Part 3: Observational Studies on Ivermectin
WE ARE FACING A TRUE TIME OF CRISIS. ONE EXAMPLE IS THE OVERWHELMED HOSPITAL SYSTEM. THE STORIES WE ARE TOLD SUGGEST THAT THERE ARE SO MANY SICK PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY WITH COVID, THAT THE HOSPITALS CAN’T KEEP UP. I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS ESPECIALLY TRUE HERE IN YAKIMA.
IT IS OUR GOAL AT WILKINSON WELLNESS TO ASSIST INDIVIDUAL PATIENTS, THE COMMUNITY, AND THE HOSPITALS IN OUR AREA BY HELPING TO KEEP PEOPLE FROM NEEDING HOSPITALIZATION. WE HAVE SEEN THAT IT IS POSSIBLE TO USE TOOLS AVAILABLE TO US TO ACTUALLY HELP PEOPLE AT THE EARLY STAGES OF COVID TO TURN THE ILLNESS AROUND, AND THEN FOR THEM TO GET BETTER. ONE OF OUR TOOLS IS IVERMECTIN.
FOR SOME REASON THAT WE DON’T FULLY COMPREHEND, THERE APPEARS TO BE AN ANTAGONISM TOWARDS THE USE OF IVERMECTIN AND OTHER MODALITIES THAT CAN AID IN HEALING SICK PEOPLE. WE WANT TO TAKE THE MOST CHARITABLE PERSPECTIVE AND ASSUME THAT THE REASON FOR THE OPPOSITION IS THAT THE CRITICS ARE SIMPLY NOT AWARE THAT THERE IS A VAST AMOUNT OF SCIENCE THAT, AT MINIMUM, SUGGESTS THAT A VERY SAFE MEDICATION MIGHT BE HELPFUL IN KEEPING PEOPLE FROM GETTING SO SICK THAT THEY ARE FORCED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL.
IN THIS NEWSLETTER WE AIM TO DEMONSTRATE SOME OF THE NEWS AND SCIENCE BEHIND THE USE OF IVERMECTIN IN PARTICULAR. WE HOPE THAT THOSE PROFESSIONALS WHO HAVE STOOD IN OPPOSITION TO THE USE OF IVERMECTIN WILL UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE VERY LEGITIMATE SCIENTIFIC REASONS FOR THE USE OF IVERMECTIN.
IF ANY GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL READS THIS LETTER AND FINDS WHAT I AM SAYING TO BE PROBLEMATIC, PLEASE ACT LIKE RATIONAL SCIENTISTS AND ADULTS AND OFFER TO DISCUSS THESE ISSUES IN AN OPEN FORUM. SHOW ME WHERE I AM WRONG. THIS, HISTORICALLY, IS THE METHOD OF SCIENCE.
PLEASE KNOW: I WOULD LOVE TO DISCUSS THESE ISSUES IN A PUBLIC SETTING WITH THOSE WHO PERCEIVE THEMSELVES AS BEING IN POSITIONS OF AUTHORITY AND/OR KNOWLEDGE AND WHO DISAGREE WITH MY VIEWS. SHOW ME WHERE I AM WRONG AND I WILL OPENLY ACKNOWLEDGE MY CHANGE IN UNDERSTANDING.
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The Problems:
Covid appears to be a viral issue that is injuring and killing many people.
There currently is no approved early treatment for helping people who are actually sick with covid.
People are being manipulated and forced on threat of punishment to get what are called covid vaccinations - but these have not yet been proven to be safe with any long-term studies. This injection is somehow considered to be a treatment when it doesn’t even begin to really have effect theoretically for some 2-4 weeks after injection.
Hospitals are filled to what is considered overflowing, with a good percentage of those sick people dealing with some aspect of covid. Typically they are sick with covid, or they are dealing with reactions to the covid shot, or they have gotten the shots and they are still fighting a covid infection.
My goal in providing the following information is twofold:
Many people are sick with covid and are needing help. These sick people are often being told at hospitals and urgent care centers to go home and come back when things get worse. But again and again, no treatment is offered. So I’m interested in what can possibly be done to help these currently sick people get better before they need to be hospitalized. Early treatment is easier and better than waiting until people become too sick to live at home. To my knowledge, there’s never been a time previous to this when doctors are discouraged and forbidden from treating people with early manifestations of any disease. In my view, it’s time to begin doing the very best we can to treat these people early. It might not be perfect, but it’s a heck of a lot better than doing nothing at all!
Since hospitals are telling us that they are overwhelmed with the numbers of people sick with covid, we are trying to assist the hospitals so that they are not as overwhelmed. If we can adequately treat these people on an outpatient basis, they won’t need to flood the hospitals looking for help.
With those points in mind, what can be done to help people who are sick with covid get better? I suggest we follow the best science on how to treat people early on. In this article and in future articles, we’re going to look at some of the extensive documentation supporting the use of ivermectin to treat covid.
How do we come to know the truth in the field of health and medicine?
News reports certainly provide data. How do we know that there is a pandemic? It’s not science per se that tells us. It’s news reports that tell people what is going on. Can we base our whole approach regarding what’s happening from news reports? No! But it can be helpful information.
