101 Comments

Alex Berenson are you reading, or still stuck in some imagined grudge against Dr. Robert Malone?

Expand full comment

Exactly! Alex has staked this study as his hill to die on. He said this is the final word on it so there. He didn't read the study, he just jumped on the conclusion without any analysis. Does he have any idea how stupid he looks? This trashes his credibility on everything else he writes, too! Really big vanity problem. Pathetic.

Expand full comment

I subscribe to his substack, have been keeping an eye on his lawsuit against Twitter. When he went after Malone, couldn’t help but wonder if he wants to prove he’s still a leftist extremist & get his NYT job back. That he ignored peer reviewed articles on IVM, doctors who actually have treated & cured people using this drug in combo with a protocol, tells a great deal about his witless understanding of studies & revealed, instead, his narcissism. He’s outclassed.

Expand full comment

I stayed on so it would be possible to reveal his two faces.

Expand full comment

I will get off when my subscription runs out in June.

Expand full comment

Same

Expand full comment

Mine doesn’t run out until December, so I’ve got a long time to be irritated, but then it’s over.

Expand full comment

Just wait when he delves into Jan. 6; you may cut your losses then.

Expand full comment

oh no...

Expand full comment

Yes, that narcissism/smug superiority/insecurity performance thing! It's more than a streak but not so much He is accomplished, so WTH? I read every one of his novels. I hope his lawsuit goes well. I don't know what happened with Palin's suit; I'm concerned people have become too tolerant of outrageous damaging defamation and false light attacks.

Expand full comment

#DivaAB is not in my inbox any longer. But I just find it so ironic: He isn’t a scientist, medical professional or virologist, or anything of the sort, is he? He’s a journalist. A reporter. Let’s keep him in perspective. As a reporter with a journalism degree myself (and a Master of Science in Human Development as well—which only gives me a little training 8n how to read studies, but not that much)—I wonder where #DivaAB gets his chutzpah. 😉

Expand full comment

I unsubscribed, too. Great degree combo! Yeah, AB's irrationality is - yeah. If it was about something else, non-covid, it could be regarded as an eccentricity instead! Heck, all an interviewer or opposing viewpoint panelist has to do to derail Alex during a serious discussion is bring up HCQ/IVM and he will decompensate.

Expand full comment

I unsubscribed too. I don't hang around when being disrespected by a sub stacker I'm subscribing to. I might tolerate it if there was different or especially insightful information there, but I don't find that's the case with alex. I'm confident I'm not going to miss anything that other substackers aren't covering. I wish him well though, and wonder why he's having these types of outbursts against Malone and his readers, why he's hell-bent on misrepresenting Ivermectin.

Expand full comment

Me too. Sick of being preached at. His leftist credentials were increasingly on show.

Expand full comment

A journalist should report fully, accurately, and without bias. AB isn't a journalist. He walks and quacks like a pundit or editorials. He did make one important point amid his snark tho--Furious HD doesn't cause myocarditis (or any of the other parade of horribles the vexxes deliver). So, why, indeed, can't we decide for ourselves if we want to try it or not, just like low dose aspirin or VitC supplements? Furious HD isn't dangerous to responsible adults who take ownership their health, but all of that's highly threatening to Pig Pfarma and their captured cadres.

Expand full comment

Do you think after this both feet in his mouth attempt to “gotcha” Dr. Malone that AB is credible?

Expand full comment

What AB brings to light has been worth further review, his commentary, not so much. Love it when he goes after Bourla or FraudXi, tho. I know he's a NY Slimes hack at heart, so take it for what it's worth with many large grains of salt. Neither Malone nor UJ need ABs validation. That's f'sure!

Expand full comment

I am adopting that - Pig Pfarma - perfect! thank you!

Expand full comment

The related aphorism about greed/gluttony is: Pigs get fat. Hogs get slaughtered. CDC and Pig Pfarma are in full hog mode.

Expand full comment

Somebody has been paying a lot of attention to Berenson's claims... To be aware... https://swprs.org/unreported-truths/

Expand full comment

Excellent site! Their review of the JAMA designed to fail IVM study is excellent.

Expand full comment

It's pretty good, even though there are claims regarding i v m efficacy, vaccine efficacy and cvid propagation that contradict what it's expressed in theses circles. Wish more people could read these articles and try to solve all those conflicts...

Expand full comment

I ❤️Jessica Rose. 🇨🇦

Thank you for ALL that you are doing and for the laughs! (furious HD).

You are a treasure. And a leader.

Respect🙏🏻

Expand full comment

Furious HD forever!!!!

Expand full comment

Amen to that! Breath of fresh air. #WarriorWoman 👍

Expand full comment

Great comments at 7:44:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgYNGrp_R38#t=7h44m30s from one of the live streams in Ottawa today. ❤️❤️❤️ 🇨🇦 🇨🇦 🇨🇦

Expand full comment

Thank you for being real and working hard to understand the numbers. We appreciate you!!!

Expand full comment

i hope i got it right. it took me all day.

