For folks raising such a stink about the media’s use of horse dewormer, what is the precise reason for their outrage? Is it based solely on the idea that Rogan was prescribed the ‘human’ version/dosage of the drug? Or is something else going on, here?
I'm not sure he was prescribed this drug. He had the box on his desk and pointed it out to Gupta and said, "Someone gave me this." Later he said a doctor prescribed it, but what doctor would prescribe something like this for COVID?
I think the context is important here. For months there have been stories of livestock stores running out of Horse Paste because people were taking it. Then along comes Joe Rogan who gets COVID and tells the world he took the same drug, albeit a milder version of it. I think the concern is that Rogan's influence will encourage people to be reckless with their health and everyone else's as well.
There is an advocacy organization of doctors that promotes their own "treatment protocol" for COVID-19 that I would describe as "snake oil." I should double check as to whether they will also sell you the medications they recommend taking (mostly supplements, etc.). I'm pretty sure that's how he obtained a prescription for the drug.
I think the issue is the arguably gratuitous ridicule in the reporting. There are all kinds of ways to report this story. Emphasizing the horse paste aspect of the story sounds like ridiculing people consuming it. It encourages that contempt we've been discussing in other threads. Emphasizing that Ivermectin doesn't affect COVID unless you take a lethal dose tells the important part of the story without the ridicule.
If safe doses of Ivermectin did protect against COVID-19, and the pill form wasn't available, eating a safe dose of the horse paste would be a completely rational thing to do. As I understand it, the paste itself isn't harmful at a low dosage.
he/him When I go to sea, don’t fear for me. Fear for the storm.
Jessica Best, Fear for the Storm. From The Strange Case of the Starship Iris.
I'm not sure he was prescribed this drug. He had the box on his desk and pointed it out to Gupta and said, "Someone gave me this." Later he said a doctor prescribed it, but what doctor would prescribe something like this for COVID?
I think the context is important here. For months there have been stories of livestock stores running out of Horse Paste because people were taking it. Then along comes Joe Rogan who gets COVID and tells the world he took the same drug, albeit a milder version of it. I think the concern is that Rogan's influence will encourage people to be reckless with their health and everyone else's as well.
I had a friend that went to an urgent care place when she contracted covid. The doctor there absolutely prescribed her ivermectin. It is difficult to comprehend sometimes but doctors run the gamut too. Given Rogan's resources and connections I'm sure it wasn't difficult to find someone to prescribe it to him.
To canpakes point. I think my only concern was in the framing of the information. In my opinion it is a much better argument to show that their is no credible evidence that you can use the drug to fight covid. Their word choice leaves room for argument (even if I don't think it is a particularly strong argument). We even give him the ammunition is my only question. I understand the attempt to counteract Rogan's influence but I think you have to be particular in how you do it.
He/Him
“If you consider what are called the virtues in mankind, you will find their growth is assisted by education and cultivation.”
― Xenophon
Rogan had a bunch of medicines he was taking, including monoclonal antibodies (probably what did the trick). So, ivermectin may have acted like a placebo here, giving no benefit, but not harming at the doctor prescribed dose. My take is that doctors should be allowed to experiment if the patient is willing. Under current law drugs may be prescribed off label for disease. If there isn't a potential for harm, why not?
Myth is misused by the powerful to subjugate the masses all too often.
Emphasizing the horse paste aspect of the story sounds like ridiculing people consuming it. It encourages that contempt we've been discussing in other threads.
And yet, it’s still called ‘horse paste’ by the many thousands of folks who use it to deworm horses. And there are many folks arguably anti-vaccine who are consuming this paste form, as shown in several anecdotes already posted.
I think that this being called ‘horse paste’ becomes the comic relief that dulls the frustration of the larger problem: that folks who will rant about how the vaccine supposedly doesn’t work, or how it will harm you, are overly willing to chow down on something that seems to have no effect on COVID and that may, in fact, kill you in the form that it is commonly obtained. And, that this has been turned into a political argument along the way, mostly by that same group. This sort of detachment from reality is what gets most critics of ivermectin shaking their heads. I suppose if the magic cure wasn’t ‘horse paste’, but instead something more medical or common-sounding (like hydroxychloroquine), then the perception by critics that users of that magic cure are at best hypocritical - and at worst, daft - would remain.
