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Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

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Re: Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

#101

Post by AndrewBissell »

tomnipotent wrote: post #45
AndrewBissell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ivermectin is being prescribed off-label for Covid-19 by tens of thousands of doctors nationwide. Are those "people with no expertise to understand the medical studies"?

Yes, there are plenty of shitty incompetent doctors like there are with any other profession. Did these same doctors not contribute to the opioid crisis? Can every programmer understand every whitepaper and implement what they read?

The only reason you think it's inherently shitty and incompetent for a doctor to prescribe ivermectin off-label for Covid is because you've bought into the dumb culture war politicization of it. I'm not a Bill Maher fan but he made a good point when he said "ivermectin isn't a registered Republican, it's a drug." Maybe it doesn't actually work (unlike so many on the other side of this issue I am at least willing to grant that the evidence is mixed), but in the doses it's being prescribed it has a very safe side-effect profile. Why is it that the only correct standard of care for an early-onset Covid case is "sit at home and hope it doesn't get worse"?

Re: Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

#102

Post by dataflow »

ceejayoz wrote: post #83
dataflow wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like when the CDC first said that masks are ineffective to try to keep people from hoarding them. The way I remember it was more like, the CDC said: - They don't know yet if surgical (and in general, non-N95) masks are effective against COVID-19 spread. They never denied this for N95. - Hospitals are running out of surgical (and N95...) masks, and given the above, people should stop hoarding them. That seemed.…

At the time, the US Surgeon General tweeted: > "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!" There was absolutely quite a bit of false messaging on the point from authority figures.

(a) Do you call any case where someone turns out to be wrong "false messaging"? Their prior knowledge led them to believe (wrongly, but it seems to me, quite honestly) that non-N95 masks would not be effective, and they didn't have evidence to the contrary, and they very openly explained that their fear is healthcare providers not having masks, which was 100% a sincere worry any official worth their salt would have.

(b) A tweet only has so much room to explain things. There's a reason websites in general, official CDC recommendations in particular, and the news media exist. If the only source of information you get your news from for several weeks amidst a pandemic is Twitter, and the tweet turns out to be lacking some info, the problem isn't the source you're reading.

(c) Even if you establish there was "false messaging from the surgeon general on Twitter" (which you haven't due to the reasons above), it's quite a goalpost move from "the CDC was being deceptive/manipulative". Especially when the the surgeon general was picked by the president and specifically not the NIH authority figure that the nation was looking up to 24/7.

Re: Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

#103

Post by MattGaiser »

eth0up wrote: post #90
MattGaiser wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one that Americans would have access to for self treating COVID would be the horse variety unless they found doctors to prescribe them some.

I've seen so much on this subject here lately, I cannot resist asking the following question: If there's really such an altruistic, humanitarian concern, why not disclose the actual differences between the veterinary and human variety rather than vaguely implying possible absorption issues. The difference of a 1200lb beast vs 160lb human is a bit too easy. The ingredients, however, might offer a clue. Also, as I unde…

Ivermectin seems to be prescription for pets and over the counter only for livestock. So if you are using cat ivermectin, you need a prescription too.

https://news.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=210&catId=-1&id=601847...

Not sure on the specific differences of horse vs human ivermectin.

Re: Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

#104

Post by aorth »

fallingknife wrote: post #23
haswell wrote: post #13

Disclaimer: I am not implying I buy into the theories about ivermectin being an effective treatment for COVID. This feels like another situation where the attempts to quell disinformation are having the opposite of their intended effect. Depending on where these people first learned of this drug, there is some pretty confusing information floating around. When someone like Bret Weinstein points out that ivermectin is…

It's like when the CDC first said that masks are ineffective to try to keep people from hoarding them. People are wise to the game now, and expect that the CDC is saying things to influence behavior, rather than because they are true. Nobody trusts a salesman.

Yes that's unfortunate. For what it's worth, Anthony Fauci was on a podcast in June, 2021 where he discussed the mid-2020 mask advice among other things. He basically said that, yes, they didn't want people to hoard them, but also that, based on experience with the original SARS, only visibly (symptomatically) sick people were spreading the virus. Of course we know now that SARS-CoV-2 spreads asymptomatically for days/weeks, but hindsight is 20/20...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/opinion/sway-kara-swisher...

Re: Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

#105

Post by TOMDM »

pseudo0 wrote: post #73

This is a bizarre stat: > By mid-August U.S. pharmacies were filling 88,000 weekly prescriptions for the medication, a 24-fold increase from pre-COVID levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, U.S. poison control centers have seen a five-fold increase in emergency calls related to the drug, with some incidents requiring hospitalization. So despite prescriptions going up x24, and…

> So despite prescriptions going up x24, and some unknown number of people taking veterinary versions of the drug, emergency calls have only gone up x5? Wouldn't we expect it to be around x24 or greater?

