The latest "Ivermectin Doesn't Work" study was published last Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine. If the mistakes we're finding are real, the journal will have no choice but to retract it.
I have first hand experience with covid and ivm. My whole family came down with covid and 4 out of 5 family members took ivm right away. But one member, who has asthma and is obese, took ivm for only one day. Because she believed the msm BS about ivm, she wouldn’t continue treatment. She progressively got worse. Couldn’t stop coughing. By day five, she was so convinced that she was going to die anyway, she relented and started ivm treatment. Within 12 hours, her coughing improved 80%. Within three days of treatment, she was completely better. So, yes, it does work…. I’d also add that following the Flccc protocols for prevention was a game changer. The vitamins and supplements really do strengthen the immune system, and the two people who followed them skipped through covid as if it was nothing.
Thanks. I saw his Substack, and the other reviews he linked to. I know others are pointing out problems with this Figure, as well, but I want to make sure we're not misinterpreting it. Because as I said, if we're not, in my opinion this is a deal breaker, and I don't see how NEJM will be able to get away with not retracting it.
No new discussion yet, Deborah. I have written to the investigators, and to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. I am awaiting a reply (which I do not expect to receive, but I have to give them a chance). Look for something new this weekend.
The Defender has an article about this. Written by Madhava Setty MD, dated 3/31/2022. Sorry I can't post a direct link to it. Also check out the FLCCC Substack. My statistics education is 50+ years ago, so my help would be questionable. But this study sucks for simple reasons - the dosage of IVM is therapeutically too low, the treatment did not commence at disease onset, and no other drugs were used with IVM. Thanks for your continuing excellent work.
I agree. Studies that use Ivermectin alone and not as a part of the protocol are not reflective of how doctors are using it in the real world, and thus don't measure anything useful.
I don’t understand why the totals in the days since onset of symptoms entries (for both ivm and placebo) don’t add up to the total number of positive tests (for each of ivm & placebo). Did some participants included in the totals develop symptoms after the day cut off period provided for in the table?
Thank you, Anne. I won't respond until others have had a chance to look at it and post their comments. I don't want to prejudice anyone with what might turn out to be a misinterpretation on my part.
My thought was that there is an unlisted “unknown” group (though you would think that they should know). It’s all so very sloppy (hence my thought - that the sloppiness extended to the actual running of the study - buttressed by some other media suggesting such sloppiness).
Patients treated after 7 days but should be treated earlier than 7 days. Treatment lasted 3 days should last at least 7 dasy. There were only 2 cases where placebo outperformed IVM, and another case where they were almost. equal. 11 cases IVM seemed better. Sorry I got confused at label in Figure 2. Is the "event" hospitalization or ER visit? Because "better" would mean that IVM should have fewer events. That is the case, it seems, in this study.
0.4mg/kg is the correct dose of Ivermectin. If needed the dose can be increased to 0.6mg/kg. 24mg/kg is a huge overdose and is likely to make people sick. I hope that is not the intention.
My doctor prescribed 12 mg of ivermectin. You are right I was taking my final dose and converting it to 12 mg/kg when it really works out to .2 mg/kg (I weigh 60 kg). Recently flccc.net upped the dose to .4 mg/kg--I think for the delta variant. I will edit my earlier post so as not to mislead people.
I was wrong about the dosing for Ivermectin. See Lowell Sherris comment. I got confused because I took my own dose of Ivermectin as the standard and forgot that my own dose resulted from MULTIPLYING the .4 or .2 dose by my weight in kilograms. So 24 mg is the final dose NOT the dose per kilogram. We would end up killing a lot of people, and Pfizer/Moderna would be overjoyed.
I am not a statistician, but here's what I wondered about that I hadn't seen questioned elsewhere:
The Bayesian Chart in question shows 15 data points, and all but 3 are to the left of of the 1.00 vertical line which is labeled "Ivermectin Better". So, why isn't Ivermectin better?
Patients were advised to take the pill on an empty stomach. The absorption of IVM is significantly better when taken with food. Further, only 3 days of treatment with IVM were allowed, which has been noted elsewhere. So, worse absorption with a nonstandard treatment protocol biases the study against IVM.
The per-protocol analysis included only patients who reported 100% adherence to the assigned regimen (relative risk, 0.94; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.67 to 1.35). In the placebo group only about 1/3 of them (228 of 679) qualified for per-protocol analysis. Wouldn't that bias the results?
Bottom line for "Time since onset of symptoms" of 0-3 and 4-7 are for identifying time for initializing entry into the study and have zero to do with any result. A result was assigned favorable to placebo. This line doesn't add up to the 679 subjects participating in each protocol. There are only 524 on the ivermectin side and 517 in the placebo. Where did the others go?
I don't have time to read it but suspect it is flawed. one thing I see frequently in medical research (used to review for Journal of Allied Health) is the use of multiple tests of significance. Ie, if you run multiple tests (e.g, t-tests) on the same dataset, the chances of any given conclusion must be adjusted for multiple tests. in a sense it protects against "curve fitting." Run enough tests and something will be significant by pure chance. There appear to be 16 separate tests for significance presented. Each must be held to a higher standard to avoid one being falsely significance.
