The Coronavirus Thread

[JimC]

Omitting the obvious fact that vaccine hesitancy has been prominently encouraged by Trump supporters...

[Cunt]

That ivermectin story is a pretty interesting one. Especially since there are such reasonable, rational reasons offered for that hesitancy (just as a sidebar)

[Joe]

Yeah, it really has gotten interesting.

Ivermectin COVID-19 Scandal Shows How Vulnerable Science Is to Fraud

Which brings us neatly to ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug trialed as a treatment for COVID-19 after lab-bench studies early in 2020 showed it was potentially beneficial.

It rose in popularity sharply after a published-then-withdrawn analysis by the Surgisphere group showed a huge reduction in death rates for people who take it, triggering a massive wave of use for the drug across the globe.

More recently, the evidence for ivermectin's efficacy relied very substantially on a single piece of research, which was preprinted (that is, published without peer review) in November 2020.

This study, drawn from a large cohort of patients and reporting a strong treatment effect, was popular: read over 100,000 times, cited by dozens of academic papers, and included in at least two meta-analytic models that showed ivermectin to be, as the authors claimed, a "wonder drug" for COVID-19.

It is no exaggeration to say that this one paper caused thousands if not millions of people to get ivermectin to treat and/or prevent COVID-19.

A few days ago, the study was retracted amid accusations of fraud and plagiarism. A masters student who had been assigned to read the paper as part of his degree noticed that the entire introduction appeared to be copied from earlier scientific papers, and further analysis revealed that the study's datasheet posted online by the authors contained obvious irregularities.

It is hard to overstate how monumental a failing this is for the scientific community. We proud guardians of knowledge accepted at face value a piece of research that was so filled with holes that it only took a medical student a few hours to entirely dismantle.

The seriousness accorded to the results was in direct contrast to the quality of the study. The authors reported incorrect statistical tests at multiple points, standard deviations that were extremely implausible, and a truly eye-watering degree positive efficacy – the last time the medical community found a '90 percent benefit' for a drug on a disease, it was the use of antiretroviral medication to treat people dying of AIDS.

Yet, no-one noticed. For the better part of a year, serious, respected researchers included this study in their reviews, medical doctors used it as evidence to treat their patients, and governments acknowledged its conclusions in public health policy.

No-one spent the 5 minutes required to download the data file that the authors had uploaded online and notice that it reported numerous deaths happening before the study had even begun. No one copy-and-pasted phrases from the introduction into Google, which is all it takes to notice just how much of it is identical to already-published papers.

Yikes.

[NineBerry]

[Hermit]

Yeah, it really has gotten interesting.

Ivermectin COVID-19 Scandal Shows How Vulnerable Science Is to Fraud

Which brings us neatly to ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug trialed as a treatment for COVID-19 after lab-bench studies early in 2020 showed it was potentially beneficial.

It rose in popularity sharply after a published-then-withdrawn analysis by the Surgisphere group showed a huge reduction in death rates for people who take it, triggering a massive wave of use for the drug across the globe.

More recently, the evidence for ivermectin's efficacy relied very substantially on a single piece of research, which was preprinted (that is, published without peer review) in November 2020.

This study, drawn from a large cohort of patients and reporting a strong treatment effect, was popular: read over 100,000 times, cited by dozens of academic papers, and included in at least two meta-analytic models that showed ivermectin to be, as the authors claimed, a "wonder drug" for COVID-19.

It is no exaggeration to say that this one paper caused thousands if not millions of people to get ivermectin to treat and/or prevent COVID-19.

A few days ago, the study was retracted amid accusations of fraud and plagiarism. A masters student who had been assigned to read the paper as part of his degree noticed that the entire introduction appeared to be copied from earlier scientific papers, and further analysis revealed that the study's datasheet posted online by the authors contained obvious irregularities.

It is hard to overstate how monumental a failing this is for the scientific community. We proud guardians of knowledge accepted at face value a piece of research that was so filled with holes that it only took a medical student a few hours to entirely dismantle.

The seriousness accorded to the results was in direct contrast to the quality of the study. The authors reported incorrect statistical tests at multiple points, standard deviations that were extremely implausible, and a truly eye-watering degree positive efficacy – the last time the medical community found a '90 percent benefit' for a drug on a disease, it was the use of antiretroviral medication to treat people dying of AIDS.

Yet, no-one noticed. For the better part of a year, serious, respected researchers included this study in their reviews, medical doctors used it as evidence to treat their patients, and governments acknowledged its conclusions in public health policy.

No-one spent the 5 minutes required to download the data file that the authors had uploaded online and notice that it reported numerous deaths happening before the study had even begun. No one copy-and-pasted phrases from the introduction into Google, which is all it takes to notice just how much of it is identical to already-published papers.

Yikes.

Scientists should not cite preprints. This one was a particularly spectacular clusterfuck. Review of the spreadsheet by one of the two people who bothered looking at the file here.

