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Ivermectin probably doesn't do anything to fight Covid-19, but the American media has really shown their corruption in the way they've treated it. It's clearly
by rory 5y ago
Ivermectin probably doesn't do anything to fight Covid-19, but the American media has really shown their corruption in the way they've treated it.
It's clearly a safe drug to take in human-designed doses, and it's cheap to produce. Laughing at people for poisoning themselves with "horse dewormer" instead of pointing out that they are turning to the vet store because their access to medicine has been marginalized is sick.
And maybe it does help, I don't know. Unproven != disproven.
- tptacek 5y agoIt matters a lot if ivermectin doesn't do anything to stop C19, even if it is otherwise safe (it surely is, dosed professionally). People take ivermectin instead of vaccinating or complying with NPIs. If ivermectin doesn't work, that is a very, very big deal.
- rory 5y ago> People take ivermectin instead of vaccinating or complying with NPIs Doing one thing but not another doesn't imply you're doing one thing instead of another. Do you truly believe the people ODing on ivermectin would be lining up for vaccinations if it didn't exist?
- myrmidon 5y agoLining up? Not necessarily. But it seems almost certain to me that at least some people feel safe thanks to taking ivermectin (while distrusting mainstream vaccines), and those people would turn eventually to the vaccines if those were the only perceived path towards C19 safety.
- rory 5y agoPerhaps on the margin some would, but I suspect most would fall into the "natural immunity" camp. So in my mind, we need to weigh the damage done by blocking safe ivermectin use for some number of people to the damage done by a much-smaller number of people remaining unvaccinated when they otherwise would get the jab. Seems like it could go either way depending on your specific assumptions.
- threecheese 5y agoOne doesn't imply the other, but it is certainly happening. People are using (being led to use) ivermectin as a prophylactic against covid, an alternative to the vaccine.
- tptacek 5y agoI don't know what this is supposed to mean, but a close family member took ivermectin instead of being vaccinated, and caught a serious case.
- rory 5y agoIt's pretty simple: had ivermectin not existed, would that person have gotten vaccinated?
- throwaway123450 5y agoWould it be big deal if they said the vaccines would stop covid and then they didn't?
- ashtonkem 5y agoPeople are literally taking horse formulations of ivermectin because doctors are rightfully refusing to prescribe ivermectin for an off label and ineffective use. Oh, and the access to this medicine is “marginalized” BECAUSE IT DOESNT WORK TO TREAT COVID. We generally do not expect doctors to prescribe medicine that will not work or is not appropriate for the patients condition. Complaining about their access being marginalized is like complaining that my doctor is marginalizing my access to Ketamine because I don’t need it. It’s not “corruption” to point that out.
- rory 5y agoAlthough it has more dangers than ivermectin, why shouldn't you have access to ketamine if you feel it helps you? A lot of people believe it has off-label benefits for their mental health, and maybe it does. Perhaps we just have different general perspectives on the individual and society.
- dionian 5y agoI suspect most people would disagree, and I think I might too, but it's curious to examine the arguments and justifications for disagreeing
- shapefrog 5y agoWhy not all drugs of all types. Why call it an opiod crisis and not just here is what happens when you give everyone whatever drugs they hear on the internet make you feel good? First you deny someone ivermectin, next minute you are saying only 1 oxycotin with your beer.
- rory 5y agoThe important difference between these drugs is that opiates are incredibly addictive, while ketamine is less addictive than tobacco or alcohol. Ivermectin isn't addictive at all. Ironically, the opioid crisis is caused far more by people's trust in mainstream medicine than by any internet fad.
- shadowgovt 5y agoHow many users have been taking it in human-designed doses, given that it's not generally prescribed for COVID-19 (and therefore those who are taking it for that purpose are mostly self-medicating)?
- buescher 5y agoFortunately for me, I know next to nothing about ivermectin, except that the American left is very, very concerned people might be taking it, and I don't know of anyone actually taking it that doesn't have a radio show or podcast. So in my ignorance I would guess very few people are actually taking it and a lot of people are talking about it.
- jdsfighter 5y agoAlternate data point, I live in one of the major cities in Oklahoma. I work for a mostly blue collar shop. The overwhelming majority of our workers are unvaccinated, and I'd say a large fraction of them are very vocal about their use of ivermectin.
- davidw 5y agoPeople are turning up in hospitals because they've OD'd on it.
- swader999 5y agoNo they aren't. All of those reports have been retracted.
- davidw 5y agohttps://news.ohsu.edu/2021/09/17/five-oregonians-hospitalized-due-to-misuse-of-ivermectin-for-covid-19 https://news.ohsu.edu/2021/09/17/five-oregonians-hospitalize... doesn't look retracted to me. Only stands to reason that if people are taking it kind of randomly, a few are going to screw up and take too much.
- gdulli 5y agoThe "horse dewormer" aspect is definitely a red herring, while the underlying problem is the choice to self-medicate based on culture war status of vaccines vs. talk-show-host-endorsed drugs. And the inevitable overdoses resulting from that. The media is not wrong to discourage this type of self-medication. But access to the vaccines here is free and widespread now, so while we could talk all day about problems with access to health care in this country, it doesn't apply here. People may be choosing to distrust the vaccines and thus triggering a shortage of beds and treatment that they themselves will later need.