I already knew this study is garbage from other articles that covered it, the reduction in mortality and ventilators in the ivm group was substantial, a 60 or 70% reduction iirc. They listed this as a "secondary effect", imagine that!! Also the "didnt prevent severe disease" category was a farce, they counted this as simply having oxygen below 95%, which is ridiculous.
I am looking at the denominators and wondering why they don't add up to 679 for each category since that is the number that is supposed to be enrolled in each group, both Ivermectin and control. In some cases, like time since symptom onset, the denominators add up to a number far less than 679. So, what happened to the other patients? Why are they missing? I can think of a number of possibilities, but none of them would be acceptable, and all would mean that this study must be retracted.
Ah I see, yeah the data is very limited for sure and that number discrepancy doesn't make sense. I believe this analysis I read a while back is the same study? I'm not sure if it was published recently or this is somehow a different one https://doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/what-went-wrong-with-the-together?s=r
I am over 65, have Immunodeficiencies and mild asthma. Had Covid 2x, took 12mg Ivermectin with VitD and Zinc for 5 days. Both times I went from running a low fever with body aches and chills to literally riding my bike 5 miles after 2 days.
Hello, you might try reading Steve Kirsch's latest post about this article. I haven't looked at the table you point to yet, however, Steve pointed out a few other things that (it seemed to me) weren't in the NEJM article.
Without reading the article, the "Time since onset of symptoms" category is missing some people. The "missing" row would seem to be 16/155 for Ivermectin and 33/162 for the placebo. That is a significant signal.
Nevertheless, a p=0.02 outlier among 15 subgroups is not so meaningful. The bigger issue is that these people have gone missing after being listed in Table 1. Maybe the discrepancy is explained somewhere? I appreciate our host's patience to dig through such papers.
well first of all this study was underpowered, the control and treatment arms occurred at different times, and IVM was widely available in many of the countries that the study was done. plus a large portion of the control group (I believe) dropped out. I am not sure what your issue is with the chart mentioned. But its confusing to me - doesnt seem to add to the paper.
the only thing I can find that I dont understand - is when you look at the bottom category of early vs late treatment and you add the 2 groups up its like 83 and there are 242 people in the study.
I have first hand experience with covid and ivm. My whole family came down with covid and 4 out of 5 family members took ivm right away. But one member, who has asthma and is obese, took ivm for only one day. Because she believed the msm BS about ivm, she wouldn’t continue treatment. She progressively got worse. Couldn’t stop coughing. By day five, she was so convinced that she was going to die anyway, she relented and started ivm treatment. Within 12 hours, her coughing improved 80%. Within three days of treatment, she was completely better. So, yes, it does work…. I’d also add that following the Flccc protocols for prevention was a game changer. The vitamins and supplements really do strengthen the immune system, and the two people who followed them skipped through covid as if it was nothing.
I don’t have time, since I’m at work, but Kirsch says that Dr. Kory will be addressing this pronto. Thanks for all that you’re doing, Darby!
Steve Kirsch already wrote about the study on his substack this morning. Check it out.
Thanks. I saw his Substack, and the other reviews he linked to. I know others are pointing out problems with this Figure, as well, but I want to make sure we're not misinterpreting it. Because as I said, if we're not, in my opinion this is a deal breaker, and I don't see how NEJM will be able to get away with not retracting it.
Is there any new discussion? I've refreshed the page but am seeing only 04/01/22. Thanks!
No new discussion yet, Deborah. I have written to the investigators, and to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. I am awaiting a reply (which I do not expect to receive, but I have to give them a chance). Look for something new this weekend.
Thank you!
Oops. I meant 04/04/22.
The Defender has an article about this. Written by Madhava Setty MD, dated 3/31/2022. Sorry I can't post a direct link to it. Also check out the FLCCC Substack. My statistics education is 50+ years ago, so my help would be questionable. But this study sucks for simple reasons - the dosage of IVM is therapeutically too low, the treatment did not commence at disease onset, and no other drugs were used with IVM. Thanks for your continuing excellent work.
I agree. Studies that use Ivermectin alone and not as a part of the protocol are not reflective of how doctors are using it in the real world, and thus don't measure anything useful.
These studies are designed to fail
I don’t understand why the totals in the days since onset of symptoms entries (for both ivm and placebo) don’t add up to the total number of positive tests (for each of ivm & placebo). Did some participants included in the totals develop symptoms after the day cut off period provided for in the table?
Thank you, Anne. I won't respond until others have had a chance to look at it and post their comments. I don't want to prejudice anyone with what might turn out to be a misinterpretation on my part.
My thought was that there is an unlisted “unknown” group (though you would think that they should know). It’s all so very sloppy (hence my thought - that the sloppiness extended to the actual running of the study - buttressed by some other media suggesting such sloppiness).
