Ivermectin is used to treat head lice and certain parasitic infections.
But for COVID?
The WHO, CDC, FDA, and IDSA say it should not be used for COVID.
UNLESS it’s in a clinical trial.
But that didn’t stop this guy, who chose ivermectin over the vaccine. Captain Joe Manning, 57, A Georgia police officer who frequently posted anti-vax messages on Facebook, died of COVID.
Why would some people want a drug that is not FDA approved for COVID?
Because it has not been proven to be effective and has not been proven to be safe.
Why would someone choose that over something that has been proven safe and effective in preventing COVID?
IVERMECTIN and COVID
Well, we do kind of have that with dexamethasone. AKA decadron, which is a steroid that is very similar to prednisone. It’s the one drug with the most solid evidence for reducing the severity of COVID illness, including reducing mortality. And it’s cheap too. But it’s not a miracle drug.
So how do we know if ivermectin
1) works
2) if so, what dose is required for it to work
3) is that dose safe for ingestion???
The ivermectin hype train left the station back in April of 2020.
It all started with this study that looked at the virus in a test tube when scientists suffocated it with massive doses of ivermectin.
And surprise, surprise, guess what the results showed?
There was a major drop in viral replication. And that’s great, right? It’s a starting point. It’s saying, hey, we might have something here. But there’s a problem. The inhibitory concentration of the drug, around 2.5 micromolar, is not achievable in real live humans. In fact, standard ivermectin dosing achieves blood concentrations of about 25 nanomolar, 100-fold less than needed in vitro. Lung concentrations are slightly higher than blood concentrations but still 50-fold less than what is needed to inhibit the virus in cells in culture.
But ok, maybe it works not necessarily by inhibiting viral replication; maybe it can help suppress inflammation from COVID.So you start doing some observational studies. Observational studies are not great, but they serve a purpose because you want to see if there is any correlation between ivermectin and its potential to help against COVID. If you see a correlation, that warrants spending more time and money to do a bigger, higher-quality study to prove or disprove that the drug is safe and effective. And the best studies for that are double-blinded, randomized placebo control trials. The more people in the study, the more you can rely on the results. That is how you prove cause and effect.
So you take 30,000 people, give half of them a placebo, and the other half the medicine. Then you look at your results, and that is how you get your answer if it’s safe and effective. That’s the process that was done with the vaccines. The same can not be said for Ivermectin.
Generally speaking, when given doses used to treat parasitic infections in humans, ivermectin is very safe. So we’re talking about 200 mcg per kilogram, so for a 75 kg person, around 165 pounds, you’re looking at a 15 mg dose. Before the pandemic, prescriptions for ivermectin in this country were 3,600 per week. Now they are more than 88,000 per week.
But even more concerning is people getting the drug from livestock supply centers, which can come in a highly concentrated paste or liquid forms?
Sometimes 10 to 15 times the amount that we give people.
Well, guess what?
Mississippi’s health department said that 70% of recent calls to the state poison control center had come from people who ingested ivermectin from livestock supply stores. Same thing going on in Alabama.
What are the common symptoms?
Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea. But there’s also nerve damage, seizures, and sometimes death.
Doctor Mike Hansen, MD
Internal Medicine | Pulmonary Disease | Critical Care Medicine
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