3083 replies to this topic

[DanCG]

From what I can make out, the data in that tweet by Juan Chamie-Quintero about Uttar Pradesh seems to demonstrate that ivermectin is utterly useless for COVID! Le met explain:

 

 

 

But what the tweet fails to mention is that Maharashtra is also using ivermectin — see this article! The articles says: "Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra – are using the drug off-label for not only the treatment of coronavirus patients but also as prophylaxis against COVID-19".

 

 

It may be worth noting that the linked article was published on April 14, 2021. It describes the Uttar Pradesh program thusly, “Moreover, rapid response teams in the state have been ordered to distribute Ivermectin to people under home isolation. The teams of doctors who assess asymptomatic patients are even asking primary and secondary contacts of confirmed cases to take this drug in order to prevent any possible infection.”

 

This article, also describes the Uttar Pradesh program as “aggressive” and “population wide.” It also states that Maharashtra issued a state-wide protocol incorporating ivermectin for a course of treatment for COVID-19 patients in combination with home isolation and or hospital on April 8, 2021.

 

So while is true that Maharashtra uses ivermectin, it is not at all clear that its use is comparable to that of Uttar Pradesh in terms of how long it has been in effect and how it is being used or promoted. So, the original tweeter, Hip, and all the rest of us are on shaky ground trying to interpret the results depicted in the tweet. The characterization “not science” is accurate.

[Hip]

It may be worth noting that the linked article was published on April 14, 2021. It describes the Uttar Pradesh program thusly, “Moreover, rapid response teams in the state have been ordered to distribute Ivermectin to people under home isolation. The teams of doctors who assess asymptomatic patients are even asking primary and secondary contacts of confirmed cases to take this drug in order to prevent any possible infection.”

 

This article, also describes the Uttar Pradesh program as “aggressive” and “population wide.” It also states that Maharashtra issued a state-wide protocol incorporating ivermectin for a course of treatment for COVID-19 patients in combination with home isolation and or hospital on April 8, 2021.

 

So while is true that Maharashtra uses ivermectin, it is not at all clear that its use is comparable to that of Uttar Pradesh in terms of how long it has been in effect and how it is being used or promoted. So, the original tweeter, Hip, and all the rest of us are on shaky ground trying to interpret the results depicted in the tweet. The characterization “not science” is accurate.

 

Well, irrespective of the case of Maharashtra, why are there several other Indian states which seem to have even less deaths per capita than Uttar Pradesh?

 

If you look at that graph in the tweet, states like Bihar has less deaths per capita than Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar is not the only one doing better than Uttar Pradesh.

 

As far as we know, Bihar does not appear to be using ivermectin (this article says "Seven states in India are now (at the time of interview) using ivermectin in government protocols for covid treatment. They are: Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Assam, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala."). Or if Bihar has started using ivermectin, it will only have been recently. 

 

 

It really is a pity that India did not conduct a blinded clinical trial on ivermectin months ago. If there are any benefits, then we would have known months back. And then in turn, that information could have been used to save lives in other countries. 

 

We still have no reliable trials on ivermectin. 

 

 

 

I suspect one reason why nobody in the scientific community has taken much interest in ivermectin is a result of the way it was promoted, as an antiviral. That was a mistake, because it is not an antiviral in vivo.

 

While ivermectin is strongly antiviral in vitro, it is not antiviral in vivo, for reasons I explained before on this forum. In fact, a pharmacokinetic calculation I performed back in summer 2020 showed that ivermectin would not work in vivo. So I quickly dismissed ivermectin as a coronavirus antiviral. Since then, some published studies also calculated that ivermectin would not have antiviral effects in vivo, corroborating my calculation.

 

 

Indeed, any competent medical scientist looking at the in vitro data for ivermectin would be able to calculate that this drug is not going to be antiviral in vivo. So this is why I suspect the scientific community ignored it, because the antiviral claims were false. And that's the fault of the promoters of ivermectin, who erroneously promoted it as an antiviral.

 

However, as we know, ivermectin also has immunomodulator properties, which potentially might be useful for COVID. Had it been promoted on the basis of its immunomodulator properties, the scientific community might have listened a bit more. The promotors should have got their facts right. Even today, articles on ivermectin are still bandying about its in vitro antiviral effects, thus misleading readers.

 

But the Oxford UK trial of ivermectin should be completing soon, so we will have some answers.

 

 

 

Why is India using ivermectin without any solid evidence of efficacy? Well, it might just be down to politics: if leaders tell the populace that they are giving them a magic drug which protects them from COVID, then that makes leaders look good. India is a country which believes in magic.

