Over the last two months I’ve literally been bombarded by people asking me about my opinions on ivermectin as a treatment for covid, so I figured I’d better look in to it. Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug, used primarily to treat infections caused by parasitic worms. It was discovered in the 1970’s, and the researchers who discovered it were awarded the Nobel prize for their discovery in 2015.
The interest in ivermectin as a potential treatment for covid-19 is likely due to a study published way back in June of 2020, that showed a large reduction in SARS-CoV-2 in a cell culture after addition of ivermectin. If ivermectin were shown to be effective against Covid, that would be great, because it’s generic, cheap, safe, and widely available, so it would be easy to start treating people quickly. Unfortunately, that also means western pharmaceutical companies have zero interest in doing research on ivermectin, because there is no way to make a decent profit from it.
Who does have an interest? Poorer countries, that can’t afford expensive new drugs. That means the research on ivermectin as a treatment for covid has been pretty much entirely carried out outside the west.
I’ve managed to find four reasonably large randomized controlled trials looking at ivermectin for covid, and those are the trials we’re now going to discuss (I also found a fifth one, but it only enrolled 12 patients in each group, which to me is so small it’s not even worth looking at). Note that (as far as I’m aware) none of these studies has yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Personally, I don’t think peer-review is worth very much, so that doesn’t bother me at all, but it’s just something to be aware of.
The first trial was carried out in Bangladesh and completed in October. It included patients over the age of 18 with mild to moderate covid confirmed with PCR. Patients with severe covid were excluded from the study. According to the researchers the study was double-blind and placebo-controlled, although it is unclear from the study protocol whether the control group actually received a placebo, and what the placebo consisted of.
The intervention group received a single 12 mg dose of ivermectin plus 100 mg of doxycycline twice a day for five days (doxycycline is an antibiotic). Thus this wasn’t really a trial of ivermectin, it was a trial of ivermectin + doxycycline.
A total of 400 people were recruited in to the trial, and they were divided evenly between the intervention group and the control group. The average age of the participants was 40 years. The primary end point for the study was recovery within seven days, which the researchers defined as follows: absence of a fever for at least three days, significant improvement in respiratory symptoms, significant improvement on lung imaging, absence of complications requiring hospitalization, and an oxygen saturation above 93% .
This is a problematic end point, because a couple of the things in that list are not very specific, which leaves it up to the researchers to decide whether someone has recovered within seven days or not. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a problem if we could be 100% confident that there was complete blinding of the participants and the researchers, but based on the information provided I’m not even remotely certain that that was the case. And if there wasn’t blinding, then the researchers could easily have manipulated the results to make them appear more impressive.
Ok, let’s get to the results.
In the group treated with ivermectin + doxycycline, 61% had recovered within 7 days, and in the control group, 44% had recovered within 7 days. The difference was statistically significant (p-value <0,03).
At the two week mark after recruitment in to the study, participants had a second PCR test performed. In the group receiving ivermectin + doxycycline, 8% had a positive PCR test at two weeks. In the control group, 20% had a positive PCR test. Again, the result was statistically significant, in fact highly so (p-value <0,001).
Three people died in the control group, compared with zero people in the treatment group. However the result was not statistically significant (which of course doesn’t mean that there isn’t a difference – even if there is a real difference in mortality, this study simply was not large enough to be able to detect it).
So, what can we conclude?
This study suggests that ivermectin + doxycycline can shorten symptom duration, and also decreases viral load. If the results are real, the effect is actually pretty impressive. However, it is not clear from the published data that the study really was effectively blinded, and that means we can’t be very confident that the results are real. Additionally, it is unfortunate that the researchers chose to combine two separate drugs in one study, because it muddies the waters and makes it impossible to know whether it was the ivermectin or the doxycycline that was producing a benefit. Let’s move on to the next trial.
This was an open-label trial (i.e. both the researchers and the patients knew who was in which group) involving 140 patients, and the results were posted on MedRxiv in October 2020. As with the previous study, the treatment being tested was ivermectin plus doxycycline. The study was carried out in Iraq.
In order to be included in the study, patients had to have confirmed covid (based on a combination of symptoms, radiology, and PCR). All levels of severity of disease were admitted in to the study. Those with mild symptoms had to have been symptomatic for three days or less, while those with severe symptoms had to have had severe symptoms for at most two days, and those with critical symptoms had to have had critical symptoms for at most one day. The researchers motivate this somewhat weird set of inclusion criteria by saying that they wanted to see how effective ivermectin plus doxycycline is at the earliest stage of each phase of the disease.
