Ivermectin Use in Indonesia

[KCfromNC]

I thought the claim was that Ivermectin helps with a quick recovery when taken at an early stage. Why would it reduce new cases?

It does whatever we wish it to - you just have to believe hard enough.

 

[KCfromNC]

For reference, Indonesia is recently (Oct 6, 2021) reported to have reached 150 million vaccinations. That's barely more than 50% of its 270 million population.

Indonesia hits 150 million mark in Covid-19 vaccine jabs

Relevance to a thread which is supposed to be about finding evidence than a livestock dewormer is useful against covid?

I see this pattern quite a bit in anti-vaxx posts. Make an outrageous claim, have it shredded due to lack of evidence or outright falsehoods, then watch the story change over and over and over. That is, the reasons change but the conclusion stays the same - vaccines bad, anything else to fight covid good. Almost as if the reasons for the conclusion aren't really the reasons for the conclusion.

 

[JustSomeBloke]

The oversight and review process in vaccine studies that are used by the CDC makes the effective implementation of a corrupting bias very difficult. The pharma companies may have an incentive to cheat, but it is not easy and the consequences to their reputation of being caught cheating in a vaccine test are disastrous. There is a huge self-interest incentive for them not to cheat. They can make lots of money without cheating. Why would they risk all that by cheating?

Big Pharma have been lying and cheating their way through medical trials for a long time.

Shouting 'conflict of interest' is a lazy response.

There's a reason why a Declaration of Interests is mandatory for many scientific journals. I suggest you learn what that reason is.

Hold on. You're not talking about vaccine trials, are you? That's where the effectiveness was established.

You would rather trust short term vaccine trials, with thousands or tens of thousands of trial participants, than data from mass vaccination of entire populations, with tens or hundreds of millions of vaccine recipients. Israel is now on the third injection, and are planning the fourth. It appears that the vaccines don't work very well in the real world, and at best they provide protection that rapidly diminishes within a few months.

How big a problem? What was the effect?

Read the article.

How many other immunologists have said that asymptomatic infection is a myth? Or is this just more cherry-picking?

Read the article.

..or, the adjustment of the number of cycles made the test more accurate.

Any scientist will tell you that you never ever recalibrate an instrument part way through a test or experiment. More accurate is not much help if you destroyed the original benchmark. It is now impossible to make a valid comparison between data before the change, and data after the change. But I suppose that was the plan and intended outcome, to reset the dial so that no one can tell for sure whether the vaccines work as claimed.

There were other, much better ways of dealing with this, but they didn't do any of them. Below are two possibilities:
1. Continue with the too-high value for cycles, and accept that there are false positives.
2. Conduct every test twice. Once with the old value, once with the new value, and report the number of positive tests for each value.

Obviously the second option is preferable, because the new setting will give more accurate results, and the old setting can be compared to previous data.

Oh, well, if some journalists have written about 'the worst cold ever', then we know there must be something important to it, because journalists are never sensationalism seekers, are they?

This is being reported all over the place. Many articles, and many comments below the line. It is also being complained about by people in forums.

 

[JustSomeBloke]

Relevance to a thread which is supposed to be about finding evidence than a livestock dewormer is useful against covid?

Saying that it's a 'livestock dewormer' is misinformation, and was part of an MSM campaign of misinformation to try and stop people seeking it out. Ivermectin has been used as an anti-parasitic drug in humans for a long time. At the correct dosage it's well tolerated, and has minimal risk.

I see this pattern quite a bit in anti-vaxx posts. Make an outrageous claim, have it shredded due to lack of evidence or outright falsehoods, then watch the story change over and over and over. That is, the reasons change but the conclusion stays the same - vaccines bad, anything else to fight covid good. Almost as if the reasons for the conclusion aren't really the reasons for the conclusion.

Pro-vaxxers have been spreading misinformation for a long time. At one point it was claimed that the effectiveness of covid vaccines was 100%. Then they shifted, and said that it prevented serious illness and death. Trouble is, double vaccinated people are being hospitalised and dying, so that now looks like misinformation too.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Big Pharma have been lying and cheating their way through medical trials for a long time.

