This is a long and very thorough review of the studies listed on ivmmeta.com.

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted

It's very good, and very fair -- much more fair than I have been, which is a good critique of me.

It also has a surprising potential confounder explanation for Ivermectin success disparity, as well as some very insightful commentary on science, sociology, and politics - including speculating why the consternation exists over it, in particular the correlation between anti-vaccine beliefs and pro-ivermectin beliefs.

You really should read the whole thing - it's worth it - but if you're going to skip, when he says scroll down to the section called "The Analysis" do it, but read the rest.

Here's the final four bullet points along with the author's assigned confidence (this is a rationalist thing - you attempt to gauge your personal confidence in a belief, rather than live in a world of binaries - not a statistical number)

• Ivermectin doesn't reduce mortality in COVID a significant amount (let's say d > 0.3) in the absence of comorbid parasites: 85-90% confidence
• Parasitic worms are a significant confounder in some ivermectin studies, such that they made them get a positive result even when honest and methodologically sound: 50% confidence
• Fraud and data processing errors are of similar magnitude to p-hacking and methodological problems in explaining bad studies (95% confidence interval for fraud: between >1% and 5% as important as methodological problems; 95% confidence interval for data processing errors: between 5% and 100% as important)
• Probably "Trust Science" is not the right way to reach proponents of pseudoscientific medicine: ???% confidence

Interesting read. I did skip the paper by paper breakdown as it is reaaaaaallly long.

The parasitic worm prevalence confounder theory is really interesting, basically that studies from the developing world, ie high prevalence of parasitic worms, had positive ivermectin COVID outcomes and studies from first world countries were neutral, ie extremely low prevalence of parasitic worms. And since corticosteroids can immune suppress and is part of COVID treatment, this could have led to parasitic worm infections getting out of control during COVID treatment for the people who did not get ivermectin.

The paper by paper breakdown is good because it removes the curtain a bit with regard to research. It's a bit like watching a skilled craftsman work - even if you can't emulate it, a walkthrough gives you an appreciation for the challenges. It leaves a healthy respect for being able to critically review papers with an open mind, and also a dose of skepticism for sites like ivmmeta which have less than transparent motives and biases. Like I said, it was very even-handed.

I read it all the way through and bravo to the author in writing on a byzantine subject with such patience and humor.

I love his comments on the shady Brazilian weight lifter guy and the Australian non-scientist who calls his work an opinion piece being published and cited.

I think he does a very good job of delving into the vaccine denialism in a friendly and fair way but probably is being to friendly with his hostile alien analogy. I get native mistrust but that doesn't explain the follow-on of intentionally misleading and faulty research being actively promulgated by far-right websites and swallowed unquestionably certain folks.

Forum Troll said:

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Interesting read. I did skip the paper by paper breakdown as it is reaaaaaallly long.

The parasitic worm prevalence confounder theory is really interesting, basically that studies from the developing world, ie high prevalence of parasitic worms, had positive ivermectin COVID outcomes and studies from first world countries were neutral, ie extremely low prevalence of parasitic worms. And since corticosteroids can immune suppress and is part of COVID treatment, this could have led to parasitic worm infections getting out of control during COVID treatment for the people who did not get ivermectin.

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For the record Medcram discussed this a couple months ago as a possible explanation for why the studies were successful in countries with much higher parastic prevelance. Which would make sense given that is something Ivermectin was actually designed to treat.

