Ivermectin is not a miracle drug

A miracle cure for COVID-19 would be great right about now, but Ivermectin might not be it. High-quality science just doesn’t back up its use.

A systematic review and meta-analysis of 10 randomized control trials found that ivermectin did not reduce mortality, length of stay in a hospital, or adverse events compared to the control (1). The researchers concluded that ivermectin is not a suitable treatment for COVID-19.

A more recent “Cochrane Review,” the gold standard for medical meta-analyses, found no evidence to support using Ivermectin to treat COVID-19 (2). Researchers found that several of the completed studies are small, low-quality, and roughly a third were highly biased. There are 31 ongoing Ivermectin studies and researchers of this analysis will update their review when these results become available.

A third meta-analysis found different results (3). However the majority of the studies used in this analysis were not peer-reviewed and at least one study has been retracted (4). So, we can’t determine much from that study.

The FDA does not consider Ivermectin an antiviral drug, and does not recommend its use for treating COVID-19 (5).

Vaccination remains our best defense against COVID-19.

Science is hard. Doing well-controlled studies in a pandemic is hard. When decent studies on Ivermectin get different answers, that means any real effect is probably small. But we just don’t know yet. There are more good studies on their way by the end of 2021, so we’ll just have to wait. In the meantime, GET VACCINATED. We know that works.