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During an interview yesterday with 6PR Mornings, Emeritus Professor Robert Clancy, an immunologist, claimed the following:

There are many, many countries around the world that now, everybody gets either Ivermectin and/or Hydroxychloroquine. And when they introduced these drugs as standard treatment the mortality just dropped. This is very well documented, and it's all on the web if you want to chase it. Countries like Brazil, some of the other South American countries, and now it's been introduced to some of the western countries, starting in Slovenia, just last week. And the American authorities are now changing their view, particularly with Ivermectin. The NIH has really re-looked at this.

Well, I definitely want to "chase" it, but when I looked for evidence for trials and case studies all I could find was evidence that these drugs were not effective in improving COVID-19 symptoms.

This guy was a senior immunologist, so I don't want to just discard what he's saying though. Where is this evidence he is referring to?

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    Something to keep in mind here--this guy is retired and about 80. How relevant are his credentials at this point??
    – Loren Pechtel
    Feb 5, 2021 at 0:41
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    Also, correlation vs causation. Mortality sure dropped over the summer (in the northern hemisphere) etc. It may have dropped for completely different reasons. Thus Clancy's argument, even if true as stated, is largely irrelevant given the controlled studies which he's ignoring.
    – Fizz
    Feb 5, 2021 at 1:02
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    So basically this dude just got on radio and made up a bunch of BS, effectively throwing his reputation and that of his uni under the bus? I mean, I'm not saying that's implausible but it makes me angry to think someone would abuse the respect their role affords them in that way. How is the public supposed to form a rational opinion on these topics when not even academics can be trusted... Gargh..
    – quant
    Feb 7, 2021 at 11:06
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    This is absolutely not true for Brazil, as mortality rates are still going up. Both of those medications were introduced very early and did absolutely nothing to hold the advance of the disease.
    – T. Sar
    Feb 14, 2021 at 2:22
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    "it's all on the web if you want to chase it" is one of those "do your research, sheeple" pointers. Anyone who says that is not a notable source, surely?
    – RedSonja
    Feb 17, 2021 at 12:00

2 Answers 2

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Kind of a rough answer to verify the statement here:

...when they introduced these drugs as standard treatment the mortality just dropped. This is very well documented, and it's all on the web if you want to chase it. Countries like Brazil, some of the other South American countries...

Here's a list of regions where ivermectin is regularly administered to the general public, which have seen lower Covid death rates:

This simply meant to verify the doctor's statement of correlation; causation has not been proven.

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    Just looking at the first study, it concludes that there is no benefit. Sorry if I missed something, but this seems to be the opposite of the premise of your answer. I didn't read the other studies.
    – quant
    Feb 7, 2021 at 22:46
  • You're correct, that was a HCQ study where most patients did not get ivermectin. Removing it and revising now
    – Avery
    Feb 7, 2021 at 22:49
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    I'm not sure that this selection of confirming examples really verifies a correlation. What about those regions where Ivermectin was administered without a clear effect? With regard to the Mexico tweet, in how far does that prove the point? The surrounding Mexican regions also showed a massive decrease in deaths even though they didn't distribute Ivermectin (they're not represented in bright green, though... coincidence?). Doesn't that speak against the correlation?
    – Schmuddi
    Feb 8, 2021 at 8:34
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    How do you know what the real level of infection or death was in those countries? Tanzania, for example, currently claims, somewhat implausibly, to be free of covid. Neither the key statistics of actual drug administration (as opposed to policy) or mortality are reliable in many of them. Not a good basis for an important result.
    – matt_black
    Feb 9, 2021 at 10:01
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    That article reads like a hit piece to me -- it claims other studies failed to reproduce one of Marik's previous protocols, but only cites studies that don't actually reproduce the protocol. The headline claims "physicians spurn randomized trials" but if you scroll down you'll see that the physicians cite no fewer than nine RCTs. It would be nice to have a skeptical article that doesn't stoop to this level of name calling.
    – Avery
    Feb 9, 2021 at 15:22
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This peer-reviewed paper from Reviews of Cardiovascular Medicine in Dec 2020 lists (and links) to studies in 23 countries: Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Egypt, France, Ghana, India, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, Mozanbique, Nigeria, Peru, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Uganda, USA.

Here is a list of 247 HCQ studies, 203 comparing treatment and control groups.

Here is a list of 58 Ivermectin COVID-19 studies, 22 peer reviewed, 38 with results comparing treatment and control groups. Here is a different list for Ivermectin showing the countries involved.

Trialsite News also has links.

This should be a good starting point for your chase.

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    And here's one study why HCQ can't work against Covid-19 in the relevant cells: journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/…
    – Fizz
    Feb 12, 2021 at 13:54
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    There are many studies that show that it cannot work. All these studies are worthless because there are studies showing that it works in practice. That is what science is about. Compare with the relativity theory.
    – user58549
    Feb 14, 2021 at 5:12
  • The comment is addressed to @Fizz.
    – user58549
    Feb 14, 2021 at 7:16
  • @Fizz what's the relationship of this with relativity theory?
    – quant
    Feb 18, 2021 at 21:04
  • @quant: I suspect you wanted to ask dodd this question.
    – Fizz
    Feb 18, 2021 at 21:06

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