Ivermectin is effective for Covid-19: real-time meta analysis of 45 studies

by andrenth • 5 years ago

43 40 5 years ago

flerchin• 5 years ago

There appears to be no downside, and significant upside. Ivermectin is cheap. 45/45 studies agree.

ceejayoz7• 5 years ago

45/45 of studies agreeing is probably a sign of cherry-picking, and that it's really 45/?. There's very little in medicine that'll get literally every study ever performed agreeing on something.

collyw8• 5 years ago

There appears to be no downside
Ivermectin is cheap

That depends on whether you have a profit motive from other treatments.

giardini3• 5 years ago

Not really. It is far cheaper than any vaccine.

nerdponx• 5 years ago

This is an especially fascinating result because ivermectin is known to be the only effective treatment for strongyloides hyperinfection, infection by the microscopic Strongyloides nematode that is caused when the worm leaves the GI tract and spreads throughout the body, causing massive inflammation and potentially death. I wonder if there's some kind of common anti-inflammatory process at work.

blakesterz• 5 years ago

Can anyone comment on this site, and the others they run? It LOOKS trustworthy, but that certainly doesn't mean all that much. Trustworthy? Their FAQ only uses "we" as a claim of responsibility, which didn't make me feel all that much better, and they had their Twitter account suspended. I don't know what to think of this. It doesn't look super sus, but at the same time, I don't feel qualified to be a good judge.

https://ivmmeta.com/faq.html

KaiserPro2• 5 years ago

I am suspicious of the motives, especially as HCQ[Hydroxychloroquine] is still listed at improving outcomes by "45%"

collyw8• 5 years ago

I have read plenty of reports both for and against Hydroxychloroqiune, to the point that I would say I had no idea what to believe about it. The fact that it appeared to be dismissed after Trump suggested it is really disappointing. Not that I think Trump has any insight, just that the whole thing felt very politicised - like the rest of the pandemic.

This Swedish doctor's blog is pretty good, he has more background and more time to look at the studies than me, and gives a good objective overview in my opinion.

https://sebastianrushworth.com/2020/08/20/does-hydroxychloro...

codeflow22024• 5 years ago

I've followed the topic quite a while and there seem to be many trustworthy proponents for the use of Ivermectin at any stage of the disease. On the contrary people against it seem to be only pointing to the fact that there isn't enough quality research in favor for its use (which doesn't seem to be the case), or to this study https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777389 , which is raising many red flags to plenty of researchers as being a badly designed study.

yorwba• 5 years ago

They're listing that study you link among those showing a positive effect. (Because the effect they found, though small and statistically insignificant, was positive.)

collyw8• 5 years ago

that there isn't enough quality research in favor for its use

Do they support masks and lock downs? There is little evidence behind those, yet many are pushing for them.

inetsee• 5 years ago

According to the FAQ, "all sources are public". I followed a few of the links and they lead to papers in recognizable journals. On the other hand, in a cursory search of the studies, I couldn't find any that reported on research done in the United States.

For what it's worth, I would recommend that you get your COVID-19 vaccination as soon as you are able, and continue to practice COVID safety precautions now and even after you get your vaccinations.

codeflow22024• 5 years ago

Here is a meta analysis on the best studies available on the topic https://b3d2650e-e929-4448-a527-4eeb59304c7f.filesusr.com/ug...

jasonpeacock• 5 years ago

This is a good summary of the lack of conclusion and actual risks:

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/antiviral-the...

hannob2• 5 years ago

I clicked on the first study:

"Small 116 patient RCT with low-risk patients comparing Ivermectin-Doxycycline and HCQ+AZ, showing lower hospitalization, higher viral clearance, and faster symptom resolution and viral clearance with ivermectin+doxycycline."

So they compared Ivermecitin + another drug to Hydroxycloroquine and Azithromycin. Hydroxycloroquine was, for those who remember, the hype drug early in the covid pandemic, based on flimsy studies (just like... Ivermecitin now). Later evidence indicated that hydroxycloroquine may actually be harmful.

