4 ms·

> Anything to avoid vaccination, but ivermectin and other risky drugs were no problem. This sort of language makes problems worse and even further decreases tr

> Anything to avoid vaccination, but ivermectin and other risky drugs were no problem. This sort of language makes problems worse and even further decreases trust. Casting a wide net and calling ivermectin a "risy drug" when a quick search engine query will show it is used safely in humans as an antiparasite drug. When someone who is skeptical about vaccines reads these sorts of blatant falsehoods why in the world would they believe anything else you say? If you wanted to warn people against using forms formulated for animal consumption then you could've just said that, instead you painted with a wide brush which justifies someone to not trust you.

ceejayoz 2y ago
> a quick search engine query will show it is used safely in humans as an antiparasite drug That just means it's safer than being infested with untreated parasites. It doesn't mean someone without worms should take it for funsies. Your same Google search will reveal ivermectin carries (as with almost any intervention) potential serious side effects. Doctors prescribing medication balance those risks with the potential benefits; it's why you don't get fentanyl (safe! effective! widely used!) for a papercut, even if it would be very helpful for the pain.
- TheFreim 2y ago
  I'm not promoting the consumption of ivermectin without a good reason. I've never had it myself, nor have I encouraged anyone else to take it for "funsies". Tylenol overdoses are relatively common and can even be deadly, but it would be a gross over-generalization to classify Tylenol as a "risky" drug. If you want people to take a drug in a proper setting, in proper amounts, to treat the relevant disease you should /just say that/ instead of trying to get people to think a generally safe drug isn't generally safe. If someone has a serious bacterial infection and thinks they just need Tylenol, I wouldn't tell them that "You shouldn't take Tylenol! It's risky!" instead I'd tell them that Tylenol won't help treat their disease.
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    Tylenol is absolutely a risky drug. https://www.propublica.org/article/tylenol-mcneil-fda-use-only-as-directed https://www.propublica.org/article/tylenol-mcneil-fda-use-on... > But the FDA says acetaminophen carries a special risk. About a quarter of Americans routinely take more over-the-counter pain relief pills of all kinds than they are supposed to, surveys show. That behavior is "particularly troublesome" for acetaminophen, an FDA report said, because the drug's narrow safety margin places "a large fraction of users close to a toxic dose in the ordinary course of use.” > Taken over several days, as little as 25 percent above the maximum daily dose – or just two additional extra strength pills a day – has been reported to cause liver damage, according to the agency. Taken all at once, a little less than four times the maximum daily dose can cause death. A comparable figure doesn't exist for ibuprofen, because so few people have died from overdosing on that drug. > From 2001 to 2010, annual acetaminophen-related deaths amounted to about twice the number attributed to all other over-the-counter pain relievers combined, according to the poison control data. > Acetaminophen overdose sends as many as 78,000 Americans to the emergency room annually and results in 33,000 hospitalizations a year, federal data shows. Acetaminophen is also the nation’s leading cause of acute liver failure, according to data from an ongoing study funded by the National Institutes for Health. > In fact, the FDA has still not completed the review of the drug that began back in the 1970s, as part of the agency’s larger mandate to assess the safety and efficacy of older medicines. > As the panel’s work was going on, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals weighed in on acetaminophen. The London-based Lancet declared in a 1975 editorial that if the drug “were discovered today it would not be approved” by British regulators. “It would certainly never be freely available without prescription.”
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  > Doctors prescribing medication balance those risks with the potential benefits except for the thousands of doctors who overprescribed opioids due to either ineptitude or their own benefit, or perhaps lack of alternatives yeah, the Sacklers are primarily at fault, but I think people forget that they weren't handing out these pills themselves on street corners, but that __doctors__ were handing them out, triggering the biggest health crisis in America
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    I’m not inclined to think cutting the doctors out of the equation and allowing everyone to self-prescribe would have made the opiate epidemic better.
    - insane_dreamer 2y ago
      I agree. I'm not saying the doctors were the primary problem. I am saying the doctors were complicit (knowingly or not).
marcosdumay 2y ago
On the doses people were recommending it's very clearly unsafe, known to have killed a few people, and marked so on the usage instructions.
- TheFreim 2y ago
  I agree, which is why someone should say "unsafe dosages of ivermectin" or "ivermectin in formulations unsafe for human consumption" instead of speaking of a widely used drug as per itself "unsafe" without qualification. Making over-generalized statements will lead to people rightly reject what you're saying, leaving room for them to be misinformed about the actual reality of the situation.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    Oh, I do agree with this.

