CV and mad panic behaviour

[Mav]

The Ivermectin push does seem to be just a figleaf for antivaxxers. The big tell is that those who push it also claim vaccines are dangerous and ineffective. I could understand if proponents of Ivermectin argued that vaccines are a great first-line of defence but when infections occur more treatments are needed.

I have no problems with existing medications being trialled to see if they might give doctors another option. I don’t have a “vaccine or nothing” mentality. Steroids have proved of some use in about a third of cases. If it works, great. But one of the attractions of using pre-existing drugs at their usual dosage is that their contraindications and side-effects are known. But if the dosage is substantially increased in order to work against Covid, new safety trials are required and can only be justified if there is enough evidence that the drug will work at reasonably safe levels. Claims Ivermectin kills Covid in Petri dishes seems to be a long way from proving this. And it seems the initial testing involved high doses:

The initial lab studies into ivermectin’s effect on the coronavirus involved very high concentrations of the drug. These were many times higher than can be achieved in the body at doses recommended to treat parasites.

https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinica...ivermectin

And the above article suggests later studies have concluded it’s not effective.

In any event, the University of Oxford was to start a trial in June, so we’ll have some decent data at the end of it.