Editor’s Note: This story’s headline has been changed to reflect updates to Rolling Stone’s reporting.
Note: Rolling Stone has issued an update casting some doubt on its original story but not outright debunking it:
Update: One hospital has denied Dr. Jason McElyea’s claim that ivermectin overdoses are causing emergency room backlogs and delays in medical care in rural Oklahoma, and Rolling Stone has been unable to independently verify any such cases as of the time of this update.
The National Poison Data System states there were 459 reported cases of ivermectin overdose in the United States in August. Oklahoma-specific ivermectin overdose figures are not available, but the count is unlikely to be a significant factor in hospital bed availability in a state that, per the CDC, currently has a 7-day average of 1,528 Covid-19 hospitalizations. The doctor is affiliated with a medical staffing group that serves multiple hospitals in Oklahoma. Following widespread publication of his statements, one hospital that the doctor’s group serves, NHS Sequoyah, said its ER has not treated any ivermectin overdoses and that it has not had to turn away anyone seeking care. This and other hospitals that the doctor’s group serves did not respond to requests for comment and the doctor has not responded to requests for further comment. We will update if we receive more information.
Update 2: CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale provides further context on this story:
Six years ago, when people first started voting for Donald Trump in primaries, I was gobsmacked. Why were people gravitating toward the worst possible candidate any human being or quantum supercomputer could conceivably imagine? He’s clearly not a solution to anyone’s problems, unless you’ve somehow cornered the market on Adderall and deep-fried lard pops in Midtown Manhattan.
I thought the world had gone straight-up bonkers. Or maybe just America—the country I love but have never really understood … you know, much like some of my own family members, a handful of whom actually voted for the ocher abomination. (I share 99.9%—or more—of my DNA with these people, and just 98.8% with chimps. I’m not sure what the point of that comparison is, but I hope my cousins Bubbles and Bobo aren’t too terribly offended by the unsavory association with my anti-vax sister.)
Anyway, I’m surprised by very little these days, thanks to the collective bad acid trip we’ve all been on for the past half-decade. So this headline from a recent Rolling Stone story didn’t really alarm me all that much: “Gunshot Victims Left Waiting as Horse Dewormer Overdoses Overwhelm Oklahoma Hospitals, Doctor Says”
The friend who sent me that story noted that it was the most American headline he’d ever seen. It’s hard to disagree with that. Then again, this America is different than the one I see every day from my deep-blue redoubt in Oregon.
According to the aptly headlined Rolling Stone story in question, the horse paste/ivermectin craze that’s sweeping the nation like Andrew Dice Clay’s early-’90s standup career is leaving emergency rooms in Oklahoma “so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times” accessing health care.
This week, Dr. Jason McElyea told KFOR the overdoses are causing backlogs in rural hospitals, leaving both beds and ambulance services scarce.
“The ERs are so backed up that gunshot victims were having hard times getting to facilities where they can get definitive care and be treated,” McElyea said.
“All of their ambulances are stuck at the hospital waiting for a bed to open so they can take the patient in and they don’t have any, that’s it,” said McElyea. “If there’s no ambulance to take the call, there’s no ambulance to come to the call.”
Tsk, tsk, tsk, Oklahomans. Hospitals are for people who refused vaccinations and are now in the ICU with intubation tubes jammed down their throats. We can only handle one bone-jarringly stupid sociological trend at a time. Maybe just, I don’t know, get the vaccine? Come on! Come join our Borg hive, Planet of the Horse People! What do you have to lose?
McElyea also told Rolling Stone that symptoms of ivermectin overdose are not limited to “ordinary” reactions such as vomiting, nausea, and muscle aches. “The scariest one that I’ve heard of and seen is people coming in with vision loss,” McElyea told the magazine.
Really, now. What do people imagine is in this vaccine that can be worse than vision-altering horse chemicals? Even if Bill Gates and George Soros were able to track me with a microchip now, at least I can still read the magnesium content in my oat cakes.
So, yeah, I’m not sure how much longer the devolution of American society will continue. Natural (or, rather, unnatural) selection may reverse these alarming trends, and that appears to be happening before our eyes. But it’s hardly surprising that the same people who embraced Donald Trump are now embracing livestock remedies. After all, they’re basically a horse apiece.
It made comedian Sarah Silverman say, “THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT,” and prompted author Stephen King to shout “Pulitzer Prize!!!” (on Twitter, that is). What is it? The viral letter that launched four hilarious Trump-trolling books. Get them all, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.