Bret Weinstein Wrong on Ivermectin

[Octopus Garden]

I am a huge fan of Bret Weinstein and follow his videos on occasion. That being said, Bret was snookered, as were many scientists about ivermectin.

I have had this interesting ongoing discussion about ivermectin with a friend. He has been more inclined to accept that ivermectin probably works and I am just as much on the other side of that one. I told him, that for me, it's largely an intuitive hunch and then tried to be more specific. And what I came up with is I just don't trust the data. Calling a dung hill 'data,' doesn't make it so (unless you're a scatologist)

I went on to describe that people who describe traditional science as hide bound, conservative and overly consensus driven are overlooking what's happening in alternative medicine and science. The same kind of consensus driven hairball of belief and social media dogma is revolving around ivermectin.

Turns out, just like a hairball, 'there's no there there,' once you unravel it all. There has been a lot of coughing and wretching around the whole matter by self styled experts though. Do I blame Weinstein. No. I blame the people he hooked up with for not doing the bare minimum examination of 'the data'

Here's the thing. If you are going to get behind something, in a big way, you have to examine it carefully. Meta analysis of ivermectin that rested on several small admittedly inconsequential studies by those who were pushing ivermectin not so problematic. But the holy grail was the study out of Egypt, that existed in pre-print. Anyway...here's the article about it.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-supporting-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-withdrawn-over-ethical-concerns?fbclid=IwAR3eD-foTP-yeFoD6x6gDVcNBjRVml1lImrkVcn7Zg8yo0nU0bQ4bTcvXYk

[Chris]

I just don't understand why this has to be a political issue now...

This isn't about left or right, but whether it works, and people take sides based on their political bias and not the actual science.

[Dreamtimer]

Every issue becomes political, doesn't it? I have lots of experience with people who don't want to talk about things like taxes, or teen pregnancies, or income inequality because they don't want to 'talk about politics'.

The issues remain. And if they don't get talked about, they get fought over. Politics sucks, true, but we're still in need of a replacement system which isn't war and/or oppression. And politics exists every where. In churches (the worst), in school systems, in businesses. You can't really escape it.

Politics is, in my opinion, the continuance of our playground and adolescent dynamics as adults because most of us aren't really grown up yet.


Be very wary of pre-print studies. They haven't been vetted and therefore can have bad data, bad conclusions, and that can lead to bad outcomes. People worry over censorship, and it's a good worry. And un-reviewed studies too often get treated as viable and important when they could very well be nothing of the sort. And even when a study is good, there need to be several in order for large conclusions to be acted upon. One study by itself can't tell much, no matter how good it may be.

I've listened to Bret a lot and I've ended up with mixed feelings. He's made some statements that are opinion which he tries to make seem fact. That's a red flag to me.