5 of the 11 included studies, covering 2582 of the 3409 patients included in the systematic review did not qualify for inclusion, based on a novel criterion used to exclude many other studies.
I'm more appalled than shocked to see such a flawed review coming out of the Cochrane Collaboration. I used to be a huge fan of CC and relied heavily, and rather unquestioningly, on their reviews. That all stopped in 2020, after I discovered just how poor their 2018 review of the evidence for the HPV vaccine was. I still remember reading and rereading the 2018 BMJ article by Peter Gotzsche, Lars Jorgensen, and Tom Jefferson laying out the many serious problems with the review, including that the HPV vax review had missed *nearly half of the eligible trials* and was influenced by reporting bias and biased trial designs. And, Cochrane had failed to deal adequately (e.g. they didn't follow their own rules) with the conflicts of interest on the part of the lead author, among others. If folks want to read this critical piece they can check here. https://ebm.bmj.com/content/23/5/165.abstract. You could also read pp 146-150 (Section titled: "Cochrane review of the HPV vaccines was flawed and incomplete") in Gotzsche's 2020 book "Vaccines".
The original paper with the transposed numbers showed that Ivermectin was effective (Risk Reduction for all cause mortality), but not statistically significant. The conclusion was that Ivermectin was not effective.
However, after the transpose is corrected the results (if you run the numbers) become effective AND statistically significant. But, only the table listing the Niaee transpose was corrected. The table with the results of the meta-analysis was not updated. The most noteworthy point for me is that Roman did correct the table with the transposed Ivermectin arm and control arm, but did not correct the results. The paper still states that Ivermectin is not effective.
*The rebuttal was written by Dr. Tess Lawrie and LinkedIn censored her for posting a peer reviewed paper.
the reddit page is still up, but the embedded link on that page is now dead so I can't be sure, but I think it was her own Ivermectin meta-analysis that got her censored.
We should never throw out data on a whim. We will throw out data if we can demonstrate that it is somehow compromised or untrustworthy. Being a few days off in registration doesn’t look like a data compromise. It looks like selection of data to obtain a desired result. That’s untrustworthy.
Thank you for this substack and all the work that went into it. As a retired scientist I am saddened to see this coming from Cochrane and as a volunteer in their collaboration I am disgusted and will rethink giving any future time to their endeavours. Prior to this reading I had the highest respect and confidence in this group which is why I have given of my time to them. ( Head shaking......)
Last year, I did a deep dive into the 2021 Cochrane IVM meta-analysis. I noticed that Cochrane buried the results (in a tiny footnote in the summary, and in the Forrest plot at the end of the paper) of Shoumann's study of preventing Covid with IVM [NCT04422561]. Shoumann gave IVM to close contacts of infected patients. The results: RR 0.13 [0.08 , 0.21] i.e. 87% effective in prevention of Covid!
Hard to quibble much with the significance of that data, so Cochrane claimed high risk for “measurement of outcome” and then ignored it since it “reported results .. in a way [?] that we could not include in our analysis”. Whatever that means; perhaps because it doesn't support their anti-IVM narrative?
It's worth noting that Shoumann was one of the studies excluded from the 2022 revised Cochrane meta- analysis! In their revised edition (p.3), they state, “No trial investigated ivermectin to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection”. Yeah, you threw it (and others) out!
If Alexandros gets some time, Cochrane's burial of a successful IVM prophalytic study might be worth investigating. Maybe even a follow-up Substack post?
P.S. I just noted that Cochrane 2021 mispelled the name; should be "Shouman" not "Shoumann" (IVMmeta had it right).
. . .
From my hi-lighted notes from the 2021 Cochrane IVM meta-analysis [pdf page #s]. I haven't looked at this in over a year, so I may have missed something in my quick review today):
p.4: Plain Language Summary: Preventing Covid-19: This study [Shoumann] reported results for development of COVID-19 symptoms (but not confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection) and unwanted events, but in a way [?] that we could not include in our analyses
p.9: Summary of findings 3. Ivermectin compared to no treatment for prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection … No study with low risk or some concerns of bias reported development of clinical COVID-2
p.10 [Tiny footnote] a.) No evidence available from studies with low risk or some concerns of bias. We included one study with high risk of bias in a secondary analysis (risk ratio (RR) 0.13, 95% CI
p.61-62: Brief summary of Shoumann 2021
p.136: Risk of Bias: Shoumann [given high risk for “measurement of the outcome”]
p. 152 – 153: Analysis 3.1. Comparison 3: Ivermectin compared to no treatment for prevention of SARS CoV-2 infection, Outcome 1: Development of clinical COVID-19 symptoms (secondary analysis) [Shoumann forest plot, buried at very end of paper!]
