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Comment by tejohnso | Hacker News Reader

Dr. John Campbell has been talking about vitamin D effectiveness against Covid-19 for months now on his channel[1].

I find it frustrating that I get more thorough and well presented information from third party youtubers than from my government officials.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/c/Campbellteaching

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He's also been credulously spreading nonsense about ivermectin and vaccine adverse events. Not someone worth listening to.

FWIW, he's also not a medical doctor. Not that he explicitly claims to be, but presenting medical information with a "Dr." in front of your name and no M.D. or Ph.D in a medically relevant field is kinda sketchy.

Oh come on. He's spent decades in the field as a nurse. He explains the latest literature on the subject in terms people can understand, and he obviously has the experience to do it. To dismiss him just because he's not a medical doctor is to ignore all the other medical fields. From what I've experienced, often times its the nurses who better equipped to understand the latest studies better than the doctors do, because they are more hands on. To dismiss so off-handedly indicates you are more politically motivated in your criticism than you care to admit. You are merely boosting for a "side".

By the way, he is merely pointing to the latest studies from the leading publications on ivermectin. He's pointed to both the good and bad. He even admitted that it's results were somewhat disappointing, but still showed a somewhat beneficial effect. And he points to the studies themselves.

Medicine seriously hurts its credibility when it doesn't report the shades of gray. When you don't do that, people don't trust it. Dr. John Campbell has proven to be a valuable resource in this pandemic, because he is playing it straight.

Nah. He signal boosts all the worst conspiracies of the pandemic; "Pfizermectin", abuse of VAERS data, the Pfizer "whistle blower", you name it. While trying to maintain the appearance of showing both sides neutrally and objectively. But look at his most watched videos and the comments on his videos. He's clearly playing into the anti-vax crowd, whether intentionally or not.

I completely reject the notion that nurses are better equipped than doctors to interpret studies in this context; biology, pharmacology etc. In some practical applications of medicine, maybe.

There’s a reason why my nursing colleagues have a (relatively) high degree of vaccine hesitancy and are losing their jobs - a proportion of them are just not capable of understanding the science and think that their experience (and Facebook feeds) are worth more than actual data. All of my anti vax leaning social media content comes from those colleagues (although let’s be clear it’s a small percentage and like all broad sweeping statements it applies in general only)

Not capable of understanding science? that's incredibly arrogant statement to make. Nurses study the science as part of their accreditation. I could just as easily say doctors are so busy treating patients and reading up on the latest CDC guidelines and bureaucracy they don't have time to read the latest science and explore any skepticism. But it's essential to science.

And if i didn’t know so many of them I would agree with you. However after numerous experiences beginning with the midwife who explained to me that demonstrating the plantar reflex too many times would result in the child having a stutter. Just one example of 10,000, however it is by no means definitive of the profession - what you don’t see however is 10%+ of doctors refusing the vaccine or sprouting nonsense. I don’t know what exactly point you’re trying to refute - nurses are practical but a proportion of them have no scientific capacity. A proportion that is a logarithmic difference from their doctor or allied health colleagues. And I basically went to slightly less lengths to caveat this in my previous post, but apparently you’re a pedant

wow. It's almost like you meant to reply to some other post. That's not at all what this thread is talking about. Dr. Campbell was not a midwife. He was a teaching nurse. He's accustomed to reading these studies.

Not sure how you equate him with anti-vax. He's adamantly pro-vax.

And that is all irrelevant because I am not at all talking about whoever this Dr Campbell person is who I have never heard of until you brought them up in your earlier thread. My original post is completely seperate to any context of him and it should be read as such- but at least you’re finally becoming capable of parsing my posts

The pfizer whistleblower was published in the British Medical Journal, not exactly a shabby publication. True or false, it was a news event and at least should be addressed. The fact that it's been largely swept under the rug is not a good sign for science, which is built on skepticism, not compliance. I am willing to dismiss the whistleblower as nothing but smoke, if someone answered it. So far, they have not. Which is telling.