Ooh! A book! If it's in a book it must be true, eh?

There's a reason why a Declaration of Interests is mandatory for many scientific journals. I suggest you learn what that reason is.

Vaccine trials have much closer oversight than journal articles. We are talking about vaccine trials.

You would rather trust short term vaccine trials, with thousands or tens of thousands of trial participants, than data from mass vaccination of entire populations, with tens or hundreds of millions of vaccine recipients.

That depends on the quality of data gathered from those population-wide programs. If the data are verified accurate and true, then it is better than a limited trial. If the data are simply a collection of unverified volunteer reports (like the VAERS), I'll stick with the closely-supervised limited trial data.

Israel is now on the third injection, and are planning the fourth. It appears that the vaccines don't work very well in the real world, and at best they provide protection that rapidly diminishes within a few months.

You may think that is not very good, but it is actually quite good. The protection begins to diminish in a few months, but not rapidly. There is still some protection for quite a while.

Read the article.

You didn't link to the WHO. You linked to a misinformation site, "covidcalltohumanity". And they didn't link to the WHO either. They only linked to their own internal pages. No thanks.

Read the article.

Yet another link to the same misinformation site. Can you link to any authoritative sites?

Any scientist will tell you that you never ever recalibrate an instrument part way through a test or experiment. More accurate is not much help if you destroyed the original benchmark.

This was not an experiment. I was an ongoing effort at reporting real-time data in the most meaningful way. Adjusting reporting standards are appropriate as knowledge develops. Any epidemiologist will tell you that too.

It is now impossible to make a valid comparison between data before the change

We are not trying to make comparisons before and after the change. That is the bee in your bonnet, but not the main concern of public health officials. Their concern is getting the most accurate information out to the public and to the medical community.

There were other, much better ways of dealing with this, but they didn't do any of them. Below are two possibilities:
1. Continue with the too-high value for cycles, and accept that there are false positives.

That would have undermined the main purpose of reporting covid data, which was to provide covid data as accurately as possible.

2. Conduct every test twice. Once with the old value, once with the new value, and report the number of positive tests for each value.

Uh, we're a little busy at the moment managing a pandemic that is overwhelming the medical infrastructure. We don't have time to run PCR tests twice.

This is being reported all over the place. Many articles, and many comments below the line. It is also being complained about by people in forums.

I know the kind of places that you go for covid news (like covidcalltohumanity.org), so it is not surprising that you would get that impression.

 

[JustSomeBloke]

This was not an experiment. I was an ongoing effort at reporting real-time data in the most meaningful way. Adjusting reporting standards are appropriate as knowledge develops. Any epidemiologist will tell you that too.

We are not trying to make comparisons before and after the change. That is the bee in your bonnet, but not the main concern of public health officials. Their concern is getting the most accurate information out to the public and to the medical community.

That would have undermined the main purpose of reporting covid data, which was to provide covid data as accurately as possible.

Uh, we're a little busy at the moment managing a pandemic that is overwhelming the medical infrastructure. We don't have time to run PCR tests twice.

What I've quoted above tells me everything I need to know about your approach to science.

 

[stevil]

Indonesia isn't the only country that has reported a reduction in COVID infections and deaths after using Ivermectin.

After a rugby game, the rugby players are treated medically, some are given plasters, some are given massages.
Once the players have received the plasters and massages, no more injuries occur.
It's amazing, it just goes to show that plasters and massages prevent injuries.

It happens in almost all rugby games played anywhere in the world.
Once the plasters and massages come out, the injuries drastically reach a sharp decline.

On the other hand, when ice cream sales increase, we tend to find a sharp increase in drownings.
Consumption of ice cream for some reason causes people to drown, all the charts show this, all over the world. I don't know why governments don't ban ice cream, it is deadly stuff.