“Observational studies are a fundamental part of epidemiological research. They are called observational studies because the investigator observes individuals without manipulation or intervention. This is in contrast to randomized controlled trials where investigators do intervene and look at the effects of the intervention on an outcome,” as one online author states.
In other words, as discussed below, authorities in Mexico City chose to provide Covid Therapy Kits to people in the city who are coming down with covid symptoms. This is a government decision. The news reports this. Then an observational study looks to see what happens when that action is taken. This is one method of science. Scientists observe what happens when ivermectin is used or not used and provide data that is necessary and helpful.
We all recognize that the more rigorous science is where Group A is specifically given a “real” Covid Therapy Kit and the control group, Group B, is given a fake “Covid Therapy Kit”. Thus the people in the study wouldn’t know what they were actually getting. These Randomized Controlled Trials (studies) are considered to be a higher form of science generally. But both the observational studies and the randomized controlled studies are critically important to understand what is the best treatment for covid.
In this article we are going to look at news reports as well as the observational studies related to it. In a subsequent article we will explore other science articles dealing with ivermectin and covid.
Ivermectin: An Introduction
This is one of the few drugs that genuinely can be referred to as a “wonder drug”. A couple of other drugs in this category would be penicillin and aspirin. Ivermectin was discovered by a Japanese researcher who found a certain type of bacteria in the soil close on a golf course. And by working with it, developed what we refer to as ivermectin. Personally, I like the fact that it is a “natural” (from nature) type of treatment.
It won the Nobel Prize in 2015.
Originally, it was used as a veterinary medication. And in that role, it has saved billions of dollars worth of damaged livestock.
It was found to work effectively and safely in humans. And it has subsequently been used in treating billions of people. Few drugs can have that said about them. It has been a true blessing in the world.
One of the remarkable things about ivermectin is that it has both anti-parasitic effects AND anti-viral effects. If you would like to read more about this remarkable medication, please check out this article:
In this newsletter, we are going to show you some of the actual data with pictures of the documents that are particularly relevant.
In the above example, we make a point about ivermectin, and then we show you the actual article which says these things.
We will repeat three points that we made in our last newsletter. In case someone gets this as a separate document and doesn’t have access to previous letters, we’d like them to be aware of a few points made previously.
Information we’ve previously referenced:
1. The president of the Tokyo Medical Association has said that people fighting covid should be treated with ivermectin. As many of you know, the Japanese are an advanced scientific country and are very concerned about treating their people in the best way possible. For such a high-ranking medical officer of the country to enthusiastically endorse the use of ivermectin is an illustration of the large benefit that can be expected with proper use.
2. India has been remarkably impacted by the widespread use of ivermectin, along with vitamin D, zinc, and other support. Headlines have been broadcast to those able to see that the cases and deaths have dropped precipitously since beginning ivermectin therapy. The following articles exemplify what is being said in many places. The first article looks specifically at the covid numbers in the capital of New Delhi. But very similar numbers are happening in other Indian states such as Uttar Pradesh - as in the second article. You can easily find references online to these dramatic improvements through the use of ivermectin and other support such as vitamin D.
3. In Africa, there are countries that routinely use ivermectin as a preventive from getting some pretty serious parasites. Other countries don’t have the same parasite problems and thus they do not use the widespread ivermectin treatments. Some researchers noted that the countries using ivermectin had extremely low death rates from covid when compared to other countries in Africa. The following map has colored the ivermectin using countries in blue and the non-using countries as a kind of yellow. You can see below the blue and yellow map a graph with the death rates in the blue countries vs the yellow countries. And the blue countries (ivermectin using) have dramatically lower death rates from covid than the other countries.
Following are two of the scientific articles that were written about this. They ask, Why are there so many fewer deaths in the blue countries? And they answer the question with what they believe is the most likely explanation: Ivermectin. (One of the scientific articles is considered to be in the pre-publication stage.)
The above information would be considered to be “news”...
..., not science (except for the two science articles posted immediately above). Fair enough. But one can also learn a great deal through legitimate news sources when one interprets the data correctly.
Someone might ask me: You are using non-mainstream news sources. Why aren’t you using the major news sources like NBC, Washington Post, etc?
For those of you who aren’t aware of the perspectives taken by “news sources” like NBC and CNN etc, you can find very little in those much-vaunted venues that in any way counters the mandated dominant voice. The current official position of the CDC, Fauci, and the Biden administration is entirely supported by the major news media. And they rarely, if ever, suggest that there might be something wrong with the mandated vaccine policy and general approach to treatment.
And, for clarity, the general approach to early covid treatment is essentially - Do Nothing! Unless you have to be hospitalized due to being close to death, there is little real treatment offered at emergency rooms and urgent care centers according to many patients I have cared for. (That is changing a bit with the recent option of receiving monoclonal antibodies. I consider this a very positive addition to our treatment possibilities.)
Truthful news is legitimate information about what is happening in the world regardless of the corporate name plastered on the screen. Important news can come through many other sources besides those that are historically linked to what we think of as The News.
