Firstly, I wanted to add a link for those doing research on IVM to this meta-analysis which is well-conducted, well-researched, and continually updated, though, due to the way it is updated, it is not peer-reviewed or published (though obviously the work they include in the meta is peer-reviewed and published).
IVM Meta link
As I'm reading this one, a few thoughts:
This is a literature review. It is not definitive "proof" of anything. Only randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials (RCTs) can prove causation. Observational studies can only prove correlation.
The journal itself is legit. Always verify your sources. This one is supported by Wolters-Kluwer which is an institution in pharmacology. They publish the textbooks. They maintain the Lexicomp drug database. These people are serious people, not a fly-by-night journal that publishes anything they get their hands on.
The lead author doesn't seem to be a practicing physician. He's a former critical care specialist who now works for the controversial Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) which has become a target of the usually leftist hate machine. His CV can be found at FLCCC's website here. Always be skeptical when politically active people instead of practicing physicians write such articles, due to possibility of bias. Use discernment.
The actual RCTs they're citing in the review are all small, and some show mixed results. It's not strong evidence, and any properly trained physician would be skeptical here. It looks promising, but we'd all want a big, well-conducted RCT to point to and we don't have that yet.
Their meta-analysis is helpful, but with such a small number of RCTs, it has to be carefully considered. The other meta-analysis I linked to is better, IMO, though I suspect the difference is the lag in getting something edited, peer-reviewed, and actually published (often takes months).
The Forest plots looks better for time to recovery (only 1 crosses unity) than for mortality (several RCTs cross unity, meaning their results may be random chance).
Their studies for prophylaxis look the best and yet they didn't do a Forest plot for that. I don't understand that decision. It would have seemed to be a slam dunk they'd want to include.
CDC hasn't updated their recommendations in over 6 months. They're not looking for cures. They're swatting them down. NIH isn't funding much in terms of new research either. Reading through clinicaltrials.gov, there are only 6-7 trials being conducted in the US at all. They're all small, all combination therapies, nothing that's going to definitively answer the question any time soon. Given the literally tens of billions of dollars at stake here, you'd think it'd be a higher priority to test a cheap, readily available, and generally safe drug, whose production can easily be scaled up to meet a global demand.
If I were looking at this review for any other treatment for any other disease, I'd use the word "promising" rather than anything reflecting certainty to describe IVM as a treatment. And I'd want more study data, specifically bigger studies and studies done in Western populations (most of these are done in the 3rd world, so we're seeing a significant demographic bias).
Firstly, I wanted to add a link for those doing research on IVM to this meta-analysis which is well-conducted, well-researched, and continually updated, though, due to the way it is updated, it is not peer-reviewed or published (though obviously the work they include in the meta is peer-reviewed and published). IVM Meta link
As I'm reading this one, a few thoughts:
If I were looking at this review for any other treatment for any other disease, I'd use the word "promising" rather than anything reflecting certainty to describe IVM as a treatment. And I'd want more study data, specifically bigger studies and studies done in Western populations (most of these are done in the 3rd world, so we're seeing a significant demographic bias).