Now in apple flavor! Yummy!
https://www.durvet.com/product/ivermectin-paste/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/09/02/internet-vigilantes-are-fighting-ivermectin-misinformation-with-memes-and-explicit-horse-cartoons/

Following a spate of reports of people being hospitalized after taking ivermectin meant for horses, the Food and Drug Administration issued an unusual statement to remind members of the public that “you are not a horse. You are not a cow,” urging them to stop self-medicating with a product meant for livestock.


"You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it."

-- FDA via Twitter, 21 August 2021

https://www.themarysue.com/horse-paste-ivermectin-anti-vax-fad/

The medication being taken is called ivermectin and it’s used to treat parasitic infections. While there is a version available for humans, people have been seeking out the version for livestock, and doing so in such large numbers that it triggered a flood of calls to Mississippi’s poison control center. (Neither the human or veterinary version, by the way, has been approved for any sort of treatment for COVID-19. They are treatments for parasites, not viruses.)

If you’re wondering how we got to this point, where people are seeking out livestock meds instead of taking the free, FDA-approved vaccine, you’re not alone.

As would be expected, Fox News has played a major role in putting ivermectin on people’s radars. Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and Tucker Carlson have all promoted the drug on their shows.

But before the drug made its way onto Fox News, it was being shared, unsurprisingly, in Facebook groups and on Reddit.

So essentially, an anti-vax group with a large online presence pushed a deworming medication as a COVID-19 treatment, anti-vaxxers got tired of jumping through hoops for the medication and decided to try an alternate version of the drug meant for animals.

This series of events feels all too similar to the period where people were ingesting chloroquine phosphate—an aquarium cleaner—as well as other forms of disinfectant after then-President Trump praised a potential (but also still largely untested) treatment with a similar name.

As for why people are seeking out such risky alternate treatments in the first place when the vaccine is free, widely available, and proven to be far safer than horse medications or fish tank cleaners, well, that’s a tougher question. I would guess it boils down to a distrust of medical professionals that is, especially in regard to COVID-19, highly partisan. But that mentality is definitely not entirely confined to a certain political affiliation.

The excellent podcast Maintenance Phase had a truly upsetting but really informative episode about the “wellness”-to-QAnon pipeline—how a lot of people with no interest in Donald Trump or right-wing politics found their way into the conspiracy theory via junk science health fads shared on social media.

There is one final plot twist.

America’s Frontline Doctors founder Simone Gold was indicted and is awaiting trial... for her role in the Capitol Riot on January 6th.

Out on personal recognizance, she was on the speaker lineup for an antivaxx rally in LA on Saturday.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2021 09:22AM by anybody.