When one considers “the mainstream news”, one needs to consider their bias. If you ever watch the TV news, for instance, have you seen how many of the advertisements are from Pfizer. Or one of the other drug companies. Do you realize that only a relatively few years ago, drug companies could not advertise in the general media? Now they are a major funding source for peak TV watching times. If pharmaceutical companies are a major provider of cash to TV and related media, it’s unlikely that the TV owners would be incentivized to point out valid competition to the highly profitable pharmaceutical products.
The information I’ve outlined above, although sourced from generally unrecognized entities, has been checked and many outlets support the veracity of the information.
Two more news pieces - the first one is from Argentina. Some folk there have researched the benefit of ivermectin in the state of Misiones if I understand the Spanish adequately. A local news source reports on a study that has been done there. Remember: this is news reporting, not from a science journal. But, I believe, it gives one some great info nonetheless. Note: the translation is done via automatic online translating - and might be a bit awkward on reading.
In this study reported in the Argentinian news, most covid symptoms improved within the first 48-72 hours after starting the use of ivermectin. There was a 350% lower hospitalization rate in those treated with ivermectin. And there was a large decrease in the number of deaths in the ivermectin-treated group.
This technically does not prove the ivermectin case. But it certainly helps support the notion that ivermectin is likely to be very helpful. And since ivermectin is universally recognized as extremely safe when used in the proper dosing, there is minimal potential of harm in giving it a try.
And the last “news report” just came to light as I was wrapping this newsletter up. It’s from Indonesia. Covid cases had been skyrocketing in the country during the late spring/early summer time frame. The government imposed emergency measures to slow down the spread of the virus.
According to a newspaper report in The Strait Times, based in nearby Singapore: “The Indonesian government on Thursday (July 15) began distributing free medicine and vitamins to… Covid-19 patients in high-risk areas.”
These packages, importantly, included ivermectin.
The following graph pretty much makes the point. The use of ivermectin as well as some vitamins (I’m guessing Vitamin D and zinc), had a dramatically beneficial effect - as you can clearly see. By mid-July, the number of cases was rapidly climbing. July 15 the ivermectin containing Covid Packages began distribution. And note how fast the numbers dropped.
Again, this is news, not a scientific article. But The Strait Times in Singapore is a legitimate and widely recognized source of trustworthy information.
What’s true? What’s real? What’s important? If the death rate in India has in fact precipitously dropped due to the use of ivermectin, I don’t care if NBC ignores the story. If doctors in Tokyo are being encouraged to prescribe ivermectin to their outpatient covid patients, that information is supportive of giving the medication a try. If there is a 350% drop in hospitalizations among those treated with ivermectin in Argentina, it should at minimum be seriously considered as an option to treat an otherwise untreatable disease. And if news stories from Africa, Indonesia, and Mexico City (see the next section) strongly suggest benefit from ivermectin use, at minimum ivermectin should be considered as a potential component of a treatment approach. And based on this information and the studies we shall explore below, there is no rational argument for forbidding ivermectin treatment when it might lower hospitalization rates by up to 350%, as it did in Argentina.
Let’s take a look at an example of an observational study, an important type of science.
The government in Mexico City decided to provide Covid Medical Kits to most people in the region who were beginning to get sick with covid. This information was provided to the news so that people would be aware and thus obtain the Medical Kits. One of the critical parts of the Kit was ivermectin.
A group of scientists decided to observe what might happen when people received this treatment, and then report on what they saw. Thus we get the term Observational Study.
And the news reported on the observations of the researchers.
The scientists published a science paper regarding this major project in Mexico City. Following is an early draft of the observational study they reported on.
The summary of this study says: “We found a significant reduction in hospitalizations among patients who received the ivermectin-based medical kit; the range of the effect (reduction in hospitalizations) is 52% - 76% depending on model specification.”
In other words, by the use of ivermectin as part of a larger combination of treatments, there was approximately a 60% reduction in hospitalizations.
Is this the most accurate science? Probably not. But it is a legitimate method of searching for better and better answers to this question: Is ivermectin helpful for covid?
This is not the esteemed double-blind, placebo-controlled type of study. But it is still a valid method of doing science - the goal of which is to have a better understanding of the way things work. And in this study, there was a large reduction in hospitalizations among those who had used ivermectin in combination with some other covid support.
Since there is no official early treatment for covid here in the US (except for the recent introduction of monoclonal antibodies), should we not be looking for possibly effective ways to treat early on? Remember the overwhelmed hospitals! Should we not learn from the use of the Covid Medical Kits in Mexico City? I think it’s a good idea to pay attention and follow the science - even if it is “only” an observational study.
In the next newsletter of our ivermectin series, we’ll explore a number of articles that come closer to being “hard science”. And these articles consistently demonstrate that ivermectin is a helpful treatment for covid. Our goal here is early treatment that can be helpful and effective. For sake of emphasis, I again repeat that hospitals are being overwhelmed with people sick with covid. And we are doing our best to help.
My goal in providing this information is:
Help individuals get better faster.
Help our overwhelmed hospital system so that they can better help the more resistant cases.
Help my patients understand some of the challenges in providing appropriate treatment.
And possibly help some practicing physicians explore the data out there regarding better ways of providing early, effective care.