Ivermectin proves ineffective against covid 19

[Dr_Faustus]

I have a general question that must be asked.

What does being sick and getting medicine have to do at all with politics?

Have we partitioned the mindset of people so much to the point where conspiracy driven crap is now factored in with politics? I noticed this so much with covid that its just silly to assume the push for masks, the development and rollout of the vaccine and trying to assure people do not poison themselves with false cures has to do ANYTHING with what political side you are on. It just seems so unnecessary to need to combine the two. Its like saying that if I like Coke that means I am a republican or a communist because the colour of the can is Red. That is the kind of grasping of straws I am seeing here with needing to infuse politics in something like this.


Finally, throwing this out there, The vaccine development started during the Trump administration, and rolled out during the Biden administration, if somehow Trump was still president when the vaccine rollout happened would the opposition still be the same? I highly doubt it aside from some super anti-vax folk who existed long before politics had anything to do with it.

This shit is silly, get some goddamn facts and stop clinging onto bullshit that probably originated from some facebook group.

 

[subcon959]

Finally, throwing this out there, The vaccine development started during the Trump administration, and rolled out during the Biden administration, if somehow Trump was still president when the vaccine rollout happened would the opposition still be the same?

It would be flipped, even your vice president said in an interview back then she wouldn't take a vaccine endorsed by Trump

 

[NoobletCheese]

Ivermectin was never approved for treating covid 19 ... doctors can be crackpots too. So what do you do? Let them prescribe whatever quack snake oil they want, which at best does nothing and at worst will harm you. Or tell them not to prescribe it?

"Off-label use is very common. Generic drugs generally have no sponsor as their indications and use expands, and incentives are limited to initiate new clinical trials to generate additional data for approval agencies to expand indications of proprietary drugs. Up to one-fifth of all drugs are prescribed off-label and amongst psychiatric drugs, off-label use rises to 31%."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-label_use#Frequency_of_off-label_use

 

[smf]

"Off-label use is very common. Generic drugs generally have no sponsor as their indications and use expands, and incentives are limited to initiate new clinical trials to generate additional data for approval agencies to expand indications of proprietary drugs. Up to one-fifth of all drugs are prescribed off-label and amongst psychiatric drugs, off-label use rises to 31%."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-label_use#Frequency_of_off-label_use

As this is australia that is being discussed, then this is relevant.

https://www.nps.org.au/australian-prescriber/articles/off-label-prescribing

There is no legal impediment to prescribing off label, however the onus is on the prescriber to defend their prescription for an indication that is not listed in the product information. If, in the opinion of the prescriber, the off-label prescription can be supported by reasonable quality evidence, for example the indication is identified in the Australian Medicines Handbook, the prescriber should proceed if this is in the patient’s best interests.

Off label use is often because drug companies didn't pay to test on children or pregnant women, not because the doctor wanted to try some crazy plan.

 

[smf]

It would be flipped, even your vice president said in an interview back then she wouldn't take a vaccine endorsed by Trump

No, she said she would take it if Fauci said to take it. But If Faucci didn't say to take it, but Trump did then then she would not take it.

Which I think is pretty fair really. You shouldn't take health advice from Trump

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52399464

But her statement doesn't require her to do the opposite of what Trump says, when he agreed with Fauci.

That would be at best a disingenuous argument.

If someone says "Jump off a bridge" and you say "I don't have to do what you say", then you can't just reply "Ok, if you aren't going to do what I say then don't jump off a bridge" & think you've outsmarted them.

I noticed this so much with covid that its just silly to assume the push for masks, the development and rollout of the vaccine and trying to assure people do not poison themselves with false cures has to do ANYTHING with what political side you are on. It just seems so unnecessary to need to combine the two. Its like saying that if I like Coke that means I am a republican or a communist because the colour of the can is Red. That is the kind of grasping of straws I am seeing here with needing to infuse politics in something like this.

Some people want to believe that there are secret plots to kill them or steal all their money.

Trump gave them a voice (partly because he is also dumb, but also because he wanted their vote).

I can't figure out why Trump is obsessed with windmills though.

 

[trimesh]

The biggest problem is that COVID seems to have triggered off a tsunami of extremely dubious "science" supported mostly by preprint papers that are disseminated via social media rather than conventional scientific review channels. We saw a lot of this with Hydroxychloroquine, and another spate of it with Ivermectin.

This is all exacerbated by the fact there is a principle in the scientific community to assume good faith - I.E. even if the data is bad you tend to assume it was generated with honest intent. So when you get things like the (widely quoted) Egyptian Ivermectin study that appeared to show very high levels of efficacity that's published as a preprint it can end up incorporated into various meta analyses, sometimes to the extent of dramatically skewing the overall results.

