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GidMK's profile
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
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@GidMK

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Health NerdVerified account

@GidMK

Epidemiologist. Writer (Guardian, Observer etc). "Well known research trouble-maker". PhDing at @UoW Host of @senscipod Email gidmk.healthnerd@gmail.com he/him

Sydney, New South Wales
theguardian.com/profile/gideon…
Joined November 2015

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    1. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      21/n If you dig through the supplementaries, what you find is that for "all reported symptoms" there was a large but statistically insignificant difference, represented in this graph of marginal predicted probabilities from a logistic model. It is mostly driven by an/hyposmiapic.twitter.com/h64IdG4LJF

      3 replies 16 retweets 209 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      22/n If you eyeball "any symptoms", you get the results that ivmmeta included in their analysis But that's TOTALLY ARBITRARY. Why not choose cough (where there's no difference) or fever (where IVM did WORSE)

      3 replies 19 retweets 232 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      23/n Also, hilariously, this study used the last observation carried forward method to account for missing data in symptom reporting. You can actually see this in the supplementaries - it's possible the entire result comes from a few people not filling out their diaries properlypic.twitter.com/rA7PO4o4hd

      2 replies 17 retweets 225 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      24/n None of this should matter, because the trial found NO BENEFIT FOR IVERMECTIN, but this has been reported and included into ivmmeta dot com as a hugely beneficial resultpic.twitter.com/mjGBDnpVW5

      5 replies 37 retweets 315 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      25/n This explains the bias I noted above - it's not publication bias, it's that the authors appear to have generally chosen whichever result makes ivermectin look better to include in their model Not really scientific, that!

      5 replies 37 retweets 405 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      26/n But the fun doesn't stop there. The inclusion criteria for this website is any study published on ivermectin, which has led to what I can only call total junk science being lumped in with decent studies

      1 reply 20 retweets 248 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      27/n Here's a study with impossible percentages in table 1 that used a comparator of 12 completely random patients as their control. They don't even say if these 12 people had COVID-19 Included in ivmmeta, no questions askedpic.twitter.com/3AlGdGcPnW

      4 replies 15 retweets 233 likes
      Show this thread
    8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      Health Nerd Retweeted Health Nerd

      28/n ivmmeta includes all of the studies I've been tweeting about recently including this one https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1421368493975359490?s=20 … And this one https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1420582871031373824?s=20 … And this onehttps://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1419557546872819719?s=20 …

      Health Nerd added,

      Health NerdVerified account @GidMK
      People have claimed that ivermectin is 100% effective as a prophylactic for COVID-19 based on an observational trial of the drug I'm extremely concerned about this trial. It definitely should not be used as evidence for anything 1/n pic.twitter.com/G61i7hI6Eo
      Show this thread
      3 replies 16 retweets 205 likes
      Show this thread
    9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      29/n I've now read through about 3/4 of all the studies on the website, and I would say at least 1/2 of them are so low-quality that the figures they report are basically meaningless

      3 replies 15 retweets 280 likes
      Show this thread
    10. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      30/n Moreover, sometimes the website just does stuff that is wildly strange Here's a study with no placebo control. They appear to have calculated a relative risk of...whether the patients in this hospital got treated with ivermectin? WHYpic.twitter.com/qH9PRewSPS

      8 replies 14 retweets 220 likes
      Show this thread
      Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

      31/n I could keep going - there's just so much there. Even just the basic concept of combining literally any number from any study and saying that it makes the model MORE ROBUST is so intrinsically flawed So. Many. Mistakes

      9:18 PM - 1 Aug 2021
      • 20 Retweets
      • 326 Likes
      • Steve Rodrigue Michel David Mayhew, MD, PhD Flávia Feijó #TODOS PELAS VACINAS Cristian Doñas C. Stan Pennington Dominik Tobias Meier Sparks
      12 replies 20 retweets 326 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

          32/n But this thread is already too long, so to sum up - the website looks flashy - the methodology is totally broken - I would call this pretty pseudoscientific; all the trappings of science, with none of the rigor

          6 replies 25 retweets 282 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

          33/n If the authors do indeed want to make this into a reasonably adequate analysis, there are a few steps: 1. Separate treatment outcomes (i.e. analyze ONLY deaths in a model) 2. Rate QUALITY of included literature (i.e. don't aggregate trash with decent studies)

          5 replies 13 retweets 189 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

          34/n 3. Separate STUDY TYPES (i.e. don't include an ecological trial with no control group and an RCT) 4. Take out all the weird language about "probabilities" and heterogeneity, pretty much all of that is just flatly incorrect

          6 replies 12 retweets 182 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

          35/n Also, because people always ask when it comes to ivermectin - no, I've never been paid by any pharma companies for anything, I receive no pharma funding, and all of my COVID-19 work is unpaid anyway

