I read your article, and its pretty craptastic honestly.
Let's review.
Let's understand that this is a review article. This is not peer reviewed, as its merely a review of published researched.
Its effectively an opinion piece by a set of authors after reviewing the landscape of published papers that tries to build support for their conclusions.
No new lab data is presented, but some problematic data interpretations are presented.
As
@dullard already pointed out, the authors are suspect. One is tied to a drug company trying to sell IVM, and the lead has a history of promoting other ineffective and crank treatments.
As I commented, the hypebeast article title is absurd and indicative of poor writing and a weak argument, and the rest of the article followed suit.
There are three parts to the article.
1. Brief review of a couple animal studies, no explanation of relevancy, and underwhelming results:
"While viral load was not reduced [in infected golden hamsters], these improvements included one-third of the incidence of anosmia and sharp reductions in the Il-6/Il-10 ratio in lung tissue"
Sick hamsters got more sleep. Fantastic.
2. A review of other reviews.
Handwaving away the one that said IVM was not an effective treatment is wrong.
Here is the article in question. Please read. Far more professionally written, presentation of data and methods, and overall higher quality of logical conclusions.
"We found in our systematic review that, compared with SOC or placebo, IVM did not reduce primary outcomes (all-cause mortality rate, LOS, and AEs) or secondary outcomes (SARS-CoV-2 clearance in respiratory samples, and SAEs) in RCTs of patients with mostly mild COVID-19 disease.
...
However, theoretical considerations, experimental and observational evidence, misinformation, self-medication, and the wide availability of IVM led to its use as treatment of COVID-19 in low- and middle-income countries, assuming a priori efficacy and safety.
...
The use of IVM to treat COVID-19 has shown several limitations in management strategies: lack of transparency by some political leaders or media to support drug use without evidence of efficacy and safety; lack of leadership in implementing therapeutic science-based guidelines; and misuse of effective scientific communication [40, 41]. Similar issues were previously experienced with hydroxychloroquine and will probably be repeated with other repurposed drugs. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish collaborative efforts among scientists, practitioners, communicators, and policy makers. A large, well-designed, and well-reported RCT provides the most reliable information on efficacy in the specific target population from which the sample was drawn. Well-designed and well-reported meta-analyses can provide valuable and confirmatory information [42].
IVM is generally safe at conventional doses for approved indications [4, 5]. However, its safety became a concern owing to longer use and/or higher doses in patients with COVID-19. IVM was found to be similar to placebo in safety and tolerability, even at 10 times the highest FDA-approved dose of 200 μg/kg in healthy volunteers [43], but not in patients with COVID-19. In addition, the use of IVM needs further analysis when IVM is combined with other agents for COVID-19 [44, 45]. In several settings, it was wrongly assumed that the potential benefits of using repurposed drugs outweigh their potential harms [46]. Well-designed RCTs with longer treatment and higher doses are necessary to further evaluate the safety of IVM in patients with COVID-19."
..
In the context of a misinformation infodemic, the dissemination of these results caused confusion for patients, clinicians (in particular those without training in critical reading of scientific literature), and decision makers, who may manipulate the information with political interests"
Pointing to some studies for prophylactic use, and excusing the very small sample size of the studies. Overall mixed results are discussed, but authors take most generous interpretation. These studies use low dose (similar to what is given for approved use of IVM.
Another review of "safety" of high dose IVM, since the treatment for covid infection is 50x the standard dose, but has not actually been formally studied for safety at that level.
Not highly convincing, since a good part of the article discusses a screw up of placebo and active drug for the Columbian study, but eh, its all ok in the end?!
The other article linked above discusses why this is a problem.
3. Bullshit "analysis" correlating change in Peruvian govt ( & restricting IVM) and a sharp increase in deaths
This section is where the article goes from poorly written and reasoned, to complete flaming pile of crap.
They correlate the rise in cases/deaths (which they decide to go around official data to get, and use excess deaths instead for reasons..) with a political change and change in IVM policies.
"After a restrictive IVM treatment policy was enacted under a new Peruvian president who took office on 17th November, however, deaths increased 13-fold over the two months following 1st December through 1st February 2021 (Fig. 1A). Potential confounding factors, including lockdowns and herd immunity, were ruled out using Google community mobility data, seropositivity rates, population densities and geographic distributions of SARS-CoV-2 genetic variations and by restricting all analysis except that for Fig. 1A to ages ≥ 60."
What about other explanations? That's quite a conclusion.
Oh, they just say they looked at other causes, and some data (show none of it) and just decide they are all irrelevant?!
Google mobility data? Really? That's part of your proof of efficacy? Holy shit
What about the outbreak of Lambda and Brazil P.1 variant also at that same exact time?!
No, def not a mutated variant, its because new President Dummy restricted IVM.
This review is published in Aug 21, yet their graph only goes to Feb 21.
Why?!
The third wave in Peru (like many other places) continued until its peak in April and has been on a long decline still today.
But no. Its def the IVM. If Peruvians only ate more horse paste...
This article is really bad. No wonder they needed to say "nobel prize" seven fuckin times in their horseshit article.
If this is the best IVM can come up with.. sad.
In fact, its so bad its hard to believe its written as a good faith article on IVM, and not a paper to publish at a respected URL to then be used by rubes to link and share on Facebook, reddit, 4chan et al before they rush off to the feed store.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
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