Very good read

Doctors and countries all around the world are using Ivermectin including next door in Mexico, in light of these vaccines not stopping the spread, countries all over the world are turning to ivermectin, yet in the US we continue to downplay the use of the medicine.

lets just allow big pharma to keep burying this in the sand, head down, insert under sand pit .. don't pick your head up, keep it under the sand. wait hold on, your picking your head up, let me throw some more sand on it

There are literally 1000 articles world wide on its effectiveness to treat covid yet in the US media keeps pumping out stories about horse pills, animal medicine, etc etc etc and saying how the drug is not effective. Just the fact that they tried to push this over as horse medicine tells you they (Big Pharma) dont want people to know how effective ivermectin is. Ivermectin is a human drug that has won world wide awards for its effectiveness in treating various disease.. yet its a horse pill, i give it to my dog, her cat eats ivermectin once a month, your goat needs ivermectin, the bull needs ivermectin

case in point ... the Methodist Hospital here in Houston (big pharma brother and sisters pretty much) drops/releases a lady Dr In Htown for effectively treating her patients with ivermectin and antibiotics and subsequently posting here success stories on her website ... she told them to go F off on tv, so proud of that lady doctor here in town/

Mexico city our neighbor has seen deaths plunge after sending people home with ivermectin and antibiotics... Im so glad my Dr prescribes these same treatments.. if anyone in my family gets sick i will send them straight to him so he can get them the medicine they need .

COVID deaths plunge after major world city introduces ivermectin | Citizens Journal | Citizens Journal

More Countries Now Using Ivermectin Against COVID And Seeing How Effective It Is : World : Christianity Daily (I guess Christian publications have seen enough of the other stories)

yes, I know you can post all the US stories trying to shoot the drug down, simply made up so that big pharma can get there share of the covid take

Hmm...searched for protease and CL3, the actual modality of the virus. Ivermectin DOES affect these. No mention of them.

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case in point ... the Methodist Hospital here in Houston (big pharma brother and sisters pretty much) drops/releases a lady Dr In Htown for effectively treating her patients with ivermectin and antibiotics and subsequently posting here success stories on her website ... she told them to go F off on tv, so proud of that lady doctor here in town/

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Assuming your talking about Dr. Bowden, that's not what happened, but continue ignoring the paper posted in the OP and spreading fallacies. First, she never admitted a patient at Houston Methodist. Second, she was posting lies on her social media, not just pushing ivermectin and success stories (Houston Methodist won't treat unvaccinated patients, for example). Third, she wasn't dropped/released. She was suspended pending review, but resigned instead.

Pretty convenient all this happened for her to go to a private practice. Almost like she did it all for publicity....

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Hmm...searched for protease and CL3, the actual modality of the virus. Ivermectin DOES affect these. No mention of them.

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Isn't this because most of the scientists and doctors that understand this stuff have already debunked the claims that Ivermectin and the Pfizer treatment have the same process and efficacy? Just saying something is a protease inhibitor doesn't mean it is a proper treatment for COVID.

The whole protease/CL3 thing originated on ZeroHedge and this conspiracy laden train of thought strangely persists no matter how many actual experts why explain the whole concept is wrong.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/sep/30/blog-posting/drug-pfizer-studying-covid-19-not-suspiciously-sim/

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Benjamin Neuman, chief virologist at Texas A&M University's Global Health Research Complex, said ivermectin's main job is to block ion channels that parasites use to store up positively and negatively charged atoms. SARS-CoV-2 does not have any ion channels like the ones that ivermectin blocks, so there is not an obvious way for ivermectin to work in COVID-19, he said.

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https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-067310377629

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Several posts circulating online wrongly suggest that the pills are the same because ivermectin also acts like a protease inhibitor and keeps the virus from replicating. Ivermectin continues to be studied in relation to COVID-19, however, it has yet to be proven that it can treat COVID-19.
Images of the structure of Pfizer's new pill and ivermectin can be found online and do not show similarities like the posts describe.

Ivermectin binds to glutamate-gated chloride channels and is used to treat parasite infections, said Joseph Glajch, a consultant in pharmaceutical and analytical chemistry.
"These two are so far apart," he said. "If you look at how they interact with the body..., they don't even go to the same pathways or receptors."

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https://fullfact.org/online/new-protease-inhibitor/

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The post highlights sections of the texts, showing that the new Pfizer drug candidate is a "protease inhibitor" and that "Ivermectin was found as a blocker of viral replicase, protease and Human TMPRSS2".

