[hhw3h]

What's interesting is Steve Kirsch was touting this months ago alongside Robert Malone and Bret Weinstein.

That content got banned from YouTube.

Was more or less harm done by stifling this information?

In the desire to drive official therapeutics and vaccines was this potentially not surfaced as fast as it could have been?

I'm not sure. It's good food for thought though.

[bhouston]

I think the issue is how was it proven back then? There are a lot of people promoting ideas, some of which will eventually get clinical backing that they are correct.

Prior to studies being done, how do we evaluate who is a quack and who is correct? There is a lot of harm promoting quack ideas during a pandemic. Based on reputation? Twitter followers? Their passion?

I do not believe anyone censored research and scientific literature that was mainstream nor did they say they can not try to get your theories proven, rather they were basically saying do can not claim you have the truth if there is nothing solid backing you up. Basically skipping showing your work (e.g. peer review), and just saying you have the answer.

I would argue that anyone who had a solution to Covid should rush to get it published in a reputable journal -- because that is how science works. You do not go and make YouTubes first promoting it as the cure first.

Did Steven even have a role in this paper or are these professionals operating completely independently of him? So Steven didn't even bother to make this mainstream? Too much work?

[loudtieblahblah]

>Prior to studies being done, how do we evaluate who is a quack and who is correct

You allow the dialog to take place and make up your own mind.

>I would argue that anyone who had a solution to Covid should rush to get it published in a reputable

Any tool thats not a vaccine gets associated with Trump or the right wing and is dismissed.

Its even stifled funding for anti-virals that give a 50% reduction in hospitalizations.

The government could have spent the last 18 months encouraging people to lose weight, stop smoking, drinking, and eating fast food.

The ONLY tool silicon Valley, the msm, much of acamdeia, the DNC and their loyal sycophants care about is the vaccines and even the slightest discussion of any potential alternative gets promoted as inherently anti-vaxx even if it could be used in conjunction with vaccines

[hacksnewer]

How many people actually have the expertise to evalaute medical data like that? They don't. There's a very very small number of Hners that if they are honest with themselves are qualified to do that. I'm not saying that from a high and mghty position, I'm doing that from a place that I see HN talk incredibly ignorantly about all the time. HN is supposed to be smart.

You give the average person the ability to do "research" and they are killing themselves because people fall for all kinds of bullshit. Cults exist. Scam artists are a dime a dozen.

This stuff gets associated with trump and the right because they associate themselves wth it. I don't vote Democratic, I just don't think you're being realistic about how people operate, regardless whether I beleive that "censorship" is the answer or not.

[loudtieblahblah]

You're making the argument against free speech, no matter the subject. You realize that, right?

And if only "experts" are allowed speech, then how do we qualify an expert? Bc if we go by the last 2 years we're not even allowing public debate amongst medical experts, intellectuals or even the person who helped invent an mrna vaccine without gross censorship.

Experts has come to mean government appointments and government agencies,which makes them all potentially influenced by political pressures.

So the only "valid" opinions have obvious flaws and no one else, regardless of qualifications is allowed to speak up.

Bc medical experts and scientists not deemed as part of the agenda get derided as "the average person" bc they dared to have wrongthink.

[iszomer]

The legitimacy process of peer review may also be called into question in reference to the recent joint works done by James Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, and Helen Pluckrose. And they aren't even "right-wing" though the mainstream portrays them to be.

[loudtieblahblah]

James has been red pilled. Heather and Peter not so much

[nradov]

So are you proposing that we restrict access to PubMed? Because right now there's nothing stopping anyone from doing their own research.

[woodruffw]

> The ONLY tool silicon Valley, the msm, much of acamdeia, the DNC and their loyal sycophants care about is the vaccines and even the slightest discussion of any potential alternative gets promoted as inherently anti-vaxx even if it could be used in conjunction with vaccines

There's been plenty of active mainstream reporting of Merck's new COVID pill, as well as other promising treatments. What are you talking about?

Getting a COVID shot continues to be the single best public health policy, which is why people are going to continue to advocate for it. But there has been no lack of mainstream coverage of developments in both proactive and reactive treatment.

[coolso]

> There's been plenty of active mainstream reporting of Merck's new COVID pill, as well as other promising treatments. What are you talking about?

I'll preface my comment here by saying I'm very pro-vax, and after a several month wait for my own peace of mind, got fully vax'd over the summer. I have encouraged everyone I know who's on the fence to go get one. In the context of being perfectly content if they don't, since it's their body, and since I'm vax'd, I no longer really care if you are or not.