Patients were randomized to either 200 ug/kg of ivermectin per day (roughly 14 mg per day for an average 70 kg person) for two days, and 100 mg of doxycycline twice a day for five to ten days. Unfortunately the researchers decided to break randomization because they felt it would be “unethical” to put people with critical illness in to the control group (personally I think it’s unethical to break randomization, because the results become less scientifically valid and thereby less useful to all the other millions of patients around the world). So all participants with critical covid recruited in to the study ended up in the ivermectin + doxycycline group. In the end there were 48 people with mild to moderate disease in each group. In the ivermectin + doxycycline group there were 11 people with severe disease and 11 people with critical disease, while in the control group there were 22 people with severe disease and no people with critical disease.
So, technically, this study wasn’t actually randomized at all. However, the fact that everyone with critical illness was placed in the treatment group should make the treatment look worse, not better, so if there is a positive effect of treatment in spite of that, then it’s likely bigger than this study shows.
The average age of the patients was 50 years in the treatment group and 47 years in the control group. Among those with mild to moderate disease, symptoms had started a median of three days earlier, while those with severe disease had first become symptomatic seven days earlier, and those with critical disease had started having symptoms nine days earlier.
The primary end point was time to recovery. This is very problematic in an unblinded study, because “time to recovery” is quite subjective, and it is very easy for the researchers to manipulate the results in whatever direction they want. Anyway, let’s look at the results.
The average time to recovery was eleven days in the group treated with ivermectin plus doxycycline, and 18 days in the control group. The result was highly statistically significant (p-value < 0,0001). That would mean that ivermectin and doxycycline together shorten the time to recovery by almost 40% in relative terms! If the study had been double-blind, and it was very clear exactly what the criteria for “recovery” were, that would be a very impressive result, especially considering that the people in the treatment group were on average sicker to start. However, since neither of those things are true, the result is highly questionable.
Two people died in the ivermectin + doxycycline group, compared with six people in the control group. This also seems impressive, but again, the study isn’t statistically powered to show an effect on mortality.
So overall so far we have two studies that suggest that the combination of ivermectin and doxycycline can be beneficial when used to treat patients with covid-19. However, both studies have flawed methodologies that make the results suspect. And if there is a real benefit, then we still don’t know whether to attribute that benefit to ivermectin or to doxycycline, or to some combination of the two. Let’s move on.
Next up we have a trial that went up on MedRxiv at the beginning of January 2021. The study was carried out in Nigeria. It was double-blind, which is good, but unfortunately it was very small. 62 patients were included in total, and randomized to three different treatment arms, so there were only around 20 patients per group.
Participants were included in the study if they had a positive PCR test. There was apparently no requirement that they have any symptoms. Obviously, this is a problem, since we know that the risk of a false positive result rises enormously when asymptomatic people are being tested. Funnily enough, even though they included asymptomatic people, they excluded people with severe covid, so this was really a trial of people with mild to non-existent disease. Why they tested people without symptoms is unclear, and why they then went even further and decided to try treating asymptomatic people with drugs is even less clear.
After inclusion in the study, participants were randomized to one of three treatments. The first group received a 6 mg dose of ivermectin which was repeated every 48 hours. The second group received a 12 mg dose of ivermectin, also repeated every 48 hours. The third group was the “control” group, but for some reason the researchers opted to give the “control” group lopinavir/ritonavir rather than a placebo. No explanation is offered for this strange decision. Since the control group was given an active drug rather than a placebo, we can’t say for certain whether the ivermectin is helping the patients, even if there is a positive treatment effect. It’s equally possible that the lopinavir/ritonavir is hurting the patients.
The participants were re-tested with PCR at four days, seven days, ten days, and 14 days, and this was used as the basis to determine how successful the different treatment arms were. PCR-positivity isn’t even a remotely patient-oriented outcome, so as with so much else to do with this study, this is problematic. Anyway, let’s take a quick look at the results and then move on to the next study.
On average it took nine days for participants in the control group to become PCR negative, six days for participants in the low dose ivermectin group, and five days in the high dose ivermectin group. If the two ivermectin groups are combined, the average time to PCR negativity becomes five days, and the reduction compared with the control group is four days (42% relative risk reduction), which is statistically significant (p-value 0,007). There were no deaths in any of the groups treated, which isn’t really surprising since it was a small study and many of the participants were completely asymptomatic to begin with.
