Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin
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This feels like another situation where the attempts to quell disinformation are having the opposite of their intended effect.
Depending on where these people first learned of this drug, there is some pretty confusing information floating around. When someone like Bret Weinstein points out that ivermectin is used widely and safely to treat river blindness, but most media sources are focused on “it’s a horse dewormer”, people stop listening.
Censoring most information about the human use of the drug is driving conspiracy types to decreasingly reputable sources and I’d argue that this is more responsible for the overdoses than anything.
The way I remember it was more like, the CDC said:
- They don't know yet if surgical (and in general, non-N95) masks are effective against COVID-19 spread. They never denied this for N95.
- Hospitals are running out of surgical (and N95...) masks, and given the above, people should stop hoarding them.
That seemed... pretty reasonable to me?
In fact here's a link [1] where Fauci literally said:
> When we get in a situation when we have enough masks, there will be serious consideration about more broadening this recommendation of using masks.
Not that the CDC is incentivized much to care. The bigger the crisis the bigger the funding.
I don't see a lie in this example.
This should be a lesson to all those corporate-like structures in public sector where they use common enterprise tactics of middle management to say things in the non-specific way so that later down the road they can cover their asses.
They had to be very specific, don’t lie, simply say about things they are not sure about “we don’t know” (hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin etc.) and do tests, never say “vaccines are safe”, but say they are 100000 times less dangerous than disease etc.
And then we could trust every word they just say as we know that they are very aware of what they are saying and they haven’t lied to us in a lot of situations before.
They should govern, but instead they play politics… wtf really.
No, that doesn't follow. Do you have any evidence the CDC knew this was false, and was consistently messaging to the contrary (aka not a pointer to things like 280-char tweets where everyone understands bandwidth would be limited)?
A lie requires intent to deceive, i.e. dishonesty. Not something where they're forced to summarize and strip out details, but provide the details elsewhere when they have the chance. And certainly not a genuine, honest mistake. I have yet to see evidence the CDC knew that masks are effective and yet lied about it. And nobody here has been willing to provide any evidence of that either. Just because they might have been inaccurate in their assessment of the situation, doesn't mean they were lying. Just like how, just because you say "we ran out of ketchup, can you buy some from the store?" and then discover you had some in the back of your fridge, that doesn't mean you're lying.
And btw, I don't even know what example you're talking about. If you're talking about my example like I said, at 1:32, the reporter clearly communicates "surgical masks are not that effective". And it wasn't the CDC talking either. You should really link whatever you're talking about because it doesn't seem to be this example.
> "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"
There was absolutely quite a bit of false messaging on the point from authority figures.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200229123317/https://twitter.c...
(b) A tweet only has so much room to explain things. There's a reason websites in general, official CDC recommendations in particular, and the news media exist. If the only source of information you get your news from for several weeks amidst a pandemic is Twitter, and the tweet turns out to be lacking some info, the problem isn't the source you're reading.
(c) Even if you establish there was "false messaging from the surgeon general on Twitter" (which you haven't due to the reasons above), it's quite a goalpost move from "the CDC was being deceptive/manipulative". Especially when the the surgeon general was picked by the president and specifically not the NIH authority figure that the nation was looking up to 24/7.
They should have instead said "We don't know whether they're effective yet, so don't hoard them, because doing so could cause X."
There's nothing wrong with admitting you don't know something yet.
Instead, they make commands without supporting evidence. That implies total disregard for the peoples' intelligence. Upon realizing this, trust is lost and dissenting actions increase.
So far the only link I've seen is a tweet (not an official recommendation) from the surgeon general (not the CDC).
> "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"
This could very easily have been reworded to an honest "we do not know if they are effective" instead of a definitive "they are not". You cannot in good conscience call yourself a good leader and/or scientist if you do not acknowledge the limits of your understanding.
People may not understand the science, but they understand trust. And given that no individual has the time and/or intelligence to understand the science, breaches of trust should be the end of a leader's career. They're failing in their most important duty.
