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Flawed ivermectin preprint highlights challenges of COVID drug studies

The study’s withdrawal from a preprint platform deals a blow to the anti-parasite drug’s chances as a COVID treatment, researchers say.
  1. Sara Reardon
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Throughout the pandemic, the anti-parasite drug ivermectin has attracted much attention, particularly in Latin America, as a potential way to treat COVID-19. But scientists say that recent, shocking revelations of widespread flaws in the data of a preprint study reporting that the medication greatly reduces COVID-19 deaths dampens ivermectin’s promise — and highlights the challenges of investigating drug efficacy during a pandemic.

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Nature 596, 173-174 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02081-w

References

  1. Elgazzar, A. et al. Preprint at Research Square https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-100956/v3 (2020).

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