The new IPC projections have been released.

I placed the prior projection side by side with the current one to see the difference.

Notable changes:

- While the report notes there is still a risk of famine across the Gaza strip, all projections of famine with "reasonable evidence" have been removed.

In order to have a projection of famine with "reasonable evidence", 2 of the 3 criteria must be met:
- 20% of households face an extreme lack of food
- 30% of children suffering from acute malnutrition
- Deaths of 2 adults or 4 children per 10,000 population each day

At least two criteria were not met: the mortality criteria was not met, and the acute malnutrition percentage was not nearly 30%. It's actually less than 10% and targeting towards pre-war levels - 4% by MUAC (the 0.8% figure was not based off MUAC for an apples to apples comparison), but that's an analysis for another time.

- Proportions in different phases:

Both for the overall Gaza strip and each region, the proportion of the population in each Phase is more favorable.

Overall, the prior projection placed:
50% in Catastrophe (5)
38% in Emergency (4)
12% in crisis (3).

The current overall projection places:
22% in Catastrophe (5)
33% in Emergency (4)
41% in crisis (3)
4% in Stresses (2)

Improvements in this distributions are also seen in the individual regions.

- The north is no longer projected to be the most concerning area. That title now belongs to Rafah. However, Rafah is still not the "new north" in the sense that the Rafah projection is still not as bad as the North was. In fact, it's not even as bad as the prior projection placed Rafah previously. So the most concerning area is expected to be Rafah, but even Rafah's prior distribution projection was a bit than it currently is.

Overall this is a sign of improvement, but of course it is not a sign to relax humanitarian efforts. It's extremely important that prior efforts have successfully prevented famine, and efforts should be made to improve the situation further.
For those wondering, here is the prior projection compared to the current situation:

I conducted an independent analysis that predicted there would be no famine in Gaza. At the time, my analysis went against the entirety of the international community, the UN, NGOs, even the IPC that claimed otherwise.

After months of being gaslit with doomsday level claims and how I would be proven wrong because all the experts are against my assessment, the Famine Review Committee (FRC) is now finally acknowledging they can't endorse the conclusions of famine as plausible, and are even making the very same criticisms I have pointed out of the previous reports for months now.

Let's go over the details. Thread 🧵 Firstly, the main conclusions.

For the FEWS NET Classification of "Famine (IPC Phase 5) with reasonable evidence": The FRC "does not find the the FEWS NET analysis plausible given the uncertainty and lack of convergence of the supporting evidence.

They do note that the FEWS NET projection for the second period is in line with a FRC projection done in March 2024, however this projection was not updated since then and (as we will see) the situation has radically changed. They FRC ultimately "is unable to endorse IPC Phase 5 (Famine) for the projection period.

For the following military operations, assess if the failure was one of adherence to the principle of distinction, the principle of proportionality, both, or neither. Note: that cases are hypothetical and not meant to exactly represent real events accurately. Also, the choice "neither" does not necessarily mean a different principle wasn't violated.

Case 1: A polygamous militant is targeted in his house for an airstrike. His family of 100 wives and children are also there. Case 2: A junior level militant is found on an aid van full of many aid workers of a major humanitarian organization. The van is part of a multi-vehicle convoy.

The decision is made to target the militant on the van, and also to target the other aid vehicles for airstrikes as well.

Disinformation from the @nytimes.

1) These figures exclude all private sector trucks. This is misleadingly stated as excluding "commercial goods" as if the private sector trucks aren't carrying the very same sort of items that are humanitarian aid related. But they are. Anyone can check the UNRWA database to see the private sector trucks are carrying various food items of humanitarian importance.

Of note, since May there has been a radical increase in private sector reliance for humanitarian items. For example: 1,920 trucks from the private sector entered Gaza from May 13th to May 22nd.

I can't stress enough how dishonest this is. This methodology simply takes ~2,000 trucks (likely more) and erases them from the dataset as if they never existed.

2) These figures even exclude some humanitarian trucks too. The UNRWA dashboard's claim is that after May 6th only UN and INGO humanitarian trucks were counted, but there is another category of humanitarian trucks that are not included in these categories "Humanitarian - Donor" that are not counted. These are usually from a donating country such as the UAE or Jordan. As before, this methodology simply erases these trucks from the dataset as if they never existed.

