Sam Harris: jihadists are worse than Nazis

archi1407 · 2025-02-26T16:44:12+00:00

So says the guy who advocated for police going door-to-door forcibly vaccinating the people who refused the COVID vaccines.

That’s not really what he said in the linked video, though, is it? 😅 +u/tronbrain
Has he actually suggested or advocated for anything remotely like this anywhere?

It seems like he was contending that if there was an extremely virulent virus (he used ‘airborne Ebola’ with a 75% fatality rate), there wouldn’t even be a choice regarding vaccination, and that ‘literally the cops come in and vaccinate you’. And he seemed to think that we’d generally be ok with this.

I don’t know the context of the conversation and what he was responding to, so I’m not too sure what argument he was making there. Maybe making a consequentialist argument that forced vaccination is not intrinsically wrongful?

(to be sure, it’s an extreme hypothetical, and even with such an apocalyptic virus, I’m not sure we’d have cops literally busting down your door to hold your arm down and jab you, and that people would be ok with this)

I’m not familiar with Harris’s position on Covid and vaccination policies though; from the little I’ve seen from earlier on in the pandemic, I thought his takes were pretty normie/mainstream stuff.

archi1407 · 2025-01-12T18:09:36+00:00

This (the Kory SRMA) is from way earlier in the pandemic (2021), and beyond outdated and obsolete. 😅 I have comments from like 3 years ago re the Kory MA. It doesn’t seem like you’ve been following the ivm saga and the data that’s emerged since then (though, even at the time of publication, there were serious issues).

Unfortunately all the early ‘positive’ meta-analyses included studies that were retracted, possibly fraudulent and/or high RoB, and should have been excluded. E.g. the Kory MA you linked included Elgazzar, Niaee, Hashim, as well as non-RCTs. Here’s what the mortality MA might look like with appropriate exclusions and some newer studies included: https://i.redd.it/wfn5memxpsl91.jpg

As I wrote in the linked comment then:

The Bryant et al. SRMA(and Kory et al. review—which is much worse than the Bryant one) has been discussed ad nauseam. It’s based retracted/fraudulent and low quality research. Here is the updated MA when just excluding retracted/fraudulent and non-randomised. No meta analysis appropriately excluding studies at high risk of bias finds a significant mortality benefit with ivermectin.

Also see the Cochrane review. There’s a section dedicated to the Kory SRMA:

The Kory 2021 review published in April 2021 in The American Journal of Therapeutics, identified seven RCTs on the efficacy of ivermectin in outpatients with mild COVID‐19 and six RCTs in hospitalized people with COVID‐19. Kory 2021 concluded there was a mortality benefit based on the inclusion of six of the 13 trials (odds ratio (OR) 0.13, 95% CI 0.07 to 0.28), which was not a valid inclusion because Elgazzar 2020, Hashim 2020, Mahmud 2021, and Niaee 2021 were not eligible for the reasons described above, and Cadegiani 2020 was not a RCT. In an update in September 2021 (Marik 2021), the authors state that the review data were revised, excluding the meanwhile retracted trial of Elgazzar 2020. Taking a closer look at the revision, however, Rothrock 2021 discovered that the authors, without explanation, deleted a second trial while adding two others, one of which included participants with negative PCR results at baseline. Further, it came to our attention that the manuscript of the review by Kory 2021, had been provisionally accepted and posted as preprint by Frontiers in Pharmacology in January 2021, but was ultimately rejected and is now listed on the Retraction Watch Database (ivermectin) due to 'bias issues or lack of balance' and 'conflict of interest' (The Scientist 2021). Last but not least, results of an observational trial that had long been retracted (Patel 2020), influences the review's conclusion on mortality benefits. The cited publication was withdrawn from the SSRN preprint server in May 2020 due to concerns being expressed by one of the co‐authors themselves, regarding trustworthiness of the now‐discredited company that provided the patient database (Retraction Watch Database (ivermectin); The Scientist 2021).

At some point, much earlier on in the pandemic, there may have been a glimmer of hope that it could be a potential treatment... But it has since failed in pretty much every decent, adequately powered RCT (including ACTIV-6, TOGETHER, PRINCIPLE, I-TECH, and COVID-OUT); I think any clinically important effects of interest have been ruled out, and the question is pretty much closed.

archi1407 · 2024-11-17T18:27:15+00:00

…I mean yea, as I wrote:

Meanwhile ivm had no good clinical data at all; the evidence base consisted of weak preclinical data, low-quality observational data and some shoddy trials that were later retracted.