Edited by Hip, 14 July 2021 - 01:56 AM.

[Dorian Grey]

"We still have no reliable trials on ivermectin"

 

That's the beauty of meta-analysis.  If you want perfection in any given trial, it's probably best to ask God to do the trial for you, as man is inherently prone to error.  Once you've got a few dozen imperfect trials, a meta-analysis can indicate efficacy if they all tend to agree & point to similar end points.  

 

Here ya go: https://ivmmeta.com/

 

Hours if interesting reading for you!  

[Advocatus Diaboli]

Re post #2908

 

Another way of looking at the data.

 

Suppose the total number of COVID-19 cases in India for the “last 30-day period” was 1,000,000 (made up for the purposes of example).

 

Uttar Pradesh (UP) had “less than 1% of the cases”. Let’s call it 1% for simplicity. So, 1% of 1,000,000 is 10,000 cases. Maharashtra (MA) had 18%, or 180,000 cases.

 

Suppose the case fatality rate for India as a whole is 1.5%. Then 1.5% of 1,000,000 cases gives 15,000 deaths. 

 

Of those 15,000 deaths UP had 375 (2.5%) deaths and MA had 7500 (50%)

 

Now, calculate the number of deaths per number of cases in each state

 

UP 375/10,000     = 0.0375     or,  375 deaths per ten thousand cases

MA 7500/180,000 = 0.0416     or, 416 deaths per ten thousand cases

 

So, for UP and MA the case fatality rates are 3.75% and 4.16% respectively--with my generous assumption of letting “less than 1%” be equal to 1% for the UP case rate. 

 

In UP, the cases of confirmed COVID-19 being “less than 1%” is nebulous statistic. However, setting it to 0.5% (a number “less than 1%”), for example, would double the UP value of 0.0375 to 0.075 or 750 per ten thousand cases for UP vs 416 for MA, which would be something that the twitter poster probably wouldn’t want to see, I suspect, so I’ll leave 1% as a best-case number in favor of his point.

 

MA had a lot more deaths, but they also had a lot more cases. Why they had more cases is the interesting question, and involves a great number of variables and confounds.

 

The deaths-per-cases numbers for UP and MA are comparable (with my generous assumption of letting “less than 1%” be equal to 1%) and hover at about a 10% difference.

 

 

Correction: I originally had an MA where it was supposed to be UP:

 

" So, for UP and MA the case fatality rates are 3.75% and 4.16% respectively--with my generous assumption of letting “less than 1%” be equal to 1% for the MA (corrected to "UP" in the main text) case rate. "

 

Edited by Advocatus Diaboli, 14 July 2021 - 03:13 AM.

[Gal220]

We still have no reliable trials on ivermectin. 

 

Does it matter? We authorized masks and remdesivir with less than perfect evidence. How much evidence do you need for emergency use?  If you had gotten covid last year, you wouldnt have tried it for literally a few dollars?

 

New peer review in American Journal of Therapeutics - LINK

[Hip]

Does it matter? We authorized masks and remdesivir with less than perfect evidence. How much evidence do you need for emergency use?  If you had gotten covid last year, you wouldnt have tried it for literally a few dollars?

 

New peer review in American Journal of Therapeutics - LINK

 

If an individual wants to buy some ivermectin or any other drug or supplement to use in their personal stack of possibly useful anti-coronavirus treatments, then great.  

 

I've seen hundreds of suggestions for different substances which might help coronavirus, so there's plenty to take your pick from. 

 

But that should not stop us investigating whether any drug or supplement actually helps COVID in clinical trials. 

 

 

 

Personally, if I were able to offer advice to governments on which drugs or supplements to research, I would get some research done on echinacea, which I believe will not only reduce your chances of catching coronavirus by a factor of around 2, but I suspect may also help prevent infected people from transmitting the virus.

 

But I don't think echinacea will help once you have COVID. And echinacea being a herb, I am not sure if the word's supply of echinacea would cover the nearly 8 billion people on Earth.

Edited by Hip, 14 July 2021 - 07:56 PM.

[Mind]

The entire country of Indonesia soon to be banned by Google and Facebook!!

 

Why? They approved Ivermectin for treatment of COVID. They have reviewed the dozens of positive studies and agree with most of the posters here - that there is no reason to NOT use it.

[Gal220]

I missed this in my last curcumin post, there was one study that used C3 curcumin + pepper - https://www.ncbi.nlm...les/PMC8193734/

 

It was just as effective as the nano particle studies, based on this, going to stick to LEF curcumin.

 

 

How early was it known EGCG was a good candidate?  MARCH 2020 ...