I have attempted to replicate their graph without magically erasing these trucks from existence and the difference is striking and far more optimistic.

3) Points about bias the NYT is quick to list dates such as "May 7 Israel seizes Rafah crossing in incursion" but do not list dates such as "May 5 Hamas launches rockets at Kerem Shalom, closing the crossing" or "Egyptian policy shuts down Rafah crossing". Source of low grade 972/Haaretz style Russian tier propaganda (aka NYT) here:

nytimes.com/interactive/20…

This will be a thread on the available data and quotes of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) staff as it relates to:

1) The exclusion of Jews from initiatives
2) Systemic anti-Israel sentiments
3) Straight-up Jew hatred (antisemitism in the strongest sense).
4) Support for terrorism (yes, actually). Despite branding itself as "inclusive", Jews are almost always excluded from DEI initiatives.

In a review of 24 major college and university diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, the advocacy group Stop Antisemitism found that only two of them had any specific programming or materials related to antisemitism. “DEI departments have not made fighting antisemitism a priority,” the group concludes in its 2022 “report card” of American campuses.

Two be clear, this is ~92% of DEI initiatives examined. Initiatives that have built in programs to protect virtually all recognized minorities from hatred with the exception of Jews specifically.

static1.squarespace.com/static/5cc20f5…

Perhaps the most well controlled study on the efficacy of gender affirming surgeries in adult transgender people is the least discussed study on the topic.

It's a 1990 interventional trial with control group, that just went unnoticed.

Thread

cambridge.org/core/journals/… Not the best trial, but until recently, I did not think any interventional trial with an appropriate control group existed for estimating the treatment effect of gender affirming surgical intervention and mental health outcome metrics in transgender adults.

I was wrong.

The onus of evidence is always on the one making the claim.

"Safe" is not a categorical term, but a relational one.

That being said. I will address the "important health outcomes" mentioned in the thread "Mental health, bone health, and body composition, especially muscle mass"

https://twitter.com/kevinnbass/status/1600133824439951360

Mental health addressed here. The highest quality of studies (RCTs and cohort studies) broadly find either favorable effects of vegan/vegetarian diets vs omnivores or no difference.

Poorer quality studies (cross-sectional) generally find negative effects

https://twitter.com/AviBittMD/status/1600293828400816128

Usage of puberty blockers in TGD children is associated with a statistically significantly DECREASED probability of subsequent usage of cross sex hormonal therapy RR = 0.54, 95% CI: (0.38-0.77).

Why might this result conflict with prior research? Thread.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…
Previous studies have suggested that among those prescribed puberty blockers, as much as (92%-98%) of them go on to receive cross-sex hormones.

However, these studies have methodological selections which favor selecting for this outcome.

This spreadsheet is a mess. It counts non-Jews as Jews, parental companies owned by non-Jews as unclassified, among other issues

In the corrected version I estimate ~35% are owned by Jewish people. But Jews are only ~2% of the population, so why the over-representation in media?

https://twitter.com/MailOnline/status/1586452232844754945

While Jews are only ~2% of the US population, they are not homogeneously distributed. Jewish people tend to congregate near Jewish communities, which are also the main cities where media related jobs are overrepresented themselves (ie, Los Angelas, NYC) link.springer.com/chapter/10.100…

Happy to announce that we have just published the Strongyloidies Hypothesis as an effect modifier on mortality in Ivermectin clinical trials treating COVID, linked here.

In this thread, I will discuss the main point and reply to ivmmeta criticisms.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman… The main point: Ivermectin trial results may not extrapolate to countries where Strongyloidiasis is not endemic, since patients in the control group who are often given steroids upon progression are at risk for hyperinfection syndrome while the treatment group isn't.

So the @washingtonpost got triggered by an add, and then went full blown pseudoscience to "both-sides" the issue.

This will be a full rebuttal addressing every point, top to bottom. First up, a straw-man. The campaign does't claim carnivores are lousy lovers. The claim is "Plant-based lovers do it better" and the website clarifies this to be the following 3 claims:

This is probably one of the most hilarious excuses to not be transparent with funnel plots I have ever seen from Ivmmeta. Let's go through all the problems with their simulation and deranged conclusions. Firstly, they don't even know the right test to use. Their simulation contains purely dichotomous outcomes for all trials (event vs no event) and they use the Eggers test. This is invalid. Eggers test has a high false positive rate and is avoided exactly in a situation like this.