There are also other suggested mechanisms for how ivermectin may kill some viruses.
There are lots of medications currently in use that work by inhibiting these enzymes. These drugs are known as protease inhibitors, and include medications for HIV and Hepatitis C.

Dr Griffin told Full Fact that ivermectin is "nothing like" Pfizer's new trial drug in terms of structure.
He said that it is "very, very much different", and that the two drugs' structures differ in size and other features, such as having different aromatic rings, side chains and polarity.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-coronavirus-pfizer/fact-check-pfizers-trial-covid-19-drug-is-not-the-same-as-ivermectin-idUSL1N2R11T5

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The following day, Zero Hedge published its article comparing PF-07321332 to ivermectin, claiming the two drugs share "at least one mechanism of action". It referenced ivermectin's qualities as a "protease inhibitor" and Pfizer's description of PF-07321332 as a "potent protease inhibitor".

However, this comparison lacks context, according to experts who spoke to Reuters.

"Pfizer's drug has protease inhibitor activity like ivermectin, but they are a very different kettle of fish on a variety of levels," said Dr Cheryl Walter, a virologist at the University of Hull.

A Pfizer spokesperson also denied the connection between the drugs, telling Reuters in an email: "Pfizer's protease inhibitor is not similar to that of an animal medicine and is not the same mechanism."

They added: "For COVID-19, protease inhibitors are designed to block the activity of the SARS-CoV-2 protease, which is an enzyme the virus needs to multiply and replicate itself in the body, and as a result, stop symptoms from worsening.

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htxag09 said:

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case in point ... the Methodist Hospital here in Houston (big pharma brother and sisters pretty much) drops/releases a lady Dr In Htown for effectively treating her patients with ivermectin and antibiotics and subsequently posting here success stories on her website ... she told them to go F off on tv, so proud of that lady doctor here in town/

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Assuming your talking about Dr. Bowden, that's not what happened, but continue ignoring the paper posted in the OP and spreading fallacies. First, she never admitted a patient at Houston Methodist. Second, she was posting lies on her social media, not just pushing ivermectin and success stories (Houston Methodist won't treat unvaccinated patients, for example). Third, she wasn't dropped/released. She was suspended pending review, but resigned instead.

Pretty convenient all this happened for her to go to a private practice. Almost like she did it all for publicity....

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Your listening to the FAKE media .. the last simply was treating patients with ivermectin and antibiotics yet they FAke media and Hoaston Methodists twist the story around and try to make her out a villain .. why would she lie about her treatments

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Your listening to the FAKE media .. the last simply was treating patients with ivermectin and antibiotics yet they FAke media and Hoaston Methodists twist the story around and try to make her out a villain .. why would she lie about her treatments

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Houston Methodist is not the FAKE media. They are a non-profit that suspended a doctor for her plans to only treat unvaccinated patients at her clinic. They also had a standards complaint about her public comments.

She was given a chance to respond to the suspension but she instead resigned. Here is the statement.

https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/houston-methodist-doctor-defends-herself-hospital-ceo-response/285-3a1a2699-f3e3-4268-b5f4-f9171e958e5a

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"Houston Methodist Hospital's medical staff leadership decided to suspend and investigate Dr. Bowden for her inappropriate behavior, including spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. As a physician, I am personally offended by her behavior and by her misleading comments about COVID-19 and our hospital system, which has treated more than 25,000 inpatients with COVID-19vaccinated and unvaccinated. Her claim that Houston Methodist will not treat unvaccinated patients is absolutely false. Houston Methodist cares for all patients and considers every individual a person of sacred worth and value."

