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Comment by lalaland1125 | Hacker News Reader

> About 1.5 years ago, ivermectin was discussed in "conspiracy" channels like Reddit, and many people were helped by it.

How were they helped by it when the evidence shows that it doesn't work for COVID-19?

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Not to mention the lunacy of assessing efficacy of drugs by reading internet forums and social media. Why do scientists bother with expensive studies when they can just read Facebook? /s

how did you read this article and somehow come to the conclusion that ivermectin doesn't work for covid-19?

Happy opposite day. Aside from all the other words, it ends in summary with a first item of 'Ivermectin doesn’t reduce mortality in COVID a significant amount'.

the final study list he compiled shows 80-85% confidence for <30% mortality reduction and the author confirms that in the comments. This is 80-85% confidence that hundreds and hundreds of thousands of lives could've been saved with ivermectin. You didn't read closely enough.

Notably though, at no point does the author even suggest it doesn't work - just that the statistical significance isn't high

I'm not sure where you're reaching 'hundreds and hundreds of thousands', perhaps because there's a big range between zero and thirty percent.

In medical trials, statistical significance is the milestone to reach before broadly claiming something 'works'. Dozens of other treatments were put through trials. Some had promising initial results. Most didn't work.

No one is claiming it works - I'm refuting the point you've made which is that it doesn't work - which is contrary to what the data shows. The data shows that it's not reaching the medical milestone you refer to, but it does show that it's more likely helping.

You've claimed it doesn't work - nothing says that. Nothing even suggests that.

Quite the mental pretzel there. If no one is claiming it works, and you claim that I claim that it doesn't work, maybe that's reason at work? Unfortunately, I never claimed it didn't work.

Edit: I see you might have confused me for a parent post by lalaland1125 who did claim this.

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