Expand full comment

A fatal flaw exists in depending upon a single study to set clinical guidelines, especially when an ongoing heath crisis exists. Studies are designed using set protocols, while great clinicians learn to customize treatment for each individual patient. For example, Dr. Paul Marik who treats thousands of very complicated and sick patients in his ICU, discovered that his Delta patients carried a higher viral load than his original Wuhan alpha strain patients. (This study was performed when Delta was predominate.) Therefore from his experience with his very sick suffering real patients, he empirically increased the dose of ivermectin from 0.4 mg/kg (used in this study) to 0.6 mg/kg. He also realized that not every patient will respond adequately to a five day course (used exclusively in this study). If your patient is not improving, you administer the medication in whatever dose and for as many days as it takes for this patient to improve his O2 saturations. In real life, he also used multiple other treatment modalities for each unique patient. Another way of saying it is that a one-size-fits-all protocol may make sense in a digital AI theoretical medical universe, but will never achieve successful results like an intelligent, observant, caring, and experienced human physician.

Expand full comment

EXCELLENT Analysis by a True scientist. I also hope you would comment on a point raised by some that this study did NOT use Ivermectin WITH Zinc but used Ivermectin by ITSELF only. Thanks.

Expand full comment

right!

Expand full comment

I think the main problem is due to "open label bias"...

We start to smell a rat because the trial does not show the consistency you would expect (i.e., the same trend in all categories): so-called "disease progression" is up 20% in the IVM group, but Mechanical Ventilation is down 60%, ICU admission is down 30% and 28day mortality is down 70%. According to those secondary figures, significant or not, you would be dumb to refuse IVM.

But how did the "disease progression" figures come to be so out-of-proportion with the rest? Precisely because the study was "open label", which means that both the nurses/doctors and the patients knew who was taking the IVM and who who was not. I suggest that the nurses (and patients) would have been more anxious about "disease progression" among those receiving the IVM treatment - the faulty inference would be: they must be taking treatment because they are worse. As a result, the nurses and patients would have been more prompt to report symptoms that would allow them to receive earlier oxygen therapy, which would then be classified as "disease progression". The same bias did not play out in the secondary markers, because these treated patients were actually in a better condition than the untreated group.

The conclusion is not supported at all by the biased data. They should have had both groups taking tablets that looked the same (one group IVM and the other group placebo), and they should not have allowed the nurses or patients to know who was on IVM treatment and who was not. Results are spoiled by very poor study design!

Expand full comment

this is beautiful...

Expand full comment

Very true. I was bothered by the study definition of pulse oximetry oxygen saturation of 95% or higher = "severe disease progression."

Expand full comment

Open Label!! Why on earth would they fail to blind? Did I say something about deliberate sabotage?

Expand full comment

I wonder what the thinking was from the 6 people who withdrew consent before taking the 1st dose. Was it the treatment will kill me or they want the study to fail and the researchers will kill me.

Expand full comment

My husband and I just got over Omicron. Have been on the D3, Zinc et all protocol for two years. When we got C, we took Ivermectin, prednisone, and antibiotic. Symptoms lasted three days each. We are both in our mid 70’s. Got the meds through a doc on line. Would do it again

Expand full comment

I hate to say this, but maybe A.B. is not completely wrong here. At the flccc website, there are lots of videos and anecdotes about people who got Ivermectin and experienced almost instantaneous, miraculous recoveries. But what this study is showing, is that most patients (395 of 490 in this case) recover without progressing to severe status, with or without Ivermectin. So maybe the anecdotes about sudden recoveries are just coincidental?

If indeed Ivermectin is effective, it makes sense to me that it would take more than a few days to work. But that's not consistent with the flccc narrative.

In real world clinical practice, most patients wouldn't be taking Ivermectin alone. They'd also be getting vitamin D, and zinc, and probably quercetin and antiseptic mouth wash. Maybe that's a trial that someone should run.

Expand full comment

in spite of that potentiality, i think the most important point here is that it is up to the 'patient' and the physician to make the choice to treat or not. not some ass-wipe politician with no professional training in medical anything. what the hell do so many of them care if people choose to take a pill with a decades-long safety profile and nobel prize anyway? jesus, it's not hurting anyone. it's nobody's bloody business - only the doc and patient. right? thanks for the comment though.

Expand full comment

I am 100% in favor of medical freedom! Unfortunately, in the wake of this pandemic debacle, I no longer even have a local physician. As far as I know, 100% of the docs in this town are recommending the vaxx. I feel judgmental about that: they should know better. I feel incredibly lucky that I don't have any medical conditions. If I needed help, I don't know where I would go.

Given all the accumulated evidence, I'm not advocating jumping to any conclusions from this one study from Malaysia. All I'm saying is that the primary study outcome really is disappointing, considering the "IVM fanatic" narrative. And we also have to consider the possibility that this study was sabotaged in some way that isn't obvious from the writeup.

In March 2020, my wife was sick with a nasty cold, and lost her sense of taste & smell. Was it covid-19? At that time, it was impossible for ordinary people to get tested. But early reports from China and France said that chloroquine was a good idea. Our concierge doctor refused to prescribe. The doctor patient relationship only went downhill from there.