"She was also suspended for using vulgar and foul language while expressing her opinions. This inappropriate and disrespectful language violates our core values at Houston Methodist, and reflects poorly on Houston Methodist, our physicians and the medical profession as a whole. When Dr. Bowden refused to remove these inaccurate and misleading statements from her social media accounts, the medical staff leadership decided to suspend her while they conducted an investigation, and invited her to speak with them. Instead of doing that, Dr. Bowden voluntarily resigned from the medical staff before a review was completed."

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Just screaming "FAKE MEDIA!!!" doesn't change the fact that:

1) She did post what the hospital claimed she posted in social media
2) We have no idea about the internal standards of the hospital or why they chose to discipline her
3) She confirms in subsequent public comments she had major disagreements with hospital policy and aired those grievances in public. Do that to any employer and you are likely to gt s$%t-canned.

Windy City Ag said:

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Your listening to the FAKE media .. the last simply was treating patients with ivermectin and antibiotics yet they FAke media and Hoaston Methodists twist the story around and try to make her out a villain .. why would she lie about her treatments

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Houston Methodist is not the FAKE media. They are a non-profit that suspended a doctor for her plans to only treat unvaccinated patients at her clinic. They also had a standards complaint about her public comments.

She was given a chance to respond to the suspension but she instead resigned. Here is the statement.

https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/houston-methodist-doctor-defends-herself-hospital-ceo-response/285-3a1a2699-f3e3-4268-b5f4-f9171e958e5a

Quote:

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"Houston Methodist Hospital's medical staff leadership decided to suspend and investigate Dr. Bowden for her inappropriate behavior, including spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. As a physician, I am personally offended by her behavior and by her misleading comments about COVID-19 and our hospital system, which has treated more than 25,000 inpatients with COVID-19vaccinated and unvaccinated. Her claim that Houston Methodist will not treat unvaccinated patients is absolutely false. Houston Methodist cares for all patients and considers every individual a person of sacred worth and value."

"She was also suspended for using vulgar and foul language while expressing her opinions. This inappropriate and disrespectful language violates our core values at Houston Methodist, and reflects poorly on Houston Methodist, our physicians and the medical profession as a whole. When Dr. Bowden refused to remove these inaccurate and misleading statements from her social media accounts, the medical staff leadership decided to suspend her while they conducted an investigation, and invited her to speak with them. Instead of doing that, Dr. Bowden voluntarily resigned from the medical staff before a review was completed."

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Just screaming "FAKE MEDIA!!!" doesn't change the fact that:

1) She did post what the hospital claimed she posted in social media
2) We have no idea about the internal standards of the hospital or why they chose to discipline her
3) She confirms in subsequent public comments she had major disagreements with hospital policy and aired those grievances in public. Do that to any employer and you are likely to gt s$%t-canned.

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Dude, Use some common sense..

Shes a Doctor, she treats her patients with medicine half the world is using, she has ZERO motives to make up a story other than to treat her patients... WHY THE F would the MEDIA attack her for posting on social media that she is treating her patients with IVERMECTIN.... there is ZERO reasons they should try and attack her for this...but hey guess what they did attack her so now should went on social media and called out the Methodist Hospital for slamming her... so happy for her standing up for whats right

dont give 2 sh its about your opinion on this, I know whats right and this lady Dr is doing whats right

this board has some looney tunes on it..

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Dude, Use some common sense..

Shes a Doctor, she treats her patients with medicine half the world is using, she has ZERO motives to make up a story other than to treat her patients... WHY THE F would the MEDIA attack her for posting on social media that she is treating her patients with IVERMECTIN.... there is ZERO reasons they should try and attack her for this...but hey guess what they did attack her so now should went on social media and called out the Methodist Hospital for slamming her... so happy for her standing up for whats right

dont give 2 sh its about your opinion on this, I know whats right and this lady Dr is doing whats right

this board has some looney tunes on it..

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I just can't imagine getting this unhinged about something I have zero prior knowledge of and learned about on the internet.

I don't know anything about the media attacking her. That is in your head as far as I am concerned and it seems to come from a general and unhealthy mistrust of any and all FAKE MEDIA!!! on your part.