"Stop buying masks. There is a shortage and if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk! Since we live in a very capitalistic society we cannot reserve masks for healthcare use and instead we have to rely on all of you to do the right thing. Keep in mind that masks may not offer the kind of protection you think they do, i.e. they do not make you invincible, you're still advised to stay at home and keep social distancing. When supply of masks will be restored we will likely encourage people to wear them as to reduce community (probabilistic) spread, which works even if the masks are not 100% effective."
Unfortunately nobody would read things that don't fit in a tweet.
It’s really not that hard.
This may be true or not; all I'm saying is that the sentence is not an accurate summary of what I wrote.
That was always true and will always be true. Even if COVID flows right through masks, there will still always be a plausible reason to wear them.
"There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face."
Second, if you're going to accuse cherry-picking, look at the very crucial quotes you omitted from your own clip:
- Right before your quote he had added very critical qualifiers that you skipped: He specifically said, "Right now, in the United States, there's no reason to be walking around with a mask." Mind you, this was on March 8, pre-lockdown. He explicitly made it clear this guidance could change as the situation evolves (or, as you wrote, "change his mind" should he get more data or see circumstances change... how horrifying!), and he specifically said in the United States, likely because the epidemic was much less severe than it became in the following weeks (it wasn't even declared a pandemic yet!), so they thought it could be better handled without telling everyone to wear masks. He clearly genuinely believed at the time that the protection they would be likely to provide would be small compared to the benefits of saving them for hospitals.
- Also note that he continued to provide context: "When you think masks, you should think of healthcare providers needing them, and people who are ill." Again, he's explaining his concerns. You can't ignore that.
- Also note that he even specifically explained: "When you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of people wearing masks, that's fine, that's fine. I'm not against it. But that's when it can lead to a shortage of masks for people who need it." i.e.: If he wasn't worried about a shortage, he wouldn't be telling people not to wear masks.
You can't honestly hear all that and accuse him (or me...) of dishonesty with that clip.
And when he did decide we should be walking around with masks he didn't cite any evidence. He said it was because surgical and N95s masks were in short supply.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XHC5Kxxv_w&t=94s
When I was trying to find this video, I came across another video where he speaks in absolute terms that all we need to do is wears masks, social distance and practice good hygiene we would turn around the pandemic. I understand that things change over time, but whenever he speaks, he speaks as if what he is saying is fact. Now we even have vaccines and we clearly haven't turned it around. This is why people don't trust this guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P6QrVRJJzU&t=128s
I honestly don't see how you can watch all these videos and still trust this guy. I get that things change, but that's why you don't speak in absolute terms. Words matter.
I linked you to evidence that shows he lied. In the first video he said masks don't work. It clearly wasn't an "honest mistake".
> I highly doubt you would've been a better NIH director
Nice strawman. I never said I would be, but I know one thing for sure: I wouldn't deliberately lie to the American public about something so important.
> But don't cut into his character without evidence
There is plenty of evidence that he's a liar. I don't know what else you need.
> Not only does it take a lot of audacity to suggest you would've foreseen things better
Yet another strawman. I never said that. Are you replying to the right comment?
> hurling unfounded accusations like that at everyone whose judgment you don't like is just infuriating, insulting, and unproductive
The accusation that Fauci deliberately lied? It's pretty founded if you ask me. It's infuriating, insulting, and unproductive to protect someone so obsessively and thinking he can do no wrong.
No, you most definitely did not. You ignored most of the video and started quoting him mid-sentence. As I already explained to you. You've shown zero evidence that his genuine belief was anything different than he communicated in that interview. At best, all you've showed is that he gave poor advice, and even that itself is highly questionable given how you still can't be bothered to even quote him properly and depict the interview accurately. It's not exactly hard to make someone look like a monster when you cut their quotes in half and ignore all the surrounding context.
This conversation clearly isn't going anywhere so I'm not going to continue responding.
The problem is that the media doesn't do nuance, they write big bold headlines that are outrage bait to drive engagement. And more than a few people never read anything but the headline.
At this point, I feel like headlines themselves are harmful.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/opinion/sway-kara-swisher...