So, what can we say about this study?
Not much. The number of participants is tiny, the control group isn’t a real control group, and the results are based entirely on the flawed PCR-test, not on any real reduction in symptoms or in any other outcome that actually matters in any way. The results are somewhat promising, but that’s really all we can say.
Ok, let’s get to the final study.
Like the previous study, this was posted on MedRxiv in early January 2021. It was double-blind, and it was carried out in India. In order to be included in the study, potential participants had to be over the age of 18 and have mild to moderate covid, with the diagnosis confirmed by PCR.
I’m not sure why these studies keep focusing on people with mild disease, since it’s more important to find an effective treatment for severe disease. I guess it stems mainly from a hypothesis that ivermectin is unlikely to be effective if given later in the disease course. But we still need to know whether it’s a good idea to give it to people with severe disease, so it’s unfortunate that this group was excluded in three out of the four studies.
A total of 115 people were recruited in to the study. The average age of the patients was 53 years. Half received 12 mg of ivermectin on the first and second day after inclusion in the study, while the other half received an identical placebo pill (ivermectin has a long half-life in the body, which is why it’s generally enough to just give one or two doses and then stop).
The primary end point chosen for the study was whether or not participants had a positive PCR-test at six days after inclusion in the study. Just as in the previous study, the researchers have chosen a totally meaningless end point, that tells us nothing about whether the drug in any way actually helps patients. Luckily, they did actually measure some other things too, that actually do matter, like length of hospital stay, ICU admission, and death.
So, what happened?
At the six day time point, 68% in the control group still had a positive covid PCR, compared with 76% in the ivermectin group. So the control group seemed to do better than the ivermectin group according to the irrelevant metric chosen by the researchers. However, this difference wasn’t even close to being statistically significant (p-value 0,35). Let’s look instead at some metrics that actually do matter.
In terms of symptoms, 84% in the ivermectin group were symptom free by day six, compared with 90% in the control group. So again, the control group seemed to do better than the ivermectin group. However, again, this result was not statistically significant (p-value 0,36).
If we look at invasive ventilation and mortality however, we do see an apparent benefit in the group treated with ivermectin. Five people in the control group ended up receiving invasive ventilation, compared with only one person in the ivermectin group. Four people died in the placebo group, compared with zero in the ivermectin group. So in terms of the more serious end points, that actually matter to patients, ivermectin seems to be better than placebo. However, as with all three previous studies, this study was far too small to say whether that difference was really due to ivermectin or just due to chance.
So, the final study gives a weirdly mixed message. In terms of PCR-positivity and likelihood of being symptom free at six days, the placebo seemed to be better, but in terms of invasive ventilation and death, ivermectin seemed to be better. However, none of the differences were statistically significant and could easily just be due to chance. So, overall, the final study is not able to show any benefit to treating patients with ivermectin.
Ok, let’s wrap up. Three of the four trials did produce some signal of benefit. However, all four trials had major flaws, and two of the trials that did find a benefit were also giving doxycycline, which makes it impossible to disentangle whether the potential benefit was coming from ivermectin or doxycycline. But these trials were all small, so it’s perfectly possible that there is a benefit but that the trials were just too small to detect it. What we really need now is a big, high quality, double-blind, randomized controlled trial of ivermectin as a treatment covid.
However, lacking that, we can try to put the results from these four trials together in to a little meta-analysis of our own, just for fun, to try to compensate for the fact that these studies were small, and therefore not really statistically powered to find anything but the biggest effects imaginable. When we do that, this is what we get:
I’m sure you’re all as nerdy as me, and love looking at forest plots. What this one shows is a 78% reduction in the relative risk of dying of covid, if you get treated with ivermectin!
The result is statistically significant (p-value 0,01). If the result is real, that is pretty damn amazing. That would mean that four out of five covid deaths could be avoided if everyone was treated with ivermectin (potentially together with doxycycline), a dirt cheap generic drug that’s been around for decades, and which we know is safe. It blows all the currently approved drugs for covid out of the water in terms of effect size.
