Moray, I understand the material. I have a Ph.D. from Caltech and have worked in biotech for more than two decades (in companies working in the fields of human diagnostics, viral infectious disease, and molecular biology). I also study techniques of persuasion, including ones from the slimier end of the field (as discussed in material by Cialdini, Bernays, Adams, and Attkisson, among others).
This does not mean I'm always right -- I'm not. But I mention the above in hopes that we can skip where you try to convince me that I'm misunderstanding the material.
Here's what we have:
1. There is substantial, clearly presented evidence that supports the usefulness of Ivermectin.
2. The AP article employs standard smear techniques, obvious and familiar to anyone who knows that stuff.
Do I know that there is an agenda? No. But:
-- The claim that there is no evidence is either an absurd whopper of a lie or a surprising level of idiocy. I don't think that AP writers are likely to be actual idiots. But it is common for media (on all sides) to serve up absurd whoppers.
-- Various standard smear techniques don't write themselves. It takes intentional work.
Regarding your specific technical comments, you jump right to the in vitro study. That shows you have some technical knowledge. Then you presumably know that:
1. In vivo and in vitro are highly different environments.
2. There are cases where something works in vitro but not in vivo.
3. And vice versa.
4. What matters is in vivo. It is what proves or disproves efficacy.
5. In vitro comparatively speaking doesn't matter. It helps as a screen (which is irrelevant once you are at in vivo stage), and it helps find mechanism of action sometimes, but not always.
Yet in making your argument, you focus on the in vitro study, skip what matters most (the in vivo efficacy), and use a fallacious reasoning technique to support a position that is contradicted by data in humans.
The logical fallacy you use is the association fallacy, and you are using it like this: A worked in the lab. B worked in the lab. But B won't work on full humans. Therefore, A won't work in full humans.
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All of this is like the following.
People are starving to death.
Researchers find that putting hunks of fish into a petri dish of human cells doesn't avoid starvation of the cells unless only glucose is extracted from the fish first, and that glucose put into the petri dish. They conclude that fish as a food might be impractical, because it might require eating 42 pounds of fish in one sitting to get enough glucose.
Other researchers find that feeding a fish to an actual human does ward off starvation. They do 50 experiments in clinical trials, RCT's, and OCT's, all of which show that eating fish works great. They put together a document that lists the one in vitro experiment and the 50 in vivo studies. One of the researchers testifies to Congress.
As a result, a reporter writes an article stating "there is no evidence that eating fish works as a food source". She goes on to use various standard smear techniques to support her statement.
Maybe coincidentally, it turns out that there is a large industry that is working on an expensive new, proprietary food source as a solution. That industry commonly pays lots of money to the media for advertising (etc.). There are also other large, powerful organizations with vested interest in the proprietary food source working out. And the nation is saturated to the gills with partisanship and intense battles (both overt and covert) over agendas on all sides.
I say that I think the author is a shill (as I don't think that she's like to be a moron or that smear techniques appear write themselves into articles).
Moray points out the one in vitro study, and dismisses the 50 in vivo studies, adding "You know what else had promising lab experiments? Bathing human cells in glycol and freezing them at -80C. You think we can pump a human full of glycol and freeze him to -80? See? Eating fish probably doesn't work because freezing a human to -80 wouldn't work."
