[aslyfox]

They are spending 1.7 million dollars on this.....

My thoughts too

[Parallax]

if the results are not favorable, will those backing the deworming medicine believe the results ?

That was a rhetorical question, right?
I have to assume that, as an attorney, you never ask questions to which you don't already know the answer.

[luftfluss]

Of course, there is a difference between treating the symptoms versus treating the disease...

[Parallax]

Of course, there is a difference between treating the symptoms versus treating the disease...

You're right, but I think that distinction would be lost on those of a "Don't confuse me with facts; my mind's made up" mindset.

[aslyfox]

. . . I have to assume . . .

you know what happens when one assumes

. . . as an attorney, you never ask questions to which you don't already know the answer.

certainly a good attorney follows that practice in court

when dealing with an expert witness you will be calling, however, you ask questions to educate yourself and learn what not to ask in court

[Rondec]

They are spending 1.7 million dollars on this.....

That's probably a tiny amount compared to the billions spent on the vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and new antiviral medications. There are some indications that fluvoxamine could help. It also has quite a few side effects (Gastrointestinal mainly).

Ivermectin in my mind is more doubtful. For it to work it would require significantly higher concentrations in the blood stream than what are typically seen in patients on the medicine. I still think it is worth checking out with a real, well-designed study. Most of the studies out there are things like taking 50 patients in Bangladesh and giving them ivermectin plus doxycycline and giving another 50 hydroxychloroquine plus zithromax. What the point of that is beyond me. Studies in Brazil indicated that zithromax plus hydroxychloroquine actually increased death rates, so why your control arm would be that is odd. But its exactly studies like that that are inspiring people to say that it is a magic potion.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ivermectin-is-the-new-hydroxychloroquine-take-2/

[Racer X 69]

and I saw this story where a Jewish talk show host deliberately got infected with COVID and then got monoclonal antibodies, believing this will give him better long term immunity to COVID. Conservative radio host says he caught COVID on purpose

Great.

If this talk show host survives without any serious complications, the antvaxxers will be reinforced in their arguments against real doctors.

There is a car forum I frequent that is generally unmoderated, and has a small, but noisy group of antvaxxers. The majority of their arguments are supported by YouTube videos, some hours long rants, by guys who couldn't treat a small cut and clearly have no comprehension of things viral and biological.

But they are all armchair experts.

Me?

I paid attention in science and biology in primary school, and try to be an informed patient when dealing with doctors and dentists, but don't pretend to know better than the physicians and surgeons I have dealt with in my life.

And I certainly don't give talk show hosts and YouTubers the bandwidth on my computer or phone.

---

Last edited by Racer X 69; 10-21-2021 at 06:32 PM.

[pinholecam]

Over here in Singapore, its been 1-2 months of the highest number of cases and deaths since the pandemic started.
This is a country with 86.4% vaccinated and before this very low death rate of maybe 0-3 a day, so psychologically the appetite for deaths is really low.
The increase in cases/deaths has been due to a pivot to "new normal" and what is now termed "stabilization period"
I am left wondering if "stabilization" means getting used to more deaths as the "new normal" with the logical argument that this is lower than flu (logical yes, but as I mentioned, public appetite for it is low as before, deaths were so low)

Unvax are no longer allowed entry to malls, any quite a few indoor locations.
Quite a few restrictions on everyone that don't make sense
(you can travel in a rush hour bus/train, but can't enter a mall to get some essentials;
commercial outdoor classes allowed, but family visits are 5pax max.
Travel overseas to approved countries are ok but 2pax max locally for most personal activities in country )

What I find discomforting is the painting of the narrative (media is state controlled) that unvaxed are "sabotaging" everyone else and un-vaxed deaths are caused by covid while vaxed deaths are due to underlying causes.
Society likes a named "enemy" to focus all this frustration and its become the un-vaxed.


