Be smart, stay foolish, take care

An abstract work themed on the anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin. image by C Y Gopinath using Midjourney

Not too many days ago, I found myself facing two questions: Was I an anti-vaxxer or a pro-vaxxer? Did I believe the drug Ivermectin was a sure cure for COVID-19?

The evidence indicates that I must be a pro-vaxxer because I have already received two vaccine shots. The AstraZeneca was on July 25, 2021. It did not prevent me from coming down with COVID-19 three months later, on October 2.

The hospital treated me with monoclonal antibodies, and after one intravenous infusion, I was right as rain within 48 hours.

I got my Moderna mRNA vaccine shot on January 27, 2022. I had a mild reaction for two days, which was easily fixed with Tylenol.

Nonetheless, I came down with COVID-19 a second time on July 22, 2022, almost exactly six months later. This time, all symptoms were mild, not enough to keep me from working, and I was normal by the fifth day.

And there's the evidence. A man takes two vaccines, gets COVID twice nonetheless, is cured by a decisive and unusual intervention the first time and barely suffers the second time.

Should we conclude that the vaccines were ineffective? No vaccine, for this or any other disease, comes with a fail-safe guarantee of 100 per cent lifelong protection. The yellow fever vaccine, for example, is not valid for more than 10 years.

Was my milder second attack because of the mRNA vaccine or because my body had developed some natural immunity? Does this experience make me a pro-vaxxer or anti-vaxxer?

Which brings me to the second question, about Ivermectin. Would I take it or recommend it to someone with COVID-19? Till yesterday, my answer might have been an unequivocal no. I am on somewhat shakier ground now - and that requires some explanation.

During the pandemic, I diligently followed developments in the understanding of the virus and its prevention and treatment. Coming up with perfect information in the middle of an evolving pandemic is not easy, and I didn't expect any better. There was a morass of conflicting, evolving information, often tainted by poor research, half-baked hypotheses, conspiracy theories and corporate vested interests.

One did one's best, often going by gut instinct and friends' experiences. Humans are gifted at reaching clear conclusions from scanty data. From the data, I developed an abiding mistrust of WHO and Bill Gates.

WHO misled the world for a year by insisting that the virus spread primarily through droplets and contaminated surfaces, despite an open letter with evidence from 200 senior scientists pointing out the potential for airborne transmission. They only updated their guidance 13 months later, in April 2021.

This behaviour at such a dire time carried the stench of institutional hubris.

As for Bill Gates, I have always been sceptical that a man whose life had been built on capitalism and greed would turn overnight into a kind-hearted philanthrope, even while acknowledging that his funding had enabled significant research into several diseases.

My inner journalist suspected that corporate interests informed his benevolence. When he refused to share vaccine manufacturing technology with poor countries, insisting that they buy it from American pharma giants, my suspicions became certainty. Gates is more a saviour of corporate wealth than human lives.

The internet, meanwhile, continued recommending certain treatments and measures while deprecating others. Ivermectin was one of them. All my hours of research could not unearth a single decisive study that showed clear negative or positive results. Despite inconclusive evidence, most dismissed Ivermectin as ineffective veterinary "horse paste".

In this period, I would have regular conversations with a friend who was both emphatically anti-vaccine and pro-Ivermectin. Using information from online sources, he had concluded that neither masks, social distancing nor vaccines were needed, since Ivermectin could cure COVID-19. He made sure his family stayed away from them too.

Then three people, including his wife and two seniors, tested positive for coronavirus though they had no symptoms. His trusted family doctor prescribed a single pill of Ivermectin each. They developed no symptoms till the next test, which was negative.

I'm hard-pressed to believe that all three tests were false positives and that three infected persons, two of them elderly, remained symptom-free on their own. The only common factor was Ivermectin. This personal experience of a close friend was more compelling to me than anything else. I can no longer dismiss Ivermectin, even though I might wish for more evidence before accepting that it is a universal cure for COVID-19. These days, I follow certain simple rules as far as accepting or rejecting information goes.

1. Suspect anyone who claims to have "the truth" and disparages dissenters as ignorant or fools.

2. Be extra alert if they claim to have knowledge so specialised that ordinary mortals had best just take their word for it.

3. Read the summary results section of peer-reviewed scientific papers carefully. If the evidence is described as insufficient or inconclusive, know that this is how scientists say: "We don't know yet."

It means that you're on your own and had best start relying on your own research and conclusions

Finally, stay foolish. Implicitly trust the person who says, "This is what I believe now, but I may be wrong.

Maybe there's more to learn."

You can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopi@gmail.com
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.