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GidMK's profile
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Health Nerd
Verified account
@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 Sep 9

      This graphic has been passed around a lot by the ivermectin crowd, so I thought I'd very briefly explain why it's quite clearly incorrect 1/10pic.twitter.com/hfecgKyf1L

      69 replies 545 retweets 1,681 likes
      Show this thread
    2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

      2/10 The graphic is based on this preprint on medrxiv, which appears to make several mistakes that lead to a lack of much meaning in the final outcomes of the analysispic.twitter.com/ZAhbyrurHn

      1 reply 13 retweets 173 likes
      Show this thread
    3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

      3/10 The basic idea of the paper is to split countries up by their use of ivermectin to treat river blindness, and then compare them based on COVID-19 deaths There are two main issues with thispic.twitter.com/AErLdkswLd

      3 replies 13 retweets 154 likes
      Show this thread
    4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

      4/10 The first problem is the exposure data - saying "these countries have been treated for endemic onchocerciasis" doesn't actually make any estimate of how many people took ivermectin in 2020/21

      1 reply 15 retweets 213 likes
      Show this thread
    5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

      5/10 If you look at scientific publications into onchocerciasis, it looks like ~90million people across Africa used to receive ivermectin yearly for this purpose i.e.https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0002032#s3 …

      2 replies 13 retweets 150 likes
      Show this thread
    6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

      5.5/10 However, this mass-distribution of ivermectin for river blindness by the WHO was PHASED OUT IN 2008-2015. There are individual programs ongoing, but it is not correct to use past estimates of endemic disease to classify countries https://www.who.int/about/evaluation/jaf21-apoc-final-report15-v5.pdf …pic.twitter.com/Wuiedb7Wns

      2 replies 20 retweets 231 likes
      Show this thread
    7. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

      6/10 Conversely, the WHO does still assist in distribution of ivermectin under a program to eliminate lymphatic filiariasis This includes countries labelled "No ivermectin" in the above graphic https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/who-wer9543 …pic.twitter.com/YsQbLx3bYW

      1 reply 14 retweets 198 likes
      Show this thread
      Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

      7/10 So the exposure is meaningless - this chart is comparing countries that use ivermectin to...countries that ALSO use ivermectin on a mass scale But the outcome is wrong too

      10:36 PM - 9 Sep 2021
      • 20 Retweets
      • 229 Likes
      • Occam's Epilady 🍑🌊 Scott Myers HopefulCanadian Beelzebub monica robins Cilene Lino Esemismo Wynter Callison Paolo (Poli) Bolpet
      3 replies 20 retweets 229 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

          8/10 We KNOW that the death data in many African countries for COVID-19 is not great. For one thing, some countries simply do not record any COVID-19 deaths (or test for COVID-19 at all)...pic.twitter.com/lTFg0s7eog

          4 replies 18 retweets 218 likes
          Show this thread
        3. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

          9/10 ...for another, scientists in Zambia have PROVEN that the death data there is a drastic undercount. Comparing places is more about who records deaths better than any meaningful attribution of causality https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/372/bmj.n334.full.pdf …pic.twitter.com/KYwoNa1GJl

          3 replies 19 retweets 251 likes
          Show this thread
        4. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

          10/10 To sum up - this graphic is meaningless. Neither the exposure OR the outcome are correct. Many people in the orange countries received ivermectin, and many more people than recorded in the blue countries likely died of COVID-19pic.twitter.com/ElpxQ4z7Yd

          4 replies 62 retweets 384 likes
          Show this thread
        5. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

          11/10 One minor addendum - this took me a total of about half an hour to check. The study itself is simple, and looking up information on mass ivermectin distribution is not that complex The incorrect graphic has been shared 10,000s of times 🤷‍♂️

          10 replies 31 retweets 421 likes
          Show this thread
        6. Health Nerd‏Verified account @GidMK Sep 9

          Health Nerd Retweeted Health Nerd

          12/10 It is also worth briefly clarifying that this is only one method of ivermectin distribution - it does not include private prescription and uptake of ivermectin in any African countries during the pandemic, which is probably also a huge amounthttps://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1436201926568251393?s=20 …

          Health Nerd added,

          Health NerdVerified account @GidMK
          7/10 So the exposure is meaningless - this chart is comparing countries that use ivermectin to...countries that ALSO use ivermectin on a mass scale But the outcome is wrong too
          Show this thread
          16 replies 14 retweets 215 likes
          Show this thread
        7. End of conversation
        1. New conversation
        2. Andrew Fraser‏ @Arfness Sep 10
          Replying to @GidMK

          To be fair the correlation between countries that *have* endemic river-blindness and reduced Covid mortality is stronger than the ivermectin distribution correlation. Why aren't they arguing that the parasite mediates Covid infections? (Also, all the other stuff that you said)

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        3. Arun Mirchandani‏ @anjuman Sep 10
          Replying to @Arfness @GidMK

          Good question!

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        4. End of conversation
        1. Wynter Callison‏ @CallisonWynter Sep 11
          Replying to @GidMK

          They are comparing apples and assholes. No wonder.

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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