Ivermectin is effective for Covid-19: real-time meta analysis of 45 studies

The juxtaposition of "meta analysis" and "real-time" is problematic. The point of a meta analysis isn't merely to rapidly aggregate lots of data from multiple studies. It's also an analysis of the quality and applicability of the studies. The consensus of most (all?) regulatory bodies is that the clinical effectiveness of off-label Ivermectin for CoViD-19 has not been well established. A useful survey of many of the relevant studies can be found at https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/tables/table-.... "Real time" is not particularly compatible with things like peer-review and replication, and that's a big problem.

They also seem to be aggregating a large amount of unpublished data that was not part of a relevant study. That needs to be accompanied with a detailed discussion about why the data (and population) in question provides good evidence. That's also not meta-analysis but original research, requiring independant review and assessment before it could be part of a meta study.

An attempt to rapidly correlate the results of all available studies runs the risk of simply representing an automated version of p-hacking. Aggregating a bunch of low quality studies does not generate a good quality study, especially if (as in this case) many of them generate concerns about the study population selection, lack of controls, and comorbidities.

Also, they have the same information duplicated at c19study.com, c19ivermectin.com, c19early.com, and likely others. Not necessarily indicative of anything nefarious, but it sure is spammy and makes it less trustworthy IMO. Plus, I get a strong whiff of "dO yOuR oWn ReSeArCh" in all of the commentary.

Can anyone comment on this site, and the others they run? It LOOKS trustworthy, but that certainly doesn't mean all that much. Trustworthy? Their FAQ only uses "we" as a claim of responsibility, which didn't make me feel all that much better, and they had their Twitter account suspended. I don't know what to think of this. It doesn't look super sus, but at the same time, I don't feel qualified to be a good judge.

https://ivmmeta.com/faq.html

There appears to be no downside, and significant upside. Ivermectin is cheap. 45/45 studies agree.

From the FAQ: "Who is @CovidAnalysis? We are PhD researchers, scientists, people who hope to make a contribution, even if it is only very minor. You can find our research in journals like Science and Nature. For examples of why we can't be more specific search for "raoult death threats" or "simone gold fired". We have little interest in adding to our publication lists, being in the news, or being on TV (we have done all of these things before but feel there are more important things in life now)."

I'm sorry, but if you're not willing to put your name(s) behind your analysis, I'm going to be skeptical.

Early in the pandemic, there was a site called "c19study.com" that claimed that every single study on HCQ showed that it was beneficial (and of course any study that didn't show benefit was 'misinterpreting their results', so the site helpfully offered their own alternate study summary and marked it positive anyway). They also posted graphs that showed that COVID was magically way lower in every country that used HCQ as opposed to countries that didn't. Of course this was early on in the pandemic when different countries were further along than others in spread, so the graphs were meaningless.

The premise of the site was that if we just gave everyone HCQ, the pandemic would magically be resolved and the graphs obviously proved it. Various people passed it around as if it was scientific proof that HCQ worked super well but was being hidden or something. But if you read it with even a cursory critical thought, it was clear it was one-sided junk science and extreme cherrypicking.

This site is literally that same website as the earlier c19study.com, but now with a new domain name and expanded and rebranded as an IVM study. In fact, now they've franchised out and have like 20 different magic cures with a site for each one! But it's still the same junk science. And of course all those earlier graphs that "proved" ICQ was working because Brazil used HCQ and didn't have any cases are now gone because all those countries have since had huge outbreaks, just like almost everyone else.

I'm not saying anything about IVM as a treatment. I have no idea what affect it has. And I understand that the establishment has screwed up a lot of things - like for instance the horrible epidemic forecasting that has been way off, time and time again - so I understand why people are looking for alternate answers. But what I do know is that I wouldn't pull my evidence from this silly site.

And luckily we do actually have a miracle drug for COVID now that we know works - It's called a vaccine.

The FLCCC Alliance has another list of studies on Ivermectin and COVID-19.

https://covid19criticalcare.com/medical-evidence/ivermectin/

The same site sugests hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is a viable terapeutic option (hcqmeta.com). For all I know the scientific consensus is that HCQ is not useful for treating COVID-19. This seems like pseudoscience stemming from cherry picked data/papers with its weakness hidden behind complexity and the large amount of references.

n.b. I have not delved deeply into the claims or the sources

This is a good summary of the lack of conclusion and actual risks:

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/antiviral-the...

I clicked on the first study:

"Small 116 patient RCT with low-risk patients comparing Ivermectin-Doxycycline and HCQ+AZ, showing lower hospitalization, higher viral clearance, and faster symptom resolution and viral clearance with ivermectin+doxycycline."

So they compared Ivermecitin + another drug to Hydroxycloroquine and Azithromycin. Hydroxycloroquine was, for those who remember, the hype drug early in the covid pandemic, based on flimsy studies (just like... Ivermecitin now). Later evidence indicated that hydroxycloroquine may actually be harmful.

So if anything, this study shows that Ivermectin-Doxycycline is less harmful than HCQ+AZ.

This was just the first study in that list, but if the first study is already bogus call me skeptical about the rest.

Update: I clicked on another study. It compares "ivermectin and ivermectin + doxycycline". It does not have a control group...