For this purpose, molecular docking of 7 proteins of SARS-CoV-2 was done with 18 active constituents that have previously been reported to be antiviral or anti-SARS-CoV agents...

 

 Our result revealed that among all, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), a major constituent of green tea, is the lead compound that could fit well into the binding sites of docked proteins of SARS-CoV-2. EGCG showed very strong molecular interactions with binding energies

 

Edited by Gal220, 15 July 2021 - 10:16 PM.

[Hip]

How early was it known EGCG was a good candidate?  MARCH 2020 ...

 

Actually, we have known since August last year that EGCG from green tea is not a good antiviral for coronavirus.

 

Have a look at this Aug 2020 paper on EGCG. This is a good paper, because unlike most studies, it actually takes the time to calculate whether the concentrations of EGCG used in vitro in the antiviral assay are actually obtainable in the body. And the paper clearly shows that they are not obtainable in vivo. Hence EGCG is not going to have any major antiviral effect in the body.

 

The relevant quote from the paper is here:

One major question is whether effective levels of either EGCG or theaflavin can be reached in the body. When we calculated the IC50 using the molar concentration of EGCG or theaflavin, the IC50 is equal to 16.5 μM for EGCG and 15.0μM for theaflavin.

 

However, the maximum blood concentration of EGCG is less than 1 μM and the maximum blood concentration of theaflavin is less than 0.1 μM [32–34]. The effect of EGCG or theaflavin, therefore, on coronavirus replication in the human body may be limited on their own

 

As you can see, the in vitro IC50 concentration of EGCG was 16.5 micro molar, whereas in the body, the maximum blood concentration of EGCG that can be achieved is 1 micro molar.

 

To get even a moderate antiviral effect, you really need to get blood levels about 5 times higher than the IC50. So you can see that EGCG blood concentrations are well below what is needed to have even a weak antiviral effect.  

 

 

I know most people here would not be able to do the mathematical pharmacokinetic calculations themselves to work out in vivo blood concentrations, so that's why a paper like this one which does the calculation for you is useful.

 

I would suggest that people here interested in finding antivirals for coronavirus learn how to do those mathematical pharmacokinetic calculations themselves, otherwise you are going to for ever be posting in vitro studies about antiviral effects of herbs or other substances, without being able to calculate whether those antiviral effects are actually obtainable in the body. So then you are just guessing, rather than knowing, whether the substance is going to work as an antiviral when it is taken orally.

 

 

Here is an introductory article to pharmacokinetics, to start you off. 

Edited by Hip, 16 July 2021 - 02:42 AM.

[Dorian Grey]

Actually, we have known since August last year that EGCG from green tea is not a good antiviral for coronavirus.

 

Have a look at this Aug 2020 paper on EGCG. This is a good paper, because unlike most studies, it actually takes the time to calculate whether the concentrations of EGCG used in vitro in the antiviral assay are actually obtainable in the body. And the paper clearly shows that they are not obtainable in vivo. Hence EGCG is not going to have any major antiviral effect in the body.

 

The relevant quote from the paper is here:

 

As you can see, the in vitro IC50 concentration of EGCG was 16.5 micro molar, whereas in the body, the maximum blood concentration of EGCG that can be achieved is 1 micro molar.

 

To get even a moderate antiviral effect, you really need to get blood levels about 5 times higher than the IC50. So you can see that EGCG blood concentrations are well below what is needed to have even a weak antiviral effect.  

 

 

I know most people here would not be able to do the mathematical pharmacokinetic calculations themselves to work out in vivo blood concentrations, so that's why a paper like this one which does the calculation for you is useful.

 

I would suggest that people here interested in finding antivirals for coronavirus learn how to do those mathematical pharmacokinetic calculations themselves, otherwise you are going to for ever be posting in vitro studies about antiviral effects of herbs or other substances, without being able to calculate whether those antiviral effects are actually obtainable in the body. So then you are just guessing, rather than knowing, whether the substance is going to work as an antiviral when it is taken orally.

 

 

Here is an introductory article to pharmacokinetics, to start you off. 

 

Ivermectin seemed to have a similar issue regarding in vitro concentrations being higher than achievable in vivo.  Forgot which doc I heard talking about this, but apparently IVM tends to concentrate in tissues at different levels, & it's not the serum concentration that matters.  Why do I recall IVM concentrating at 3 times serum levels in pulmonary tissue?  Sorry...  No links for you!  

