While I find the subject a little outside of my wheelhouse and not interesting enough to spend time and effort to decipher, "guy obsesses over something for a long time and writes a lot about it" is pretty much the core of what made /r/themotte fun to be in. While writing twenty (!) essays in a row on the topic is definitely weird, it's not as though Alexandros is chasing Scott around or constantly emailing him (to my knowledge). And, well, that sort of weird is almost what this space is for.
If someone here dedicated themselves to a massive personal research project to disprove statements that they figured to be harmful from someone they saw to be an influential public figure and wrote essay after essay on it I think the reception would be somewhat less cold if the figure weren't Scott.
I am fine with Alex keeping up his beating of this, er, horse. Right or wrong, go on. I have commented previously about how the media has not been fair at all to the pro-ivermectin viewpoint so someone has to keep that torch alive.
But he keeps on wanting to talk about how Scott has not properly dealt with his argument. He mentions Scott twice as many times as he mentions ivermectin. He even grants Scott the honor of being steelmanned.
True, but he's flogged the horse so much it is now driven into the Earth's mantle.
This Brazilian study he references that is so great and finds so much value - well because I am an obsessive bitch, I looked up where they did it. Okay, place seems legit. Hm, what is the parasitic status of Brazil? Well would you look at that:
Conclusions: The prevalence of intestinal parasitic infections is high in Brazil, and anthelmintic drugs should be administered periodically as a prophylactic measure, as recommended by the WHO.
There's also a charming little parasite called Strongyloides stercoralis or threadworm, where you contract the infection as a child, can be infected with it for years, and not know you are infected, but it's putting pressure on your immune system. Turns out this is prevalent in Brazil, too, and there's a paper from 2003 on Itajaí, the city where that ivermectin study was done:
Discussion
The city of Itajaí has the most HIV cases in the state of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Approximately 78 new cases of infection are reported per year per 100,000 inhabitants. The occurrence of strongyloidiasis in the state of Santa Catarina is relatively high, although only a few epidemiological studies on this region have been made.
What is the first-line treatment for threadworm? Could it be... take a guess... ivermectin?
2016 paper on the burden of infectious diseases in the Brazilian Southern state of Santa Catarina (this is where the port city of Itajaí is located):
An epidemiological study with an ecological design was conducted covering all nine regions of Santa Catarina state. The study was based on methodology from the GBD study for the world proposed by Murray et al. [9]. The infectious diseases included were HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, Chagas disease, diarrheal diseases, encephalitis, schistosomiasis, malaria, meningitis, tetanus, syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases as well as a group composed of other infectious diseases (including dengue fever, hantavirus, leprosy and others).
The highest rates [of HIV/AIDS] in the state were found in the regions of Foz do Rio Itajaí and Grande Florianópolis, which are located in the state's coastal region, have major tourist attractions and are home to Brazil's third largest port. Among Brazilian cities with over 50,000 inhabitants, the top three with the highest incidence rates of HIV/AIDS are located in such regions .
More than 90% of the disease burden was due to the early mortality component, YLL. The early mortality burden was quite high among children under 5 years of age. There was an unbalanced distribution of burden among the state's regions, with the highest rates found in the Foz do Rio Itajaí, Nordeste and Grande Florianópolis regions. The highest level of burden among the studied infectious diseases was attributed to HIV/AIDS.
Scott didn't convince me that ivermectin had its effect mostly due to its anti-parasitic action, I thought that before he delivered his verdict. And I'm sticking to it: ivermectin works by killing off parasites. People who have stressed immune systems due to parasitic infestation, and who contract Covid, have a double burden. Reduce that by killing the parasites, treat them for Covid, and I'm not surprised that they are less likely to be hospitalised and less likely to have fatal outcomes.
But I maintain, and I say this over and over again, ivermectin for otherwise healthy people who contract Covid does nothing.
While I agree with your general premise, Marinos has addressed Brazil specifically. Partway down. IIRC, the Brazil study is the only one that uses a different methodology for measuring parasite load. His method for "correcting" that removes significance from the existing meta analyses.
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Notes -
Scott's reward for interacting with this guy is that this guy will now not leave him alone.
While I find the subject a little outside of my wheelhouse and not interesting enough to spend time and effort to decipher, "guy obsesses over something for a long time and writes a lot about it" is pretty much the core of what made /r/themotte fun to be in. While writing twenty (!) essays in a row on the topic is definitely weird, it's not as though Alexandros is chasing Scott around or constantly emailing him (to my knowledge). And, well, that sort of weird is almost what this space is for.
If someone here dedicated themselves to a massive personal research project to disprove statements that they figured to be harmful from someone they saw to be an influential public figure and wrote essay after essay on it I think the reception would be somewhat less cold if the figure weren't Scott.
I am fine with Alex keeping up his beating of this, er, horse. Right or wrong, go on. I have commented previously about how the media has not been fair at all to the pro-ivermectin viewpoint so someone has to keep that torch alive.
But he keeps on wanting to talk about how Scott has not properly dealt with his argument. He mentions Scott twice as many times as he mentions ivermectin. He even grants Scott the honor of being steelmanned.
True, but he's flogged the horse so much it is now driven into the Earth's mantle.
This Brazilian study he references that is so great and finds so much value - well because I am an obsessive bitch, I looked up where they did it. Okay, place seems legit. Hm, what is the parasitic status of Brazil? Well would you look at that:
There's also a charming little parasite called Strongyloides stercoralis or threadworm, where you contract the infection as a child, can be infected with it for years, and not know you are infected, but it's putting pressure on your immune system. Turns out this is prevalent in Brazil, too, and there's a paper from 2003 on Itajaí, the city where that ivermectin study was done:
What is the first-line treatment for threadworm? Could it be... take a guess... ivermectin?
Well would you look at that, part deux.
2016 paper on the burden of infectious diseases in the Brazilian Southern state of Santa Catarina (this is where the port city of Itajaí is located):
Scott didn't convince me that ivermectin had its effect mostly due to its anti-parasitic action, I thought that before he delivered his verdict. And I'm sticking to it: ivermectin works by killing off parasites. People who have stressed immune systems due to parasitic infestation, and who contract Covid, have a double burden. Reduce that by killing the parasites, treat them for Covid, and I'm not surprised that they are less likely to be hospitalised and less likely to have fatal outcomes.
But I maintain, and I say this over and over again, ivermectin for otherwise healthy people who contract Covid does nothing.
While I agree with your general premise, Marinos has addressed Brazil specifically. Partway down. IIRC, the Brazil study is the only one that uses a different methodology for measuring parasite load. His method for "correcting" that removes significance from the existing meta analyses.
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