There is of course, as always, a risk of publication bias. In other words, there might be more studies of ivermectin out there that haven’t had their results published, because they were less impressive. So let’s have a quick peek over at clinicaltrials.gov, and see if there is anything suspicious going on.
There are currently five trials of ivermectin for covid listed as completed at clinicaltrials.gov, but for which results haven’t yet been published. However, four out of those five were completed less than two months ago, and one was completed three months ago, so most likely they just haven’t gotten around to posting their results yet. So the risk of publication bias seems to be relatively low. It will be interesting to see what those studies show, when they do get published.
Do I think the huge reduction in mortality is real? I think it’s very possible. These were after all randomized controlled trials, so the risk of confounding factors is low (with the exception of doxycycline, which could be responsible for some or even all of the beneficial effect seen). And, as mentioned, the risk of publication bias appears to be pretty low. And the outcome for which there is a big effect size is mortality, which is a hard outcome that is hard for researchers to manipulate.
Hi Sebastian, great article as always.
Here is a pretty new interview by Dr. Pierre Kory and it is supposed to be for Doctors around the world.
Maybe it is interesting to you or to your colleagues. I’m not an expert, but he seems to be credible to me. I’m for any treatment, that ends the mass hysteria that is going on right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34dIZ6O5rjQ
P.S.: Dr. Kory states in the end, that the NIH recommends against the use of Ivermectin outside of clinical trials. Well, who would have seen this coming for a cheap generic drug?
Hi Sebastian,
Have you been able to look closer at this Argentine study that I’ve seen many Ivermectin references to :
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3714649
Thanks!
And a january review: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43440-020-00195-y
In french-with interesting references: https://t.co/bKyFrXufUh?amp=1
Here is an interview with Professor Borody from August last which I hope is of interest
https://youtu.be/93jI7Gl3yic
…and NIH updated section 106 (14.01.20121): https://files.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/guidelines/section/section_106.pdf
I follow also Dr Andrew Hill https://twitter.com/DrAndrewHill and FLCC (Front Line Corona Care – a group of doctors in the US) which both collect quiet in depth material on clinical trials re Ivermectin. Dr Andrew Hill of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool (UK) is currently performing a WHO-sponsored review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials of ivermectin against covid. here a 12 min video re his findings: https://youtu.be/yOAh7GtvcOs This WHO-sponsored review of ivermectin trials indicates 83% reduction in covid mortality.
Dr Rushmore, here are two more sources of reviews of trials of ivermectin.
This one by Dr Andrew Hill of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool (UK), sponsored by the WHO:
https://swprs.org/who-preliminary-review-confirms-ivermectin-effectiveness/
This one by Dr Tess Lawrie dated 3 January 2021 (I’ve only just now seen the developments of 13th and 14th January). Her video message to Boris Johnson was removed from Youtube.
https://www.e-bmc.co.uk/
Dear Sebastian,
I do not know what I like more the rigid information you provide or the entertaining way you provide it.
The good information was fun to read.
Thank you! Please keep going!
Regards
Jens
NIH Revises Treatment Guidelines for Ivermectin for the Treatment of COVID-19
Ivermectin is Now a Therapeutic Option for Doctors & Prescribers
NEW YORK, N.Y. — JANUARY 15, 2021
https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FLCCC-PressRelease-NIH-Ivermectin-in-C19-Recommendation-Change-Jan15.2021-final.pdf
Hi,
I’m afraid the site crashed, so any comments made in the last hour appear to have been erased. Sorry.
Dear Sebastian, Thank you for your diligence and commitment to transparency and scientific rigor! For some reason, when I try to paste the links here I want to share, I am not able to submit a comment, but I highly recommend you check out the work the Frontline Critical Care Alliance has already done, including their meta-analysis of 27 controlled trials on ivermectin. Just go to covid19criticalcare.com, and look for their meta-analysis, for the protocol they recommend (which includes ivermectin, Vit C, D, zinc, melatonin, and quercetin), and also for their advanced treatment protocol I-MATH, which includes high-dose Vit C, blood thinners, and steroids (this one has been highly successful since March).
I also recommend you regularly look for updates at covexit.com – a group of global researchers and physicians specific to prophylaxis and early treatment approaches. There are also now a number of directories of physicians prescribing these treatments, such as c19protocols.com (scroll down, and this is another sources for a variety of established protocols).
Thank you once again, Dr Rushworth, for this important information.