In that specific case, several people thought the results were sufficiently anomalous that they requested the raw data for the study, and what they (eventually) got back was a complete mess that was in serious conflict with the narrative section of the paper, didn't in any case seem to support the stated conclusions and also had some alarming features like sections of data that appeared to have been repeatedly copied and pasted.

The "assume good faith" principle means that people aren't generally saying the data was fabricated, but there are certainly a lot of people that have strong suspicions this might be the case. The original paper has now been retracted, but it's original purported conclusions are still being passed around on social media and although some of the metanalyses that had this apparently bogus data baked into them have been amended to note that doubts have been thrown on the source data others have not.

Of course, in the greater scheme of things this ultimately doesn't matter - if a study says {x} and nobody can reproduce it then eventually people conclude that {x} is actually not true and at that point the most fruitful target of investigation is why those results were obtained originally - but since there is a finite capacity for research this has the effect of potentially diverting resources from more useful avenues of investigation.

So does Ivermectin have any useful effect against COVID? I don't know - it's not my area of expertise, but the paper described in this thread appears to describe a well-constructed study that makes a serious attempt to answer this question and has concluded that it does not.

 

[AlanGreen]

The biggest problem is that COVID seems to have triggered off a tsunami of extremely dubious "science" supported mostly by preprint papers that are disseminated via social media rather than conventional scientific review channels. We saw a lot of this with Hydroxychloroquine, and another spate of it with Ivermectin.

This is all exacerbated by the fact there is a principle in the scientific community to assume good faith - I.E. even if the data is bad you tend to assume it was generated with honest intent. So when you get things like the (widely quoted) Egyptian Ivermectin study that appeared to show very high levels of efficacity that's published as a preprint it can end up incorporated into various meta analyses, sometimes to the extent of dramatically skewing the overall results.

In that specific case, several people thought the results were sufficiently anomalous that they requested the raw data for the study, and what they (eventually) got back was a complete mess that was in serious conflict with the narrative section of the paper, didn't in any case seem to support the stated conclusions and also had some alarming features like sections of data that appeared to have been repeatedly copied and pasted.

The "assume good faith" principle means that people aren't generally saying the data was fabricated, but there are certainly a lot of people that have strong suspicions this might be the case. The original paper has now been retracted, but it's original purported conclusions are still being passed around on social media and although some of the metanalyses that had this apparently bogus data baked into them have been amended to note that doubts have been thrown on the source data others have not.

Of course, in the greater scheme of things this ultimately doesn't matter - if a study says {x} and nobody can reproduce it then eventually people conclude that {x} is actually not true and at that point the most fruitful target of investigation is why those results were obtained originally - but since there is a finite capacity for research this has the effect of potentially diverting resources from more useful avenues of investigation.

So does Ivermectin have any useful effect against COVID? I don't know - it's not my area of expertise, but the paper described in this thread appears to describe a well-constructed study that makes a serious attempt to answer this question and has concluded that it does not.

I read a lot of medical research about covid, about its consequences, the main symptoms around the world and vaccination. I study at the medical faculty and research the effects of drugs on the human body. At https://papersowl.com/examples/drug-abuse/ I sometimes find constructive information about drug addiction and its devastating effects on the human body.

I absolutely agree with you.

 

[tabzer]

So does Ivermectin have any useful effect against COVID? I don't know - it's not my area of expertise, but the paper described in this thread appears to describe a well-constructed study that makes a serious attempt to answer this question and has concluded that it does not.

If you ignore the points made in this thread and what the study actually shows, sure.

1. You are ignoring the limitations imposed by the study and applying it wide-spectrum to cover claims that the study doesn't even target. For it to be purported as proof/evidence that ivermectin is ineffective in any use is disingenuous to boot.

2. Even the study kind of bogus by suggesting that %10 effectiveness, in this specific application, is insignificant. But you'll forgo the data and run with the contradictory conclusion? Seems like you were just saying that was a problem.

It seems to me that %10 is effective enough to establish a positive relationship, opening up the possibility for further study and finding out the exact cause for such change (ie. dosages, composites, timing, methods of application). But instead, the conclusion tries to shut it down. I wouldn't call that pro-science. It's a hit piece to funnel attention away from it.

 

[Xzi]

Honest question, does someone in the world still unironically believe the laptop from hell is a hoax?

"Hoax" would imply the laptop isn't real at all. It very well may be a real laptop, but with nothing at all that ties it to Hunter Biden. It's just another one of those things alt-right conspiracy theorists cream their panties over imagining is true, but it isn't. Like Comet Ping Pong having a basement.

