Another unhelpful study of Ivermectin

Once again we have a study that fails to heed the stricture that Ivermectim has to be administered immediately symptoms emerge. Giving it up to 7 days later is pointless and proves nothng. Journal article below

Efficacy of Ivermectin Treatment on Disease Progression Among Adults With Mild to Moderate COVID-19 and Comorbidities (The I-TECH Study)

Question: Does adding ivermectin, an inexpensive and widely available antiparasitic drug, to the standard of care reduce the risk of severe disease in patients with COVID-19 and comorbidities?

Findings: In this open-label randomized clinical trial of high-risk patients with COVID-19 in Malaysia, a 5-day course of oral ivermectin administered during the first week of illness did not reduce the risk of developing severe disease compared with standard of care alone.

Meaning: The study findings do not support the use of ivermectin for patients with COVID-19.

Abstract

Importance: Ivermectin, an inexpensive and widely available antiparasitic drug, is prescribed to treat COVID-19. Evidence-based data to recommend either for or against the use of ivermectin are needed.

Objective: To determine the efficacy of ivermectin in preventing progression to severe disease among high-risk patients with COVID-19.

Design, Setting, and Participants: The Ivermectin Treatment Efficacy in COVID-19 High-Risk Patients (I-TECH) study was an open-label randomized clinical trial conducted at 20 public hospitals and a COVID-19 quarantine center in Malaysia between May 31 and October 25, 2021. Within the first week of patients’ symptom onset, the study enrolled patients 50 years and older with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, comorbidities, and mild to moderate disease.

Interventions: Patients were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive either oral ivermectin, 0.4 mg/kg body weight daily for 5 days, plus standard of care (n = 241) or standard of care alone (n = 249). The standard of care consisted of symptomatic therapy and monitoring for signs of early deterioration based on clinical findings, laboratory test results, and chest imaging.

Main Outcomes and Measures: The primary outcome was the proportion of patients who progressed to severe disease, defined as the hypoxic stage requiring supplemental oxygen to maintain pulse oximetry oxygen saturation of 95% or higher. Secondary outcomes of the trial included the rates of mechanical ventilation, intensive care unit admission, 28-day in-hospital mortality, and adverse events.

Results: Among 490 patients included in the primary analysis (mean [SD] age, 62.5 [8.7] years; 267 women [54.5%]), 52 of 241 patients (21.6%) in the ivermectin group and 43 of 249 patients (17.3%) in the control group progressed to severe disease (relative risk [RR], 1.25; 95% CI, 0.87-1.80; P = .25). For all prespecified secondary outcomes, there were no significant differences between groups. Mechanical ventilation occurred in 4 (1.7%) vs 10 (4.0%) (RR, 0.41; 95% CI, 0.13-1.30; P = .17), intensive care unit admission in 6 (2.4%) vs 8 (3.2%) (RR, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.27-2.20; P = .79), and 28-day in-hospital death in 3 (1.2%) vs 10 (4.0%) (RR, 0.31; 95% CI, 0.09-1.11; P = .09). The most common adverse event reported was diarrhea (14 [5.8%] in the ivermectin group and 4 [1.6%] in the control group).

Conclusions and Relevance: In this randomized clinical trial of high-risk patients with mild to moderate COVID-19, ivermectin treatment during early illness did not prevent progression to severe disease. The study findings do not support the use of ivermectin for patients with COVID-19.

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2789362

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Unjustifiable vaccine mandates did a lot of harm in Australia

In the 1980s movie Rain Man, the autistic Dustin Hoffman reliably informed Tom Cruise that Qantas was the safest airline in the world. Indeed, our national carrier has safely transported generations of Aussies around the world. The ‘flying kangaroo’ is our de facto international mascot and one of our most respected enterprises. Yet the ‘spirit of Australia’ now resides in a man who likes to tell members of the Australian public to ‘eff off’.

This occurred the other day when a disgruntled former employee attempted to ask Qantas CEO Alan Joyce about the vaccine mandates still in place for the airline’s employees.

During the same-sex marriage debate, Mr Joyce developed a taste for political campaigning and even encouraged people travelling on Qantas to wear a black ring on their finger to show their support for same-sex marriage – presumably so cabin crew could easily distinguish between those who were morally superior on supporting LGBT issues and those who were not. One Anglican archbishop complained that this sort of campaign was nothing short of corporate bullying of everyday Australians.

At the time Peter Dutton also maintained that it was completely unacceptable for Mr Joyce to use the Qantas brand in this way, saying, ‘Don’t use an iconic brand and the might of a multi-billion-dollar business on issues best left to the judgements of individuals….’

And that is the point. Whether it is political or cultural issues or medical interventions, the same principle should be true in a democracy: corporations and businesses should wherever possible leave judgment on non-corporate matters to the individual. But instead, Covid provided many corporations the opportunity to behave like the worst schoolyard bullies – imposing mandates and restrictions on loyal staff and customers despite then prime minister Scott Morrison insisting that there were no vaccine mandates in this country and that companies could only apply mandates that were ‘reasonable’.

