6 ms·

And in the meantime, if you buy into the crazed insanity of "pandemic! pandemic! omg we'll all die", then it makes tonnes of sense to treat people with a highly

And in the meantime, if you buy into the crazed insanity of "pandemic! pandemic! omg we'll all die", then it makes tonnes of sense to treat people with a highly-available, incredibly safe medication that frontline clinicians all over earth are reporting success with, especially a drug that has been dosed ~4 billion times over two generations, that has been most often dosed by illiterate people and delivered by non-doctor NGO workers.

burkaman 5y ago
I guess the reason doctors aren't prescribing Ivermectin is that they don't buy into "crazed insanity" and don't feel the need to try anything that might work. And I can only speak for myself, but the attitude I'm seeing is "a lot of people are dying and we should try to work together as a society to stop that from happening", not "omg we're all gonna die".
danaris 5y ago
Penicillin is also a highly-available, incredibly safe medication that's been given billions of times. It still doesn't make any sense to try giving it to COVID patients, because there's no reasonable way it would actually help them. Just because a particular medication is unlikely to kill you doesn't mean it's a good idea to promote its use against a particular threat, when that threat is completely unrelated to what the medication actually does. Penicillin is an antibacterial. Ivermectin is an antiparasitic. Neither of these are likely to be helpful against a virus.
- twofornone 5y ago
  There is a known mechanism by which ivermectin is expected to work against covid - it inhibits the protease family of enzymes. Incedentally, Pfizer is developing a new (read: expensive and on patent) covid drug which also happens to work via the same mechanism. So the fact that ivermectin is an antiparasitic is irrelevant, as is the comparison to penicillin.
- anshorei 5y ago
  Ivermectin has research going back to the mid-2000's showing it has anti-viral properties. EDIT: Thought I'd come across a study indicating that from 2006, but I can't seem to find it. Let's settle on mid 2010's instead because the point is mostly that there was research showing anti-viral properties before the pandemic started, and therefore it was a very logical thing for frontline doctors to try on their patients.
- flavius29663 5y ago
  Sorry, but you are wrong. Antibiotics are used in the treatment of severe viral infections, because your body is not able to fight secondary infections with bacteria very well. Antibiotics are given to help your body in cases of bad viral infections. Covid-19 is no exception. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30444-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1... The point is: there are more mechanisms by which our body can be helped fight covid, and the Ivermectin proponents say that it works only in the early days of the infection, not like a full cure. There are more ways to fight this disease, you are aware that the virus itself is not what's killing most people, right? Most people die because their body overreacts to the virus and damages the lungs (that is why standard treatment includes steroids to calm down the antibodies). A drug doesn't have to kill off the virus to win. I have no idea if Ivermectin is helpful or not, but the trashing in the media (even calling it horse dewormer - while it's a human drug as well) before there is any proof against it is just bad, it makes me think there are ulterior motives for this.
tigershark 5y ago
Chillies have been used for thousands of years as a medication and they are perfectly safe. You may want to follow the advice of someone else in this thread and shove them up your ass. For sure they will have less side effects than ivermectin and they have exactly the same chance of curing covid. And for your information the covid vaccines have been administered 6 billion times, so roughly 50% more than the number that you cited about ivermectin.

burkaman 5y ago

I guess the reason doctors aren't prescribing Ivermectin is that they don't buy into "crazed insanity" and don't feel the need to try anything that might work. And I can only speak for myself, but the attitude I'm seeing is "a lot of people are dying and we should try to work together as a society to stop that from happening", not "omg we're all gonna die".

danaris 5y ago

Penicillin is also a highly-available, incredibly safe medication that's been given billions of times. It still doesn't make any sense to try giving it to COVID patients, because there's no reasonable way it would actually help them. Just because a particular medication is unlikely to kill you doesn't mean it's a good idea to promote its use against a particular threat, when that threat is completely unrelated to what the medication actually does. Penicillin is an antibacterial. Ivermectin is an antiparasitic. Neither of these are likely to be helpful against a virus.

twofornone 5y ago
There is a known mechanism by which ivermectin is expected to work against covid - it inhibits the protease family of enzymes. Incedentally, Pfizer is developing a new (read: expensive and on patent) covid drug which also happens to work via the same mechanism. So the fact that ivermectin is an antiparasitic is irrelevant, as is the comparison to penicillin.
anshorei 5y ago
Ivermectin has research going back to the mid-2000's showing it has anti-viral properties. EDIT: Thought I'd come across a study indicating that from 2006, but I can't seem to find it. Let's settle on mid 2010's instead because the point is mostly that there was research showing anti-viral properties before the pandemic started, and therefore it was a very logical thing for frontline doctors to try on their patients.
flavius29663 5y ago
Sorry, but you are wrong. Antibiotics are used in the treatment of severe viral infections, because your body is not able to fight secondary infections with bacteria very well. Antibiotics are given to help your body in cases of bad viral infections. Covid-19 is no exception. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30444-7/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1... The point is: there are more mechanisms by which our body can be helped fight covid, and the Ivermectin proponents say that it works only in the early days of the infection, not like a full cure. There are more ways to fight this disease, you are aware that the virus itself is not what's killing most people, right? Most people die because their body overreacts to the virus and damages the lungs (that is why standard treatment includes steroids to calm down the antibodies). A drug doesn't have to kill off the virus to win. I have no idea if Ivermectin is helpful or not, but the trashing in the media (even calling it horse dewormer - while it's a human drug as well) before there is any proof against it is just bad, it makes me think there are ulterior motives for this.

tigershark 5y ago

Chillies have been used for thousands of years as a medication and they are perfectly safe. You may want to follow the advice of someone else in this thread and shove them up your ass. For sure they will have less side effects than ivermectin and they have exactly the same chance of curing covid. And for your information the covid vaccines have been administered 6 billion times, so roughly 50% more than the number that you cited about ivermectin.