 

EGCG may have a similar elusive benefit as a zinc ionophore.  Antiviral serum levels may be a non-issue.  Dr Zelenko prescribes green tea/EGCG and zinc for his patients who can not get HCQ.  Several COVID comorbidities are treated with medications (ACEi, ARB's diuretics) known to deplete zinc.  When these patients get sick, supplemental zinc + EGCG ionophore may be just what the doctor ordered.  The fact that EGCG alone might not reach effective concentrations as a stand alone antiviral is rendered moot, if it is the ionophore property that works the magic.  

 

No worries tho mate...  I won't try & force these on you.  Feel free to isolate at home & call 911 when you start turning blue.  They'll give you some yummy remdesivir while you're on a vent.  Like stand alone HCQ or EGCG, this may not do anything without adding zinc, but at least you'll be comforted in knowing you are playing by the rules of Mr Science (Fauci).  

Edited by Dorian Grey, 16 July 2021 - 05:36 AM.

[Gal220]

Actually, we have known since August last year that EGCG from green tea is not a good antiviral for coronavirus

 

This country analysis could be flawed, but it aligns with the binding tests mentioned above. - LINK

 

You can look at the table plots and see if you find it convincing.

 

Unfortunately, this is likely to be all the testing we see on this extract.

[Hip]

No worries tho mate...  I won't try & force these on you.  Feel free to isolate at home & call 911 when you start turning blue. 

 

Nobody is more interested in finding useful antivirals from supplements, herbs or off-label drugs than me. I've spent the last 15 years searching for such antivirals. That's why I know a little bit about it, and know a bit about the pitfalls. 

 

I developed chronic fatigue syndrome after being hit with a virus 15 years ago, and my blood tests indicate ongoing infection with this virus in my body tissues, but unfortunately there are no effective antiviral drugs currently available for my virus (Coxsackie B4 virus). That is why I was keen to find off-label substances which might have an antiviral effect. But after having studied hundreds of supplements and drugs in detail, I know from experience that it is very hard to find such off-label antivirals; many look good in vitro, but sadly they do not pan out in vivo.

 

I am housebound and unable to work because of chronic fatigue syndrome. An antiviral drug for Coxsackie B4 virus may well give me my life back. You cannot get stronger motivation than that to find an antiviral. I've tried dozens and dozens of supplements which I hoped would be antiviral, but to no avail.   

 

It's no good shooting the messenger, just because the messenger is pointing out that certain substances will likely not work in vivo. 

 

 

 

Ivermectin seemed to have a similar issue regarding in vitro concentrations being higher than achievable in vivo.  Forgot which doc I heard talking about this, but apparently IVM tends to concentrate in tissues at different levels, & it's not the serum concentration that matters.  Why do I recall IVM concentrating at 3 times serum levels in pulmonary tissue?  Sorry...  No links for you!

 
That's right, ivermectin can concentrate in the lung tissues at levels which are three times higher than its blood levels (study ref here).
 
This is why pharmacokinetics can be complicated, as sometimes you can just go by blood levels of the substance, but other times you need to search for studies which give details of a substance's concentration in specific organs.
 
Unfortunately, the blood concentration of ivermectin is still an enormous 1000 times too low to reach the concentrations used in the in vitro studies. Ivermectin does not just miss the mark by a bit, but misses the mark by miles; it's blood levels are 1000 times too low to for our antiviral purposes. So it cannot have direct antiviral effects. Even if you take into account the increased concentration in the lungs, it will still be 330 times too low to achieve an antiviral effect.

 
However, we can keep our fingers crossed that the anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects of ivermectin will have some benefit for COVID. These are mechanisms which are distinct from its antiviral mechanism.
 
 
 

EGCG may have a similar elusive benefit as a zinc ionophore.  Antiviral serum levels may be a non-issue.  Dr Zelenko prescribes green tea/EGCG and zinc for his patients who can not get HCQ.  Several COVID comorbidities are treated with medications (ACEi, ARB's diuretics) known to deplete zinc.  When these patients get sick, supplemental zinc + EGCG ionophore may be just what the doctor ordered.  The fact that EGCG alone might not reach effective concentrations as a stand alone antiviral is rendered moot, if it is the ionophore property that works the magic.  

EGCG is indeed a good zinc ionophore (a substance which binds to the zinc ion and draws it into the cell). Hydroxychloroquine is also a good zinc ionophore. 

 

It would be interesting to see some in vitro antiviral studies on either EGCG or hydroxychloroquine with added zinc.

 

 

NOTE: you are supplementing with high dose EGCG long-term, you may be interested that EGCG is anti-folate (it prevents the vitamin folic acid being converted into its active form). I am not sure how significant this is, but this anti-folate mechanism can be overcome by taking folinic acid supplements (not the same a folic acid).
 
