YouTube removes two videos from a U.S. Senate committee
wsj.com
wsj.com
If so, it is a bit of bait-and-switch to defend the portion of the presentation that wasn’t grounds for the removal. Seeing as this is a persuasive argument I would be more persuaded had the author been transparent about YouTube’s reasoning. As I’m sure the author, a lawyer and politician, knows the art of persuasive rhetoric well, his oversight seems intentional.
The op-ed is from a US senator who has partnered with Dr Kory to actively promote ivermectin, an anti-parasitic, as a treatment for COVID. The NIH is assessing the drug clinically. The FDA has not recommended it for COVID, though a January 19, 2021 article in The Lancet indicated that it may offer some value if introduced early in the infection in high doses.
However, for the past year, Dr Kory has promoted the use of ivermectin with minimal clinical evidence. It's the overstatement of efficacy in treating COVID, as promoted by Dr Kory, which Google is suppressing as irresponsible. The Lancet article does not endorse the use of ivermectin to the degree that Dr Kory does (or Sen. Johnson).
Thus Sen Johnson's claim that Google has "canceled the US Senate" is thus unwarranted, overwrought, and misleading.
You actually got part of your summary wrong, he's saying it can prevent the disease from infecting individuals. So it's a preventative drug not an early treatment drug.
He was also saying it's not popular because it's a COTS drug that is widely accepted.
Now, I'm no freaking scientist, but it is FAIR to say that if this guy did his homework, found evidence of this in peer reviewed studies and is trying to present it to congress for further investigation, that is a good thing.
I'm not saying he's correct, but if there is a reasonable about of evidence that it's been overlooked and it would significantly help, then that's something we should at least do more (very urgent) research on.
If instead he's completely bunk, I'd love to see an analysis of further research proving him wrong.
But taking a video down, of a scientist posing a credible, alternative solution to waiting for a vaccine is clearly a shit thing to do.
The best solution would be to allow experts to link to and from each others videos doing a "this is wrong and here's why" style conversation. Taking information away is never a good thing imo.
https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/ivermectin-treat-covid...
EDIT: This does not mean you should go self medicate, that's always an awful idea. Do not give yourself ay drugs that are not over the counter without consulting with a doctor. Seriously, that I have to say that is ridiculous, and I would totally understand if YouTube put something up on the video saying that too.
EDIT 2: >Our manuscript needs to be reviewed by the NIH, and they need to formulate treatment recommendations, now.
https://dryburgh.com/ivermectin-pierre-kory/
This guy has said some stuff I think is overly political, but for this disease it's worth investigating if it might help prevent infection, even if we just gave it to our front line workers.
That's not how it works. The burden of proof is on him:
When two parties are in a discussion and one makes a claim that the other disputes, the one who makes the claim typically has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim especially when it challenges a perceived status quo.[1] This is also stated in Hitchens's razor, which declares that "what may be asserted without evidence, may be dismissed without evidence." Carl Sagan proposed a related criterion – "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" – which is known as the Sagan standard.
That's from wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)
At this point, there is a reason to believe he's correct. In the state of emergency we are in that's enough to throw a few million dollars at research to clear this up.
Also, the NIH has upgraded their recommendation from "Don't use ivermectin outside of clinical trials" to "there's insufficient data." which I translate to, we now need to peer review this.
https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/antiviral-the...
EDIT: I may have gone too soft on the way that I say things w/r to scientific studies. They are never settled until. They can and should always be considered disprovable. The fact that I believe Dr. Kory has enough evidence to clearly suggest we need to dig deeper into ivermectin quickly, doesn't mean I believe that research will prove him right or wrong. I do however believe it is completely worth the money it would take to potentially save lives if ivermectin does prevent COVID.
However, for the past year, Dr Kory has promoted the use of ivermectin with minimal clinical evidence. It's the overstatement of efficacy in treating COVID, as promoted by Dr Kory, which Google is suppressing as overstated and irresponsible. The Lancet article does not endorse the use of ivermectin to the degree that Dr Kory does (or Sen. Johnson).
Thuis Sen Johnson's claim that Google has "canceled the US Senate" is thus unwarranted, overwrought, and misleading.
However, for the past year, Dr Kory has promoted the use of ivermectin with minimal clinical evidence. It's the overstatement of efficacy in treating COVID, as promoted by Dr Kory, which Google is suppressing as overstated and irresponsible. The Lancet article does not endorse the use of ivermectin to the degree that Dr Kory does (or Sen. Johnson).
Thus Sen Johnson's claim that Google has "canceled the US Senate" is thus unwarranted, overwrought, and misleading.