So if anything, this study shows that Ivermectin-Doxycycline is less harmful than HCQ+AZ.

This was just the first study in that list, but if the first study is already bogus call me skeptical about the rest.

Update: I clicked on another study. It compares "ivermectin and ivermectin + doxycycline". It does not have a control group...

neurangotan• 5 years ago

> Later a lot of evidence has been gathered that hydroxycloroquine is actually harmful

Where is this evidence ? Are you referring to this https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... ?

ceejayoz7• 5 years ago

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hydroxychloroquine-not-effectiv...

A panel of WHO experts found that the drug has no meaningful effect on deaths or hospitalizations due to coronavirus. They added that it may even increase the risk of adverse effects.

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/drug-safety-and-availability/fda-c...

A summary of the FDA review of safety issues with the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat hospitalized patients with COVID-19 is now available. This includes reports of serious heart rhythm problems and other safety issues, including blood and lymph system disorders, kidney injuries, and liver problems and failure.
Based on ongoing analysis and emerging scientific data, FDA has revoked the emergency use authorization (EUA) to use hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat COVID-19 in certain hospitalized patients when a clinical trial is unavailable or participation is not feasible. We made this determination based on recent results from a large, randomized clinical trial in hospitalized patients that found these medicines showed no benefit for decreasing the likelihood of death or speeding recovery.

https://scitechdaily.com/the-end-of-hydroxychloroquine-as-a-...

A year after the treatment trial launched in five cities, Johnston can say hydroxychloroquine had no effect in treating people with COVID-19. The results of the remote randomized, placebo-controlled trial were published on February 26, 2021, in E Clinical Medicine.

"He's dead, Jim."

hannob2• 5 years ago

I've toned down the wording a bit, it seems the evidence for actual harm isn't that strong. I won't try to defend a retracted study.

Doesn't change the fact that a study comparing 2 mixtures of drugs against each other is no evidence of any positive effect of ivermectin.

collyw8• 5 years ago

Hydroxycloroquine was, for those who remember, the hype drug early in the covid pandemic, based on flimsy studies (just like... Ivermecitin now)

I think it was suggested as it had been successfully used to treat the previous SARS outbreak, that being the closest virus we have to this one.

ceejayoz7• 5 years ago

I think it was suggested as it had been successfully used to treat the previous SARS outbreak...

It wasn't, though. The study in question was limited to animal testing in a lab setting. https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-chloroquine-sar...

gabriel34• 5 years ago

The same site sugests hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is a viable terapeutic option (hcqmeta.com). For all I know the scientific consensus is that HCQ is not useful for treating COVID-19. This seems like pseudoscience stemming from cherry picked data/papers with its weakness hidden behind complexity and the large amount of references.

n.b. I have not delved deeply into the claims or the sources

collyw8• 5 years ago

This is a decent blog post by a Swedish doctor on it. Personally I have seen various studies some with good outcomes some with none.

https://sebastianrushworth.com/2020/08/20/does-hydroxychloro...

ceejayoz7• 5 years ago

Rushworth claimed Sweden had reached herd immunity in September 2020. (https://www.facebook.com/sebastianrushworth/posts/when-i-pro...)

Sweden's current and largest spike occurred shortly afterwards in October. (https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/se; screenshot at https://imgur.com/a/lml2iiw showing the date of his claim and cases/deaths afterwards)

ajarmst2• 5 years ago

The juxtaposition of "meta analysis" and "real-time" is problematic. The point of a meta analysis isn't merely to rapidly aggregate lots of data from multiple studies. It's also an analysis of the quality and applicability of the studies. The consensus of most (all?) regulatory bodies is that the clinical effectiveness of off-label Ivermectin for CoViD-19 has not been well established. A useful survey of many of the relevant studies can be found at https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/tables/table-.... "Real time" is not particularly compatible with things like peer-review and replication, and that's a big problem.