 

[Xzi]

Really, so the evidence of hunter biden trafficking influences with daddy vp, taking executive board seats in exvhange for lots money in ukrainian burisma and chinese companies, which directly benefited and involved the current us president, etc are all altright conspiracies? Btw, people do conspire between closed doors. The term "conspiracy theory" was invented by the CIA to discredit those that questioned the Warren investigation.

I'm sorry, are you ranting about a person making money from the private sector thanks to their daddy's connections? If so, keep raging against that machine brother, because that would mean you agree Trump is a piece of shit too.

I'm far more concerned with people stealing my tax dollars from the government via nepotism, as Jared and Ivanka did when they walked away from their white house positions $50+ million richer.

 

[trimesh]

If you ignore the points made in this thread and what the study actually shows, sure.

The study says they were unable to establish any statistically significant correlation, and that is supported by the data. The study protocol appears to be sound and sufficiently documented. As I said earlier, this is not a field I can pretend to have any expertise in, but I am quite familiar with the general process of peer review and this paper seems at least well constructed.

I can also say that the same does NOT seem to be true some of the papers asserting a significant positive effect from Ivermectin - especially that now retracted Mexican study that created a lot of the initial interest because it presented results that appeared to show extremely drastic effects.

Of course, none of this "proves it doesn't work" - because that's really not the way science operates - all you do is present your data and the conclusions you drew from it and if enough people do that and get coherent results then (hopefully) eventually a scientific consensus will be reached. Conflicting results from different studies are a perfectly normal part of scientific research - and the vast majority of the time the reason is eventually found to be some variable that was not controlled for.

 

[tabzer]

The study says they were unable to establish any statistically significant correlation, and that is supported by the data. The study protocol appears to be sound and sufficiently documented. As I said earlier, this is not a field I can pretend to have any expertise in, but I am quite familiar with the general process of peer review and this paper seems at least well constructed.

I can also say that the same does NOT seem to be true some of the papers asserting a significant positive effect from Ivermectin - especially that now retracted Mexican study that created a lot of the initial interest because it presented results that appeared to show extremely drastic effects.

Of course, none of this "proves it doesn't work" - because that's really not the way science operates - all you do is present your data and the conclusions you drew from it and if enough people do that and get coherent results then (hopefully) eventually a scientific consensus will be reached. Conflicting results from different studies are a perfectly normal part of scientific research - and the vast majority of the time the reason is eventually found to be some variable that was not controlled for.

An outcome of a %10 difference is statistically significant, as it has already been mentioned.

 

[trimesh]

An outcome of a %10 difference is statistically significant, as it has already been mentioned.

No, it isn't. Try reading the actual study:

RESULTS​

A total of 3515 patients were randomly assigned to receive ivermectin (679 patients), placebo (679), or another intervention (2157). Overall, 100 patients (14.7%) in the ivermectin group had a primary-outcome event, as compared with 111 (16.3%) in the placebo group (relative risk, 0.90; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.70 to 1.16). Of the 211 primary-outcome events, 171 (81.0%) were hospital admissions. Findings were similar to the primary analysis in a modified intention-to-treat analysis that included only patients who received at least one dose of ivermectin or placebo (relative risk, 0.89; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.69 to 1.15) and in a per-protocol analysis that included only patients who reported 100% adherence to the assigned regimen (relative risk, 0.94; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.67 to 1.35). There were no significant effects of ivermectin use on secondary outcomes or adverse events.

Especially this bit: " (relative risk, 0.90; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.70 to 1.16)"

So, that's saying the raw data is implying a 10% reduced risk, but that at a 95% confidence interval this could represent an actual risk anywhere between 30% better or 16% worse, and - hence includes "no effect" inside the confidence interval.

So this result is not significant at a 95% confidence level.

 

[tabzer]

No, it isn't. Try reading the actual study:

RESULTS​

A total of 3515 patients were randomly assigned to receive ivermectin (679 patients), placebo (679), or another intervention (2157). Overall, 100 patients (14.7%) in the ivermectin group had a primary-outcome event, as compared with 111 (16.3%) in the placebo group (relative risk, 0.90; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.70 to 1.16). Of the 211 primary-outcome events, 171 (81.0%) were hospital admissions. Findings were similar to the primary analysis in a modified intention-to-treat analysis that included only patients who received at least one dose of ivermectin or placebo (relative risk, 0.89; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.69 to 1.15) and in a per-protocol analysis that included only patients who reported 100% adherence to the assigned regimen (relative risk, 0.94; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.67 to 1.35). There were no significant effects of ivermectin use on secondary outcomes or adverse events.