 
 

Edited by Hip, 16 July 2021 - 02:50 PM.

[Hip]

This country analysis could be flawed, but it aligns with the binding tests mentioned above. - LINK

 

You can look at the table plots and see if you find it convincing.

 

Unfortunately, this is likely to be all the testing we see on this extract.

 

It's not that country analysis that I was looking at (that country analysis study is interesting, but I have not had the time to look at it — but I will soon).

 

 

In the Aug 2020 paper, you see that the EGCG's concentration in the blood is quite a bit below the in vitro IC50 concentration, which means it will have negligible antiviral effects in the body.

 

The IC50 was determined in the in vitro study to be 16.5 μM, but the blood level is only 1 μM. 

 

 

 

In in vitro antiviral tests, the IC50 or EC50 concentration of a substance represents the concentration which reduces viral replication by 50%. In the blood, you need to achieve at least the EC50 concentration if you are going to get a reasonable antiviral effect in the body.

 

If you take typical commercial antiviral drugs like say acyclovir for herpesviruses, when you take these drugs orally, when they reach the blood, they typically exceed the EC50 level by something like 10 to 40 times higher. 

 

That is what we are aiming for, a coronavirus antiviral substance which in the blood can exceed its in vitro EC50 concentration. 

 

 

 

 

Of course, EGCG could have some immunomodulatory effects which are beneficial for COVID. In vitro studies cannot measure such immunomodulatory effects, only the direct antiviral effects. EGCG for example is anti-inflammatory. You can only test these immunomodulatory effects in human or animal studies.

Edited by Hip, 16 July 2021 - 02:48 PM.

[bhangchai]

 

Re post #2908

 

Another way of looking at the data.

 

Suppose the total number of COVID-19 cases in India for the “last 30-day period” was 1,000,000 (made up for the purposes of example).

 

Uttar Pradesh (UP) had “less than 1% of the cases”. Let’s call it 1% for simplicity. So, 1% of 1,000,000 is 10,000 cases. Maharashtra (MA) had 18%, or 180,000 cases.

 

Suppose the case fatality rate for India as a whole is 1.5%. Then 1.5% of 1,000,000 cases gives 15,000 deaths. 

 

Of those 15,000 deaths UP had 375 (2.5%) deaths and MA had 7500 (50%)

 

Now, calculate the number of deaths per number of cases in each state

 

UP 375/10,000     = 0.0375     or,  375 deaths per ten thousand cases

MA 7500/180,000 = 0.0416     or, 416 deaths per ten thousand cases

 

So, for UP and MA the case fatality rates are 3.75% and 4.16% respectively--with my generous assumption of letting “less than 1%” be equal to 1% for the UP case rate. 

 

In UP, the cases of confirmed COVID-19 being “less than 1%” is nebulous statistic. However, setting it to 0.5% (a number “less than 1%”), for example, would double the UP value of 0.0375 to 0.075 or 750 per ten thousand cases for UP vs 416 for MA, which would be something that the twitter poster probably wouldn’t want to see, I suspect, so I’ll leave 1% as a best-case number in favor of his point.

 

MA had a lot more deaths, but they also had a lot more cases. Why they had more cases is the interesting question, and involves a great number of variables and confounds.

 

The deaths-per-cases numbers for UP and MA are comparable (with my generous assumption of letting “less than 1%” be equal to 1%) and hover at about a 10% difference.

 

 

Correction: I originally had an MA where it was supposed to be UP:

 

" So, for UP and MA the case fatality rates are 3.75% and 4.16% respectively--with my generous assumption of letting “less than 1%” be equal to 1% for the MA (corrected to "UP" in the main text) case rate. "

 

 

Your analysis is interesting but I think you fail to take some things into account.  While the case fatality rate may be similar, how do you explain the much lower case rate in UP compared to MH?  UP is a particular dirty and population dense state.  It has more than twice the population density as MH.  It also has almost twice the population.  Maybe something they are doing is preventing covid transmission?  Aggressive use of ivermectin?...

 

State Population Area Population Density Uttar Pradesh 199,812,341 240,928 km2 828/km2 Maharashta 112,372,972 307,713 km2 365/km2

[bhangchai]

 

Your analysis is interesting but I think you fail to take some things into account.  While the case fatality rate may be similar, how do you explain the much lower case rate in UP compared to MH?  UP is a particular dirty and population dense state.  It has more than twice the population density as MH.  It also has almost twice the population.  Maybe something they are doing is preventing covid transmission?  Aggressive use of ivermectin?...

