Thread by @MegadirkI

@blaine00 @unixwizard @adamcarolla I will answer your question. However, I have been following the ivermectin research from early in the pandemic. There are so many aspects to it (like statistics and experimental design), where do I even start? Not quite with the question you asked, that will be later.🧵

@blaine00 @unixwizard @adamcarolla Yes, media have been very diligent in portraying the ivermectin research that shows efficacy as bad research. They have also (falsely) spun trial results as proof of non efficacy. Researchers have contributed to this.

Highlights:

- The early dr. Hill meta analysis. Dr Hill stated that it was his opinion the studies in his meta analysis pointed to efficacy. He just wrote they didn't in the paper, because that is what his funders wanted (the Gates foundation, invested in pharma). He didn't even see a problem with it. This is the reality of much work that is being done in pharma. He is on record about this in a video interview

- The TOGETHER trial, the first of the large scale RTC's, held in Brazil. TOGETHER had several waves of media coverage, making claims about how it proved ivermectin was not effective. It is just, in this trial patients who received ivermectin DID do better.
This despite the facts that the dosing was delayed, a low amount (as well as below the dose specified, especially for high weight people), and that people in the placebo group who had taken ivermectin on their own were not per protocol excluded from the trial. There is much more like this for this trial. Still, it came up with a signal FOR efficacy.

@blaine00 @unixwizard @adamcarolla This is the NYT clearly dispersing falsehoods, and there are many other newspapers doing that.

- ACTIVE-6 low dose. Ivermectin patients did better pretty much across the board, near significant or significant (especially in the pre print). The positive outcomes of the trial were inexplicably nerfed between pre print and final paper (I got receipts). Here too, dosing was also late and low. The 'primary endpoint' was changed mid trial (big red flag).

@blaine00 @unixwizard @adamcarolla - PRINCIPLE. For this trial, the primary endpoint of recovery time had a P-value of < 0.001. Again, this study was paraded around as evidence ivermectin does not work. It's the opposite. In this trial, patients were given ivermectin up to 14 days after first symptoms.

Critics point out severe outcomes like hospitalizations were not reduced. Given the possible 14 day delay, it is however entirely possible many of the (very few) patients that ended up in hospital had not even received ivermectin yet.

The 14 days is after first symptoms, which is only at peak viral amount in the body and days after infection, btw.

The easiest way to find much of this is via v19early dot com. I do not think detractors of the site have much of a point. Sure, you can critique aspects, I do too, that goes for all meta analyses. All in all the site is very good, IMHO, the work and skill involved is impressive.

c19early.org/imeta.html#fig…

@blaine00 @unixwizard @adamcarolla For our limited purpose now, these critiques do not even matter. The site is complete in their listing of relevant literature. And hyperlinks take you everywhere you need to go, which is all we need for the studies above. Look for Reis, Naggie, Hayward.

@blaine00 @unixwizard @adamcarolla I am not cherry picking trials here. These are just the largest RCT's out there, with the most media cover. The outcome patterns remain the same for others. ACTIVE-6 high dose is an outlier.

@blaine00 @unixwizard @adamcarolla C19early dot org, not v19early dot com. I'm dumb.