A journal editor is defending his decision to publish a new paper showing that ivermectin can prevent Covid-19, despite more than a dozen retractions of such papers from the literature.
The article, “Regular Use of Ivermectin as Prophylaxis for COVID-19 Led Up to a 92% Reduction in COVID-19 Mortality Rate in a Dose-Response Manner: Results of a Prospective Observational Study of a Strictly Controlled Population of 88,012 Subjects,” appeared in Cureus August 31.
The authors included Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist better known as the leader of the Front-Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, based in Madison, Wis. Kory has been an active promoter of the use of ivermectin and other questionable remedies for Covid-19 – even testifying before Congress about his ideas – although his most high-profile paper on the topic was retracted last November.
Another author, Flavio Cadegiani, had a paper about another potential treatment for COVID-19 retracted earlier this year.
The new ivermectin paper immediately drew flak on social media, including from Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, who described a number of weaknesses in the work, starting with the inaccurate title:
In response to our query about the article, John Adler Jr., the editor-in-chief of the journal, wrote:
This article was carefully reviewed and not found to have any substantial methodological flaws. We live in dangerous times when censorship is routinely advocated for unpopular scientific ideas. I trust that is not what you are advocating?
We asked Adler for the peer reviews. He demurred, but told us:
Cureus uses a reviewer commenting tool that is embedded inside the HTML article view page…..it is akin to making detailed comments on a paper document with a pen (our reviewers love it which makes our review process appreciably more efficient than other journals). Ultimately at the end reviewers also generate a short summary review similar to most other journals. Suffice it to say 2 reviewers wrote laudatory detailed reviews and recommended publication. One reviewer was far more critical focusing on the very criticisms/limitations the authors themselves enumerated and they did not recommend publication. A 4th reviewer had laudatory embedded comments (inside the reviewer tool) but did not “finish” their review. Regardless, given Cureus standard of “credible science” we deemed the article worthy of publication and of course post publication it is readily available for comments and scoring (SIQ) by all interested readers, you included.
Kory did not respond to a request for comment. Cadegiani has responded to some critiques of the paper left on Cureus.
Cureus isn’t afraid to flirt with controversy. In May, the journal published an article by Brian Wansink, the food marketing researcher who resigned from Cornell after a finding of misconduct – although Adler said he was unaware of Wansink’s track record at the time. And Adler has also said that “amateur bullshit” is the price of democratizing the scholarly literature.
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That editor-in-chief’s attitude is disgraceful.
The 92% positive effect rate didn’t raise any eyebrows? (I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence and scrutiny)
I’d say the fact that the title contained a falsehood (this was not a prospective study – let’s not even discuss the “strictly controlled population”) should have raised eyebrows.
Sounds like such a lovely person.
Cureus is not a journal. It is basically a self-publishing blog site. No respectable scientist would ever reference anything from there.
From their webpage: “Average time to first decision: 1.7 days.”
Yikes. This is not a positive attribute for a journal. If anything, speaks volumes about their lack of selection rigor.
So 3 of 4 reviewers all made “laudatory” comments? Follow the money?
My thoughts exactly. But it would not surprise me if reviewers are from other adjacent fields or incredibly young (in academic age, that is).
In addition to the above:
… and what about determining how many had prior COVID exposure and immunity?
… and the placebo?
The main issue with the paper is the way they define “regular users”. People were told to stop using ivermectin when they tested positive, and you could only become a “regular user” if you used ivermectin for 4 months (or thereabouts). This means you exclude all those on ivermectin who *did* test positive within this time frame.
In other words, a regular user was someone who did not test positive, rather than vice versa.
Fantastic that this is left to stand on it’s merits. Society is slowly seeing the c19 abuse come crumbling down. But it will still be extremely difficult to convince people they were fooled.
Can’t wait for the next article on the newest c19 experimental cocktail they tested only on 8-12 mice!
The bias here is disturbing. And where that bias came from.
You’re actually trying to get scientific research retracted based on what exactly?
What’s the justification?
X number of other papers were retracted? About ivermectin? Okay.
1. So what’s your point?
2. How many weren’t?
3. What did the unretracted papers report?
Also, I’m curious if anyone is willing to look at the retractions. Maybe Retraction Watch would like to demonstrate some scientific rigor and integrity and take a look. Just read them. The notices I mean.
I’ll give you a hint. Find the retraction that was perpetrated by the “Founding Editor” of the journal. Read that notice, and tell me if you’ve ever in your life seen a retraction like that, on that basis, if we can even identify the basis.
There’s no substitute for direct engagement with reality. In science, that means reading the papers. Having random beliefs shaped by media coverage and gist-level processing is ridiculous.