If there is this, and other inexpensive and available treatments–combined with the low infected mortality rates (for virtually all, except the elderly and frail or obese)–combined with many cases with low or asymptomatic viral loads: Why the push to vaccinate everyone with products that seem to be rushed to market?
That question is rhetorical, of course. And I bet many see the answer is embedded in political, corporate and globalist motives…
Excellent work! I’m still confused. Last week you said “covid” was a positive test result, no symptoms required. What “covid”, then, is Ivermectin treating?
Thanks! Different studies define covid in different ways. If you’re asking me personally, you don’t have covid if you don’t have symptoms, regardless of what any test may show.
Given there are alternatives to the vaccine ex. Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine protocol. How did they get this experimental vaccine fast tracked?
Here’s the updated meta-analysis, including the Egyptian study that I had missed earlier:
https://sebastianrushworth.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Forest-plot-ivermectin-2-1.gif
The relative risk reduction is even bigger when that study is added, 87%, which would mean that nine out of ten covid deaths can be avoided with ivermectin. The result is now also even more significant, with a p-value less than 0,0001. Based on this, I would say the evidence is now pretty overwhelming that ivermectin is an effective treatment for covid.
Dr Rushworth– My 91 year old mother is scheduled to receive the first injection of the vaccine next week. It is in the US so probably the Moderna or Pfizer (I read your analysis of the vaccines, btw). As there has been so little testing on the frail and elderly, is this not really the ‘test’, so to speak? Although, I suppose one could posit that she is around 11-12 years beyond average life span–so why not? I just feel that so much testing is actually being done, post-approval.
If this is true, then it should be front-page news in every newspaper in the world. Somehow I suspect it will be conveniently ignored.
I am a very old MD. More than half a century of clinical practice is a powerful bias when looking for people that are ill.
As a young MD, I learned that saving lives is one of our purposes. Hell with numbers. They are fundamental bur never during a crisis.
Before MD started to lie for money, double-blind, statistically aided studies didn’t exist.
Old age is a challenge. But it works as expected. Boring colleagues to death…
I must told you all [with less practice time] that sulphamides were raised to heaven when someone published a study about the cure of only 9 women with post-puerperal sepsis, before the WWII. It is a condition almost always fatal in our days of antibiotics.
My thanks to all contributors and to Dr. Rushworth.
The top brands of Ivermectin for cattle injection (ever tried to give a pill to a 1200 pd steer?) contain 1% Ivermectin and nothing else but Propylene glycol and Glycerol formal, both safe for human consumption. Two grams taken in applesauce steadies the bowels, and is reported to be prophylactic.
This website keeps a running total of all studies related to Ivermectin without the detail you have provided but is more comprehensive in its inclusion. It keeps an updated meta-analysis.
https://ivmmeta.com/
Thanks for this.
If one were to contract Covid, and asked a doctor for this treatment – is it likely they would prescribe this drug?
If not, then I have read that it is possible to obtain it from a veterinarian.
I think that very much depends on what country you are in.
Great article as was always – thank you
Any chance you could do the same analysis for HCQ?
It’s cheap, safe and readily available – and plenty of evidence indicating an effective treatment (if administered early in combination with zinc).
Yet, as I understand, it has been banned as a treatment in most western countries.
Keep up the good work !
Dr Marik, head of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, recommends ivermectin.
His an article with links to a youtube summary and other resources: https://trialsitenews.com/dr-paul-marik-ivermectin-works-and-should-be-accepted-for-large-observational-studies/
EVMS’s covid protocol is at https://www.evms.edu/covid-19/covid_care_for_clinicians/
Interview with and presentation by Dr Pierre Kory, FLCCC Alliance. Slices are in a link so you can download the whole PP deck.
https://jameslyonsweiler.com/2021/01/17/dr-pierre-korys-slides-from-unbreakingscience/
Dr. Rushworth: This is a group of U.S. doctors using ivermectin:
https://covid19criticalcare.com/medical-evidence/ivermectin/
“However, four out of those five were completed less than two months ago…” Oh c’mon team. We are losing 4K plus each day in the US. If you have got a drug that will help… THEN out with the data. I grokked the VAERS data in the US. Looks like we have lost at least 50 to vaccination. Norway has apparently lost 33? Sure they are mostly older. But ten months into this and your prophylactic or treatment options are very limited in the US. I keep wondering if the new strain(s) are ‘escaped immunity’ derived responses to Astra-Zeneca trials in GB, BR, SA. Maybe CV vaccines are dangerous?
