A large study confirms it: Ivermectin is not an effective treatment for COVID-19. If you have parasites, the drug might be a good choice—follow your doctor’s advice on that. But a double-blinded study of 1,300 patients in Brazil, half of whom got ivermectin and half of whom got a placebo, found no benefit from the drug.
Ivermectin does not reduce the risk of hospitalization from COVID-19, the study found. Not only that, but people who started taking it within three days of a positive test for the virus even had worse outcomes than people who got a placebo.
RELATED STORY: Rep. Andy Harris moans it's 'ridiculous' that national medical groups oppose ivermectin for COVID-19
Dr. Andrew Hill is the British virologist who helped raise ivermectin’s profile with a review of studies of the drug that found significant benefits from it. He then subsequently redid his review after removing several flawed or even fraudulent studies, at which point he found no benefit for ivermectin. Hill said of the new TOGETHER study, “They have run a high-quality, placebo-controlled trial.”
The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, is running another large trial of ivermectin, but informed observers don’t expect the results to be any different.
Ivermectin’s total lack of results as a COVID-19 treatment has not stopped Republicans from throwing it into their broader politicization of the pandemic and treatments for the virus. People have threatened hospital workers for not providing ivermectin. Lawmakers have railed against pharmacists for not filling prescriptions and against national medical groups for opposing the then-unproven treatment. In one Arkansas jail, inmates were given ivermectin without their knowledge. A right-wing network of doctors raked in millions of dollars for prescribing ivermectin as well as hydroxychloroquine, its predecessor as a discredited treatment promoted by Republicans.
Social media companies have allowed damaging misinformation and disinformation to proliferate across their platforms, taking only ineffective measures to stem the tide. And Spotify didn’t just pay Joe Rogan $100 million to promote ivermectin along with racism and toxic masculinity, it specifically worded its policies to leave room for lies and disinformation.
The misinformation campaign is ongoing. In Wisconsin just this week, a lawyer announced her candidacy for state attorney general on a platform of prosecuting doctors for not prescribing ivermectin.
People are dying from choosing useless “treatments” over getting vaccinated. People who survive may find their health damaged for years if not for life. Millions of people have lost loved ones. We’ve all lost time and opportunities for joy. The United States may be headed for another deadly wave of COVID-19. And the disinformation and rage against any concept of shared responsibility or public health continues—and will continue despite the total discrediting of yet another favorite right-wing treatment regimen. It’s tragic.
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Laura Clawson April 02, 2022 at 01:00AM From Daily Kos
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