I can explain this in two words: Bill Gates. He started buying (tainting) the Cochran seal of approval in 2016, his restricted donations directed exactly where he wants. He corrupted Cochrane's evaluation of covid treatments so as to steer healthcare industry toward injections and novel treatments. In fact, we went upstream anf tainted original ivermectin studies (Andrew Hill ring a bell?) first, then tainted the systematic review of the ivermectin studies. This likely explains the inclusion criteria.
Gates started his meddling with the dirty HPV studies, along with the vaccine manufacturers and Remdesivir. Strategically buying influence throughout medical research has been great for his pHarma portfolio, but he would say this is purely coincidental.
I came across a book written if I understand correctly, by the founder of the Cochrane group, Peter Gotzsche, founded it some 20 years ago or more??? was forced out in the 2018 timeframe give or take?? including a Bill Gates putting his people in place for a takeover of the board??? .... Not sure if I have all of that exactly right ... just came across tidbits here and there. I bought the book and read parts of it ....it was published January 2013 ...... Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare by Peter C. Gøtzsche https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18428805-deadly-medicines-and-organised-crime ................ one of my memorable takeaways from the book ..... SSRIs anti depressant class of drugs.... studies manipulated ... when someone in the study committed suicide they were removed from the study .... so the link between this class of drugs and suicides may be hidden ..... I was wondering if 2 charts ... one of the trajectory of use of SSRIs and one of the increases in suicides year by year .... wondering if the trajectories would be similar.
It is a tragedy to see formerly highly respectible institutions like Cochrane Collaboration, BMJ, NEJM etc ruin their reputation built up in increments over any years only to ruin it within just 2 years. A doubt they will ever regane that reputation. Mony buyes nearly everybody, but not all, e.g. Marinos
A legitimate meta-analysis should only include clinical trials with proper regimens in appropriate populations. That is, trials of at least 5 days of ivermectin started reasonably early that included sufficient numbers of moderate to high risk patients. Just look at the Paxlovid trial (by far the most successful clinical trial for COVID, period): 5 days of Paxlovid twice a day, started 3 days after symptom onset on average, with over 250 patients aged 65+ and the entire study population considered "high risk". Ironically, Paxlovid itself is a combination drug- why isn't ivermectin allowed to be studied in combination with other effective supplements, or perhaps ivermectin+fluvoxamine, etc?
What should ABSOLUTELY NOT be included in any meta-analysis are the designed to fail "3 days or less of ivermectin alone on an empty stomach after almost a weeklong delay" garbage trials having almost no patients over 60, like TOGETHER, ACTIV-6, COVID-OUT, etc.
As Pierre Kory recently posited in his recent articles on the success of Ivermectin in UP, the war on Ivermectin is over. You have doctors who prescribe at and doctors who deride it. Im a believer in early treatments, of which the Borody protocol was one.
It might be beyond your scope (or time constraints) but what happens to the analysis if the exclusion criteria is strictly followed and I-Tech, Together etc are excluded?
And vice-versa, if all 14 trials are included?
Do you think this would change the outcome of the meta-analysis?
Strange how the Cochrane analysis comes away with the exact OPPOSITE findings for the TOGETHER study than even the study's senior author:
"I presented this a couple weeks ago at the NIH Collaboratory Rounds and, if they listened, I advocate that actually, there is a clear signal that IVM works in COVID patients, just that our study didn’t achieve significance. In particular, there was a 17% reduction in hospitalizations that would be significant if more patients were added. I really don’t view our study as negative and, also in that talk, you will hear me retract previous statements where I had been previously negative. I think if we had continued randomizing a few hundred more patients, it would have likely been significant."
I’ve seen a lot of facepalm-worthy moments in this pandemic, but this one has my jaw on the floor.
