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Comment by gus_massa

2 days ago

During peak covid-19 I read a lot of ivermectin studies posted in HN. Most were just horrible, with obvious mistakes. If you pick one, I can give a try to roast it.

My personal quick rubric for determining if an ivermectin study showing improvement for cv19 outcomes is likely to be trustworthy:

Was the population being studied one where parasite infections that ivermectin can take care of are endemic?

Yes - improves outcomes in this population because many of them are likely to have parasites and killing them reduces strain on the body and frees up immune system resources to deal with covid

No - you'll find glaring flaws even in a quick once-over.

Hasn't failed me yet.

  • I remember a preprint. I think it was comparing the recorery rate of

    a) Ivermectin in the best hospital in the capital city of one of our most poor provinces in Argentina

    b) The average in the same poor province

    I don't expect too many problems with parasites there. They implicitly decided that the difference was ivermectin, not that the hospital is probably x10 better than the average of the province.

    Doble blind randomized controlled group or it didn't happen.

Fire away at the one in the link above.