As a health official you are weighing the question: do we advocate a sub-optimal approach on the grounds that it is better than nothing, when we know a large segment of the population will be militantly non-compliant anyway? There were anti-mask protests back in the Spanish Flu days too.
Point being, it’s not a binary thing, and there’s some consensus that has to be built in the early stages.
But why do they therefore inherently trust the other people saying to take hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, and these other solutions? Aren't these people also salesmen?
Isn't some trust required most of the time?
I don't listen to the first contractor or plumber on a big job, either. There is nothing special about the position or opinions of medical professionals that I shouldn't seek additional information or help.
How frequently do you think people consult more than one doctor when they are sick? I know people do it for expensive, chronic conditions like cancer, but I’m guessing that for urgent infections diseases the frequency is vanishingly small.
Maybe I'm a fan of science, of which there is NO evidence that Ivermectin works against COVID. It seems like maybe you're the one that bought into something.
These doctors are doing nothing more than profiting off the fear of their patients, while offering no value other than what might be argued is a placebo. That doesn't stop these people from infecting others around them.
If you are a fan of science, I’m sure you’ll acknowledge this.
The paper from Argentina around Ivermectin is already suspected of fraud. I won't hold my breath it'll end up with good results.
Edit: you dishonestly added the following to your comment after I replied:
“The paper from Argentina around Ivermectin is already suspected of fraud. I won't hold my breath it'll end up with good results.”
For what it’s worth, I’m not referring to that paper.
But again, if you understood science, you would know better than to make assumptions about the results of a paper you have never seen.
> there is no connection between hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin
You mean a connection like being pushed as a cure for the same disease while lacking any substantial, peer-reviewed data to back it up?
I think maybe we have different ideas of how science and the scientific method works.
> For what it’s worth, I’m not referring to that paper.
So you're not referring to any science at all, then? I'm unable to find any other published literature on the subject.
If you believed in science you’d know that’s a political connection not a scientific one.
> I think maybe we have different ideas of how science and the scientific method works.
Yes, you are mistaking politics for science.
More edits you dishonestly added after my reply:
“So you're not referring to any science at all, then? I'm unable to find any other published literature on the subject.”
> Yes, you are mistaking politics for science.
This isn't very convincing. What makes your position non-political or more scientific? Talk about dishonesty.
How is what any different?
> What makes your position non-political or more scientific? Talk about dishonesty.
What position have I claimed is non-political or more scientific?
So because Trump talked about the former that somehow makes it political? What a weak argument.
I think you should re-read the thread. The only person talking about Trump here is you.
What claim do you think I am making that you want me to explain?
In fact, if you had read the article you would have learned that they haven't ruled out ivermectin and are still researching it along with other treatments. If you want to take ivermectin they want you to be part of the study. This is how science works.
"The NIH is studying the drug in a large trial comparing a half-dozen established drugs to see if they have some effect against COVID-19.
Experts say those interested in ivermectin should ask about enrolling in such studies."
There is less than no evidence, and yet there are several studies already. It’s chloroquine all over again. The quacks are those who jump at any random drug, justifying the lack of evidence as a reason for their support, while decrying vaccines for a supposed lack of evidence.
A study being done is not a reason to support prescribing a drug.
Right wing politicians and right wing media politicized it to minimize impact of covid on the 2020 election.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAh4uS4f78o
On the other hand democrats and CDC/FDA have been mostly following the real science.
[Citation needed]
Also, for those that are prescribing it, this is not an FDA approved treatment for Covid.
Most (all?) off-label prescriptions aren't FDA approved for that use, that's what makes them off-label. Prescribing drugs off-label is an acceptable practice, although it's generally higher risk to do so than with an FDA approved treatment as there's less information available.
I haven't looked into this particular off-label use, and it certainly has a lot of signs of poor advisability, but one way the medical community figures out what drugs work for conditions with limited treatment options is trying random things and reporting on what seems to work; then those things can be tested in more controlled situations.
