I heard an allegation that ivermectin is being used in India to treat the coronavirus? Can someone explain that?

  • poVoq
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    62 years ago

    The studies about the positive effect actually come from Bangladesh, and you know what? People are pretty poor there and often have chronic worm infections. So if you kill those worms their immune system can better concentrate on fighting the Covid19 virus instead. Its as simple as that.

    • @sexy_peach@feddit.de
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      32 years ago

      Also I remember reading that the worms are held back by the immune system, but a treatment (against covid) will kill your immune system which is good for covid but will help the worms so killing worms first is good. That’s why the positive finding ivermectin studies come from areas with high rates of worms in ppl.

      • @sheesh@lemmy.ml
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        2 years ago

        From “The Economist”: https://outline.com/TmBFfj

        In the groups who received ivermectin during trials, the drug would keep strongyloides in check. But patients in control groups would be left at the worms’ mercy. This would make it look as if ivermectin were preventing deaths caused solely by covid-19, when in fact it was preventing those caused by the parasites or by a combination of the two infections. This mechanism would explain why most studies conducted in places where strongyloides are rare showed no benefit from taking ivermectin. “Ivermectin doesn’t treat covid,” Dr Bitterman wrote. “It treats parasites (shocker) that kill people when they get steroids that treat covid.” He concluded that “taking strongyloides endemic populations, putting them into a control group with corticosteroids is a death sentence”.”

        • मुक्त
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          12 years ago

          Recall that covid-19 wasn’t causing deaths in itself, and death happened only because of existing comorbidities in patients.

  • mekhos
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    42 years ago

    You could use toothpaste to treat it too, doesn’t mean its going to be effective though.

    • The Free PenguinOP
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      22 years ago

      Antivaxx family member: “The only reason why Big Pharma doesn’t wanna use ivermectin is cuz it’s cheap”

      • mekhos
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        42 years ago

        Its cheap because its developed for killing worms in animals.

        Developed countries are paying around 20USD for Pfizer so for 80USD you could have a pretty safe and affective course of double VAX and two boosters, or you could save a few bucks and take a worming tablet with no/questionable benefit.

        One of these options represents a proactive, sensible, and medically approved approach that respects your own life as well as those of your loved-ones and wider community; the other option is an obtuse, missinformed, selfish attempt at feeling in control during a stressful time in the world.

        • @gun@lemmy.ml
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          -12 years ago

          With all due respect that “Its cheap because its developed for killing worms in animals.” doesn’t answer the question.
          It’s like, if someone said “the US invades the middle east for oil.” And then in response “that’s not true, because there’s lots of oil in the middle east because of the location of the tethys ocean during the mesozoic.”

          I don’t care why the middle east has oil in this case, just like I don’t care about why ivermectin is cheap. It’s a non sequitor.

          • @AgreeableLandscape@lemmy.ml
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            2 years ago

            With all due respect that “Its cheap because its developed for killing worms in animals.” doesn’t answer the question.

            I think it does answer the question of “big pharma doesn’t like it because cheap.” Drugs for animals are cheaper because they don’t need as intensive validation. Every pill, shot, anything medical meant for humans must pass rigorous quality control and certification, and that’s for every unit of the product, not just for the class of drug in general. So yes, if you take the pills actually meant for humans, it’s more than likely to be much more expensive than for your horse or something.

            Not to mention, ivermectin is a highly mature drug with an optimized and large scale production process. So chances are, the profit margin will be larger than the vaccine, which you think the pharma companies would be all over if it actually did what it’s claimed and had a chance to be approved.

            • @gun@lemmy.ml
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              02 years ago

              Do you actually know the profit margins for both ivermectin and the vaccine or are you just making it up?
              Also, profit margin is irrelevant here, for at least two reasons. First, from the viewpoint of the producer, the vaccines are administered in multiple doses to as large a share of the population as possible, while ivermectin would only be prescribed for patients with severe covid, which is a much smaller share of the population. It’s a thousandfold increase in the quantity of medication sold.
              Second, from the viewpoint of the consumer, the vaccine is free, and ivermectin costs money.

  • @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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    -22 years ago

    Ivermectin is for side treatment, and yes it is used in India. It is used in more countries than the horse dewormer MSM narrative would have told you, which would be… most of the countries. You might be shocked to know that even steroids are used for treatment in case of severe viral load and/or illness.

    Side treatments supplement and support the main treatment, since during COVID illness you cannot get the vaccine, as your body systems are too weak. Once you recover in a few months, after you have sufficiently low COVID antibodies developed from contracting COVID, you get the vaccine (generally 4-6 months later).

    In a nutshell, ordinary people know nothing more than what Western MSM news media tells them, and the handful people who choose to read reputed journal papers like Lancet. These are the same news media that called China’s measures draconian (actually effective), then followed with “brave” headlines when USA, Italy and other countries copypasted the same measures.

    t. Indian whose dad is a doctor

      • @TheAnonymouseJoker@lemmy.ml
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        -22 years ago

        This is simply false. Ivermectin has more medical uses for humans than the provax narrative mostly built by medically uneducated journalists. The whole horse dewormer narrative is incredibly ignorant, considering how much Ivermectin has been researched and has been used among humans, especially during COVID treatment.

        Listen to doctors and read medical sources instead of relying on tabloid hearsay. As harmful as the antivax narrative is, provax MSM counter narrative also infuses ignorance into a lot of people, destroying critical thinking, research and vigilant skills that everyone must have.