I'm more appalled than shocked to see such a flawed review coming out of the Cochrane Collaboration. I used to be a huge fan of CC and relied heavily, and rather unquestioningly, on their reviews. That all stopped in 2020, after I discovered just how poor their 2018 review of the evidence for the HPV vaccine was. I still remember reading and rereading the 2018 BMJ article by Peter Gotzsche, Lars Jorgensen, and Tom Jefferson laying out the many serious problems with the review, including that the HPV vax review had missed *nearly half of the eligible trials* and was influenced by reporting bias and biased trial designs. And, Cochrane had failed to deal adequately (e.g. they didn't follow their own rules) with the conflicts of interest on the part of the lead author, among others. If folks want to read this critical piece they can check here. https://ebm.bmj.com/content/23/5/165.abstract. You could also read pp 146-150 (Section titled: "Cochrane review of the HPV vaccines was flawed and incomplete") in Gotzsche's 2020 book "Vaccines".
“Tell me the conclusion I’m supposed to find, and I’ll give you the systematic review.”
—Cochrane, a formerly scientific organization.
Hello,
BIRD, British Ivermectin Recommendation Development, did a rebuttal* to the Roman et al. meta-analysis.
https://bird-group.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Roman-etal-rebuttal-29jun21.pdf
The original paper with the transposed numbers showed that Ivermectin was effective (Risk Reduction for all cause mortality), but not statistically significant. The conclusion was that Ivermectin was not effective.
However, after the transpose is corrected the results (if you run the numbers) become effective AND statistically significant. But, only the table listing the Niaee transpose was corrected. The table with the results of the meta-analysis was not updated. The most noteworthy point for me is that Roman did correct the table with the transposed Ivermectin arm and control arm, but did not correct the results. The paper still states that Ivermectin is not effective.
*The rebuttal was written by Dr. Tess Lawrie and LinkedIn censored her for posting a peer reviewed paper.
https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/oq2n34/linkedin_censors_dr_tess_lawrie_for_posting/
the reddit page is still up, but the embedded link on that page is now dead so I can't be sure, but I think it was her own Ivermectin meta-analysis that got her censored.
Mathew Crawford over at https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/ did a much more comprehensive write up:
https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/the-meta-analytical-fixers-an-ivermectin
I hope you find this helpful.
We should never throw out data on a whim. We will throw out data if we can demonstrate that it is somehow compromised or untrustworthy. Being a few days off in registration doesn’t look like a data compromise. It looks like selection of data to obtain a desired result. That’s untrustworthy.
Thank you for this substack and all the work that went into it. As a retired scientist I am saddened to see this coming from Cochrane and as a volunteer in their collaboration I am disgusted and will rethink giving any future time to their endeavours. Prior to this reading I had the highest respect and confidence in this group which is why I have given of my time to them. ( Head shaking......)
Last year, I did a deep dive into the 2021 Cochrane IVM meta-analysis. I noticed that Cochrane buried the results (in a tiny footnote in the summary, and in the Forrest plot at the end of the paper) of Shoumann's study of preventing Covid with IVM [NCT04422561]. Shoumann gave IVM to close contacts of infected patients. The results: RR 0.13 [0.08 , 0.21] i.e. 87% effective in prevention of Covid!
Hard to quibble much with the significance of that data, so Cochrane claimed high risk for “measurement of outcome” and then ignored it since it “reported results .. in a way [?] that we could not include in our analysis”. Whatever that means; perhaps because it doesn't support their anti-IVM narrative?
It's worth noting that Shoumann was one of the studies excluded from the 2022 revised Cochrane meta- analysis! In their revised edition (p.3), they state, “No trial investigated ivermectin to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection”. Yeah, you threw it (and others) out!
If Alexandros gets some time, Cochrane's burial of a successful IVM prophalytic study might be worth investigating. Maybe even a follow-up Substack post?
P.S. I just noted that Cochrane 2021 mispelled the name; should be "Shouman" not "Shoumann" (IVMmeta had it right).
. . .
From my hi-lighted notes from the 2021 Cochrane IVM meta-analysis [pdf page #s]. I haven't looked at this in over a year, so I may have missed something in my quick review today):
p.4: Plain Language Summary: Preventing Covid-19: This study [Shoumann] reported results for development of COVID-19 symptoms (but not confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection) and unwanted events, but in a way [?] that we could not include in our analyses
p.9: Summary of findings 3. Ivermectin compared to no treatment for prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection … No study with low risk or some concerns of bias reported development of clinical COVID-2
p.10 [Tiny footnote] a.) No evidence available from studies with low risk or some concerns of bias. We included one study with high risk of bias in a secondary analysis (risk ratio (RR) 0.13, 95% CI
p.61-62: Brief summary of Shoumann 2021
p.136: Risk of Bias: Shoumann [given high risk for “measurement of the outcome”]
p. 152 – 153: Analysis 3.1. Comparison 3: Ivermectin compared to no treatment for prevention of SARS CoV-2 infection, Outcome 1: Development of clinical COVID-19 symptoms (secondary analysis) [Shoumann forest plot, buried at very end of paper!]
