A new study on cheap, repurposed Covid treatment ivermectin has concluded that its findings “do not support the use of ivermectin to treat mild to severe forms of COVID-19”. However, this conclusion is at odds with its findings.
The study, “Non-effectiveness of Ivermectin on Inpatients and Outpatients With COVID-19; Results of Two Randomised, Double-Blinded, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trials”, is published in Frontiers in Medicine. It includes among its authors Dr. Andrew Hill, who last year appeared to suggest to Dr. Tess Lawrie that pressure had been applied to him not to find in support of ivermectin in an earlier paper. He told her, “I’m in a very sensitive position here”, and “I don’t really want to get into” revealing who from Gates-funded charity Unitaid, which funded the study, really wrote the conclusion of the paper downplaying the benefits of the treatment.
The new study gives a helpful introduction to the drug.
Ivermectin is a low-cost established drug with clinical benefits and minimal safety concerns, which has been shown to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro in studies. Ivermectin has rapid oral absorption, with high lipid solubility is widely circulated in the body, metabolised in the liver, and excreted in faeces. The adequate concentration of ivermectin inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 in the in vitro experiment is higher than the approved dose of ivermectin concentration in plasma and the lungs of humans. However, a meta-analysis demonstrated that the administration of a standard FDA-approved dose shows a positive clinical response in COVID-19 patients.
The study is a follow-up to an earlier, smaller study which showed promise. However, the promise has not, the authors say, been borne out.
Despite our previous more favourable results from a multicentre, randomised clinical trial in 69 COVID-19 patients at the beginning of the pandemic which noted the effectiveness of ivermectin in recovery and decreasing duration of hospital stay, the current results of this extensive study on 609 admitted patients with moderate to severe form of COVID-19 and 549 outpatients with a mild form of COVID-19, did not show adequate support for the effectiveness of this drug.
Despite this downbeat assessment, the new study did actually find a significant 32% improvement in ivermectin hospital patients achieving complete recovery, with 37% of ivermectin patients vs 28% of placebo patients achieving the outcome [95% CI, 1.04–1.66].
A number of the other key outcomes, including ICU admission and death, were also better in the ivermectin group, though the study was underpowered (not large enough) for these results to be statistically significant (i.e., we can’t be sure they weren’t coincidence). These were:
- ICU admission: 28 ivermectin vs 32 placebo patients; 9% vs 11%; 16% improvement [95% CI, 0.52–1.36].
- Invasive mechanical ventilation: 3% ivermectin vs 6% placebo; 50% improvement [95% CI, 0.24 –1.07].
- Supplemental oxygen by non-invasive ventilation: 244 ivermectin vs 252 placebo; 78% vs 85%; 7% improvement [95% CI, 0.86–1.00].
- Death: 13 ivermectin vs 18 placebo; 4% vs 6%; 33% improvement [95% CI, 0.35–1.39].
The fact that all these outcomes showed an improvement, and mechanical ventilation and death considerably so, is a signal that the benefit is unlikely to be solely due to chance. Thus the conclusion should really have been that a larger study is needed to see if the promising results can achieve statistical significance.
For outpatients, there were also some significant clinical benefits:
- Fever duration: 2.02 (± 0.11) days ivermectin vs 2.41 (± 0.13) days placebo; 16% improvement.
- On the day seventh of treatment, fever, cough and weakness were significantly higher in the placebo group compared to the ivermectin group.
A few results went the other way, though none of these were statistically significant. For inpatients:
- Length of hospital stay: 7.98 (± 4.4) days ivermectin vs 7.16 (± 3.2) days placebo; 20% worse [95% CI, 0.15–1.45]. The study claims this finding is “significant”, but the wide confidence interval going through 1.0 indicates not. The authors write that “delays in discharging patients to other facilities such as rehabilitation centres… might be the reason for more extended hospital stay other than treatment for COVID-19”.
- Mean oxygen saturation at day seven: 92.01 (Range: 72–99) ivermectin vs 93 (Range: 48–99) placebo; 1% worse [95% CI, –2.89 to 0.91].
- Relative recovery (where some symptoms persist on discharge): 53% ivermectin vs 60% placebo; 13% worse [95% CI, 0.76–1.00].
- Persistent dry cough (until seventh day): 5 ivermectin vs 10 placebo; 3% vs 9%; 36% worse [95% CI, 0.13–1.03].
For outpatients:
- Hospitalisation: 7% ivermectin vs 5% placebo; 36% worse [95% CI, 0.65–2.84].
