The Ivermectin discussion

I don't understand this emphasis on peer reviewed RCDB studies during a pandemic.

If a substance has excellent safety profile, and been administered in some 3.5 billion doses, and it has a chance of working why would anyone be against its use under a doctor's care?

Then add all the studies showing various rates of efficacy, it must be even more compelling.

Certainly I see no reason at all to disallow its use for anything .... whether that be a sore toe or a virus. If it works all good. If not then use something else.

Doing so is definitely much better than doing nothing at all, which is what was done - nothing until sick enough to be hospitalised.

As for the studies .... some want studies to be carried out costing millions but for what?

There is no need to study safety. That has been well proved over the decades.

All is needed is efficacy ..... and there are multiple studies showing its efficacy, even if one might have some doubts about some of them.

To add to the list of studies that some dismiss out of hand here is another .... now peer reviewed

https://www.cureus.com/articles/82162-ivermectin-prophylaxis-used-for-covid-19-a-citywide-prospective-observational-study-of-223128-subjects-using-propensity-score-matching

Last I heard Ivermectin is still in use in some 27 countries and those seem quite happy with its efficacy ..... else why continue to use it?

For those who made a huge deal about its use in Uttar Pradesh, and claimed it was all fake, here is a pic I came across today from that state. Apparently they continue to use it for their 230+million people.

That has just brightened up a quiet evening...lovely comment!!

List the 27 countries, when they were used as a covid treatment, and the source for it. A real source, not some pro-Ivermectin fake news factory.

Otherwise based on previous posts, you are either making it up or fallen for some fake news.

1. From where did you get 'arbitrarily'? Medical professionals determined its likelihood of being efficacious based in what is known about the substance and its actions in vivo. You are making things up.
2. Then you need to read a few more studies I guess, if you have not read any that show efficacy. Do you claim that in vitro is a true reflection of what will happen in vivo?
3. How does "its use under a doctor's care" have anything to do with this rubbish?
4. More nonsense ...... great use does provide the safety profile for that substance.
5. I am sure you are quite capable, should you wish, of finding studies showing efficacy of the drug. But you do not accept any of them because those studies do not come up to your expectations and are not properly funded by some pharma company.
6. Yet those countries use the substance and claim efficacy. If you dispute that you should take it up with them and have them deny efficacy. Until they do I will accept that they see efficacy in it use.

It all boils down to one thing ...... believe many many medical professionals worldwide who have used the drug on Covid patients or believe you.

An easy decision.

That article says it shows antiviral activity in non clinical studies. We already knew that.

"But without scientific evidence of its clinical effectiveness, it would be grossly irresponsible to prescribe it. That is the situation with Ivermectin and every other medicine for every other disease."

That is not the situation in all cases.

Medicines are prescribed off label every day by doctors who believe those medicines will help their patients, without that medicine going through clinical trials for the specific application that doctor is using it.

That is why we go to trained medical persons - so they can use their judgement from training and experience to prescribe medication that they (the doctor) believes will be beneficial.

This applies even more so in a pandemic situation. In previous pandemics doctors were encouraged to use medicines off label that were thought to help their patients. Even the good Dr. Fauci is quoted on this.

Yet the the use of the likes of Ivermectin, Hydroxychloroquie etc were not only discouraged but severely deliberately hampered and banned in some locations during this pandemic.

It is also true that other advices such as mask wearing and lockdowns are the complete opposite to the advice provided in previous pandemics.

I have not read a satisfactory explanation for these massive changes in advice this time around.

This argument is utterly refuted by the fact that dexamethsone has been recommended by WHO for Covid for ages now. It's cheap, effective, and has been off patent for decades. That gets quietly ignored by your faction.

Hydroxychloroquine, seriously? Surely not even the looniest of conspiracy theorists are still talking about that?

Seriously, it is time to unplug from social media. You are going down a bad rabbit hole.

The last one like this was in 1918, so comparisons are a bit academic and the only other one worth noting is the 1968 flu outbreak, over 50 years ago. Remdesivir is not the brilliant solution originally imagined but it is part of a suite of approved treatments playing their part.

There's more than an an act of desperation on seeking out more reviews of old information and that 2 week old Digger site is just rehashing all of it, with enough links to get you to 1,000 open tabs. Somehow in all of this you continually ignore that other posters would be on the side of Invermectin if it produced enough data to be approved for COVID. Dexamethasone got through with no problem because it was shown to work well, in proper trials.

As I've said many times new trials and data that support that will make the case far more than some random internet person writing a blog purporting to reveal something nobody else has spotted. That time is running out BTW as we now have about a dozen actual COVID treatments, including a fairly poorly performing antiviral with more on the way.

@is_that_so Maybe you could point me to the double blind, randomised controlled trials, using Dexamethasone for those who get Covid and are not hospitalise with Acute Respiratory Distress?

You neither have to inform nor convince me. Data that persuades regulatory bodies that it should be approved for COVID will do that. I've been aware of the potential of this for two years, largely through some very aggressive promotion of it from people in my circle, often coupled with the ineffective hydroxychloroquinine and of course the attendant Big Pharma/FDA conspiracy. It's still a mystery to me that a bunch of US cardiologists are to the fore on this, even if the context of a divisive Trumpian presidency partly explains how that might be. As has been observed more than once it would not be medically responsible to approve a drug that has not been convincingly shown to work.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.22.20137273v1.full-text

That's the one, under the Recovery umbrella, that got it recommended. I will say that it's puzzling that you've never heard of this, it's been around for almost 2 years.

Here's the EMA commentary from September 2020.

By doctor treating their own patients. The regulatory authorities are not satisfied with the data so it has not been approved or recommended for COVID. It's not the first nor the last drug that will not be recommended. Anyway moving on here. You're welcome to continue to find more reasons why it's been apparently badly treated.

I asked a question and you responded with a link that was not relevant to the question.

Simple. Read the question. Answer it or not, I don't really care, but providing links that do not answer the question is pointless.