However, one of your comments shows the true problem. It's not FOR the media to decide. Murdoch may disagree but the media is just reflecting the establishment. You can argue about the effectiveness of said establishments because they're all dysfunctional, like any organization of any size, but to claim that we should just throw away scientific process in anathema to modern society.
There were multiple reports of people refusing treatment (and, of course, vaccines before that) because they wanted ivermectin.
Prior to that, people poisoning themselves with household products due to Trump's careless speculation on treatment.
It's ironic as those who don't trust vaccines seem to flock to the medical advice of those without any training.
The backlash has never been primarily about the dangers of ivermectin specifically, but the rejection of established protocol, scientific procedure and basically everything that humanity has moved forward with in the past century or so.
This is a trend I've observed in proponents of New Age alternative "medicine", way before COVID. They can simultaneously believe that Western medicine is "unproven" or a "hoax", and that doctors are "untrustworthy" and "big pharma" wants you to buy unproven stuff, and no amount of qualifications will convince them. Yet they have no trouble believing Bach flower remedies will cure anything, they follow homeopathy religiously, and it's enough evidence that some healer is the real deal because they heard someone at the grocery store say so and she seemed like such a nice person. Or some TV celebrity said so, and why would he lie?
Last I checked colloidal silver was being sold by a christian evangelist named Jim Bakker. Then there's chiropractors. Then there was the anti-vaxxers. Then the "vitamins will cure anything under the sun." Then there was things like "all-herbal fen phen" and other herbal products. Then there's that famous goop company led by a has been actress which has some questionable products, but sold to housewives. Oh and the entire premise of homeopathic medicine is a fraud.
And then FDA approved drugs like fen phen (Wyeth) which should not have made it to market some how did, and caused heart valve problems.
Hell, when you think about it, what the fuck exactly is holy water which is used by the Catholic church?
If you can dupe people into the premise that "Magical Things are Real", then it becomes easy to take their money away from them. And right now, it doesn't seem too hard to do these days.
They cannot find a way to trust the opinion of professionals ("they are lying", "they pay them to say so", "the evidence is faked", "they want to control us", "this has toxic stuff they won't tell you about") but if the nice woman at the grocery store tells them her niece went to a healer who has a "holistic" method of curing migrane/the flu/covid/cancer then suddenly it's "it must work, don't be narrow minded!".
I would understand if they were always mistrustful of everything: the government, big pharma, the woman at the grocery store, anecdotes from coworkers. But no, their mistrust is weirdly selective.
For example, this article mentioning the research immediately should have a red flag for anyone that knows what the actual protocols that work/are being used for Ivermectin as 1) a preventative are, and 2) different protocol in hospital treatment - the moment you read that this trial only provided 3 days of Ivermectin once having symptoms (and where everyone involved has severe comorbidities - so improper protocol followed, inadequate dosing of Ivermectin will result in the worst outcome/non-effectiveness signal possible).
You think established protocol has been adequately applied or applied with integrity when it comes to the mRNA injections? Do you also think there's zero chance of influence or manipulation by for-profit medical industrial complex? Honest questions.
Edit to add: Ah yes, the lazy-dopamine rewarding downvote instead of engaging in discussion and critical thinking - the ideologues' wet dream and downfall of an intellectually evolving society.
This is not true.
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-japan-ivermectinan...
Because anti-vaxxers pitched it as an alternative to vaccination, and many people listened.
Second, a viable alternative to vaccination wouldn't be a bad thing. But Ivermectin is not that. So suggesting that it is is a bad thing.
And no one is suggesting you accept vaccines as "the only way forward". Pfizer is developing a treatment for after you've caught COVID. Work is being done in that direction. Currently, vaccines are your best safety measure. That's been borne out by the data available. Any way you look at it.
You do not understand vaccines. It's incredible to me that we still have to be explaining this more than two years into the pandemic, but vaccines are not magical fixes. The COVID-19 vaccine exists to strongly reduce your symptoms in case of infection. The effect does not stay at full efficacy forever and as new strains develop over time they may become less protective still.
> Almost make me feel like they're scared of someone finding a better way out of this.
Yeah, obviously there's a giant conspiracy going on to prevent you from finding out about the magical solution to COVID-19. Can't possibly be that your understanding of how stuff works is lacking.
But pitching Ivermectin as an alternative to vaccination is bad because Ivermectin does not work and the vaccines work very well.