Your comment is extremely disingenuous. Yes, now, finally, two years into COVID, a non-vaccine drug is getting mostly positive active mainstream reporting. But this is after two full years of any and all discussions about anything other than the vaccine immediately being angrily met with demonizing and mockery. If you didn't tow the establishment line, you were and still are labeled an anti-vaxxer.

To the point where it seemed almost as if, pre-vax, people didn't want a solution prior to the election in case in might help a particular someone win again. And almost as if, post-vax, people didn't like the thought of an option being available for someone who didn't want the shot - almost as if the lifestyle they formed and embraced around admonishing everyone regarding the shot could fall apart just at the very idea of something else possibly working even just a bit.

Take ivermectin as an example; opinions on it aside, and I really don't have many since I'm vaccinated and it's irrelevant to me, but you can not possibly in good faith feign ignorance over the fact that this drug, on the list of the WHO's essential medicines, with over 100K active prescriptions (pre-COVID) in the US alone and millions around the world, which is essentially as "harmless" as an antibiotic, and has saved many lives and eyeballs, was deemed as nothing more than "horse paste" by the blue checkmarks on Twitter and in most media outlets, including some of our very own governmental institutions. Yes, the few people who bought and used actual animal-grade ivermectin were idiots, but perhaps this could've been avoided by not playing into their fears by attempting to silence any and all positive press about the drug, given, again, the drug's extremely minor side effect profile that's considered lower than most common antibiotics that most doctors are known to be extremely willing to prescribe without a second thought at even the slightest possibility that it might help whatever ails their patient, even if they're pretty damn sure it won't. It should be noted that this new Merck drug has the potential for more adverse effects than those antibiotics. But it's being met with more positive press, while a less harmful drug was attacked from all angles. Food for thought.

So in short, yes, this Big Pharma sponsored/discovered COVID drug developed especially for COVID has been receiving coverage - although the comment sections in articles about them are filled to the brim with people angry at its approval given that they believe it may discourage people from getting vaccinated. But almost every single other non-vaccine (most not being establishment-discovered, or being popular in conservative/independent circles, which I'm sure is the reason - as it having more attack-points vs. a drug specifically designed for COVID, which is hard to attack since you can't call it horse paste) has been met with absolute vitriol and mockery.

[woodruffw]

> To the point where it seemed almost as if, pre-vax, people didn't want a solution prior to the election in case in might help a particular someone win again. And almost as if, post-vax, people didn't like the thought of an option being available for someone who didn't want the shot - almost as if the lifestyle they formed and embraced around admonishing everyone regarding the shot could fall apart just at the very idea of something else possibly working even just a bit.

This is a lot of presumption. I got vaccinated as soon as I could (early spring, for my region, age, and health group), which is well after the actual R&D phase for the vaccine that I received. Every person I know got vaccinated as early as they could, in spite of reservations they had about the former president's reliability. They did that because they (and I) trust their healthcare providers to provide informed guidance more than they trust themselves, regardless of their intellectual capacity. They also did it because it's their civic duty, and also because it's the selfish thing to do.

The rest, I have nothing to say to. I haven't spent any meaningful amount of time mocking (much less thinking) about people who have taken ivermectin, so I don't feel compelled to respond on behalf of the crowd you've identified.

[jinpa_zangpo]

Here's an analogy originally from Pam Popper. You wouldn't go to a car dealership and buy the car that the dealer recommends. You study up on the models available and choose the one most appropriate for you. And even if you don't know much about the mechanics of cars, even how to change your oil, you probably do a pretty good job, at least better than choosing the car the dealer recommends. Yet the majority of people accept whatever treatment their doctor recommends without asking questions or doing any research on whether the treatment is appropriate. People can learn how to make independent medical decisions, just as they can learn how to buy a car for themselves.

[nradov]

That's a terrible analogy. Within a general class of vehicles there are typically only a handful of available options. And competition means they're all pretty good. You're not going to go too far wrong buying, let's say, a Toyota RAV4 even if a Subaru Forester might be a better option.

And most consumers don't even bother to do much research before selecting a car. They buy the Toyota because they had one before and liked it, or their friend who knows about cars said it's reliable.

[loudtieblahblah]

The last two drugs doctors put me on have contributed to my life being ruined for the past 5 years

I was given Tremfya, a biologic, for mild psoriasis. I've had a horrible reaction to it and it's exacerbated what used to be a minor autoimmune issue into something debilitating.

