Worm Trial

A crowdfunded online clinical trial in Australia is issuing animal wormer as part of its treatment package.

The ‘Primary Care Australian COVID-19 Therapeutics (PAC) Trial’, organised by not-for-profit Lumina Medical Research, recently said it had raised more than $150,000 to cover the trial.

Participants sign up via website after testing positive for COVID and receive a treatment of drugs which includes ivermectin – the animal wormer championed by conspiracy theorists and vaccine sceptics, despite the fact that numerous large, credible studies worldwide have shown that it is not an effective treatment for COVID.

In fact the FDA has received many reports of patients who have required medical attention, including hospitalisation after self-medicating with the drug which is intended only for livestock.

The team behind the study say that it’s actually about assessing the effectiveness of Famotidine – an over the counter heartburn treatment – as part of a COVID-19 treatment. Everyone who’s enrolled is treated with ivermectin, antibiotic doxycycline, vitamins C and D and zinc. One University of New South Wales researcher has stated that there’s no evidence that this cocktail of drugs will work given the lack of a true, random blind study.

However, some Australians have been posting online about the loophole which allows them to access ivermectin legally and have clearly been contributing financially. The trial organisers say that the money raised so far will cover 300 participants aim to fundraise to cover 200 more. “Lumina Medical Research, with its community based origins and spirit, has been funded by generous members of the community. We have not received any funding from the pharmaceutical industry or lobby groups,” it said.

The trial, which is registered officially and has received ethics approval, claims to have registered 44 patients in a month but no results have yet been published.