I’m not medically trained so take it fwiw but I wonder 1. Why would a med used for head lice work for a respiratory Coronavirus?and 2. If it’s plausible, then why so few studies a year into the pandemic?
1. This is not clear. Ivermectin is thought to inhibit the function of a number of different intracellular proteins, which could interfere with the virus’s ability to replicate. In vitro (test tube) studies have found that it significantly decreases the rate at which new viral particles are produced.
2. One reason is that pharmaceutical companies have no interest in researching generic drugs that they cannot make any money from. I think we all have to be clear though that covid has only been around for a year, so discovering an effective treatment for a new disease within a year is not slow, it is unbelievably fast.
Ask any dermatologist how low dose minocycline (a brother of doxycycline) works for acne and they will tell you it has ANTI-INFLAMMATORY activity at levels below which it has anti-microbial activity. So the doxycycline could certainly play a role. What is the proposed mechanism of action of invermectin? Could it also have ANTI-INFLAMMATORY activity? In addition to the ANTI-INFLAMMATORY steroid dexamethasone recent results supporting a couple -***umab type ANTI-INFLAMMATORY agents have also shown some benefit. It makes one wonder if they have their action outside the pathways that NSAIDs influence.
Another excellent article Dr. Rushworth, thank you.
Question: Is there data for Ivermectin utilisation in humans worldwide? ie: Does country A prescribe lots of it, but country B doesn’t? Would be interesting to see if there’s any correlation between this and COVID severity/moribidity.
I’m sure that kind of data can be found. Poorer countries have been hit less hard than richer countries, which could partially be due to widespread ivermectin use. As mentioned, it is mostly used to treat infections caused by parasitic worms, so countries that have a lot of problems with these types of parasites have a much higher usage of ivermectin.
At present there are 33 studies showing very impressive results of ivermectin in the prophylaxis and treatment of covid.
https://ivmmeta.com/
Why on earth are the health authorities are not looking deeper into it? It’s all very peculiar.
Here is another article, which also tells you a bit more about the actual effects of ivermectin.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.11.30.20236570v1.full-text#ref-7
And again, why is nobody really looking into it?
At least Skopje/North Macedonia has recommended ivermectin for the treatment of covid.
https://www.slobodenpecat.mk/en/konechno-ivermektinot-doaga-i-vo-makedonija/
There is hope …
A French doctor had also reviewed the meta-analyses on Ivermectin – and he has just published today another article on the same subject.
Here are the two links (well translatable with Deepl.com/translator for example) :
1) https://blog.gerardmaudrux.lequotidiendumedecin.fr/2020/12/10/le-traitement-du-covi-19-existe-2-ivermectine-efficace-a-100/
2) https://blog.gerardmaudrux.lequotidiendumedecin.fr/2021/01/17/ivermectine-vers-une-autorisation/
Thanks a lot for your work.
rferrisxsays:
18 January, 2021 at 00:33
Re “I keep wondering if the new strain(s) are ‘escaped immunity’ derived responses to Astra-Zeneca trials in GB, BR, SA. Maybe CV vaccines are dangerous?”
Well spotted rferrisxsays, that’s interesting that variants are from the UK, Brazil and South Africa, and that’s where the trials are…
Also, think about this curious statement, made by Laureate Professor Peter Doherty in an article in the Australian Financial Review on 8 May 2020: “The Jenner Institute have a chimp virus vaccine,” he says. “It went through pre-clinical testing here in Geelong on ferrets.” Doherty is referring to the testing at CSIRO’s high-security animal health lab, although he admits because ferrets are in short supply, they are also testing on transgenic mice. It then went into six monkeys. In both cases, they were challenged with the virus and showed it prevented infection. They have already put about 600 people out in the community with it in Britain. “What we’re going to see from those is whether there are any untoward effects. I would be surprised if we do. But there are 60 million doses of this thing being made right now. It’s perfectly feasible we will see this vaccine rolled out in the United Kingdom in September. It’s exactly the way the Ebola vaccine was tested.” September? I ask again, just to make sure I haven’t misheard. “The British vaccine, which is the one that could be going into people’s arms, it’s already going into people, but it could be going into large numbers of people as early as September,” he confirms.”