Fortunately the video and testimony is available directly from the Senate so everyone can make up their own mind.
https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/early-outpatient-treatment-an-e...
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Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000293432...
FWIW both Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are included in their recommendations.
https://covid19criticalcare.com/medical-evidence/ivermectin/
It's bizarre and horrifying that YouTube is censoring legitimate scientific debate. Sure it's their platform and they can do what they want, but in this case YouTube is putting public health at risk. COVID-19 care practices are evolving rapidly so what was true last month might be false next month. There's a lot we don't know, and some of what we think we know will eventually turn out to be wrong.
Are there many MDs keeping themselves up-to-date on COVID-19 latest recommendations through YouTube though?
act as a common carrier.
Downvotes without explanation?
What removing the video does do is make me not want to use YouTube for any serious kind of deep dive research, which frankly is not what I use it for anyways. I'm not really sure what the goal of YouTube is supposed to be actually, not really sure what the goal of most of FAANG is supposed to be, other than print maximal amounts of money. I think people might be a little less angry at them if they actually some stated mission to evaluate against.
[0] - https://www.c-span.org/video/?507035-1/medical-response-covi...
> Youtube can remove...
You're arguing against a strawman. "can" and "should" are different things.
I am not convinced whatsoever that YouTube "should" be mandated to carry congressional testimony, presidential communication, or anything else they don't want to carry. Removing it is not deplatforming it because as stated, Congress already has a platform. It's easily accessible. It's free.
> social networking sites have become a major part of "the marketplace of ideas," in Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's words. "Increasingly, this is the way people get ... all information," Justice Elena Kagan said. "This is the way people structure their civic community life."
> During oral argument, only Justice Samuel Alito mounted much of a defense of the law, suggesting that it could be limited to core social networking sites rather than The New York Times or Betty Crocker. "There are still alternative channels," he said. But David Goldberg of Stanford Law School's Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, who represented Packingham, said Twitter hosts about 500 million tweets a day, and Snapchat hosts 10 billion videos — statistics that are not replicable elsewhere.
[0] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/06/19/supr...
SCOTUS can see clearly that having a platform is insufficient if that platform has <1% of the reach of the platforms that everyone else uses.
> Dr. Kory asked the National Institutes of Health to review his group’s manuscript outlining dozens of successful trials and to consider updating its Aug. 27 guidance in which it recommended “against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of Covid-19, except in a clinical trial.” On Dec. 10, Sen. Rand Paul and I sent a letter to the NIH requesting that it review Dr. Kory’s evidence.
Last Updated: August 27, 2020
The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, except in a clinical trial (AIII).
Last Updated: January 14, 2021
> The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) has determined that currently there are insufficient data to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19.
And I agree, we need more data before moving forward.
If there is a legitimate news article on the removal of these two video, we should link to that instead.
I want to discuss what I've found out about ivermectin and why videos about it should not be flagged by an algorithm.
Ivermectin is being proposed by Dr. Kory as a preventative drug which reduces (in trials) rate of infection from COVID down to nearly zero. To that end he believes that this should be investigated as urgently or more urgently than vaccines. His reasoning is that this is a off the shelf drug that has not been disproven in any peer review so far.
To support that the NIH has changed their recommendation from
"The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, except in a clinical trial (AIII)."
to "The COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel (the Panel) has determined that currently there are insufficient data to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19. Results from adequately powered, well-designed, and well-conducted clinical trials are needed to provide more specific, evidence-based guidance on the role of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19."
Which can be considered a great indicator that ivermectin is gaining steam.
So, to treat the discussion of ivermectin as if it were some fringe group's conspiracy science, is ridiculous. We've thrown billions of dollars towards finding a vaccine, which is arguably a better long term solution. Dr. Kory's point is that we should be researching this treatment as quickly as possible to save lives today and let the vaccine save lives in the future. He's been saying this since well before the vaccines were a sure thing.
I'm not saying ivermectin is going to work. I'm saying it if it does work that we moved too slow in identifying it and we had evidence that it may have worked very early on.
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Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000293432...
FWIW both Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are included in their recommendations.
To be honest, I've been following some discussions and there is so much disinformation out there, that at first I though someone was just spewing bullshit about it.
Don't get me wrong, it's awesome that there are people out there working on some treatments to save lives until everyone is vaccinated (which is another fight..), but with the amount of people shouting their own uneducated opinion as fact out there, it's hard to pick up the real info from the noise.
The way out is through.
Pathophysiological Basis and Rationale for Early Outpatient Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) Infection - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S000293432...
FWIW both Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are included in their recommendations.