More People are Poisoning Themselves With Horse-Deworming Drug to Thwart COVID

upstart writes:

More people are poisoning themselves with horse-deworming drug to thwart COVID:

Prior to the pandemic, ivermectin had been used for decades to prevent and treat parasitic infections in people and animals. At low concentrations, the drug interferes with specific ion channels that are found in parasitic nematode worms, but not in people or animals. The ion channel disruption in nematodes results in paralysis and keeps the worms from feeding and reproducing. As such, ivermectin is routinely used in small animals, such as dogs and cats, to prevent heartworm infections. In large livestock animals-including cattle, horses, pigs, and sheep-it's used as a deworming drug.

In humans, the FDA has approved ivermectin tablets to treat conditions caused by parasitic intestinal worms as well as topical formulations for some external parasites, like head lice. But it's critical to note that the ivermectin drugs available to people involve relatively small doses and are in formulations known to be safe for human use. The over-the-counter livestock drugs, on the other hand, are not formulated for human use and have much larger doses for the animals' much larger bodies. At higher concentrations, ivermectin begins to interfere with not just nematode ion channels, but other types of critical channels in humans and animals, like neurotransmitter channels. This can be extremely dangerous.

[...] But the petri dish data has yet to translate into any convincing clinical data that the drug is actually useful against COVID-19 in whole people. Studies in humans have been small and produced inconsistent results. Meta-analyses aimed at weeding out potential clinical benefits have struggled with faulty data, and some have been retracted.

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