VAERS data is self-reported data, so it is far from conclusive. However, it was put there for a reason and shouldn't be ignored. It was put there to flag problems that need to be investigated.

Pfizermectin is not a conspiracy. He's just noting both ivermectin and the pfizer therapeautic are both protease inhibitors. That's all he said.

None of these are "conspiracies". So far, they are inconvenient truth assertions that a certain people seem to want to put down. We deserve, we are entitled to a fuller discussion than they are given.

The conspiratorial aspect of the whistleblower situation isn't that it happened. It undoubtedly did. It's making a mountain out of a molehill and implying that the larger body of vaccine safety/efficacy data is suspect because of it. Maybe he doesn't imply this in so many words, but look at the titles of all his videos on vaccines (nearly universally highlighting supposed negative aspects) and tell me that's not the angle he's trying to convey.

"Pfizermectin" is absolutely a full blown conspiracy theory that contends Paxlovid is functionally the same as ivermectin and there was an effort by Big Pharma to suppress ivermectin while they developed an on patent alternative. He repeatedly emphasizes that ivermectin is cheap in his video. I can't put myself through watching any more of it, but I can only assume he doesn't mention that the required concentrations for ivermectin to display said protease inhibition aren't achievable in vivo.

"making a mountain out of a molehill" is not a conspiracy. I've noticed a long running trend with people calling something a conspiracy as a means to conveniently dismiss something they'd rather not bother with. The whistleblower was hired by the company pfizer contracted to do the trials as an auditor. Her very job was to audit the trials to ensure it was being done right. She claims she was fired for bringing it up. You don't see a problem with that? Why do they even have auditors?

Dr. Campbell did say it was cheap, because it IS cheap. Why do you assume its something nefarious. He also didn't make any promises that it was a miracle drug, only that read a good study in which it demonstrated SOME efficacy. That can mean thousands of lives saved, if there is no other alternative. I think the number was 62% effectiveness, but i'm not sure. He gave the good and bad. That's the sign of a straight shooter. Someone who treats their viewers like adults that can make up their own mind.

The whistleblower situation is an issue. It is not substantial cause for concern about the body of data demonstrating vaccine safety/efficacy. If you're interested, here's a thorough breakdown of the situation: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-t...

There are no good studies on ivermectin indicating anything like 62% effectiveness on any metric. The fact that he would present such a study to his audience indicates he is either: not equipped to interpret the studies, or deliberately spreading misinformation.

yeah, I read that response to the BMJ article. I find their dismissal of the concerns to be unconvincing and an unserious attempt to respond. Just the title - "what the heck happened to the BMJ?" - conveys that message. Then they proceed to impugn the character of the reporter and the whistleblower. Using ad hominen attacks and trying to wave it off as "all handwavy stuff" should be a red flag.

He was the one who decided to stick “dr” in front of his name. That was optional.

Isn't he a doctor of nursing who teaches nurses?

I'm a doctor too, if not having a medical degree counts when providing medical advice.

When your nurse practitioner gives you medical advice do you claim you're just as much a doctor as them and their degree doesn't qualify them to give medical advice? It is absurd to claim someone with a doctor in nursing doesn't have a medical degree.

"...a Ph.D. in Nursing program is a research and science-focused degree that prepares nurses for careers conducting important medical research that will advance the entire nursing profession and for teaching nursing at the college level."

https://www.registerednursing.org/phd/

What ivermectin nonsense are you referring to? In every video I've watched he is summarizing from respected peer reviewed journals, and all sources are mentioned and / or linked.

He's actually been talking about Vitamin D since April 2020 [0] and discussed the encouraging first clinical trial in September 2020 [1].

There are plenty of published studies on Vitamin D and its effects on Covid. I don't understand why healthcare guidelines don't mention or promote it more. The only reason I've come up with so far is that the pharmaceutical companies don't focus on it since there is no money to be made. Vit. D is basically free (€4 for a year's supply of 20 mcg/day). Without the push and lobbying from Pharma, I guess it doesn't get enough attention?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCSXNGc7pfs

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Ks9fUh2k8

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