absalom01 wrote: “At this point, ignoring the unambiguous and overwhelming evidence for the efficacy of ivermectin is as irrational as the worst of the anti-vax fearmongering.”
Now why would Merck issue a statement denying the efficacy of their product, costing them sales, profits, etc., if the statement was incorrect? If things have changed, then why hasn’t Merck issued a correction? You’ll note that almost all major health organizations deny the efficacy of Ivermectin.
Rather being particularly effective, it’s possible that Politicians in India have to do something and their solution is Ivermectin. It doesn’t matter if it works as long as the politician can claim they’ve done something. In fact, the politicians can claim it works even if it doesn’t.
Well, if we’re going to assume bad intentions on the part of one party, shouldn’t we be even handed?
Why would Merck run down the off-patent generic drug ivermectin? What possible motivation could they have? Well, one motivation is money. Their anti-viral Molnupiravir is entering phase III trials, and that would be a patented, potentially highly profitable drug, whereas no one, including Merck will be making any money with a cheap generic.
Fortunately, we don’t need to rely on the candor of any politicians in Goa or Uttar Pradesh, or the scientific disinterest of Merck.
We can look at the epidemiological data from the places in the world that have widespread early distribution of ivermectin, and those that don’t. We can look at the results of over 20 RCT’s, and many observational studies. The signal is overwhelming.
There is a legitimate debate at the margins regarding the exact effectiveness — it could be 70%, it could be 90%, but the best information available at this time is that it’s at least as good as the current vaccines, and has the immeasurable advantage of actually being available in places where the VAX are either unavailable, or available only to the well connected and wealthy.
I’m sure that you have seen the links, but I’ll provide some here for those who might want to follow up.
Tess Lawrie’s “BIRD” group is here: https://bird-group.org/
Paul Marick and Pierre Kory’s FLCCC is here: https://covid19criticalcare.com/
Dr. Andrew Hill’s findings from late last year are summarized here: https://covidcalltohumanity.org/2021/04/01/who-sponsored-preliminary-review-indicates-ivermectin-effectiveness/
And for the record, I find the extreme “vax v. therapeutic” straw man to be beneath contempt. It is intellectually dishonest, and fundamentally lazy. Having both for use, where available and appropriate, along with natural immunity by those who have suffered the disease and recovered is obviously superior to having only one or the other.
One hopes that we’ll be able to stop foolish arguments among ourselves, and to turn our collective attention to the author of this global disaster, the Communist Party of China.
RE: it’s possible that Politicians in India have to do something and their solution is Ivermectin. It doesn’t matter if it works as long as the politician can claim they’ve done something.
Highly unlikely. Goa was one of the few of India’s 28 states and 8 territories to have recently adopted Ivermectin for their masses and if the excuse is they have “to do something” as you said, then it’s not going to do squat for the politician if the solution doesn’t work.
But the fact is, the death and hospitalization curves have gone dramatically down since Goa adopted the Ivermectin protocol through widespread distribution. This has been observed not only in Goa, not only in India, but also OUTSIDE of India.