          2 replies 12 retweets 216 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 1

          36/n Frankly, I don't want your money, give it to something more worthwhile like this charity that provides menstrual products to homeless women they're much more deserving than I amhttps://www.sharethedignity.org.au/ 

          16 replies 16 retweets 266 likes
          Show this thread
        7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 2

          37/n One final point - I honestly hope ivermectin works. Based on the current evidence, it looks like the benefit will be modest, but it's still not unlikely that it helps a bit. Problem is, current best evidence is also consistent with harm

          11 replies 11 retweets 147 likes
          Show this thread
        8. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 2

          38/n Ugh, one other note - one shitty website that makes mistakes does not "disprove" ivermectin, just like the website never proved much itself. The question is still open in my opinion, regardless of ivmmeta

          8 replies 8 retweets 130 likes
          Show this thread
        9. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Aug 3

          Health Nerd Retweeted Health Nerd

          39/n An addition - this was a very unfair thing to say about this piece of research, which is very well-done. The issue is not with these researchers, but the ivmmeta website itself and I should've been more clearhttps://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1422044424436011009?s=20 …

          Health Nerd added,

          Health NerdVerified account @GidMK
          23/n Also, hilariously, this study used the last observation carried forward method to account for missing data in symptom reporting. You can actually see this in the supplementaries - it's possible the entire result comes from a few people not filling out their diaries properly pic.twitter.com/rA7PO4o4hd
          Show this thread
          18 replies 7 retweets 73 likes
          Show this thread
        10. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 8

          Health Nerd Retweeted Health Nerd

          40/n A brief update - this was an unfair point to make - the trial does indeed have a control group (such as it is), just not a very useful onehttps://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1422049090007797766?s=20 …

          Health Nerd added,

          Health NerdVerified account @GidMK
          30/n Moreover, sometimes the website just does stuff that is wildly strange Here's a study with no placebo control. They appear to have calculated a relative risk of...whether the patients in this hospital got treated with ivermectin? WHY pic.twitter.com/qH9PRewSPS
          Show this thread
          1 reply 0 retweets 8 likes
          Show this thread
        11. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 8

          Health Nerd Retweeted Kyle Sheldrick

          41/n You can also see some more examples of where the authors of this pseudoscientific website contradict their own stated methodology in this brief thread from Dr. Sheldrickhttps://twitter.com/K_Sheldrick/status/1431507081496969222?s=20 …

          Health Nerd added,

          Kyle Sheldrick @K_Sheldrick
          Replying to @EduEngineer @GidMK
          OK, are we doing this? Let's do this. Let's go through the first set. The prophylaxis studies. Viral positivity is the least important outcome so presumably the five here should not report any symptom, hospitalisation or mortality outcomes, will there be an error in these 5? pic.twitter.com/0TxoZ7hS7H
          1 reply 1 retweet 14 likes
          Show this thread
        12. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 8

          42/n And worth noting that we've come forward with serious concerns about fraud for 4 studies that remain up in the main analysis on the website Not scientific at all, but, well, not unexpected!

          6 replies 2 retweets 29 likes
          Show this thread
        13. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 23h23 hours ago

          43/n People keep directing me to this pseudoscientific website, so I might as well keep pointing out issues This study - Ahmed et al - found no benefit for ivermectin on duration of hospitalization, cough, or sore throat. So why is it presented as massively positive?pic.twitter.com/Xo9De14u0h

          1 reply 3 retweets 10 likes
          Show this thread
        14. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 23h23 hours ago

          44/n Well, in the ivermectin groups (there were two of them), of those who had a fever at the start of the treatment in one group everyone recovered. In the placebo group, 3 people still had a fever at day 5pic.twitter.com/L28viBtMOY

          1 reply 1 retweet 5 likes
          Show this thread
        15. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 23h23 hours ago

          45/n Now, obviously this contradicts ivm meta's stated methodology - they should use hospitalization length which is more severe than reported symptoms - but it's also quite funny because they've even excluded ONE OF THE IVERMECTIN GROUPS

          1 reply 1 retweet 5 likes
          Show this thread
        16. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 23h23 hours ago

          46/n In reality, this trial should have a point estimate above 1, because in this trial people treated with ivermectin stayed (non-significantly) longer in hospital than the placebo group, but the website is only interested in promoting ivermectin, not factspic.twitter.com/bDBVOuq0KC

          2 replies 3 retweets 19 likes
          Show this thread
        17. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK 23h23 hours ago

          47/n You can even see just how dishonest this website is when looking at cough. It's debatable whether cough is more severe than fever, because there's no assessment in the paper, but the placebo group did better than ivermectin in this trial on cough (p=0.15)pic.twitter.com/0qfHZbtXKp

          5 replies 2 retweets 20 likes
          Show this thread
        18. End of conversation

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