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In reply to the discussion: Ivermectin to be investigated as a possible treatment for COVID-19 in Oxford's PRINCIPLE trial [View all]herding cats
(19,558 posts)49. Because of a severely flawed study and a preprint which didn't stand up to peer review.
It's a sign of how desperate people are when such generates so much hype without scientific evidence. We're in a pandemic which is killing people who feel defenseless and they're willing to try desperate measures in countries where proven vaccines are still rare and/or all but impossible to obtain.
This is the facts which are known today. They're not sexy or particularly hopeful looking but at least they're honest. The new studies (this isn't the only one) will more than likely send ivermectin off into the land of hydroxychloroquine (which was also given several respectable studies before being dismissed) as far as Covid is concerned.
One of these was a trial by Ahmed Elgazzar from Benha University in Egypt. In this trial of patients with severe Covid-19, one group received ivermectin while the other, the control group, received hydroxychloroquine (people in this group should have received a placebo). According to the researchers, there was a 90% reduction in deaths in the ivermectin group, a degree of effectiveness strikingly at odds with most other studies of ivermectin and considerably better than even FDA-approved therapies for Covid-19.
A British medical student, Jack Lawrence, was assigned to evaluate the Elgazzar paper for a course and encountered a potpourri of apparent plagiarism and data fabrication. The Elgazzar paper had not been formally published in a medical journal, but had appeared instead on a preprint website called Research Square. Upon learning of Lawrences analysis, Research Square promptly retracted the paper.
Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an Australian chronic disease epidemiologist who also reviewed the Elgazzar data, found faults similar to Lawrence. Researchers often summarize large bodies of literature by statistically synthesizing trials in what are called meta-analyses. If you remove this one study from the scientific literature, he told The Guardian most meta-analyses that have found positive results would have their conclusions entirely reversed.
Where to look for higher quality data? A group called the Cochrane Collaboration spends its time conducting meta-analyses of the best-conducted clinical trials. After excluding dozens of ivermectin studies with high risk of bias, the collaboration left little room for optimism: Based on the current very low- to low-certainty evidence, we are uncertain about the efficacy and safety of ivermectin used to treat or prevent Covid-19. The group recommended that ivermectin use be restricted to clinical trials that might actually generate high quality data.
https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/25/ivermectin-for-covid-19-abundance-of-hype-dearth-of-evidence/
A British medical student, Jack Lawrence, was assigned to evaluate the Elgazzar paper for a course and encountered a potpourri of apparent plagiarism and data fabrication. The Elgazzar paper had not been formally published in a medical journal, but had appeared instead on a preprint website called Research Square. Upon learning of Lawrences analysis, Research Square promptly retracted the paper.
Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an Australian chronic disease epidemiologist who also reviewed the Elgazzar data, found faults similar to Lawrence. Researchers often summarize large bodies of literature by statistically synthesizing trials in what are called meta-analyses. If you remove this one study from the scientific literature, he told The Guardian most meta-analyses that have found positive results would have their conclusions entirely reversed.
Where to look for higher quality data? A group called the Cochrane Collaboration spends its time conducting meta-analyses of the best-conducted clinical trials. After excluding dozens of ivermectin studies with high risk of bias, the collaboration left little room for optimism: Based on the current very low- to low-certainty evidence, we are uncertain about the efficacy and safety of ivermectin used to treat or prevent Covid-19. The group recommended that ivermectin use be restricted to clinical trials that might actually generate high quality data.
https://www.statnews.com/2021/08/25/ivermectin-for-covid-19-abundance-of-hype-dearth-of-evidence/
In many countries people are scared and desperate. They want something to work which might save them which they can have access to easily.
That's not what's happening here in the US. Here some people are just gullible and looking for something to fit into their chosen narrative when proven methods are available to them. They don't elicit much sympathy from me.
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Ivermectin to be investigated as a possible treatment for COVID-19 in Oxford's PRINCIPLE trial [View all]
MisterNiceKitty
Aug 2021
OP
Have you researched online how many countries in the world are using Ivermectin?
womanofthehills
Aug 2021
#20
So what? It works on an intestinal parasite. Does it blast viruses out of noses?
pnwmom
Aug 2021
#39
Of course. But they would rather trust a pill or paste approved by the FDA for de-worming,
pnwmom
Aug 2021
#62
It's news, Oxford is well respected, ivermectin needs to be definitively shot down and buried
Bernardo de La Paz
Aug 2021
#6
But it's also growing in the nose, and no amount of shitting will shit it out the nostrils. n/t
pnwmom
Aug 2021
#43
They take it for parasites in the intestines and on the skin, not viruses in the NOSE
pnwmom
Aug 2021
#44
Maybe because in a pandemic with thousands dying, putting money and research scientists on this
viva la
Aug 2021
#65
We've seen this before-- with AIDS-- these "crank" treatments crowd out the effective
viva la
Aug 2021
#55
Don't know about the UK but in the US the standard of care for outpatients is "go home, feel better"
Klaralven
Aug 2021
#32
Because of a severely flawed study and a preprint which didn't stand up to peer review.
herding cats
Aug 2021
#49