Why would we expect excess emergency calls due to doctor prescribed levels of ivermectin? Ivermectin is used to treat humans for other things, and unless it's a particularly dangerous treatment I doubt we'd see many hospitalisations due to it.

There's little evidence it helps treat COVID, but I doubt doctors are prescribing dangerous levels of ivermectin like those found in animal treatments. 5x emergency calls for people taking animal treatments sounds reasonable.

Re: Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

#106

Post by haswell »

pseudo0 wrote: post #73

This is a bizarre stat: > By mid-August U.S. pharmacies were filling 88,000 weekly prescriptions for the medication, a 24-fold increase from pre-COVID levels, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, U.S. poison control centers have seen a five-fold increase in emergency calls related to the drug, with some incidents requiring hospitalization. So despite prescriptions going up x24, and…

I suspect this has something to do with the human drug vs. the veterinary products.

Ivermectin is a widely prescribed and generally safe drug when used for its intended purpose. Some would argue that taking it in human-sized doses for COVID is probably not dangerous (this does not imply it's effective).

The problem is that people who can't get human prescriptions are turning to veterinary products which tend to be massively larger doses, and this is where things probably go off the rails.

Re: Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

#107

Post by tomnipotent »

mrfusion wrote: post #91
tomnipotent wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are plenty of shitty incompetent doctors like there are with any other profession. Did these same doctors not contribute to the opioid crisis? Can every programmer understand every whitepaper and implement what they read?

Yep, only listen to doctors that you agree with.

Or get a second opinion, like a grown-up.

I don't listen to the first contractor or plumber on a big job, either. There is nothing special about the position or opinions of medical professionals that I shouldn't seek additional information or help.

Re: Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

#108

Post by tomnipotent »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #101
tomnipotent wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there are plenty of shitty incompetent doctors like there are with any other profession. Did these same doctors not contribute to the opioid crisis? Can every programmer understand every whitepaper and implement what they read?

The only reason you think it's inherently shitty and incompetent for a doctor to prescribe ivermectin off-label for Covid is because you've bought into the dumb culture war politicization of it. I'm not a Bill Maher fan but he made a good point when he said "ivermectin isn't a registered Republican, it's a drug." Maybe it doesn't actually work (unlike so many on the other side of this issue I am at least willing to g…

> dumb culture war politicization of it

Maybe I'm a fan of science, of which there is NO evidence that Ivermectin works against COVID. It seems like maybe you're the one that bought into something.

These doctors are doing nothing more than profiting off the fear of their patients, while offering no value other than what might be argued is a placebo. That doesn't stop these people from infecting others around them.

Re: Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

#109

Post by haswell »

cbg0 wrote: post #39
dboreham wrote: post #16

Note for readers like me inside the liberal media bubble: the Ivermectin craze isn't 100% nonsense where hillbillies take their horse medicine. As the article notes, it's been seriously studied in various countries and so far afaik hasn't been proved to not be effective.

> it's been seriously studied in various countries and so far afaik hasn't been proved to not be effective. It also hasn't been proven to be effective. Edit: to further show why this is a ridiculous approach towards using something that is unproven to treat a disease: cat urine has also not been proven to not be an effective Covid treatment.

I'm on board with the argument that it hasn't yet been proven to be effective, and should be judged as such.

The argument about cat urine no longer seems in good faith, though. There are multiple studies evaluating ivermectin as a COVID treatment, but there are no such studies about cat urine.

I understand what you're trying to say; however, there's at least enough interest in ivermectin to warrant real trials.

I'm not optimistic that it'll be some miracle cure, but let's not pretend it's cat urine.

Re: Doctors and pharmacists ramp up calls for Americans to stop using ivermectin

#110

Post by rajin444 »

junon wrote: post #18
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't say vaccine hesitancy hasn't been well earned. It's not like the US doesn't have a history of lying about medical procedures performed on misinformed citizens... Fool me once, shame on you [Tuskegee]. Fool me twice, shame on me [MKULTRA]. Fool me three times...

> You can't say vaccine hesitancy hasn't been well earned. Sure you can. People spend their entire lives studying this shit, dedicating their entire careers to saving people who sit on facebook all day and post nonsense they hear on podcasts and other credit-less sources. It's not "vaccine hesitancy". It's stupidity. Domain experts know more than your conspiracy-theorist crazy Facebook aunt. There is no conspiracy he…

Do the experts have any long term studies on efficacy (5+ years out)? It seems like they figured out the 6 month (or is it 5? or 8?) window only recently. It also seems learning the vaccine is non sterilizing is new as well.

I don't fault them for any of this. Science takes time and iteration. Nobody can account for unknown unknowns - the only solution is time.

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