Also, there aren't thousands of doctors doing that. If so I'd love an actual source.
I've just finished reading Why We're Polarized by Ezra Klein and there's an entire chapter on this:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We%27re_Polarized
It seems that humans have an in-built affinity for groups and group affiliation, so if your in-group says something you tend to go with it instead of believing your lying eyes.
> other research suggesting the drug would need to be given at levels 100 times the standard dose to have antiviral effects in humans.
I find it rather absurd to refuse a vaccine the FDA has approved and then take something at 100X the dose and off-label considering that a good idea since the FDA approved it for humans.
Before the delta wave there were arguments for probability that covid wouldn't become endemic so one was comparing a 5-10% of covid to getting vaccinated, now one is comparing 100% chance of covid with vaccination. If one thinks one will use Ivermectin when infected then one should vaccinate instead.
We are in a age where you no longer must be remotely logically consistent in your arguments and it's fascinating to watch.
Are we at war with East Asia today?
Some people abusing drugs:
- to successfully get high
- more or less safely at home
On the other:
Some people abusing a drug
- that doesn't have the effect they're using it for
- when there's a better alternative
- which is freely available
- AND the knock-on effects are harming other people
- ODs using up hospital capacity
- continued spread of coronavirus
> that doesn't have the effect they're using it for
Similarly, the FDA claims that marijuana has no legitimate medical use.
> when there's a better alternative
Many people consider alcohol or tobacco to be alternatives to marijuana. Further, all of the conditions treated by marijuana have alternatives for treatment of some kind.
> which is freely available
Alcohol and tobacco are freely available. All of the alternatives to marijuana are available via a prescription.
> AND the knock-on effects are harming other people
Watch Reefer Madness. Take a look around the moral panic where marijuana has been legalized in regards to driving. "Since we can't tell accurately how high someone is, they could get stoned and be a risk to everyone on the highway!". Or what about "You are funding terrorism/organized crime!". I can't also neglect to mention the "think of the children" card that is often played, "If the drug was more available, children might get their hands on it!". If I had chosen a less benign drug at the start of this, I could talk about people overdosing, or the harms of addiction, or people accidently killing themselves while having drug induced hallucinations, and so on and so on.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1431040456364810242.html
If, on the other hand, you live in the US and just want some comedic relief from an excellent medical professional comedian, try this: https://twitter.com/DGlaucomflecken/status/14327760801049518...
> By mid-August U.S. pharmacies were filling 88,000 weekly prescriptions for the medication, a 24-fold increase from pre-COVID levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, U.S. poison control centers have seen a five-fold increase in emergency calls related to the drug, with some incidents requiring hospitalization.
So despite prescriptions going up x24, and some unknown number of people taking veterinary versions of the drug, emergency calls have only gone up x5? Wouldn't we expect it to be around x24 or greater?
Also, the lack of stats on hospitalization is interesting, in that there aren't any. From another article on the same subject, Mississippi at least has apparently had zero (https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/resources/15400.pdf).
This whole thing just seems like a manufactured story that gets clicks because it plays into prejudices about rural Americans.
Presumably most of the hospitalizations are from the non-prescription use and less people are likely to take medicine "off-book" and some of those are at least clever enough to work out a safe dosage.
Why would we expect excess emergency calls due to doctor prescribed levels of ivermectin? Ivermectin is used to treat humans for other things, and unless it's a particularly dangerous treatment I doubt we'd see many hospitalisations due to it.
There's little evidence it helps treat COVID, but I doubt doctors are prescribing dangerous levels of ivermectin like those found in animal treatments. 5x emergency calls for people taking animal treatments sounds reasonable.
Ivermectin is a widely prescribed and generally safe drug when used for its intended purpose. Some would argue that taking it in human-sized doses for COVID is probably not dangerous (this does not imply it's effective).
The problem is that people who can't get human prescriptions are turning to veterinary products which tend to be massively larger doses, and this is where things probably go off the rails.
https://www.the-scientist.com/features/the-surgisphere-scand...