 

State Population Area Population Density Uttar Pradesh 199,812,341 240,928 km2 828/km2 Maharashta 112,372,972 307,713 km2 365/km2

 

 

State Population Area Population Density

Uttar Pradesh 199,812,341 240,928 km2 828/km2

Maharashta 112,372,972 307,713 km2 365/km2

[Advocatus Diaboli]

bhangchai writes in post #2924:

 

"Your analysis is interesting but I think you fail to take some things into account.  While the case fatality rate may be similar, how do you explain the much lower case rate in UP compared to MH?"

 

Yes, as I noted in my post: "Why they had more cases is the interesting question, and involves a great number of variables and confounds." (I added bold emphasis to the original text). There wasn't enough information for me to even begin to speculate as to the cause of the lower case rates for UP.

 

As you suggest, "Aggressive use of ivermectin?..." would be a reasonable factor to consider in an analysis. I'd also like to see age distributions and morbidity data. Population density could be a factor, but digging deeper than just a population density number, I'd like to know things about mobility data--does the population in one state travel around more than those in the other state. I could go on and on.

[Qowpel]

Ivermectin seemed to have a similar issue regarding in vitro concentrations being higher than achievable in vivo.  Forgot which doc I heard talking about this, but apparently IVM tends to concentrate in tissues at different levels, & it's not the serum concentration that matters.  Why do I recall IVM concentrating at 3 times serum levels in pulmonary tissue?  Sorry...  No links for you!  

 

EGCG may have a similar elusive benefit as a zinc ionophore.  Antiviral serum levels may be a non-issue.  Dr Zelenko prescribes green tea/EGCG and zinc for his patients who can not get HCQ.  Several COVID comorbidities are treated with medications (ACEi, ARB's diuretics) known to deplete zinc.  When these patients get sick, supplemental zinc + EGCG ionophore may be just what the doctor ordered.  The fact that EGCG alone might not reach effective concentrations as a stand alone antiviral is rendered moot, if it is the ionophore property that works the magic.  

 

No worries tho mate...  I won't try & force these on you.  Feel free to isolate at home & call 911 when you start turning blue.  They'll give you some yummy remdesivir while you're on a vent.  Like stand alone HCQ or EGCG, this may not do anything without adding zinc, but at least you'll be comforted in knowing you are playing by the rules of Mr Science (Fauci).  

 

Sure does accumulate in tissues. Especially fat, am I right Dorian :D?

 

It accumualates in fat friends, and the liver. Plasma half life is quick, but it stays in tissues for months

[pamojja]

Population density could be a factor, but digging deeper than just a population density number, I'd like to know things about mobility data--does the population in one state travel around more than those in the other state. I could go on and on.

Where there is a higher population by hundreds of millions, there are also more travels by millions.

If one look at the Indian Railway network map, one can see there are substancially more connections in Uttar Pradesh compared to Mahahastra: https://upload.wikim...-_Schematic.svg

Also being basically in the center of the most populated Ganges-plains, connecting its south-east with its north-west (ie. Kolkatta with New Delhi). While through Mumbay only trains to the much lesser populated south-west would pass (or simply end or start there).

[Advocatus Diaboli]

"Where there is a higher population by hundreds of millions, there are also more travels by millions."

 

Sounds like a reasonable claim, pamojja. Do you have a citation?

 

 

 

 

[Hip]

Sure does accumulate in tissues. Especially fat, am I right Dorian :D?

 

It accumualates in fat friends, and the liver. Plasma half life is quick, but it stays in tissues for months

 

Ivermectin does appear to accumulate in fat. I found this study which gave hens oral ivermectin for 5 days, and then measured the ivermectin concentration in different organs, including the liver, and the fat which exists under the skin.

 

The levels accumulated in the liver were the highest, and these levels were 3 times higher than the plasma levels.

 

But that 3-fold increase is not going to make up for the fact that plasma levels of ivermectin are around 1000 times too low to be effective. 

 

 

So unless you can find some other mechanism of increased concentration in certain organs (enough to make it 1000 times more concentrated), we can rule out any direct antiviral effect from ivermectin.

 

It may still have an indirect effect against viruses via its effects on the immune system, but that is another story.

 

 

I am surprised that in the new June 2021 ivermectin review that was posted above, the authors are still referring to its in vitro antiviral effects, when it is clear these will not manifest in vivo.

 

One of the authors is from the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), the organization behind the promotion of ivermectin.

 

It's possible that ivermectin's effect on the immune system will turn out to be useful in COVID. So it's kind of misleading for these authors to keep focusing on the non-existent antiviral effects, when these researchers should be looking at its immunomodulatory effects.

