Politics and Money

[fuagf]

dropdeadfred, Again, shame on you. Imagine accusing your people of that which you accuse them of.

"They have known since August that Ivermectin works to stop the spread and ease the symptions
of Covid. Your country used it but our country is full of greedy money hungry monsters."

And imagine you lying about what Australia has been doing.

You, as your monster Trump, are lost and grasping in your self-imposed swamp of conspiracy belief and alternate-fact mongering.

I'd never heard of what you said, so checked it. As YOU should have done.

Fake news corrected: AP fact check looks at what didn't happen this week

12 Dec, 2020 08:59 AM


You may have seen some of these claims circulating online this week - here are the facts. Photo / AP

A look at false and misleading claims circulating as the US moves closer to approving a Covid-19 vaccine and distribution is underway in the United Kingdom.

None of these are legitimate, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out.

Here are the facts:

No evidence that Covid-19 vaccine results in sterilisation

CLAIM: The head of research at Pfizer says the Covid-19 vaccine causes female sterilisation because it contains a spike protein known as syncytin-1.

[...]

No evidence ivermectin is a miracle drug against Covid-19

CLAIM: The antiparasitic drug ivermectin "has a miraculous effectiveness that obliterates" the transmission of Covid-19 and will prevent people from getting sick.

THE FACTS: During a Senate hearing on Tuesday, a group of doctors touted alternative Covid-19 treatments, including ivermectin and the anti-malaria medication hydroxychloroquine. Medical experts have cautioned against using either of those drugs to treat Covid-19. Studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine has no benefit against the coronavirus and can have serious side effects. There is no evidence ivermectin has been proven a safe or effective treatment against Covid-19. Yet Dr Pierre Kory, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at Aurora St Luke's Medical Centre in Milwaukee, described ivermectin as a "wonder drug" with immensely powerful antiviral and anti-inflammatory agents at the hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Clips of Kory's comments on ivermectin during the hearing were shared widely on social media, one clip receiving more than 1 million views on YouTube. Ivermectin is approved in the US in tablet form to treat parasitic worms as well as a topical solution to treat external parasites. The drug is also available for animals. The US Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health have said the drug is not approved for the prevention or treatment of Covid-19. According to the FDA, side effects for the drug include skin rash, nausea and vomiting. Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University, said most of the research around ivermectin at the moment is made up of anecdotes and studies that are not the gold standard in terms of how to use ivermectin. "We need to get much more data before we can say this is a definitive treatment," he said. "We would like to see more data before I recommend it to my patients." Kory told the AP he stands by the comments he made at the hearing, saying he was not trying to promote the drug but the data around it. In June, Australian researchers published the findings of a study that found ivermectin inhibited the replication of Sars-CoV-2 in a laboratory setting, which is not the same as testing the drug on humans or animals. Following the study, the FDA released a letter out of concern warning consumers not to self-medicate with ivermectin products intended for animals. "It is a far cry from an in vitro lab replication to helping humans," said Dr Nasia Safdar, medical director of infection prevention at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Hospital. The discussion about the drug in the Senate hearing has some experts worried that Americans will start buying up ivermectin out of desperation. Despite a majority of evidence showing hydroxychloroquine is not an effective Covid-19 treatment, there was a rush on that drug earlier this year after President Donald Trump called it a cure. That depleted supply for those who needed the medication to treat lupus and other conditions. "If there is one thing we have learned in the pandemic is that we cannot jump the gun as far as determining or making assumptions about the effectiveness of potential agents," Safdar said.

— Beatrice Dupuy

First to get Covid-19 vaccine in UK were not 'crisis actors'

CLAIM: The first two recipients of the Covid-19 vaccine in Britain are "crisis actors". The image of the first person who was vaccinated on December 8 was published in October, long before the vaccine was approved. The same nurse was photographed administering the vaccine to two people, in two locations 20 miles apart.

[...]

