they seem to justify a post on their own:
The vaccine group had almost DOUBLE the incidence rate of neoplasms as the placebo group (0.95 vaccine vs. 0.51 placebo).
Ditto for immune system disorders (1.05 vaccine vs. 0.51 placebo).
And reproductive system and breast disorders were also worrisomely elevated (2.00 vaccine vs. 1.25 placebo). That one is notably concerning because the table shows the increase is concentrated in the younger age group. Alarmingly, the FDA briefing document ( https://www.fda.gov/media/158912/download - Page 67) shows 25 miscarriages compared to 41 live births.
You can see the ACTIV-6 coverage of ivmmeta, it's pretty damning. Feel free to send them any issues you know about that are not included in their list, they're pretty responsive.
We need to pin them down on what a complete failure so-called "high powered" EBM has been, especially since covid. It's produced nothing but hot garbage. Once that is achieved, all the rest of their argument falls apart.
Lead off with post-hoc discussion on remdesivir and molnupiravir
Alexandria is one of the most intellectually satisfying commentators out there. He would wipe the floor with most protagonists. I've learnt more about the foibles of biased commentators, by following his analyses, than anyone else. If only the average physician would read him, the world might be a better place.
I thought Ivermectin would have been vindicated, or at least given a fair chance by now. With people suffering rebound infections and Merck's drug having some concerns, that the floor would open up to other treatments. I guess in for the penny in for the pound. There is no relenting now.
Yeah, this pandemic sure has been an interesting epistemological ride. Im used to finding myself on the minority side of an argument; but they are usually in relatively obscure matters. With this much public pressure on these questions, with such clear empirically testable matters, I suppose I would have expected the usual levels of self-deception and herd-mentality to crack at some point sooner. But im seeing little signs of it yet.
Then again, it usually takes decades for medical controversies to settle into an agreed upon answer; and perhaps it will also be the case that we need to wait for the entire current professional class to retire before there will be room to reconsider the current 'consensus'.
I hate how right you sound to me when it comes to the timeline for when the consensus will be reconsidered. Which makes it that much more likely you're right.
Some interesting characters along the way of this Pandemic. Not quite sure what to make of some insofar as if they are genuine actors who are just mistaken, or schills, etc.
Curious what people make of Ivermectin critics such as Avi Bitterman. Or even Alex Berenson.
Alex , I would lead off every single rebuttal to KidMK with a reminder of his endorsement of roundup back in the day. That's getting A LOT of negative press right now in MSM. Cancers, bees dying and so on. Something people are pissed off about that shills like GidMK enabled.
It's not just molnupiravir, which by the way, in a recent study was walked all the way down to 0 efficacy. Even Paxlovid is producing at best - mixed results. At worst, enhanced disease.
https://twitter.com/lairdwd2/status/1549197366305120258?s=20&t=RRrycjf95ObaeAZBkNQ3kg
I think we should switch the entire narrative to exposing EBM for the corrupt fraud that it is. People are brainwashed by "the science". We need to win over the centrists who are now also starting to think pharma evidence is heavily conflicted and hence low quality by definition. Those are the people that are we should be targeting in winning mind share.
💰 remdesivir
💰 molnupiravir
💰 bamnalivamab
💰 mRNA jabs
💰 baricitinib
💰 paxlovid
💰 aducanamab
that guy and Gorski are something else. Gorski drove me crazy the other day with a sneering Tweet noting that its clear now that the 'herd immunity' the great barrington declaration was hoping for through natural immunity was clearly a pipe dream. As if herd immunity wasn't an essential platform for team vaccine.
From the get-go, the thing that irked me most about Scotts IVM piece was his seeming infatuation with GidMK. Leaving opinions about IVM aside, it had seemed to abundantly clear to me on so many levels that this was no dispassionate observer with an interest in striving for objective truth; and I had to wonder what goggles Scott was viewing him though, to be copy-pasting his opinions around with such abandon. Im still not sure.
Scotts factual errors are for him to clear up of course; but it does seem to me that outsourcing his thinking to this particular twitter user was one of the prime causes making that article into what it was.
Yup. That was my first thought upon seeing the piece. (https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1460962953235107846?t=q3MkSJ4nn-QoGafS0CobFQ&s=19) And yet, i still hoped Scott would do the basics of rationalist epistemic hygeine, including avoiding obvious traps he himself has written extensively about.