All I know is she specifically in public forums claimed she would only treat unvaccinated patients and the hospital did not like that. She then publicly clashed with her superiors and got suspended. She then quit on her own. Try that at your company and see what happens.

And beleive me when it comes to medical procedures you probably have very little capability or knowledge of what is right and wrong. We should all stick to our lanes a bit more in this world.

Super rational and mature to call people names when they disagree with you

I think there is indeed a wacko on here, but it's not Windy City Ag.

I'm no doctor but the piece about it taking down a significant comorbidity in many parts of the developing world including our neighbors down in Mexico is interesting.

I mean the drug is basically a wonder drug at stopping parasites so it stands to reason it would be a super helpful arrow in the quiver of places were parasites are a significant problem right?

Its strange how COVID has become this religious debate where Vaccine bad and Ivermectin is the thing Big Pharma doesn't want you to know about or Horse wormer bad, Vaccine is our golden ticket to absolute Valhalla.

Why can't Ivermectin have its uses and the vaccine be helpful as well? Why is it to use the words of the OP always binary.

Knucklesammich said:

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I'm no doctor but the piece about it taking down a significant comorbidity in many parts of the developing world including our neighbors down in Mexico is interesting.

I mean the drug is basically a wonder drug at stopping parasites so it stands to reason it would be a super helpful arrow in the quiver of places were parasites are a significant problem right?

Its strange how COVID has become this religious debate where Vaccine bad and Ivermectin is the thing Big Pharma doesn't want you to know about or Horse wormer bad, Vaccine is our golden ticket to absolute Valhalla.

Why can't Ivermectin have its uses and the vaccine be helpful as well? Why is it to use the words of the OP always binary.

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Totally agree. Im a 17 month covid long hauler. I was all for the vaccine, then I got it 7 months ago and it made my covid long haul symptoms much much worse. I now get horrible daily vertigo/dizzy symptoms. Ivermectin on the other hand, is the only thing that has helped me feel normal again after taking it. It completely relieves my long haul symptoms whenever I take it.

Whenever I explain this to people they call me an anti-vaxxer and laugh off any claims that a horse dewormer could make me feel better. Truly crazy how black and white people view the vaccines and ivermectin.

To them, Vaccine = good (even if I had an adverse reaction to it), Ivermectin = bad (even though its helped relieve my long haul symptoms).

Windy City Ag said:

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Windy,

I would love to get your thoughts on this video, the specific studies he provides, and the assertions that he makes based on the scientific evidence he provides.

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Another poster actually linked this a few days ago and we hashed it out there.

https://texags.com/forums/84/topics/3248031

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I see that, but you never disputed his actually assertions.

(1) He's not saying and we arent saying that Ivermectin and the Pfizer drug are the same.

(2) Ivermectin does inhibit the 3CL protease from acting to create shorter protein chains which allow viral replication and in fact in one study out of 13 off target drugs studied, Ivermectin was the only drug to completely block 3CLpro activity. This was study specifically related to anti-Sars-cov-2 agents.

(3) in silico study showing intense binding of ivermectin to the main protease 3CL.

I already know you will respond with "those aren't clinical trials". Yeah, I wonder why?

In vitro studies don't mean much. Proposed mechanisms of action mean less and aren't necessary to understand to evaluate whether a drug works or not. In silico studies mean even less than that.

If you have 100% in silico, 100% in vitro, and 100% cast iron logical proposed mechanism of action, and the drug doesn't have a beneficial effect in clinical trials, it doesn't work and it is useless to treat people with it.

I mean this would be like one of my engineers looking at a part that failed in service and protesting that the FEA said it was fine.

Whether it works or not, I don't understand the leftist lunacy on ivermectin. If people wish to take it, it's not hurting anyone else.

I get that you can easily shoot ivermectin "petri dish" studies down, but don't the actual real world examples of people saying ivermectin was the ONLY thing that helped, lend at least a little bit of credibility to the "petri dish" studies?

