The "Ivermectin...Healer Or Powwow Drug? Part I" Story

It was an ordinary day.  There on page A7 of the morning paper was the 48 point headline that read: "Health officials link ivermectin to deaths."  Story told of the misinformation that has been printed and believed by many who decided to take the dewormer ivermectin to help them rid their body COVID-19.  I've read similar headlines over the past year or so, but not a single one of the stories tells how the person taking the medicine rid their body of the virus.  Funny that the story appeared in our local paper, since it was only a few days ago that another story appeared in the paper titled "NOT MAGIC."  That story told of the gentleman who lives in nearby Lititz, Pennsylvania who helped develop the dewormer ivermectin and who has been cautioning people against the drug's use as a COVID-19 treatment.  And...who better than one of the medical experts on the drug than the guy who developed it!  Man's name is Dr. Kenneth Brown who wrote the Merck & Co. research protocols to study ivermectin as a treatment for RIVER BLINDNESS.  Did you read that carefully?  The fellow is a medical doctor and the drug is meant to treat River Blindness!!  If you are not sure what River Blindness might be, here is exactly what it is:  Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, is a disease caused by infection with the parasitic worm Onchocerca volvulus.  Symptoms include severe itching, bumps under the skin and blindness.   It is the second-most common cause of blindness due to infection, after trachoma.  Not a single word in the definition is spelled COVID-19.  Dr. Brown told the newspaper that he realizes that everyone would like to have a cure for COVID-19, but that hope isn't by using his drug.  He did say that, "While ivermectin does impede COVID-19, the dose to achieve this far exceeds what's considered safe.  It is a danger to trust the dream we wish for rather than the science we have.  Ivermectin is a gift, not magic and not a panacea."  This Doctor/Scientist should know!  In the article he went on to say, "Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat river blindness, intestinal roundworm infections and head lice in humans.  It's also used to deworm pets and livestock."  No where did he say that the medication was a "cure" for COVID-19.  Federal agencies, medical associations and even the Australian researchers who discovered ivermectin inhibits SARS CoV-2 have all cautioned against using it to cure COVID-19.  As I wrote at the beginning of my story today, the drug is "NOT MAGIC."  But, some evidently don't read the information printed about the drug and swear that the drug can cure COVID-19.  According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prescriptions for ivermectin skyrocketed across the United States in January from an average of 3,600 per week from March 16, 2019 to March 13, 2020, to a peak of 39,000 in the week ending Jan. 8.  And so, too, have calls to poison control centers. Unfortunately, Fox News hosts like Laura Ingraham have pushed dubious COVID-19 “remedies” including ivermectin, as has U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who generally favors dangerous conspiracy theories over reliable science.  The conspiracy theory around ivermectin holds that Big Pharma “doesn’t want the public to use ivermectin as a COVID-19 cure because the pharmaceutical companies don’t make vast sums of money on what is, essentially in the U.S., a horse dewormer.”   The truth is that doctors don’t want people to use a livestock dewormer because humans are not livestock. It seems self-evident that a drug formulated for a 1,400-pound horse or cow would be dangerous for a human who weighs one-seventh that.   A doctor in nearby Lancaster General Hospital stated, "It's not a treatment that we're using now!  We're going to keep sticking to science!"  Dr. Kenneth Brown is proud of his association with ivermectin since more than 4 billion doses of ivermectin (renamed Mectizan) have been administered globally in the effort to eliminate river blindness, the leading cause of preventable blindness worldwide.  River blindness is transmitted by the bites of black flies that breed near rivers and streams and is prevalent in 36 countries in Africa, Latin America and Yemen.  Dr. Brown now tracks questionable claims about medicines as a retirement job. The questionable claims around ivermectin are a classic good versus evil theory intended, according to the misguided belief, to keep the drug out of the public's hands.  Many believe that Big Pharma doesn't want the public to use ivermectin as a COVID-19 cure since they can't make vast sums of money on what is essentially a horse dewormer.  Ivermectin actually does not have established safety protocols.  Dr. Brown says, "Don't get your information or medical advice from Facebook or Instagram.  No social media platform can be reliably accurate."  Please heed his advice!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.