Personally, I am vaccinated, but I do find it a violation of the rights of others to make it so difficult for them that they are forced to vaccinate (worse if they can't).
Since this is a semi authoritarian country, they can just make vaccination mandatory, but go thru the pretense that its "up to the individual"

I've heard that Italy is no better in terms of segregating the vaxed/un-vaxed. (supposedly a liberal democracy)

[tokyoscape]

Over here in Singapore, its been 1-2 months of the highest number of cases and deaths since the pandemic started.
This is a country with 86.4% vaccinated ... (supposedly a liberal democracy)

I saw the news since last week and wondering what went wrong over there. 3-4,000 thousands new cases for approx. 5.6 million population and 82.4% fully vaccinated. I don't say is high, but compared to what Singapore used to have like ten or even less in a day, 3-4000 is head scratching.
I guess the death rate won't be that high because most are fully vaccinated. Do people still wearing mask and hand sanitizing as before? Vaccine is not a 100% guarantee. So I hope people won't let their guard down too soon.

Here in Japan we have only a bit more than 300 new cases a day now. It is dropped from around 25,000 in august. 68.8% out of 125.8 million are vaccinated. Mask and hand sanitizing are still a common theme here as so public transportation which has never been closed, no vaccine mandate and no campaign demonizing the unvaccinated. No restriction on go to places like shopping mall, night club, etc either.

[slartibartfast01]

That's probably a tiny amount compared to the billions spent on the vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, and new antiviral medications. There are some indications that fluvoxamine could help. It also has quite a few side effects (Gastrointestinal mainly).



Ivermectin in my mind is more doubtful. For it to work it would require significantly higher concentrations in the blood stream than what are typically seen in patients on the medicine. I still think it is worth checking out with a real, well-designed study. Most of the studies out there are things like taking 50 patients in Bangladesh and giving them ivermectin plus doxycycline and giving another 50 hydroxychloroquine plus zithromax. What the point of that is beyond me. Studies in Brazil indicated that zithromax plus hydroxychloroquine actually increased death rates, so why your control arm would be that is odd. But its exactly studies like that that are inspiring people to say that it is a magic potion.



https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/ivermectin-is-the-new-hydroxychloroquine-take-2/

A UK trial of Invermectin is ongoing
https://www.principletrial.org
If the US trial comes up with the same conclusions that will be helpful, if not where does that leave us?

[reh321]

I saw the news since last week and wondering what went wrong over there. 3-4,000 thousands new cases for approx. 5.6 million population and 82.4% fully vaccinated. I don't say is high, but compared to what Singapore used to have like ten or even less in a day, 3-4000 is head scratching.
I guess the death rate won't be that high because most are fully vaccinated. Do people still wearing mask and hand sanitizing as before? Vaccine is not a 100% guarantee. So I hope people won't let their guard down too soon.

Here in Japan we have only a bit more than 300 new cases a day now. It is dropped from around 25,000 in august. 68.8% out of 125.8 million are vaccinated. Mask and hand sanitizing are still a common theme here as so public transportation which has never been closed, no vaccine mandate and no campaign demonizing the unvaccinated. No restriction on go to places like shopping mall, night club, etc either.

In my county in the US, in May we were down to 10 cases per 100,000 and a positivity rate of 1% ….. but some people “returned to normal” too soon. My wife and I even started throwing away masks when the elastic wore out. But with a combination of a vaccination rate that never got over 50%, no masking even in indoor situations, and an unwillingness to maintain ‘social distancing’ {when a woman complained that my shopping cart was in such a place that she had to stand too far away in line, I told her that ‘social distancing’ is “still a thing”}, now we are around 200 cases per 100,000 and a positivity rate over 9%. Actually things were slightly worse - the county went from “blue” {the state’s best rating} back up to “orange” {next to worst rating}; my wife noticed Wednesday we were down to “yellow” {between the two}.

[Rondec]

A UK trial of Invermectin is ongoing
https://www.principletrial.org
If the US trial comes up with the same conclusions that will be helpful, if not where does that leave us?

If you have multiple trials for the same medication it gives you more data. For one thing, you can pool the numbers together and do a metanalysis and say combining these shows a 3 percent benefit or no effect (my guess is it will be no effect).

The biggest thing is that if you have multiple trials that show small benefit or small negative it leads you down the road of thinking that what you are seeing has more to do with chance differences rather than a real effect of the medication.

The biggest problem trials have is their size and therefore their power to discern differences between the control group and the medication group. If you had a million patients in a trial you would feel good about saying that your trial had adequate power to discern for sure if something worked or not. If you have 100 patients you are only going to be able to tell if there is a really big difference. Most trials have a few hundred patients due to the cost and time required to recruit patients for them.

