8 ms·

Major study of Ivermectin finds 'no effect whatsoever'

66 points by MilnerRoute 5y ago

mbergal 5y ago
I am not a professional, but this looks like a very good study and I trust its results. I think I am pretty convinced that Ivermectin alone is not effective at treating Covid. I still have hope that it is effective in preventing it. We need more studies on that. I also wonder what the cost of this study was.
- TrumpRapedWomen 5y ago
  Is there any reason to suspect that Ivermectin should be able to prevent COVID-19?
zetalyrae 5y ago
This may be fallacious, but I am automatically dismissive when a drug from one area of medicine is recruited as a treatment for a completely disjoint disorder. I need a somewhat plausible sounding mechanism of action, even if it's hypothetical. Because it fits a pattern I've observed where a drug is discovered, and it's on the cover of every magazine as a panacea[0], and then it doesn't pan out and it fades back into the small niche where it actually works. So I dismissed HCQ and Ivermectin out of hand. [0]: Interferon was on the cover of TIME in ~1980 as a cancer cure. (EDIT: but I'm not an MD, just a crazy person who likes reading pubmed, so my views are pure superstition)
- shakna 5y ago
  Interferon is still used as a cancer therapy today. [0] Quite a number of drugs are highly effective in different fields of study. [0] https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-general/treatment/cancer-drugs/drugs/interferon https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-gene...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- rbanffy 5y ago
  IIRC HCQ was flagged in computational models as promising, but the concentrations required to have an actual effect are a large multiple of the lethal doses. There is a ton of politically driven disinformation around. Brazilian president Bolsonaro pushed both as treatments while, we now know, government representatives were stalling direct purchases from labs while negotiating vaccines with intermediaries in order to profit from sales to the government.
  - cheaprentalyeti 5y ago
    >...but the conentrations required to have an actual effect are a large multiple of the lethal doses..." Which was the excuse they gave when they designed actual drug trials that gave patients lethal doses and ignored the testimony of doctors who found it useful at sub-lethal doses. And therefore a drug used by tens of millions of people a year(if not more) for the past five decades was declared too dangerous to use. Addendum: I wound up arguing with someone that thus-and-such a trial was actually using what was considered an overdose in 2017 and they would not look at the entry in the PDR.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > I am automatically dismissive when a drug from one area of medicine is recruited as a treatment for a completely disjoint disorder. I guess you have never heard of Viagra.
  - zetalyrae 5y ago
    But viagra has a plausible-sounding (to me, I am not an MD) mechanism of action. Whereas in the first paper[0] about chloroquine for COVID, the claim is: >This drug has multiple activities, one of which is to alkalise the phagolysosome, which hampers the low-pH-dependent steps of viral replication, including fusion and uncoating. Other mechanisms of antiviral activity are poorly explained. Which sounds like limited evidence. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7134866/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7134866/
    - ekianjo 5y ago
      > Other mechanisms of antiviral activity are poorly explained. You would be surprised how many drugs have an unclear mechanism of action. If you think we know everything in Biology you might want to revise your judgment.
      - s5300 5y ago
        Maybe I'm wrong, but I really want to be able to mostly correctly presume that the average HN user over the age of like... 20(?) probably has vague knowledge of the fact we don't understand the mechanism of things like acetaminophen (Tylenol) and most anesthetics... Furthermore, most chemical engineering/pharmacy students learn that with today's regulations, acetaminophen would've never been approved. Do we think that's a good thing? I don't. That said, I still very much agree with the parent poster's view.
        jwbwater 5y ago
        Anyone that has ever taken a class in molecular biology or biophysics knows that it's ridiculously complex. Many drugs that look promising in vivo or in animals fail to perform in humans. Empirical evidence is what counts. Even targeted enzyme inhibitors are made by a shotgun approach. Synthesize 1000s of candidates and try them all to see which ones work best in vivo and then try those in animals and then try those winners in humans.
- nradov 5y ago
  This article explains the suspected mechanism of action. I'm not claiming that ivermectin is actually effective, but the biochemistry is at least plausible. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016635422... In general small molecule drugs often hit multiple different pathways. It's not reasonable to put them into neat little buckets.
  - zetalyrae 5y ago
    Good point. As I said, it may be fallacious reasoning on my part :) I suppose what this underscores is: biology is immensely complex and first-principles thinking can only get you so far. Eventually, you need to test things with a big RCT to know what's going on.
- s5300 5y ago
  Quite unfortunately, the general public, and thus elected officials, do not appear to be capable of this sort of logical deduction.
  - loopz 5y ago