What do you think about that? I thought this was interesting wording: “They have already put about 600 people out in the community with it in Britain.” Here’s the link to the article, I’m able to access it, but some people have had trouble opening it, might be behind a paywall: ‘I’m 79, I won the Nobel Prize and I don’t give a s—‘ Financial Review, 8 May 2020: https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/health-and-wellness/i-m-79-i-won-the-nobel-prize-and-i-don-t-give-a-s-20200506-p54qhb
Have a look at this Statista graph of COVID-19 deaths in the US as of January 9, 2021, i.e. from beginning of February 2020: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-from-covid-by-age-us/
Total deaths – 329,593
85 years and older – 105,673
75-84 years – 90,744
65-74 years – 70,230
55-64 years – 38,830
45-54 years – 15,558
35-44 years – 5,742
25-34 years – 2,196
15-24 years – 510
5-14 years – 55
1-4 years – 21
Under 1 – 34
These deaths occurred over nearly 12 months, in a population of around 328 million…
Further to above comment…
Looking at the US statistics above, in my opinion it is wrong that vaccination has been implemented for this coronavirus…
Most of the deaths are in the elderly, probably with comorbidities, and I suggest very questionably attributed as wholly Covid deaths…
In my opinion no way should massive populations of younger people be vaccinated with these fast-tracked experimental vaccine products, e.g. nurses, doctors, police etc, certainly not without clear informed consent about the risks and benefits for their age group.
It’s diabolical that this vaccination frenzy is occurring. And that treatments have been repressed to facilitate emergency authorisation of the vaccine products.
Dr. Rushworth: What were the cycle thresholds used in these tests? I don’t understand why a negative PCR test at the end of these studies was thought to be significant. It is my understanding that if a person actually has the disease and has a positive PCR test when they have recovered from the disease they may or will still have a positive PCR test since the test be positive even if there are harmless viral fragments present. I don’t get it.
I agree, it’s not a meaningful endpoint. I guess the reason they did this is because the reason ivermectin first became interesting to look in to was because there were in vitro studies that showed a reduction in viral particles when ivermectin was added to the sample, and they wanted to see if they would get the same effect in actual humans.
Hi elizabethhart,
Which means 0,1 % !
Not to forget, that out of these Covid-related deaths interestingly nearly half had influenza and pneumonia as a comorbidity.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#Comorbidities
(Table 3)
It’s a crazy world …
Thankyou very much. I am learning a lot. In a window of a house in my village I saw today startk warnings on handwritten posters, NOT to take the vaccine – interesting!
With reference to the three vaccine trials you have previously described I don’t understand their validity. Unless the control and the vaccinated groups all live and move around together for the trial period who knows if any of them live in a clean or virus environment.
I haven’t been infected with Covid 19 in the past year as my lifestyle helps that but if I had a vaccine some would say , ‘the vaccine has worked’. Have I misunderstood the methodolgy?
The trick is randomization – that should mean that any differences between individuals even out between the groups.
I offer this story as a little light relief, in the hopes that it might even be true!
https://wp.me/p4GjpG-gXw
Today I’ve forwarded an email to Professor Allen Cheng, one of the major influencers on taxpayer-funded vaccination policy in Australia.
In my email I challenge the implementation of mass coronavirus vaccination in Australia, a medical intervention which politicians are threatening to coerce people to accept.
This matter is relevant to people around the world, with everyone under threat of this poorly thought through vaccination response.
Please feel free to share with others, my email is accessible via this link: https://vaccinationispolitical.files.wordpress.com/2021/01/coercive-coronavirus-vaccination-in-australia.pdf
You asked in the article, “why study people with a mild course of disease?” If you consider the objective of preventing people from being hospitalized and potentially dying, or having their symptoms progress to a severe course disease, then doesn’t it make sense to address their symptoms early, knock out the infection with something that has been shown to be very effective and safe?
This should especially be applied to people in high-risk groups. And if it’s effective, then used as a prophylaxis. Better than using an experimental therapeutic with no long-term safety studies: the MRNA product that would be better defined as gene therapy than a vaccine or immunization.
Everyone’s complaining in our country about lack of hospital beds. Well you don’t need hospital beds if people don’t need to be hospitalized.
Exactly my thoughts – nobody talks about early treatment. Most positive patients in Germany have to stay home for 14 days without any medication and without any medical support. The only option is to call the ambulance. Early treatment should be they key to success!
