And he apparently really believes it...

The Barbarian said:

Actually, diminishing returns become pretty evident when freeway traffic speeds average less than 50 mph.

At first glance, it seems like a good idea. However, the research on this subject does not support this premise.

A study performed for the Federal Highway Administration and published nearly 20 years ago came to some counterintuitive conclusions.

It turns out that when before-and-after data were examined following speed limit changes, the differences in average speeds were less than 2 mph and did not correlate with the amount that the speed limit was changed.

This is especially true when speed limit changes were within 5 mph of the 85th percentile of existing traffic speeds. The report stated that “lowering the speed limit does not mean traffic will slow down.”

Another important conclusion was “Changing posted speed limits alone, without additional enforcement, educational programs, or other engineering measures, has only a minor effect on driver behavior.”
Does Lowering Speed Limits Save Lives? | Physician's Weekly

The vast majority of fatal accidents involve vehicles going significantly faster than the legal limit.

Speeding is the leading cause of fatal car crashes in the U.S.

by Callie McGill updated July 16, 2019

Speeding resulted in more fatal car crashes than driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs or medication.
Speeding is the leading cause of fatal car crashes in the U.S.

Changing speed limits below a certain level really doesn't do much for highway safety.

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I'm going to type this really slowly: When two cars collide at 30 MPH, there is less risk of injury or death than if they collide at 60 mph.

That same kind of simpleton thinking is what is used to justify mask mandates. Masks are not that effective, and the risk is not that great without one.
And Rona is not that deadly.

Do We Need Mask Mandates?
The science suggests that more states should consider rescinding them.

FreeinChrist said:

Sigh......

Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19

There seems to be a growing interest in a drug called ivermectin to treat humans with COVID-19. Ivermectin is often used in the U.S. to treat or prevent parasites in animals. The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses......

• Taking large doses of this drug is dangerous and can cause serious harm. ......

Ivermectin | COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines

vermectin has been shown to inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in cell cultures.13 However, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies suggest that achieving the plasma concentrations necessary for the antiviral efficacy detected in vitro would require administration of doses up to 100-fold higher than those approved for use in humans.14,15​

Ivermectin doesn't speed recovery from mild COVID-19, study shows

Early administration of the antiparasitic drug ivermectin didn't significantly shorten time to clinical improvement in 400 adults mildly ill with COVID-19, a clinical trial today in JAMA finds......

"Cumulatively, the findings suggest that ivermectin does not significantly affect the course of early COVID-19, consistent with pharmacokinetic models showing that plasma total and unbound ivermectin levels do not reach the concentration resulting in 50% of viral inhibition even for a dose level 10-times higher than the approved dose," the authors concluded.​

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Two things:
1. Thanks to the government nonsense regarding Fauci and AGW, I don't take government sites seriously any more. I consider them too politicized. A simple example from one of those links: "FDA has not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans." That doesn't mean it doesn't work. The FDA doesn't have a strong reputation on approving treatments that actually work.
2. The "double blind" test referenced is from Columbia. I trust Dr. Kory's testimony more. He has nothing to gain that I'm aware of. Has anyone contradicted his testimony regarding the cases he's worked? This may help:
FLCCC Alliance addresses NIH’s revised ivermectin treatment guidelines for COVID-19
An excerpt (bold mine):
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has upgraded their recommendation on ivermectin, making it an option for use in COVID-19, according to the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC).

The revisions were made one week after Dr. Paul Marik and Dr. Pierre Kory, founding members of FLCCC, along with Dr. Andrew Hill, researcher and consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO), presented their data before the NIH Treatment Guidelines Panel, stated FLCCC.

This new designation upgraded the status of ivermectin from “against” to “neither for nor against”, which is the same recommendation given to monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma, both widely used across the nation. By no longer recommending against ivermectin use, doctors should feel more open in prescribing ivermectin as another therapeutic option for the treatment of COVID-19. This may clear its path towards U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use approval.

“Ivermectin is one of the world’s safest, cheapest and most widely available drugs,” noted Dr. Kory, President of the FLCCC Alliance. “The studies we presented to the NIH revealed high levels of statistical significance showing large magnitude benefit in transmission rates, need for hospitalization, and death. What’s more, the totality of trials data supporting ivermectin is without precedent.”

FreeinChrist said:

I honestly think some of the simpleton thinking comes from those who believe Covid-19 is not very deadly.

How Deadly Is Covid-19?

The first study was published in the British Medical Journal. The authors compared the outcomes of patients admitted with Covid-19 to hospitals operated by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) between February and June with other patients admitted for seasonal influenza between 2017 and 2019. Covid-19 patients died at five times the rate of flu patients, required mechanical ventilation four times as often, and were admitted to intensive care 2.5 times as often. To translate these risks into more intuitively comprehensible quantities, the authors calculated that there were 16.85 excess deaths per 100 Covid-19 patients compared with 100 patients hospitalized for seasonal influenza........