Posts falsely claim Covid-19 virus has not yet been isolated

CLAIM: Scientists have not isolated the Covid-19 virus, so a vaccine is not possible.

[...]

Dominion machines didn't 'flip' votes in Ware County, Georgia

CLAIM: Forensic tests completed on Dominion Voting Systems equipment show that dozens of votes cast for President Donald Trump in Ware County, Georgia, were "switched" or "flipped" to count for Joe Biden, who has been declared the winner in the presidential election.

[...]

School bus in Arizona held surplus office equipment, not voting machines

CLAIM: Photos show an abandoned school bus full of voting machines discovered in Buckeye, Arizona.

[...]

Photo shows poll worker in Pennsylvania, not Georgia state senator

CLAIM: Image captures Democratic state Senator Elena Parent, of Atlanta, counting votes.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/fake-news-corrected-ap-fact-check-looks-at-what-didnt-happen-this-week/WBJOEQI3UQEFRPSXXV7PXJTUSM/

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Insufficient evidence to support ivermectin as COVID-19 treatment

Recent research led to the anti-parasitic being discussed as a potential treatment, but experts say more research is currently needed.

Dr Evelyn Lewin 15 Aug 2020


Ivermectin sold out from pharmacies in Brazil after it was suggested it was an effective for treatment
of COVID-19. (Image: AAP)

Ivermectin is a broad-spectrum anti-parasitic drug that can be used to treat scabies, parasitic worms and head lice.

It has also been shown .. https://www.monash.edu/discovery-institute/news-and-events/news/2020-articles/Lab-experiments-show-anti-parasitic-drug,-Ivermectin,-eliminates-SARS-CoV-2-in-cells-in-48-hours .. to be effective in-vitro against a broad range of viruses, including HIV, dengue, influenza and Zika virus.

Interest in ivermectin as a potential treatment for coronavirus was sparked following research .. https://www.trialsitenews.com/monash-university-continues-its-investigation-into-ivermectin-other-novel-therapies-as-potential-treatments-for-covid-19/ .. that found a single treatment led to a significant reduction of the virus in-vitro.

Led by Monash University researchers in collaboration with the Doherty Institute and published on 3 April in Antiviral Research .. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011?via%3Dihub , the research found 5?µM of ivermectin dramatically reduced in-vitro viral replication of SARS-CoV-2 by approximately 5000-fold over 48 hours.

Dr Kylie Wagstaff is a senior research fellow at Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and one of the researchers involved in the study.

‘We found that even a single dose could essentially remove all viral RNA by 48 hours, and that even at 24 hours there was a really significant reduction in it,’ she said.

The authors say ivermectin binds to, and destablises, the receptor responsible for transmitting viral proteins into the host cell nucleus.

‘This likely results in reduced inhibition of the antiviral responses, leading to a normal, more efficient antiviral response,’ the study authors wrote.

Dr Wagstaff says these results are encouraging.

‘Ivermectin is very widely used and seen as a safe drug,’ she said.

‘We need to figure out now whether the dosage you can use it at in humans will be effective – that’s the next step.

‘In times when we’re having a global pandemic and there isn’t an approved treatment, if we had a compound that was already available around the world then that might help people sooner. Realistically it’s going to be a while before a vaccine is broadly available.’

While publication of this research led to widespread interest of ivermectin as a potential therapy for COVID-19, it also sparked concern about potential misuse of the drug.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) shared that concern, issuing a warning .. https://www.fda.gov/animal-veterinary/product-safety-information/fda-letter-stakeholders-do-not-use-ivermectin-intended-animals-treatment-covid-19-humans .. on 10 April that ivermectin in veterinary products should not be used for human therapy.

The letter states the research did not involve giving ivermectin to people or animals, and that it only stopped replication of SARS-CoV-2 ‘in a petri dish’.

Two letters to the editor .. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302199#bib3 .. of Antiviral Research were also published in response to the initial research.

