[saintgermaine]

There is more than enough evidence that it works and it has been around long enough to know that it is safe. From what I know is that originally was developed against river blindness and more recently was discovered that apparently it is also effective against this crazy virus. But like many other drugs which may be useful against more than one disease, unless it has been approved by the FDA for a particular purpose even so it may be safe, frowns upon its use. Not to mention that money speaks louder than words.

[RC one]

Is there a randomized control trial that proves it's efficacy in a wide swath of different susceptible hosts-e.g. the very old, the very young, the 20 year olds, 30 year olds, 40 year olds, the people with varying degrees of comorbidities, people starting treatment at varying phases of the disease process, etc?

Most people will still survive Covid (at this point anyways), so any drug that claims to keep people from dying from Covid has to be evaluated in this context.

I'm not even saying that it doesn't work but I'd like to see a RCT involving hosts of varying susceptibility to death by Covid before I proclaim this drug the savior of humanity.

And I still think we need widespread vaccination to stop this virus. Vaccines have repeatedly demonstrated over the decades that they are the most effective first line of defense against viruses.

[Western Phil]

I think you are missing some information. This or a close relative was developed as a heart worm medication for dogs. Soon it was discovered that it was effective against any other dog worms and fleas - maybe some other things. By the time we were introduced to it, it was being prescribed for cats for similar purposes. It was really expensive - the reason being that when you bought some for your animal you were also buying some to send to Africa to fight river blindness.