By contrast, the second study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, looked at younger adults aged 25-44. This study was performed by comparing patterns in the age-specific number of deaths from all causes reported by the National Center for Health Statistics in 2020 (during the Covid-19 pandemic) and 2015-2019 (when there was no pandemic).

The authors found a significant excess in the number of deaths reported in 2020 compared with prior years. Although Covid-19 results in death much less frequently in this age group than among older people, people in this age group are also much less likely to die in general. Specifically, the authors estimated that there were 18.5% more deaths between March 1, 2020, and July 31, 2020, than expected. This translates to 11,899 “extra” deaths due to the pandemic. Interestingly, only about 38% of these excess deaths were directly attributed to Covid-19, leading the authors to suggest that Covid-19 was under-detected in this age group at that time. Of course, another possible explanation is that these deaths were somehow indirectly associated with the pandemic.
​

Is COVID-19 More Deadly Than the Flu? - MedicineNet Health News

The risk of death from COVID-19 is more than triple that from seasonal flu, researchers in Canada say.

Their findings are similar to recent studies from the United States and France. The study was published Feb. 10 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

"We can now say definitively that COVID-19 is much more severe than seasonal influenza," said study author Dr. Amol Verma, a researcher in the School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

"Patients admitted to hospital in Ontario with COVID-19 had a 3.5 times greater risk of death, 1.5 times greater use of the ICU, and 1.5 times longer hospital stays than patients admitted with influenza," he said in a journal news release. These patients were also more likely to be put on a ventilator.


​

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I understand that, if you are old and already sick, the Rona is deadlier than the flu. If you are a child, the opposite is true. And let us be frank, here: Once they've shoved a ventilator down your throat, you might as well call your attorney to make sure your will is in good order. My point in that last statement is that I think that, through our "modern" treatments, we are KILLING patients. There, I said it.

Maybe if we used leeches more extensively...

FreeinChrist said:

from Healthcare Purchasing News?


This is from the company that produces Ivermectin, published in Feb. 2021

Merck Statement on Ivermectin use During the COVID-19 Pandemic - Merck.com

Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today affirmed its position regarding use of ivermectin during the COVID-19 pandemic. Company scientists continue to carefully examine the findings of all available and emerging studies of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 for evidence of efficacy and safety. It is important to note that, to-date, our analysis has identified:

• No scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19 from pre-clinical studies;
• No meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease, and;
• A concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies.

We do not believe that the data available support the safety and efficacy of ivermectin beyond the doses and populations indicated in the regulatory agency-approved prescribing information.

​

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Maybe it's just too cheap for Merck to be comfortable with people using it.

Meanwhile, what do you make of the testimony I posted? Or do you think he's just lying to the senate? Here's the long (ten minute) version, BTW:
What If I Told You There Was A Nobel Winning Medicine For Covid That Is NOT Being Used : Ivermectin!

FreeinChrist said:

I honestly think some of the simpleton thinking comes from those who believe Covid-19 is not very deadly.

Click to expand...

Actually, the risk of death from COVID-19 is HIGHLY dependent upon your age. So for anyone under the age of 65, it is not very deadly, as the CDC data shows.

FreeinChrist said:

However, those under 50 are more likely to have long term symptoms. There are long term lung, brain and heart effects as well.

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I think you mean to say there CAN BE long term lung, brain and heart effects. Because it is definitely not a certainty, nor is it even apparently all that common.

We need to start thinking more critically about long Covid - STAT

FreeinChrist said:

No, we are not killing patients. Covid 19 is killing patients despite medicines best attempts to keep them alive. Such talk is inflammatory and unhelpful and the fuel of conspiracy theories.

This was as of July 2020
https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...3c3534-bbca-11ea-8cf5-9c1b8d7f84c6_story.html

Early reports out of Wuhan, China, and Italy cemented the impression that the vast majority of patients who required the breathing devices ultimately succumbed to the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

But as the pandemic has continued, U.S. hospitals are reporting much lower mortality rates, results on par with death rates for patients with similar severe lung problems caused by other diseases.

Experts say that’s because clinicians have become more skilled and are deploying new tactics as they learn more about the course of covid-19; some are using ventilators more selectively; many hospitals are less overwhelmed than when the virus first inundated Wuhan, parts of Italy and New York City; and early data on ventilation and death did not present a true picture.....

In a May 26 study in the journal Critical Care Medicine, Martin and a group of colleagues found that 35.7 percent of covid-19 patients who required ventilators died — a significant percentage but much lower than early reports that put the figure in the upper 80 percent range.

Use of drugs such as remdesivir, which shortens the recovery time for some of the sickest patients, and the steroid dexamethasone have helped as well.


“We’ve learned a lot about covid since the beginning of the year,” said Russell G. Buhr, a pulmonary and critical care physician at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. “That means we have a significantly better understanding of how to diagnose, recognize and manage this.”


​

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I'm glad we're learning, and therefore both putting fewer at risk of death and removing mask mandates and lockdowns.

FreeinChrist said:

Dr. Kory described ivermectin as miraculous . That has not been shown to be true.

Click to expand...

