I learned a long time ago that if you search for confirmation in academic journals, eventually you'll find a study that will make your case for you. I've always said that if you look long and hard enough, you can "prove" that pink elephants not only exist, but that they fly. And every drug known to man works for some people some of the time. And occasionally the CDC will tell you what you need to know as opposed to what they need you to know. But I digress.
What is Expertise?
Expertise is being able to put any and all studies, even those whose results are dangling from each end of a bell curve, into some kind of overall context. Unfortunately for the human race, there aren't any humans really qualified to do that. So (1) we guess, and (2) we extrapolate, and (3) ideally we subordinate our need for answers to the realization that there are no immediate answers, and there may not be any for years to come. However, that #3 rarely happens in reality. Instead, money and pressure and the need to proceed (that's a Top Gun homage) propel us into drawing conclusions to fuel practical plans. These forced-choice practical plans often turn out to be horribly flawed. Proceeding isn't the same as understanding is the lesson rarely learned.
Partial Information
Gamblers ply their trade by processing partial information and making decisions of significant personal import based on that partial information. I think we do it more often than anybody and better than anybody. Any wager made is a significant decision based on partial information. Any wager NOT made is a significant decision based on partial information. Wading through partial information that matters is what we do.
In gambling, recognizing the significance of something isn't easy. For example, for every two-year stretch of games played by a college football team, there's generally at least one game that statistically makes no sense. A game where the team doesn't at all resemble the squad that plays the other 23 or 24 games of the two-year schedule. When faced with a result like that, a gambler must decide whether what he's just seen is an indication of a team's true profile or some 1 in 20 anomaly that, if you take too seriously, will handicap your handicapping going forward. Ignoring the result of what you've just seen, in essence ignoring the immediate reality, can be a road to ruin. Not defining an anomaly as such immediately after the anomaly, however, can put you on that same road.
As blackjack players say, all counts are partial counts. And as sports bettors say, you can't always know what you want. But sometimes you know what you need. Or maybe that was The Rolling Stones.
Latest Ivermectin Study
So now we have an Ivermectin study from Brazil that seems to offer unequivocal evidence that Ivermectin works as a prophylactic drug versus Covid. The study is "Ivermectin Prophylaxis Used for COVID-19: A Citywide, Prospective, Observational Study of 223,128 Subjects Using Propensity Score Matching." Lucy Kerr is the lead author.
This study has solid numbers, both in terms of numbers of subjects and significance, but it also features the usual problems with these clinician-reporting studies. The study is observational; Ivermectin use prior to the study is unknown. The study has asymmetric population numbers for comparison. Researchers relied on study participants to self-report reality, always a dicey business. And there was no iron-willed monitoring to ensure that everyone in the study who received their Ivermectin actually took their Ivermectin. All true enough.
A brief aside here. It seems to me that the folks who would disqualify this study due to self-reporting weaknesses are the same folks who think it's a great idea to rely on VAERS self-reporting for U.S. vaccine-caused illnesses and deaths. When you ask these people to call heads or tails, they invariably call "Yes!"
Here's the Deal
People who've followed the 200 entries of this blog know that I've been studiously neutral on Ivermectin. The only thing I've said is that the August 24, 2021 CNN report on Ivermectin was the worst example of journalism and science reporting I have ever seen on a news network. It failed basic rules of reporting, of logic, of argument, and of science. It was so hideous, literally every third line in the piece had a problem. But other than pointing out what a Journalism 101 fail that was, I've had nothing to say about Ivermectin at all.
Since my gig in the "Propaganda Files" is evaluating reporting, not evaluating medical studies, I still have little to say. What I'm going to do is give mainstream media a week to digest the Kerr study, and then I'll report on their reporting. What I want to see is if CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, USA Today, and others treat this study with the same coverage and gravitas as the JAMAS "Ivermectin Debunking" study mentioned in "A Tale of Two Studies."
Kerr's paper is much stronger than the Lim debunking paper, so the test will be whether it gets comparable or more impactful coverage. If anyone wants to bet on which paper gets more national press, email me at IntegritySports@aol.com. Call it partial information, but I have a hunch.
Bob Dietz
March 7, 2022
