I am not arguing that I know anything to be right or wrong - I am not an epidemiologist or an infectious disease expert, or a doctor. I explicitly said that us non-experts are not able to verify these things on our own. I am saying that those communities of experts have decided that the question of ivermectin’s effectiveness is effectively settled. There are of course experts that disagree - there always are (I work in physics and we can’t even get 100% agreement on the standard model, for instance). But the group consensus of experts, supported by the scientific evidence, is that it either does not work, or the effect is small enough that it is not worth the risk - this is coming from acquaintances who work in infectious disease and medical research who have been working on Covid, who are part of that community.

I also never said shut down disagreement. That’s a straw man you created. Anti-vax is not a good-intentioned disagreement with sound scientific merit, it is a pseudo-science movement that actively and knowingly disregards the truth. Scientific freedom and discussion is important. Allowing pseudoscience to flourish under some strange argument that their positions are as scientifically valid as actual science, is, frankly, nonsense.

> I am saying that those communities of experts have decided that the question of ivermectin’s effectiveness is effectively settled.

Trials[1] don't tend to be run on settled science, so it really does seem that you've taken a position based on political arguments.

> I also never said shut down disagreement. That’s a straw man you created. Anti-vax is not a good-intentioned disagreement

You've said to shut down disagreement based on a standard that requires mind reading. How is that effectively any different from shutting down disagreement? That old Chomsky quote about Stalin being for free speech he agreed with come to mind.

> Allowing pseudoscience to flourish under some strange argument that their positions are as scientifically valid as actual science, is, frankly, nonsense.

This is an actual straw man, by the way, the comment you're replying to made no such faulty conflation.

Since mind reading is back in fashion I will do some clairvoyancy and predict that I will be labelled anti-vaxx for defending the mere possibility of disagreement and dissent. Now there's a problem with a non-zero number of the HN community you should be concerned about.

[1] https://www.principletrial.org/

You've confused science with politics. There is no scientific consensus on whether ivermectin is an effective treatment for covid. The people claiming this are engaging in politics. There is a consensus that people should not use ivermectin (or any medicine) except as directed by a doctor and not until there is extremely good clinical evidence for its efficacy. But that doesn't imply that ivermectin isn't effective, just that we don't know.

Comparing ivermectin's supposed anti-viral properties to the the standard model or vaccines is absurd.

Ivermectin was suspicious from the beginning, not just because it was promoted by the same people with the same the-FDA-doesn’t-want-you-to-know-drivel. By this point, it’s ridiculous. And, yes, you can switch it around in the comment and it’d make just as much sense. If, that is, you also switch reality.