Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

What exactly is being implied when suggesting that "big pharma" is messing with the studies? The flaws and incomplete data are public, they're not made up, they're not competing opinion pieces on different "random websites". So is big pharma secretly running all these studies and purposely putting out bad results?

There's a big difference between big money lobbying efforts and just straight up falsifying scientific data around the world in a huge conspiracy.

 

I know a lot of people who work at drug companies, including some of my former graduate students. They are all honest and ethical scientists of the highest calibre, not the moustache twirling villains many would have you believe.

From the top down though, there are definitely commercial realities in the drugs that are developed and pushed. I think Pfizer's biggest money earner is still Viagra! That doesn't mean that all drug companies are evil and actively suppressing COVID treatments, it just means that US society is capitalist, and the company is obligated to make money for their shareholders.

The risk that a drug company could be discovered suppressing a COVID treatment that could save millions of lives..... well, that doesn't pass cost/benefit analysis, considering the potential loss of shareholder value.

 

... I grew the moustache for nothing??

In all seriousness though, anyone who actually knows a scientist would know that they aren't in it for the money/payoffs in the form of DHT amps to avoid suspicion.

 

What you need to keep an eye out for is high quality meta analysis. These specifically take multiple studies, rate them on quality, establish equivalent outputs, and summarise the results. 'Cochrane Reviews' is the most famous of them, but many many other researchers publish these.

To the best of my recollection, the most recent Cochrane review summarised very mild positives for ivermectin. But the positive effect relied almost exclusively on two studies that have since been discredited; the so-called Egyptian and Argentinian studies, which are now considered outright fraudulent.

 

Seriously? How very condescending of you. The doctors that use them number in the 1000's, likely tens of, they are real as it gets.
The efficacy of ivermectin was first published in 05/2020 by doctors in the Broward Hospital system here in SoFla. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33065103/ . and still on youtube, uncensored h.They had been encouraged by in vitro studies already done https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011 that showed the effectiveness and promise. They introduced it into their treatment protocols and published the white papers with highly positive results. It was later adopted throughout the hospital system. News spread and it began to be used across the world.
This was all good news to everyone except big pharm as there could never be an EUA with an available treatment. Big pharma does not have to pay everyone off, just the right people.
Despite it's success when put to use, the boot came down and the large pharmacies would not fulfill the prescriptions. They inserted themselves between the doctor and the patient and did so without a medical license. Even after the FDA publicly stated they would not interfere with the doctor patient relationship. Looks like big pharm still found the right people to pay off and the FDA was out of the loop and people died as a result. Real doctors were blocked from getting the treatment to their patients and it is still being blocked in most major hospitals in the USA.

Are you defending this practice?

 

Yes, I absolutely defend that practice. The anecdotal evidence of small numbers of doctors is not even remotely sufficient to justify ivermectin usage. Meta analysis collating data from tens of thousands of patients from properly published studies shows no medical benefit.

Medical decisions must be based on large amounts of evidence. Not just a small handful of cherry-picked uncontrolled studies.

Crawl out of the conspiracy theory rabbit hole man. This is absolute rubbish.

 

But what harm could it do? Why block it? It serves no purpose bit to support the narrative that vax only. You have someone who's prognosis is poor, the patient and the family want the drug. It is safe and is effective despite your denials. You did see the nih studies right? Meta analysis is not the only tool in the bag. To save a life, you should use all available means. There is no excuse for not using it. Even's fauci's own website touts the effectiveness.

You know, at one time I thought I had covid. My test was on Monday and I reached my doctor the day before. At that time ivermectin was not known. I brought the subject f HCQ up and he said no. I had already read quite a bit, although I had not read Fauci's paper in which he praised it (still on his website), I started to bring this up and he cut me off, rudely, and went on a Trump rant, Trump said this Trump said that and would not prescribe it. I fired him, I did not want politics inserted into discussion on my health It was likely Fauci who told Trump about HCQ.

I can't help but think politics is your driving force as well.

Medical decisions must be based on what is best for the patient. I hope you aren't practicing.

 

My very first post on this issue in this thread....

The reason you can't just give random drugs without authorization is because of side effects vs potential efficacy.

Context is vital here. The early data for HCQ and ivermectin were indeed interesting. It hasn't panned out long term in larger studies. It happens.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

So, vaccination it is then.

 

@Beefy Quite a run of epic posts!

I would love your view on something related.

When I studied history and philosophy of science, three of the events that were often mentioned as instilling public confidence in science and the scientific process were the rollout of penicillin, the use of the atomic bomb and the moon landing.