Actually, he even commented on his own use of the word, and what he actually meant by it.

FreeinChrist said:

Removing mask mandates isn't a great thing, not yet. Doctors are learning to treat the virus and the vaccine will help.

Click to expand...

Like THIS vaccine?:
Moderna Chief Medical Officer Admits mRNA Alters DNA

I'm not a beta tester. I'd rather take my chances with an Ivermectin prescription.

FreeinChrist said:

You are just posting trash. I am not getting my medical information from Rumble or The Sons of Liberty.
That article is flaming -
" While many in the media, Dr. Anthony Fauci and his merry band of chronic liars, and “fact checkers” have declared this claim as false, a video of a TEDx Beacon Street talk by Tal Zaks, chief medical officer of Moderna, Inc., one pharmaceutical company manufacturer of the experimental mRNA technology injection, confirms mRNA injection for COVID-19 can change your genetic code or DNA."

I listened to the video on another site. They referred to the site you posted. I strongly believe some of these conspiracy like sites (like Sons of Liberty) misinterpret it from a deep lack of knowledge about immunology and genetics.


Here is Zaks actually saying the vaccine can prevent one from getting sick with Covid 19 at about .50 into the video:

If you don't want Moderna or Pfiser, there is Johnson and Johnson and soon there will be AstraZeneca - or don't get anything. I am slowly joining an undercurrent of thought among medical staff that if you don't bother to mask or get the vaccine, don't come for medical help. Stay home.

Click to expand...

Mkay.

BTW, I've not had health insurance since Obamacare became the law of the land. I've saved six figures - after tax - in insurance premiums (my wife and I are 67). We trust in the Great Healer and he has been faithful. We treat medical treatment like we treat repairs to our house and car. It's shockingly cheap. I did have a visit to an emergency room once that cost just under $3000, but it was a false alarm. And even if we did have insurance it would have been under the deductible. i.e. not covered.

So, we're fine here.

Direct Driver said:

Two things:
1. Thanks to the government nonsense regarding Fauci and AGW, I don't take government sites seriously any more. I consider them too politicized. A simple example from one of those links: "FDA has not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans." That doesn't mean it doesn't work. The FDA doesn't have a strong reputation on approving treatments that actually work.
2. The "double blind" test referenced is from Columbia. I trust Dr. Kory's testimony more. He has nothing to gain that I'm aware of. Has anyone contradicted his testimony regarding the cases he's worked? This may help:
FLCCC Alliance addresses NIH’s revised ivermectin treatment guidelines for COVID-19
An excerpt (bold mine):
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has upgraded their recommendation on ivermectin, making it an option for use in COVID-19, according to the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC).

The revisions were made one week after Dr. Paul Marik and Dr. Pierre Kory, founding members of FLCCC, along with Dr. Andrew Hill, researcher and consultant to the World Health Organization (WHO), presented their data before the NIH Treatment Guidelines Panel, stated FLCCC.

This new designation upgraded the status of ivermectin from “against” to “neither for nor against”, which is the same recommendation given to monoclonal antibodies and convalescent plasma, both widely used across the nation. By no longer recommending against ivermectin use, doctors should feel more open in prescribing ivermectin as another therapeutic option for the treatment of COVID-19. This may clear its path towards U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use approval.

“Ivermectin is one of the world’s safest, cheapest and most widely available drugs,” noted Dr. Kory, President of the FLCCC Alliance. “The studies we presented to the NIH revealed high levels of statistical significance showing large magnitude benefit in transmission rates, need for hospitalization, and death. What’s more, the totality of trials data supporting ivermectin is without precedent.”

Click to expand...

This isn’t the first time that Kory and his colleagues at FLCCC have been accused of making unsubstantiated claims about ivermectin. In December, Kory gave a statement at a US Senate hearing on COVID-19 treatments in which he called ivermectin “effectively a ‘miracle drug’” that could obliterate disease transmission and prevent illness—claims that Associated Press fact-checkers labelled “False” at the time. Kory, who formerly oversaw critical care at the UW Health in Wisconsin, tells The Scientist that he now regrets using “miracle” and other hyperbolic terminology.

IMO: The FLCCC appears to have been formed by a group of self-promoting, perhaps well-intentioned doctors. Their efforts appear aimed at avoiding the rigorous clinical trials required to get FDA approval.

Direct Driver said:

Mkay.

BTW, I've not had health insurance since Obamacare became the law of the land. I've saved six figures - after tax - in insurance premiums (my wife and I are 67). We trust in the Great Healer and he has been faithful. We treat medical treatment like we treat repairs to our house and car. It's shockingly cheap. I did have a visit to an emergency room once that cost just under $3000, but it was a false alarm. And even if we did have insurance it would have been under the deductible. i.e. not covered.

So, we're fine here.

Click to expand...

If you had Medicare (being you are over 65), your ER bill would not have been anywhere near that. The Medicare Part B Deductible is a few hundred dollars. And there are many "Advantage" plans you can choose from carried by commercial insurance companies like Blue Cross.