Among other issues, those letters raised concerns about the potential dose of ivermectin needed to be effective in-vivo rather than in-vitro.

Questions were also raised regarding the relevance of in-vitro results in a clinical context.

‘In vitro promise leads to clinical failure in the vast majority of cases, and in the volatile environment of the current pandemic, it is critical that we are sensitive to the implications of our communication and apply our resources to compounds most likely to succeed,’ the authors of one of the letters wrote .. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7172803/ .

Reports in July .. https://www.9news.com.au/world/coronavirus-brazil-news-covid-19-chaos-provides-vaccine-global-laboratory/872aa4b1-8d0c-4c9e-86db-eb1951ff06d2#close .. indicate officials in Brazil included the anti-parasitic drug in so-called ‘COVID kits’ – along with hydroxychloroquine, the antibiotic azithromycin, zinc, and vitamin C – that were distributed in cities in the south, central-west, and north-east parts of the country.

Sydney gastroenterologist Professor Thomas Borody has since reignited interest in the topic with a 7 August interview .. https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6179108952001 .. on Sky News Australia in which he said ivermectin, when combined with doxycycline and zinc, may be an effective treatment for the virus.

[Note: Sky News Australia is owned by Rupert Murdoch.]

‘There are a number of studies that are amazingly successful – we’re talking close to 100%,’ Professor Borody told Sky News.

He said this treatment has not been used in Australian patients, but that it has been used successfully in China and Bangladesh.

‘So I am behind the ivermectin, doxycycline, zinc treatment because it has very few side effects, and is a real killer of coronavirus,’ Professor Borody said.


Associate Professor Steven Tong says initial laboratory studies suggest ivermectin may play a role in
combating COVID-19 but more research is needed.

Associate Professor Steven Tong is an infectious diseases clinician at Royal Melbourne Hospital, the principal investigator for the AustralaSian COVID-19 Trial (ASCOT) and a co-lead of clinical research at the Doherty Institute.

He has not seen any clinical evidence to support Professor Borody’s claims.

‘At this stage I’m not aware of that data,’ he told newsGP. ‘And if there is such convincing data, I think it would be helpful for that to be shared with everyone.’

Associate Professor Tong says he is aware of a study performed in Bangladesh involving ivermectin.

‘But it was pretty poor quality, as far as I understand,’ he said.

While there are discussions on the potential use of ivermectin as a therapy for COVID-19 in humans, Associate Professor Tong has concerns about its use in that context.

‘The initial studies seem to suggest you need a very high level of ivermectin to be able to reduce replication of the virus, and those levels in those initial studies are very difficult or impossible to achieve in a person,’ he said.

He is also concerned that these laboratory findings were not performed on human cells.

‘They were done initially with monkey cells, so we await work with human cell lines to confirm the effect and confirm whether the dose is achievable,’ he said.

Following on from the initial paper, researchers from Monash University and the Peter Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity are continuing to investigate the use of ivermectin as a potential treatment for COVID-19 with current ongoing research.

Their aim is to move from in-vitro phase to pre-clinical trials soon.

‘We are conducting a range of optimisation experiments that, if positive, will determine the best dosage and treatment regimen to move forward into clinical trials,’ Dr Wagstaff said .. https://www.monash.edu/discovery-institute/news-and-events/news/2020-articles/philanthropic-donation-enables-covid-19-research-study-to-move-into-the-pre-clinical-phase .

Associate Professor Tong is aware of other trials looking into ivermectin as a potential COVID-19 treatment in South America and elsewhere.

He says there even are reports that some countries are using the drug ‘more broadly’ as a treatment for COVID-19.

However, Associate Professor Tong says there is currently insufficient evidence to show ivermectin can be used as therapy for COVID-19 and that randomised controlled trials are needed to investigate this area.

‘And until we get that level of evidence, these agents should only be used in the context of a clinical trial,’ he said.

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/insufficient-evidence-to-currently-support-ivermec