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Comment by wmf | Hacker News Reader

We went through a similar thing a few years ago with everybody calling Iv_rm_ct_n "horse medicine". I thought it was funny at first, but it is FDA-approved for humans, just not for the purpose people wanted to use it for. Jokes and ridicule may not be a good way to convince people to trust the science.

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I had actually been thinking of this specific scenario whenever I wrote the above comment. People refer to the medication you are referencing as “horse dewormer” like it’s a bad thing - in reality it’s also a “people dewormer” as well that has been used safely as a first line anti-parasitic in humans for over 50 years.

to be fair some people were actually trying to buy it from veterinarians

That was because FDA pressure campaigns made it impossible to obtain the human formulation for off-label use. I had a prescription filled in January 2021 before it became a political hot potato. Ten months later the same pharmacy practically hung up the phone on me when I asked if I could get it filled.

Oh wow you are an ivermectin crackpot

You can't attack other users like this, no matter how wrong they are or you feel they are.

We've had to warn you about breaking the site guidelines before. If you keep this up we're going to have to ban you, so it would be good if you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here.

sure but it’s not a drug to treat viruses (covid in this case), these weren’t people looking for valid off label use

sometimes pointing out people are being dumb is completely valid - if you buy horse dewormer from a vet to treat yourself ineffectively you kind of have it coming

"Trusting science" was a ship that had long since sailed for them. There is an enormous overlap with creationists and climate deniers, among others.

That doesn't make mockery the right approach either. But let's not kid ourselves that they were one friendly ear away from listening to the overwhelming majority of scientists. This is just one piece of a decades long conflict.

As I understand it, part of the reason it became that joke was that the horse medicine formulation was the only one that was available (maybe for humans it's prescription-only or maybe it was just another everything-was-sold-out).

I think you missed the reason people called it horse medicine?

People were getting and/or stealing ivermectin dosed for horses, and using it on themselves

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