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Comment by kitcar | Hacker News Reader

The FDA has a page on Invermectin for Covid treatment, which provides a reminder that veterinary drugs are not designed for human consumption.

https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-shoul...

"For one thing, animal drugs are often highly concentrated because they are used for large animals like horses and cows, which can weigh a lot more than we do—a ton or more. Such high doses can be highly toxic in humans.

Moreover, FDA reviews drugs not just for safety and effectiveness of the active ingredients, but also for the inactive ingredients. Many inactive ingredients found in animal products aren’t evaluated for use in people. Or they are included in much greater quantity than those used in people. In some cases, we don’t know how those inactive ingredients will affect how ivermectin is absorbed in the human body."

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Ivermectin isn't a "veterinary drug", it's been used as a human medicine for decades.

The use of ivermectin in humans to treat parasites won a Nobel Prize.

Quoting from the Wikipedia page:

"Half of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded jointly to Campbell and Ōmura for discovering avermectin, "the derivatives of which have radically lowered the incidence of river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, as well as showing efficacy against an expanding number of other parasitic diseases"

The link I provided from the FDA says:

"There seems to be a growing interest in a drug called ivermectin to treat humans with COVID-19. Ivermectin is often used in the U.S. to treat or prevent parasites in animals.

The FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses."

It's also been given to people around the world billions of times for 4 or 5 decades.

Yeah, don't take the horse dose lol, take the human dose.

The most common way to treat onchocerciasis (river blindness) is by using ivermectin.

The warning is there because some people decided to self-medicate and bought veterinary doses and ODed.

You can also over-dose on dihydrogen monoxide - should we also ban any discussion on that?

Hydroperoxyl (the common name for hydrogen dioxide) should just break down into water and oxygen gas as soon as it encounters H+ ions (e.g. when it touches liquid water), no? Is there some particular reason you think the dangers are being repressed? If your answer is something to do with "free radicals" my understanding is that most of those come from metabolic processes rather than things you eat.

Thanks for correcting me, meant to say dihydrogen monoxide, aka water ;)

My point being that you can over-dose on almost any compound at high enough doses. So instead of driving the conversation underground and letting patients self-medicate, we should empower doctors with proper information rather than painting Ivermectin as a conspiracy theory drug

Or, as the FDA page says,

"If you have a prescription for ivermectin for an FDA-approved use, get it from a legitimate source and take it exactly as prescribed. Never use medications intended for animals on yourself. Ivermectin preparations for animals are very different from those approved for humans."

Ah, yeah. Some actual RCTs with a decent sample size would be nice though, so as to have proper information to empower doctors and patients with.

That’s a terrible argument. You can’t unwittingly overdose on water.

I dunno how you made the jump from this warning to banning discussion

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