 

[Nithavela]

After a rugby game, the rugby players are treated medically, some are given plasters, some are given massages.
Once the players have received the plasters and massages, no more injuries occur.
It's amazing, it just goes to show that plasters and massages prevent injuries.

It happens in almost all rugby games played anywhere in the world.
Once the plasters and massages come out, the injuries drastically reach a sharp decline.

On the other hand, when ice cream sales increase, we tend to find a sharp increase in drownings.
Consumption of ice cream for some reason causes people to drown, all the charts show this, all over the world. I don't know why governments don't ban ice cream, it is deadly stuff.

Is that why all scream because of icecream?

 

[JustSomeBloke]

I don't know why governments don't ban ice cream, it is deadly stuff.

That's easy. It will never be banned because people suffering from dementia absolutely love ice cream. And as an added bonus, when they're busy licking an ice cream, they can't put their foot in their mouth.

 

[KCfromNC]

Saying that it's a 'livestock dewormer' is misinformation

No, it literally is. Why the discomfort with being truthful about one of the uses of the drug?

And I can't help but notice an attempt to nitpick at the details of my question rather than answer it.

Pro-vaxxers have been spreading misinformation for a long time. At one point it was claimed that the effectiveness of covid vaccines was 100%. Then they shifted, and said that it prevented serious illness and death.

That's not true. Additionally, I'm not sure that attempting to change the subject yet again is going to help demonstrate that there isn't a pattern of anti-vaxx posts changing the subject when reality gets in the way of the narrative. I mean, wasn't this thread supposed to prove that some anti-parasitic was effective at treating covid or something? Now we're stuck listening about something someone maybe said what about vaccines did or didn't do a while ago or something.

Weird we can't just get some actual facts to back up the claims like those in the OP.

 

[KCfromNC]

On the other hand, when ice cream sales increase, we tend to find a sharp increase in drownings.
Consumption of ice cream for some reason causes people to drown, all the charts show this, all over the world. I don't know why governments don't ban ice cream, it is deadly stuff.

Same problem with the decline in number of pirates and global warming increasing : True Fact: The Lack of Pirates Is Causing Global Warming

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

Your argument only works if you put all your faith in the vaccine studies being bonafide. But unfortunately there are good reasons to be sceptical.

And your argument only works if you put all your faith in the pro-Ivermectin studies being bonafide.

 

[JustSomeBloke]

And your argument only works if you put all your faith in the pro-Ivermectin studies being bonafide.

LOL! Well, let me see .....

One side has a huge level of state coercion to be injected with something that has no long term trials data, and massive profits to be made from tax payers.

The other side is a bunch of people who have been variously sidelined, cancelled, and no-platformed, for the social 'crime' of suggesting that people should be free to choose a very cheap, out-of-patent drug, that is well tolerated and has plenty of long term data. But the catch is that nobody can really make any serious money from producing and selling it.

Can you guess which is which? Can you guess which one I have suspicions about?

And why are you talking about 'put all your faith in the pro-Ivermectin studies being bonafide'? We're continually told that this is an emergency, so why aren't we handing out Ivermectin, given that it's well-tolerated, cheap, and relatively risk free? There's almost nothing to lose, and yet the authorities are determined to stop people even having the free choice to try it, even with their own money.

 

[stevil]

The other side is a bunch of people who have been variously sidelined, cancelled, and no-platformed, for the social 'crime' of suggesting that people should be free to choose a very cheap, out-of-patent drug, that is well tolerated and has plenty of long term data. But the catch is that nobody can really make any serious money from producing and selling it.

The catch is that it is an anti parasitic drug, not an antiviral.
It has no studies showing its effectiveness against Covid-19.

 

[whatbogsends]

The oversight and review process in vaccine studies that are used by the CDC makes the effective implementation of a corrupting bias very difficult. The pharma companies may have an incentive to cheat, but it is not easy and the consequences to their reputation of being caught cheating in a vaccine test are disastrous. There is a huge self-interest incentive for them not to cheat. They can make lots of money without cheating. Why would they risk all that by cheating?