After autoimmune destroying my life, I was given Lexapro for anxiety which took my anxiety levels from like a 5 out of 10 to a 1000. Even after being off it for a year, I'm still really messed up and haven't gone back to pre-lexapro levels.

I was given gabapentin for neuropathic pain. It did nothing for my pain but now I have full body shivers and twitches and I have horrible withdrawal trying to get off gabapentin gradually.

Doctors push what the pharmaceutical companies tell them too.

Look into the effects of cipro and -floxin type antibiotics causing lifelong neuropathy.

My mother developed AVN from prednisone - causing her to need dual hip and dual shoulder replacements bc her reaction to the steroid caused her joints to turn necrotic.

Her lack of mobility and age has come with higher blood pressure.

Her blood pressure medication gave her gout.

"trust the experts"

[zamadatix]

Buying a car factors too much personal preference in to be analogous to diagnosing a particular issue. I think a better analogy would be when you go to a shop to get your car fixed. Depending how obvious the problem is you may be given a single obvious course of action or be given a list of possible problems and a review of possible solutions. If it's severe enough you may be inclined to ask for a second opinion from another shop just to be sure but you don't default to questioning automotive repair practices because you go and google how a transmission works that week. Not because the first mechanic you see is always right but because there are multiple people that spend their lives trying to figure these things out available to you and your best bet is to always try to leverage them not try to become one of the alternative experts overnight.

[chiefalchemist]

> The government could have spent the last 18 months encouraging people to lose weight, stop smoking, drinking, and eating fast food.

Instead, the "solution" did the opposite. But worse, kids stayed inside, didn't exercise, put on (likely more) weight, didn't share illness (read: weakened immune system) and then those kids were ordered back to school in that highly vulnerable state.

The solution? The jab. With absolutely not acknowledgement or recognition they were prepped to be put in harns way.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. This is what happened and continues to happen. Unfortunately, such observations and analysis get marginalized as being a Covid denier or anti-vax. That doesn't make sense.

[javagram]

If you seriously think the government could have made us all lose weight in the last 18 months... they’ve been running anti obesity campaigns for decades and failing while obesity grows every year.

BTW covid is plenty dangerous to non obese as well.

The vaccine shot actually works well and is incredibly easy to use compared to a grueling year long weight loss and sustaining it for a lifetime, for most people.

[nradov]

Obesity is a critical risk factor.

https://www.wfae.org/health/2021-09-30/novant-says-9-of-10-c...

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3742#f1-M203742

https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/obesity-and-covid-19.html

https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/07/21/bjsports-2021-...

[javagram]

Look at your cdc link and it proves my point. I never said obesity wasn’t a risk factor, just that covid is plenty dangerous to the non obese as well.

“ More than 900,000 adult COVID-19 hospitalizations occurred in the United States between the beginning of the pandemic and November 18, 2020. Models estimate that 271,800 (30.2%) of these hospitalizations were attributed to obesity.6”

This is from your link - even if the government put everyone in concentration camps and forced them to lose weight, it would do nothing for the other 70%

Meanwhile vaccines are about 80-90% effective against hospitalization and death.

[foolinaround]

if they have been running pro-vaccine campaigns, thats very welcome..

It is the coercion / loss of livelihood and other threats, that are getting people up in arms (figuratively, and who knows, someday in real life)

Imagine if various establishments used a weight/health card where one is scored on some heuristic, and allowed access.

Just look at intellectuals like Noam Chomsky's prescriptions on how to treat the unvaccinated...

[javagram]

> It is the coercion / loss of livelihood and other threats, that are getting people up in arms (figuratively, and who knows, someday in real life)

People were up in arms and fearmongering over the vaccine since 2020. This isn’t about coercion - there’s a reason the same people typically don’t get vaccinated themselves. If they believed in the effectiveness of the vaccine they’d be vaxxed themselves (like Republican Governors and Fox News tv hosts).

I personally know someone who thought the vaccine had a good chance of killing me and other acquaintances who took it, all because he read some random posts on the net.

[aemreunal]

> You allow the dialog to take place and make up your own mind.

I'm not sure this applies to medicine or vaccines. I don't think any of us are in the position of "making up our own mind" about what works in medicine and what doesn't, which is why we have double-blind clinical studies. We can't even explain why/how placebo works.

[vorpalhex]

You have to be in the position of being your own medical advocate.

I had a condition that was misdiagnosed repeatedly, including in the ER. My condition is not even "rare", just slightly uncommon, and I had a very textbook case of it.

