In the pandemic, I find it hard to decide who I can trust about questions such as vaccine effectiveness, lockdown effectiveness, ivermectin effectiveness and so on.
Authorities such as the Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization haven’t always told the truth, or at least not the whole truth. But this doesn’t mean the critics of the CDC and WHO are necessarily reliable. When doctors disagree, how can I, a layman, decide?
That’s why I’m impressed with this interview of Eric Osgood, a physician, by David Fuller, a co-founder of a podcast called Rebel Wisdom, even though I don’t usually spend time watching long videos on computer screens.
Fuller is more interested in getting the facts right, and Ogood more interested in what is best for his patients, than about defending one side or another.
Osgood recommends vaccination to most of his patients, but also prescribes ivermectin. He gets flak from the right-wing anti-vax fanatics, who tell him he is a tool of the establishment, and the left-wing anti-ivermectin zealots, who say he is helping the anti-vaxxers.
He used to be a member of the Frontline Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, which is the chief promoter of ivermectin, but now has reservations about Dr. Pierre Kory’s recommendation to double the dose against the Delta variant, which he doesn’t think has any empirical basis.
I think Dr. Kory has followed a common path by those who question an ideological orthodoxy. A dissenter is cast out by those he had been accustomed to thinking of as his friends. His dissent is welcomed by those of the opposing ideological orthodoxy. Gradually, the opposing orthodoxy comes to seem more and more reasonable.
One interesting fact that I hadn’t known is that Dr. Kory himself and his daughter caught Covid-19. Dr. Kory is not explicitly anti-vaccination, but he didn’t get vaccinated himself.
His infection was a mild case, so maybe ivermectin did some good. Dr. Osgood’s view is that ivermectin is harmless, cheap and of some benefit, and just possibly the wonder drug that Dr. Kory thinks it might be, so there is no reason not to use.
For what it’s worth, that’s what I now think, too. I was much more of an ivermectin enthusiast when I first heard about it than I am now. I still oppose the campaign to prevent it being prescribed or discussed.