- PCR negative on day five after treatment: 26% ivermectin vs 32% placebo; 19% worse [95% CI, 0.60–1.09].
The authors write that “no evidence was found to support the prescription of ivermectin on recovery, reduced hospitalisation and increased negative RT-PCR assay for SARS-CoV-2 five days after treatment in outpatients”. However, it’s important to note that this was for ivermectin given more than a week after symptoms began. Proponents of ivermectin often argue that treatment should be given within five days of exposure, i.e., as soon as possible.
The paper does mention this issue, though in a strange sentence with typographical errors perhaps indicative of a late addition: “Ivermectin may be going to be effective if it is given at the earliest possible time that clinical symptoms appear whiles [sic] the mean duration of symptoms before randomisation was 7.36 ± 3.43 days in the ivermectin group and 6.98 ± 3.63 days in the placebo group.” Typographical errors aside, the point is correct; an outpatient study really needs to start the treatment sooner.
There may also be a dosage issue. While the trial gave a dose of 0.4 mg per kg per day over a duration of three days, some have suggested a higher dose is required. The paper nods at this where it says: “Krolewiecki et al. assessed antiviral activity and safety of a five-day regimen of high dose ivermectin, comparing the control group in 45 patients with COVID-19. The findings support the hypothesis that ivermectin has a concentration-dependent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2.”
A further potential problem with the study, which was conducted in Iran where ivermectin has been popular as a Covid treatment, is the question of how many of the placebo group were also secretly taking ivermectin anyway. In the limitations the authors note that “after the allocation of ivermectin or placebo, a significant number of patients declined to be participants”, which may be because they realised they wanted to be sure they were taking the drug. Taking an antiviral medication was an exclusion criterion for outpatients – 18 admitted to it, but how many continued with the trial (for which they were presumably paid) but took such drugs anyway? Furthermore, previously taking an antiviral does not appear to have been an exclusion criterion for inpatients, so it is unknown how many placebo-arm inpatients had taken ivermectin or another medication prior to hospitalisation. Once in hospital, I imagine they would not have been able to continue taking any medication secretly, and perhaps that explains why nearly a third of the inpatient participants were lost to follow up, most due to voluntary withdrawal or “incomplete intervention” (31.6%, 282 of 891; 136 ivermectin and 146 placebo).
Overall, I find the conclusion baffling given the findings. There were statistically significant benefits of ivermectin for complete recovery, shorter duration of fever and quicker clearing up of cough and weakness. There were also large but not-statistically-significant benefits for mechanical ventilation and death. The negative findings were mostly small and none were statistically significant. This is for a study which didn’t start the treatment until over a week into symptoms, and may have been confounded by people in the placebo arm also taking the drug.
Perhaps we will never get to the bottom of exactly how effective ivermectin is against COVID-19. But since it’s a safe drug (to quote U.K. Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty, “Ivermectin has proven to be safe. Doses up to 10 times the approved limit are well tolerated by healthy volunteers”) and this study shows once again that it gives some benefit – other studies show much greater benefit – why not be honest about that, allow medics to include it in their treatment protocol, and stop making such a fuss about stopping them?
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I closed my PayPal account. No regrets there.
Misleading information…I was horrified to discover something that happened tonight, and started as a joke, has suddenly become rather frightening. My other half has recently discovered, via an unvaccinated friend, that some people become magnetic after covid jabs. He thought this was hilarious nonsense (he is twice jabbed – his choice entirely), until I offered a small magnet to his upper arms (2 x jabs, one each side) and it stuck! He was flabbergasted, horrified and alarmed. If you look this up on regular search engines all you will get are fact checks and debunking rubbish saying it is all a load of nonsense. I can tell you it is not. Humans are not meant to be magnetic. What have they done to us?
While not wishing to detract from your undoubted shock and anger Tob, this information has been circulating for months on the Web sites we tend to frequent.
I tend to the view that this magnet malarkey links to 5G.
You have not detracted, and yes, I too had seen it but didn’t give it much attention – there is just so much information out there and I honestly thought this sounded far fetched.
You might find this half hour video interesting then. It starts talking about magnetism, which they put down to graphene hydroxide, then it shows the experiment they did in the middle of nowhere where they detect MAC addresses in vaxxed people and also unvaxxed who recently had a PCR test. Even the deceased in a cemetery were found to emit these codes via bluetooth. Very strange.
https://rumble.com/v1gaz0x-bluetruth-scientific-evidence-for-nano-wireless-technology-in-the-vaxxinate.html
Thanks very much Mogs. I’ll have a look.
