I haven't really looked at Ivermectin because everyone else was, and it just seemed like a good way to jump into a pit of snakes.
I did cover Fluvoxamine, and Fluvoxamine has many different MoAs from lysosomotropism similar to Hydroxychloroquine and to reducing ER Stress by serving as a sigma-1 agonist.
It has many of the hallmarks of Ivermectin: cheap, widely available (SSRI), etc. However, it is not without some side effects. I think our culture is becoming more conscientious of things that alter mental function and with all of this talk about mass shooters I wouldn't be surprised if these concepts are related.
Why does it relate to Fluvoxamine? One of the Columbine shooters was found to have been on Fluvoxamine and so the manufacturer fell under a lot of heat and there was national outcry. I think at a time where people are both concerned about mass shootings and the mental health of our nation I suppose that could (note, COULD) be a big factor in a mass administration of an SSRI?
Or, it could really just be the old adage: don't ascribe to malice that which can be explained through incompetency.
I think it could very well be that these trials, and really many of the trials we are seeing, are just suffering from poor methodology and having many people examine these trials with a magnifying glass may really just be picking up on these errors.
Yes, on the one hand the intriguing (and often seemingly flawed) methodology of the Together trial can be explained by incompetence. But on the other there must almost certainly have been a press campaign surrounding the announcement of the results:
When said news agencies then trumpet “Ivermectin shown to have no benefit” etc then I think the benefit of the doubt re simple incompetency is lost.
The best case scenario for the Together trial would therefore be genuine incompetency, beyond what could be reasonably expected from essentially professional reasearchers.
That would then prohibit them from running anymore trials, as such a poor track record does not get you the next job.
But wait...Together trial wins trail of the year!
So maybe perhaps a hint of purposefulness explains the results?
The press campaign is disconcerting, but that still doesn't explain why they had one drug, Fluvoxamine, as a possibly therapeutic drug against COVID yet there has been dead silence around that drug.
Steve Kirsch has championed the drug, and considering how much heat he gets from the press wouldn't you think it appropriate, if nefarious games are at play, that they try to distance themselves from the person they would otherwise consider to be a bad actor in the eyes of COVID zealots?
There could be something sketchy going on, but these people just as likely to be practicing incompetence while high on their own arrogance. I'm always reminded of what Heather Heying has stated: there's a big difference between being educated and being intelligent, and I think we are starting to realize that far too many educated people are actually quite stupid.
Yes, I agree, Fluvoxamine is an oddity. It certainly appears to have an equivalent level of evidence compared to budesonide and dexamethasone, which are two repurposed drugs generally accepted for use.
In Australia, the NCCET have been extremely reluctant to recommend any repurposed medication out of patent, and they don’t even recommend povidone iodine nasal and throat rinse, which has good evidence and at worst is basically harmless. In contrast, they added Molnupiravir and Paxlovid with scant evidence. In fact with Paxlovid they added it to their recommendations before the peer reviewed paper was even published.
I’ve got a couple of hypotheses re IVM and Fluvoxamine:
1. IVM can potentially be used at every phase of the disease, including prophylaxis
2. The research pre-dated vaccines and the campaign against it went hard and early. To reverse that opinion now requires the whole series of events to be re-examined. If reversed questions will be asked and everyone who suffered may seek compensation
3. Fluvoxamine is out of patent as well and doesn’t have a push or sponsor through the FDA/TGA
4. Maybe just maybe Fluvoxamine, budesonide and nasal rinse is enough to treat the disease....one extra drug may just be the difference. This may thereby almost eliminate the need for future vaccines
5. Maybe they just simply think the evidence for remdesivir, molnupiravir and paxlovid is better!
SSRI are also mast cell stabilizers. There are other mast cell stabilizers too that avoid SSRI-related adverse events. Famotidine/cetirizine can also address COVID severity.