As a standalone medication or one administered late in the disease hydroxychloroquine has not shown any real promise. When paired with TMPRSS2 inhibitors it may have some promise: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/j...
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
I figure that if a physician wants to go off-label on a prescription they should go ahead. Plenty of warnings of course.
Buying it at the feed store along with fish antibiotics is sketchy, but remember that it's your body after all. People forget that. God knows how many people are harmed by Tylenol overdoses.
Actually I'm seeing a few, but they suffer from the typical lack of statistical rigor that I've come to expect in medical studies and fall into the 'further studies are needed' bin.
As a side note, I'm always blown away by the poor quality of many medical papers. Publish or perish? Dunno.
After-all a lot of people die not from Covid-19 but from complications from it.
I think the main issue with it's use is, similar to antibiotic resistance, (note that it's not antibiotic or antiviral) overuse will lessen it's effectiveness when needed the most.
The big problem (in Brazil at least) is, the bozo president and his entourage elected this medicine as a silver bullet, saying that we didn't need vaccines, didn't need any social isolation (let alone lockdowns), etc.
These bozos created a false dichotomy: one thing is to take a chance and swallow some medicine as last-ditch attempt when you have no other known option. They use this reasoning to say nothing else was needed.
a. The placebo effect is real. A bout of induced vomiting and diarrhea makes whatever you are left with feel less worse than that...
b. They couldn't afford 1st world doctors and medicine anyway.
c. They were desperate.
d. Scoundrels preyed on their desperation.
Perhaps what is most interesting is that people seem to have an opinion already and are not willing to change that opinion, and worse that the opinions seem to coincide with political leanings (at least in Canada and the US -- no idea about the rest of the world.)
The anti-ivermectin side seems to say: we have vaccines. We don't know if this is good enough until large-scale randomize controlled trials are done -- so don't go trying it. There aren't any peer-reviewed, published studies that show it has a positive effect, and, two high profile studies were pulled because they were done poorly.
The pro-ivermectin side says: the drug is cheap -- which means we can easily ramp up production and get it to everyone who needs it, and also means there's no one standing to make a profit to pay for large-scale randomized controlled trials. There are many studies showing a positive effect, some peer reviewed, and others "languishing on pre-print servers are no journals will print them." If you meta-analyze the studies, ignoring the ones that have been retracted, the results are clearly positive.
It is so frustrating. https://c19ivermectin.com says that are 113 studies of using 73 peer reviewed studies, and they all tend to show good results. That sounds convincing to me, but not anti-ivermectin people. Someone told me he read some of the studies and they were garbage. I really should try reading some of them, but it isn't my field, and even if I can understand what they did, I can't gauge the quality.
It seems to come down to "which experts do you trust?"
----
Last night, I was skimming through a book my wife got out of the library on diets called "The China Study" by T. Colin Campbell, PhD and Thomas M. Campbell II. I flipped at random to a chapter called "Science: The Dark Side", and will share a few excerpts here.
"Scams, tricks ... are as old as history itself... Very few experiences are as personal and powerful as those of people who have lost their health prematurely. Understandably, they are willing to believe and try just about anything that might help. They are a highly vulnerable group of consumers.
"In the mid-1970s, along came a prime example of a health scam, at least according to the medical establishments. It concerned an alternative cancer treatment called Laetrile. [A woman who was sick was told by all her friends about this treatment, which was not available in the states.] 'There are at least a dozen people in this area who were told they were going to be dead from cancel who used Laetrile and are now out playing tennis.'
[The lady went to Mexico for the treatment -- they treated 20 000 Americans each year -- and it didn't work.]
"[One of the authors joined a committee on health and nutrition.] [I]n the spring of 1980, I had discovered that, of the eighteen members on that committee, I was the only individual who did not have ties to the commercial world of food and drug companies and their coalitions.
"The committee was a stacked deck; its members were entrenched in the status quo"
"[In their second meeting, everyone was passed a copy of an intended press release, which] listed examples of the kind of nutrition frauds that our committee intended to expose.
