The Dose 04-05-22

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The Dose is an open thread dedicated to the gentle discussion of of all things Covid. Please refrain from posting covid material elsewhere. Thank you.

Guess I should've posted one of these too - here ya go

The floor is yours

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https://krcgtv.com/news/local/large-scale-study-says-ivermectin-not-effe...

JEFFERSON CITY — "A study published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine says the parasitic drug ivermectin is not effective as a COVID-19 therapeutic drug, following months of its controversial use against the virus.

For months, small scale studies and anecdotal reports had alleged ivermectin, a drug used in humans and animals alike to combat parasites like worms, could be repurposed to mitigate COVID-19. Health organizations, including the CDC, FDA, and Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, had warned against using ivermectin to treat COVID-19.

"It has shown some activity in lab settings against viruses," Dr. Christopher Sampson, an emergency medicine physician at MU Health Care, said, "which is probably one of the main reasons why at the start of the COVID pandemic, people became interested in it and suggested it as a possible treatment."

The study included more than 3,500 participants, a key asset, Dr. Sampson said, as it means it can be more representative of the population. Some participants were given ivermectin; others were given a placebo, or a neutral pill that did not contain any medication. A double blind study, neither the participants nor the direct researchers knew who received ivermectin and who didn't.

"We did not find a significantly or clinically meaningful lower risk of medical admission to a hospital or prolonged emergency department observation... with ivermectin," the researchers wrote in their results.

"It was no different if you didn't take it," Dr. Sampson said. "I think at some point we have to say we've researched this enough and it's not showing a benefit."

This study is not the only analysis over ivermectin taking place. One study, helmed by the NIH, is taking place across the country, including at the University of Missouri.

"It's actually been a very active study, we have seen a lot of people who are interested in enrolling," Dr. Sampson, who is helping to coordinate the study, said.

At the start of the pandemic, without reliable treatments or vaccines, many health officials began turning to "repurposed drugs," medications which had already been approved by the FDA and CDC for other symptoms or illnesses that may be able to treat COVID-19. Ivermectin, among others, was named as a possibility, but it had not ever received enough support from governing bodies to be a widespread treatment.

Dr. Sampson said improperly using ivermectin, like any other drug, runs the risk of illness."

The other study referred to here could have at least 15,000 participants (it is still taking applications if anyone is interested) is called Activ-6. https://web.musc.edu/about/news-center/2022/02/28/remote-covid19-study-a...

Other discussions of the latest clinical trial findings...

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20220222/ivermectin-ineffective-against-...

https://www.npr.org/2022/03/30/1089809588/ivermectin-covid-treatment-bra...

https://www.phillyvoice.com/ivermectin-antiparasitic-drug-covid-19-treat...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharysmith/2022/02/18/ivermectin-doesnt-h...

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

despite the fact that they used IV in the least likely way for it to be effective- late treatment. They often did not dispense medicine for up to 7 days after symptoms.
Can you imagine if you got an upper respiratory illness and your Dr did not give you meds until day 7? This study was designed to fail and yet it still showed 12% reduction in death. Meaning it would have saved around 120 -140 lives each day for the last week. If you think saving 700-1000 lives last week is not worth doing, well, we have different values.

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@wouldsman In the subgroup analysis in figure 2, it shows that in the individuals that were treated within 3 days of showing symptoms actually fared slightly worse when given Ivermectin with a 1.14 relative risk calculation. So I don't think that the study failed (or was designed to fail) to detect the effect of Ivermectin. This difference isn't statistically significant according to the calculations in the study, so I don't think you can say that Ivermectin did any harm to these people relative to the placebo. Likewise, the difference between 21 deaths in the ivermectin group and 24 deaths in the placebo group is not large enough to show a significant difference in this study. So in the same manner, one cannot conclude that Ivermectin prevented 3 deaths in this study set. I think it looks like a wash between the two groups with this data and I think the authors made the correct conclusion in their paper. Perhaps there is a manner where Ivermectin is effective but at 400ug/Kg for 3 days within 7 days of showing signs of COVID, it doesn't work.

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@wouldsman

One is that your analysis of this study is incorrect as pointed out by innatimm.

Two ...you wrote..."If you think saving 700-1000 lives last week is not worth doing, well, we have different values." This is nothing more than a personal insult and certainly does nothing for the conversation, nor does it follow EL's guidelines of a "gentle discussion".