Especially this bit: " (relative risk, 0.90; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.70 to 1.16)"

So, that's saying the raw data is implying a 10% reduced risk, but that at a 95% confidence interval this could represent an actual risk anywhere between 30% better or 16% worse, and - hence includes "no effect" inside the confidence interval.

So this result is not significant at a 95% confidence level.

Lol. The results are significant. The reliability of the study is not. Not the other way around.

 

[trimesh]

Lol. The results are significant. The reliability of the study is not. Not the other way around.

No, they are not. All you are repeatedly proving is that you have no idea what "statistically significant" means. It's a somewhat fancier way of saying "this is a result that could not have been reached by chance even in the absence of any actual effect within the stated confidence interval".

A "not statistically significant" result (like this one) is one that COULD have arrived at by chance within that confidence interval.

 

[tabzer]

No, they are not. All you are repeatedly proving is that you have no idea what "statistically significant" means. It's a somewhat fancier way of saying "this is a result that could not have been reached by chance even in the absence of any actual effect within the stated confidence interval".

A "not statistically significant" result (like this one) is one that COULD have arrived at by chance within that confidence interval.

Statistically, it is relative to the reliability of the study, which harbors the pretense of rejecting any results that you don't like within, as you calculated, a whopping %46 range--weighted against a positive result by 2x even. The results are significant. Statistically, the study would only be able to determine if ivermectin can cure Covid at a specific regiment, but unable to determine a significant impact.

The study doesn't have enough control and that speaks about the study more than anything else.

 

[trimesh]

Statistically, it is relative to the reliability of the study, which harbors the pretense of rejecting any results that you don't like within, as you calculated, a whopping %46 range--weighted against a positive result by 2x even. The results are significant. Statistically, the study would only be able to determine if ivermectin can cure Covid at a specific regiment, but unable to determine a significant impact.

The study doesn't have enough control and that speaks about the study more than anything else.

You are being rather disingenuous here - the initial claims were that Ivermectin was extremely effective against COVID, so the study was designed to look for those sort of highly significant effects. Had they existed at anything like the claimed levels it would have done so, and at a level that established statistical significance.

We was actually obtained was a much weaker effect at the raw data level that pushed the error bands into "no effect" territory - hence rendering the overall results "not significant" on a statistical level - and when you are dealing with papers "significant results" ALWAYS means "significant on a statistical level".

These results might be "interesting" - but they are not "significant" in the sense that any researcher would use the term.

 

[tabzer]

the initial claims were that Ivermectin was extremely effective against COVID

That has nothing to do with me or my opinion.

the raw data level that pushed the error bands into "no effect" territory

That is factually wrong. It pushes it in the "inability to account for" territory. As I suggested, not only is the governing control of the study something that cannot assert yes or no, but it is weighted against a positive result (bias). Despite this, you are taking the lack of ability of the study to ascertain effectiveness as an implication that ivermectin is ineffective. That's a logical failure.

The result is a significant difference between two groups, but it is deemed insignificant because of the failure of the study's ability to be confident in its own results. The lack of significance is the study itself. Bunk.

 

[trimesh]

That has nothing to do with me or my opinion.

That is factually wrong. It pushes it in the "inability to account for" territory. As I suggested, not only is the governing control of the study something that cannot assert yes or no, but it is weighted against a positive result (bias). Despite this, you are taking the lack of ability of the study to ascertain effectiveness as an implication that ivermectin is ineffective. That's a logical failure.

The result is a significant difference between two groups, but it is deemed insignificant because of the failure of the study's ability to be confident in its own results. The lack of significance is the study itself. Bunk.

But there is no "positive result" here - there is just some data, and given the observed results and the sample size it's a result that at the stated confidence level (95%) could have been arrived by random chance even in the absence of any actual effect at all.

The thing is that "significance" is not some random concept but an attempt to answer the question "does this sample contain enough data to really mean anything"? And in this case, the answer is "no" - there is simply not enough data there to know if it actually means anything in the real world or is just a sampling artefact.

And, as I said before, I have no actual position on if Ivermectin has any useful effect - all I'm saying is that you can't infer one from this study. Incidentally, I DO disagree with the title of this thread - because you can't take a failure to demonstrate an effect as being proof there isn't one - all it shows is that in this specific case it could not be demonstrated.

 

[tabzer]

%10 people saved a trip from a hospital is significant and it is positive. If you are %45 blind, and that's enough for you to not see that, then it's too bad.