Some have claimed that unless we show funnel plot asymmetry in ALL of the Ivermectin studies on Ivmmeta, then we haven't shown an indication of publication bias

This is false (pieces of the pie can have pub bias while the whole pie doesnt) but just for fun, let's do it

Thread: I'll note that this was already done by @GidMK back when Ivmmeta had 60 studies instead of 75, and his results are here:

https://twitter.com/GidMK/status/1422044387148587009

This is such a bizarre response from @VPrasadMDMPH , riddled with straight up math errors and errors in analysis from start to finish. Where do I even begin?

A thread....

https://twitter.com/VPrasadMDMPH/status/1482076197253169158

Firstly, the numbers are just wrong. In the original nature paper, only ~1.3 million people under 40 has a positive COVID test, the preprint had ~2.4 million. None of them had 3 million under 40, so I have no idea why he is using the 3 million figure for his under 40 inference.

Ivmmeta is loaded with so many errors, we need to do a regular debunked series just to keep them in check

In this episode, we will expose how they used mathematically impossible numbers to make ivermectin look good.

How did they make such a hilarious mistake? Here's a thread: Here's some studies in their gibberish forest plot, aside from being statistically invalid, you might notice something...the Ghauri study, showing a 98% improvement RR = 0.02 [0.00-0.20], for symptoms. WOW that's really impressive!.

Except it's not actually real or even possible

To address this allegation: this is neither interacts with the rebuttal nor does it address my motivations. I clarified many times that this hyperbolic phrasing was for common purpose rather than mentioning "my hypothesis" time and time again. Either way, my point still stands.

https://twitter.com/alexandrosM/status/1463943011700658189

That point being that only a small number of deaths need be attributable to Strongyloides in order for a substantial proportion of the mortality benefit.

I'm not interested in playing mind-reading games with @alexandrosM. So instead I'll just address the rest of his points:

I suspect ivermectin results aren't just because of fraud, but even worse. I think many Ivermectin trials are criminal. Taking strongyloides endemic populations, putting them into a control group with corticosteroids is a death sentence. The control group effectively kills people The ivermectin group doesn't kill people because it kills the strongyloides, thus preventing disseminated strongloydiasis when they are inevitably given corticosteroids.

But the control group people with strongyloidiasis didn't get any anti-helminthic treatment so they die.

Eat ancestral food vs eat random matter in the universe.

Ancestral food is the safer bet

Eat ancestral food vs eat non-ancestral food that you will thrive on throughout all fertile years of life to the same degree as ancestral foods.

Non-ancestral food is the safer bet This is because of pleiotropic antagonism related inductions. There is a tendency for evolutionary behaviors to trade-off your ability to thrive in old age for fertile thriving, but not the other way around. The benefit of ancestral food is it's selected for fertile thriving.

WE NEED TO FARM CATTLE BECAUSE THE LAND JUST WON'T GROW CROPS BUT YOU CAN RANGE CATTLE JUST FINE

This meme spread by Sacred Cow is yet another completely unsubstantiated claim and the cited data does not support this conclusion at all. Thread.

sacredcow.info/blog/qz6pi6cvj… So lets start with the obvious: Yes its true that cows eat a bunch of things non-edible to humans. This is trivially true. Cows eat grass after all, but some of those non-edible things are crops that we grow for cows that we wouldn't be growing if we used the land for human crops

White Oaks Pasture's peer reviewed publication dropped. Looks like it's not a net carbon sink, takes up 2.5 times more land, and emits more CO2e GHG /kg than beyond burger. The "carbon sink" -4.4 figure was hilariously made up. Let's see how: Thread.

frontiersin.org/articles/10.33… WOP emits more GHGs, but also sequestered more carbon in the soil. On the net, WOP emitted a net of ~2.9 times less GHGs but also took up ~2.5 times more land compared to conventional farms.

PLEASE READ: If you are someone who had COVID-19 and recovered, you may have high levels of antibodies that can be used to save others who are in critical condition!

Please reach out to:

COVIDSerumTesting@mountsinai.org.

Thread. Patients recently recovered from COVID-19 have high levels of immunity in the form of antibodies in their blood that can be transfused into very sick COVID-19 patients in our hospitals. This treatment is known as “human convalescent plasma” and has been used in previous pandemics