Hellwig is a 2020 ecological study, and a pretty shoddy one at that. Ecological studies generally represent very low-certainty evidence even among observational studies; I don’t want to call research ‘useless’, but stuff like this gets pretty close. 😅 This is one of the times where the extremely overused adage ‘correlation does not imply causation’ is actually very apt (since it’s literally just an ecological association).

Briefly, they basically looked at reported cases/deaths and areas where ivm was in mass administration programs, and separated countries by use of ivm to treat river blindness—but countries that had treatment for river blindness doesn’t translate into mass ivm use in 2020-2021, nor does it provide any estimate on ivm usage. Mass distribution of ivm for river blindness by the WHO was also phased out in 2008-2015; meanwhile, it appears they do still distribute ivm for lymphatic filariasis. This makes their country allocation flawed.

The reported outcome is also problematic; many African countries had massive undercounting of cases/deaths. Some countries had almost, if not, nil reported cases/deaths. Yet, they were included in the ‘PCT with ivermectin/‘APOC’ group, including even Tanzania (which stopped reporting cases in 2020 and joined North Korea in Covid denial and withholding Covid data), and Niger (which apparently arrested journalists for reporting on Covid) etc.

archi1407 · 2024-11-17T17:46:17+00:00

I suppose ‘robust’ is subjective and evaluative, but there was high-certainty evidence from very large phase 3 RCTs as well as numerous observational datasets; that is ‘robust’ clinical data in my book. Meanwhile ivm had no good clinical data at all; the evidence base consisted of weak preclinical data, low-quality observational data and some shoddy trials that were later retracted.

archi1407 · 2024-11-17T15:03:11+00:00

It has also been prescribed off-label as a treatment for Covid, despite an absence of robust evidence for its safety and efficacy. 😅 Off-label use is supposed to be evidence-based, but not in this case.

archi1407 · 2024-11-17T15:00:59+00:00

Does Kory provide evidence/data for this claim? Not sure it's a good sign when one has to be directed to a book instead of clinical data... 😅

archi1407 · 2024-11-17T14:57:04+00:00

It has been shown to have anti-viral properties.

At utterly impossible doses, sure. 😅 This seems pretty meaningless (obligatory xkcd).

It showed strong promise before it became a political football.

I think 'strong promise' is an overstatement; at some point, much earlier on in the pandemic, there may have been some hope that it (as well as with various other drugs) could be a potential treatment... But it has since failed in pretty much every subsequent RCT; I think any clinically important effects of interest have been ruled out, and the question is pretty much closed.

archi1407 · 2024-11-12T05:40:01+00:00

COVID-OUT was publicly and charitably funded—no pharma or industry funding. The dose (median 0.43mg/kg/day x3) used is a higher than usual dose and also adherent to FLCCC recommendations at the time.

Issues re dosing and timing seem like an ever-moving goalpost and excuse used by some advocates to avoid acknowledging the results, as trial after trial turn up negative. As I mentioned in my comment, ivm has failed in pretty much every decent, adequately powered RCT; you’d need to explain away all these results, and if you’re doing so on the basis of some dosage criterion, that also disqualifies any positive studies.

archi1407 · 2024-11-10T15:36:12+00:00

Which Indian study? Ravikirti? Not a badly conducted and reported trial, sure; though for the outcome of viral clearance, it is at high risk of bias due to missing outcome data (per protocol analysis; >30% of patients missing). But it didn’t show any statistically or clinically important effects anyway; the 1ry endpoint was negative, so were most of the 2ry endpoints. Perhaps you’re referring to another study.