Sadly, it seems he thinks the rules dont apply to him, and the results are what we got.
I have an opinion of what the goggles are. However, I will not offend my host here by saying more.
Please don’t leave us hanging - would you say what you think?
Sorry, you'll have to make your own connection to arrive at the most common reason that people uncritically embrace the opinion of another.
Oh. Well, if it’s the most common reason, yeah nevermind. Thought you had a much more intriguing and atypical suspicion.
Loved the line about health officials of the world shouting “horse dewormer!”. Ours, in New Zealand, did exactly that. A pivotal moment in the political history of this for me.
The Scott et. al. ongoing depute frankly makes my eyes glaze over but I watched the Prof Schwartz video and his study design seemed excellent, the results clear cut and Prof. Schwartz himself seems highly reasonable and knowledgeable. I still find it weird and possibly criminal that this drug was not used more widely. Thanks for staying on the case!
On one hand, I think it's really great that Alexandros is surfacing all of these inconsistencies around the interpretation of Ivermectin research that just so happen to all go in the same direction. OTOH, this whole substack has felt rather quixotic for a while now.
As far as Scott Alexander goes, I really haven't taken him all that seriously ever since those emails leaked where he admitted to misrepresenting his own views as a matter of political expediency. Granted, nearly everyone does that from time to time but I believe rationalism really only works when one makes a good faith effort to accurately represent one's own views and personal biases. Which probably means rationalism doesn't work at all.
This is important work. This is useful to me. I think it's easy to underestimate how much is riding on these apparently minor skirmishes in the context of the wider war. Thanks for your dedication and humility, Alexandros.
This is all rather interesting. Taking your analysis of Scott as it is presented, it looks like Scott just relied on GidMK's breakdown of the study rather than conduct his own analysis of the study and see if he could either corroborate or refute his findings (which you did here). This is such an egregious flaw, and I'm not sure why there's been a perplexing issue in which people would rather have others tell them what a study says, rather than hear one perspective and check for themselves. Maybe Scott is a very busy man, or maybe he's starting with a biased perspective where he may not find it worth his time to continuously dive into such matters.
I will be candid and say that all of this is coming with me not having read the Israeli study for myself yet, but if Scott did no analysis of his own to parse the information than that by itself is a pretty dangerous thing to do.
The world could absolutely use more of your analyses regarding ivermectin and the world's disinformation campaign against using it for COVID-19. An in-depth analysis on ACTIV-6 would be great, as it seems like the worst high-profile ivermectin study to date: terrible regimen (only 3 days of treatment after a weeklong delay), terrible selection of participants (far too low-risk to benefit from IVM- only 1 death in ~1600 COVID patients!), and some questionable data reported in the preprint (I can specify if you're interested).
But right now, something that deserves even more urgent attention is the supposedly "safer" Novavax. Some of its clinical trial findings are so alarming that they seem to justify a post on their own:
Source- NEJM publication (Supplementary Appendix, Table S14): https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa2116185/suppl_file/nejmoa2116185_appendix.pdf - see page 48
The vaccine group had almost DOUBLE the incidence rate of neoplasms as the placebo group (0.95 vaccine vs. 0.51 placebo).
Ditto for immune system disorders (1.05 vaccine vs. 0.51 placebo).
And reproductive system and breast disorders were also worrisomely elevated (2.00 vaccine vs. 1.25 placebo). That one is notably concerning because the table shows the increase is concentrated in the younger age group. Alarmingly, the FDA briefing document ( https://www.fda.gov/media/158912/download - Page 67) shows 25 miscarriages compared to 41 live births.
You can see the ACTIV-6 coverage of ivmmeta, it's pretty damning. Feel free to send them any issues you know about that are not included in their list, they're pretty responsive.
https://c19ivermectin.com/activ6ivm.html
We need to pin them down on what a complete failure so-called "high powered" EBM has been, especially since covid. It's produced nothing but hot garbage. Once that is achieved, all the rest of their argument falls apart.
Lead off with post-hoc discussion on remdesivir and molnupiravir
Excellent, thank you 😊
This is 🔥🔥🔥. Thank you for putting in the time and effort.
Alexandria is one of the most intellectually satisfying commentators out there. He would wipe the floor with most protagonists. I've learnt more about the foibles of biased commentators, by following his analyses, than anyone else. If only the average physician would read him, the world might be a better place.