JAMA heeft de Maleisische I-TECH open-label gerandomiseerde studie met ivermectine gepubliceerd, met in totaal 490 patiënten. De studie vond geen significant voordeel van ivermectine met betrekking tot ziekteprogressie. Maar de zaken zijn kennelijk complexer dan dit. Hieronder vijf perspectieven op dat experiment:
"A well-designed randomized controlled trial out of Malaysia showed it actually increased the risk of progression to severe Covid by 25% (the results were not statistically significant). Sorry, folks. There are no magic bullets. (At least it doesn’t cause myocarditis.)"
"But it turns out that the JAMA article is yet another example of what can only be called scientific publishing fraud (similar stunts were used to discredit the use of hydroxychloroquine as explained here). The main paper obfuscates the results of the outcome we are most interested in: whether those given ivermectin were less likely to die than those in the control group."
"So, the study showed that , for Ivermectin vs control group: 4 vs 10 were placed on mechanical ventilation, 3 vs 10 died (so 3 Ivermectin patients died, vs 10 without Ivermectin). For those versed in statistics, the “statistical significance” of these differences (P) was 0.19 and 0.09. It does not get under the standard of P <= 0.05, so the difference can be called “not statistically significant”. But it IS significant to us, and the P values are high because the study was underpowered. Clearly Ivermectin showed positive effect, 3 vs 10 deaths is a huge benefit. The study likely saved about 7 lives by giving Ivermectin to 241 persons."
"May I be so bold as to suggest that perhaps a more accurate conclusion for this paper would be something like, “Although slightly fewer people progressed to severe disease in the non-treatment group, mal-effects including death were reduced in the treatment arm.”
"Thus, the study was “designed to fail”: “The study design was such that any other antiviral, such as Paxlovid or Molnupiravir [or monoclonal antibodies], would also have faile
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