[kwlug-disc] Ivermectin

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

On Sat, Nov 19, 2022 at 10:46 PM Steve Izma <sizma at golden.net> wrote:


> > It is just like Hydroxychloroquine: what works against a
> > certain pathogen or disease at a given dose, at does not work
> > for other pathogens or conditions at a different dose. Viruses
> > and intestinal worms have very different biologies and modes of
> > infections (one is inside the cells, the other is outside, for
> > one).
>
> This sounds reductionist and dogmatic to me, approaching the idea
> that pathologies have a single cause and are therefore cured by a
> pharmaceutical product that attacks that single cause.


In medicine, this is on a condition by condition, and patient by patient
basis.
Some conditions can be cured (or managed and brought under control) by a
single
drug (e.g. antibiotic against a certain bacteria, or an anti-inflammatory
for arthritis).
Other conditions are more complex, or patients may suffer co-morbidities
that
require co-treatments.

For example, in some viral infections antibiotics are given if the patient
risks
a secondary infection by bacteria.

Covid-19 isn't a single thing but a collection of symptoms usually
> associated with (often different) respiratory diseases that were
> suddenly grouped together due to the identification of a certain
> virus (among the nearly one quadrillion viruses normally resident
> in a human body).


That is propaganda by the conspiracy theorists, and is patently false.
It borders on "this disease was made up to scare/control people".

COVID-19 is definitely a disease caused by a single virus (that now has
several variants).
Not all patients exhibit all the symptoms, and later variants have
different symptoms
too.


> It's highly unlikely that a single intervention
> can make a difference here. None of the uses of
> hydroxychloroquine or invermectin that I've heard about use only
> one of those drugs, They are always combined with other kinds of
> medical attention, under the credible suspicion that those who
> are the sickest have become vulnerable in many ways. Therefore
> testing for the effectiveness of a single drug in these
> circumstances is bound to fail, possibly intentionally so.
>

Please lookup how double blind randomized testing is done. That has been
the best practice
for knowing how a treatment or vaccine is effective. It eliminates biases
by both the medical
staff, and by the patient, and rules out things like intuition.


> > One example with dire consequences is thalidomide. It was used
> > as a painkiller (like Tylenol), then its use was expanded for
> > morning sickness for pregnant women. The result was babies were
> > born with incomplete hands or feet. Canada, the UK and Europe
> > allowed that use with disastrous results. In the USA, one Dr.
> > Frances Oldham Kelsey who worked for the FDA refused to approve
> > the drug, and stuck to her position that the company must
> > submit safety data, despite pressure from superiors.
>
> Gee, that sounds a lot like the current debates about the
> approval of vaccines: they are currently only approved under
> an emergency-use authorization because the usual safety studies
> have not been completed.
>

That is an oft-repeated claim by those who are against the vaccines,
but it is a false claim.

At least two vaccines have been approved for general use by the FDA
and other regulators of medicines.

FDA approved Pfizer's vaccine since Aug 2021
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine

Moderna was also approved.

Here is an article from a medical research university on the approval

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/full-fda-approval-of-a-covid-19-vaccine-what-you-should-know

Norman Doidge described the problems of the "master narrative" of
> the pharmalogical response to Covid-19 in a Globe and Mail
> article in January 2022
> <
> https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-vaccines-are-a-tool-not-a-silver-bullet-if-wed-allowed-more-scientific/
> >
> (if you can't get access to this article, I have PDF of it). This
> is what he says about the difficulty of merely quoting a
> selection of studies, as you do in the rest of your message:
>
>         So why hasn’t treatment focused more on repurposed drugs?
>
>         First, because the master narrative, once it took hold,
>         directed our attention away from this possibility.
>         Second, in North America, the first repurposed drug that
>         came to public attention was hydroxychloroquine. When it
>         was endorsed by then-president Donald Trump it became
>         highly politicized. People’s opinions about it often had
>         more to do with their political affiliation than whether
>         they had read any of the (now) 303 studies. Third,
>         agencies that regulate drugs, such as the U.S. Food and
>         Drug Administration and Health Canada, mandate that any
>         drug they evaluate have a sponsor, usually a drug company
>         agreeing to assume liabilities for the drug. It’s an
>         extremely expensive process. If an old, cheap generic
>         drug shows promise for repurposing, it still needs a
>         sponsor to get approved for that. But drug companies have
>         no financial incentive to do so. So usually there are no
>         sponsors, and the drugs languish.
>
>         Of all the reasons that we didn’t focus on repurposed
>         drugs, I would argue, the master narrative was the most
>         important, because of the way it organized so many
>         people’s thoughts, attention, and emotions.The evidence I posted


