There are people refusing to take covid-19 vaccines in Indonesia, who have taken vaccines in the past, who are more willing to have a treatment that has been on the market for decades than one that hasn't (at least until long term studies have been made) and are glad they don't have to pay into the big pharma racket that most people in the country can't really afford.

Source: US citizen living in Indonesia.

Interesting. Why do you think they are refusing the COVID-19 vaccine given that they have been vaccinated before?

Can only really speak for the conversations I had with people I know, who have access, and those that aren't willing to take it have varying reasons:

- dont want to pay for it

- sinovac is most widely available and the optics of "causing" the problem and providing the solution don't sit well with them

- dont really care, cant be bothered

- they want to wait for a couple more years when longer studies come out about any side effects

- already caught it and feel natural immunity is sufficient

- no one wants to take responsibility for any adverse events that may happen (employers are passing out documents they want employees to sign, before giving them free vaccines) and that scares them more since they haven't done anything like that with things like dengue, tb, hpv, etc…

So, 10 countries? 50 countries?

There are already 32 randomized, controlled trials showing a positive effect from the drug. How many more of those would be enough for you?

And how many randomized, controlled trials currently exist for the vaccines?

> There are already 32 randomized, controlled trials showing a positive effect from the drug.

These are low-quality studies with few participants, they don't add up to one high-quality study. For all I know, there could be 32 studies that show a negative effect, you just don't mention them. If we then did a meta-analysis, we might find that they cancel each other out.

Despite the lack of high-quality studies, Ivermectin is already in widespread use in many countries. If Ivermectin was truly a miraculous drug against COVID, shouldn't we be able to observe that in the field? (Do we?)

You're right that the studies have low sample sizes, but they aren't "low-quality." They're randomized, controlled trials in peer-reviewed journals. And the consistent replication does mean something. If you have 32 RCTs showing negative or even no effect, I'd love to see them.

Dr. Pierre Kory claimed that we did observe this in Mexico [0] (skip to 59 minutes). I don't know how to cross-check what he said because I don't speak Spanish, but it's one of many data points in favor of ivermectin. I think we should let doctors make the decision to prescribe it or not, and the culture of censorship around this is insane. He also talks about India and Brazil.

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[0]: https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f/COVID-Ivermectin-and-the...

> You're right that the studies have low sample sizes, but they aren't "low-quality." They're randomized, controlled trials in peer-reviewed journals.

RCT is just a method, it doesn't automatically make the data high-quality. Peer review can't make the data any better either. With all these studies, the confidence intervals are huge or the group sizes are poorly balanced or the sample size is tiny or the effect is not that big. I'm looking at these studies:

https://ivmmeta.com/#fig_fpall

> If you have 32 RCTs showing negative or even neutral effects, I'd love to see them.

I don't, but I also didn't look. You also have to consider publication bias. Studies where the null hypothesis holds are far less likely to be published:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3442991/

> Dr. Pierre Kory claimed that we did observe this in Mexico

He's talking about a "precipitous drop". I don't see it in the data. Compare the "daily deaths" for Mexico (yay Ivermectin) to the US (nay Ivermection). They're virtually the same.

> I think we should let doctors make the decision to prescribe it or not, and the culture of censorship around this is insane.

I'm torn on this one. It's easy for doctors to fool themselves, which is why we need solid data. At the same time, if you don't have solid data, clinical experience is better than nothing.

I do recognize many problems in regards to information distribution and tribalist science, but that doesn't make me any less skeptical of Ivermectin.

I don't know if you and I would even be able to find data from the Mexican program to see this precipitous drop, but health ministers from Mexico's federal government have appeared on Mexican TV and said pretty much what Kory is saying [0]. I don't speak Spanish, but I used YouTube's automatic translation. So, not perfect, but at the very least, it's enough to convince me that Kory's not making it all up.

Re: the data, I guess it's in the eye of the beholder, because the graphic you shared seems to portray a solid positive effect to me. Yes, I would like to see larger sample sizes, but I'm also aware that being able to replicate another researcher's finding is a feat in and of itself in science.

Based on what I know of the history of medicine and science in general, it's not uncommon for "medical consensus" to not only be wrong, but shockingly wrong (think thalidomide, DDT, or lead's toxicity), and most paradigm shifts begin with one stubborn person going against the grain. It annoys me that the same people who insist that we're in a devastating 16-month global emergency also insist on one very narrowly-defined exit from the situation. It seems more logical to me that they should be willing to embrace any solution to the problem, or multiple solutions. The fact that they're so ready to shut out unorthodox voices shows me that they're more interested in pushing an agenda than solving a crisis. The issue is not one of health and rationality, but tribalism as you mentioned.

Judging by our interactions, you aren't the type of person I was directing my original comment to. Nice chatting with you.

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[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ST3n-agVLR0

> I don't know if you and I would even be able to find data from the Mexican program to see this precipitous drop, but health ministers from Mexico's federal government have appeared on Mexican TV and said pretty much what Kory is saying [0].

Government officials will say all kinds of things that make them look good. Numbers are falling? Great, it was because of lockdowns/vaccines/medication and it was definitely a result of our decisions! Numbers are rising? Oh well, we did what we could, it would've been far worse without whatever we did!

Then, you compare the two countries and see that fatalities just rise and fall in tandem, even though measures have been quite different. What does this tell me? People are fooling themselves.

> Yes, I would like to see larger sample sizes, but I'm also aware that being able to replicate another researcher's finding is a feat in and of itself in science.

What about the studies that failed to replicate, like the one where Ivermectin causes a 33% increase in deaths? Of course that study isn't that strong either, but it's on the stronger side relative to the mass of very weak studies.

> It seems more logical to me that they should be willing to embrace any solution to the problem, or multiple solutions.

I don't disagree, but I think you're overselling Ivermectin as a solution. To be fair, I'm also skeptical about the efficacy of vaccines, particularly in those who need it the most. I don't think there is a solution. I think the time has come to stop collectivist measures and let people decide for themselves whether they want to "protect" themselves with a vaccine, Ivermectin or garlic. I'm going with garlic, not because I believe it to be effective at all, but because I like the taste and believe it to have the best risk/reward profile for myself, based on the data that I have seen, as well as the data I have not seen.

208 countries and 10,000 trials wouldn't change the fact that conspiracy theorists peddled this thing as one of many miracle drugs. When a broken clock shows the right time you don't need to apologize to the clock.

For me, as a US citizen, my energy is far better spent getting people to take the vaccine that has a sample size of hundreds of millions of doses and has given us a wonderful chart that's going down and to the left. And, to put it bluntly, podcasts guests trying to make a name for themselves for pushing alternatives as "contrarians" have no place in this discourse.

A vaccine can't have a sample size. A study can have a sample size, but I'm not aware of any that have administered hundreds of millions of doses. If you're referring to the general rollout of the vaccine, then that is not a randomized, controlled trial.

And IIRC, the "wonderful chart" you're referring to (I assume you mean PCR positive tests or "cases") can not be credited to the vaccine rollout. It peaked when only 8 million doses had been given, and the age distribution of the decline in cases did not match the vaccine recipients' age distribution [0].

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[0] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/covid-19-cases-plunging-to...

Exactly, why solve the problem with a cheap, tried-and-tested anti-viral when we can use expensive and experimental novel vaccines with no long term-term safety studies?

This is a false dichotomy. Ivermectin doesn't solve the problem. Ivermectin is in widespread use, it didn't solve the problem anywhere. Maybe it's 50% effective, which would be a great result for a drug - it still wouldn't solve the problem.