Sep 19, 2021

Chris and Jonathan speak to two guests about the slow collapse of the body of evidence on ivermectin for COVID-19, with a particular focus on the oft-cited Elgazzar randomized controlled trial. Their first guest is Jack Lawrence, a Master’s student and disinformation researcher, who took the Elgazzar paper apart, finding evidence of plagiarism and of potential data fraud. Their second guest is Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, an epidemiologist, who appraised the Elgazzar study, the Carvallo “study,” and many others, and who reveals some of the telltale signs of scientific fraud.

Guest #1: Jack Lawrence

3:06 Jack reads the Elgazzar study

5:55 A plagiarized introduction

7:46 The paper’s claims

11:57 Skimming a paper versus actively looking for fraud

24:45 Deaths didn’t add up

31:23 The Guardian’s coverage

36:10 A broken system

Guest #2: Gid M-K

41:28 Most likely a fraud

46:34 Is this dataset real?

52:41 The Carvallo “study” may never have taken place as described

58:11 IVMMeta.com, an anonymous pseudoscientific website

1:04:16 Churning out bad meta-analyses

1:07:07 Gid’s verdict on ivermectin for COVID-19

1:12:23 Maintaining trust in science in the face of fraud

* Theme music: “Fall of the Ocean Queen“ by Joseph Hackl.

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Links:

1) Jack Lawrence on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JackMLawrence

2) Jack Lawrence’s TimPoolClips account: https://twitter.com/TimPoolClips

3) Jack Lawrence’s blog post on the Elgazzar paper: https://grftr.news/why-was-a-major-study-on-ivermectin-for-covid-19-just-retracted/

4) Gid M-K on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GidMK

5) Gid M-K’s podcast, Sensationalist Science: https://soundcloud.com/senscipod

6) Gid M-K’s first blog post on the ivermectin saga: https://elemental.medium.com/ivermectin-for-covid-19-an-update-5e913bb49483

7) The Elgazzar study: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-100956/v3

8) Nick Brown’s blog post about the Elgazzar study: https://steamtraen.blogspot.com/2021/07/Some-problems-with-the-data-from-a-Covid-study.html

9) The Guardian’s coverage of the Elgazzar study: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-supporting-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-withdrawn-over-ethical-concerns

10) The BuzzFeed investigation into the Carvallo “study”: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/ivermectin-covid-study-suspect-data

11) IVMMeta website: https://ivmmeta.com/