The NIH is currently sponsoring a large scale clinical trial of ivermectin and several other drugs to see whether they're effective. We'll have to give them time to complete the study.
https://www.nih.gov/research-training/medical-research-initi...
https://www.nih.gov/research-training/medical-research-initi...
We also happen to have months worth of studies of IVM already. Given what has happened in literally the last dozen studies, we have a good idea of what will probably happen in that study.
That's 16 high quality studies on IVM already in the link I posted above. Do you think the results of study #17 will change things?
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I mean, maybe it will. But I wouldn't bet on it. Studies in science have this thing where they usually replicate results.
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/13/6/989
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.21.21260223v...
https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/fulltext/2021/...
So we just don't know, and it's too early to place any bets one way or the other. That's how science works.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/ivermecti...
https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on...
Not to even mention that the only realistic effect it would have is blunting the effects of IL-6. There’s better options for antagonizing IL-6 with less of a side effect profile, specifically tocilizumab and sarilumab.
If you refer to blocking nuclear import, ORF6 in SARS-CoV and other sarbecoviruses already does that to begin with. Adding SARS-CoV ORF6 to a MHV model actually made it more pathogenic, so there is little benefit to not blocking nuclear import.
Here are some associated material on the topic:
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/JVI.01012-07
https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/jvi.01308-07
https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/JVI.79.17.11335-11...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221112472...
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
The quality of COVID-19 research has been pretty bad across the board with researchers racing to publish and journals doing weak reviews. But I haven't seen any credible allegations of fraud against the specific studies that I linked above.
There are multiple other hypothesized mechanisms of action beyond antagonizing IL-6. It's not completely clear what, if anything, is actually happening in vivo.
https://journals.lww.com/americantherapeutics/fulltext/2021/...
Otherwise we would have to maintain the same sort of equipose about literally ever possible substance - peanut butter could be an effective COVID treatment, until someone does a proper study, we just don't know.