Immunological Mechanisms Explaining the Role of Vaccines, IgE, Mast Cells, Histamine, Elevating Ferritin, IL-6, D-dimer, VEGF Levels in COVID-19 and Dengue, Potential Treatments Such as Mast Cell Stabilizers, Antihistamines: Predictions and Confirmations
Thank you for all of your hard work. It is much appreciated. I was thinking the other day that the results of clinical trials should be transparent and written for the average patient to read. In other words, it should be easy to determine the particular patient (age/sex/comorbidity) for which a drug's benefits outweigh the risks. Critical information shouldn't be buried in a paragraph or in an appendix. Perhaps a change similar to that of mortgage closing documents in the Obama era.
Also, clinical trials should be run by independent companies and trial design should be heavily scrutinized and agreed to beforehand with valuable societal endpoints (i.e. not Covid vaccine endpoints), and with regular monitoring for compliance with design.
Imo they should release the template of the analysis they will do before they start the trial. There is way too much discretion to fudge the details in so many ways right now, which makes it impossible to trust the output. If they want to write additional commentary in a second part they should be able to do it. But there should be a first part that is set in stone and not subject to tweaking.
Agreed. My background is project management, so I think of clearly-defined and agreed-upon user requirements, reviewed A&D documents for how IT will proceed, test cases, etc. Someone needs to look skeptically at the trial design, as you have, but beforehand to resolve weaknesses.
In my college freshman chem lab, I knew the output I should get, but it wasn't working out for me. Science wasn't my strong suit, but math was, so I reverse-engineered the experiment to get the desired outcome. If I can manipulate an experiment to get a desired outcome, I have no doubt that pharma can.
I haven't really looked at Ivermectin because everyone else was, and it just seemed like a good way to jump into a pit of snakes.
I did cover Fluvoxamine, and Fluvoxamine has many different MoAs from lysosomotropism similar to Hydroxychloroquine and to reducing ER Stress by serving as a sigma-1 agonist.
https://moderndiscontent.substack.com/p/the-fluvoxamine-anthology-series?s=w
It has many of the hallmarks of Ivermectin: cheap, widely available (SSRI), etc. However, it is not without some side effects. I think our culture is becoming more conscientious of things that alter mental function and with all of this talk about mass shooters I wouldn't be surprised if these concepts are related.
Why does it relate to Fluvoxamine? One of the Columbine shooters was found to have been on Fluvoxamine and so the manufacturer fell under a lot of heat and there was national outcry. I think at a time where people are both concerned about mass shootings and the mental health of our nation I suppose that could (note, COULD) be a big factor in a mass administration of an SSRI?
Or, it could really just be the old adage: don't ascribe to malice that which can be explained through incompetency.
I think it could very well be that these trials, and really many of the trials we are seeing, are just suffering from poor methodology and having many people examine these trials with a magnifying glass may really just be picking up on these errors.
Yes, on the one hand the intriguing (and often seemingly flawed) methodology of the Together trial can be explained by incompetence. But on the other there must almost certainly have been a press campaign surrounding the announcement of the results:
https://philharper.substack.com/p/who-ran-the-negative-press-campaign?s=r
When said news agencies then trumpet “Ivermectin shown to have no benefit” etc then I think the benefit of the doubt re simple incompetency is lost.
The best case scenario for the Together trial would therefore be genuine incompetency, beyond what could be reasonably expected from essentially professional reasearchers.
That would then prohibit them from running anymore trials, as such a poor track record does not get you the next job.
But wait...Together trial wins trail of the year!
So maybe perhaps a hint of purposefulness explains the results?
The press campaign is disconcerting, but that still doesn't explain why they had one drug, Fluvoxamine, as a possibly therapeutic drug against COVID yet there has been dead silence around that drug.
Steve Kirsch has championed the drug, and considering how much heat he gets from the press wouldn't you think it appropriate, if nefarious games are at play, that they try to distance themselves from the person they would otherwise consider to be a bad actor in the eyes of COVID zealots?