Shouting 'conflict of interest' is a lazy response.

Hold on. You're not talking about vaccine trials, are you? That's where the effectiveness was established.

How big a problem? What was the effect?

How many other immunologists have said that asymptomatic infection is a myth? Or is this just more cherry-picking?

..or, the adjustment of the number of cycles made the test more accurate.

Oh, well, if some journalists have written about 'the worst cold ever', then we know there must be something important to it, because journalists are never sensationalism seekers, are they?

You are welcome not to respond if that is what you wish.

Related to the number of cycles in PCR testing, i found this New York Times article from late August 2020 interesting. It doesn't speak to the CDC changing the recommendation on the cycle threshold, but i did find it useful regarding high-cycle counts that were used to diagnose positive cases in 2020.

On Thursday, the United States recorded 45,604 new coronavirus cases, according to a database maintained by The Times. If the rates of contagiousness in Massachusetts and New York were to apply nationwide, then perhaps only 4,500 of those people may actually need to isolate and submit to contact tracing.

One solution would be to adjust the cycle threshold used now to decide that a patient is infected. Most tests set the limit at 40, a few at 37. This means that you are positive for the coronavirus if the test process required up to 40 cycles, or 37, to detect the virus.

Tests with thresholds so high may detect not just live virus but also genetic fragments, leftovers from infection that pose no particular risk — akin to finding a hair in a room long after a person has left, Dr. Mina said.

Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive, agreed Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside. “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive,” she said.

A more reasonable cutoff would be 30 to 35, she added. Dr. Mina said he would set the figure at 30, or even less. Those changes would mean the amount of genetic material in a patient’s sample would have to be 100-fold to 1,000-fold that of the current standard for the test to return a positive result — at least, one worth acting on.
…
“It’s just kind of mind-blowing to me that people are not recording the C.T. values from all these tests — that they’re just returning a positive or a negative,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York.

“It would be useful information to know if somebody’s positive, whether they have a high viral load or a low viral load,” she added.

Officials at the Wadsworth Center, New York’s state lab, have access to C.T. values from tests they have processed, and analyzed their numbers at The Times’s request. In July, the lab identified 794 positive tests, based on a threshold of 40 cycles.

With a cutoff of 35, about half of those tests would no longer qualify as positive. About 70 percent would no longer be judged positive if the cycles were limited to 30.

In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. “I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,” he said.

Other experts informed of these numbers were stunned.

“I’m really shocked that it could be that high — the proportion of people with high C.T. value results,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “Boy, does it really change the way we need to be thinking about testing.”
…
But with 20 percent or more of people testing positive for the virus in some parts of the country, Dr. Mina and other researchers are questioning the use of PCR tests as a frontline diagnostic tool.

Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be. (Published 2020)

 

[whatbogsends]

The catch is that it is an anti parasitic drug, not an antiviral.
It has no studies showing its effectiveness against Covid-19.

However, it has been used widely in humans for years and heralded as an extremely safe drug. Yet, the media blitz regarding it consistently refers to it as a "horse/livestock/etc. dewormer" rather than accurately talking about the drug.

Regardless of it's effectiveness/ineffectiveness in treating Covid (and yes, there were several studies showing its effectiveness against Covid, as well as some studies showing lack of effectiveness), it's apparent that there's an active media campaign to attack it's use more than just "it's ineffective", but to demonize doctors who have supported its use and try to equate it with taking medicine for livestock.

From 2011, well before Ivermectin became political:

Discovered in the late-1970s, the pioneering drug ivermectin, a dihydro derivative of avermectin—originating solely from a single microorganism isolated at the Kitasato Intitute, Tokyo, Japan from Japanese soil—has had an immeasurably beneficial impact in improving the lives and welfare of billions of people throughout the world. Originally introduced as a veterinary drug, it kills a wide range of internal and external parasites in commercial livestock and companion animals. It was quickly discovered to be ideal in combating two of the world’s most devastating and disfiguring diseases which have plagued the world’s poor throughout the tropics for centuries. It is now being used free-of-charge as the sole tool in campaigns to eliminate both diseases globally. It has also been used to successfully overcome several other human diseases and new uses for it are continually being found. This paper looks in depth at the events surrounding ivermectin’s passage from being a huge success in Animal Health into its widespread use in humans, a development which has led many to describe it as a “wonder” drug.

