Since March 2020, when doctors first used IVM against COVID-19, more than 20 randomized clinical trials (RCTs) have confirmed its miraculous efficacy against COVID for both inpatient and outpatient treatment. Six of seven meta-analyses of IVM treatment RCTs completed in 2021 found notable reductions in COVID-19 mortality. The relevant studies “all showed significant benefit for high-risk outpatients,” says the eminent Yale epidemiologist Dr. Harvey Risch. The only studies where its performance was anything short of stellar were those that investigated its efficacy in patients in very late stages of COVID.
But even late-stage patients showed benefits in almost all studies, although somewhat less dramatic. According to a 2020 review by McCullough et al., “Numerous clinical studies—including peer-reviewed randomized controlled trials—showed large magnitude benefits of ivermectin in prophylaxis, early treatment, and also in late-stage disease management. Taken together . . . dozens of clinical trials that have now emerged from around the world are substantial enough to reliably assess clinical efficacy and infer a signal of benefit with acceptable safety.”14
Early in January 2021, Dr. David Chesler, a geriatric specialist who had treated 191 infected patients since the previous spring at seven Virginia nursing homes, wrote to Dr. Fauci claiming that he had achieved a mortality rate of 8 percent using ivermectin—half (and 146,000 deaths less than) the US average in elder-care facilities. In his letter to Dr. Fauci, Chesler attached a peer-reviewed case study documenting reports of similar efficacy from other countries. Neither Dr. Fauci nor anyone else from NIAID replied to Dr. Chesler’s letter.15
The Annals of Dermatology and Venereology reported that in a French nursing home, all 69 residents—average age 90—and 52 staff survived a COVID-19 outbreak.16,17 As it turns out, they had all taken ivermectin for a scabies infestation. COVID decimated the surrounding community, but only seven elder home residents and four staff were affected, and all had mild illness. None required oxygen or hospitalization.
Research suggests that ivermectin may work through as many as 20 separate mechanisms. Among them, ivermectin functions as an “ionophore,” facilitating transfer of zinc into the cells, which inhibits viral replication. Ivermectin stops replication of COVID-19, seasonal flu, and many other viruses through this and other mechanisms. For example, a March 2021 study18 by Choudhury et al., found that “Ivermectin was found as a blocker of viral replicase, protease and human TMPRSS2, which could be the biophysical basis behind its antiviral efficiency.” The drug also reduces inflammation via multiple pathways, thereby protecting against organ damage. Ivermectin furthermore impairs the spike protein’s ability to attach to the ACE2 receptor on human cell membranes, preventing viral entry. Moreover, the drug prevents blood clots through binding to spike protein, and also deters the spike protein from binding to CD147 on red blood cells, which would otherwise trigger clumping. When patients take IVM before exposure, the drug prevents infection, which halts onward transmission, and helps protect the entire community.
In March, 2021, a published study by Peter McCullough and 57 other front-line physicians from multiple countries found that “Our early ambulatory treatment regimen was associated with estimated 87.6 percent and 74.9 percent reductions in hospitalization and death.”19
Many other studies echo Dr. McCullough’s results. The average reduction in mortality, based on 18 trials, is 75 percent,20according to a January 2021 meta-analysis presentation to the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel. A WHO-sponsored meta-review21 of 11 studies likewise suggests ivermectin can reduce COVID-19 mortality by as much as 83 percent. Below is a compilation of seven meta-analyses looking at ivermectin’s effect on mortality. Each one found a large benefit, ranging between 57 percent and 83 percent reduction in deaths:
Below is a compilation of the studies of ivermectin for COVID prevention. On average, used prophylactically, ivermectin prevented 86 percent of the adverse outcomes. Over all these studies, ivermectin protected 6 of every 7 people who used it to prevent COVID.
And of 29 studies of early treatment of COVID using ivermectin, listed on opposite page, the average benefit was 66 percent. The 3 tables presented here and their adjacent forest plots can be found on the ivmmeta.org website. They are part of a much larger website that has compiled all completed, validated studies for each of 27 different treatments for COVID-19, at c19study.com.
A January 2021 study in The Lancet found that ivermectin dramatically reduced the intensity and duration of symptoms and viral loading.22
In March 2020, Dr. Paul Marik, chief of intensive care medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, began posting treatment guidelines for the care of COVID patients. Dr. Marik, one of the best known and well-published professors of intensive care medicine, recruited a team of the most highly respected and most published leading ICU physicians from across the globe to systematically research all possible approaches to this new virus. Soon, his organization, Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), created a website and posted their first treatment protocols in mid-April 2020. By November 2020, the FLCCC doctors felt there was enough evidence to add ivermectin to their protocols.23 “The data show the ability of the drug ivermectin to prevent COVID-19, to keep those with early symptoms from progressing to the hyper-inflammatory phase of the disease, and even to help critically ill patients recover.”24 Peer-reviewers green-lighted the clinical and scientific rationale for FLCCC’s hospital protocols, and the Journal of Intensive Care Medicine published them in mid-December 2020.25 FLCCC also published on its website a one-page summary (regularly updated) of the clinical trial evidence for ivermectin.26
In December 2020, FLCCC President and Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Pierre Kory, a pulmonary and critical care specialist, testified to the benefits of ivermectin before a number of COVID-19 panels, including the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.27 In riveting testimony, Kory described:
Six studies with a total of over 2,400 patients—all showing near-perfect prevention of transmission of this virus in people exposed to COVID-19 . . . Three RCT’s randomized controlled studies and multiple large case series—involving over 3,000 patients showing stunning recovery among hospitalized patients and four large randomized controlled trials involving 3,000 patients all showing large and statistically significant reductions in mortality when treated with ivermectin.
Two weeks later, on January 6, 2021, Dr. Kory spoke to the National Institutes of Health COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel.28 Along with éminence grise Dr. Paul Marik, and other members of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance also presented positive data on ivermectin, as did the WHO’s meta-analysis author, Dr. Andrew Hill who they had invited to present with them.
The Financial Times followed with an article citing Hill’s research for the WHO at the University of Liverpool. Hill’s meta-analysis of six ivermectin studies showed a cumulative 75 percent reduction of risk of death in a subset of moderate to severe COVID-19 patients, in whom the drug reduced inflammation and sped up elimination of the virus.29