[robbedpeter]

This one puzzles me. There seems to be a concerted effort with shared messaging preventing neutral discussions of ivermectin, regardless of whether or not it has any benefits with regard to covid. What interests me is the motivations and confluence of groups that are effectively censoring public discourse through suppression, guilt by association, and other mud slinging tactics, despite what looks to be an interesting possible course of treatment and prevention. I don't know that there's any human or group pulling the strings or if it's a coincidental harnessing of an advantageous narrative by multiple parties, but it's completely illegitimate regardless.

But no! Horse dewormer eating Maga cultists will shock and disturb you!

Makes me wonder what else is similarly suppressed and censored in the west.

[Saptarishi]

Very unfortunate. Mud slinging and blame game tactics to prevent neutral discussion are the bane of society.

[Applejinx]

HISTORY is humans and groups pulling the strings. I've certainly had the impression that there are humans/groups pulling the strings to try and derail the US pandemic response into useless and/or actively damaging directions, from hydroxychloroquine to bleach. Horse paste is particularly well chosen here as it can be procured in farm-animal dosages, allowing for panicked people to poison themselves on a grand scale. And since it's a veterinary medicine, it's less likely to have people bounce off the suggestion than say, bleach.

This does imply that (a) an outside influence is involved, such as for instance the idea that Russia manipulated the election for the benefit of Donald Trump against other perhaps more capable Democrats and Republicans, and (b) that in so doing, Russia did not REALLY want to make a US political faction powerful and healthy, and encouraging bizarre and ineffective 'takes' on pandemic response is in line with what Russia really wants through use of their social media manipulation techniques, which are pretty well documented at this stage and depend on cooperation from US tech giants such as Facebook, sometimes through intermediaries, sometimes not even.

If this seems contentious, I'm interested in which clause is the issue: I've seen a lot of self-interested denial in the very concept of Russia paying Facebook etc. through Cambridge Analytica and so on, to run marketing campaigns with very detailed feedback on effectiveness (this is a social media innovation on par with the invention of radio: the value of microtargeting demographics CANNOT be underestimated). Denying clause A is common, though it seems insane.

What would be more interesting is acknowledging A but denying B: in other words, the position that yes, there are massive covert PR campaigns going on to push these things, to your 'Maga cultists' and anyone else who will listen (there are a LOT of weird left-wingers who eat this stuff right up, just as susceptible to the paranoid tropes), but instead of being suspicious, the reaction is to automatically trust the mysterious sources all the more, because strange people want you to eat veterinary medicine for your own good, protection, and eventual great power…

[wesleywt]

Invermectin has no medical value for the treatment of viral infections. The users should be mocked. It is time to return to the era of experts.

[sfgweilr4f]

Ah... you're very wrong.

Ivermectin is worth exploring. Even if only to properly establish its limits. To assert otherwise is anti-science. I think you've inadvertently shown some kind of bias but I'm not exactly sure why or what. Perhaps politics is clouding your judgement?

Here's what some actual experts think:

"Several studies reported antiviral effects of ivermectin on RNA viruses such as Zika, dengue, yellow fever, West Nile, Hendra, Newcastle, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, chikungunya, Semliki Forest, Sindbis, Avian influenza A, Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome, Human immunodeficiency virus type 1, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2"

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32533071/

[msrenee]

The listed studies in that paper are all in vitro besides one study in mice where there was no significant improvement and one in pigs that did appear to show an effect on porcine circovirus 2. I'm not saying it isn't worth trying, but there are an incredible amount of treatments that will kill viral cells in a petri dish and a very small portion of those retain their efficacy once you move to animal models.

Ivermectin is kind of a hopeful one, since it is cheap and pretty harmless to humans. However, it's incredibly important as an agricultural med and it would be a shame if the supply chain was interrupted for a treatment that turned out to have no real effect.

[sfgweilr4f]

My point still stands: knowing that something doesn't work is useful. The post I was replying to was attempting to justify mocking. As if that is something worth doing.

I've spoken to multiple scientists that are actively avoiding studying or running experiments of possible treatments due to the political impacts. This is a worrying trend.

We should be very concerned when scientists are threatened or mocked for confirming whether or not a drug could work. Especially against a virus we didn't know much about.

BTW that was simply the first article I found in a very lazy web search. I didn't imply it showed anything other than ivermectin could work. Yet according to the narrative, even running an experiment is justification for mockery and ridicule.

That is anti-science. Its also part of a general dysfunction of present science around replication of results because something "obvious" isn't being verified. The old "emperor has no clothes" problem.

[SlowRobotAhead]

Do you know more than the medical experts in India and Japan? Should they be mocked?