Your doctor is not an oracle. They are a car mechanic that works on organics.

[tinus_hn]

Not to mention that it’s hardly extraordinary for two doctors to have two different opinions on the same case.

What does that mean? That there are two conflicting absolute truths?

[loudtieblahblah]

There's only one truth.

That's the doctors that MSNBC interviews. Nothing else.

[loudtieblahblah]

You're not allowed to be your own medical advocate now.

Don't get onboard - you'll lose your job. Even if you work from home.

[tinus_hn]

Really? It’s pretty clear that a lot of people made up their mind and chose to get vaccinated. But that’s fine of course, it’s only a problem if they make up their mind and decide something else.

[loudtieblahblah]

you do realize a ton of FDA drugs that have been studied and studied and approved.....

have tons of side effects and still are up to patients as to whether or not to take them - gabapentin for neuropathic pain.

biologics for autoimmune disorders.

we don't force anti-biotics on anyone.

we don't force anxiety meds on anyone.

find me a drug that's doled out by the establishment who hasn't destroyed someone's life or even ended their live.

the same establishment that created the opiate epidemic is saying "trust us now"..

The same one that over prescribes antibiotics, especially dangerous ones like Cipro that gives people neurapthic pain for their entire lives.

Dermalogists hand out Biologics for even mild psoriasis - which states in the literature "we do not entirely now how or why this works" (Tremfya) and "may cause cancer". (Humira)

Cardiologists will prescribe blood pressure pills without realizing someone might have kidney damage or high uric acid and then the pills end up giving them gout.

anti-anxiety meds are a "try all of them and see which one works for you!" but every single one of them has a list of side effects and can make your anxiety/depression a million times worse. getting off of them has a "discontinuation syndrome" which can fuck you up for years.

Prednisone gave my mother AVN - an autoimmune disorder that turned her joints necrotic - requiring 2 shoulder and 2 hip replacements.

"Trust us" they say - as they lie about the usefulness of masks.

Trust us they say as they lie about lab leak theories

Trust us they say as they told us that we'd need 60% of herd immunity, then changed it to 70% then to 80% and now saying we'll never reach it b/c you don't get herd immunity with a corona virus. It's just with us forever, but hey.. keep getting 3, 4 5 shots forever.

Trust us. We're the experts. The captured FDA. BigPharma and all the doctors you go to that control them

Trust us as we yank peer reviewed studies from journals b/c it conflicts with our messaging.

So yes - people are in a good god damned position to at least TRY to process it.

[bhouston]

>> Prior to studies being done, how do we evaluate who is a quack and who is correct

> You allow the dialog to take place and make up your own mind.

You want to replace a reliance on empirical evidence (science) with rhetoric debates instead? This is going backwards in terms of progress as a society. I think you do not really want to do that.

[_kulang]

IMO most people are completely incapable of critically approaching new information 24/7 and so are susceptible to weighing incorrect and misleading information highly if they are repeatedly exposed to it. At the risk of being a heathen, I think information and discourse in public forums needs to be moderated and curated - the other option is to do what we do today and devalue people’s opinions based on our personal perception of the quality of their information, which is subjective. Any fears about censorship and control are a reflection of the ridiculous centralisation of the internet, and breaking up or socialising large platforms is the appropriate response.

Ultimately I think the expectation that platforms ought to facilitate and tolerate discussion of topics just because they are “ideas”, “suggestions”, “opinions” and not presented as fact is toxic. If you want to do actual research do it in the correct setting (not a public forum). And fortunately, that is where actual research is happening.

It is not some overarching plan by some godly G-man, you don’t see these drugs being promoted because there is ultimately no scientific proof of their effectiveness. If Moderna had the same attitude towards science and statistics as the people who are pushing “alternative” treatments, we would have had a COVID vaccine much sooner.

[quotemstr]

> You allow the dialog to take place and make up your own mind.

The number of replies to your comment against this idea is terrifying. What's even worse is the outright hostility --- it's not good enough that they trust the experts and you don't. You have to go along with it too, according to them, or they'll attack you. It's a totalitarian mindset.

[api]

> You allow the dialog to take place and make up your own mind.

Medicine is perhaps the field least amenable to this.

It's so hard to figure out what drugs and therapies even work that full-time Ph.D and MD level experts in biology and medicine very often get things very wrong. Look at fat, cholesterol, sugar, and how certain foods like eggs have been classified as healthy or unhealthy multiple times. These people are not idiots nor are they all involved in some conspiracy. It's just unbelievably hard to disambiguate all the confounding factors and see actual cause and effect with a system as complex as the human body.