The OP is literally a review of dozens of clinical trials. Read it.

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I get that you can easily shoot ivermectin "petri dish" studies down, but don't the actual real world examples of people saying ivermectin was the ONLY thing that helped, lend at least a little bit of credibility to the "petri dish" studies?

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So I totally think investigation is warranted and if we come out the other end with reputable and well designed studies saying "Yes! This works!" I will be the first in line for this as a treatment.

Maybe I am just to rigid with the way I was taught to think about the world and how to really conclude that something is beneficial. Just seeing individual datapoints here can't (in my worldview) be extended to a conclusion that this is an effective treatment. I have seen just as many people say they took it during their fight with COVID with absolutely no effect. All I see is noise at the moment.

And part of that is we have really even defined the hypothesis, right? Are we saying it is effective in helping Long-hauler symptoms? I see ea1060 here singing its praises.

Are we saying it is an effective anti-viral treatment?

Are we saying it is an effective in concern with other treatments?

The point of this thread was that the initial attempts to come to conclusions look pretty rickety and should not be counted on as quality insight. Other studies are going on at the moment, and maybe that sheds new light on the subject. Until then, a lot of the passionate support for this particular medicine seems more politically motivated and a lot of the talking points I see well up from less than scientific sources like ZeroHedge, Infowars, Alex Berenson, and others and are immediately brought up here as some sort of smoking gun. Even a cursory inspection of these points by qualified folks shows them to not be credible.

01agtx said:

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FWIW, Dr. Lozano in Dallas has treated covid patients since April 2020, without ivermectin, and has only lost two. She turned her clinic into a covid only clinic and has only recently returned to regular PCP duties.

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According to F16, that's what she should expect if she did nothing, right?

How many patients did she treat out of which she lost 2? Has anyone verified her numbers? What else was done to or for her patients?

Gordo14 said:

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Forum Troll said:

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Interesting read. I did skip the paper by paper breakdown as it is reaaaaaallly long.

The parasitic worm prevalence confounder theory is really interesting, basically that studies from the developing world, ie high prevalence of parasitic worms, had positive ivermectin COVID outcomes and studies from first world countries were neutral, ie extremely low prevalence of parasitic worms. And since corticosteroids can immune suppress and is part of COVID treatment, this could have led to parasitic worm infections getting out of control during COVID treatment for the people who did not get ivermectin.

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For the record Medcram discussed this a couple months ago as a possible explanation for why the studies were successful in countries with much higher parastic prevelance. Which would make sense given that is something Ivermectin was actually designed to treat.

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Does anyone realize what this means? People dying from worms with Covid rather than dying from Covid.

It means that the COVID treatment regimen allowed the parasitic infection to run wild and cuase bad outcomes. Introducing Ivermectin took care of the worm problem but did not cure COVID itself.

Just finished watching the press release from Dr. Mary Talley Bowden. One slight clarification about her stance on vaccines - she sent out a letter to her patients that she would not take NEW vaccinated patients, but that she would continue to treat existing patients regardless of their vaccination status.

A couple of days ago, a colleague defended her actions with regards to treating COVID patients with Ivermectin and other medications on our American Academy of Otolaryngology / Head and Neck Surgery Open Forum site. She is an ENT, and there has been a ton of back and forth from her and from others in our community about her treatment of COVID patients. I am astounded as to the backlash that it has since generated. Just this morning, a colleague posted the statement below in response to a pro-Dr. Bowden post:

"I am so disgusted in this post that I have unsubscribed from this website . I am disgusted that this is published on our forum.

Sincerely,
XXXXXXXX, M.D."

It is amazing how polarizing all of this has become, and how little grace is often shown to those whose opinions differ from our own.

Watched her interview. Truly tragic what has happened to her and many who do not agree with those in power. Those on the margins should take notice. Bad things happen when good men do nothing.