FFS, if you attempt to do calculations with text strings that look as if they were numbers you inevitably finish up with an abomination. Makes me suspect that none of the people who cited it have actually bothered to look at the data. Had they done so, they could not have failed to discover what a useless and fraudulent pretence of a study this was. I hope the institutions that employ the authors react appropriately.

They are apparently working on a fourth revision now. It'll bee interesting if a finished product will ever see the light of day.

[Cunt]

Yeah, it really has gotten interesting.

Ivermectin COVID-19 Scandal Shows How Vulnerable Science Is to Fraud

Which brings us neatly to ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug trialed as a treatment for COVID-19 after lab-bench studies early in 2020 showed it was potentially beneficial.

It rose in popularity sharply after a published-then-withdrawn analysis by the Surgisphere group showed a huge reduction in death rates for people who take it, triggering a massive wave of use for the drug across the globe.

More recently, the evidence for ivermectin's efficacy relied very substantially on a single piece of research, which was preprinted (that is, published without peer review) in November 2020.

This study, drawn from a large cohort of patients and reporting a strong treatment effect, was popular: read over 100,000 times, cited by dozens of academic papers, and included in at least two meta-analytic models that showed ivermectin to be, as the authors claimed, a "wonder drug" for COVID-19.

It is no exaggeration to say that this one paper caused thousands if not millions of people to get ivermectin to treat and/or prevent COVID-19.

A few days ago, the study was retracted amid accusations of fraud and plagiarism. A masters student who had been assigned to read the paper as part of his degree noticed that the entire introduction appeared to be copied from earlier scientific papers, and further analysis revealed that the study's datasheet posted online by the authors contained obvious irregularities.

It is hard to overstate how monumental a failing this is for the scientific community. We proud guardians of knowledge accepted at face value a piece of research that was so filled with holes that it only took a medical student a few hours to entirely dismantle.

The seriousness accorded to the results was in direct contrast to the quality of the study. The authors reported incorrect statistical tests at multiple points, standard deviations that were extremely implausible, and a truly eye-watering degree positive efficacy – the last time the medical community found a '90 percent benefit' for a drug on a disease, it was the use of antiretroviral medication to treat people dying of AIDS.

Yet, no-one noticed. For the better part of a year, serious, respected researchers included this study in their reviews, medical doctors used it as evidence to treat their patients, and governments acknowledged its conclusions in public health policy.

No-one spent the 5 minutes required to download the data file that the authors had uploaded online and notice that it reported numerous deaths happening before the study had even begun. No one copy-and-pasted phrases from the introduction into Google, which is all it takes to notice just how much of it is identical to already-published papers.

Yikes.

Yeah, she talked about that, and showed what the difference was, when excluding that paper from her meta-research.

[Tero]

Invermectin was looked at in cells. No animal work. Typically, things at higher doses are effective, but show no activity in animals.

To test the antiviral activity of ivermectin towards SARS-CoV-2, we infected Vero/hSLAM cells with SARS-CoV-2 isolate Australia/VIC01/2020 at an MOI of 0.1 for 2 h, followed by the addition of 5 μM ivermectin. Supernatant and cell pellets were harvested at days 0–3 and analysed by RT-PCR for the replication of SARS-CoV-2 RNA (Fig. 1A/B). At 24 h, there was a 93% reduction in viral RNA present in the supernatant (indicative of released virions) of samples treated with ivermectin compared to the vehicle DMSO.

sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 4220302011

the human studies has no value
https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... l-concerns

[Cunt]

So you didn't check out her work either?

No worries. I'll check out the corporate media sources you mention, if I want to know more.

[Tero]

I gave you the science right there: works in vitro at micromolar concentrations.

No double blind studies on humans were done.

[Cunt]

I gave you the science right there: works in vitro at micromolar concentrations.

No double blind studies on humans were done.

You gave me small bits of science, while still fully ignoring the research that lady did, her claims, or how her meta-analysis was changed by the exclusion of the one study referenced here, by someone ELSE who hasn't bothered to listen to her.

Why ignore the step of hearing what she had to say?

[Tero]

Meta-analysis is like..connecting voting and vaccine resistance. We don't use it in most science. It will not get you FDA approval. It has no mechanistic evidence on a drug. Where does it work?

Occasionally a statistical analysis leads to a connection, a lead. Then actual labwork connects the two items.

[Cunt]

My question was about why you would ignore hearing her.

I think that is my answer. Thanks, Tero.

[Joe]

My question was about why you would ignore hearing her.

I think that is my answer. Thanks, Tero.

You can't figure out why Tero would ignore what she said when you didn't tell him her name, link to what she had to say, or summarize her points?

[JimC]

My question was about why you would ignore hearing her.

I think that is my answer. Thanks, Tero.

You can't figure out why Tero would ignore what she said when you didn't tell him her name, link to what she had to say, or summarize her points?

Cunt needs to study Hermit's informative posts. Learn from the master, Cunt...

[pErvinalia]

Cunt's not interested in discussion. It's why he keeps getting suspended here.