In an earlier message, I pointed to 550 research papers on PubMed on
the topic of Ivermectin and COVID. If you search for HCQ, or anything
else, I am sure other papers will come up.

That means researchers are actively investigating those drugs, but nothing
effective came up so far. Maybe something will come up next year, or in ten
years. Until then, we can't administer ANY OF THESE DRUGS hoping they work
and claiming a conspiracy of suppression.

Just because this guy's opinion is against it, or he is not aware, is not
evidence to the contrary.

So far, there is no evidence that any of the available medicines targets
COVID (apart from corticosteroids).

This mailing list frequently contains good arguments as to why we
> should be skeptical of the large corporations that dominate our
> activities in the tech world. An effective and frequently used
> rule of thumb in these discussions has been "follow the money".
>

This is a common retort that I get from friends who claim conspiracies
without evidence. My reply is "what is possible, what is probably, and
what is reality are different things". Just because one is paranoid does
not mean their neighbour is out to get them or their spouse is cheating
on them.


> You have failed to do this in your discussion of the studies you
> quote. Who benefits from them?
>
> How bias-free were your pharmaceutical studies? How much of the
> information and textbooks were associated with pharmaceutical
> companies?
>

Interestingly, companies were not mentioned at all in four years of
pharmacy (and one year prep in science) other than when discussing
the specific medicines that we are studying. Even in the course for
industrial pharmacy (how tablets, capsules, injections are made),
there was no mention of specific companies.

So if anything, companies were ignored or mentioned in passing.
But that was Egypt and several decades ago. I imagine things could
be different in the USA for example.

Here is one exception that I remember vividly from the late 1970s or
early 1980s. The company was Schering in Switzerland (or Germany).
At that time they had a monopoly on so called soft gel capsules. Anyone
who wanted to make their medicine in that format had to give them their
own drug to be packed in those capsules. This is not odd now because
there are companies that operate production lines for other companies
specially in the sterile products (vaccines, injections).

One guy who was ahead of me a couple of years started a company after
graduation with investors and such specifically to compete with Schering.
This company is still in operation in Egypt, but the technology is now
wide spread around the world and no longer a novelty, due to advances
in many areas of engineering, manufacturing, ...etc.


> Science never has an end point. It is, like all other forms of
> knowledge, a process of discovery and debate.


Since has no end point and is always evolving. But certain things are
established and will be added to, rather than replaced. For example,
Earth is spherical and rotates around itself. Matter is made of proton
and neutron which are made of quarks. The Standard Model has
photos, electrons ...etc. In 100 years these will still be there, but
additional particles and more precise properties are know.


> Our experience with
> computer tech appears to demonstrate that there's no level
> playing field here and the big players monopolize the knowledge
> and development process.


You are comparing different domains: science and technology
cross pollinate but they are not the same, and have different approaches
and techniques.


> That's why I find it very troubling that
> your opening position implies that there is no longer a debate on
> these issues. That echoes the desire of the powers-that-be.
>

I have made it clear that the current evidence is against the efficacy
of Ivermectin against COVID-19. That should be the current position
of anyone who follows evidence and uses the science methodology.

If new evidence emerges to the contrary (highly unlikely given the studies
I quoted), then a change in position is warranted. Einstein was proven
wrong about Quantum physics. This year's physics Nobel was exactly
about that. The winners did not keep lamenting about dogma, and idol
worship in science. One guy (John Stewart Bell) did the calculations, found
a way to disprove the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paper. Others designed
experiments and ran them and proved Einstein wrong.

They did this while being part of academia, doing the hard work that needs
to be done. They are not outsiders unfamiliar with the field's intricacies,
claiming
coverups, cabals, conspiracies, ...etc.

See the difference?
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