Patients treated after 7 days but should be treated earlier than 7 days. Treatment lasted 3 days should last at least 7 dasy. There were only 2 cases where placebo outperformed IVM, and another case where they were almost. equal. 11 cases IVM seemed better. Sorry I got confused at label in Figure 2. Is the "event" hospitalization or ER visit? Because "better" would mean that IVM should have fewer events. That is the case, it seems, in this study.
0.4mg/kg is the correct dose of Ivermectin. If needed the dose can be increased to 0.6mg/kg. 24mg/kg is a huge overdose and is likely to make people sick. I hope that is not the intention.
My doctor prescribed 12 mg of ivermectin. You are right I was taking my final dose and converting it to 12 mg/kg when it really works out to .2 mg/kg (I weigh 60 kg). Recently flccc.net upped the dose to .4 mg/kg--I think for the delta variant. I will edit my earlier post so as not to mislead people.
I was wrong about the dosing for Ivermectin. See Lowell Sherris comment. I got confused because I took my own dose of Ivermectin as the standard and forgot that my own dose resulted from MULTIPLYING the .4 or .2 dose by my weight in kilograms. So 24 mg is the final dose NOT the dose per kilogram. We would end up killing a lot of people, and Pfizer/Moderna would be overjoyed.
I am not a statistician, but here's what I wondered about that I hadn't seen questioned elsewhere:
The Bayesian Chart in question shows 15 data points, and all but 3 are to the left of of the 1.00 vertical line which is labeled "Ivermectin Better". So, why isn't Ivermectin better?
Patients were advised to take the pill on an empty stomach. The absorption of IVM is significantly better when taken with food. Further, only 3 days of treatment with IVM were allowed, which has been noted elsewhere. So, worse absorption with a nonstandard treatment protocol biases the study against IVM.
The per-protocol analysis included only patients who reported 100% adherence to the assigned regimen (relative risk, 0.94; 95% Bayesian credible interval, 0.67 to 1.35). In the placebo group only about 1/3 of them (228 of 679) qualified for per-protocol analysis. Wouldn't that bias the results?
Bottom line for "Time since onset of symptoms" of 0-3 and 4-7 are for identifying time for initializing entry into the study and have zero to do with any result. A result was assigned favorable to placebo. This line doesn't add up to the 679 subjects participating in each protocol. There are only 524 on the ivermectin side and 517 in the placebo. Where did the others go?
I don't have time to read it but suspect it is flawed. one thing I see frequently in medical research (used to review for Journal of Allied Health) is the use of multiple tests of significance. Ie, if you run multiple tests (e.g, t-tests) on the same dataset, the chances of any given conclusion must be adjusted for multiple tests. in a sense it protects against "curve fitting." Run enough tests and something will be significant by pure chance. There appear to be 16 separate tests for significance presented. Each must be held to a higher standard to avoid one being falsely significance.
I have wasted many a weekend NOT helping humanity, but I do support you doing something more fun like now....best from OR
can you help us understand the flaws?
I already knew this study is garbage from other articles that covered it, the reduction in mortality and ventilators in the ivm group was substantial, a 60 or 70% reduction iirc. They listed this as a "secondary effect", imagine that!! Also the "didnt prevent severe disease" category was a farce, they counted this as simply having oxygen below 95%, which is ridiculous.
I am looking at the denominators and wondering why they don't add up to 679 for each category since that is the number that is supposed to be enrolled in each group, both Ivermectin and control. In some cases, like time since symptom onset, the denominators add up to a number far less than 679. So, what happened to the other patients? Why are they missing? I can think of a number of possibilities, but none of them would be acceptable, and all would mean that this study must be retracted.
Ah I see, yeah the data is very limited for sure and that number discrepancy doesn't make sense. I believe this analysis I read a while back is the same study? I'm not sure if it was published recently or this is somehow a different one https://doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/what-went-wrong-with-the-together?s=r
I am over 65, have Immunodeficiencies and mild asthma. Had Covid 2x, took 12mg Ivermectin with VitD and Zinc for 5 days. Both times I went from running a low fever with body aches and chills to literally riding my bike 5 miles after 2 days.
Hello, you might try reading Steve Kirsch's latest post about this article. I haven't looked at the table you point to yet, however, Steve pointed out a few other things that (it seemed to me) weren't in the NEJM article.
Without reading the article, the "Time since onset of symptoms" category is missing some people. The "missing" row would seem to be 16/155 for Ivermectin and 33/162 for the placebo. That is a significant signal.
Edit: p = 0.02
Nevertheless, a p=0.02 outlier among 15 subgroups is not so meaningful. The bigger issue is that these people have gone missing after being listed in Table 1. Maybe the discrepancy is explained somewhere? I appreciate our host's patience to dig through such papers.
well first of all this study was underpowered, the control and treatment arms occurred at different times, and IVM was widely available in many of the countries that the study was done. plus a large portion of the control group (I believe) dropped out. I am not sure what your issue is with the chart mentioned. But its confusing to me - doesnt seem to add to the paper.
the only thing I can find that I dont understand - is when you look at the bottom category of early vs late treatment and you add the 2 groups up its like 83 and there are 242 people in the study.