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A comment on Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data alone are unreliable. Parent comment

Re:Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data... by abxnlk on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @11:58AM (#28617911)
First of all, trying out random substances or applying existing medicines to different illnesses is exactly how doctors and the pharma industry operate.

It's not like doctors actually always understand what is going on; for example, I think even the precise mechanism of anesthetics isn't well understood yet.

So people volunteer to test a human approved drug for a different application. I don't believe in Ivermectin specifically, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with that. It's what medicine does, and most researchers at universities don't have a clue either (as we now see in the entire Covid19 comedy).

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Re:Lesson of ivermectin: meta-analyses based on summary data... by PaulDavisThe1st on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @01:03PM (#28618823)
> First of all, trying out random substances or applying existing medicines to different illnesses is exactly how doctors and the pharma industry operate.

Sure, but with methodology and metrics to allow the separation of actual effects from placebo, and in some cases even just enough methodology to be able to measure anything at all.

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