There could be something sketchy going on, but these people just as likely to be practicing incompetence while high on their own arrogance. I'm always reminded of what Heather Heying has stated: there's a big difference between being educated and being intelligent, and I think we are starting to realize that far too many educated people are actually quite stupid.
Yes, I agree, Fluvoxamine is an oddity. It certainly appears to have an equivalent level of evidence compared to budesonide and dexamethasone, which are two repurposed drugs generally accepted for use.
In Australia, the NCCET have been extremely reluctant to recommend any repurposed medication out of patent, and they don’t even recommend povidone iodine nasal and throat rinse, which has good evidence and at worst is basically harmless. In contrast, they added Molnupiravir and Paxlovid with scant evidence. In fact with Paxlovid they added it to their recommendations before the peer reviewed paper was even published.
I’ve got a couple of hypotheses re IVM and Fluvoxamine:
1. IVM can potentially be used at every phase of the disease, including prophylaxis
2. The research pre-dated vaccines and the campaign against it went hard and early. To reverse that opinion now requires the whole series of events to be re-examined. If reversed questions will be asked and everyone who suffered may seek compensation
3. Fluvoxamine is out of patent as well and doesn’t have a push or sponsor through the FDA/TGA
4. Maybe just maybe Fluvoxamine, budesonide and nasal rinse is enough to treat the disease....one extra drug may just be the difference. This may thereby almost eliminate the need for future vaccines
5. Maybe they just simply think the evidence for remdesivir, molnupiravir and paxlovid is better!
SSRI are also mast cell stabilizers. There are other mast cell stabilizers too that avoid SSRI-related adverse events. Famotidine/cetirizine can also address COVID severity.
Immunological Mechanisms Explaining the Role of Vaccines, IgE, Mast Cells, Histamine, Elevating Ferritin, IL-6, D-dimer, VEGF Levels in COVID-19 and Dengue, Potential Treatments Such as Mast Cell Stabilizers, Antihistamines: Predictions and Confirmations
https://europepmc.org/article/PPR/PPR241819
Thank you for all of your hard work. It is much appreciated. I was thinking the other day that the results of clinical trials should be transparent and written for the average patient to read. In other words, it should be easy to determine the particular patient (age/sex/comorbidity) for which a drug's benefits outweigh the risks. Critical information shouldn't be buried in a paragraph or in an appendix. Perhaps a change similar to that of mortgage closing documents in the Obama era.
Also, clinical trials should be run by independent companies and trial design should be heavily scrutinized and agreed to beforehand with valuable societal endpoints (i.e. not Covid vaccine endpoints), and with regular monitoring for compliance with design.
Imo they should release the template of the analysis they will do before they start the trial. There is way too much discretion to fudge the details in so many ways right now, which makes it impossible to trust the output. If they want to write additional commentary in a second part they should be able to do it. But there should be a first part that is set in stone and not subject to tweaking.
Agreed. My background is project management, so I think of clearly-defined and agreed-upon user requirements, reviewed A&D documents for how IT will proceed, test cases, etc. Someone needs to look skeptically at the trial design, as you have, but beforehand to resolve weaknesses.
In my college freshman chem lab, I knew the output I should get, but it wasn't working out for me. Science wasn't my strong suit, but math was, so I reverse-engineered the experiment to get the desired outcome. If I can manipulate an experiment to get a desired outcome, I have no doubt that pharma can.
The award money comes from vaccine makers, as expected.
https://www.sctweb.org/sponsors.cfm
In case they flew under your Twitter radar, I’m linking my unanswered comments/questions that I think are relevant on this article as well:
https://twitter.com/millenamos/status/1526771079112323072
https://twitter.com/millenamos/status/1526782630322089984
https://twitter.com/millenamos/status/1526785109734481921
Keep up the good detective work
Surely people must have recognised by now that TOGETHER is actually working together with big pharma?