own drug. I think there's probably been more information coming out since February so this might be a little dated but they haven't updated it yet. So they say about their own drug no scientific basis for it as a therapeutic against COVID from what they call preclinical studies. So they say there's no scientific basis from preclinical studies. I guess that means the observational stuff. So the people who are looking at those same studies say oh it totally works. And Merck, the company that makes the drug, is looking at the same studies, at least the ones that were there up to February. I think there'd been some more after that but at that point they're saying no, I'm looking at those and it doesn't work.

They also say there's no meaningful evidence for clinical efficacy, which is really just saying the same thing. And then number three, concerning lack of safety data in the majority of studies. Okay but you'd also think that probably they have a pretty good sense of the safety of their own drug because it's been used for years.

So do these reasons strike you as convincing? Because there's a problem here with Merck. So they make ivermectin but they seem to be dumping on their own drug. But wait, it turns out that they're coming up with this. They're trying to promote a new drug called molnupiravir. It would be an oral antiviral. And they already have procurement agreements with the government of the United States. In other words it's pre-sold. All they have to do is show that it works and they get a big check. A really big check. Like a god-awfully big check from the government. And they just have to show that it works. And wouldn't it be great if it worked better than this ivermectin that might not be as profitable? It's kind of sketchy isn't it?

So this is what Brett Weinstein pointed out. That isn't this interesting that the company is trashing their own drug which some of these studies would indicate it works, at the same time they're pushing one that would be far more profitable if they could get this through the system, huh?

So now Anatoly Lubarsky, who is one of my favorite skeptics, he's good with the data and good with the logic, unusually good. And he noted that molnupiravir was part of Operation Warp Speed which means it had been contemplated for quite a while, probably before we had a lot of information about ivermectin. And meanwhile it failed the trial for hospitalized patients. And I guess Merck had two vaccine candidates that failed.

Imagine being Merck when your other pharmaceutical companies are making a gazillion dollars during the pandemic and poor Merck has two vaccine candidates that have failed. It's the difference between like many billions of dollars and no dollars. That's a really big difference. How much does Merck need a win? How much does Merck, their management, need to get some money out of this pandemic? Pretty much, right? I mean they got a lot riding on this because their competitors have made money.

But Anatoly thinks that the ivermectin decision by Merck is unlikely to be related to what they're doing with their new drug just because of the timing of it. Now I'm not sure that any of this you could take as definitive but there's an open question whether Merck is being completely objective about this or if it's a money grab. And you can't really tell but it's terrible that we have to ask the question isn't it? It's terrible that we have to ask the question because that would be sort of putting Merck in a bad light.

And have they ever done anything that would suggest that they could do something this unethical? Well let me tell you about a drug called Vioxx that Merck also had in which there were a number of doctors who were against it. But of course if they could get this drug approved it would make lots and lots of money. And so Merck drew up what they called a doctor hit list where they tried to discredit and criticize anybody who said their drug was bad. Doctors. They actually had a hit list of doctors that they were going to discredit just for saying bad things about their drug.

So if you could do that, could you do the other thing? They're different things but if you believe that this is, apparently there's good evidence of this, if you believe that they had a hit list of doctors to discredit just because they had different opinions about the value of this drug, do you think that they wouldn't push one drug over another even if people died? Do you think they wouldn't do that? I'm not saying they did. I'm saying that if you have people who act one way unethically you kind of have to assume that at least they're flexible in this ethical domain.

So here's my, and then I was looking at some comments by Andres Backhouse who was looking at the meta analyses and I'm just going to read you his tweet because I think if I try to summarize it myself I'll get it wrong. But here's what he says about one meta review. So this is a review of the individual lower quality studies about ivermectin. And Andres points out that going through the Bryant et al meta review, the mortality effects for patients with mild to moderate or severe COVID are insignificant in six out of eight checks. Much seems to hang on one RCT, randomized controlled trial, that bunches different patient types and isn't peer reviewed.

So although you're looking at a bunch of different studies, what happens if one of them is sort of bigger than the other? If there's one that's really big it's gonna sway your result, right? What if the big one's the only one that's wrong? That's the problem, right? Now I'm not saying the big one is wrong. I'm saying what if it is? What if it's the only one that's wrong? It's the biggest one. Well there goes your whole meta-analysis.

And what if you said to yourself well I won't include that one because I think it's wrong? Can't do that because that is not a proper analysis. As soon as you decide what's in and what's out it's not a study anymore. It's just you deciding what's in and what's out and then that will give you the result you want. So if you're deciding what's in and what's out I'm not sure it's science or math or anything. It's just you making some opinions.

But if you put it all in and say okay I'll just dumbly put them all together then you've got this one big one that may have made the whole thing irrelevant. Because what if the big one's wrong? Now I'm not saying it's wrong but to Andres' point the big one bunches different patient types which seems like something you should be concerned about. And it isn't peer reviewed which also seems like something you should worry about.

And also separately Andres is pointing out that the margin of error on these things is pretty big.

All right so bottom line, do I think ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine work? And my answer is I don't know. I don't know. If you're positive that they work that's not a good opinion. Could be right. You might be right. But it's not a good opinion because the science isn't there. If you're positive it doesn't work that's not a good opinion. That's a terrible opinion because there's plenty of evidence they both work. They're just not quite good enough evidence. So anything that looks like certainty either direction seems like a bad play.

But if you were to say to yourself should you take them? Well that's a different question. Because let's say that you were 70 years old and didn't have access to vaccine for whatever reason. You know would you take it in that case? Let's say you had the COVID. You're 70. Let's say there's some reason you can't take the vaccine or can't get it whatever. Yeah, yeah might make sense as a risk management thing.

All right. Biden is talking to Putin I guess pretty soon. And when asked what he would talk about I believe that he said something along the lines of what was he gonna do? He was gonna tell him what he needs to know. That's what Biden said. I'm going to tell him what he needs to know. So I guess we're okay with Russia because Biden's going to tell him what he needs to know.

I've got a feeling that Biden will not be moved by, or that Putin will not be too moved by Biden telling him what he needs to know. What exactly is Biden going to do? Threaten him? Somebody says are you serious about what? Am I serious about what? Put a topic in there.

All right so anyway I'm not expecting much out of the Biden-Putin meeting. But we'll see. Now do you think that Biden will come out of that acting too friendly to Russia? Because remember when Trump seemed too friendly to Putin that was a lot of criticism. So how is Biden going to be Biden without being too friendly? Like what's that look like?

I feel as if you know if they have a joint press conference at the end like Trump and Putin did it's probably a mistake. He probably shouldn't do that. But if they do, seeing Putin and Biden side by side, how's that going to make you feel? Are you going to feel like yeah my team's looking pretty strong. Look at that Biden. Look at him go. He's sharp. He's gonna show Putin what for.

If you're Biden's handlers do you let him stand side by side with Putin and talk you know one after the other in front of people? I don't think so. So we'll wait to see but I'm going to predict there is no side-by-side Putin-Biden press conference after it. What do you say? I say no. We'll see.

Well eight years after my book "How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big" was published it's actually gaining in popularity eight years later. And when I wrote it I actually thought that would happen. I thought that it would be a minor success when it was published and that it would grow in power over time as people read it and tried the techniques and then recommended it.

And I swear every single day I'm seeing memes about it. And I don't see that about other books. I've written a lot of books but this one is a meme almost every day. Almost every day somebody's tweeting about it eight years later. And if you look, a l