"As I scanned the list of so-called frauds, I was stunned to see the 1977 McGovern dietary goals on the list. [A senator McGovern had convened experts on health and nutrition and they recommended decreased consumption of fatty animal foods and increased consumption of fruits and vegetables because of their effect on heart disease.]
[Because of his dissent, they didn't release this message at this time, but he could tell 'he was the chicken who had wandered into the foxes den'].
[The author talks about good science that was smeared by this group]
"The majority of scientists are honourable, intelligent and dedicated to the search for the common good rather than personal gain. However, there are a few scientists who are willing to sell their souls to the highest bidder. They may not be many in number, but their influence can be vast. They can corrupt the good name of institutions of which they are a part and, most importantly, they can create vast confusion among the public, which often can not tell who is who. You might turn on the TV one day to see an expert praising McDonald's hamburgers, and then read a magazine the same day that you should eat less high-fat red meat to protect yourself against cancer. Who is to be believed?
"Institutions are also part of the dark side of science. Committees like the Public Nutrition Information Committee and the American Council on Science and Health generate lopsided panels and committees and institutions that are far more interested in promoting their point of view than debating scientific research with an open mind. If a Public Nutrition Information Committee report say that low-fat diets are fraudulent scams, and a National Academy of Sciences report says the opposite, which one is right?"
-----
Anyways, to sum up, it is not clear to me who is who in this fight. I can see a case that the people promoting ivermectin are fraudsters or doing bad science, and our medical organizations are trying to save us, but it is also not hard to see that the people writing the papers showing ivermectin is effective are trying hard to save us, and the medical organizations don't like it as it disagrees with their predisposed view of the world. Who is to be believed, indeed?
The problem is that studies that show bad results has a lower chance of been written and a lower chance of been published and a lower chance of been collected in the sites. So there is a lot of informal involuntary filtration, that hides the the bad result and collect only the good results.
Someone posted https://ivmmeta.com/#fig_fpr and https://hcqmeta.com/#fcite_rct . It's nice to be able to compare both.
Take a look at this paper: https://c19ivermectin.com/chowdhury.html
One interesting thing is that it compares Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine. It is listed as a success in the https://ivmmeta.com/#fig_fpr but it's not listed a failure in the https://hcqmeta.com/#fcite_rct site.
If it had the opposite result, would it be listed in ivmmeta or only in hcqmeta? If it has a null result would any of them had shown it? (Assuming that the doctors took the time to write a boring article about a null result, and the journal published a boring article about a null result.)
Okay, but there are basically no studies showing no or negative effects. Except for ones with massive p-values. You'd think there would at least be a few showing no effect.
* A lot of small trials that are perhaps not even statically significant and show some positive effect.
* A few very large trials that show essentially no effect.
Very small trials are easy to organize, and if it fails people gets disappointed and forget to write it down, or the journal reject it because it shows (almost) no effect. So there is a lot of filtration.
Very large trials are difficult to organize, so they must publish the final result somewhere to ensure they can fill all paperwork. Also it's large enough to be interesting for the journal. So there is less filtration.
- doctors say: take a vaccine but people say “I don’t trust big pharma”
- random guy say take ivermectin and people say “great I trust pharma”. Merck is marking tons of money now.
So this is all about packaging of the message. I think the only way to convince people to take vaccine is that Binden (and democrats) starts telling people not to take one…
This is just beyond stupid and this is all result of our nanny state. Im 100% for Florida approach: let’s god sort them out.
The COVID vaccines are only just getting their first full approvals.
If someone is evaluating the drugs purely on their long term track record of safety, ivermectin wins by a long shot.
But none of that really matters, because the problem is about efficacy. It might be "safer" to take ivermectin in a vacuum than one of the vaccines, but that doesn't matter if ivermectin doesn't protect you and you die of COVID anyway.
> established safety record
But then why these crazy doctors are saying not to take it? Conspiracy? I guess we not should trust these "doctors"...
But it was more of a spaghetti as the wall thing, and it was removed from the protocol back in May.