Bringing the pandemic to heel so quickly surely is an achievement of the same magnitude, yet I don't sense any public response to the extraordinary scientific achievement. I don't see any sign of the public demanding more funding for public health specifically, or hailing the vaccine creators for their rapid and effective solutions to one of humanity's great crises. There is some recognition of the medics giving the community prevention and cure, but not of the science and the scientists who created the tools they use.

Is it a failing of scientists to communicate? Is it the emergence of an anti-science lobby (energy, tobacco, etc..)? What has gone wrong?

 

You do understand what the purpose of statistical meta analysis is, right?

 

The science involved sucks. It was driven by politics and greed, as usual.
I saw a meme, can't support the number but it went something like this.
Since 1900, 292,000,000 people have died at the hands of their governments worldwide. You get the idea.
And you think your government still cares about you and your life.

Died for a good cause, you think?
Every war is fought for power, property and riches. Every single one.
American industrialists garnered fortunes from all sides in WWII and every war since. This cannot be news to you.
Why wouldn't this entire endeavor be about the exact same thing.
You still believe in the altruistic nature of the people earning billions in this pandemic and, no, it is not just big pharma.
Some things simply never change. Stop being so gullible.

 

Probably lots of factors at work here, but I'll focus on a simplistic perspective of sci comm. One problem is that what scientists can find and what the public (including policy makers) want are starkly different. Generally, the inferences that scientists can get from their data is fraught with uncertainty, especially with non-experimental studies (common in public health) where too many factors are out of their control. But what the public want are usually black-and-white answers, even from those who claim to be doing their own research. And when there are uncontrolled variables, you can't just look at the data and make comparisons, you have to model them to filter out the noise as much as you can. The ones who are good enough to do good research AND communicate the uncertainty in their findings clearly are few and far between, and have too little time to be everybody's spokesperson.

On the other hand, you have the academics (I wouldn't call them scientists) who have learnt to just give people what they want, and happily provide black-and-white answers from murky shades of grey, and make big claims from unrepresentative and crappy data. The ones who are eager to go to press before they verify their findings and are propped up by TED talks cos TED talk organisers have no idea how to filter out the good science from the bad, all they care about is a nice story. For now, these still comprise of a small minority and are mostly tenured slobs (especially in the social sciences) who are way past their prime in research, but they get enough attention that it's easy for the public to think big claims are easy to make in science.

 

I really wish I wasn't posting. It's an unhealthy mental compulsion, and I'm here for the plankton. Still, I'm glad it is appreciated.

I am truly amazed at how 'science' has stepped up. Academics and drug companies have done what I thought was simply impossible, in terms of understanding virus biology, developing the vaccines, and fighting valiantly (but only somewhat successfully) against an onslaught of misinformation and political interference.

I completely agree that this really isn't translating well into a broader public and government support for scientific research. There are a lot of reasons for this.....

Scientists generally love their job, and politics isn't a natural 'step up' career progression the same way it might be for a lawyer or business leader.

The sort of scientists who do want it get into politics tend to be the fringe elements... Either starry eyed idealists who end up in the Green party, or extreme pragmatists who think people can/should be swayed by data alone. I gravitate between these two groups. Most scientists therefore make terrible politicians. The emotion of the big lie is far more seductive to the general public, and we're not trained for it.

And yes, anti-science lobbies are far more powerful and seductive to the general public than the real science. They are better skilled, better resourced, and better at rousing the rabble. COVID was an uphill battle the second Trump called it a little flu, Fox News fell into line behind him, and supporters placed their stake in the ground... It is now far more political than science.

Fixing this is very, very difficult. It's taken decades for science the get the upper hand on global warming over the seduction of dinosaur juice, and it will probably take many more years before science manages to convince the remaining holdouts about the pandemic. But even then, there are so many anti science regressions. The number of people who think the moon landing was faked, or that the earth is flat should probably keep every sane and rational person awake at night. I simply don't know how we can fight this.

For-profit medicine certainly ushers towards this; the US medical system is fucked. But in terms of the science, I disagree in the strongest possible terms.

You have no idea what you are talking about. The scientific consensus is beyond reproach. The politics is coming from people who know nothing about science.

 

To add to what purr1n said, science as such is just a methodology. The public does not really understand or care about science as such, nor should they though this upsets a certain kind of progressive. Much of our cultural understanding and belief is built upon the technological benefits of science. Technology and science as such should not be confused, and it must be understood that technology is wrapped up in our prosperity and self-understanding about progress, the good, the triumph of history, etc. etc. As purr1n has pointed to, and for a variety of reasons from a variety of different directions, it is this cultural story that is under severe strain if perhaps it is not quite 'unraveling', and thus trust in the story of technological progress that is benignly good and for which the benefits are well and fairly distributed is no longer there - and for good reason, because of all the counter evidence that this story is not straightforwardly true.

 

I was quoting and replying to bilboda there.