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"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

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How the organized Left got Covid wrong, learned to love lockdowns and lost its mind: an autopsy
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It is hard to destroy your own cause and feel righteous while doing so, yet the American left has done it. After more than two centuries at the vanguard of the struggle for freedom, the American left, broadly defined, executed a volte face and embraced anti-working-class policies marketed as purely technical public health measures.

For two years the left has championed policies of surveillance and exclusion in the form of: punitive vaccine mandates, invasive vaccine passports, socially destructive lockdowns, and radically unaccountable censorship by large media and technology corporations. For the entire pandemic, leftists and liberals – call them the Lockdown Left – cheered on unprecedented levels of repression aimed primarily at the working class – those who could not afford private schools and could not comfortably telecommute from second homes.

Almost the entire left intelligentsia has remained psychically stuck in March 2020. Its members have applauded the new biosecurity repression and calumniated as liars, grifters, and fascists any and all who dissented. Typically, they did so without even engaging evidence and while shirking public debate. Among the most visible in this has been Noam Chomsky, the self-described anarcho-syndicalist who called for the unvaccinated to “remove themselves from society,” and suggested that they should be allowed to go hungry if they refuse to submit. [1]

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This phenomenon of alleged leftists cheerleading for arbitrary state power is weird and even more counter-productive than this fairly stern article suggests. Maybe someday what the writer calls the Organized Left will return to its historic role of asserting the rights of the powerless against the iron fist of state power. But for now they are the enemy of anyone who opposes total corporate control of everything.

As a lifelong employee of labor unions, I offer this perspective on what I call Franchised Philanthropy. Although I urge people to take a detached view of how the labor movement has evolved over the last 70 years or so, the bitter truth is that unions are self perpetuating bureaucracies, pretty much like every other supposedly not-for-profit organization in the modern world. Making payroll is the necessary first order of business for unions, the ACLU, the Sierra Club -- and every other supposedly anti-establishment organization.

This is not necessarily a bad thing and I do not consider it anything but common sense. We spent the last three generations operating under the New Deal which very specifically and very clearly offered to working people the option of pressuring employers through strikes and other non-violent
concerted activities in exchange for a commitment to non-violence.

Our end of the New Deal required us to trust the Federal Government to enforce the other end of that Deal on Owners. When I started as a union representative in 1977, we were still charging up hill and the employers were mainly willing to accept the arrangement. Those who did not would pay lawyers humongous amounts of money fending off the National Labor Relations Board.

All that changed in the Reagan years. But our jobs continued and we built up our pensions as our "movement" shrank and most of our best contract rates of pay evaporated due directly to globalization. It is easy to criticize us and we deserve it. But the bitter truth is that the members of the unions who paid our salaries did not, for the most part, blame us.

It was The Way Things Were. We did try to tell our members to vote Democrat, and occasionally they would. They were always disappointed when the Dems got in.

Us paid staff had families to raise and bills to pay. Just like everybody.

Through that long drought for organized labor -- from PATCO until 1-20-21 -- we told ourselves that if only we could get the Democrats back in power, we could get our power back.

So now that we got "our" power back, "our" Democrats are now using power! It feels great!!! And it is directed AGAINST the fucking idiots who kept voting for the GOP since Reagan. Stupid, racist, anti-union only out of white-trash neurosis, superstitious nit wits. And do not forget the 800 pound gorilla in America's living room -- The Religious Right. Remember them? Gambling, marijuana, non-breeder sex were all stalled for decades due to the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells of the airwaves. Now we are rolling over them.

It is the class conflict of the upper middle class against the sweating classes. We live different lives, we have different notions of metaphysics, and we either hate or at least disapprove of each other. I spent a grand total of 14 weeks over two summers while I was in law school as a manual laborer. It was a kind of virtue signaling, ticket punch stop for me -- and I am lucky enough to have never had to hit a lick since then. But I did learn this lesson at the Safeway Meat Warehouse in Garland, Texas -- I really wanted to earn my way through life with my ability to read, write and talk.

Hooray for me, and for all my social class. We are getting our revenge now. My Uncle Jack put it best, "People are no damned good."
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It is pathetic to see Marx turned inside out by characters like Chompsky.

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I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.