• Login
  • Register
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In
The Daily Sceptic
No Result
View All Result

The BBC’s Dishonest Attack on Ivermectin

by Will Jones
8 July 2021 5:31 PM

The following article by Dr Edmund Fordham and Dr Tess Lawrie was first published by HART and is reproduced here by kind permission.

The July 3rd episode of Tim Harford’s More or Less: Behind the Stats, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the World Service, spread more medical disinformation with a piece entitled “Is ivermectin a Covid wonder drug?” Timed to follow publication of an article in Clinical Infectious Diseases by Roman et al on June 28th, this piece seems a clumsy attempt to discredit the landmark British study of Bryant, Lawrie et al which was published by the American Journal of Therapeutics in June and has recently appeared in the current (July) print edition.

Though published by British authors – based at Dr Tess Lawrie’s Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd in Bath and the University of Newcastle — and despite these authors lacking any conflicts of interest, BBC Radio 4 made no attempt to contact any of the study authors for interview or ‘right of reply’, which is a fairness obligation under the Ofcom Broadcasting Code. Instead, Harford spoke to one Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist at the University of Wollongong in Australia.

Bryant et al have published the world’s first Cochrane-standards systematic review and meta-analysis of available randomised clinical trials of ivermectin in treatment and prevention of COVID-19. Review of 3,406 patients in 24 randomised trials demonstrated a mortality risk reduction of 62% on ‘moderate certainty’ evidence. The documentation is meticulous and comprehensive. Its restriction was to ‘randomised’ clinical trials because non-randomised studies are typically disregarded by regulatory authorities. There was no ‘cherry picking’: all available trials at the study cut-off date were included.

Meyerowitz-Katz referred to Roman et al, with an almost identical but not the same title, which also claims to be a systematic review and meta-analysis. The study surveys only 1,173 patients over 10 studies, with the remaining known randomised trials arbitrarily excluded. Moreover, the article misreports published clinical trial data in a way that verges on falsification of data, as an Open Letter to the Editor-in-Chief has detailed. The initial misreporting while on the preprint server medRxiv included a farcical reversal of the treatment and control ‘arms’ of the clinical trial of Niaee et al, drawing protest from Dr Niaee himself which can still be found in the comments section of medRxiv. Unfortunately for Clinical Infectious Diseases, further misreporting (undetected by the journal’s peer reviewers) remains, in a way that renders the article worthless. Further background on the sources can be found here.

These facts seemed unknown to Meyerowitz-Katz, who presented it as a contrasting study arriving at opposite conclusions. In fact, even the highly-selected data offer a mortality risk reduction closely similar to Bryant et al, merely one with wider Confidence Intervals. Roman et al commit the elementary fallacy of supposing that lacking statistically significant evidence (in their highly selective survey) is the same thing as a positive demonstration of no benefit.

This is not so; all of the studies cited consistently show benefit. In addition to their selectivity and misreporting of basic data, Roman et al assert conclusions that do not follow from the evidence.

Meyerowitz-Katz attempts to discredit Bryant et al on the basis of ‘risks of bias’ and ‘certainty of evidence’ but failed to explain that this would not change any of the numerical estimates of the magnitude of the effect (e.g. on mortality, on clinical improvement, or prevention of infection, etc.). Whilst assessments of evidence ‘certainty’ do involve subjective aspects, they are all subject to strict criteria, and should be carried out independently by two reviewers. Bryant et al observed those criteria; whatever process was used by Roman et al, the result was only multiple instances of data misreporting.

Harford and Meyerowitz-Katz between them also failed to explain that, in the context of a systematic review, phrases such as ‘moderate certainty’ or ‘very low certainty’ have a precise technical meaning. These concern overall confidence in the magnitude of effects, and whether further research is expected to change the quantitative estimate. They do not refer to certainty about whether an effect exists at all.

Harford and Meyerowitz-Katz then elide such technical meanings into the much looser colloquial senses, allowing listeners to assume that Meyerowitz-Katz’ assertion of ‘low’ or ‘very low’ certainty means that it is uncertain whether ivermectin is helpful at all. The BBC has, in theory, an educational mission. In failing to explain this understandable misconception to a lay audience, the BBC has failed in a clear opportunity to educate.

Where Harford and Meyerowitz-Katz are correct is in identifying the close parallels between the media coverage of hydroxychloroquine and of ivermectin, both very cheap generic medicines on the WHO list of Essential Medicines, those ‘safe and effective’ medicines that represent the “minimum medicine needs for a basic health-care system”. These are clearly grave threats to a pharmaceutical sector expecting valuations in the hundreds of billions of dollars from ‘designer’ drugs and mass vaccination programmes. It seems an all too regular occurrence that conflicted authors and journalists now routinely denigrate any generic medicine from which no fortunes can be made.