Edited by Hip, 17 July 2021 - 01:22 AM.

[pamojja]

Sounds like a reasonable claim, pamojja. Do you have a citation?

My own extensive experience travelling most regions of the Indian subcontinent for about 7-8 years is source enough for me. But you sure would find for example railway statistics which would certainly confirm it.

[Gal220]

Nothing but respect for Trialsitenews.com for continuing to publish articles on alternative treatment like Ivermectin and Curcumin

 

If we had more of this open discussion/honesty from our health agencies, no telling how many lives would have been saved.

[Advocatus Diaboli]

.

 

Certain quotes are from posts #2928 and #2931.

 

pamojja’s claim: 

 

“Where there is a higher population by hundreds of millions, there are also more travels by millions.” pamojja goes on to focus on rail travel.

 

pamojja’s response to a request for a citation source regarding his above claim, and the evidence he presents which demonstrates that his claim is correct, is as follows:

 

"My own extensive experience travelling most regions of the Indian subcontinent for about 7-8 years is source enough for me."

 

A relevant observation regarding the above:

 

“Anecdotal evidence is a term referring to evidence that is collected in a non-scientific manner and supported by isolated, specific instances of an event. It relies on personal testimonies rather than on scientific evidence, and, consequently, is considered as the weakest type of evidence."

 

pamojja, the anecdotal "evidence" that you present as substantiating your claim is not really a good substitute for presenting citable fact.

 

“If one look at the Indian Railway network map, one can see there are substancially more connections in Uttar Pradesh compared to Mahahastra:  https://upload.wikim...-_Schematic.svg ”

 

Unfortunately, that map doesn’t differentiate between primarily-freight networks and primarily-passenger networks. So, it may not be portraying what you might think that it's portraying with respect to assumed rail travel by the populations of each state.

 

An interesting adage: “Do as I say, and not as I do”.

 

Let me ask. Does the “you” in "But you sure would find for example railway statistics which would certainly confirm it." also apply to you, pamojja, you know, the person who is actually making the claim concerning population and travel? Will you make the effort to find the confirming statistics, and then present them in a post where readers will see that you have followed your own advice to: “find for example railroad statistics which would certainly confirm it.” where the “confirm it” in the quote refers to your own claim? Also, keep in mind that your original claim appears to be one of global extent (all forms of passenger travel) which you then delimit into a specific case involving the “Indian Railway” network.

 

It would seem that you have convinced yourself of the correctness of your claim: ”...is source enough for me.”, via anecdotal edict. However, if you want to convince other people that your claim is correct, then you need to provide the supporting evidence.

 

I think it would have been easier for you just to have said that you don't have a reference to cite which supports your claim, pamojja. If you had written your claim as a speculation, or, as an opinion, for example, I wouldn't have asked for a citation. Opinion is opinion, and speculation is speculation. However, what you wrote appears to be a claim of fact, and hence my request. You apparently want the readers of your claim to validate the veracity of your claim for you. 

 

For all I know, geography, topography, religion, wealth, climate, location of arable land, location of industrial areas, as well as political considerations, among others, may exert influence on railway location which may then, in turn, ramify into effects on travel, in addition to the population factor. Time of year might affect frequency of travel, as well, and frequency might affect SARS-CoV2 infection rates.

 

I suspect that occurrence of travel might not be as simple as: more population, thus more travel. It would seem reasonable to assume that railway density may mirror population density because large, highly populated areas probably require greater quantities of goods such as food and other consumables to be shipped in by freight rail as well as by other modes of transportation. And, in industrial areas, freight rail density may be great in order to insure that there is adequate capacity to get raw material in and finished goods out in a timely manner. But, directly relating population to travel while not mentioning other factors, and in a singular causal manner, would require proof of claim, in my opinion.

 

I have extensive experience in recognizing anomalous-asseveration claims. My experience was gained by having once traveled, mentally, through most regions of the Voynich manuscript while riding my unicycle on the right rail, which I call "Dexter", of a broad-gauge railway track whilst being high on LSD (no mean feat, considering that “the right rail” might seem to be an ambiguous descriptor). My personal source-assessment of your claim will remain in the anomalous-asseveration-claims category until such a time that verifiable evidence in favor of your claim is made known to me.

 

And now, to sneak in what might be a nascent presage to what could transition into an example of Godwin’s law, I offer the following non sequitur:

 

 An Austrian-born German politician once said, (in translation to English): “Belief is harder to shake than knowledge.".

 

We, or at least I, know what you believe: “Where there is a higher population by hundreds of millions, there are also more travels by millions.”.