Yep it must be freaky to actually see it in action. Another conspiracy turned fact. I shared the hell out of this not long ago. So it does give credence to a lot of these people online then doesn’t it? I tried it on my husband but we only had a lowly fridge magnet and it didn’t work so I didn’t pursue it. Well surely that’s one sure fire way of putting somebody off getting further jabs! haha But seriously, how long since his last jab? I thought maybe there’s a cut-off point whereby the magnetism wears off but who knows? Especially now we know the gunk travels everywhere and spike is still being expressed many months post-injection.
https://www.notonthebeeb.co.uk/magnet-challenge
Well over a year since his last one, that’s the strange thing. No, he’s not having any more.
Well let’s not get carried away. The body produces electrical impulses, electrical impulses cause electromagnetic fields.
Some people, for example, cannot wear wrist watches because they stop due to the electric fields their body produces. Clearly it is stronger in some than others.
Maybe the CoVid jabs do produce a localised magnetising effect, but there are natural explanations too.
MAC addresses? Humans are very good at finding patterns in random phenomena… look into the embers of a fire and you will see a horse’s head, slice a tomato and Jesus will be there smiling at you.
I have closed my PayPal account so this question is largely academic and I am probably displaying some ignorance here; where exactly do I post “the promotion of hate, violence, racial or other forms of intolerance that is discriminatory” on the PayPal site?
I am not being facetious by the way.
Oh you post it on other sites, which may eventually come to their attention. And as part of their clampdown on wrong think – I think…
Thanks Hugh. That’s what I initially thought but I dismissed the notion.
So, PayPal will be monitoring billions of social media posts across the world and presumably will be able to identify each post and whether they have a PayPal account. Is that correct?
What sort of breaches of data protection would be required by PayPal in order to allow them to complete this surveillance?
This also suggest worldwide governmental connivance.
It’s more pernicious than you think. By using PayPal to subscribe to Daily Sceptics or The Conservative Woman, well known seething cesspits of hate, violence, racism, etc you are promoting these terrible things and particularly if you comment there.
Or, you might be selling a MAGA hat on eBay, or coffee mugs saying there are only two sexes, and using PayPal to collect.
Thanks JXB
Anyone who thinks these people, not just PayPal but allow them, are going to be pushed back easily is just not being realistic.
It’s going to be a long hard battle.
But it’s only a problem if you use these platforms – and that is not compulsory… yet.
The push-back is therefore easy, don’t use them.
I already cancelled my PayPal account that I had for nearly 20 years. It was convenient for ebay and some other sites. What can replace it (Google pay excepted)?
If you are looking for an alternative this may be helpful to you.
https://reclaimthenet.org/paypal-alternatives/
I also closed my PayPal account, but it took a lot of effort and three attempts, since I’d not used it for so long that my details were out of date, thereby restricting my access to the account.
I endured a long call with customer service to remove the blocks. They knew I was doing this only so I could close my account, and I made it very clear why. Once the blocks were removed, I closed it immediately.
As I’d not been a user for ages, there’s zero financial impact for them. But I figured I’d feature in their declining(?) user-count.
It was worth the whole rigamarole of reopening my account just I could close it properly and be able to flounce away making a dramatic gesture with my raised middle digit.
Have I missed mention on this site of Eventbrite, used by Toby Young to book FSU gigs? Here is a link to the Telegraph story: Eventbrite ‘silencing women’ by pulling ticket sales for gender-critical event (telegraph.co.uk)
Eventbrite was being used to sell tickets for a book launch organised by campaigners critical of “gender ideology”, led by barrister Sarah Phillimore and comedy writer Graham Linehan. However, the company’s “trust and safety” team refunded all tickets and removed the event listing from its website, stating that the planned gathering violated its policy on “hateful, dangerous or violent content”.
It’s not a Fine, it’s Theft
Delete your PayPal acct til they come to their senses.
Oh do shush! As in STFU FGS!!!
JP Sears’ hilarious skit on PayPal’s thought processes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuHX9s6ek2w
Many of these companies are being driven by governments threatening them. Most western governments are busily introducing censorship laws to try and control the narrative now widely expanded on social media sites. It was widely reported recently the Biden administrative had been actively directing social media sites what to censor. We do not know what forces are at play in the background. Many companies are just responding to government threats and new censorship laws.
Best just to dump this dodgy outfit.
Sometimes the best answer is the simplest.