Posted on 04/09/2021 12:35:47 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Plenty of unapproved, dubious, or downright dangerous COVID-19 treatments have come and gone over the past year, but the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has come out with a refresher warning after a number of people have fallen sick using horse deworming drugs to treat COVID-19.
The drug is ivermectin, a cheap and widely available medication used to treat parasite infestations. In humans, it’s used to treat head lice and scabies, as well as roundworms, and it’s also widely used on animals to treat parasitic worms. However, the products used to treat humans are different from the ones used on animals, which are often highly concentrated because they are used for large animals like horses and cows.
Recent months have seen a growing interest in using ivermectin to treat humans with COVID-19. All of this remains totally unverified for now, but it has already led to a number of people mistakenly taking horse dewormer in a bid to self-medicate against COVID-19.
“The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses,” the FDA said in a statement.
Much of the hype around ivermectin and COVID-19 comes from a few studies that have suggested ivermectin inhibits the replication of SARS-CoV-2 in a petri dish. A very small clinical trial in January 2021 found that ivermectin did not prevent people from falling sick with COVID-19, but people who took the drug did tend to experience a mild cough and had a lower viral load. Overall, it’s still inconclusive.
The Infectious Disease Society of America advises against using ivermectin for COVID-19 outside of clinical trials. Merck, the pharmaceutical company behind Stromectol, a brand name of ivermectin, also says the medication should be used only for FDA-approved purposes, adding there’s “no meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 disease.”
The FDA noted that “some initial research” is looking into whether the drug could be used as COVID-19 treatment, but there is currently a lack of evidence to conclude it’s effective."
“People should not take any form of ivermectin unless it has been prescribed by a licensed health care provider and is obtained through a legitimate source,” the agency added. “Taking a drug for an unapproved use can be very dangerous. This is true of ivermectin, too.”
The buzz around ivermectin is reminiscent of hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug that rose to prominence last year as a possible treatment for COVID-19. The drug was given a rocket boost when then-President Donald Trump revealed at a press conference he was taking hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to ward off COVID-19, despite little evidence either worked.
Hydroxychloroquine became immensely politicized, but much of this hype ultimately fell flat and it never became the “game-changer” its supporters proclaimed it to be. Many clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine failed to show any real benefit in fighting COVID-19, while an influential study that sung its praise was eventually retracted. Sadly, reports of chloroquine poisoning and at least one death were reported after people began taking the drug, or in the death case, a version of it intended for fish, without doctor approval.
For more information about COVID-19, check out the IFLScience COVID-19 hub where you can follow the current state of the pandemic, the progress of vaccine development, and further insights into the disease.
HCQ Zelenko protocol is effective early. Ivermectin is even better and saves older people even on a ventilator.
For those who are mathematically and metrically challenged, here are a few useful facts. A kg (kilogram) is roughly 2.2 pounds. Divide a pound (16 ounces by 5) to get the .2 lb.) So a kg is roughly 35+ ounces (16 + 16 + 3.?). One mg. (milligram) is equal to 1,000 mcg. (micrograms). Therefore, 0.2 mg is the same as 200 mcg. Happy calculating, and good night. A 1250 lb. horse weighs 10 times a 125 lb. woman. Therefore one tenth (1/10) the dose for the horse would be good for a 125 pound woman. Slightly smaller fractions of a dose would work for heavier men and women, like 1/8, or 1/6th. If this is too hard for you to calculate safely, find someone with good math skills to help determine the fraction of an animal dose that would be safe.
After researching this latest J&J issue, I believe that Vitamin D is important to prevent platelet abnormalities, and that VItamin B6 may have a function in higher doses. Since nausea is one of the Covid symptoms and also sometimes a post vaccine symptom, I remember that when I was young I tried the pill, and vomited several times, so stopped. With my first pregnancy I felt nausea for the first 6 months continually. My prenatal vitamin I think had under 2 mg. With my second child I took 25 mg. regularly, and only had nausea once when I forgot to take my vitamins that day. There is diabetes in my family and I used to suffer from hypoglycemia until I corrected my diet. B6 is also good for sea sickness nausea.
Yep. I double checked at a few sites. The dose per pound is the same for humans as it is for a horse. All I could find was the horse paste.
One tube was for a 1250 pound horse. I ended up using an engineering scale to divide the plunger into 6 equal parts (I’m about 200 pounds) and marked it with a Sharpie.
Put it on a spoon and slurped it up. Not the greatest taste - but it’s medicine!
Addition factors I forgot to mention in Comment #83 is that the early reports I heard on A-Z issues was that there were a number of people, I think mostly women in Norway, which at this time of year has very little sun. Also the 6 J&J deaths were in pre middle-aged women. I wonder if any of them were on the pill at the time? How do you contact the J&J folks and tell them to check this out?
The J&J people know, trust that.
They have data on these people upside down and sideways.
They all know about Ivermectin and its effectiveness too.
Dr. Fallacy leading the block against it like HCQ.
You’re close. It is all about the $$$$$. Moderna is Gates’ vax which was created before anyone ever heard of covid (uh huh...). He’s just eliminating the competition. It’s being reported the Pfizer vax doesn’t work against the new African variant so that’s another one biting the dust.
thanx for the ping to your follow up.
all good info.
bkmk
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