My wife fortunately recovered. And she eventually tested negative for serum antibodies. Was it covid or just a bad cold? Or is Mathew Crawford right with his suspicion that Omicron has been circulating since then? Beats me.

But when studies on IVM prophylaxis started coming out, I went to the feed store and got some apple flavored horse paste. I've been using it intermittently, surfing the waves of each successive variant. Haven't caught covid yet, knock on wood, maybe it works. I don't need any doctor to give me permission to do this.

And after a couple of abortive attempts to connect with online telemedical services, I eventually joined Dr. Sayed Haider's practice. I got some prescriptions for my early treatment stockpile, including fluvoxamine that I couldn't score any other way. But it's not exactly a "doctor patient relationship".

Expand full comment

the world is insane right now...

Expand full comment

1000 percent yes!

Expand full comment

Yes!! or some ass-wipe former NYT reporter.

Expand full comment

Question/comment We know that people can get long COVID from a mild infection. So, if one was to use ivermectin even if they didn’t need it to recover from the mild infection, is it possible that by using Ivermectin, they were spared LC?

Expand full comment

Then the author should have focused on the fact that most people don’t progress in needing anything. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Expand full comment

I have discounted the miracle reported recoveries when thinking about ivermectin. I believe early treatment with ivermectin and the additional vitamins, minerals, etc. you list will keep me out of the hospital. I also agree that Alex is not entirely wrong. This study is about hospitalized patients , and this study shows ivermectin alone makes little difference in patient outcomes, and may even result in worse outcomes. But the kicker - except for deaths. So Alex is not entirely right, either.

Expand full comment
Comment deleted
Feb 20, 2022
Comment deleted
Expand full comment

But as John Ben-Daniel pointed out above, this is not a placebo-controlled double-blind study! Patients, nurses and doctors knew who was getting Ivermectin, and the primary marker "disease progression" is somewhat subjective.

After all this discussion, I'd have to revise my OP in this thread. AB may not have been entirely wrong in summarizing the findings of the study, which were disappointing. But the study itself, was entirely wrong!!

Expand full comment

Lat year I gave a friend my "Furious HD" protocol travel kit (I was headed home that day) that included 100mg doxycycline and zinc. She texted me in early December stating she tested positive for covid and had a 103 degree fever - her husband gave her one 12mg of Furious HD and doxy+zinc - her fever was gone in less than 12 hours and she was fully recovered in less than 3 days. Furious HD ALONE will not kick covid's a** yet combined with an antibiotic and zinc it will. Coincidence - I think not!!

Expand full comment

You rock! I hate statistics too. You made it more than palatable.

Expand full comment

This is a great analysis. I have a very difficult time reducing information this way so I can help others to think critically. I already used your clear breakdown of the concepts and stats several times today. I have to admit I am a Jessica Junky ( meant with complete intellectual adoration )… and look forward to your posts every day. Thank you so much for all you do!

Expand full comment

thank you so much for this. i really appreciate it :)

Expand full comment

Thank you for making these complex ideas so easy to understand for the lay person. The search for the truth is incredibly difficult. Can you do the same for VAIDS? I can't be the only person married to a 3X vaxxed person. I'm deeply concerned and uncertain if this is even something to be concerned about.

Expand full comment

70% reduction in death. Hmmmm.... Yeah, but they had worse symptoms. Hmmm....

I'll take death. Yep, that's the ticket. A.B. is onto something.

Expand full comment

Looks like you mixed up the denominators between HD and NonHD when calculating %death. Probably should also include 95% CI when calculating these differences. Although there is a trend in mortality reduction, it’s important to point out none of these differences were statistically significant. The numbers are just too small.

Expand full comment

you mean in the tables? ok i will check

Expand full comment

wow thank you for that find! i since fixed the mistake. honest one :)

Expand full comment

How far away from being statistically significant is 3 deaths versus 10 in a group of 490? What's a drug gotta do to get some recognition around here?!

Expand full comment

"Statistically significant" is arbitrarily defined as a p-value of less than 0.05, meaning there is at least a 95% probability that the results were we not due to random chance. The death outcome in this study has a p-value of 0.09. In other words there's only a 91% probability that it wasn't due to random chance rather than the 95% that would be required for it to be "statistically significant".

Needless to say, those odds would not dissuade me from taking Furious HD™ (along with several other things in my medicine cabinet) if I came down with 'rona symptoms. :)

Expand full comment

I agree with your impressions of the statistics, but I also know I'd rather not be among the 10 non-Furious HD patients who died, since there's no risk of adverse reaction to FHD (for me, personally, as I've tried it and believe I received some benefit, but acknowledge that's 100% subjective).

Expand full comment

Thank you. Good read.

Expand full comment

My husband and I just got over Omicron. Have been on the D3, Zinc et all protocol for two years. When we got C, we took Ivermectin, prednisone, and antibiotic. Symptoms lasted three days each. We are both in our mid 70’s. Got the meds through a doc on line. Would do it again

Expand full comment