The FDA has granted full approved the use of the Pfizer vaccine for preventing covid-19. Up until now, it had only been granted emergency use authorization and some vaccine-hesitant people had said that they did not want to take an ‘experimental’ treatment that had not received full FDA approval. Let’s hope that they will now take the vaccine because the number of preventable cases and deaths is staggering and heartbreaking.
But I suspect that even this approval will not win over the hard-core skeptics. Take this report that some people are using drugs used to deworm livestock to prevent covid-19 instead of taking the vaccines. The FDA has put out a surprisingly sarcastic statement.
You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4
— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 21, 2021
Ahead of full US authorisation of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine, the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had a simple message for Americans contemplating using ivermectin, a medicine used to deworm livestock, instead of getting a Covid shot.
“You are not a horse,” it said. “You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
As with other purported alternative treatments for Covid-19, misinformation about ivermectin has spread on social media and through rightwing media and politicians.
…In comments shared widely on social media, Dr Pierre Kory, a pulmonary and critical care specialist at Aurora St Luke’s medical center in Milwaukee, called ivermectin a “wonder drug”.
Experts said then that test results suggesting ivermectin could inhibit replication of the SARS-CoV-2 virus did not amount to official authorisation for use.“It is a far cry from an in-vitro lab replication to helping humans,” Dr Nasia Safdar, medical director of infection prevention at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Hospital, told the Associated Press.
…On Sunday the US surgeon general, Dr Vivek Murthy, told CNN: “The best protection we have against Covid-19 is the vaccine, and if you get Covid-19, we actually do have treatments that work.
“Ivermectin is not one of them.”
The Pfizer shot was formally approved on Monday.
The FDA accompanied its Saturday tweet with a fact sheet. In answer to the question “Should I take ivermectin to treat Covid-19”, it said: “No. While there are approved uses for ivermectin in people and animals, it is not approved for the prevention or treatment of Covid-19.
“You should not take any medication to treat or prevent Covid-19 unless it has been prescribed to you by your healthcare provider and acquired from a legitimate source.”
My problem sometimes is that I try to make sense of the actions of people who may have no rational basis for doing so, such as in this case. If you so concerned about taking an ‘unproven’ vaccine, something that has undergone extensive trials, the logical thing would be to either do nothing or take something ‘natural’ like herbs and spices or maybe even vitamin supplements. Why would you try a different unproven drug treatment whose use for treating covid-19 is actively discouraged by the medical and scientific community?
It seems as if they are adopting the policy of being willing to use anything at all other than the recommended treatment.
Weird.
Meanwhile, Jordan Klepper finds that you do not need to go to rural areas to find anti-vax sentiment because they are right there in New York City. I was amused at the number of people who said that they are not getting the vaccine because it is not FDA approved. What are the chances that they now get it? Will they switch to another reason?
Since I’ve been reading tweets about ivermectin, I know that it is also used to deworm sheep and goats. Very small doses are used to treat other parasites, such as ear mites in cats and dogs and similar. Obviously, as prescribed by veterinarians. Humans may get an appropriate prescribed dose for parasites as well.
The sort of people who are doing this have already overcommitted to trusting non-mainstream sources, and distrusting mainstream sources. The non-mainstream sources throw out whatever cherry-picked bullshit they have. The bullshit gets picked up and amplified far beyond the realms of sensibility.
The human race is doomed. Idiocracy was not supposed to be factual.
I remember many years ago noticing that tetracycline was cheaper at the pet store than the pharmacy but decided my girlfriend might notice i was skimping.
From the interwebs: If the people who call everyone else sheep could stop taking livestock medication, that’d be great.
It’s a toxic mix of stupidity and petulance. The power of ideology to completely destroy the capacity for rational thought.
Am I to understand that the Tractor Supply Company is NOT a “legitimate source” for medications or healthcare?
Somewhere below low to nonexistent.
Yes.
Not dying from Covid-19 or being permanently disabled is not a good enough reason for them to get vaccinated. We don’t have any better reasons than that to convince the antivaxxers.
They antivaxxers will get vaccinated anyway whether they want to or not. The hard way. The disease just mimics the vaccine with additional symptoms such as death or being in a hospital on a ventilator. This virus is everywhere and very contagious. Everyone will meet it sooner or later.
On the bright side, I doubth ivermectin is as lethal as bleach.
@2 Johnson: “The human race is doomed.”
Yeah, in South America, Europe, Africa and Asia all nations will cease to exist when some stupid Americans prefer to die instead of getting vaccinated. That or you’re no smarter than them.
The people touting Ivermectin as a wonderdrug do this based on one study. Every other study was negative/no benefit. But if you abuse statistics a bit (by in this case rating that one positive study quality as high a possible instead of the true value) that one positive study can generate a meta analysis that is overall positive as well. Which a few enterprising groups deliberately did.
There were some ‘minor’ problems with that one positive study. Plagiarism, raw data problems with IMNSHO was a result of both incompetence (poor and wrong methodology used in places) and fraud (copy/pasting numbers, numbers just plain not matching and more), the researcher published in a journal which he is the chief editor and a member of the board of editors (guess who approved the initial/pre publication before this blew up).
So the paper was retracted, all those meta analyses made by the (COIVD) anti-vax and Ivermectin stock pushers should have been retracted as well due to that. For some reason that hasn’t happened. Then again Wakefield is still touring the US touting his fraud.
re mnb0 @8: I am already vaccinated. I wear a mask everywhere outside of my house. My company still supports working from home, so I do. I have almost zero social interaction. I have no children. I believe in real science and research done by qualified experts. I have essentially nothing in common with the people in that video except that I am of the human race. And I loathe those types of people because they are doing their best to bring an end to life on this planet and to make life as unbearable as possible in the meantime.
