Ivermectin: a potential Covid tool being dismissed

Alexis Copland

Opinion

The Ministry of Health takes a strong position against the use of Ivermectin as a treatment for Covid-19.

A considerable body of evidence shows the drug is well tolerated and it’s general safety is well documented. Three to 4 billion human doses have been distributed in the past 30 years. Other than safety, there is only one relevant question: is the Ivermectin protocol that was developed through working with Covid patients effective?

The key features of this protocol are not represented in any of the influential studies. The pioneering doctors who developed that protocol were right when they introduced the world to how steroids can be used to combat Covid inflammation. Though, it was six months later that the World Health Organisation recommended steroids. The evidence shows they are also likely correct on how to use Ivermectin.

The developed protocol involves taking Ivermectin with food (it’s fat soluble, so to get it into the bloodstream) and zinc. Even Merck, the manufacturer, has published numbers that show over double the serum levels when taken with a “fatty meal”. Studies that prescribe Ivermectin with food are overwhelmingly positive. Many that don’t are also positive. The trend is there if we follow the numbers, not the write-ups.

The MoH has not treated this emergency situation with all the tools at its disposal. It implied in response to an Official Information Act request that it would not follow up on positive studies because Ivermectin did not have a corporate sponsor. But how could a corporate sponsor make money from a cheap generic drug? I wonder who sponsored corticosteroids?

All 95 papers (half of which are randomised) together represent 130,000 participants. Without being selective, the pooled data shows a 50 percent to 80 percent improvement from mortality to prevention. This is what a thorough and inclusive review shows.

It has been shown that two-thirds of the clinical trials would need to be removed to avoid finding statistically significant efficacy. Having looked at many studies from an ICU and death perspective, at face value, the numbers are likely correct. Experts miss this for two reasons:

1. Because the deaths and the need for oxygen that many studies report in the supplementary material appear as noise in an individual study, but a pattern across all studies. Only one published meta-analysis includes a decent portion of the research. This shows a positive outcome.

2. Because around 15 underdosed, contaminated or incomplete studies have been widely promoted, and the accepted information has been shaped by what looks like a few individuals. One analyst has shown that 75 percent of participants in the most influential study would not have been eligible for the Paxlovid trials due to the disease being too advanced. This trial did not report the results of its pre-specified primary outcome. The next most influential study was done in a population with a high background Ivermectin use.

Flawed studies have accumulated many citations and become a standard reference.

The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has recently been shown in court to have misled the public on the drug’s safety. It could produce no evidence and went as far as saying it was not up to the courts to pass judgement on the FDA.

Here is a meta-analysis pooling every trial available, with confidence interval plots. It critiques each study’s methodology:

https://tinyurl.com/3y7uyeaj

Here is the MoH implying that they are not able to investigate promising potential treatments without a corporate sponsor — giving no leeway during a pandemic — see answer No.3:

https://tinyurl.com/ymsz2xfr

Footnote from Ed: See expert response to the issues raised in this column.