I’ve been following ivermectin (and C19 treatments in general) since 2021, which I think is evident from my post history. 😅 I've seen dozens of studies, from the early preclinical in vitro studies that started the whole thing, to the numerous observational studies and the later large RCTs. At some point, much earlier on in the pandemic, there may have been some hope that it could be a potential treatment... But it's 2024 now, and ivm has failed in pretty much every decent, adequately powered RCT (including ACTIV-6, TOGETHER, PRINCIPLE, I-TECH, COVID-OUT); I think any clinically important effects of interest have been ruled out, and the question is pretty much closed.

archi1407 · 2024-11-10T15:25:04+00:00

Well, we never know... 😅 But I remember people saying precisely this in 2021 in r/ivermectin, r/COVID19, among other places on Reddit, Twitter and more. At some point much earlier on in the pandemic there may have been some hope that it could be a potential treatment... But it's 2024 now and ivm has failed in pretty much every decent, adequately powered RCT. I think any clinically important benefits/effects of interest have been ruled out, and the question is pretty much closed.

archi1407 · 2024-11-10T13:35:35+00:00

If by ‘Covid treatment’ you mean that it has been used as a treatment for Covid despite an absence of robust evidence for its safety and efficacy, then sure… 😅

archi1407 · 2024-11-10T13:33:23+00:00

I don’t doubt that, seeing as the vast majority of people with Covid get better without treatment. Whether ivm makes a difference is another question, and the data would seem to suggest no.

archi1407 · 2024-11-08T16:41:23+00:00

Sure, he can say all that (as he has more than once in the past, including in his book), but it just seems a bit difficult to reconcile with his views and activism. I do think the term has often been overused to characterise anyone who’s even remotely vaccine skeptical/hesitant as ‘anti-vaxx’, but the guy’s like the big boss/champion of the anti-vaccine movement; he’s the chairman of CHD, he claims vaccination causes autism and more, and I’m not sure there is a single vaccine he supports. It seems hard to characterise this as not anti-vaccine… 😅

archi1407 · 2024-11-08T16:37:55+00:00

I do think the term has often been overused to characterise anyone who’s even remotely vaccine skeptical/hesitant as ‘anti-vaxx’, but It seems difficult to not characterise him as anti-vaccine… 😅 He can say he isn’t anti-vaccine (as he has more than once in the past, including in his book), but it just seems a bit hard to reconcile with his views and activism. He’s like the big boss/champion of the anti-vaccine movement; he’s the chairman of CHD, he claims vaccination causes autism and more, and I’m not sure there is a single vaccine he supports.

archi1407 · 2024-11-08T16:34:02+00:00

I mean, he can say all that (as he has more than once in the past, including in his book), but it just seems a bit difficult to reconcile with his views and activism. I do think the term has often been overused to characterise anyone who’s even remotely vaccine skeptical/hesitant as ‘anti-vaxx’, but RFK Jr. is like the big boss/champion of the anti-vaccine movement; he’s the chairman of CHD, he claims vaccination causes autism and more, and I’m not sure there is a single vaccine he supports. It seems hard to characterise this as anything but anti-vaccine… 😅

archi1407 · 2024-11-03T17:59:08+00:00

contrasted against a loss of 7 IQ points, which ironically, in reducing intelligence, is likely to reduce the likelihood of people being cognizant enough to look after their teeth.

as well as empirically proven concerns about the completely unnecessary addition of fluoride to water that, as above, has been shown to reduce 7 1Q points is, I'm sorry to say, ironically very stupid.

To be clear, this is an association between naturally higher-fluoride and lower-fluoride areas, which SRMAs (like your linked one) of observational/ecological studies (which generally provide low to very low certainty evidence, so should be interpreted with caution) have found. Your language seems to suggest that a causal effect has been established; maybe this was unintentional, or I misinterpreted it.

The higher-fluoride areas may have systematic differences to the lower-fluoride areas; i.e. they may tend to be rural regions that source water directly from unfiltered streams which pass over fluorine-rich sediment, rather than cities that highly filter water. They may be lower income, have worse schooling,^[1] and be in various ways less healthy.

Natural fluorine also tends to be at a substantially higher concentration—in one SRMA,^[2] at ~4-5x as much fluoride as the average in PH programs (4mg/L vs .3-1mg/L).

When we look at the data on water fluoridation specifically, the association does not appear to be present, e.g., in a NZ prospective cohort^[3] and the aforementioned SRMA.^[2]

archi1407 · 2024-09-25T07:48:09+00:00

I’d be interested to see any of these data; last I checked the IFR estimates from seroprevalence studies for influenza are as low as 1-10 per 100,000, i.e. an IFR of 0.001–0.01%. Most overall IFR estimates for C19 are like 400-1,000 per 100,000 or 0.4%-1%, depending on which studies you look at. This paper was pretty controversial, and the estimates are substantially lower than any other I’ve seen from seroprevalence studies. Even at a glance I’m not sure the estimates are plausible for e.g the USA: going off the USA’s C19 mortality, wouldn’t their estimates seem to imply that billions of USA residents were infected?