Even highly educated highly intelligent laypeople don't stand a chance against quacks. Anything can be made to sound plausible in medicine.

You might say "well then couldn't they be wrong about the vaccines?" The answer is that yes, they could. It's just that medical experts have maybe a 60-70% chance of getting everything wrong vs a 99.9% chance for the general public.

[beamatronic]

>> You allow the dialog to take place and make up your own mind.

I have reviewed all of the available dialog, and I have concluded that not only is the coronavirus fake, the world is flat.

[malfist]

Additionally, after further review, I know that birds aren't real, if I need to charge my iphone quickly I can do so in the microwave, smoking isn't harmful and climate change isn't real.

[bananapear]

Aren't there many (>60) published studies showing varying positive effects of early treatment with Ivermectin though? (Despite a couple having been retracted for obvious fraud).

YouTube's policy specifically bans mention of Ivermectin as a possible treatment.

Combined with the safety profile and cost of Ivermectin, I'd have thought that it'd at least be worth a try in an emergency - the worst possible case being that it doesn't work (unless you have idiots taking horse-size doses).

Compared with the quality of data surrounding remdesivir, molnupiravir etc, there seems to be a significant bias towards novelty (and therefore $$$).

Similarly, it's been known for decades that vitamin D deficiency increases susceptibility to respiratory diseases, and most people in Europe/North America are deficient in winter. Why not hand it out? Worst case, it doesn't work.

[msbarnett]

> Aren't there many (>60) published studies showing varying positive effects of early treatment with Ivermectin though? (Despite a couple having been retracted for obvious fraud).

There are a number of low-quality (low numbers, methodological issue) studies with varying results. The primary "evidence" that got people excited about Ivermectin was a meta-analysis of these studies, but the meta-analysis itself pointed out that the largest amount of data and strongest evidence in their dataset came from one very large study – the study that was later withdrawn for having faked its data.

Since then, there's been no real compelling evidence at all that Ivermectin has any real impact beyond placebo.

> Compared with the quality of data surrounding remdesivir, molnupiravir etc, there seems to be a significant bias towards novelty (and therefore $$$).

There's a bias towards using treatments for which: 1) there is a reasonable expectation, based on understood science, that the treatment should impact the course of the virus

(preferably) and

2) there is some non-fraudulent, non-obscure and tiny dataset, indicating an effect.

The lack of strong data in support of Ivermectin is coupled with the fact that there's no particular reason to expect Ivermectin should have any impact on any particular virus.

> Similarly, it's been known for decades that vitamin D deficiency increases susceptibility to respiratory diseases, and most people in Europe/North America are deficient in winter. Why not hand it out? Worst case, it doesn't work.

This is mistaking correlation with causation. We know that many people who suffer serious respiratory illnesses, and who die from COVID-19, have low vitamin D levels. This is not believed to imply that low vitamin D levels cause death from COVID-19; rather it's simply the natural outcome of many old people having low vitamin D levels and age being a significant factor in COVID-19 deaths. People who die of old age also have low vitamin D levels; would you argue we should hand out vitamin D in an attempt to cure aging?

The idea that because these things are relatively safe we might as well just do them seems, in whole, silly. Sugar pills and crystals have a great safety profile too, but we don't expect physicians to use those on the theory of "well there's no real downside" either.

Science, not superstition, is the goal here.

[sampo]

> the fact that there's no particular reason to expect Invermectin should have any impact on any particular virus.

Ivermectin (you spell it wrong) is a known antiviral against several viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, when studied in cell cultures. This doesn't mean that it would work as a treatment in real patients. But it gives some reason, maybe just a little, to expect that it maybe could.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin#COVID-19

The trial run by Oxford University might eventually give some good quality data on this.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-06-23-ivermectin-be-investiga...

[nradov]

Apparently you haven't kept up on current research. Multiple studies have shown that vitamin D has prevention and treatment benefits. There's more going on than just a correlation with age.

https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/

[gzer0]

> Aren't there many (>60) published studies showing varying positive effects of early treatment with Ivermectin though? (Despite a couple having been retracted for obvious fraud).

No, this is false. Use of animal ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in humans is dangerous [1].

[1] https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-shoul...

[bananapear]

I don't think anyone is suggesting that humans should take the animal version.

[javagram]

There are plenty of Facebook and YouTube guides about taking animal ivermectin as a replacement for human-rated medicine.

