Does the coronavirus merit investment, or personal, concern or consideration?

Merck hasn’t released the side effect profile, but it’s worth noting that the mechanism is that the drug interacts with the viral RNA reproduction to cause tons of mutations rendering the new viruses non-functional. This can potentially get involved with host cell activity and cause similar problems, likely leading to cancers or developing embryo abnormalities.

https://www.science.org/content/article/emails-offer-look-whistleblower-charges-cronyism-behind-potential-covid-19-drug

Raymond Schinazi, an Emory University chemist who has extensively studied the active ingredient in EIDD-2801 but has no connection to DRIVE, notes that his former pharmaceutical company, Pharmasset, abandoned it in 2003 after discovering its mutagenic properties. Schinazi says the small chemical tweaks made to increase the ingredient’s bioavailability and transform it into EIDD-2801 are unlikely to change its mutagenicity. “Thank goodness someone is raising the red flag,” about EIDD-2801, Schinazi says. “You don’t develop a drug that’s mutagenic. Period.”

They’re not just saying pregnant women should avoid it, but anyone who could become pregnant or guys who are going to have unprotected sex with someone who could potentially become pregnant due to exposure risk, ongoing for months.

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So we ignore the drug that’s been used safely for decades because it’s too dangerous, while promote a drug that was abandoned 20 years ago for being too dangerous as the miracle cure?

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Because the antibodies, be it from the vaccine or natural infection, only last for a couple months. So if you go with the antibody test as the standard, a whole bunch of vaccianted people will quickly get pushed back into the unvaccinated pool and everyone will start wondering what all the hubbub about getting vaccinated was really about.

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I finally got my Vit D levels tested as part of some routine blood work. For background, based on the covid reading I’d been doing, I was taking 2000 IUs daily initially and then upped it to 4000 IUs daily since sometime this year. This is on the high side of what docs are generally willing to recommend for ongoing supplementation.

My results were in the low 40s (ng/mL), which is solidly above 30, the bottom of the “normal” range, and various things had suggested that higher within the 30-100 normal range was probably better too. More interesting was that they also had my history and apparently when I’d been living my mostly indoor stock trading life pre-pandemic my numbers were in the 10s(!), which is really really deficient.

In short, at least for me, I think I’m going to stick with 4000/day for my Vit D supplements. I wouldn’t have thought it would need to be that high.

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I was 29 recently and doc prescribed 5000 IU daily.

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The Egyptian study does appear to have been faked, but there are lots of smaller ones showing seemingly good results. I guess they could all be chance or fraud with no monetary incentive.

The scientists in the group - Dr Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, Dr James Heathers, Dr Nick Brown and Dr Sheldrick - each have a track record of exposing dodgy science. They’ve been working together remotely on an informal and voluntary basis during the pandemic.

They formed a group looking deeper into ivermectin studies after biomedical student Jack Lawrence spotted problems with an influential study from Egypt.

I noted that refusing to reply to their email put the study on the list as a “possible fraud”. I’m sure Dr.’s Katz, Heathers, Brown and Sheldrick will be welcomed with senior positions at Merck paid out of that $1B prepaid antiviral budget that wouldn’t be there if the consensus thought ivermectin worked.

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If the studies were found to “show [no] convincing evidence of ivermectin’s effectiveness”, why such a campaign to label the drug dangerous? Last I knew, “inconclusive” means inconclusive - a result that goes either way. It’s clearly safe to use, by virtue of it’s decades long history. So why the obsession with lying about it being a horse dewormer that is dangerous to humans?

The over-the-top reaction against it is what has fed the support for it.

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Schools in the U.K. they’re not going to need to vaccinate them at this rate.

The ONS said that again, the percentage of people testing positive was highest in young people at secondary school.

In that category, 6.93% children tested positive for Covid-19, more than 1 in 15, compared to 4.58% in the previous week.

Schools in England have been open for around a month since the summer break, and some epidemiologists have highlighted concern about rising cases among children, although it is yet to translate into a sustained increase in infections for the population more broadly.

Is this broad testing? Or is it only testing kids who think they might be infected?