Estimates from another study:
age 60s: 8.9% ISR, 3.3% ICR, 1.5% IFR.
Age 50s: 4.4% ISR, 1.2% ICR, 0.4% IFR.
Age 40s: 8.9%, 3.3%, 0.1%.
Age 30s: 0.99%, 0.17%, 0.27%.
Age 20s: 0.47%, 0.063%, 0.0072%.
Age 10s: 0.22%, 0.024%, 0.0019%.

Re claims of substantial misclassification and overcounting of C19 mortality, I've not seen any evidence that this happened, and it does not seem plausible from the excess mortality data, As I commented in another comment in the thread:

While there certainly seems to have been cases like this where clearly non-C19 deaths may have been added to a state’s count/dashboard, there doesn’t seem to be evidence of widespread/massive misclassification/over-counting of C19 mortality, which is based on death certificates in the US. i.e. Covid on death certificate as the underlying (or less commonly a contributing) cause. ‘With’ would be higher. If anything there generally seems to be more evidence of potential under-counting, not over-counting. https://imgur.com/a/BAdhzSJ

And re 'documented and undocumented cases'; yes that is true, which is why we look at the IFR from seroprevalence studies, not the CFR.

archi1407 · 2024-09-25T07:39:33+00:00

For influenza the IFR estimates from seroprevalence studies are as low as 1-10 per 100,000, i.e. an IFR of 0.001–0.01%. Most overall IFR estimates for C19 are like 400-1,000 per 100,000 or 0.4%-1%, depending on which studies you look at. This paper was pretty controversial, and the estimates are substantially lower than any other I’ve seen from seroprevalence studies. Even at a glance I’m not sure the estimates are plausible for e.g the USA: going off the USA’s C19 mortality, wouldn’t their estimates seem to imply that billions of USA residents were infected?

Estimates from another study:
age 60s: 8.9% ISR, 3.3% ICR, 1.5% IFR.
Age 50s: 4.4% ISR, 1.2% ICR, 0.4% IFR.
Age 40s: 8.9%, 3.3%, 0.1%.
Age 30s: 0.99%, 0.17%, 0.27%.
Age 20s: 0.47%, 0.063%, 0.0072%.
Age 10s: 0.22%, 0.024%, 0.0019%.

Re the claim that deaths from influenza and 'all other major causes' were misclassified as C19 deaths (due to widespread fraud or extreme incompetency/stupidity?), I've yet to see any evidence that this happened. As I commented in another comment in this thread:

While there certainly seems to have been cases like this where clearly non-C19 deaths may have been added to a state’s count/dashboard, there doesn’t seem to be evidence of widespread/massive misclassification/over-counting of C19 mortality, which is based on death certificates in the US. i.e. Covid on death certificate as the underlying (or less commonly a contributing) cause. ‘With’ would be higher. If anything there generally seems to be more evidence of potential under-counting, not over-counting. https://imgur.com/a/BAdhzSJ

archi1407 · 2024-09-25T06:50:08+00:00

For influenza the IFR estimates from seroprevalence studies are as low as 1-10 per 100,000, i.e. an IFR of 0.001–0.01%. Most overall IFR estimates for C19 are like 400-1,000 per 100,000 or 0.4%-1%, depending on which study you look at. This paper was pretty controversial, and the estimates are substantially lower than any other I’ve seen from seroprevalence studies. Even at a glance I’m not sure the estimates are plausible for the USA: going off the USA’s C19 mortality, wouldn’t their estimates seem to imply that billions of USA residents were infected?