This is exactly right. Early treatment with ivermectin is extremely effective.
https://ivmmeta.com/
This page may have some of the information that was being sought:
https://covid19criticalcare.com/i-mask-prophylaxis-treatment-protocol/epidemiologic-analyses-on-covid19-and-ivermectin/
Another good resource in that regard is: https://c19ivermectin.com/
Nick
An important development just in, ivermectin is now a treatment option. NIH has just updated their advice on ivermectin, after a panel hearing with the FLCC alliance, including Dr Kory. The new advice is neutral, to the dismay of FLCC. Their response is here: https://covid19criticalcare.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/FLCCC-PressRelease-NIH-Ivermectin-in-C19-Recommendation-Change-Jan15.2021-final.pdf
From this page: https://covid19criticalcare.com/
Magnus, I suspect Ivermectin won’t be approved in the UK. Even vitamin D https://youtu.be/Gog5mgBv0hM gets frowned on by government. 400IU a day is ok, but too expensive to use widely. The money has been spent instead on testing and contact tracing. Oh, and substandard PPE.
I am not a medico but from interviews of Professor Thomas Borody that I have seen I thought that ivermectin worked as an ionophore and that it somehow enabled the zinc and doxycycline into cells to do their work on the virus, and thatwas why the treatment needed all three for best results
Phil, it’s hydroxychloroquine that is the ionophore.
New study https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30464-8/fulltext
Well done on this post. I have been following Dr Korey and the struggle he had To allow him use Ivermectin.
Impressive results – and they only used a single dose.
Imagine what they’d find if they followed the regimen recommended by Dr. Cory and FLCC. Two doses on Day 1 AND Day 3.
Yet another Lancet study designed NOT to show the efficacy of a repurposed drug treatment.
Just as they did with their flawed study of HCQ that had to shamefully be retracted.
Somebody doesn’t want these off-patent and generic drugs to be used.
I wonder why?
The point here is that ivermectin works. The studies trials conducted might not be the best in the world but they were all conducted independently by doctors and institutions who were working with Covid patients and who were witnessing IVM’s effect. The meta-analyses show concrete evidence of efficacy. Dr Lawrie’s analysis followed a rigorous protocol and only 5 RCTs passed muster and they were deemed to be of moderate certainty. The study also analysed OCTs and RCTs, and just RCTs. The results were comparable. In a pandemic OCT’s, whilst obviously not as reliable as RCTs are of immense value, as are country cases and anecdotal evidence. We need to, like a court of law, look at the sum of all evidence.
As you will also know, Nobel award winning ivermectin (ok, the inventors) is probably one of the safest drugs known to man with a consumption of over 3.7 billion people since the late 70’s. Its safety is undisputable and the dosages against Covid-19 , in both prophylaxis and therapy are within the anti-helminthic range the drug has been so used for. So why this vicious push-back from global health authorities?
One year into this pandemic and with no other viable treatment and faced with this overwhelming body of evidence it has become immoral and unethical not to use IVM to treat infected people and protect health care workers.
In the unlikely event of it not working; nobody is harmed, if it does work hundreds and thousands of lives could be saved and the global economy restored. And we have evidence that it works.
Hope this meta-data is helpful!
https://ivmmeta.com/
Informed folk have already taken decisions away from the tradition-bound, conventional medical industry. Quercetin and the more efficient zinc formulations…. are selling so well that my usual suppliers are running short.
For Prevention / Prophylaxis, Quercetin is, in some circles, regarded as more effective Zn ionophore than the better known HCQ.
Here in Oz, IVM is only supplied in 3mg tabs, 3 per dispensing… The ZIVERDO ‘kit’ would be a challenge to import, unless via Big Pharma who would price it beyond reach.
Summary of meta-studies and links to orginals
https://lexic.co/loveliberty/covid-19-ivermectin-meta-study-as-treatement
What is the essential hypothesis to test for ivermectin? Is it for its antiviral properties?
If so, then it fits in “does [insert antiviral here] do better than nothing when given within 4 days of symptom onset to high risk covid patients?”
Do any of these studies test the essential hypothesis for ivermectin? It seems to me that testing the essential hypothesis takes priority over removing confounders.
The evidence is that ivermectin is quite effective in all stages. https://ivmmeta.com/
Speculation is that it blocks access of the virus to the cell’s nucleus, thus preventing replication.