The study failed to find evidence of teratogen effects in humans -- but did not pronounce ivermectin save for pregnant women because that's too risky, of course.
#Findings
We identified 147 records, of which only five observational studies and one RCT were included for quantitative analysis; these studies were published between 1990 and 2008, and were done in six African countries. 893 women with 899 pregancy outcomes were included, of whom 496 pregnant women (500 pregnancy outcomes) received ivermectin inadvertently during MDA campaigns in the observational studies and 397 pregnant women (399 pregnancy outcomes) purposely received ivermectin as part of the open-label RCT. No study reported neonatal deaths, maternal morbidity, preterm births, or low birthweight. It is unclear whether exposure to ivermectin during pregnancy increases the risk of spontaneous abortions and stillbirths (odds ratio [OR] 1·15 [95% CI 0·75–1·78] with very low certainty of evidence for the four observational studies and 0·62 [0·18–2·14] with very low certainty of evidence for the RCT) or congenital anomalies (OR 1·69 [95% CI 0·83–3·41] with very low certainty of evidence for the five observational studies and 1·10 [0·07–17·65] with very low certainty of evidence for the RCT).
#Interpretation
There is insufficient evidence to conclude on the safety profile of ivermectin during pregnancy. Treatment campaigns should focus additional efforts on preventing inadvertent treatment of pregnant women.
We looked to see if ivermectin causes birth defects, didn't find persuasive evidence of that.
But then, it's impossible to prove the negative, that ivermectin does NOT cause birth defects.
Just my opinion: 100s of millions of people have been taking ivermectin annually for decades. If birth defects were a problem, it would have shown up.
The study doesn't offer a suggestion that women were exposed to teratogenic levels of the drug, 10-100 times the normal dose. A single annual dose is required for the two parasite-control programs I am aware of. After 22 years of MDA (Mass Drug Administration) one would expect that the people administering the drug have methods for avoiding giving anyone 10 or 100 doses; that doesn't seem possible to me, that anyone would receive that many. This study doesn't speak to this issue.
[-] TrumpLyftAlles | 1 points | May 20 2020 03:46:16
The study failed to find evidence of teratogen effects in humans -- but did not pronounce ivermectin save for pregnant women because that's too risky, of course.
#Findings We identified 147 records, of which only five observational studies and one RCT were included for quantitative analysis; these studies were published between 1990 and 2008, and were done in six African countries. 893 women with 899 pregancy outcomes were included, of whom 496 pregnant women (500 pregnancy outcomes) received ivermectin inadvertently during MDA campaigns in the observational studies and 397 pregnant women (399 pregnancy outcomes) purposely received ivermectin as part of the open-label RCT. No study reported neonatal deaths, maternal morbidity, preterm births, or low birthweight. It is unclear whether exposure to ivermectin during pregnancy increases the risk of spontaneous abortions and stillbirths (odds ratio [OR] 1·15 [95% CI 0·75–1·78] with very low certainty of evidence for the four observational studies and 0·62 [0·18–2·14] with very low certainty of evidence for the RCT) or congenital anomalies (OR 1·69 [95% CI 0·83–3·41] with very low certainty of evidence for the five observational studies and 1·10 [0·07–17·65] with very low certainty of evidence for the RCT). #Interpretation There is insufficient evidence to conclude on the safety profile of ivermectin during pregnancy. Treatment campaigns should focus additional efforts on preventing inadvertent treatment of pregnant women.
We looked to see if ivermectin causes birth defects, didn't find persuasive evidence of that.
But then, it's impossible to prove the negative, that ivermectin does NOT cause birth defects.
Just my opinion: 100s of millions of people have been taking ivermectin annually for decades. If birth defects were a problem, it would have shown up.
The study doesn't offer a suggestion that women were exposed to teratogenic levels of the drug, 10-100 times the normal dose. A single annual dose is required for the two parasite-control programs I am aware of. After 22 years of MDA (Mass Drug Administration) one would expect that the people administering the drug have methods for avoiding giving anyone 10 or 100 doses; that doesn't seem possible to me, that anyone would receive that many. This study doesn't speak to this issue.
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