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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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.