Rand Paul: Petty Researchers Won't Study Horse Paste Just To Spite Trump
Except those participating in the 57 current studies on ivermectin identified by the WHO
Rand Paul cannot, he says, fully recommend Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 — but it's not because he doesn't want to, or because ophthalmologists are rarely asked to prescribe antiparasitics. It is because there is not enough research to back it up, because all of the researchers and scientists hate Donald Trump so much that they won't even do any research on it.
Which, boy, is just super petty of them. It's also odd, because while there is scant evidence that Trump is seriously invested in Ivermectin as a treatment for COVID, he was more directly involved with the development of the vaccine, at least claims to have taken it himself and has encouraged his followers to take the vaccine.
"The hatred for Trump deranged these people so much, that they're unwilling to objectively study it," Paul said to the 60 people squeezed into the Cold Spring City Council chambers in this Northern Kentucky suburb just south of Cincinnati. "So someone like me that's in the middle on it, I can't tell you because they will not study ivermectin. They will not study hydroxychloroquine without the taint of their hatred for Donald Trump."
This is a rather fascinating take on the issue, especially considering that there actually have been studies on ivermectin as a COVID treatment, just not studies that showed what those taking it want them to show. The largest study so far, completed in June, says it doesn't work. There was one large study that said the drug showed promise, but it was withdrawn due to ethical concerns.
Via The Guardian:
A medical student in London, Jack Lawrence, was among the first to identify serious concerns about the paper , leading to the retraction. He first became aware of the Elgazzar preprint when it was assigned to him by one of his lecturers for an assignment that formed part of his master's degree. He found the introduction section of the paper appeared to have been almost entirely plagiarised.[...]
[Data analyst Nick] Brown created a comprehensive document uncovering numerous data errors , discrepancies and concerns, which he provided to the Guardian. According to his findings the authors had clearly repeated data between patients.
"The main error is that at least 79 of the patient records are obvious clones of other records," Brown told the Guardian. "It's certainly the hardest to explain away as innocent error, especially since the clones aren't even pure copies. There are signs that they have tried to change one or two fields to make them look more natural."
Additionally, of the current 4,820 COVID-19 clinical trials currently happening (as per the WHO), 57 of them involve ivermectin to one degree or another. Rand Paul could have looked that up. I did, and I'm not even an ophthalmologist.
It is human nature to just assume that other people think and operate pretty much the same way we do. It's why the most obvious, duh sign that someone is going to cheat on you is if they are super possessive and suspicious that you are going to cheat on them. Rand Paul assumes that we would refuse to take an effective drug or that scientists would refuse to research a drug that could save lives out of spite because that is exactly what he would do were he in the same position.
Conservatives, particularly Trump-era conservatives, have no issue cutting their nose off to spite their rhinologist, and assume we must all be the same way. They believe we would knowingly put our own health in danger just to make them unhappy — which would just be silly given that there are so many other things we can do to make them unhappy if that were our goal.
Please . Like I'm gonna die or get sick when I could so easily ruin their day just by going on Twitter and mildly criticizing a television show from 30+ years ago or telling their kids that racism exists and is bad.
The fact is, if those studies actually were to come back and all of the scientists were to agree that ivermectin is in fact a miracle drug for COVID-19 and started encouraging people to take it, the Trumpists who are now lining up at the feed store for it now would immediately start protesting that it was all part of Bill Gates' evil plan to turn them all into talking horses. They don't want smug, educated scientists to be right, they want "Local Mom" to be right and it's unlikely that anything will make them budge.
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Cincinnati, not “Cincinatti”
In which all the "heroes" were whiter than Persil and quite cool with murdering anybody who opposed them. Whether by direct or indirect means. They were also above facts, science and reason, despite how loudly Rand proclaimed her fidelity to all three. (The wondrous alloy Hank Rearden had created by sheer indomitable strength of will when his "young scientists" told him, "Mr. Rearden, it can't be done," is an example. If it was an alloy of copper and steel it couldn't be lighter than steel, and chicken-wire fences made out of it couldn't cost mere "pennies a mile" because the raw materials, even before the production costs, would be more than "pennies a mile."As for John Galt's perpetual motion motor, it was a perpetual motion motor, 'nuff said.This before even touching on the ethical questions, which, you're right, are pretty much the same as Stephen Miller's.