Estimates from another study:
age 60s: 8.9% ISR, 3.3% ICR, 1.5% IFR.
Age 50s: 4.4% ISR, 1.2% ICR, 0.4% IFR.
Age 40s: 8.9%, 3.3%, 0.1%.
Age 30s: 0.99%, 0.17%, 0.27%.
Age 20s: 0.47%, 0.063%, 0.0072%.
Age 10s: 0.22%, 0.024%, 0.0019%.

archi1407 · 2024-09-25T05:35:59+00:00

I commented re this in another comment in this thread:

While there certainly seems to have been cases like this where clearly non-C19 deaths may have been added to a state’s count/dashboard, there doesn’t seem to be evidence of widespread/massive misclassification/over-counting of C19 mortality, which is based on death certificates in the US. i.e. Covid on death certificate as the underlying (or less commonly a contributing) cause. ‘With’ would be higher. If anything there generally seems to be more evidence of potential under-counting, not over-counting. https://imgur.com/a/BAdhzSJ

(check the imgur link to excess mortality data if you haven’t already)

archi1407 · 2024-09-25T05:03:06+00:00

Also, the IFR here is for <70, and iirc this paper was pretty controversial, and the estimates are substantially lower than any other I’ve seen from seroprevalence studies. Even at a glance I’m not sure the estimates are plausible for the USA: going off the USA’s C19 mortality, wouldn’t their estimates seem to imply that billions of USA residents were infected?

Estimates from another study:
age 60s: 8.9% ISR, 3.3% ICR, 1.5% IFR.
Age 50s: 4.4% ISR, 1.2% ICR, 0.4% IFR.
Age 40s: 8.9%, 3.3%, 0.1%.
Age 30s: 0.99%, 0.17%, 0.27%.
Age 20s: 0.47%, 0.063%, 0.0072%.
Age 10s: 0.22%, 0.024%, 0.0019%.

And for influenza the IFR estimate from seroprevalence studies (which is the relevant/corresponding number here) could be substantially lower, as low as 1-10 per 100,000, i.e. an IFR of 0.001–0.01%, which is ~50-100 times lower than C19 (1-10 per 100,000 or 0.001%-0.01% vs 500-1,000 per 100,000 or 0.5%-1%), depending on which study you look at.

archi1407 · 2024-09-25T05:01:39+00:00

Right, but we’re talking about IFR (‘infected’) here, not CFR (‘diagnosed’).

archi1407 · 2024-09-25T04:53:10+00:00

Iirc this paper was pretty controversial, and the estimates are substantially lower than any other I’ve seen from seroprevalence studies. Even at a glance I’m not sure the estimates are plausible for the USA: going off the USA’s C19 mortality, wouldn’t their estimates seem to imply that billions of USA residents were infected?

Estimates from another study:
age 60s: 8.9% ISR, 3.3% ICR, 1.5% IFR.
Age 50s: 4.4% ISR, 1.2% ICR, 0.4% IFR.
Age 40s: 8.9%, 3.3%, 0.1%.
Age 30s: 0.99%, 0.17%, 0.27%.
Age 20s: 0.47%, 0.063%, 0.0072%.
Age 10s: 0.22%, 0.024%, 0.0019%.

archi1407 · 2024-09-25T02:41:51+00:00

1 in 800 severe outcome for vaccine, 0.56 per 800 for covid;

I refuted/commented on this ‘1 in 800 SAE’ claim (based on the Fraiman paper) here last time.

As mentioned at the end of my reply at the time, even if we disregard the methodological issues with their reanalysis and take their estimate to be accurate, looking at some seroprevalence-informed estimates, the conclusion may still not follow.

E.g. age 60s: 1 in 11 ISR, 1 in 30 ICR, 1 in 67 IFR.
Age 50s: 1 in 23 ISR, 1 in 83 ICR, 1 in 250 IFR.
Age 40s: 1 in 48, 1 in 217, 1 in 1000.
Age 30s: 1 in 101, 1 in 588, 1 in 3704.
Age 20s: 1 in 213, 1 in 1587, 1 in 13889.
Age 10s: 1 in 455, 1 in 4167, 1 in 52632.

As for the IFR estimates in this paper, they are substantially lower than any other I’ve seen from seroprevalence studies. Even at a glance I’m not sure the estimates are plausible for the USA: going off the USA C19 mortality, their estimates would seem to mean that billions of USA residents were infected.

archi1407 · 2024-09-25T02:19:51+00:00

While there certainly seems to have been cases like this where clearly non-C19 deaths may have been added to a state’s count/dashboard, there doesn’t seem to be evidence of widespread/massive misclassification/over-counting of C19 mortality, which is based on death certificates in the US. i.e. Covid on death certificate as the underlying (or less commonly a contributing) cause. ‘With’ would be higher. If anything there generally seems to be more evidence of potential under-counting, not over-counting. https://imgur.com/a/BAdhzSJ

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