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From: LostInTheWasteLand@noemail.org

Here's the real reason grifters are pushing a dodgy 'cure' for Covid — instead of the vaccines

Proponents of ivermectin as a treatment for covid are now in
damage-control mode after a series of stories about people overdosing on
horse paste and sheep drench from feed stores.

Such luminaries as Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Brett Weinstein and United
States Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) stoked demand for the dewormer,
only to have the craze blow up in the faces when the ginned-up demand outstripped the pharmaceutical supply and people started self-medicating
with horse paste.

The zeal of the ivermectin prophets was self-defeating. The whole point
of being an Ivermectin Guy is that you can indulge in antivaxx
conspiracy theories while sounding smarter than the Microchip Guys.
That's why they get so mad when you call it "horse paste."

Internet tough guy Joe Rogan will have you know that the ivermectin he (supposedly) took for his (supposed) covid was (supposedly) from a
doctor. "Bro, do I have to sue CNN?" Rogan grumbled. "They're making
shit up. They keep saying I'm taking horse dewormer." It's an image
thing: Rooting for Team Horse Paste pushes you over the line from "bold independent thinker" to "utter crackpot."

The Basic Ivermectin Conspiracy Theory goes like this: There's a cheap
cure for covid but Big Pharma doesn't want you to have it, because it's
a generic drug. A more elaborate version, shared by the host of the
aptly-named Dark Horse podcast on Tucker Carlson's show, posits that the government is refusing to acknowledge ivermectin as a safe and effective treatment for covid because to do so would somehow undercut the
Emergency Use Authorizations for covid vaccines.

This makes no sense, given the government is funding an ivermectin
trial. But it's not about the logic. It's about feeding the anti-vaxx
fantasy that vaccine mandates will evaporate if we go all in on
ivermectin. Human prescriptions for ivermectin soared from fewer than
4,000 a week pre-pandemic to nearly 90,000 a week in August.

Surging demand has caused shortages in pharmacies and feed stores alike.
Docs and vets worry the fad will keep the drug out of the hands and off
the hides of the creatures who really need it.

The hype beasts of the Intellectual Dark Web dangle a miracle cure in
front of their credulous audience and pretend to be shocked when they
hit up the feed store. Ivermectin boosters know that ethical doctors
won't prescribe ivermectin for covid because there's no evidence it's a
safe or effective against the virus. Indeed, the American Medical
Association strongly advises against prescribing ivermectin for covid
outside of a clinical trial.

Ivermectin kills the covid virus in a Petri dish, but only at
concentrations that will never be matched in the human body — even if
you take enough to choke a horse. The most famous clinical trial
purporting to show benefit in humans was withdrawn after it was
determined the authors plagiarized the text from pro-ivermectin press
releases and fabricated their data. The data are so implausible some
experts question whether the trial ever happened. Pro-ivermectin trials
have a funny habit of appearing as pre-prints making fantastical claims
before being retracted amid allegations of fraud or conflict of interest.

Ivermectin has a good safety record when it's prescribed by a doctor or
a vet to treat parasites, but ivermectin-related calls to the nation's
poison control centers have quintupled, because people are guesstimating
doses of livestock meds. It's a fool's game. No safe or effective dosage
has been established for covid because there's no good evidence it
works. Ivermectin partisans are always reminding us that some guys won a
Nobel Prize for using ivermectin to treat something else. They're
showing their ignorance of medicine. The drug, the dose, and the
diagnosis actually matter.

However, the real harm of the ivermectin craze is not the relatively rare—though completely pointless—horse paste ODs. It's the much larger group of people who are using ivermectin as an excuse not to get
vaccinated, whether they're currently taking the drug or not. If you're
on the fence about vaccination, the myth that ivermectin cures covid
makes it easier to skip your shot.

Some pundits have chided irreverent commentators for poking fun at
people who eschew a free, safe and effective vaccine and pay for animal
drugs that won't cure covid. Americans aren't eating horse paste because
it's a noble rural tradition to self-medicate from the tractor supply.
Grifters played on people's hopes for a quick covid fix and their fear
of vaccines, and now their fans are paying the price.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: www.darkrealms.ca (1:229/2)