Doctor Steuss wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 3:34 pm
Vēritās wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 8:42 am
Meanwhile, well known anti-virals like acyclovir haven't been studied much at all as a viable treatment for COVID. Why not? It seems like anti-virals designed to fight off viruses would be more useful in studies than anti-parasitics like Ivermectin. Well, because no one in Right Wing fake news land was promoting acyclovir as a cure.
for what it's worth, the downstream metabolite that is acyclovir's magic bullet inhibits DNA replication. COVID is an RNA virus.
Thanks, Steuss. You saved me the time I was going to spend trying to figure that out. I did find a retrospective study in Mexico City that included acyclovir as a COVID treatment, with the result one would expect.
Doctor Steuss wrote:Ivermectin had shown broad anti-viral capabilities in previous (in vitro) studies for RNA viruses.
Yes, but wasn't it also the the case that the pharmokinetics made it impossible to maintain the required concentration of the anti-viral agent at non-lethal doses? (Feel free to box my ears if I'm remembering this wrong.) The problem, as I see it, is making sure there is a strong Bayesian prior before spending the time and resources on RCTs. Evidence of correlation based on retrospective or small sample studies without a plausible mechanism of action is still just correlation.
It isn't like treatments have been ignored. One of WHO's early projects was coordinating trials of existing anti-virals to see if there was a quick and easy way to treat the virus. I'm thinking there were something like over 400 trials of what were considered to be the most promising anti-virals. Here's a literature review from January 2022 on anti-virals and COVIDD 19.
https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/ ... 22-07068-0 And here's one from February on three of the newer anti-virals being studied.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8820829/ Finally, here's a literature review that discusses the problem with testing potential treatments without any evidence of a plausible causal mechanism.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8857759/
Good quality RCTs are time and resource intensive. It makes little sense to do them on things that have a low Bayesian prior. As you said in a different post: bleach kills viruses
in vitro. But the Bayesian prior for turning bleach into a safe and effective
in vivo treatment is effectively zero. Again, if I'm remembering correctly, the Bayesian prior on Ivermectin was so low that the time and resources spent on it was a waste. Without the initial push by anti-vaxxers and amplification by folks like Joe Rogan, those resources and time would have been available for investigating more plausible treatments. And the most tragic part is the folks who were convinced that Ivermectin so was cheap, effective, and harmless that they skipped vaccinations and delayed going to the hospital because it was too late.