What's wrong with booster shots? I'm going through tick-borne encephalitis vaccination course right now, and it's 3 shots in the first 6 months, fourth shot after 3 years, and then a shot every 5 years. I also take an influenza booster annually. I'll a COVID one to the list too. Because it works!
Can you elaborate? Why does the number of booster shots tell you anything about the right way to treat this pandemic? I honestly don't follow.
It's a pretty good way to get rid of parasites, but the association with COVID caused a lot of problems.
The part "b)" about horse dewormer overdoses have been confirmed to be fake news long ago so I think don't need to dwell on that too much. I still don't know whether ivermectin is effective or not though. If it's not then I still don't understand what's the big deal. Why does it have to be smeared so hard.
And this whole "c)" thing. That's the most disturbing part to me. That's basically like religious fundamentalism to me. I just can't wrap my head around it. Why should vaccination be the only acceptable way to treat COVID and that we shouldn't even consider the alternatives as if they were some kind of heresies? I just don't understand. To me it seems like the vaccine fundamentalists are more interested in obedience than science. In science we need opposing views and this obviously means that some of those views will be proven to be false, but if you try to effectively SUPPRESS those opposing views then you can't call it science anymore. Also, there's always a good chance that the mainstream view can be false. I mean, just like with religions but that's one of those worm cans that only make people mad if we pop it open.
My whole life I was taught that trying to cure seasonal flu with vaccine is silly because the flu mutates too fast and it just leads to an endless loop of seasonal vaccines. Then covid happens and suddenly I should forget everything I knew about vaccines even though with the talk about all these booster shots it only makes it seems like the old knowledge makes more sense than this new knowledge. My brain refuses to accept this nonsense, I can't help it.
> Why should vaccination be the only acceptable way to treat COVID
It's not a treatment. Vaccines are prevention. We have treatments. Ivermectin isn't one of them.
> In science we need opposing views
That sounds so childish. We don't need "views" in science. We need results that people can trust.
You have my permission to try and prove ivermectin is effective. So far everyone trying has failed. That's not a view. It's fact.
> trying to cure seasonal flu with vaccine is silly
It's not. We can get rid of seasonal flu if we try hard enough.
> To me it seems like the vaccine fundamentalists are more interested in obedience than science.
"vaccine fundamentalists" suggests to me a complete disingenuous argument.
We know how to prevent covid. We know how to eradicate covid. We have watched countries do just that. Even if we don't do the things those places do, we can reduce the death count here.
But with small-minded attitudes like yours, that simply is never going to happen.
I'm not an expert on medicine and I admit I have no idea what I'm talking about but are you trying to make some kind of a point here or are you just arguing about semantics?
>You have my permission to try and prove ivermectin is effective. So far everyone trying has failed.
No I'm not qualified for that. This is why I gave you a link about COVID nasal sprays that have ivermectin in them and asked whether they're bullshit or not. Enlighten me if you can or don't reply.
>It's not. We can get rid of seasonal flu if we try hard enough.
I'm too pessimistic to fall for that kind of wishful thinking.
>But with small-minded attitudes like yours, that simply is never going to happen.
Come on. You don't want me to be open-minded. You want me to be small-minded with you. To align my views with yours. Open-mindedness requires you to accept opposing view points. What even makes me small-minded exactly? I'm not against vaccines and I'm not against ivermectin. I'm merely baffled by the anti-ivermectin narrative and the totalitarian vaccine campaigns that leave no other options except mandatory vaccines. I may be ignorant and I may be wrong but I'm certainly not small-minded.
You've been taught wrong. First, the vaccines don't "cure" flu and nobody claims they do. Second, in many countries they are recommended yearly for people at risk, like elderly people.
It's true flu has newer strains each year and the vaccine must be changed, but the rest of what you were taught was not correct.
If you compensate for the body weight and ensure that the gel agent the animal medicine comes in doesn't have any adverse effects on the human body (it probably doesn't) then consuming animal medicine can be an excellent way to treat parasitic infections if you're awfully poor and don't qualify for any insurance. Consuming any chemical not made for human consumption is dangerous, but if you don't have another option, it's better than doing nothing.
People ridicule the whole horse dewormer story, but it's no secret that people around the world have turned to animal medicine out of necessity due to prices of medication.
The most bizarre part of this whole ordeal is how there was such a huge backlash to ivermectin usage as if it was some kind of a dangerous drug when that's clearly not the case. Even my layman's knowledge is enough to understand that much. If it's placebo at worst then why did the media try to demonize it so hard?