RR 0.13 [0.08 , 0.21
I can explain this in two words: Bill Gates. He started buying (tainting) the Cochran seal of approval in 2016, his restricted donations directed exactly where he wants. He corrupted Cochrane's evaluation of covid treatments so as to steer healthcare industry toward injections and novel treatments. In fact, we went upstream anf tainted original ivermectin studies (Andrew Hill ring a bell?) first, then tainted the systematic review of the ivermectin studies. This likely explains the inclusion criteria.
Gates started his meddling with the dirty HPV studies, along with the vaccine manufacturers and Remdesivir. Strategically buying influence throughout medical research has been great for his pHarma portfolio, but he would say this is purely coincidental.
https://docbrown77.substack.com/p/reviewed-the-financial-statements
I came across a book written if I understand correctly, by the founder of the Cochrane group, Peter Gotzsche, founded it some 20 years ago or more??? was forced out in the 2018 timeframe give or take?? including a Bill Gates putting his people in place for a takeover of the board??? .... Not sure if I have all of that exactly right ... just came across tidbits here and there. I bought the book and read parts of it ....it was published January 2013 ...... Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How Big Pharma Has Corrupted Healthcare by Peter C. Gøtzsche https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18428805-deadly-medicines-and-organised-crime ................ one of my memorable takeaways from the book ..... SSRIs anti depressant class of drugs.... studies manipulated ... when someone in the study committed suicide they were removed from the study .... so the link between this class of drugs and suicides may be hidden ..... I was wondering if 2 charts ... one of the trajectory of use of SSRIs and one of the increases in suicides year by year .... wondering if the trajectories would be similar.
It is a tragedy to see formerly highly respectible institutions like Cochrane Collaboration, BMJ, NEJM etc ruin their reputation built up in increments over any years only to ruin it within just 2 years. A doubt they will ever regane that reputation. Mony buyes nearly everybody, but not all, e.g. Marinos
A legitimate meta-analysis should only include clinical trials with proper regimens in appropriate populations. That is, trials of at least 5 days of ivermectin started reasonably early that included sufficient numbers of moderate to high risk patients. Just look at the Paxlovid trial (by far the most successful clinical trial for COVID, period): 5 days of Paxlovid twice a day, started 3 days after symptom onset on average, with over 250 patients aged 65+ and the entire study population considered "high risk". Ironically, Paxlovid itself is a combination drug- why isn't ivermectin allowed to be studied in combination with other effective supplements, or perhaps ivermectin+fluvoxamine, etc?
What should ABSOLUTELY NOT be included in any meta-analysis are the designed to fail "3 days or less of ivermectin alone on an empty stomach after almost a weeklong delay" garbage trials having almost no patients over 60, like TOGETHER, ACTIV-6, COVID-OUT, etc.
Great work here
Captured institutions should be jettisoned from your thinking tool box.
As Pierre Kory recently posited in his recent articles on the success of Ivermectin in UP, the war on Ivermectin is over. You have doctors who prescribe at and doctors who deride it. Im a believer in early treatments, of which the Borody protocol was one.
It might be beyond your scope (or time constraints) but what happens to the analysis if the exclusion criteria is strictly followed and I-Tech, Together etc are excluded?
And vice-versa, if all 14 trials are included?
Do you think this would change the outcome of the meta-analysis?
Strange how the Cochrane analysis comes away with the exact OPPOSITE findings for the TOGETHER study than even the study's senior author:
"I presented this a couple weeks ago at the NIH Collaboratory Rounds and, if they listened, I advocate that actually, there is a clear signal that IVM works in COVID patients, just that our study didn’t achieve significance. In particular, there was a 17% reduction in hospitalizations that would be significant if more patients were added. I really don’t view our study as negative and, also in that talk, you will hear me retract previous statements where I had been previously negative. I think if we had continued randomizing a few hundred more patients, it would have likely been significant."
https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/did-the-together-study-show-that