Yeah, like peer reviewed, double blind studies. You know, like what science considers 'good science'. They don't seem to exist. Clearly there is a worldwide conspiracy against curing people.
Well, if it was just those two saying Ivermectin worked, be sceptical.
But we all know that there have been 60 trials globally. All with same or similar outcomes. Critically, reduced mortality in all cases.
Would a larger, double-blind trial add more certainty? Sure.
But just consider this: (1) Ivermectin is safe [16 deaths in 3.7billion doses - safer than aspirin] (2) Ivermectin trials to date have saved lives (3) There are now 20k deaths associated with covid vaccines globally
Against that backdrop, why would any government not sanction mass trials? Or allow free use of this cheap drug that carries near zero risk?
There are plenty of peer reviewed, double blinded studies on Ivermectin. Loads of them, in several countries and at various scales. A summary can be found here on all of them.
However, despite Zambezi's suggestion (and that of the FLCCC) it is not correct to say that all of them, or even most of them demonstrate reduced mortality.
In fact, the truth is that despite all these ongoing trials, so far no true RCT trial with decent design and no obvious bias has managed to find statistically significant evidence that it works. At all.
That doesn't mean it
doesn't work of course, it just means that there's no proof to say that it does.
As an example, here's what Merck has to say: "One statement in February 2021 by Merck, a manufacturer of ivermectin, describes the conclusions of their review of the evidence as providing "no meaningful evidence for clinical activity or efficacy in patients with COVID‐19" (
Merck 2021)."
I find it somewhat surprising that the much touted and shared anecdotal evidence shared above for places like Africa that seems to show massive effectiveness cannot yield any benefit at all under controlled conditions though. Maybe, just maybe, there's other factors at play in these roll outs?
There's also some discussion on the FLCC and BIRD (they're the same group of people) data that Freeforester has been citing extensively. It might be worth a skim before taking it as gospel.
The major study on this is the PRINCIPLE study in progress with Oxford. It'll be a while before all the results are in.
This is only 'for the interested', of course.
On the subject of money. I could note that the people selling this story on social media are doing very well out of their 'alternative treatment' narrative irrespective of the efficacy of the drug.
The video Freeforester shared above is from a channel with 410k subscribers. A quick look over their channel suggests that Mr. Malhotra usually discusses AI and Sanskrit language topics. He's done two videos on the medical field total, both in the last week. I also note that he usually gains 30k views a video. Yet his covid conspiracy one netted 618,000 in one day. That's some good traffic to his channel, some good advertising and some good ad revenue right there. At roughly $5 / 1000 views the video has probably made him $3000 since he uploaded yesterday, irrespective of any other incentives in terms of selling his books, subscribers, publicity etc etc. But I'm sure it's not a factor for him making it or an incentive to be the dissenting voice. Not at all...
It's just the same for many academics involved in the FLCCC and BIRD. THey want to be right, because that'd lead to accolades. Toeing the party line, good science or no, does not get you invites to speak at conferences, or gain you funding, or sell books. And no Freeforester, Professor Carvallo isn't funding his own trials because he truly wants to help mankind, he's funding his own trials because no one else trusts him enough to give him their cash.
