Comment on Dr. Peter McCullough’s COVID-19 and Anti-Vaccine Theories by Sean Pitman.
Oh please. The Elgazzar paper, by itself, accounted for 15.5% of the effect of the meta-analysis paper. Remove that and you basically remove the statistical significance of your meta-analysis paper.
Of the other papers used in the meta-analysis, many relied on small sample sizes or were not randomized or well-controlled. And in 2020, an observational study of the drug was withdrawn after scientists raised concerns about it and a few other papers using data by the company Surgisphere that investigated a range of repurposed drugs against COVID-19. “We’ve seen a pattern of people releasing information that’s not reliable,” says Hill. “It’s hard enough to do work on COVID and treatment without people distorting databases.” (Link).
“I personally have lost all faith in the results of [ivermectin] trials published to date,” says Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia who helped Lawrence to analyze the Elgazzar paper. “It’s not yet possible to assess whether ivermectin works against COVID-19 because the data currently available are not of sufficiently high quality,” he says, adding that he is reading other ivermectin papers in his spare time, looking for signs of fraud or other problems. (Link)
Chaccour and others studying ivermectin say that proof of whether the drug is effective against COVID-19 rests on a handful of large, ongoing studies, including a trial in Brazil with more than 3,500 participants. By the end of 2021, says Zoni, around 33,000 people will have participated in some kind of ivermectin trial. (Link)
And, another recent meta-analysis study by Roman et al., which did not include the Elgazzar study, showed no beneficial effect. (Link)
That’s the reason why larger double-blinded placebo-controlled trials are seen as more reliable, generally speaking, compared to meta-analysis papers – which is why the preliminary results from the large “Together Trial”, and even the smaller Lopez-Medina trial, seem far more convincing to me.
Now, if you want to keep going after possible conspiracies, fine, but that’s not good evidence in support of ivermectin as a useful therapy against COVID-19.
Sean Pitman Also Commented
Dr. Peter McCullough’s COVID-19 and Anti-Vaccine Theories
Fetal cell lines, originally produced decades ago, were used in the testing of the mRNA vaccines – as they were in the testing of Tylenol, Motrin, Robitussin, Aspirin, Sudafed, Tums, Lidocaine, and a host of other modern medications that most people use on a semiregular basis (Link).
Dr. Peter McCullough’s COVID-19 and Anti-Vaccine Theories
I see no evidence that the published ingredient lists for the mRNA vaccines are not transparent and factual. There just is no credible evidence for “graphene” in these vaccines and fetal cell lines simply aren’t necessary to produce these types of vaccines.
Dr. Peter McCullough’s COVID-19 and Anti-Vaccine Theories
The hospitalization/death rate is far less for the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated (Link). Note, in this line, that those states with the lowest vaccination rates have the highest death rates per capita:
Florida is even higher than Mississippi https://t.co/BdRl2DmLo5 pic.twitter.com/uI0xKAZ6ji
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) September 19, 2021
As far as natural immunity gain via a prior COVID-19 infection, it can actually be superior to the immunity gained via full vaccination. However, natural immunity is less predictable. Up to a third of people who were previously infected by COVID-19 don’t develop antibodies against it (Link). However, if one can demonstrate an adequate level of antibodies against COVID-19 it seems reasonable to me that such people should be considered to have adequate immunity.
As far as the immunity generated by vaccination, the type of immunity generated would not be so effective at preventing a mucosal nasopharyngeal infection since the types of antibodies produced (IgG and IgM) would preferentially be blood-based rather than tissue-based (IgA) type of immunity (Link). Because of this, naturally derived immunity might have an additional advantage in this regard as well.
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Thank you Ariel. Hope you are doing well these days. Miss seeing you down at Loma Linda. Hope you had a Great Thanksgiving!
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Thank you Colin. Just trying to save lives any way I can. Not everything that the government does or leaders do is “evil” BTW…
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Only someone who knows the future can make such decisions without being a monster…
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Where did I “gloss over it”?
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I fail to see where you have convincingly supported your claim that the GC leadership contributed to the harm of anyone’s personal religious liberties? – given that the GC leadership does not and could not override personal religious liberties in this country, nor substantively change the outcome of those who lost their jobs over various vaccine mandates. That’s just not how it works here in this country. Religious liberties are personally derived. Again, they simply are not based on a corporate or church position, but rely solely upon individual convictions – regardless of what the church may or may not say or do.
Yet, you say, “Who cares if it is written into law”? You should care. Everyone should care. It’s a very important law in this country. The idea that the organized church could have changed vaccine mandates simply isn’t true – particularly given the nature of certain types of jobs dealing with the most vulnerable in society (such as health care workers for example).
Beyond this, the GC Leadership did, in fact, write in support of personal religious convictions on this topic – and there are GC lawyers who have and continue to write personal letters in support of personal religious convictions (even if these personal convictions are at odds with the position of the church on a given topic). Just because the GC leadership also supports the advances of modern medicine doesn’t mean that the GC leadership cannot support individual convictions at the same time. Both are possible. This is not an inconsistency.
