This letter reproduced from Trial Site News:
The BBC recently did a complete hit job on ivermectin—not surprising given the money circulating to ensure such events occur as planned. Among the many inaccuracies the BBC proclaims up to a third of the ivermectin studies as probable frauds, yet they have no basis to make such a claim. In fact, the BBC’s critique in part rests on the work of a questionable group. One that while seemingly innocently muckraking, execute an agenda.
The center of the BBC critique used to bash dozens of studies including a study favoring ivermectin in Egypt led by Elgazzar et al. Yes, the public British broadcaster’s thrust against the drug is based on a questionable investigation into this study. One that led to the pulling of the preprint write-up and 24 hours with no consultation to the author—by no means a reasonable amount of time—then a bashing by a major newspaper. Smells like a setup.
What follows is the actual response to information request sent by Dr. Tess Lawrie, Ph.D. director of the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development Group (BIRD) to Jack Goodman, a journalist from the BBC prior to the article appearing.
Dear Jack
Thank you for taking an interest in early treatment for Covid-19. Remarkably, you are the first BBC journalist to contact us in almost 20 months. In those 20 months, doctors around the world have been treating patients successfully with multi-drug protocols (of which ivermectin is one medicine used) – while the NHS guidance to the public has been to drink water, stay home and wait until their oxygen levels go below 92% or a number of other serious signs and symptoms develop.
In such a health emergency, particularly one which has clear age stratification and obesity indicators, one might consider preventative and outpatient advice of paramount importance (perhaps recommended changes to diet or increased exercise or safe medicines with anti-viral properties) in order to take the number of hospitalisations downward and remove the pressure from the NHS. But no such advice has been given. In respect of this vacuum, many doctors have sought answers on how to prevent and treat covid-19 and found them. There are real people all over the world who have been well served by their guidance and continue to be so – you should talk to some of them.
If you sense some cynicism in this reply, you would be correct. I have never experienced a situation where censorship has been applied to medical discussion and guidance. The government and media disdain for the mountain of evidence supporting early covid-19 treatment seems to be restricted to anything that is not a novel therapy.
How did remdesivir at around $3000 a treatment get to be approved by the FDA, MHRA, etc on the back of one trial that had a marginally positive effect? It has since been shown to be ineffective and is not recommended by the WHO, yet it is in our British National Formulary for use in covid-19 and appears to be widely used in our hospital ITU’s despite growing concerns over its safety.
Ivermectin, at 50 pence a tablet, now has 63 controlled studies, 45 of them peer-reviewed, 31 RCTs, 7 meta-analyses, and several published country case studies that overall, clearly support its use and show no evidence of harm, as well as many expert opinions and testimonials. Why is it not approved in this country, but it is in others?
You may be surprised to hear that, in the UK, ivermectin is indicated to treat the most vulnerable people with covid-19 – those who are immunocompromised; this is not recommended for covid per se, but to prevent worms. Surely the question to ask then is if ivermectin can be used among the most vulnerable, why do the authorities insist that it is a horse medicine and/or that it is dangerous for use in humans?
Why does the UK have among the highest Covid-19 death rates in the world? At some point, the BBC should look at how Indian states (for example, Uttar Pradesh) managed to suppress Delta with 15% vax levels while UK cases remain stubbornly high, with 80+% vaxxed. Despite NICE stating that they would look at real world data for Covid-19, they have failed to do so.
We welcome open scientific discussion and trust that you intend to facilitate this as time is running out, particularly for the many in ITU’s around the country today without effective treatment. I hope the following answers will help to inform the BBC’s position and that you are able to give a more balanced view to this really important issue of early covid-19 treatment.
Best wishes,
Tess