There are few drugs that can seriously lay claim to the title of ‘Wonder drug’, penicillin and aspirin being two that have perhaps had greatest beneficial impact on the health and wellbeing of Mankind. But ivermectin can also be considered alongside those worthy contenders, based on its versatility, safety and the beneficial impact that it has had, and continues to have, worldwide—especially on hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people. Several extensive reports, including reviews authored by us, have been published detailing the events behind the discovery, development and commercialization of the avermectins and ivermectin (22,23-dihydroavermectin B), as well as the donation of ivermectin and its use in combating Onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis.1–6) However, none have concentrated in detail on the interacting sequence of events involved in the passage of the drug into human use.
...
Ivermectin proved to be even more of a ‘Wonder drug’ in human health, improving the nutrition, general health and wellbeing of billions of people worldwide ever since it was first used to treat Onchocerciasis in humans in 1988. It proved ideal in many ways, being highly effective and broad-spectrum, safe, well tolerated and could be easily administered (a single, annual oral dose). It is used to treat a variety of internal nematode infections, including Onchocerciasis, Strongyloidiasis, Ascariasis, cutaneous larva migrans, filariases, Gnathostomiasis and Trichuriasis, as well as for oral treatment of ectoparasitic infections, such as Pediculosis (lice infestation) and scabies (mite infestation).14) Ivermectin is the essential mainstay of two global disease elimination campaigns that should soon rid the world of two of its most disfiguring and devastating diseases, Onchocerciasis and Lymphatic filariasis, which blight the lives of billions of the poor and disadvantaged throughout the tropics.

Ivermectin, ‘Wonder drug’ from Japan: the human use perspective (nih.gov)

 

[stevil]

However, it has been used widely in humans for years and heralded as an extremely safe drug. Yet, the media blitz regarding it consistently refers to it as a "horse/livestock/etc. dewormer" rather than accurately talking about the drug.

The media downplays it because it is a non proven drug for Covid 19 that is being used by people to treat Covid 19.
The media emphasises that it is for deworming as a parasitic treatment.

 

[FreeinChrist]

The media downplays it because it is a non proven drug for Covid 19 that is being used by people to treat Covid 19.
The media emphasises that it is for deworming as a parasitic treatment.

Yep. see No evidence that the fall in COVID-19 cases in Indonesia is linked to the use of ivermectin

Interesting to compare when vaccinations started increasing in number to the fall of covid as seen in these two graphs:

 

[stevil]

Yep. see No evidence that the fall in COVID-19 cases in Indonesia is linked to the use of ivermectin

Interesting to compare when vaccinations started increasing in number to the fall of covid as seen in these two graphs:

This is not the way science is done. There are too many variables in play to come to any conclusion from those graphs.
If you look at infection rates and death rates over the last year and a half you will find these trends where it goes up and then drops quickly too for no apparent reason.
Could be that lots of people in the infected area have already caught the disease and now have natural immunity, might have nothing to do with the drugs been given out at that time.
To work out the effectiveness of the drugs there are some very stringent processes and procedures that scientists undertake.
Sometimes people assume certain drugs work, Initially I think there was some optimism about HCQ and so Trump rushed to promote it, where-as Fauci was saying that the verdict on its effectiveness was not yet known. Well after more scientific studies and work it was determined that HCQ is not effective on Covid-19.
At the moment, Ivermectin is not proven to be effective, people should not be holding off on the vaccine in the expectation that they can take Ivermectin in the situation where they actually get infected.

