:-) There was a winky there ... ;)Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑ Well that was a long, self-indulgent ramble for tl;dr: Ivermectin the dewormer had the best results vs. covid where the local population had a lot of worms.
Not sure what the relevance of that is. Except maybe to highlight, if inadvertently, that scientific "standards" are much more lax outside of the "first world".Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑ Of course, we don't have any studies from the US and other places where it's use is effectively banned (or administered surreptitiously.)
Progress!! ;-)Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑I'll accept that as plausible. But it ignores that ivermectin was first proposed because it "obliterated" covid viruses in the lab.
But you're a generally clever fellow Matt - though with a bit of a blind-spot yourself when it comes to group selection ... ;-) As such, you should and probably do realize or understand the concept of cause and effect (most of those in the humanities generally don't have a effen clue): for example, carburetors work by changing the fuel-air ratio depending on speed or load.
Likewise with anti-virals: there has to be some mechanism by which they supposedly work, some biochemical process driven by the anti-viral that "kills" the virus or prevents it from replicating. As I had mentioned before, a CBC article on the Merck anti-viral had said:
And even the Wikipedia article on ivermectin acknowledges that it has some similar effects. But note:The antiviral works by blocking the enzyme essential for viral replication.
Sure, ivermectin might well "obliterate covid viruses in the lab". But if the lab dose is so high as to kill the patient - due to the "suppression of host cellular processes" essential to the life of the patient - then one might reasonably see that as "counter-productive" at best.In vitro, ivermectin has antiviral effects against several distinct positive-sense single-strand RNA viruses, including SARS-CoV-2. Subsequent studies found that ivermectin could inhibit replication of SARS-CoV-2 in monkey kidney cell culture with an IC50 of 2.2–2.8 μM. Based on this information, however, doses much higher than the maximum approved or safely achievable for use in humans would be required for an antiviral effect. Aside from practical difficulties, such high doses are not covered by current human-use approvals of the drug and would be toxic, as the antiviral mechanism of action is considered to operate by the suppression of a host cellular process, specifically the inhibition of nuclear transport by importin α/β1.
Why I think that most if not all of those "studies" are probably no more than chimeras at best - illustrations of badly flawed methodology, of egregious "cargo-cult science":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cul ... n's_speechSo I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.
As far as I can see, what's "missing" from those "studies" - apart from those that Wikipedia and CBC referred to - is any appreciation or reference to plausible mechanisms. Sure, some few patients might have an evolved or mutated form of "importin" that still operates while blocking "viral replication". But the bottom line has to be an understanding and explication of the processes that are affected - and that affect viral replication.
But there may be some "silver lining" to the black cloud of covid in underlining the large and problematic degree to which so many of us are "scientifically illiterate" as Sagan put it. No particular shame in that - we're all born ignorant as Benjamin Franklin supposedly put it. But there is some such shame in not making an effort to understand scientific principles and facts, particularly where they're relevant to thorny social issues.
No doubt that the biology of virus replication is incredibly complicated, and I sure am no "pro from Dover". A book I've found to be quite useful and illuminating is "Genetics for Dummies" - a fairly good series with many useful titles. And I even found Behe's "Darwin's Black Box" to be equally illuminating. He, of course, had an axe to grind - irreducibly complex therefore Jesus - but he also has a PhD in biochemistry and a commendable ability to describe and illustrate such complexities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_B ... _academics
"beneficial ancillary effects"? Like delousing and deworming? ;-)Matt Cavanaugh wrote: ↑Bottom line, ivermectin is entirely safe, extremely cheap, and possibly effective. And if not effective, has beneficial ancillary effects. The rabid hate against it is not derived from so-so metastudy results.
But sure, ivermectin may well be "entirely safe, and extremely cheap". As is what you get from homeopaths.
However, "possibly effective" is the crux of the matter - the Wikipedia quote does indeed suggest that it may well be "effective", at least if you're not terribly concerned about killing the patient .... Maybe those studies that Wikipedia referred to are maybe somewhat suspect themselves - maybe the in vitro conditions are not applicable to human patients. But I sure haven't seen any attempt to refute them, and think that they more or less qualify as trump.
