I was shocked at how many people took ivermectin when things started opening up this year. I still have a hard time believing these people got over their covid infection in 2 days with an ivermectin prescription, but at least 50 distinct people told me this. Meanwhile I was left to my own natural remedies after being turned away from the ER.
Also shocking is how many people who did not get the vaccine at all. Really makes me question reality
EDIT: this is purely my anecdotal research of a southern state (where i live) compared to a northern state (where my family lives)
This is not surprising at all given that Ivermectin is a safe medication and most cases of Covid-19 clear by themselves in a few days. So if ivermectin doesn’t help at all you’d still see what you’re seeing.
The surprise might be that Covid-19 is not like Ebola or the Black Plague and although like these diseases it can cause very serious illness or death, unlike these diseases it does not do that in the vast majority of cases.
But what if cocaine is actually treating Covid ? Imagine discovering the cocaine control group is having the same result - would be an interesting plot twist to the pandemic.
I’d thought the majority of spread was from intra and inter household contact. i.e. family member spreads to family members, who visit friends, who spread to their family, etc.
Yep, pretty much what I pictured. Mice are small. You just grab it to restrain it and stick the tube where it needs to go. This doesn't require mistreating the animal (any more than any animal testing is considered mistreatment, but that's another discussion), just being firm and deliberate.
What i don't understand is, if it prevents covid for a longer term or just for a few hours. The article mentions that it prevents that the virus can enter cells, but to me it sounds like it only prevents as long as the spray is present?
It’s so interesting that I can’t tell if you are a troll, being sarcastic, an antisemite, a Q believer, etc.
But also I don’t think your comment adds much to the discussion. Generally, non vaccine treatments have escaped the “Bill Gates and his microchip” skepticism.
> Poe's law is an adage of Internet culture stating that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, every parody of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of the views being parodied
Does it not add to the discussion? It's clearly satire. You can flick your finger on your mouse wheel in this comments section and read something that's trying to be serious but is equally ridiculous.
Also, this opening line is gold:
> Naturally, and it also effects the ability to smell. To smell them.
I am sorry this thread got hijacked. I had the same thought as the OP: vaccines work by training the bodies own defences. The description of this spray sounds more like a disinfectant that prevents the virus from binding to human cells. Can anyone knowledgeable on HN clarify this?
The mucosal immune system in the respiratory tract is the first line of defense against covid. An interstitial injection does not train the mucosal immune system, while a nasal vaccine does. To prevent any infection, the mucosal immune system needs to be primed.
I use an OTC carrageenan nasal spray which shows some effectiveness in preventing infection. Maybe it’s snake oil going up my nose, maybe not, but I think these types of sprays are a convenient path to getting out of the COVID mess.
There's a widely available OTC nasal spray that has been used for years against various respiratory viruses, which became engaged in a regulatory debate.
> The Government tells people to wash their hands; Yet COVID-19 is an upper respiratory illness. Most COVID-19 infections start in the nose. It makes commonsense to wash your nose. People have been using nasal cleansing to fight respiratory illnesses going back thousands of years.
> Xlear previously filed a pre-EUA seeking approval for use of the nasal spray as a medical device in combatting COVID-19. However, because the FDA determined that Xlear “works against the virus,” the FDA told Xlear it would need to be considered as a drug or combination product EUA. Xlear is currently sold in over 50,000 pharmacies, grocery stores, and online as a nasal spray. “Xlear doesn’t require the EUA to be sold and used—we only need an EUA to be able to inform people about the benefits of using Xlear to protect themselves from COVID-19".
Also Betadine Cold Defence, which contains iota carrageenan. But even though it's made in the U.S., the only way to get it is from Canada. (Which is an entirely different product than the Betadine nasal spray that's available in the U.S., which the media has been making fun of people for using.)
Thanks for the pointer. OTC nasal sprays have been used for many years in professions (e.g. dentistry) where there is unavoidable risk of exposure to respiratory viruses.
I feel I read a study about how flushing out your nose with water early and repeatedly when a covid infection starts can knock it back long enough for you to build the immunity to fight it off. Googling irrigation and covid gives you a lot of good hits; I have yet to see a negative one. If I assume competence for no good reason, maybe the government was afraid people would injure themselves?
The existence of a study only indicates that someone secured funding and pushed it through review. COVID was a goldrush for studies with the huge government injection of cash dedicated to research.
There were also early studies suggesting that gargling antiseptic mouthwash had similar effects, but the later studies weren't successful.
Unfortunately, it looks like once the virus is in your airways it moves into the rest of the body too quickly for simple interventions to do much.
Sorry, but you've been duped by supplement sellers' marketing material.
Xlear is just a branded Xylitol nasal spray. You can go buy it right now if you want. The regulatory action only limited them from claiming that it was effective against COVID without evidence, which is a very good thing. Xylitol is a cheap, common ingredient that supplement makers have been trying to push as a wonder drug for a long time. Xylitol nasal spray does not appear to be an effective COVID treatment.
COVID was a gold rush for supplement marketers. Everyone who wanted to sell more supplements was looking for an angle to suggest that their supplement might be helpful. Pushing press releases to Yahoo Finance and Business Wire is an easy way to get your name out there.
They only used 3 mild-moderate COVID patients and zero controls:
> We present a series of three mild-moderate risks, symptomatic, COVID-19 patients, treated with the intranasal combination, as an adjuvant to their ongoing treatment, with rapid clinical improvement and shorten time to negativization on repeat intranasal swab test via PCR.
Their claim that it shortened time to negativization doesn't make any sense because they didn't have a control group to compare against.
This is junk supplement marketing material pretending to be science. Please don't promote it.
