Heterogeneity in Ivermectin

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/response-to-alexandros-contra-me

I.

In November 2021, I posted Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted To Know, where I tried to wade through the controversy on potential-COVID-drug ivermectin. Most studies of ivermectin to that point had found significant positive effects, sometimes very strong effects, but a few very big and well-regarded studies were negative, and the consensus of top academics and doctors was that it didn’t work. I wanted to figure out what was going on.

After looking at twenty-nine studies on a pro-ivermectin website’s list, I concluded that a few were fraudulent, many others seemed badly done, but there were still many strong studies that seemed to find that ivermectin worked. There were also many other strong studies that seemed to find that it didn’t. My usual heuristic is that when studies contradict, I trust bigger studies, more professionally done studies, and (as a tiebreaker) negative studies - so I leaned towards the studies finding no effect. Still, it was strange that so many got such impressive results.