(is the link you posted with the quote the correct article?)

It is, but it’s a wide ranging international article on covid. Here are the UK ONS numbers directly.

I don’t know the child testing policies there, ie if they’re randomly done as part of school or what. I would guess that must be people who think they’re sick, because for example NYC is doing random testing of 5%+ of [ETA school] kids per week and they’re only getting a 0.25% test positivity, ie 1/400 not 1/15.

https://testingresults.schools.nyc/

…yet this doesnt get reported because? That’s rhetorical, because I already know it is because the percent positive of people who already think they’re sick makes for much scarier headlines. As long as you dont think about it too hard.

I’m not sure. That’s the public school student population who agreed to be tested as a sample set, randomly selected weekly. You could refuse testing consent and they’d still let you go to school now, although previously when there was a remote option, all in person students had to agree to random testing.

NYC’s general population is showing just under 3% test positivity, which very much includes people who think they’re sick.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

You know who thinks ivermectin is worth using? About 1/3 of Congress apparently, to judge by the doctors who are proscribing it to them.

https://twitter.com/Covid19Critical/status/1446460263092326437

Pierre Kory, MD MPA

@PierreKory
Oct 7

Fun fact: Between 100-200 United States Congress Members (plus many of their staffers & family members) with COVID… were treated by a colleague over the past 15 months with ivermectin & the I-MASK+ protocol at http://flccc.net. None have gone to hospital. Just sayin’

Does it actually help? Who knows, but it’s safe and well understood. You can see some of the FLCCC’s recent discussions and coverage of ivermectin in their weekly videos and highlights below.

https://odysee.com/@FrontlineCovid19CriticalCareAlliance:c

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LOL. That is a terrible metric for anything. :smile:

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And that is the crux of the problem. I suspect that the safety concerns were “elevated” to prevent humans from using horse-sized doses and to prevent a shortage. There’s really little point in discussing it until we have pretty solid evidence that it actually helps. Until then it’s all fake news.

Just the CDC lying to us for our own good again? Is it any wonder people distrust them. And there’s no ivermectin shortage, it’s available and cheap. Claims of it not being available are typically lies by unethical healthcare workers to try to avoid giving it out for political or corporate policy reasons. Odd those folks failed to find a conscious with all those opioids they gave out…

There’s really little point in discussing it until we have pretty solid evidence that it actually helps.

Not at all. Doctors were trying all sorts of things at the start of the pandemic with plausible ideas and definitely no “solid evidence”. You sit there and watch and the patient dies. So you try something that might work, maybe it does, maybe you try it on the next guy. We still don’t have very good treatments and certainly don’t have a good understanding of the disease, or that there don’t exist better drugs to use that haven’t been tried.

Even with all our masks and vaccines, 2000 people are dying every day and you want to wait for solid evidence? In particular, if a drug is safe and plausibly might help, why do you want people to die without trying it? Or ban them from trying it, like many hospitals are doing. That’s just stupid. I don’t know whether the motivation behind this is that they’re paid off by big Pharma or they’d rather see more dead deplorables or they get more money from treating lots of sick people with expensive drugs and vents, but it’s solidly against any reasonable interpretation of medical ethics which makes it so shocking. Off label use is totally common for anything already FDA approved and safety tested in a very very wide range of cases, except here with ivermectin.

Whether it works or not isn’t the point - it’s their life and their doctors call, let them try and if they live more often, let them tell that story until it’s good enough evidence for the academics.

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Campbell had some choice words for that BBC article, which cites unpublished claims of some researchers that some of the many trials showing benefits of ivermectin might be inaccurate, but they won’t say which and presumably the other 2/3 or so still make it look good.

Money quote: “BBC used to be a good organization”

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(talk about “money quotes”)

Merck didn’t want to play ball

I am shocked, $HOCKED!

:rofl:

It is all so obviously and transparently about the

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

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Isn’t that the very purpose of a EUA? Scripta is right, we shouldn’t push something with merely an emergency use authorization.

Oh, wait… Ivermectin has been approved for human use for decades, and has a strong well established safety profile. I guess it was something else that only has a EUA.

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