When something sounds too good to be true it's easy to visit https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ and run a search for published literature
However, be careful! Savvy supplement companies will give large ownernship shares to doctors in exchange for essentially manufacturing positive-looking literature and pushing it to pay-to-publish journals. You have to read the conflict of interest sections and have a high degree of suspicion to make sure you're reading a real study instead of astroturfing
The problem with this is that you need expertise in the area of interest to know what’s good or bad research, what’s commonly known, and who generally is doing good work. This is too much to ask for the general public in areas like biology, which is why we have experts to filter the information.
The collapse of trust in expertise only widens the possibility for junk to be pushed through, which will result in a terrible self-actualizing cycle. When you see on social media “I did the research and found…”, all that means is someone put something into google and read something that fit a confirmation bias with zero criticality or training on how to interpret what they read.
A large (majority?) part of gaining an expertise is precisely through a large volume of meticulous reading. But I think we're saying the same thing: most people "doing their own research", are not doing meaningful research, partly because it's a herculean undertaking.
There's a Covid nasal spray being developed by a Finnish company Rokote Laboratories Finland Ltd [1], which is supposed to go into clinical trials after this summer.
I remember years ago reading horror stories of a similar nasal spray (Tamiflu I think?) causing long-term or permanent loss of smell, and swore I'd never use it since I'd much rather have the flu once than never smell again.
Is that a risk generally with nasal sprays, or something not to worry about?
The question is, does this work in humans? Existing vaccines work better in orangutans than they do in humans. There's a new vaccine which reportedly works great in rabbits. There are quite a few vaccines in development. Working in mice is only a first step.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 144 ms ] threadAlso shocking is how many people who did not get the vaccine at all. Really makes me question reality
EDIT: this is purely my anecdotal research of a southern state (where i live) compared to a northern state (where my family lives)
The surprise might be that Covid-19 is not like Ebola or the Black Plague and although like these diseases it can cause very serious illness or death, unlike these diseases it does not do that in the vast majority of cases.
http://utw10426.utweb.utexas.edu/quest/Q3/ratpark.html
The universe is indeed unfair.
https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S01660934110005...
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/...
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2013102117
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34954396/
But also I don’t think your comment adds much to the discussion. Generally, non vaccine treatments have escaped the “Bill Gates and his microchip” skepticism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law
Also, this opening line is gold:
> Naturally, and it also effects the ability to smell. To smell them.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nathan-jones-ceo-xlear-inc-11...
> The Government tells people to wash their hands; Yet COVID-19 is an upper respiratory illness. Most COVID-19 infections start in the nose. It makes commonsense to wash your nose. People have been using nasal cleansing to fight respiratory illnesses going back thousands of years.
March 2021, https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210324005241/en/Xle...
> Xlear previously filed a pre-EUA seeking approval for use of the nasal spray as a medical device in combatting COVID-19. However, because the FDA determined that Xlear “works against the virus,” the FDA told Xlear it would need to be considered as a drug or combination product EUA. Xlear is currently sold in over 50,000 pharmacies, grocery stores, and online as a nasal spray. “Xlear doesn’t require the EUA to be sold and used—we only need an EUA to be able to inform people about the benefits of using Xlear to protect themselves from COVID-19".
The EUA process is fairly straightforward. The fact they haven’t gone through it is extremely suspect.
Here were a couple studies that recruited people:
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04347538
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04559035
There were also early studies suggesting that gargling antiseptic mouthwash had similar effects, but the later studies weren't successful.
Unfortunately, it looks like once the virus is in your airways it moves into the rest of the body too quickly for simple interventions to do much.
Xlear is just a branded Xylitol nasal spray. You can go buy it right now if you want. The regulatory action only limited them from claiming that it was effective against COVID without evidence, which is a very good thing. Xylitol is a cheap, common ingredient that supplement makers have been trying to push as a wonder drug for a long time. Xylitol nasal spray does not appear to be an effective COVID treatment.
COVID was a gold rush for supplement marketers. Everyone who wanted to sell more supplements was looking for an angle to suggest that their supplement might be helpful. Pushing press releases to Yahoo Finance and Business Wire is an easy way to get your name out there.
The only hit for "xlear" and "covid" on PubMed is this one case report written by authors with financial ties to Xlear: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33173650/
They only used 3 mild-moderate COVID patients and zero controls:
> We present a series of three mild-moderate risks, symptomatic, COVID-19 patients, treated with the intranasal combination, as an adjuvant to their ongoing treatment, with rapid clinical improvement and shorten time to negativization on repeat intranasal swab test via PCR.
Their claim that it shortened time to negativization doesn't make any sense because they didn't have a control group to compare against.
This is junk supplement marketing material pretending to be science. Please don't promote it.
However, be careful! Savvy supplement companies will give large ownernship shares to doctors in exchange for essentially manufacturing positive-looking literature and pushing it to pay-to-publish journals. You have to read the conflict of interest sections and have a high degree of suspicion to make sure you're reading a real study instead of astroturfing
The collapse of trust in expertise only widens the possibility for junk to be pushed through, which will result in a terrible self-actualizing cycle. When you see on social media “I did the research and found…”, all that means is someone put something into google and read something that fit a confirmation bias with zero criticality or training on how to interpret what they read.
Go and read the 3 patient studies they describe.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7645297/
Not only was there not a control group, the 3 patients had almost nothing in common. Totally different ages, totally different medical histories.
What an absolute garbage study.
[1] https://rokote.com/home.html
Is that a risk generally with nasal sprays, or something not to worry about?
https://www.ehealthme.com/ds/tamiflu/loss-of-smell/
Especially when flu itself can cause loss of smell/taste:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-02-21-mn-44059-... (1988)
It's not clear if in those cases the loss lasted after end of use. My guess it resolved on its own.