- soperj 5y agoTheir access to the vaccine hasn't been marginalized.
- shrubble 5y agoIncidentally, approximately 11 to 14% of the USA population has pinworms, which can be easily stopped by ivermectin. Given the very high level of safety of ivermectin, it might make sense to make it easier to get on this basis alone.
- davidw 5y agoThe actual vaccine is free, though. Edit: we can talk plenty about how bad the US health care system is, but in this case, the actual vaccine, that does a fantastic job of protecting people from COVID, is free in that you don't have to spend a dime out of pocket.
- swader999 5y agoIf you pay my taxes it is.
- hellotomyrars 5y agoIf vaccines weren’t so political across the same divide as free/socialized healthcare people might actually realize that it isn’t the end of the world or the American way of life to have access to healthcare. Oh well.
- tootie 5y agoOn The Media did a really good segment with a journalist from Mother Jones of all places. She broke down the rise of Ivermectin and the whiplash response to demonize it even when, as you say, it is safe for human consumption and had at least some positive in vitro test results. As much as it is not worthy of being recommended as a treatment, it's unlikely to be harmful and has/had at least a slim chance of working. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/how-ivermectin-became-politicized-on-the-media https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/how-iverme...
- rualca 5y ago> As much as it is not worthy of being recommended as a treatment, it's unlikely to be harmful and has/had at least a slim chance of working. Keep in mind that Ivermectin is being pushed within antivaxers circles as a prophylactic and the true COVID-19 cure, in contrast with all COVID-19 vaccines and even mask mandates. Thus it's false to claim that this push towards Ivermectin is harmless as, at best, it's pushed as a placebo that empowers vulnerable people to catch and spread the disease, which ultimately means they are harming themselves and everyone around them.
- tootie 5y agoThat's not the argument though. Listen to the segment. Giving people false hope and baseless medical advice is one thing, but the anti-ivermectin crowd was going overboard including amplifying specious stories about rampant ivermectin poisoning. Ivermectin is absolutely prescribed to humans for some conditions and is being actively studied as an anti-viral agent against other illnesses (notably dengue and yellow fever). Doctors can prescribe it to patients unable to be vaccinated within their discretion. The debate here is that you can't counter one form of misinformation with your own or else nobody is credible.
- rualca 5y ago> That's not the argument though. It's not the argument? It is a statement of fact. There is no way around it. Consuming a placebo to subsequently validate and provide incentives to put yourself and others at risk is the whole reason why Ivermectin poses a major problem. No one complains that people take paracetamol even though it is not effective at reducing Covid19 spread. Why is that?
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoThe vaccine is free, so I'm confused about where you get that this is an access issue.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y agoIt's not free. It's a massive wealth transfer from the working class to the same pharma companies that charge $600 for insulin. We paid for it.
- VikingCoder 5y ago> Unproven != disproven. How many people have been convinced by the supposed effectiveness of Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine that they then decided to not get vaccinated? It's really not as simple as "unproven != disproven".
- rajin444 5y agoHow many people were convinced of the "95+%" effectiveness of the vaccine only to learn that it fades? Why weren't they told it would fade up front?
- robbiep 5y agoFirstly, it wasn’t at all clear how quickly antibody levels would fall, because the data wasn’t available. But it was clear to everybody with scientific literacy that antibody levels would fall over time, because that’s how immune responses work. What’s been fascinating about the data arising from Pfizer, moderne and astra Zeneca dosing intervals is that it seems quite likely that the spacing is quite to highly responsible for this rather than something inherent to the formulation which is adding to our body of evidence and understanding
- unreal37 5y agoI certainly knew last year, as we were watching the stage-1 stage-2 trial results come out, that "how long it lasts" was not known. The news was even saying, it may need to be renewed every few years. And I'm not really a big follower of science. I just assumed it was like "the flu shot" which you need to get every year.
- SnowProblem 5y agoIn my estimation, probably fewer than authorities think. US Census collect data on reasons for vaccine hesitancy [1]. #1 and #3 are distrust - of vaccines and of government - which anecdotally matches my network. If that's the case, then we should expect that mischaracterizing treatments to promote vaccines [2] would not be very effective, and most Western countries now are leveling off fairly low in their vaccination rates [3]. But rather than more honesty, we're getting more mandates. I think Dr. John's Cambell's position, of honest assessment, would have been better as the official position [4]. It's hard to imagine how trust could be regained now though without some sort of reckoning. 1. https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/household-pulse-survey-covid-19-vaccination-tracker.html https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/ho... 2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gndsUjgPYo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gndsUjgPYo 3. https://youtu.be/hVtX7tY1B0U?t=210 https://youtu.be/hVtX7tY1B0U?t=210 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO9cjy3Rydc&t=600 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO9cjy3Rydc&t=600
- p1necone 5y agoThere's thousands of safe medications that probably do nothing to stop covid. Just because one of them has been latched on to by right wing nutjobs doesn't mean it makes any sense for people to take that over the stuff that's actually been shown to help.
- ufo 5y agoThe human-designated dose of ivermectin is usually a one-time dose. One of the problems is that not only have some people use non-human doses, but there are also many who are on a continuous regimen of ivermectin. That can also be dangerous, because it is not how the drug was designed to be used!