 

Now, I suggest that you take a sip of water from the Pierian spring, and thence turn your personal belief into knowledge by providing a citation which affirms your claim.

 

 

Your friend, Advocatus Diaboli 

[pamojja]

It would seem that you have convinced yourself of the correctness of your claim: ”...is source enough for me.”, via anecdotal edict. However, if you want to convince other people that your claim is correct, then you need to provide the supporting evidence.

Here you misunderstood me and are a bid wasting your time with understandings I already knew but consider irrelevant here. I think I made it clear enough I just wanted to add my personal observations and experiences, since those with the Indian railway network throughout 7 years are so much more extensive than of my own small country Austria, where I lived my life. That is what I shared.

Impossible to remember the countless times passing through Lucknow's Junction Railway station, while Mumbay's exactly 4 times, and Vienna's twice.

I've got not the slightest intent to convince anyone. So please take a bid care to differetiate from the context In posts whats its intent. And not go off topic wasting your time where there isn't this explicitly stated intent.

Of course, your intent to which I answered was to get a reference for that observations. But on a public forum one speaks and answers not only to one person, but the public without neccesarily this intent.

The time you're wasted with your unneccesary exposition could have been more better used by searching the statistics, and fulfill your own supposed need for evidence.

Which again wasn't my intent. However, then obviously yours neither, but to write expositions unrelated to the intent and flow of posts of others.

Edited by pamojja, 18 July 2021 - 10:42 AM.

[Advocatus Diaboli]

Sorry for the malentendu, pamojja, I was interested in facts, not diary entries.

[Gal220]

So the curcumin data raises the question, who on the internet is keeping up and helping disseminate information about covid-19 treatments ?  This thread might be the best source of info..

Anyone else know of threads/resources worth checking out?  Unfortunately I didnt find this thread in my searches on various search engines.

 

https://twitter.com/...783766564085765  -  lots of good info by this user. Twitter is hard to search, didnt find anyone else.

 

https://www.reddit.c...juvant_therapy/ - some discussion at least, there is probably a reddit group for this, just not finding it.

 

https://www.news-med...dition/Curcumin - multiple articles

 

https://trialsitenew...eting-covid-19/

https://onlinelibrar....1002/fsn3.2226

https://www.docwiren...ary-of-a-study/

https://wholefoodsma...id-19-patients/

https://thenadexperi...against-covid19

https://www.nutraver...ntrolled-trial/

Edited by Gal220, 18 July 2021 - 09:56 PM.

[Hip]

So the curcumin data raises the question, who on the internet is keeping up and helping disseminate information about covid-19 treatments  

 

In the curcumin COVID study you cited https://onlinelibrar....1002/fsn3.2226    it  says curcumin reduced the duration of the COVID illness.

 

Table 3 of the paper suggests curcumin reduces the duration of various COVID symptoms by about 1 day (over an symptom duration of 3 to 8 days, depending on the symptom).

 

I assume that is what table 3 indicates, since the authors forgot to label what the figures in table 3 mean. My assumption is the figures refer to duration in days of the various COVID symptoms.

Edited by Hip, 19 July 2021 - 12:26 AM.

[Advocatus Diaboli]

.

 

Re: post # 2937

 

Hip writes:

 

"I assume that is what table 3 indicates, since the authors forgot to label what the figures in table 3 mean. My assumption is the figures refer to duration in days of the various COVID symptoms."

 

At the upper left of the table is written:

 

"Symptom resolution time (day)".

 

Which I take to mean, for example, that fever resolved at day 2.86 ± 1.65 for Nanocurcumin, and at day 3.6 ± 3.3 for placebo

 

So, day, "(day)", of resolution is what the authors are saying as measured from day of onset, which is equal to your "duration in days". Two ways of saying the same thing.

 

 

Edited by Advocatus Diaboli, 19 July 2021 - 06:41 AM.

[Hip]

Hip writes:

 

"I assume that is what table 3 indicates, since the authors forgot to label what the figures in table 3 mean. My assumption is the figures refer to duration in days of the various COVID symptoms."

 

At the upper left of the table is written:

 

"Symptom resolution time (day)".

 

Thanks for spotting this.

 

I've got a pop-out visual search malfunction in my brain, so find it hard to spot things when I am looking for them. Pop-out visual search is where the brain processes the data in your visual field, and then finds and presents to you the object (or in this case words) that you are looking for. So looking for words within text become difficult.

[smithx]

I thought this would have been posted previously but didn't notice it. The most convincing ivermectin study was withdrawn and was probably faked:

 

https://www.theguard...thical-concerns