Coerced vaccination is offensive and wrong under any circumstances. And the sort of draconian mass mandates imposed by Qantas, Woolworths and many other corporations were certainly not ‘reasonable’.

As we now know, and many writers in this magazine anticipated, the vaccines do not and never did protect other people from catching the coronavirus. By definition, all compulsory vaccine mandates and restrictions – which potentially damaged people’s mental health or income yet did not stop transmission – were futile and therefore unreasonable.

Many loyal long-serving employees of these companies had their lives, careers and livelihoods completely turned upside down. Ex-Qantas pilot Graham Hood who was forced to lose his career thanks to Mr Joyce’s unreasonable mandate was one, Alan Dana at Jetstar another. There were many, many others.

Woolworths appointed its own chief medical officer in August 2020 to ‘provide expert medical advice to help shape policies’ around Covid. In October last year, Woolies implemented a mandatory vaccination policy similar to that of Qantas and other large firms. At the time their chief medical officer stated that, ‘A vaccinated team member is far less likely to get Covid, much less likely to pass it on [our italics] and also significantly less likely to become seriously ill.’

But that was simply untrue. As was revealed in a recent article by the left-leaning Washington Post, the Biden administration knew in the early northern summer of 2021 – several months prior to that statement – that ‘the vaccines did a far worse job of blocking infection than originally expected.’ Similarly, Pfizer have also admitted that they never tested the vaccines for immunistation.

So Woolworths need to explain who specifically informed or advised them that the vaccines did stop transmission? As with so many other companies, where did this advice come from and what was it based on?

Furthermore, what steps were taken by each individual CEO, health officer or HR officer to verify that that information was factually correct before forcing people to lose their jobs because of an unnecessary mandate? Wasn’t there a duty of care to the mental health and wellbeing of all those individuals who lost their jobs because of reluctance to take the jab? A reluctance that with each passing day looks more and more understandable.

Indeed, read Rebecca Weisser in this week’s magazine on some of the disturbing questions that are now surfacing around issues of women’s reproductive health and potential vaccine injuries.

All of which is why we need a royal commission into the abuse of political and corporate power during Covid

https://spectator.com.au/2022/11/unreasonable

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Bivalent Vaccines probably useless

The US government vaccine program led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) selected most recently mRNA booster vaccines that contained genetic code for the original (long extinct) Wuhan wild-type strain (50%) and Omicron BA4/BA5 subvariant (50%) produced by both Pfizer and Moderna.

These products were not only purchased but also authorized on an emergency basis and distributed on the market, with only preclinical animal study data as well as immune-bridging data. The FDA who is conflicted as a sponsor of the vaccine program authorized the products based upon a surrogate antibody elevation against BA4/BA5. Within a few short months, as depicted by the CDC Nowcast system, BA4/BA5 are on their way out giving way to BQ.1 and BQ1.1.[i]

This has been an accurate and helpful part of the CDC’s effort to inform the public and scientists on the outbreak: “To identify and track SARS-CoV-2 variants, CDC uses genomic surveillance. CDC's national genomic surveillance system collects SARS-CoV-2 specimens for sequencing through the National SARS-CoV-2 Strain Surveillance (NS3) program, as well as SARS-CoV-2 sequences generated by commercial or academic laboratories contracted by CDC and state or local public health laboratories.

Virus genetic sequences are analyzed and classified as a particular variant. The proportion of variants in a population are calculated nationally, by HHS region, and by jurisdiction. The thousands of sequences analyzed every week through CDC’s national genomic sequencing and bioinformatics efforts fuel the comprehensive and population-based U.S. surveillance system established to identify and monitor the spread of variants.”

So Nowcast is telling us the emerging dominant strains are BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 subvariants, known to have enhanced ability to fuse with the human ACE-2 receptor, dictated by the N460K mutation which is the principle site for antibody neutralization.[ii]

Qu et al. have recently demonstrated that sera from patients with BA4/BA5 had very poor antibody defenses against BQ.1 and BQ.1.1. The authors concluded: “The perpetual emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants with enhanced immune escape continues to threaten public health. Monitoring the immune escape of emerging variants will be critical to improving mRNA vaccine reformulation, assessing new broader coronavirus vaccine candidates, as well as directing ongoing public health measures.”

Moderna conveniently just came out with a press release reported in this media that the novel booster in “exploratory analysis of approximately 40 participants using research assay, both bivalent vaccines demonstrates robust neutralizing activity against BQ.1.1…” However, Moderna's press release is in conflict with the findings of Qu et al., indicating that urgent research is needed with clinical outcomes to see of mRNA vaccines have any impact at all in patients with acute COVID-19.

But the release of these potent, gene therapy-based vaccines cannot be done through press release as a form of public health communique for vaccines that are already in circulation and promoted by regulators, public health agencies and health systems. This just isn’t the way drug and vaccine development are ethically done, at least not up until COVID-19. Declaring that the novel boosters elicit responses against the new variant in a 40-participant research assay tells us next to nothing.

All of this is a politically correct way of saying the new vaccines are essentially obsolete just a few months after their debut

https://www.trialsitenews.com/a/bivalent-vaccines-up-to-bat-a-swing-and-a-miss-0514dcf4

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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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