I think one problem contributing to this is that people in the USA have a long history of taking veterinary medicine due to the clusterfuck that is the US Healthcare system. People can’t afford to see the doctor, so they take antibiotics meant for animals that just cost a few bucks.
@Giliell, that’s something I hadn’t considered, but I bet you’re right. Back when I was in college, I worked part-time for a vet. I had no medical insurance. I came down with a nasty cough and because I wasn’t insured, the doctor’s appointment alone would cost $250, and the likely course of antibiotics another $70. I was making $4/hr ($100/week before taxes, $75/week more or less after taxes). A doctor visit was not in the budget. The vet gave me the antibiotics because it cost him about $3, and that was worth more to him than listening to me cough my lungs out.
It’s only gotten more expensive to see a doctor since, and drug costs have also exploded.
Giliell:
Sure, some may be more accustomed to doing that sort of thing out of desperation. However, in this case, a vaccine is free, and it may even come with a chance to win big in a lottery. Meanwhile, sheep drench from the feed store or whatever does cost them a fair amount, and something like Heartgard (for dogs) from the pet store looks like it’s quite a bit more expensive by weight/volume than that.
And those desperate people are also probably accustomed to not spending any more than they absolutely need to, while also being used to picking options that will at minimum be reliable/effective rather than satisfying some other sort of criteria. That’s where the priorities really are, not on getting (e.g.) expensive junk which merely makes them feel good because it better matches their preferences or something. So, they’ll get a good, solid, reliable car which simply has to get them from point A to point B, and they’re not likely to worry all that much about the paint job or the cup holders or whatever. You know what I mean?
Anyway, certainly not all but a lot of the conservative goons who peddle this crap have plenty to spend on trucks, guns, booze, or whatever bullshit they happen to want. They’re really not hurting for money, if that were even an issue in this case, which it’s not.
cr
You’re right in all you’re saying, yet there’s also evidence that people mistrust the promise of free vaccines, because they made bad experiences in the past, like receiving huge bills for free Covid tests.
Anyway, I was just trying to add a contributing factor as to why people would not immediately think “that’s batshit crazy, don’t take sheep dewormer” in the USA.
FDA approval has some scientific merit but it was pushed mainly by politics.
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In a previous comment on freethoughtblog, Israel has the greatest vaccination rate. And yet.
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Israel will then reconfigure its Green Passports, granting them only to the triple-vaccinated, and limiting their validity to six months. Them vaccines are not very potent and the potency does not last long.
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I am amused by commentators who deride ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine: these medications are used on both humans and animals. Follow facts, not so much “science” which has become ideological.
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Countries where malaria is endemic (India, Sri Lanka, Sub-Saharan Africa), ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine are widely used. Their Wuhan deaths per 100,000 population is about 5 times SMALLER than in western countries and their Case Fatality Rate is about SMALLER than in western countries. Nigeria is not known for state-of-the-art medicine.
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Western Elites do not want to learn humble lesson from their poor global neighbors. President Trump is not part of the Global Elite. President Trump took a 2-week course of hydroxychloroquine. President Trump got the Wuhan and the Left prayed (ironic since the Left is atheist) for his death. In vain.
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I propose that at least 400,000 people died NOT from the Wuhan but by TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) of the American Establishment. The TDS virus is more fatal than the Wuhan virus.
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(Aug 25, 2021) Wuhan deaths per 100,000 population; Case Fatality Rate;
Peru……………608.86……..9.2%
Czech Republic…..284.78……..1.8%
Belgium…………220.67……..2.2%
Italy…………..213.70……..2.9%
United Kingdom…..197.76……..2.0%
United States……192.18……..1.7%
France………….170.04……..1.7%
Sweden………….142.63……..1.3%
Switzerland……..127.75……..1.4%
Germany…………110.75……..2.4%
Israel…………..75.99……..0.7%
Sri Lanka………..35.55……..1.9%
India……………31.89……..1.3%
Cameroon………….5.17……..1.6%
Nigeria…………..1.14……..1.2%
friedfishe, you’re particularly doltish on this one.
First: Wuhan is the capital city of China’s Hubei province, not a virus.
Second: Covid is a virus, not a parasite.
Third: if you’re going by the official death counts, you’re way off your numbers.
friedfish2718, you know that ivermectin is poisonous in the wrong dose? You know that in veterinary drugs, ivermectin is present in milligram quantities, but when prescribed for humans, only in microgram quantities? That overdoses are fatal?
Do you know that 70% of calls to the posion control center in Mississippi are for ivermection overdoses?
But, why bother: you would never take this yourself, and you are just trolling, and so are immune to any facts. Why don’t you post about how injecting bleach actually is widely used to save lives, and only Trump Derangement syndrome in western elites prevents them from using it?
Something I didn’t realize was that there are actually doctors who are medical contrarians (antivax, but also having other confused beliefs about medicine) who pander to medical contrarian patients.
This Twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/oneunderscore__/status/1431040456364810242
Describes the group called “America’s Frontline Doctors”, who are pro-Trump, and who also were also promoting hydroxychloroquine, back when that was the miracle panacea to be hyped.
No-one is deriding the drugs themselves, or their appropriate use.
It is a fact that ideological bad “science” has led to those drugs being used inappropriately and ineffectively.