They also seem to be aggregating a large amount of unpublished data that was not part of a relevant study. That needs to be accompanied with a detailed discussion about why the data (and population) in question provides good evidence. That's also not meta-analysis but original research, requiring independant review and assessment before it could be part of a meta study.

An attempt to rapidly correlate the results of all available studies runs the risk of simply representing an automated version of p-hacking. Aggregating a bunch of low quality studies does not generate a good quality study, especially if (as in this case) many of them generate concerns about the study population selection, lack of controls, and comorbidities.

codeflow22024• 5 years ago

While it's true that this site is putting together every study available, there have been also meta analysis studies which only used a subset of higher quality studies. Here is an example where you can see a plot where only the randomized controlled trials are used https://b3d2650e-e929-4448-a527-4eeb59304c7f.filesusr.com/ug... which still show improvements linked to Ivermectin

ajarmst2• 5 years ago

Whether or not Ivermectin turns out to be an effective treatment is irrelevant to the assessment of whether this particular study is good evidence for that or even a good example of a metastudy. Nor, of course, does the existnce of good-quality evidence redeem bad-quality. (I'll take a moment here to point out that none of the major public health authorities (who are basing their opinion on those very studies) think there is yet sufficient evidence to recommend Ivermectin for this use.

nradov• 5 years ago

The FLCCC Alliance has another list of studies on Ivermectin and COVID-19.

https://covid19criticalcare.com/medical-evidence/ivermectin/

3hoss2• 5 years ago

From the FAQ: "Who is @CovidAnalysis? We are PhD researchers, scientists, people who hope to make a contribution, even if it is only very minor. You can find our research in journals like Science and Nature. For examples of why we can't be more specific search for "raoult death threats" or "simone gold fired". We have little interest in adding to our publication lists, being in the news, or being on TV (we have done all of these things before but feel there are more important things in life now)."

I'm sorry, but if you're not willing to put your name(s) behind your analysis, I'm going to be skeptical.

3hoss2• 5 years ago

Also, they have the same information duplicated at c19study.com, c19ivermectin.com, c19early.com, and likely others. Not necessarily indicative of anything nefarious, but it sure is spammy and makes it less trustworthy IMO. Plus, I get a strong whiff of "dO yOuR oWn ReSeArCh" in all of the commentary.

ageitgey• 5 years ago

Early in the pandemic, there was a site called "c19study.com" that claimed that every single study on HCQ showed that it was beneficial (and of course any study that didn't show benefit was 'misinterpreting their results', so the site helpfully offered their own alternate study summary and marked it positive anyway). They also posted graphs that showed that COVID was magically way lower in every country that used HCQ as opposed to countries that didn't. Of course this was early on in the pandemic when different countries were further along than others in spread, so the graphs were meaningless.

The premise of the site was that if we just gave everyone HCQ, the pandemic would magically be resolved and the graphs obviously proved it. Various people passed it around as if it was scientific proof that HCQ worked super well but was being hidden or something. But if you read it with even a cursory critical thought, it was clear it was one-sided junk science and extreme cherrypicking.

This site is literally that same website as the earlier c19study.com, but now with a new domain name and expanded and rebranded as an IVM study. In fact, now they've franchised out and have like 20 different magic cures with a site for each one! But it's still the same junk science. And of course all those earlier graphs that "proved" ICQ was working because Brazil used HCQ and didn't have any cases are now gone because all those countries have since had huge outbreaks, just like almost everyone else.

I'm not saying anything about IVM as a treatment. I have no idea what affect it has. And I understand that the establishment has screwed up a lot of things - like for instance the horrible epidemic forecasting that has been way off, time and time again - so I understand why people are looking for alternate answers. But what I do know is that I wouldn't pull my evidence from this silly site.

And luckily we do actually have a miracle drug for COVID now that we know works - It's called a vaccine.

Ivermectin is effective for Covid-19: real-time meta analysis of 45 studies

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