    Why would they without expertise in the medical field? It's not something to dismiss out of hand either.
- jwbwater 5y ago
  A plausible mechanism of action is no where near good enough. Molecular biology is crazy complicated and lots of things that sound plausible don't work (and maybe do the opposite). I'll take "it works, but we don't know why" over "this is why we think it might work" every time.
  - ksaj 5y ago
    There are actually a number of drugs where they specifically state the actual mechanism of action is unknown, but they do know from proper and continued clinical trials that the drug does indeed work. A lot of pain killers are in that category. Here is a list of 68 drugs that are known to work, but apparently we don't know how or why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Drugs_with_unknown_mechanisms_of_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Drugs_with_unknown_me...
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- copperx 5y ago
  Interferon is a cancer cure (albeit limited to specific kinds, and abysmally low complete cure rates -- but a cure nonetheless for some people).
- rsynnott 5y ago
  > This may be fallacious, but I am automatically dismissive when a drug from one area of medicine is recruited as a treatment for a completely disjoint disorder. I mean, it sometimes works, and obviously it's a very attractive idea (no need to wait on slow trials; drug is already assessed for safety) but precisely because it's such an attractive idea people seem to be overly credulous about it.
unanswered 5y ago
This study is (A) not published (B) not peer reviewed (C) not science (see a and b) (D) not actually studying the treatment protocols recommended by the flccc This is not so much a study as it is tracking the outcomes of someone taking their pets' heartworm medicine without any advice from their doctor. It's farcical.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  Your (A and (B) mean the same thing or, alternatively, (A) is wrong. (C) makes no sense, because every peer-reviewed study is, at some point, not peer-reviewed. As to (D): this outfit is recommending Ivermectin without any proof that it works, and therefore not a science-based institution from the start. However: > The trial originally tested the results from a single Ivermectin dose in January this year, but was later changed to involve one daily dose for three days of 400 micrograms of the drug for every kilogram So the dose was actually within the range your FLCCWTF recommends, which is “0.4–0.6 mg/kg”. Only it was given for three days instead of five, with the difference easily explained by one group choosing the regular dose that Ivermectin has been proven mostly safe at. If it has no effect when taken for three days, it isn’t going to do wonders when taken for five.
  - unanswered 5y ago
    The flccc unequivocally states that ivermectin given alone is not known to be effective. That's why their protocols are not "give ivermectin alone", in any dose. Even the protocols they recommend that people can follow at home are not "take ivermectin". Moreover, as to the claim that the flccc is recommending ivermectin with no proof it works; they have 60+ peer-reviewed studies showing that it works, a couple un-reviewed studies by avowed skeptics which show that it does nothing, and zero studies ever in the history of the drug showing it to be harmful. That is better than can be said for any other purported treatment for COVID.
    - javagram 5y ago
      > The flccc unequivocally states that ivermectin given alone is not known to be effective Without a randomized controlled trial, they have nothing but speculation as to what is effective or not. > Moreover, as to the claim that the flccc is recommending ivermectin with no proof it works; they have 60+ peer-reviewed studies showing that it works Note that meta-analysis of those published studies shows zero knowable effect for Ivermectin. https://www.cochrane.org/CD015017/INFECTN_ivermectin-preventing-and-treating-covid-19 https://www.cochrane.org/CD015017/INFECTN_ivermectin-prevent...
nradov 5y ago
For those interested in diving deeper into the research this site has a fairly complete index of all the other studies on ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment or prophylactic. Most do seem to show some benefit, however they generally have weak methodology such as small subject populations or lack of proper controls. https://c19ivermectin.com/ https://c19ivermectin.com/
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
  After that, see https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-supporting-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-withdrawn-over-ethical-concerns https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-s... For the story how the largest trial showing benefits was proven to be fraud and retracted, and how the remaining evidence is no longer statistically significant. A fact that the site above somehow doesn’t consider noteworthy.
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    I don't have a dog in this race personally, but I am interested in science, so I read your link. From it: > But the drug’s promise as a treatment for the virus is in serious doubt after the Elgazzar study was pulled from the Research Square website on Thursday “due to ethical concerns". Research Square did not outline what those concerns were. Emphasis mine. It then goes on to quote a man claiming all sorts of fraudulent accusations with no actual sources for anything demonstrating the validity of the accusations. I'm not saying the paper is not fraudulent, it could be, I'm saying I'd like to see more than some guy saying it is and a journal not releasing a similar statement. That's a far cry from "proven to be a fraud" as you say. I want to actually know if this treatment works, not emotionally decide beforehand one way or another based on my attitude towards the vaccines. It seems I'm in the minority here. If only you knew how frustrating it is. So I'll read your links, I'll read studies and stories saying it doesn't work, I'll read the FLCCWHYTHEFUCKCANTYOUJUSTTYPEFLCCC and I'll look at methodologies of all of it and figure it out for myself. If you're going to claim fraud, a strong claim, make sure your source doesn't explicitly state that it is not known whether it is fraud or not. From where I sit, both you and the person you're arguing with have picked your horses and are no longer concerned with the truth. I will say though, at least they're arguing use of a mostly harmless, not experimental medicine that has other positive effects whether it works for covid or not.
aaccount 5y ago
https://covid19criticalcare.com/ https://covid19criticalcare.com/ https://bird-group.org/ https://bird-group.org/ Take a look at these 2 sites
jwbwater 5y ago
But, but, but this guy I ran into at the park would not shut up about it so it must work. Plus I just like to take neurotoxins. Why would I want to take some fancy new tech mRNA vaccine that would allow me to travel internationally when I can just take some of my dog's heartguard?
- rsfern 5y ago
  Dismissing it just because it’s the active ingredient in heartguard is IMO a bit misguided; after all it is a known antiviral compound and there’s a plausible mechanism of action. It’s more to the point and less inflammatory to focus on the mounting evidence that it’s just not an effective COVID-19 therapeutic. Derek Lowe wrote an informative post discussing the lackluster nature of the current body of evidence after the big Egyptian study was retracted for fraudulent data the other week. https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/06/07/ivermectin-as-a-covid-19-therapy https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/06/07/iv...
g42gregory 5y ago
There are other studies that suggest Ivermectin being effective. For example, this reference [1], lists meta analysis that seems to suggest effectiveness. Given the amount of money that flows into the pharmaceutical companies, I am very cautious in trusting studies that invalidate their inexpensive competitors. [1] https://ivmmeta.com https://ivmmeta.com
- evgen 5y ago
  And most of the major meta-analysis papers have been checked and found to be wanting. Specifically, the ones that show any effectiveness all seem to apply a heavy weight to some of the least reliable or trustworthy studies.
- rsfern 5y ago
  This site appears to be related to another site linked in a different thread that has been criticized for cherry-picking results and including studies with dubious methodology or statistical power. Plus it still includes the large Egyptian study by Els-Alam et al that was retracted last month. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28177029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28177029
  - andersonvieira 5y ago
    From the Revisions section in https://ivmmeta.com https://ivmmeta.com: > 7/15: Elgazzar et al. was retracted and has been removed.
Blueskytech 5y ago
It looks like the study did adjust the dosage level to a value recommended by advocates of Ivermectin like the FLCCC, .04mg per kilogram. However Ivermectin proponents have been vocal that many of the negative studies only administer Ivermectin well past initial onset of covid symptoms. I would like to find the data on how long after initial onset of symptoms, or a covid positive test, Ivermectin was given. I do not see any links to the current study in question all I see from the MSM links are PowerPoint slides and a symposium presentation. The study groups website only has links to a previous off label treatment study that included other potential therapeutics but not Ivermectin. If anyone knows where you can read the preprint I would love to take a look.
- Blueskytech 5y ago
  Page 10 of the slides had the study inclusion information I was looking for, participants of the study were only included if they had "acute" onset of covid symptoms within 7 days. Proponents of Ivermectin will push back on this study since advocates have been clear that it is only an effective treatment if used as preventative prophylactic or within the first few days of symptomatic response to infection. https://dcricollab.dcri.duke.edu/sites/NIHKR/KR/GR-Slides-08-06-21.pdf https://dcricollab.dcri.duke.edu/sites/NIHKR/KR/GR-Slides-08...
  - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
    I’m trying to imagine how this would work in the real world. Are we supposed to have the entire population taking it daily on the off chance they might get Covid, or are we supposed to start taking it every time we come down with a sniffle?
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      Bret Weinstein, one of the most high profile advocates, thinks people should be taking it every day.
      - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
peakaboo 5y ago
The study was funded by Bill Gates. https://trialsitenews.com/bill-and-melinda-gates-fund-global-ivermectin-fluvoxamine-clinical-trial-targeting-covid-19-together-covid-19-trial/ https://trialsitenews.com/bill-and-melinda-gates-fund-global...

66 points by MilnerRoute 5y ago

I am not a professional, but this looks like a very good study and I trust its results. I think I am pretty convinced that Ivermectin alone is not effective at treating Covid. I still have hope that it is effective in preventing it. We need more studies on that. I also wonder what the cost of this study was.

TrumpRapedWomen 5y ago
Is there any reason to suspect that Ivermectin should be able to prevent COVID-19?

zetalyrae 5y ago

This may be fallacious, but I am automatically dismissive when a drug from one area of medicine is recruited as a treatment for a completely disjoint disorder. I need a somewhat plausible sounding mechanism of action, even if it's hypothetical. Because it fits a pattern I've observed where a drug is discovered, and it's on the cover of every magazine as a panacea[0], and then it doesn't pan out and it fades back into the small niche where it actually works. So I dismissed HCQ and Ivermectin out of hand. [0]: Interferon was on the cover of TIME in ~1980 as a cancer cure. (EDIT: but I'm not an MD, just a crazy person who likes reading pubmed, so my views are pure superstition)

shakna 5y ago
Interferon is still used as a cancer therapy today. [0] Quite a number of drugs are highly effective in different fields of study. [0] https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-general/treatment/cancer-drugs/drugs/interferon https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/cancer-in-gene...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
rbanffy 5y ago
IIRC HCQ was flagged in computational models as promising, but the concentrations required to have an actual effect are a large multiple of the lethal doses. There is a ton of politically driven disinformation around. Brazilian president Bolsonaro pushed both as treatments while, we now know, government representatives were stalling direct purchases from labs while negotiating vaccines with intermediaries in order to profit from sales to the government.
- cheaprentalyeti 5y ago
  >...but the conentrations required to have an actual effect are a large multiple of the lethal doses..." Which was the excuse they gave when they designed actual drug trials that gave patients lethal doses and ignored the testimony of doctors who found it useful at sub-lethal doses. And therefore a drug used by tens of millions of people a year(if not more) for the past five decades was declared too dangerous to use. Addendum: I wound up arguing with someone that thus-and-such a trial was actually using what was considered an overdose in 2017 and they would not look at the entry in the PDR.
ekianjo 5y ago
> I am automatically dismissive when a drug from one area of medicine is recruited as a treatment for a completely disjoint disorder. I guess you have never heard of Viagra.
- zetalyrae 5y ago
  But viagra has a plausible-sounding (to me, I am not an MD) mechanism of action. Whereas in the first paper[0] about chloroquine for COVID, the claim is: >This drug has multiple activities, one of which is to alkalise the phagolysosome, which hampers the low-pH-dependent steps of viral replication, including fusion and uncoating. Other mechanisms of antiviral activity are poorly explained. Which sounds like limited evidence. [0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7134866/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7134866/
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    > Other mechanisms of antiviral activity are poorly explained. You would be surprised how many drugs have an unclear mechanism of action. If you think we know everything in Biology you might want to revise your judgment.
    - s5300 5y ago
      Maybe I'm wrong, but I really want to be able to mostly correctly presume that the average HN user over the age of like... 20(?) probably has vague knowledge of the fact we don't understand the mechanism of things like acetaminophen (Tylenol) and most anesthetics... Furthermore, most chemical engineering/pharmacy students learn that with today's regulations, acetaminophen would've never been approved. Do we think that's a good thing? I don't. That said, I still very much agree with the parent poster's view.
      - jwbwater 5y ago
        Anyone that has ever taken a class in molecular biology or biophysics knows that it's ridiculously complex. Many drugs that look promising in vivo or in animals fail to perform in humans. Empirical evidence is what counts. Even targeted enzyme inhibitors are made by a shotgun approach. Synthesize 1000s of candidates and try them all to see which ones work best in vivo and then try those in animals and then try those winners in humans.
nradov 5y ago
This article explains the suspected mechanism of action. I'm not claiming that ivermectin is actually effective, but the biochemistry is at least plausible. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166354220302011 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016635422... In general small molecule drugs often hit multiple different pathways. It's not reasonable to put them into neat little buckets.
- zetalyrae 5y ago
  Good point. As I said, it may be fallacious reasoning on my part :) I suppose what this underscores is: biology is immensely complex and first-principles thinking can only get you so far. Eventually, you need to test things with a big RCT to know what's going on.
s5300 5y ago
Quite unfortunately, the general public, and thus elected officials, do not appear to be capable of this sort of logical deduction.
- loopz 5y ago
  Why would they without expertise in the medical field? It's not something to dismiss out of hand either.
jwbwater 5y ago
A plausible mechanism of action is no where near good enough. Molecular biology is crazy complicated and lots of things that sound plausible don't work (and maybe do the opposite). I'll take "it works, but we don't know why" over "this is why we think it might work" every time.
- ksaj 5y ago
  There are actually a number of drugs where they specifically state the actual mechanism of action is unknown, but they do know from proper and continued clinical trials that the drug does indeed work. A lot of pain killers are in that category. Here is a list of 68 drugs that are known to work, but apparently we don't know how or why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Drugs_with_unknown_mechanisms_of_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Drugs_with_unknown_me...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
copperx 5y ago
Interferon is a cancer cure (albeit limited to specific kinds, and abysmally low complete cure rates -- but a cure nonetheless for some people).
rsynnott 5y ago
> This may be fallacious, but I am automatically dismissive when a drug from one area of medicine is recruited as a treatment for a completely disjoint disorder. I mean, it sometimes works, and obviously it's a very attractive idea (no need to wait on slow trials; drug is already assessed for safety) but precisely because it's such an attractive idea people seem to be overly credulous about it.

unanswered 5y ago

This study is (A) not published (B) not peer reviewed (C) not science (see a and b) (D) not actually studying the treatment protocols recommended by the flccc This is not so much a study as it is tracking the outcomes of someone taking their pets' heartworm medicine without any advice from their doctor. It's farcical.

IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
Your (A and (B) mean the same thing or, alternatively, (A) is wrong. (C) makes no sense, because every peer-reviewed study is, at some point, not peer-reviewed. As to (D): this outfit is recommending Ivermectin without any proof that it works, and therefore not a science-based institution from the start. However: > The trial originally tested the results from a single Ivermectin dose in January this year, but was later changed to involve one daily dose for three days of 400 micrograms of the drug for every kilogram So the dose was actually within the range your FLCCWTF recommends, which is “0.4–0.6 mg/kg”. Only it was given for three days instead of five, with the difference easily explained by one group choosing the regular dose that Ivermectin has been proven mostly safe at. If it has no effect when taken for three days, it isn’t going to do wonders when taken for five.
- unanswered 5y ago
  The flccc unequivocally states that ivermectin given alone is not known to be effective. That's why their protocols are not "give ivermectin alone", in any dose. Even the protocols they recommend that people can follow at home are not "take ivermectin". Moreover, as to the claim that the flccc is recommending ivermectin with no proof it works; they have 60+ peer-reviewed studies showing that it works, a couple un-reviewed studies by avowed skeptics which show that it does nothing, and zero studies ever in the history of the drug showing it to be harmful. That is better than can be said for any other purported treatment for COVID.
  - javagram 5y ago
    > The flccc unequivocally states that ivermectin given alone is not known to be effective Without a randomized controlled trial, they have nothing but speculation as to what is effective or not. > Moreover, as to the claim that the flccc is recommending ivermectin with no proof it works; they have 60+ peer-reviewed studies showing that it works Note that meta-analysis of those published studies shows zero knowable effect for Ivermectin. https://www.cochrane.org/CD015017/INFECTN_ivermectin-preventing-and-treating-covid-19 https://www.cochrane.org/CD015017/INFECTN_ivermectin-prevent...

nradov 5y ago

For those interested in diving deeper into the research this site has a fairly complete index of all the other studies on ivermectin as a COVID-19 treatment or prophylactic. Most do seem to show some benefit, however they generally have weak methodology such as small subject populations or lack of proper controls. https://c19ivermectin.com/ https://c19ivermectin.com/

IfOnlyYouKnew 5y ago
After that, see https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-supporting-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-withdrawn-over-ethical-concerns https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-s... For the story how the largest trial showing benefits was proven to be fraud and retracted, and how the remaining evidence is no longer statistically significant. A fact that the site above somehow doesn’t consider noteworthy.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  I don't have a dog in this race personally, but I am interested in science, so I read your link. From it: > But the drug’s promise as a treatment for the virus is in serious doubt after the Elgazzar study was pulled from the Research Square website on Thursday “due to ethical concerns". Research Square did not outline what those concerns were. Emphasis mine. It then goes on to quote a man claiming all sorts of fraudulent accusations with no actual sources for anything demonstrating the validity of the accusations. I'm not saying the paper is not fraudulent, it could be, I'm saying I'd like to see more than some guy saying it is and a journal not releasing a similar statement. That's a far cry from "proven to be a fraud" as you say. I want to actually know if this treatment works, not emotionally decide beforehand one way or another based on my attitude towards the vaccines. It seems I'm in the minority here. If only you knew how frustrating it is. So I'll read your links, I'll read studies and stories saying it doesn't work, I'll read the FLCCWHYTHEFUCKCANTYOUJUSTTYPEFLCCC and I'll look at methodologies of all of it and figure it out for myself. If you're going to claim fraud, a strong claim, make sure your source doesn't explicitly state that it is not known whether it is fraud or not. From where I sit, both you and the person you're arguing with have picked your horses and are no longer concerned with the truth. I will say though, at least they're arguing use of a mostly harmless, not experimental medicine that has other positive effects whether it works for covid or not.

aaccount 5y ago

https://covid19criticalcare.com/ https://covid19criticalcare.com/ https://bird-group.org/ https://bird-group.org/ Take a look at these 2 sites

jwbwater 5y ago

But, but, but this guy I ran into at the park would not shut up about it so it must work. Plus I just like to take neurotoxins. Why would I want to take some fancy new tech mRNA vaccine that would allow me to travel internationally when I can just take some of my dog's heartguard?

rsfern 5y ago
Dismissing it just because it’s the active ingredient in heartguard is IMO a bit misguided; after all it is a known antiviral compound and there’s a plausible mechanism of action. It’s more to the point and less inflammatory to focus on the mounting evidence that it’s just not an effective COVID-19 therapeutic. Derek Lowe wrote an informative post discussing the lackluster nature of the current body of evidence after the big Egyptian study was retracted for fraudulent data the other week. https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/06/07/ivermectin-as-a-covid-19-therapy https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/06/07/iv...

g42gregory 5y ago

There are other studies that suggest Ivermectin being effective. For example, this reference [1], lists meta analysis that seems to suggest effectiveness. Given the amount of money that flows into the pharmaceutical companies, I am very cautious in trusting studies that invalidate their inexpensive competitors. [1] https://ivmmeta.com https://ivmmeta.com

evgen 5y ago
And most of the major meta-analysis papers have been checked and found to be wanting. Specifically, the ones that show any effectiveness all seem to apply a heavy weight to some of the least reliable or trustworthy studies.
rsfern 5y ago
This site appears to be related to another site linked in a different thread that has been criticized for cherry-picking results and including studies with dubious methodology or statistical power. Plus it still includes the large Egyptian study by Els-Alam et al that was retracted last month. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28177029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28177029
- andersonvieira 5y ago
  From the Revisions section in https://ivmmeta.com https://ivmmeta.com: > 7/15: Elgazzar et al. was retracted and has been removed.

Blueskytech 5y ago

It looks like the study did adjust the dosage level to a value recommended by advocates of Ivermectin like the FLCCC, .04mg per kilogram. However Ivermectin proponents have been vocal that many of the negative studies only administer Ivermectin well past initial onset of covid symptoms. I would like to find the data on how long after initial onset of symptoms, or a covid positive test, Ivermectin was given. I do not see any links to the current study in question all I see from the MSM links are PowerPoint slides and a symposium presentation. The study groups website only has links to a previous off label treatment study that included other potential therapeutics but not Ivermectin. If anyone knows where you can read the preprint I would love to take a look.

Blueskytech 5y ago
Page 10 of the slides had the study inclusion information I was looking for, participants of the study were only included if they had "acute" onset of covid symptoms within 7 days. Proponents of Ivermectin will push back on this study since advocates have been clear that it is only an effective treatment if used as preventative prophylactic or within the first few days of symptomatic response to infection. https://dcricollab.dcri.duke.edu/sites/NIHKR/KR/GR-Slides-08-06-21.pdf https://dcricollab.dcri.duke.edu/sites/NIHKR/KR/GR-Slides-08...
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  I’m trying to imagine how this would work in the real world. Are we supposed to have the entire population taking it daily on the off chance they might get Covid, or are we supposed to start taking it every time we come down with a sniffle?
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    Bret Weinstein, one of the most high profile advocates, thinks people should be taking it every day.
    - amanaplanacanal 5y ago

peakaboo 5y ago

The study was funded by Bill Gates. https://trialsitenews.com/bill-and-melinda-gates-fund-global-ivermectin-fluvoxamine-clinical-trial-targeting-covid-19-together-covid-19-trial/ https://trialsitenews.com/bill-and-melinda-gates-fund-global...