AND…ingesting a drug purchased at Tractor Supply at a dose appropriate for a one-ton animal on the say-so of someone on the interweb is crazy!
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But people do want to take and have taken actual horse dewormer to treat covid-19. Specifically, they have taken ivermectin formulated for horses, not for human consumption.
They do so because unscrupulous propagandists have repeatedly overhyped ivermectin as a covid-19 treatment/cure, based in large part on faulty and/or fraudulent studies, and unsubstantiated anecdote. The people who have been duped into believing the hype cannot get the drug through legitimate avenues (because it is not approved) and so they have turned to alternative sources such as veterinary suppliers.
And from this you conclude that legitimate medical professionals and agencies cannot be trusted? Because they haven’t approved an unproven and alternative treatment for covid, and have discouraged people from pursuing these unproven treatments rather than proven remedies? Seems more than a stretch.
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This is proposed by people such as Dr. Makary. A user linked a story above extolling the benefits of natural immunity and referenced this person. As soon as I saw the name I knew that there was no merit to his “findings”. If someone wants to know why it’s a junk study I can summarize but that’s not the point of my response to you.
Dr. Makary and others who have signed The Great Barrington Declaration believe in Eugenics. They believe that it’s ok to let the virus, in this instance, ravage society, killing the weak (the elderly, immunocompromised, and including the unfortunate healthy people, kids) for the overall good of society. Now to me this is elitist and morally and ethically repulsive. There’s a nice summary of this group here: The “spiritual child of the Great Barrington Declaration” promotes antivaccine misinformation | Science-Based Medicine
On their website, they claim to have nearly a million signatures of public health scientists supporting this idea. However, anyone can sign. In fact some illustrious physicians such as “Dr. Johnny Fartpants”, “Professor Notaf U*****clue”, and “Dr. Person Fakename” have signed. “Harold Shipman” has signed (a physician who was a serial killer in England). You get the idea.
Not only is it disgusting, but it wouldn’t work. The WHO has said that it wouldn’t lead to herd immunity, as they claim, but instead recurrent epidemics.
They also fail to acknowledge, or care, about the subsequent effect to frontline workers, such as teachers in your instance, or waiters, EMTS, HCWs, etc, who will simply retire or find other means of income. All this negatively effects the economy, in contrast to their original pledge.
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Since there’s so much discussion here about Ivermectin, I just want to point out that it’s been used for quite a while for the treatment of rosacea. Ivermectin is the active ingredient in Soolantra (prescription required), which is marketed as the “#1 branded rosacea topical in the US.” Discover SOOLANTRA® (ivermectin) Cream, 1%
Soolantra is pricy and if you look on the rosacea subreddit and search for “horse paste” you will find lots of hits of people who buy horse paste at the feed store to avoid the high cost of Soolantra. This was happening pre-pandemic, but there’s now a generic form of Soolantra and rosacea redditors are reporting that “horse paste” is getting harder to find at the feed store. (I personally get a topical cream that includes ivermectin from a compounding pharmacy for my rosacea.)
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Same. Have had ivermectin for years for psoriasis.
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It’s only the topical, not the pills, that’s approved for rosacea (and head lice).
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I use a different cream for rosacea. Last week my dermatologist renewed my prescription. When I went to pick it up, I was told the cost for an 8 oz. tube would be $2,300. Good grief. Called the doctor and he ordered the generic form that has to be used twice a day instead of only once and it was $45.00.
We live in a crazy world.
I had never heard about the veterinary cream being used for rosacea!
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Re: ivermectin, I know people who have taken it for Covid and are convinced it worked for them. Logically, I can’t figure out how they think something taken orally that works in the GI tract (as it would have to as an antiparasitic) could have a therapeutic effect on a virus that targets nasal and respiratory epithelial cells. In tissue culture, yes, I would believe it has anti-viral effects.
The 1% ivermectin cream made by Galderma and marketed as Soolantra is FDA approved for rosacea. As I mentioned, I get mine from a compounding pharmacy through my dermatologist. Can’t say I’m convinced it’s doing much though. They don’t really know what causes rosacea but one theory is demodex mites, hence the use of ivermectin.
Source, please?
Dr. Makary supports vaccines (but is generally against mandates except for heath care workers).
(Note the opinion piece that you linked is the author’s opinion, and even he does not say Makary believes in eugenics, just that the GB policy has a “dash” and a “vibe” of eugenics, again in his opinion. That doesn’t make it so.)
From left-leaning politico:
His appearances on Fox, his papers in the WSJ, his false claims about natural immunity, false claims about masking (that they cause facial deformities, etc).
Did you read about the beliefs of The Great Barrington Declaration? Did you read the link I included? Do you follow his tweets? All of those are the sources. It’s all public knowledge. So when he publishes a paper saying how wonderful natural immunity is, that is in keeping with his narrative. And then he uses his “research” to publicly push these findings.
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That is true - he does believe in vaccines.
It is widespread enough that some feed stores won’t sell it without indication that the customer has a horse (e.g. a photo of the customer with the horse).
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Wow. That’s almost funny to me somehow. I can picture these folks calling up horse owners and offering to pay for the opportunity to take a selfie with them.
“It takes all kinds of people to make a world…”
How many of the signatories of this declaration have put their bodies where their pens were and variolated themselves?
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I see what you did there.
There’s lots of enthusiastic discussion about therapeutics. I listened to a talk by a bunch of UCSF docs last week who were very excited about the existing ones and some on the horizon. But ivermectin was not mentioned. They also implored people to get vaxed and boosted. They want it all - prevention, mitigatIon and treatment.
They want as many arrows in the quiver as possible, and people to be as protected as possible. Medical professionals tend to want people to be healthy and not die. They are voices I trust, regardless of what government says. That’s the part I don’t understand- fine, ignore the government. But ignore doctors and researchers?
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As do I, esp as we get older. I feel for those who died due to lack of vaxxes and knowledge about treatment in the first year. Many of those would have lived if they’d made it until vaxxes and today’s treatments were available.
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Agreed, @ChangeTheGame. That is why I stated with a linked WSJ article called Teachers Quit Jobs at Highest Rate on Record that
“This trend predates the Pandemic but is clearly exacerbated by it.”
I think the conditions of teaching are much worse than people think and that many folks could get higher compensated corporate jobs with their skills (per the first article I linked). If they don’t feel either that they are appreciated or that they are able to achieve their educational missions, they will quit in droves. I think that is what is happening. For better or for worse, they think that the community feels they ought to be treated as dispensable.
I’m not a big fan of unions generally and of teachers’ unions in particular, but I think if we as a society value education (this is not a foregone conclusion for much of the US), we should make sure that we are treating our teachers well. I used to argue that our town should be known as the town that pays the highest teacher salaries in the state to get the best teachers in the state and that we should happily pay higher property tax for that. But, pay is only part of the equation. Feeling valued, safe, and respected matter a lot and I find it hard to believe that teachers are getting that message today.
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