What is your strongest evidence for ivermectin being useful against covid?
I did not pay much attention to this, but asked my friends who did, and they said something like all studies in favor of ivermectin were seriously flawed. Things like “one group using nothing, the other group using ivermectin + some X, and getting better results”, where we already have a reason to suspect that X alone does the whole effect. (Which to me sounds like exactly the kind of experiement one would set up if they already expected ivermectin to be useless, but wanted to prove that it was useful.)
In other words, is there actually any reason to care about ivermectin other than the fact that someone else has already privileged this hypothesis?
In the thread it seems consensus that the pro-Ivermectin meta-analyses is of higher quality. On the other hand the contra-Ivermectin studies is seen as borderline malicious (among others they switched intervention and control number for one study)
Trusting the best meta-analyses on a topic is generally a good strategy and the one I’m using here.
It’s generally quite easy to dismiss evidence by saying “I have abstract standard XY for which I have no structured empiric evidence to justify it being an useful standard, the evidence you provide fails XY.”
What is your strongest evidence for ivermectin being useful against covid?
I did not pay much attention to this, but asked my friends who did, and they said something like all studies in favor of ivermectin were seriously flawed. Things like “one group using nothing, the other group using ivermectin + some X, and getting better results”, where we already have a reason to suspect that X alone does the whole effect. (Which to me sounds like exactly the kind of experiement one would set up if they already expected ivermectin to be useless, but wanted to prove that it was useful.)
In other words, is there actually any reason to care about ivermectin other than the fact that someone else has already privileged this hypothesis?
To not rely to much on my own reading of the evidence, I opened a thread about discussing the quality of pro-and-contra meta-analyses on LessWrong: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/EAnLQLZeCreiFBHN8/how-do-the-ivermectin-meta-reviews-come-to-so-different
In the thread it seems consensus that the pro-Ivermectin meta-analyses is of higher quality. On the other hand the contra-Ivermectin studies is seen as borderline malicious (among others they switched intervention and control number for one study)
Trusting the best meta-analyses on a topic is generally a good strategy and the one I’m using here.
It’s generally quite easy to dismiss evidence by saying “I have abstract standard XY for which I have no structured empiric evidence to justify it being an useful standard, the evidence you provide fails XY.”