Ivermectin is an effective COVID-19 drug, doctors attest
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On the 8th of December there was "Breaking" World News:
Physician Tells Senate, Ivermectin Is a COVID 'Wonder Drug;' 'If You Take It, You Will Not Get Sick'
CNS News reported: In an impassioned presentation, Dr. Pierre Kory, a physician at Aurora St. Luke's Medical Center in Milwaukee, begged the National Institutes of Health to review his study of Ivermectin, a drug that's been around for decades and is used to treat parasites.
I didn't hear about it then, and, perhaps, neither did you! But could it be true? Could an already worldwide available drug be a "wonder drug" against COVID-19?
If true, this matter would be extremely urgent and timely as many countries are going through a new Corona crisis right now, with risk of a more infectious virus strain taking hold.
But an AP "fact check" article quickly put a damper on it:
No evidence ivermectin is a miracle drug against COVID-19.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: [...] There’s no evidence ivermectin has been proven a safe or effective treatment against COVID-19.
So, which is it? Which is correct and which is false?
Intuitively you may tend to believe one or the other depending on your political preferences, personal appeal, or appeal to authority. From experience, sensational articles often turn out to be wrong, and fact check articles usually have it right. But, amazingly, the "fact checker" article claims that there is "zero evidence" without giving any basis for their claim. In contrast, the sensational news article refers to dozens of scientific studies that -supposedly- are unanimous about the evidence!
Here are a few excerpts of the US Hearing including the emotional witness by Dr. Rajter and Kory.
Dr. Rajter 0:00
Dr. Kory 6:40
The full testimony with references of Dr Kory is easy to find, for example here.
To make sure who is telling the truth, we can sample a few of the references in Kory's written testimony and check that they are not a joke but real scientific studies that back up the incredible sounding claim.
Here's my arbitrary pick of reference numbers for different treatments (on purpose I type this before checking):
Group 1 Prophylaxis: - ref. 34, 54
Group 2 Early treatment - ref. 40, 54
Group 3 Hospitalized - ref. 43, 63
Group 4 Regional evidence - ref. 46, 47, 48 (I can have a quick look at all three)
I started with reference 63, a study from Iran, not peer reviewed (by the way, neither was the Pfizer vaccine trial). A 45-days randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter, phase 2 clinical trial was designed at five hospitals. A total number of 180 mild to severe hospitalized patients with confirmed PCR and chest image tests were enrolled.
The outcome is a bit complex, but overall they found an impressive reduction in mortality with ivermectin. Even so impressive I'd say, that it could be immoral -even criminal- to ask for another such study!
Reference 54: Egypt. Test of transmission of infection with a large group of COVID-19 infected people and contacts. They compared in fact Ivermectin (IMT) vs medium dosage hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). As a reminder from my last blog post, HCQ appears to be beneficial compared to placebo in early treatment. Their outcomes of IMT vs HCQ:
- 2 infections with IMT, vs 10 infections with HCQ -> IMT seems to be an EFFECTIVE PROPHYLACTIC.
- an approximately tenfold reduced mortality(!), however it seems they didn't wait for final outcomes for all patients
That suffices to conclude that the Associated Press "fact check" is faulty (to put it mildly).
I took a further look, at the other selected articles; see the Annex for my first impressions. On trialsitenews I found a pertinent commentary that matches mine, with in addition an analysis of "AP's hit job"; also some of the comments there are interesting. An extremely compact summary result of all known studies can be seen here: https://c19ivermectin.com
I think that it's safe to assume that this "wonder medicine" has a more substantiated test record than the miraculously fast developed vaccines such as the one by Pfeizer, and which was approved for the EU this week. Compare a NewScientist description of that vaccine : https://www.newscientist.com/article/2261805-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-pfizer-biontech-covid-19-vaccine/ : "In total, 170 people fell ill with covid-19. Only eight of them were in the vaccine group; 162 had received the placebo". Apparently Pfeizer did a single study, without any way to test or verify any reduction in COVID-19 deaths. Such a reduction in deaths is likely but not sure. And its long term safety is unknown.
And so, that makes it all the more shocking to hear from Dr. Kory:
Our group held a press conference this past Friday, December 4th at the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, issuing a “Call to Action". The press conference was broadcast via the Associated Press and Univision to nearly every country globally. [emphasis mine]
A reliable source informed us that, among others, reporters of CNN, local NBC and Agence France-Presse were watching that broadcast.
But I don't recall hearing any such breaking news at that time; as a matter of fact, neither did the doctors hear back from any of those news organisations! Do I need to point out that this is not normal? Even extremely unusual?
Today the EMA, the agency for drug approval of the EU gave its OK for the new Pfizer vaccin, which is of course good news, and the speaker even mentioned that they expect to be looking into approving drugs early next year; listen here, it's very short:
I thought, great, it shows that things are finally moving - until I realised that it's doubtful that she was talking of repurposed safe and effective treatments such as with ivermectin. Is her thinking perhaps conditioned by the pharmaceutical industry? I searched EMA's website on which I could not find a trace of ivermectin. Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine are mentioned (without a sign of rapid approval for this use) and Remdesivir - which is probably the worst of all - seems to be authorised.
But there's also good news, a number of countries especially in South America have already included ivermectin or are in the process of including it. See a full interview with Dr. Carvallo here, or watch this shortened summary video:
It seems that ivermectine treatments (for prophylaxis as well as against infection and for inflammation) are being stonewalled by important institutions and organisations that are cosy with the pharmaceutical industry. See also this commentary: https://trialsitenews.com/introducing-the-physicians-for-civil-defense-prominent-doctors-know-ivermectin-can-help-treat-covid-19-will-anyone-listen/
In conclusion, I do think that this is genuine world news; with enough production capacity this could end the pandemic crisis right now (assuming that those studies are reliable).
However, it seems that in Western countries nobody of influence is interested to even look at the data, let alone recommend it to governments for emergency implementation.
[edits: a few remaining typo's corrected, press conference link added and the Annex moved to a separate page]
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