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Comment by MPSimmons

17 days ago

I was going to say, "finally something that ivermectin can help with!" except https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7974686/

20 comments

MPSimmons

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gus_massa  17 days ago

Ivermectin is a very good dewormer! Most 2020 crap studies were easy to make because ivermectin was already distributed to big populations as a dewormer.

I'm the guy that every time someone calls it a good horse dewormer I reply: "And a good human dewormer too!"

  • duskwuff  16 days ago

    > Ivermectin is a very good dewormer!

    And that may be responsible for some false positives in ivermectin studies for COVID - if a patient has a parasitic infection as well as COVID, treating the parasites will improve their outcome.

    • storus  16 days ago

      Wasn't the ivermectin hypothesis based on it blocking NS3 helicase preventing double-stranded viral RNA from being unwound after replication? Paxlovid targets a few steps earlier by blocking 3CL protease that chops viral RNA into functional parts of a virus.

      4 replies →

  • jfengel  17 days ago

    True. But you can't get a prescription for the human version unless you actually have worms. So if you're taking it for some other reason, you're probably getting the version for horses, which you can buy by the bucket.

    • giardini  16 days ago

      Ivermectin is also prescribed for scabies and may sometimes be prescribed for bedbugs. It can be taken orally or in a topical version.

      1 reply →

  • groundzeros2015  16 days ago

    The media knowingly repeated “horse dewormer” because it made people they don’t like look dumb.

    • not2b  16 days ago

      People were literally buying horse dewormer when their doctors wouldn't prescribe it for them. "Influencers" were selling it. So the media were being accurate. To the extent that this made people look dumb, the intent was mostly to shame them into trying something more effective.

      3 replies →

tzs  17 days ago

Well then, it's good you didn't say that then, considering that ivermectin has been on the WHO list of essential medicines since 1987 and its discoverers were awarded the 2015 Nobel Price in Physiology or Medicine for it.

Saying that something might be "finally something" that ivermectin can help with would have been embarrassing.

It would have been especially embarrassing because the link you gave gives two things ivermectin helps with. After concluding that ivermectin did not affect the guinea worms it says:

> No adverse reaction to treatment was seen. It appears that ivermectin can be used safely as mass chemotherapy against onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis in areas where guinea-worm is also endemic.

They are saying that if a patient has onchocerciasis or lymphatic filariasis it is safe to use go ahead and use ivermectin (which is the normal treatment for those) to treat those, even if the patient has guinea worms.

So good thing you didn't say it!

tim333  17 days ago

It also poisons any bed bugs feeding on you.