And for a fun case study, check out what happened in India when they used Ivermectin at a large scale. If those stores haven't been censored yet, that is.
"Conclusions: Moderate-certainty evidence finds that large reductions in COVID-19 deaths are possible using ivermectin. Using ivermectin early in the clinical course may reduce numbers progressing to severe disease. The apparent safety and low cost suggest that ivermectin is likely to have a significant impact on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic globally."
Ivermectin has a long history of use in humans, and if it acts as a protease inhibitor, it's not surprising it would have both anti-parasitic and anti-viral capabilities. That's probably why it was selected for experimental treatments in the first place. It's sad that this is being dumbed down and viciously politicized.
The tragedy here is that ivermectin is already tribal signaling for the mainstream media. It'll be pretty hard to have proper conversations over it. I'd be willing to bet this post has already been flagged a couple of times.
I took prophylactic ivermectin for a few weeks, and yes, it had a picture of a dog on the box, because that's the only kind I could find. You won't find human ivermectin where I live because there are no endemic parasites to treat - or at least, they are few. I stopped after getting my first shot - vaccines are the strictly superior version. But the cost-benefit situation was already clear last winter: it has a very good safety profile, and may help prevent and treat early Covid. No reason to ban people for saying that, or at least no medical reason, nor a humanitarian or social one. But it does get one virtual signaling points, because we have to get those heretics to vaccinate, even if we have to burn to the ground everything they might consider an alternative. When they have nothing left they'll realize we wanted what's good for them all along.
Preventive measure before vaccines were available. I think it was 0.1 mg/kg/week, so two 3mg pills every Monday for... maybe a couple of months.
Dosage is reasonable, safety profile is very good, the only doubt I had was if the veterinarian version is in any way worse. But the waters were already muddied even back then, so I could't find relevant info.
You may want to recall that before vaccines, we were all pretty afraid. Now the matter is academic - we have about the same risk as from a bad flu. But last year... I'd have taken pills with the picture of a cockroach on them, when faced with 20% of long covid. I still think it was a very sane choice.
Or maybe I DID get Covid? Or maybe.... I was a dog all along?!
Sorry about that. But I do want to push on a point, mostly because I have a good quote: "It's possible to make mistakes and still lose. That's not a weakness, it's life".
There is a disconnect between being right on the bets you make, and winning. In this case I could be wrong on ivermectin helping. It doesn't matter in the long run, because what matters is making decent enough bets (and of course, not being unlucky). Why "decent enough"? Because satisficing vs optimizing. I don't particularly care if the chance that ivermectin helps is 25% or 75%. I'm mostly looking at the cost, and if the potential gain is at least double digits. Then I'm looking _again_ at the potential cost, then again, then checking the dosage three times and doing a search to see if veterinarian pills are usually of much worse quality. Because it's not the precise probability of Ivermectin working that's instrumental here. Only that it has a probability high enough to be worth the bother: after that, it's all focus on the downside. And yeah, turns out the downside is small.
Not that any of that matters with tribal posturing, of course. "Ivermectin" = "Antivaxer" = "Trumpist" = "Evil" is a much much shorter association for our brains to make.
It might matter to those out there that read this and then try ivermectin. And maybe they take a little too much. I think you could make a pretty compelling argument that these types of statements can be really harmful.
I'd suggest everyone step back from their own politics for a moment and pause to consider just how absurd it is that a fucking medicine for parasite infections that barely anyone except veterinarians, tropical explorers, pet owners and farmers knew previously has now been polliticized to this degree across vast swathes of the media landscape.
The obvious answer to such a situation is that science should be allowed to take its normal investigative course and all possible options be investigated and presented so long as the researchers behind them are also honestly examining evidence. And yes, this could very easily include ivermectin or anything else, because it already does in much of the world where this polarization bubble around this particular medicine, or certain other subjects, doesn't ridiculously exist to the same degree.
I shake my head thinking about people a few decades from now shaking their own heads at emotionally and ideologically driven stupidities like this in the middle of numerous other hysterias revolving around a global pandemic and the politics of the last few years..
Is there reasonable suspicion to believe that the political split around it was/is intentional? To me, it seems as if the mainstream media outlets are needlessly ripping this drug and it's proponents.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02081-w
https://grftr.news/why-was-a-major-study-on-ivermectin-for-c...