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Comment by francis-io | Hacker News Reader

> As a nerdy stoner myself this is the perfect counterpoint. The ("my"? "our"?) answer to the hydroxychloroquine/ivermectin/bleach worship coming from the "scientifically challenged" antivax set.

Nitpick: As much as I agree that some people are as you describe, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking everyone in favour of therapeutics are also "anti vax". Vaccinations and therapeutics can live side by side as vectors of attack for certain illnesses.

I've caught my self falling into this trap my self recently. It's hard not to knee-jerk react when someone mentions something like ivermectin and then make wild generalisations on that persons political opinions, mental ability and then judge them as a person.

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TL;DR: I'm Strongly In Favor of therapeutics, just not disproven fake-therapeutics.

Firstly a heartfelt thanks for your reply, I appreciate it when people say helpful things like this.

But to nitpick on your nitpick, I am just as aggressively pro therapeutics as I am pro vaccine. I completely agree re: "Vaccinations and therapeutics can live side by side as vectors of attack for certain illnesses". The more weapons we have against diseases, the better. I'm comfortable and cozy with my 3x shots, AND was quite hyped when Paxlovid got approved.

To be specific, the intended target of my light derision isn't anyone pro-therapeutics. Just those pro-bunk-therapeutics. Like my mother, who for some reason went through a phase insisting one could be healed sometimes with quartz crystals. (poking fun at myself or my family seems safe).

I never did deep research into the topic, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought hydroxychloroquine was quite securely in the "not a chance, there have been tons of studies, it's 100% bunk" category? (as far as being a treatment for COVID-19)

Again, pro-therapeutics! Really, pro-anything-science-technological-advancement. Was an early Regen-Cov (the name of Regeneron's med) cheerleader too.

Those HCQ studies were retracted because the authors were lying about their data.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/04/health/coronavirus-hydrox...

Co-incidentally the FDA is fighting an FOIA request to release the data they used to approve the vaccines saying it will take 75 years.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/paramount-importanc...

A point that I always find interesting to remember is that although we've proven there's no measurable benefit to crystal therapy, there's no discounting the people it's helped.

We think that's probably placebo (seems like a reasonable assumption at least) but the people it's helped are going to be devout believers. Experience is a powerful motivator

> I've caught my self falling into this trap my self recently. It's hard not to knee-jerk react when someone mentions something like ivermectin and then make wild generalisations on that persons political opinions, mental ability and then judge them as a person.

I agree it's important not to, but playing devil's advocate, has that specific generalization ever been wrong, for anyone? Genuine question.

One can be anti-mandate without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-therapeutic without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-investigation of therapeutics without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-doctoral autonomy (with regards to off label prescription) without being anti-vaccine.

I'm thankful for the vaccine, it's saved a lot of lives, especially of those at high risk. I don't think it should be mandated and I certainly don't think it should be given to children. I think we should be investing as much into early treatment as we are into vaccines. We certainly shouldn't be limiting access to things that have been proven to work, like monoclonal anti-bodies. I think things like Ivermectin should be investigated for use. I don't think we should be calling it "horse dewormer" when it's an FDA-approved medication with billions of doses distributed worldwide. And while we shouldn't be promoting anything that isn't proven, we shouldn't be sanctioning physicians for prescribing a safe drug off-label.

In short: yes, the opposite side of the political spectrum is more diverse than you're currently accounting for. Lumping "the other" into a single category is natural and well described by Social Identity Theory [1], but not helpful to discussions like this.

[1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_theory]

> One can be anti-mandate without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-therapeutic without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-investigation of therapeutics without being anti-vaccine. One can be pro-doctoral autonomy (with regards to off label prescription) without being anti-vaccine.

Hear hear! More of this. I am nearly all of these things. I'm staunchly pro "let's quit lumping concepts and people into an absurdly small number of categories". And staunchly against "everyone who believes X, Y and Z must ALSO believe Q R S T U... or you're out".

Sure, I agree with that, and neither of those were in the quote I responded to, which is why I asked about "that specific generalization".

Is there anyone taking Ivermectin that also isn't anti-vaccine, right of center politically, and don't know that the risks with vaccines are also the risks of covid itself, only lower with vaccines?

I'm asking because here I think the issue is deeper than the generalizations, in that politics has engulfed views (science/anti-science) that shouldn't be political to begin with.

>Is there anyone taking Ivermectin that also isn't anti-vaccine, right of center politically, and don't know that the risks with vaccines are also the risks of covid itself, only lower with vaccines?

I'm vaccinated and would consider taking Ivermectin/Fluvoxamine if I become infected and detect it early enough.

I also make sure to supplement with Vit D/Vit C/Zinc pre-emptively even though these are vaguely associated with "antivaxxer" now.

I know many people who either:

1) took ivermectin prophylactically when the vaccine wasn't available, and also got the vaccine when it was.

2) are now vaccinated and have ivermectin on standby in case they test positive.

I know nobody who is currently unvaccinated and still taking ivermectin as prophylactic

I stand corrected, I have yet to encounter that nuance, and we have often enter into political discussions at work and socially, but sadly all too formulaic in the end.

I would also add that there are thousands of Americans being enrolled in FDA approved well-controlled medical trials for the use of Ivermectin at some of the most prestigious medical hospitals in the US.

Of course, this doesn't mean it works. We are doing the trials specifically because we don't know if it works or not, but reasonably believe that it could

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