@jcbrand

Vaccines save lives with 1/1'000'000 serious side effects and in most countries are distributed for free.

Snake oil "remedies" do *not* provide any protection, have unknown side effects and people pay highly inflated price out of their pocket.

Guess who's screwing you more.

@kravietz

Ivermectin has been used for decades on humans, much much longer than the experimental vaccines using a novel approach.

It's also no longer patented, so generics are available worldwide, as opposed to the vaccines.

In countries where Ivermectin is not prescription based, like India, you can get it for pennies.

@jcbrand

Penicillin is also generic and available for pennies (pun intended), but it doesn't help against COVID-19.

This is exactly the point where you are being screwed by the sellers - you are buying a drug that doesn't have confirmed effect on the disease you're clearly concerned about.

@kravietz

I've sent you a link of a meta-analysis of 63 studies showing possible benefits of using Ivermectin.

I'm not aware of any such studies for Penicillin.

@kravietz

Nobody is mandating that I take Ivermectin, Introducing ivermectin passports or blaming me for the pandemic if I don't take Ivermectin.

I think I know who's screwing me more, and it's not Ivermectin salespeople.

BTW, there are numerous studies on the effectiveness of Ivermectin.

https://ivmmeta.com/

@kravietz

I think you make a valid point that there are unscrupulous actors making large margins on Ivermectin sales and that these people therefore have a financial incentive to push a certain narrative.

Of course, the exact same logic can be applied to vaccine manufacturers, who make much more money on vaccine sales and have much more (advertising) money available to shape public discussion and policy making.

@kravietz

The emergency use authorisation under which vaccines have been made available without longer term safety studies, requires that there be no effective treatment for Covid19.

So you can see how it would be in the interests of big pharma to make sure there aren't any effective treatments available.

@jcbrand

> the exact same logic can be applied to vaccine manufacturers

It's absolutely not the same, not even comparable. Vaccine manufacturers take orders from health authorities, with solid scientific base, full quality *and* efficiency assessment, reporting of side effects and periodic re-assessment.

In case of ivermectin you've got random members of the public buying some pills from some websites because they've read some stories on Facebook, no different from "buy viagra online" spam.

@kravietz

The same health authorities who are 75% funded by vaccine manufacturers?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnlamattina/2018/06/28/the-biopharmaceutical-industry-provides-75-of-the-fdas-drug-review-budget-is-this-a-problem/

@jcbrand

Sorry but you're drastically misrepresenting the article. It's like saying "people pay for driving license exams so testing centres are funded by driver candidates so it's massive scam". It's not, they pay specifically for an independent and mandatory assessment of their drugs. Even your source says that explicitly:

@kravietz

There is a power imbalance between billion dollar corporations and their regulators that doesn't exist between people wanting to get drivers license and the testing centres.

@jcbrand

Your owns source says otherwise, but you still prefer to believe in "funded by vaccine manufacturers" conspiracy. There's some serious quasi-religious bias here.

@kravietz

I said was that 75% of funding for the FDA comes from Pharma companies, and I used the source to back that up, which it did.

Can you see a scenario where financial incentives shape certain processes, like for example regulation?

Regulatory capture is a well-known phenomenon.

Thanks for throwing the dog-whistle words "conspiracy" and "religious" in there.

My point is that things aren't so clear-cut and black-and-white as you seem to want to present them.

@jcbrand

> financial incentives shape certain processes

Sure, the economically sound course of action for the FDA assessment teams would be to escalate the levels scrutiny as that would directly translate to more money.

@kravietz

LOL

It would also mean that you'll never get a cushy job on the board of Pharma company.

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/452654-for-big-pharma-the-revolving-door-keeps-spinning

"Gottlieb recently resigned from his spot as the top federal drug regulator to take on a role at Pfizer—the top drug producer in the United States. The move came with a nice cash bonus as well, as stock options doubled the former commissioner’s income to upwards of $330,000. "

@jcbrand

Revolving door is a frequent phenomenon in all industries and while it looks bad from ethical point of view, it's legal. The company is clearly relying on his experience to make the process as efficient as possible, but again, they are doing it within the frames of the existing laws. Hiring Gottlieb doesn't replace the whole regulatory process, which is driven by an institution, not a single person.

@kravietz

Ok buddy, whatever you say.

@jcbrand

So even if you assume for the sake of argument that Astra Zeneca & friends are 100% corrupt and profit-driven, there's literally hundreds of health, science and policy professionals between you and them, and there's media. No real conspiracy would survive this for long.

In case of ivermectin you got exactly the opposite - 100% direct sales channel between some fishy traders and uneducated buyers, driven by a few health professionals going right against the scientific consensus.

@kravietz

The mainstream media is advertising-based, and they also know not to bite the hand that feeds them.

Guess who's a very large and influential advertiser of media companies?

They also share board members with pharma companies.

@kravietz

BTW, about "scientific consensus". It's often the heretics who push science forward in the face of a lot of resistance from the "consensus".

When Semmelweiss said that surgeons should wash their hands, he was smeared and ignored by the establishment.

@jcbrand

Semmelweiss was ignored in early 19th century when Marxism was considered "scientific". Scientific methods have changed significantly since then. The frauds who now mention Semmelweiss on their YouTube debates are usually the same people who 10 years ago supported Andrew Wakefield in his anti-MMR vaccine campaign, that later came out to be a scientific fraud driven by lawsuit companies money.

@kravietz

I read about Semmelweis in a book, not from a Youtube video.

@kravietz

"Science progresses one funeral at a time".

I'm sure you've heard that before?

@jcbrand

I've read all books by Jürgen Thorwald and Siddhartha Mukherjee long time ago so yes, I'm familiar with the history of the medicine.

Especially Mukherjee's book on cancer talks a lot about the toxicity of the early anti-cancer treatments and further progress.

What you are missing here is that all of these treatments, even ineffective or toxic, were still the best option for terminal patients, who chose them over certain death.

@jcbrand

Enter alt-med, who sells terminally ill patients overpriced snake oil that is *guaranteed* to have no therapeutical effect, often drawing them away from actual drugs that are toxic but give at least say 25% chances of survival.

In 2004 I was saddened by death of a legendary Polish singer Jacek Kaczmarski, who suffered from throat cancer. I was then shocked to learn he refused chemotherapy and instead spent 100'000 CHF in some phony "holistic threapy" clinic in Switzerland.

@jcbrand Funny because nobody was even mentioning Semmelweis for many years until the whole COVID-19 alt-med started recently.

@guenther

When I kept horses in 2000's I was using ivermectin periodically so I fully sympathize. Funny thing, I was using Bayer's pour-on ivermectin (a rather large bottle) which was not certified for use with horses (at least back then), but that was due to retention times in body (that did matter only for horses bred for meat).