That’s fascinating about snakebites. It explains a few “miracle” stories passed down in my Southwestern heritage!Gunnar wrote: ↑Wed Aug 25, 2021 1:10 amThis is similar to the phenomenon of the proliferation so called "snake bite cures" in folk medicine due to the fact snakes do not always inject venom when they bite. Some experts say that in the case of rattlesnakes, for example, as much as half the time, rattlesnakes don't inject venom when biting merely as a fear or threat response toward any scary creature too big to be suitable as rattlesnake prey. Why waste precious venom on something it knows it can't eat, if it can avoid it? Anyone "miraculously" surviving one of these harmless, dry bites might easily jump to the conclusion that whatever they did, ate or drank immediately afterwards must be a snake bite cure, whether it is or not.canpakes wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 8:42 pmAt this moment, it’s easy to claim that taking Ivermectin is what saved the person who ingested it, given that the low mortality rate from infection likely won’t kill them anyway. We can more safely gamble with our ignorance. Next time, things might be different.
Seriously though, that’s what I find most disconcerting about some of the arguments given. People should know that small bits of anecdotal evidence are rarely helpful in explaining medical issues, but it seems human nature to attach a huge weights to those events and only small or even negligible weight to properly done research.
I add the ‘properly done’ because you always have to do your due diligence on any source you use, but still, anecdotal evidence is almost never sufficient. And I say ‘almost never’ only because the statistician in me insists on it, when all cases are not known. The language really means ‘so close to “never” as to be indistinguishable from never, even though they are technically not the same.’
As soon as you qualify, however, you invariably get this from some:

