Ok the article's writer has been caught up in the idea that all hypothesis are equal and deserve equal representation. The fact is it does not. As a hypothes

Ok the article's writer has been caught up in the idea that all hypothesis are equal and deserve equal representation. The fact is it does not. As a hypothesis there's always the possibility a person may be expending valuable energy in their immune system fighting off some other additional inflection / parasitic load, that completely separate to the hypothesis, treated with ivermectin a net positive result is observed. Sadly not a great deal of common infections are documented which responds to ivermectin administered at safe levels for humans and herd animals alike ie levels of ivermectin at a fiftieth to a hundredth of levels reported where ivermectin reportedly can interfere / kill infective agents. A more worthy (valid though would be very hard to observe given not everyone will respond the same) hypothesis to the same end would have been the better and more direct way to increase the bacterial load such as use of supplements that encouraged Bifidobacterium sp. to produce known beneficial outcomes. eg [1] [2] [3] I am familiar with ivermectin, especially in its on label use in cattle, but also in off label uses once practised a bit over three decades ago as a treatment / prevention of heart worms in dogs being perhaps preferential than an arsenic based compound used from time to time where heart worms (by way of test) were already present in the dogs system. What stands out here is no wow!!!! look at how well the cow or dog is afterwards apart from removing the parasites, especially so in dogs who were merely given ivermectin as a preventative against heart worm. Not one f'in time, but that's merely my own observation. It's for poor calculations of a dogs weight I'm also familiar with its issues when administered at slightly higher levels and the blood brain barrier - short answer, not very good. https://www.nature.com/articles/1601829 https://www.nature.com/articles/1601829 (Lactulose ingestion increases faecal bifidobacterial counts: A randomised double-blind study in healthy humans) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37845315/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37845315/ (Bifidobacteria metabolize lactulose to optimize gut metabolites and prevent systemic infection in patients with liver disease) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24667318/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24667318/ (Kefir fermented milk and kefiran promote growth of Bifidobacterium bifidum PRL2010 and modulate its gene expression )