• RobotToaster
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    11 hours ago

    I’m not defending idiots saying it cures cancer, but people dismissively calling ivermectin a “horse dewormer” when it’s approved for human use for all sorts of parasitic diseases is something that grinds my gears. It actually is something of a wonder drug, just not for what these idiots keep claiming.

    Methylene blue is an approved drug too, (the first synthetic drug, coincidentally) it’s used for cyanide poisoning amongst other things. It’s also a MAOI, which makes it dangerous to take with a bunch of common medicines.

    • VeganPizza69 Ⓥ@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      It’s because they buy the veterinary products as a way to circumvent existing reasonable limits for human use of ivermectin. It’s implicitly against doctors’ recommendations and prescriptions.

      Alternatively, they’re buying ego-boosting pills/pastes that feed the fantasy that they’re special/chosen people who are in the know about “secrets hiding in plain sight” like a common antiparasitic drug having incredible curative properties.

    • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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      4 hours ago

      I personally know/knew one of the main guys promoting Ivermectin in the news and on rogan. It was 100% a grift and he knew it. The point wasn’t the medicine but subverting public health efforts. That is why it is derided as horse dewormer.

    • TheDannysaur@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Thank you for this. I hate all the caveating you have to do on the internet, but this taught me something I didn’t know and now I’m slightly less of an idiot :)

    • socsa@piefed.social
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      5 hours ago

      People are literally buying it from Tractor Supply when doctors won’t prescribe it. That’s why people say horse dewormer. It is literally horse dewormer they are taking.

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      This should be the top comment. Most conspiracy bullshit always has some grain of truth, so when you dismiss it with factually wrong information you just solidify the conspiracy mindset, since you “don’t get it”.

      The best way to fight conspiracy theories is to engage them head on and make them prove the claim. They’ll try and miserably fail IE flat earth.

    • 𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚒𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚗 𝙼𝚎𝚘𝚠@programming.dev
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      10 hours ago

      The horse dewormer thing iirc comes from the fact that ivermectin is a prescription drug, and doctors obviously wouldn’t prescribe it for covid. So people resorted to one of the very few ways you could still purchase it: as the horse dewormer variant.

      Of course this version is much stronger and intended for horses, not humans. IIRC this led to a few hospitalisations and even deaths.

      That’s why when people advocate you should take ivermectin, the counter claim is that they’re telling you to take horse dewormer, since that’s the only way to get it. It’s not out of a general ‘disrespect’ for ivermectin.

    • SlopppyEngineer@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      It actually is something of a wonder drug

      And it worked wonders on COVID patients who actually had parasites in the “throw everything at the wall” period. Word got out some patients had improved because of it. It became a whole thing because doctors didn’t got the same results with ivermectin in others trials, probably because their patients didn’t have parasites, and ruled it out as the COVID cure. Arm chair viral experts refused to believe it and made it a conspiracy, and from there on became a cornerstone of anti vax and right wing politics. Of course right wing commentators now make it the cure for cancer.

    • spamfajitas@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      The fun fact about Methylene Blue that always is a hit with students is it also turns your pee a green/blue-green color.

    • Phen@lemmy.eco.br
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      11 hours ago

      Yes, but invermectin is also a very strong drug and even for its intended uses, it’s rarely recommended to take it more than twice in a year. During covid days, people were taking it weekly.

        • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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          4 hours ago

          My boss and the secretary were squeezing it into their applesauce every day.

          The secretary was the same person who complained the doctors caught her trying to sneak it into her mom’s hospital room and was trying to squeeze some in her mouth while intubated and said she needed to get her mom out of there to got a real Jewish hospital that would let her do it and cure her mom.

          Both sad and funny stupid.

          My boss would end up packing his entire family and their stuff from their house that would fit into his F150 truck and flee Florida to Texas for “More Freedom™”

    • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Yes it led to the first TB treatments or something didn’t it? I completely can’t remember, does it also have a link to the development of antidepressants? Somebody help me out, my undergraduate degree was a long time ago now.

      Edit: oh yeah, it’s a MAOI, you literally wrote that in your post.