Modern medicine’s loss is social media’s gain. Since the pandemic hit, public trust in science and evidence-based medicine, like lifesaving vaccines, has declined. Yet, trust in the anecdotal and often bonkers health advice that endlessly swirls on social media only seems to have risen—and that trust seems unshakeable.
A perfect example of this is ivermectin. In the early stages of the pandemic, some laboratory data suggested that ivermectin—a decades-old deworming drug—might be able to prevent or treat COVID-19. The antiparasitic drug was initially used in the 1970s to treat worm infections in animals, but years later, it gained FDA approval as a prescription drug for treating parasitic infections in humans, including river blindness.
Before scientists could conduct clinical trials to know if ivermectin could also treat the new viral infection, COVID-19, the idea took off, mainly among conservatives. Anecdotes and misinformation ballooned.
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My stupid ass uncle convinced my 80 year old grandparents to take this. This is real and actually affecting real people. My uncle spread the misinformation and gave ivermectin to my Grandpa and his second wife after she was diagnosed with cancer. They believed him and took small doses for awhile and of course ended up sick and back at the doctors/hospital. WTF is wrong with people?!
And just like that, the trichinosis epidemic had ended before it even started.
And we learned that no, if fact, we would not love you if you were a worm.
The real winners are the PR strategists from the pharmaceutical companies behind the drug. Somebody is making an absolute killing selling this snake oil
I think you have this backwards. If people are taking ivermectin for cancer instead of immunotherapy, then the pharmas are definitely loosing money. A single treatment of Keytruda costs around $25,000. A standard regimen is one every three or four weeks. And these treatments can go on for years. (yes, I know people personally who have been taking Keytruda for several years)
Similar story for monoclonal antibodies. They often cost over $100,000 per year
For other chemo drugs, it varies. Xeloda, doxorubicin, cisplatin (in IV form), cyclophosphamide, and others are all reasonably priced, most around $1 to $10 per pill, it seems.
It’s also worth noting that a standard course of treatment for cancer will usually combine several different drugs.
Ivermectin, on the other hand, costs a dollar or two per pill at most, and could be less than a dollar each.
ivermectin is literally one of the safest known drugs, found on the short list of essential medications for humans.
If people wouldn’t lie through their teeth, insisting that it’s dangerous for humans, there wouldn’t be nearly as much controversy over it. Believing in the promise of science is fantastic, but using propaganda to turn legions of social media addicts into drones mimicking a message they barely even understand, isn’t science.
Ok true, but its been shown to solely be an antiparasitic. If people were honest about thst I’d be fine with people treating their own pinworm
its been shown to solely be an antiparasitic
That’s not true. It’s rare to find a drug that only has one effect in a body. And Ivermectin is no exception. There are quite a few potential and several demonstrated uses for it. Whether it is curative for cancer, and which types, is still an open question - which is to say that there have been no large clinical trials done to answer the question.
Why the hell should you care if strangers eat something safe entirely on their own, for their own reasons?
Just because you have the ability to communicate with anyone online, does not mean you ought to be using that to demand that everyone everywhere comply with every absurd notion that arises on social media.
Because I’d really rather not have people not bothering to actually treat their diseases, especially contagious ones. I also don’t want medical misinformation to continue spreading.
Do to your body as you wish, but also Jesus fucking shit the modern anti medical sentiment is concerning.
You want to just snack on ivermectin because you like the taste or you think it’ll serve additional benefits, sure. I’d like to see studies if it might cause resistance, but until evidence is presented that it does, sure whatever.