That said hopefully here on HN we can agree that is a dumb idea.

[inside65]

That's clearly not what the original post was suggesting and yet someone went out of their way to change the focus to the political narrative of taking animal dosages.

[cheaprentalyeti]

If the government were stupid and tyrranical enough to ban Human Azithromycin, and you came down with bacterial bronchitis, would you just die or would you go to the local feed store and buy some animal grade azithromycin?

[UnFleshedOne]

The only reason for that is difficulty of getting prescription for human version and then difficulty filling it (because of blue pilled pharmacists). Remove those impediments and you'll reduce incidence of poisonings in half (from 4 cases total to 2)!

[tinus_hn]

It’s dangerous in the sense that there is no careful control like in medicine for humans, and it has not been approved for humans.

Obviously the fda would say this is the approved, safe medicine, so this other stuff is not approved and safe. The fact is that as far as the fda knows, they don’t know anything about if it’s safe or unsafe so they call it unsafe.

> the FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical attention, including hospitalization

They must have a subscription to Rolling Stone.

But they have of course carefully chosen their wording. This could mean there were two people hospitalized that took ivermectin and got symptoms the hospital thought were due to that. But it turned out to be something else.

Just like the cdc, they have received ‘increased numbers of reports of side effects’. Wow, who would have thought if a 100 times more people take a drug, that would result in increased reports of side effects. The generic side effects that are also a side effect of placebo, like headaches and nausea.

[nradov]

Hardly anything is ever "proven" in medicine, or biology in general. The best we can do are varying levels of probability. So then it becomes a discussion about how to set the minimum acceptable level of confidence.

[Vrondi]

Yes, but why should people who are calling for studies to be done get censored? Scientists who are talking about interesting possibilities that _should_be_studied_ should not get their content taken down.

[bhouston]

No one calling for studies should get censored for simply doing that.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Was it specifically because of this one claim, or because of his claims that hydroxychloroquine works and that COVID vaccines are toxic? I think you're doing a disservice by downplaying his history surrounding COVID.

[defaultname]

"What's interesting is Steve Kirsch was touting this months ago alongside Robert Malone and Bret Weinstein."

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/05/1036408/silicon-...

To be clear, the researchers kept doing research and progressing. Whether some layman could tout it, mixing their advocacy with a myriad of disproved cures (along with anti-vax disinformation), had positively zero bearing on what they were doing, and if anything is a massive distraction.

Talking about something by sharing a Facebook post or posting a YouTube video or even HN comment has a negligible to negative effect on actual efforts.

[AnthonBerg]

Kirsch happened to spoon a lot of, well, BS and absolutely unwarranted conclusions and certainty. This is always harmful, and is probably what was banned.

[omegaworks]

American history is littered with medical salesmen touting miracle cures to desperate ill people. Would you prefer our modern communication mediums be saturated with their pitches or do we want to wait until there is a reasonable scientific consensus before unleashing re-engagement algorithms?

[bsaul]

if you want youtube to get rid of any salesmen touting miracles anything you're going to have to get rid of commercials as well.

[wtallis]

There's a big difference between charlatans touting miracle cures and commercials for FDA-approved drugs, but even the latter are considered by many reasonable people to be harmful and worthy of banning.

[nradov]

Banning ads for legal products to adults would require a Constitutional amendment.

[ceejayoz]

Nah.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Health_Cigarette_Smokin...

[nradov]

You appear to be ignorant of Thompson v. Western States Medical Center.

https://www.justice.gov/osg/brief/thompson-v-western-states-...

[silverpepsi]

I want to see everyone's true face bright and clear so I don't lose my own ability to filter them accordingly.

It's like, do you want the friends you meet at church to be actual Christians? Well good then, stop having a damned society where atheism is so taboo that the church aisles are filled with atheists terrified of the consequences of not showing up on Sunday morning. This is still a real serious issue in the bible belt and Moslem world, etc..

[omegaworks]

Unfortunately the pandemic is a social/collective problem and given the systematic disinvestment in quality public education, your personal ability to filter disinformation is nowhere near universally applicable.

[tayo42]

> Was more or less harm done by stifling this information?

I dont think the target audience for youtube videos is other researchers and doctors. Pretty sure nothing of value was lost by it not being on youtube. The only thing this would have done is rile up people.

[radu_floricica]

Months?! I have a box bought "just in case" almost a year ago, and I easn't early.

We as a civilization moved pretty slow on Covid.