[Wheatfield]

What I find discomforting is the painting of the narrative (media is state controlled) that unvaxed are "sabotaging" everyone else and un-vaxed deaths are caused by covid while vaxed deaths are due to underlying causes.
Society likes a named "enemy" to focus all this frustration and its become the un-vaxed.

Normally I would agree 100% with you on this, if for no other reason than "othering" is an ugly practice that is about the person doing the othering not the person being othered.
However, unlike virtually all instances of othering, the unvaccinated truly are a threat to the health and well being of society at large, both directly and indirectly.
Where I am, the hospitals are full of covid patients, ICUs are runnng at over 150% capacity, ICU patients are being sent to other provinces to be put into their ICU wards, surgeries have been cancelled en masse because the facilities and personel to do them have been reassigned to looking after covid patients, and at last report, I read a news piece from an emergency ward doctor that there is some triaging happening at admissions, though it isn't being officially admitted as of yet.
We have more cases per day than Ontario at the moment, a province with 13 times our population.
We also have about the lowest vaccination rate in Canada.

The cost to society that the unvaccinated are creating is huge, both in human terms and monetary. Our health care workers have been dealing with this for a year and a half, and are burning out at a rapid rate, anyone who needs any kind of hospital care is in risk of not getting it in a timely fashion, if at all, and in pure financial terms, it's something like 600 times more expensive here to treat covid in a hospital than to have a vaccination.

Consequently, I am not uncomfortable with a little bit of othering. The unvaccinated really are a pox on society.

Regarding how deaths are recorded, I think it's fair to look at would the person with underlying causes have died when they did if they hadn't contracted covid. For example, a person with diabetes and high blood pressure that is being controlled has a somewhat higher risk of dying at any given moment than a person not afflicted by those two diseases, but that person has a much higher chance of dying from covid than a person who is not diabetic with high blood pressure.
I don't see it as being wrong to say that a person who catches covid and dies from covid has died of covid. I'm an if it walks like a duck and quacks it's probably a duck kind of person.

[aldo taddia]

Meanwhile, for not knowing how to read or write, I go to do the third dose of vaccine (Booster). Then I will report to you.

[barondla]

Normally I would agree 100% with you on this, if for no other reason than "othering" is an ugly practice that is about the person doing the othering not the person being othered.
However, unlike virtually all instances of othering, the unvaccinated truly are a threat to the health and well being of society at large, both directly and indirectly.
Where I am, the hospitals are full of covid patients, ICUs are runnng at over 150% capacity, ICU patients are being sent to other provinces to be put into their ICU wards, surgeries have been cancelled en masse because the facilities and personel to do them have been reassigned to looking after covid patients, and at last report, I read a news piece from an emergency ward doctor that there is some triaging happening at admissions, though it isn't being officially admitted as of yet.
We have more cases per day than Ontario at the moment, a province with 13 times our population.
We also have about the lowest vaccination rate in Canada.

The cost to society that the unvaccinated are creating is huge, both in human terms and monetary. Our health care workers have been dealing with this for a year and a half, and are burning out at a rapid rate, anyone who needs any kind of hospital care is in risk of not getting it in a timely fashion, if at all, and in pure financial terms, it's something like 600 times more expensive here to treat covid in a hospital than to have a vaccination.

Consequently, I am not uncomfortable with a little bit of othering. The unvaccinated really are a pox on society.

Regarding how deaths are recorded, I think it's fair to look at would the person with underlying causes have died when they did if they hadn't contracted covid. For example, a person with diabetes and high blood pressure that is being controlled has a somewhat higher risk of dying at any given moment than a person not afflicted by those two diseases, but that person has a much higher chance of dying from covid than a person who is not diabetic with high blood pressure.
I don't see it as being wrong to say that a person who catches covid and dies from covid has died of covid. I'm an if it walks like a duck and quacks it's probably a duck kind of person.

And the other side considers Covid mandates the biggest threat to society. So scared of dying, people are willing to give up all freedom in the name of Covid. If a foreign army marched into your country and forced you to social distance, wear a mask, checked your papers, refused to allow you too travel or even leave the house, tracked you, and forced you to take injections, there would be a war. We usually expect freedom to have a cost in lives. We also usually expect soldiers to pay that price. It isn't always so.


I live with parents on both sides of this argument. It is a lot more complicated than most people give it credit for.
Thanks,
barondla