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Comment by Hadrianus | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately this article doesn’t really give YouTube’s reasoning for the removal. Did the Drs advance debunked conspiracy theories in addition to the comments regarding ivermectin?

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.

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[I just edited this post for accuracy, correcting my error describing ivermectin is a steroid. It is in fact an anti-parasitic. The gist of my post remains largely intact, however.]

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.

It's hard to believe that someone advocating for the censorship of opposing arguments has any interest in a serious discussion either.

So YouTube is canceling a video about a Dr. who is an expert in the field, attempting to get more of a spotlight on a potential treatment of COVID that is not being used and widely shared.

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.

If instead he's completely bunk, I'd love to see an analysis of further research proving him wrong.

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)

I believe he's already met the burden of proof, there have been multiple minor studies that are peer reviewed and show a lot of promise.

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.

YouTube moderators are obviously the highest experts in the field of medicine and usually every field. They should be deciding what get seen, promoted, or blocked because they have done the hard research and I have no doubt they have read at least one Snopes article on a subject written by someone who is also clearly an expert in the medicine, not a journalist that may or may not have visited the CDC website for guidance.

How could Senator Johnson be "transparent" about YouTube's reasoning? YouTube keeps their reasons secret. That's the problem.

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...

Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are recommended in a paper published in the American Journal of Medicine. Funny how my comment mentioning that has dropped to the bottom of page.

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.

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.

"debunked conspiracy theories". Debunked by whom? Sadly the use of the term "conspiracy theory" is now just code for "facts I don't like". Given the scientific facts on the ground and the last year of data, we now know that all recommendations from the experts from masks to distancing have been failures, because the COVID infection rate is higher than ever since their introduction. So they are now "debunked conspiracy theories"

I don’t particularly care what their reasoning is. A private corporation censoring elected officials should not be acceptable or encouraged. It is extremely anti-democratic and for them to quibble over a highly specific issue like this just shows YouTube’s bias.

But it’s Google making this determination. A software company that is all-knowing and looking out for your interests. Their filtering process is healthy for society, because society is full of imbeciles that are incapable of processing information properly. Also, it’s a private company so they are allowed to do whatever they want to do so take your complaints to another platform.

I’d rather trust the imbeciles than a bunch of unelected technocrats in Mountain View.

Fully agree. I was being sarcastic.

Only a government can censor. A company is free to host whatever they like. You can host it elsewhere if you want. Sometimes elected officials say incredibly dangerous stuff. You remember Trump in start of COVID-19 crisis?

That is not consistent with definitions or popular understandings of the verb "censor".

In US, true. Rest of world it varies.

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