The foul stench of anti-vaxxer love for Ivermectin should be a sign...

Christopher Reeves

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Thursday August 26, 2021 · 10:03 AM PDT

2021/08/26 · 10:03

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA - OCTOBER 14: (L-R) Ciaron Maher stabe horses, Throssell, Pemberley, Lucy Yeomans riding Jameka and Akavoroun during beach work at Mordialloc beach ahead of tomorrows Caulfield Cup on October 14, 2016 in Melbourne, Australia. Pemberley and Jameka will line up in the Caulfield Cup tomorrow. (Photo by Vince Caligiuri/Getty Images)

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I’m fortunate that in my youth I spent part of my time on a farm. I had relatives who farmed cattle and crops. My uncle, a veterinarian, brought to every situation a real sense of what it meant to care for animals, big and small. He treated every animal you’d find on or around a farm, from cats and dogs to goats to pigs to cattle.

One thing I learned early and permanently is that treatments for animals are meant for animals. I never once tried to go lick a salt lick. I didn’t feel the need to try out one of the antibiotic shots for cattle. I certainly didn’t need to take swine treatments. I just decided, based on common sense and the sound medical advice of my uncle, that I wasn’t going to take treatments developed and sold for the care and keeping of nonhuman animals. Call me crazy, but it seems like a terrible idea.

When it comes to treating COVID, however, some anti-vaxxers are less strict about the safety of their medical treatment than you might think. Let me explain this as delicately as possible: Anti-vaxxers who do not trust medical research, researchers, guidance, or human-targeted treatments are taking Ivermectin, an animal dewormer, instead.

And they’re pooping their pants in public.

Got into a private ivermectin (horse dewormer) group, and everyone is pooping their pants pic.twitter.com/yqjC4Gp2mv
— Aric Toler (@AricToler) August 26, 2021

Ivermectin is used to treat parasitic roundworm infections. You can buy it at hardware stores or co-ops for farm animals, like cattle or horses. With horses, for example, the medication is administered on a regular schedule—for most farms, once a year—to keep the animals parasite-free while also not over-dosing the equine stock. This is once a year.

Ivermectin works. By “works” I mean “can rip through the digestive tract at warp speed and clear out everything in the way, hoping to purge parasites.”

If you have a parasitic roundworm infection, you can get a prescription from your doctor for a version suitable for human use. But, uh, let me explain: COVID is not a parasitic infection that leaves you blind, and a medication that kills worms is still not the right thing.

Ivermectin is being studied as a possible treatment for prolonging life in those with COVID-19. It is not approved for that use, and if it were, you would have to have a prescription for it and take it under the care of a medical professional. Meanwhile, 200 million Americans have had at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and the number of adverse incidents is astonishingly low.

I will let the FDA speak more on point regarding the medication.

You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y'all. Stop it. https://t.co/TWb75xYEY4
— U.S. FDA (@US_FDA) August 21, 2021

All I can offer you is the view of someone who loved the animals: Don’t take their medication. It is one thing to step in a cow patty. It is a whole other thing if I’m having to step behind human beings dropping their own without warning in places I visit.

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The foul stench of anti-vaxxer love for Ivermectin should be a sign...

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