It has been the cure-they-don't-want-you-to-know-about du juor, overtaking HQC since about March
I've been convinced that the world is beyond parody for years now. And yet it keeps on giving.
yes but thats grammatically obtuse so as to avoid conveying clear information. its very easy for someone reading that to come away with the wrong info due to the redundant negation.
It also hasn't been proven to be effective.
Edit: to further show why this is a ridiculous approach towards using something that is unproven to treat a disease: cat urine has also not been proven to not be an effective Covid treatment.
The argument about cat urine no longer seems in good faith, though. There are multiple studies evaluating ivermectin as a COVID treatment, but there are no such studies about cat urine.
I understand what you're trying to say; however, there's at least enough interest in ivermectin to warrant real trials.
I'm not optimistic that it'll be some miracle cure, but let's not pretend it's cat urine.
Fool me once, shame on you [Tuskegee]. Fool me twice, shame on me [MKULTRA]. Fool me three times...
I am so tired of seeing Tuskegee trotted out as an argument by anti vaxxers.
The Tuskegee experiment specifically targeted a selected group of African Americans and was an overtly racist program. COVID vaccines on the other hand are not targeting a specific sample group, they are being given to virtually everyone. There's no sample group. The two are not remotely comparable.
Now what? The government lied and… the plan is to have 80% of the population die? How does that benefit those in power? The economy would crash. Production of everything—food, cars, houses—would cease. Healthcare, education, policing, infrastructure maintenance—all would collapse. First-world society would disintegrate.
It makes no sense to believe the powers that be are lying about the vaccine.
Oh, and also: the unvaccinated make the vast majority of hospitalizations. Now the lie is even more crazy: the vaccine is obviously great at keeping people out of the hospital, but also the governments are all lying about the vaccine. It’s just sheer crazypants conspiracy thinking, through and through.
Ah, and if they did that (and a thousand other things, many of which were not limited to African Americans, including the aforementioned MKULTRA) and suffered no repercussions for it whatsoever, well, I'm sure they still learned their lesson and would never dream of doing something like it again.
That's the thing though. COVID vaccinations are _nothing like_ the Tuskegee experiment.
Sure you can. People spend their entire lives studying this shit, dedicating their entire careers to saving people who sit on facebook all day and post nonsense they hear on podcasts and other credit-less sources.
It's not "vaccine hesitancy". It's stupidity.
Domain experts know more than your conspiracy-theorist crazy Facebook aunt. There is no conspiracy here. It doesn't benefit big pharma by giving it out for free, essentially. There are a handful of other pharmas that did want to rush the vaccine and as a result did not make it to manufacturing because they didn't pass the regulatory process.
So no, vaccine "hesitancy" has not been "well earned".
I don't fault them for any of this. Science takes time and iteration. Nobody can account for unknown unknowns - the only solution is time.
https://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2021/09/03/i-have-not-been-sil...
For a start, we could stop making claims that we don't know to be true. Replace "the vaccine is safe and effective, and if we all get the vaccine the pandemic will be over" with "the vaccine is the best tool we have to prevent serious disease and death".
How does this work?
Kind of like those who can afford them can receive better lawyers than overworked public defenders.
there has not been any studies on this to my knowledge but i’ve experienced it before with friends who do not work jobs that provide healthcare options.
i am not sure if it is done consciously or not, a lot of judgements are subconscious and that will affect outcome.
So I dunno if US medical system has much to do with it. It seems more like someone weaponized Facebook and other social media to get gullible people to commit mass murder-suicide by refusing vaccinations, masks and taking poison.
Or it's an emergent phenomenon with no master behind it, who knows.
But the space it occupied in the public debate (at least around here) was the same Ivermectin does now - not "better than nothing" but "use this instead of the vaccine because evil media and pharma and gubmint is lying to you".
People would go in Twitter and shout "people promoting HCQ are idiots!" while their grandpa was in the hospital on that very drug as administered by doctors.
Neither side has been entirely rational.
I hope this rampant politicization of drugs stops before it hits the important drug classes like ACE2 inhibitors, bronchodilators or anti-inflammatories.