ceejayoz 2y ago

> a quick search engine query will show it is used safely in humans as an antiparasite drug That just means it's safer than being infested with untreated parasites. It doesn't mean someone without worms should take it for funsies. Your same Google search will reveal ivermectin carries (as with almost any intervention) potential serious side effects. Doctors prescribing medication balance those risks with the potential benefits; it's why you don't get fentanyl (safe! effective! widely used!) for a papercut, even if it would be very helpful for the pain.

TheFreim 2y ago
I'm not promoting the consumption of ivermectin without a good reason. I've never had it myself, nor have I encouraged anyone else to take it for "funsies". Tylenol overdoses are relatively common and can even be deadly, but it would be a gross over-generalization to classify Tylenol as a "risky" drug. If you want people to take a drug in a proper setting, in proper amounts, to treat the relevant disease you should /just say that/ instead of trying to get people to think a generally safe drug isn't generally safe. If someone has a serious bacterial infection and thinks they just need Tylenol, I wouldn't tell them that "You shouldn't take Tylenol! It's risky!" instead I'd tell them that Tylenol won't help treat their disease.
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  Tylenol is absolutely a risky drug. https://www.propublica.org/article/tylenol-mcneil-fda-use-only-as-directed https://www.propublica.org/article/tylenol-mcneil-fda-use-on... > But the FDA says acetaminophen carries a special risk. About a quarter of Americans routinely take more over-the-counter pain relief pills of all kinds than they are supposed to, surveys show. That behavior is "particularly troublesome" for acetaminophen, an FDA report said, because the drug's narrow safety margin places "a large fraction of users close to a toxic dose in the ordinary course of use.” > Taken over several days, as little as 25 percent above the maximum daily dose – or just two additional extra strength pills a day – has been reported to cause liver damage, according to the agency. Taken all at once, a little less than four times the maximum daily dose can cause death. A comparable figure doesn't exist for ibuprofen, because so few people have died from overdosing on that drug. > From 2001 to 2010, annual acetaminophen-related deaths amounted to about twice the number attributed to all other over-the-counter pain relievers combined, according to the poison control data. > Acetaminophen overdose sends as many as 78,000 Americans to the emergency room annually and results in 33,000 hospitalizations a year, federal data shows. Acetaminophen is also the nation’s leading cause of acute liver failure, according to data from an ongoing study funded by the National Institutes for Health. > In fact, the FDA has still not completed the review of the drug that began back in the 1970s, as part of the agency’s larger mandate to assess the safety and efficacy of older medicines. > As the panel’s work was going on, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals weighed in on acetaminophen. The London-based Lancet declared in a 1975 editorial that if the drug “were discovered today it would not be approved” by British regulators. “It would certainly never be freely available without prescription.”
insane_dreamer 2y ago
> Doctors prescribing medication balance those risks with the potential benefits except for the thousands of doctors who overprescribed opioids due to either ineptitude or their own benefit, or perhaps lack of alternatives yeah, the Sacklers are primarily at fault, but I think people forget that they weren't handing out these pills themselves on street corners, but that __doctors__ were handing them out, triggering the biggest health crisis in America
- ceejayoz 2y ago
  I’m not inclined to think cutting the doctors out of the equation and allowing everyone to self-prescribe would have made the opiate epidemic better.
  - insane_dreamer 2y ago
    I agree. I'm not saying the doctors were the primary problem. I am saying the doctors were complicit (knowingly or not).

marcosdumay 2y ago

On the doses people were recommending it's very clearly unsafe, known to have killed a few people, and marked so on the usage instructions.

TheFreim 2y ago
I agree, which is why someone should say "unsafe dosages of ivermectin" or "ivermectin in formulations unsafe for human consumption" instead of speaking of a widely used drug as per itself "unsafe" without qualification. Making over-generalized statements will lead to people rightly reject what you're saying, leaving room for them to be misinformed about the actual reality of the situation.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  Oh, I do agree with this.