A high percentage of people that get infected die. 1-3% is high when you have a highly contagious disease. The vaccines are proven to work. Ivermectin has not been proven to work, The media would be behaving very badly if they were to support Ivermectin and try to get people worried about vaccines. That approach would lead to many many unnecessary deaths.

 

[JustSomeBloke]

Related to the number of cycles in PCR testing, i found this New York Times article from late August 2020 interesting. It doesn't speak to the CDC changing the recommendation on the cycle threshold, but i did find it useful regarding high-cycle counts that were used to diagnose positive cases in 2020.

On Thursday, the United States recorded 45,604 new coronavirus cases, according to a database maintained by The Times. If the rates of contagiousness in Massachusetts and New York were to apply nationwide, then perhaps only 4,500 of those people may actually need to isolate and submit to contact tracing.

One solution would be to adjust the cycle threshold used now to decide that a patient is infected. Most tests set the limit at 40, a few at 37. This means that you are positive for the coronavirus if the test process required up to 40 cycles, or 37, to detect the virus.

Tests with thresholds so high may detect not just live virus but also genetic fragments, leftovers from infection that pose no particular risk — akin to finding a hair in a room long after a person has left, Dr. Mina said.

Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive, agreed Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside. “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive,” she said.

A more reasonable cutoff would be 30 to 35, she added. Dr. Mina said he would set the figure at 30, or even less. Those changes would mean the amount of genetic material in a patient’s sample would have to be 100-fold to 1,000-fold that of the current standard for the test to return a positive result — at least, one worth acting on.
…
“It’s just kind of mind-blowing to me that people are not recording the C.T. values from all these tests — that they’re just returning a positive or a negative,” said Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University in New York.

“It would be useful information to know if somebody’s positive, whether they have a high viral load or a low viral load,” she added.

Officials at the Wadsworth Center, New York’s state lab, have access to C.T. values from tests they have processed, and analyzed their numbers at The Times’s request. In July, the lab identified 794 positive tests, based on a threshold of 40 cycles.

With a cutoff of 35, about half of those tests would no longer qualify as positive. About 70 percent would no longer be judged positive if the cycles were limited to 30.

In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. “I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,” he said.

Other experts informed of these numbers were stunned.

“I’m really shocked that it could be that high — the proportion of people with high C.T. value results,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “Boy, does it really change the way we need to be thinking about testing.”
…
But with 20 percent or more of people testing positive for the virus in some parts of the country, Dr. Mina and other researchers are questioning the use of PCR tests as a frontline diagnostic tool.

Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be. (Published 2020)

More people need to read this, because it exposes how easy the PCR test is to manipulate. I suspect that inappropriately high cycle numbers for PCR tests is how health authorities were able to push the bogus concept of asymptomatic infection. Very few people questioned asymptomatic infection, because most people had absolute faith in PCR tests. People thought that the PCR test was the gold standard for determining infection, without realising that it is very easy to manipulate the PCR test to generate false positives and false negatives.

Last winter the UK government was at one point urging everyone with a runny nose to get tested! Can you imagine what effect that has on the number and frequency of positive tests when a too-high PCR cycle value is used on everyone who has a runny nose! Huge numbers of people will have a runny nose in winter! The number of positive test results will go through the roof! It also means that many people who died of old age and old age related conditions will be logged as dying from COVID. Manipulating the PCR cycle number is basically a licence to manufacture as many positive results as you like, in order to suit the politics you're trying to push through, such as draconian lockdowns.

Sadly the inventor of the PCR test died not long before COVID kicked off. I've no doubt that he would have condemned the way that his test was used and abused. He certainly criticised those who used it to test for other viruses. He said that his PCR test should not be used for diagnostic purposes.

Yep. see No evidence that the fall in COVID-19 cases in Indonesia is linked to the use of ivermectin

Interesting to compare when vaccinations started increasing in number to the fall of covid as seen in these two graphs:

View attachment 307913

View attachment 307914

If that was true then it suggests that vaccinating ~15% of the population causes COVID cases to plummet. But we know that some countries that have far higher proportions vaccinated than that are still experiencing serious problems.