Ivermectin and COVID – Who gets to decide the truth?

This posting is really about the utter insanity that is prevailing regarding Ivermectin. Before I dive into that I have a small story.

When I got my first car I simply did not have the funds to take it to the shop when it needed something done, so I thought “How hard can it be”, and decided to give it a go myself. My first attempt to change the brake pads cost me most of the day. I really had no clue and so I plodded away slowly. If I’d known what I was doing, it would have taken just 30 mins. Later, while driving somewhere … clunk clunk clunk … a wheel was coming off … literally. My immediate reaction was “oh dear”. Well OK, my actual turn of phrase consisted of some familiar anglo-saxon terms. I’d failed to tighten something correctly. A friend soon came to the rescue. Back at his place he amused himself by quietly singing “three wheels on my wagon, and I’m still rolling along“.

I’d been lucky in one sense. If I had been going at some speed the story might have been different. So yes, I learned the hard way that I needed some some training, and really did need to learn from a subject matter expert.

Where am I going with this?

Medicine is one of those areas where you really really don’t want to “just give it a go” and yet the current political climate has seen such blindly obvious common sense being tossed under the bus. So let’s roll forward into the Ivermectin saga by using a recent media story to illustrate just how crazy things have now become.

(Aug 31): An Ohio judge ordered a hospital to use the deworming drug ivermectin to treat a patient with COVID-19

Here are some details …

Butler County Judge Gregory Howard ruled in favor of a woman who asked that her husband, who is on a ventilator with COVID-19 at West Chester Hospital – located north of Cincinnati – be treated with the unproven drug, the Ohio Capital Journal and The Enquirer reported.

Jeffrey Smith, 51, contracted COVID-19 in early July. His wife, Julie Smith, asked the court on August 20 for an emergency order to have the drug used on her husband.

… and here is the claim …

On August 23, Howard ruled that Dr. Fred Wagshul should be allowed to give Smith 30 mg of the drug daily for three weeks, WXIX reported.

Wagshul is a pulmonologist in Dayton, Ohio, who cofounded the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a nonprofit that touts the use of ivermectin for COVID-19.

“From the countries that we’ve seen that have emptied their hospitals, this medicine is very, very effective,” Wagshul told WXIX.

When you read “emptied their hospitals” then that sounds truly amazing. So exactly which country is that, just name it. He can’t of course because his claim is fraudulent.

If you turn to the folks who actually are medical experts such as the FDA, then their guidance is very clear. They explain what the problem is and very strongly advise “don’t do that” … “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19”

You can perhaps see the folks over at the FDA rolling their eyes when faced with all of this and muttering, “Here we go with this s*it again“, and perhaps thankful that it’s not hydroxychloroquine or even bleach this time.

What is truly absurd is that the law is forcing doctors to use a drug that they know does not work against COVID on a patient who refused to take the one highly effective means to prevent COVID, the vaccine, and as a result now has COVID.

Where does the responsibility for such insanity rest?

We can perhaps point the finger, not only at the right-wing media, but also at elected officials such as Sen. Rand Paul, who self-appointed himself as a medical “expert” with his latest claim that “researchers won’t study ivermectin for COVID because they all hate Trump“. If Rand Paul says it, then you can more or less guarantee that it is wrong. I’m really not kidding about that. This is the guy who rejects the scientific consensus on Climate Change, rejects the scientific consensus on vaccines in general, and is a rabid homophobic.

What is ivermectin?

It is used it to treat parasite infestations, for example  head lice, and scabies. If you google it, which is literally “doing your own research” then you discover via Wikipedia the actual facts along with multiple citations for each …

Misinformation about ivermectin’s efficacy spread widely on social media, fueled by publications that have since been retracted,^[78][79] misleading “meta-analysis” websites with substandard methods,^[80][81] and conspiracy theories about efforts by governments and scientists to “suppress the evidence.”^[82][83]

Why is nobody listening to the experts?

The problem is misinformation. It is also sloshing around out there and so “doing your own research” will yield not only the facts, but also the misinformation.

There is a claim that the CDC and FDA are actively engaged in a “conspiracy”. Related to this is the claim that the mainstream media and social media companies have been engaging in “censorship” on Ivermectin’s merits.

Net impact is that when some google, if they have listened to such whispers, then they apply that. if they find stuff telling them that Ivermectin is a really really bad idea, and does not actually work safely against COVID, then they will dismiss it as part of the “conspiracy”. If however they find stuff telling them it is a wonder drug, then they embrace that as “truth”. That method of conducting “research” is actually called Confirmation Bias. All that is really going on is the cherry picking of stuff that confirms something, everything else is rejected as “fake news” and part of the conspiracy.

Consequences

Almost no medical professional will use Ivermectin on COVID. If you wonder why, then do remember that doctors have a code of ethics. To be specific, the key bit is the part that reads “Do no harm”.

Ivermectin does have an antiviral effect against the COVID virus in a petrie dish. The problem is that if you are to get that antiviral effect then you need to crank up the dose of Ivermectin to such a degree that it will greatly harm or even kill you. This because such a high dose is very very toxic.

The inevitable result of the climate of misinformation that has spun up around Ivermectin means that fools will consider themselves wiser than the professionals who are deemed to be part of the “conspiracy” and so they proceed to self-medicate on high doses.

I bet you can now see this next bit coming a mile away.

Not only are COVID patients not being magically “cured”, but calls to poison control centers have spiked, for example … “Mississippi Is Pleading With People To Stop Using A Livestock Drug To Treat COVID-19“

So essentially this is how things have played out …

• There is a right leaning demographic that refuses to take a vaccine that is proven to protect them because they believe the batshit crazy rhetoric that it is “experimental”
• When they then inevitably get COVID, they proceed to start injecting themselves with medicine meant for cows and horses. This will not cure their COVID, but will greatly harm them

Yes, they are indeed being incredibly stupid.

Who should we criticise?

Those that truly do merit our wrath should be those that manufacture and promote the disinformation, namely the likes of Fox news. Also in that list should be the quacks promoting this fake cure, and the various elected officials who self-appoint themselves as subject matter experts. Together they all look the public in the eye and lie to them, so it should be no surprise that this is happening. These alpha sources need to be held accountable.

Tragedy

One last story.

The Washington Post reports the tragic story of Lisa Steadman on Aug 27th. She was taken to hospital in Florida with COVID. While she battled the illness she kept in touch with her husband because she was scared of dying alone in Hospital. She did OK and recovered.

When she arrived home she found that her husband, Ron Steadman, had died of COVID.

This is so utterly tragic because it was self inflicted by choice. They rejected everything that almost every doctor has been telling them and instead listened to other voices. As a result they had been persuaded to refuse the vaccine. Now, like so many do, reap the consequences of that choice.

The Washington Post story contains this line …

She has been hurt by comments on social media criticizing her decision not to get the vaccine earlier.

That’s perhaps your cue to now proceed to face-palm.