70% of Mississippi poison control calls are currently about ingestion of livestock versions of the medicine, so considerably more than 2 people.
I actually think I have to issue a partial retraction.
It does appear that veterinary ivermectin is formulated differently than ivermectin for human consumption, and some of the ingredients in veterinary ivermectin are toxic to human beings. And, of course, the dosages and concentrations are going to be wildly off.
So, yes, if someone takes ivermectin-based medication formulated as horse de-wormer, they are taking horse medicine. And there are people literally doing that. That is multiple layers of stupid.
But the ivermectin itself isn’t “horse medicine” per se. And saying that someone taking prescription ivermectin is taking “horse medicine” is still, I think, badly wrong.
Thanks to heartless people like you, those people out there who can’t take the vaccine because they are allergic to microchips are going to die to this hoax of a disease. Have you no shame?
I concede there are a non-trivial number of people taking horse medicine for COVID.
What’s ironic is that the people who ridicule mask-wearers as ‘sheeple’ are trying to cure themselves of Covid with sheep dip.
If you drank from the horse trough because someone told you that doing so would cure or prevent a disease and you blindly believed them despite the lack of evidence, I might call it horse water.
While there’s nits to be picked, I don’t think this is one of them. Yes I was under that misconception and it was cleared up in the other thread. However, even knowing what I know now, I have exactly zero reason to stop calling it horse dewormer. I’m not all that concerned about whether or not I hurt the feelings of someone that wants to take it for for covid (in humans) related reasons. Especially when they’re doing it instead of taking the vaccine, which is bad for everyone.
The CDC is saying that pre-pandemic there were about 2600 prescriptions dispensed, per week, for Ivermectin. For the week ending August 13, 2021, that number increased to 88,000. Poison control has also seen a five-fold increase in calls about it.
People are showing up at the hospital with no idea of how much they even took.
-“An adult drank an injectable ivermectin formulation intended for use in cattle The patient recovered after being hospitalized for nine days”
-“An adult patient presented with altered mental status after taking ivermectin tablets of unknown strength purchased on the internet. The patient reportedly took five tablets a day for five days to treat COVID-19”
I’m not sure if this is more of a ‘play stupid games, win stupid prizes’ or ‘fuck around and find out’ situation, but in either case, these people aren’t above ridicule for taking horse dewormer.
ETA: link for the above referenced numbers from the CDC.
https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/han00449.asp
Thank you for that link. I concede even more strongly that non-trivial numbers of people are taking horse medicine.
An hour or so ago, I took a break from work to have lunch. My wife was watching an older Australian TV show which she found on the Acorn app, “McLeod’s Daughters,” about a mother and daughters who run a ranch in South Australia. During the ten minutes or so that I was watching it, they bought a bunch of sheep at auction, got the sheep back to the ranch, and one of the daughters specifically said, “now we’re gonna use ivermectin on 'em.” 
I suppose I could see some degree of hypocrisy if a person repeatedly refers to all forms of Ivermectin as “horse medicine”, yet objects to others calling COVID-19 the “China virus”.
If they pick it up at their pharmacy after dropping off a prescription. If they pick it up at the feed store, it’s horse medicine.
I genuinely don’t understand this response. Why are you talking about “hurt feelings”? The “nit” I’m picking is that it’s simply factually inaccurate to call ivermectin “horse dewormer”. It is used for deworming horses, but it’s also used for deworming humans. If someone has a prescription for ivermectin, as was the case in the case under discussion in the other thread, they don’t have a prescription for “horse dewormer”.
I concede, though, for the second time in this thread, that there are people literally taking horse dewormer - ivermectin-based medications that are specifically formulated for use in horses. In those cases, not only are they taking an antiparasitic to “treat” a virus, they’re using a formulation of it that includes ingredients that are toxic to human beings.
I still stand by my original request that Dopers stop referring to ivermectin in general as “horse dewormer” or similar.
I posted my second explicit concession that people are taking equine formulations of ivermection after you posted. But, for the record, here’s my third concession that, yes, there are people literally taking horse medicine. Nevertheless,
And there are, in fact, people taking ivermectin formulated for use in humans to “treat” covid:
In the case under discussion in that thread, the patient’s wife obtained a valid prescription for ivermectin.
I think this is part of the problem. There are physicians advocating for and prescribing ivermectin for active Covid-19 infection while simultaneously discouraging vaccines and the use of masks. For the ignorant masses I suspect it’s easy to jump from “that doctor said ivermectin is a cure” to “I see ivermectin for sale at the local feed store, it’s the same thing, so imma gonna stock up and take a bunch at the first sigh of a headache!” Critical thinking isn’t their strong suit and because some 2-bit quack is advocating unproven treatments, then all treatments containing the same active ingredient must be the same.
Then 100% factually correct to call it horse dewormer. It’s no less correct than referring to acetaminophen as pain reliever even though it’s also a fever reducer or calling.
And this is why people are calling it horse dewormer. If every single person taking it for covid acquired it a pharmacy with a prescription from a doctor, we wouldn’t be calling it horse dewormer. We’re calling it that because they’re bypassing the doctor and pharmacy and buying a box of medicine with a picture of a horse on it.
I doubt that’s going to happen. People are doing stupid, and often dangerous, shit and they’re getting called out for it. Tell you what, get the Right to stop calling us Nazis for requiring a mask or yelling, swearing, and threatening my cashiers because they think a request to put on a mask is against their constitutional right to [choice/expression/speech/pick one] or some sort of HIPAA (or, as they say, HIPPA) violation and I’ll work on getting the Left to stop saying horse dewormer.
True, but at this point it’s just funny (‘horse dewormer’ not someone dying) and it’s hard to have sympathy for people that are so blatently disregarding medical advice.
Having said all that, I have two things to add:
1)I’m curious if the patient is vaccinated. I’ll have a whole lot more sympathy if he is (or isn’t because he can’t be) rather than if he willfully isn’t.
2)Honestly, I’ll be thrilled if ivermectin turns out to work for covid. I know there’s a lot of people who think we’ll stand our ground and not take it if it’s proven to work (think about how some groups have stood their ground about the vaccine) but they’ll be wrong. I’ll jokingly call it horse dewormer now, but I’ll stop the minute there’s any promise.
Also, how did this all get started? Who was the first to suggest it might work? I honestly don’t know if someone in the medical industry thought about it and said it outloud and the world got carried away with it or if it was a CTer or politician.
Or insisting a square isn’t a rectangle (or a rhombus, or a parallelogram).
Yet again another thing upon which we agree! /detour
Without spending a ton of time digging into it, looks like Ivermectin for covid got it’s start by some combination Ron Johnson and Dr Pierre Kory. Dr Pierre Kory works at the FLCCC…the place that was founded by Dr Wagshul.
So, just to be clear here. Yes, the wife obtained a prescription from a doctor. But that doctor just happens to work at the place that started the Ivermectin trend.
If there’s no ivermectin available, couldn’t you just give your horses covid vaccines, instead?
I mean, the thing is, it’s an anti-parasite medicine being taken to cure a viral infection. It’s off-label. Calling it “horse medicine” or “dewormer” doesn’t really make things less accurate, because the point being made is that it’s being taken for something it’s not designed for and doesn’t help with.
If someone tries to treat their herpes sore by sprinkling flour on it, and you make fun of it by saying, “Biscuit flour ain’t gonna cure your herpes,” I’m not going to start a thread to point out that some people are using high-gluten flour that’s not appropriate for making biscuits. That’d be missing the point.
To be fair, if you want to use flour for both baking and viral infections, I can’t imagine a good argument for anything but All Purpose. It’s literally in the name, All Purpose.