Protection increases with increased usage of politically charged drug

Art Moore
WND News Center

A large study on the impact of using ivermectin as a prophylaxis for COVID-19 found that regular users of the drug experienced up to a 92% reduction in mortality compared to those who did not.

Brazilian research scientist Dr. Flavio A. Cadegiani said via Twitter that his study in his home country showed a “dose-response effect,” meaning that “the more you used, the more protection you had.”

He observed that people who use ivermectin regularly every 15 days for at least six to eight weeks had up to a 92% reduction in mortality.

Cadegiani conducted a previous study of drug that evaluated whether its use could impact COVID-19 infection and mortality rates.

Last fall, esteemed epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch of Yale Medical School was among scientists and physicians who said in Senate testimony that thousands of lives could have been saved if treatments such as ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine had not been suppressed.

In April, after noticing that the word ivermectin was trending on Twitter amid Elon Musk’s move to buy the company, the FDA reprised its disingenuous “horse dewormer” smear of the drug as a treatment for COVID-19.

“Hold your horses, y’all. Ivermectin may be trending, but it still isn’t authorized or approved to treat COVID-19,” said a post on the FDA’s Twitter account.

The reference to horses played on the explosion last fall of media articles and social media posts mocking people who treated COVID-19 with the drug as ignorant rubes who were sneaking into farms or patronizing Tractor Supply stores in quest of “horse dewormer.”

During the pandemic, Twitter and other social media platforms censored positive mention of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine despite the countless testimonies and dozens of studies from around the world showing the drugs to be effective in treating COVID-19.

A follow-up FDA post said: “Also, a reminder that a study showed it didn’t actually work against COVID.”

Dr. Pierre Kory, who has testified to the Senate of the effectiveness of ivermectin against COVID-19, fired back.

“You are not a horse, you are not a cow, you are Big Pharma’s ass,” he tweeted.

The FDA, he wrote, was “messaging BS” by citing “one corrupt study” while ignoring 82 trials, including 33 randomized controlled trials with 129,000 patients from 27 countries that show “massive benefits” of ivermectin in treating COVID-19.

“Stop lying man, people are dying,” he wrote, adding the hashtag “earlytreatmentworks.”

In an article published in April for the Brownstone Institute, Kory wrote that it’s “a tried-and-true tactic with effective and dastardly results” for “Big Pharma and other well-financed interests” to sponsor purportedly impartial medical trials “aimed at discrediting cheaper generic alternatives.’

“Ignoring the flaws in the methodology, the media runs wild with the desired narrative, which is amplified by a well-orchestrated public relations effort,” he wrote.

Kory cited as an example the newly reported clinical trial from Brazil known as “TOGETHER,” which he said ostensibly aimed at studying the effectiveness of ivermectin to treat COVID.

Among the flaws was the lack of explicit exclusion criteria for trial participants on ivermectin, meaning both trial groups had access to the same drug.  Further, the treatment window was set for only three days, which didn’t allow for adequate dosing, and the trial was conducted during the massive gamma variant surge, which was one of the most virulent and deadly COVID variants.

“The dosage of the trial was far lower than everyday Brazilian clinicians were prescribing patients at the time to match the strength of the strain,” Kory pointed out.

“In spite of these and other readily apparent shortcomings, the nation’s leading media gobbled up the results. ‘Ivermectin Didn’t Reduce Covid-19 Hospitalizations in Largest Trial to Date’ blared the Wall Street Journal, while a New York Times headlined announced, ‘Ivermectin Does Not Reduce Risk of Covid Hospitalization, Large Study Finds.'”

Meanwhile, social media platforms stifled conversations while California pushed potentially precedent-setting legislation to punish doctors “who dare question phony studies,” threatening loss of a medical license.

A similar study of ivermectin “of far larger size, conducted by investigators without any conflicts of interest, found the drug led to massive reductions in Covid infection, hospitalization and mortality—yet it received virtually no media coverage.”

Kory said that ending “this cycle of perpetual disinformation requires revamping our dysfunctional drug approval process.”

“An independent board free of pharma industry conflicts must be established to oversee trials for re-purposed medicines,” he said. “Recommendations should be based on trials designed by impartial experts and actual results, not the desired ones, and policymakers or prescribers who ignore the findings should be held accountable.”

And academia and the regulatory agencies must be reminded, he said, “that observational trials data – wherein a sample of population who take a drug are compared to those who do not – is equally valid at informing policy.”

“Randomized controlled trials can yield useful information, but their complexity, costs, and delays to treatment lead to errors and effectively shut out low-cost drugs from the approval process, regardless of their efficacy,” he said.