The effectiveness of ivermectin in prevention and treatment of COVID-19 is not ultimately shown by meta-analyses of randomised clinical trials. It is now glaringly obvious from multiple observational trials and case studies from whole countries, or states within them, showing how ivermectin use crushes both case and death statistics. The uncertainties that do remain concern the quantitative metrics of benefit, not whether such benefit exists at all. Genuine research issues include matters such as dosage, frequency, adjunct medicines, and other treatments required at different stages of the complex clinical course of the COVID-19 illness. These are legitimately the subject of further clinical trials, but in the current stage of knowledge, randomisation to placebo would be unethical.

This BBC report is medical disinformation, fails in the BBC’s educational mission, and violates the BBC’s Charter obligations of both objectivity and balance. This HART bulletin aims to restore the balance that the BBC fails to provide.

Tags: BBCHCQIvermectin

Donate

We depend on your donations to keep this site going. Please give what you can.

Donate Today

Comment on this Article

You’ll need to set up an account to comment if you don’t already have one. We ask for a minimum donation of £5 if you'd like to make a comment or post in our Forums.

Sign Up
Previous Post

Scusi? Millions of Pupils Miss Out on Language Learning During Lockdown

Next Post

Lockdown Summit to Take Place on July 17th – Register Now

Subscribe
Login
Notify of
Please log in to comment

To join in with the discussion please make a donation to The Daily Sceptic.

Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.

54 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

DONATE

PODCAST

The Sceptic | Episode 40: Rob Bates on Stopping Britain Becoming Majority-Minority, Tilak Doshi on Trump vs Green Blob and Mario Trabucco on Osborne’s Elgin Marbles Betrayal

by Richard Eldred
13 June 2025
1

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

As a Civil Servant, I Can Tell You Dissent From DEI Dogma is Not Allowed

13 June 2025
by Anonymous Civil Servant

Watch: Labour Minister Makes False Claim on BBC Question Time That Most Small Boat Migrants are Women and Children – With No Correction From BBC

13 June 2025
by Will Jones

Israel and Iran Are Now at War

13 June 2025
by Will Jones

The Great Climate Science Swindle Goes On

12 June 2025
by Chris Morrison

News Round-Up

14 June 2025
by Toby Young

Israel and Iran Are Now at War

46

Watch: Labour Minister Makes False Claim on BBC Question Time That Most Small Boat Migrants are Women and Children – With No Correction From BBC

19

News Round-Up

17

As a Civil Servant, I Can Tell You Dissent From DEI Dogma is Not Allowed

11

Abortion Up to Birth by the Back Door

49

Oxford is Now More or Less a Quango

14 June 2025
by Darren Gee

The Two-Stroke Engine of Brian Wilson

14 June 2025
by James Alexander

As a Civil Servant, I Can Tell You Dissent From DEI Dogma is Not Allowed

13 June 2025
by Anonymous Civil Servant

Woke Waste Has Become Even Worse Under Labour

13 June 2025
by Charlotte Gill

I’ll Take the High Road

12 June 2025
by Dr James Allan

POSTS BY DATE

July 2021
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Jun   Aug »

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union

NEWSLETTER

View today’s newsletter

To receive our latest news in the form of a daily email, enter your details here:

POSTS BY DATE

July 2021
M T W T F S S
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728293031  
« Jun   Aug »

DONATE

LISTED ARTICLES

  • Most Read
  • Most Commented
  • Editor’s Picks

As a Civil Servant, I Can Tell You Dissent From DEI Dogma is Not Allowed

13 June 2025
by Anonymous Civil Servant

Watch: Labour Minister Makes False Claim on BBC Question Time That Most Small Boat Migrants are Women and Children – With No Correction From BBC

13 June 2025
by Will Jones

Israel and Iran Are Now at War

13 June 2025
by Will Jones

The Great Climate Science Swindle Goes On

12 June 2025
by Chris Morrison

News Round-Up

14 June 2025
by Toby Young

Israel and Iran Are Now at War

46

Watch: Labour Minister Makes False Claim on BBC Question Time That Most Small Boat Migrants are Women and Children – With No Correction From BBC

19

News Round-Up

17

As a Civil Servant, I Can Tell You Dissent From DEI Dogma is Not Allowed

11

Abortion Up to Birth by the Back Door

49

Oxford is Now More or Less a Quango

14 June 2025
by Darren Gee

The Two-Stroke Engine of Brian Wilson

14 June 2025
by James Alexander

As a Civil Servant, I Can Tell You Dissent From DEI Dogma is Not Allowed

13 June 2025
by Anonymous Civil Servant

Woke Waste Has Become Even Worse Under Labour

13 June 2025
by Charlotte Gill

I’ll Take the High Road

12 June 2025
by Dr James Allan

SOCIAL LINKS

Free Speech Union
  • Home
  • About us
  • Donate
  • Privacy Policy

Facebook

  • X

Instagram

RSS

Subscribe to our newsletter

© Skeptics Ltd.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Articles
  • About
  • Archive
    • ARCHIVE
    • NEWS ROUND-UPS
  • Podcasts
  • Newsletter
  • Premium
  • Donate
  • Log In

© Skeptics Ltd.

wpDiscuz
You are going to send email to

Move Comment