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TajPharmaImages, Wikimedia Commons
An infectious disease expert from the Mayo Clinic offered a direct assessment when asked about people’s use of an unapproved horse medicine to treat COVID-19. saying in part, “It’s hard to explain.”
Dr Gregory Poland, head of the Mayo Clinic’s vaccine research group, said in a Mayo Clinic question-and-answer podcast Monday that the number of people “flocking” to the drug, ivermectin, is ” unbelievable “. Ivermectin is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat specific cases of parasitic worms in humans, as well as certain skin conditions. There is also an animal grade version that is used to prevent parasites.
It is not an antiviral drug, the FDA says, and there is mixed evidence at best at this time that it is effective in mitigating COVID-19.
Related: Most new COVID-19 cases in Minnesota now come from outside the 7-county subway
Yet demand for ivermectin, driven by misinformation, has skyrocketed. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said last week that prescriptions for ivermectin were up 24-fold from before the pandemic. There had been around 3,600 prescriptions per week before COVID – the week ending August 13 saw 88,000 prescriptions issued.
“If I tell you, you know what, instead of an FDA approved vaccine that has been tested on hundreds of thousands of people. Instead, let’s take a drug used to treat parasites,” Poland said. on the Mayo Clinic podcast. “And a lot of people buy it over the counter in an animal treatment formula that has not been studied for it, which makes people sick, can cause hallucinations, coma, and if you take it when you’re pregnant, can cause birth defects, and let’s use it instead. “
In May, the University of Minnesota School of Medicine began a $ 1.5 million clinical trial of ivermectin to treat COVID-19. The school, as of Aug. 11, said existing trials showed “mixed results,” noting “there is not enough data at this time to recommend its use in COVID-19.” When it comes to trials suggesting potential benefits, the school says these studies are not peer-reviewed and have a variety of flaws, including a small sample size and inconsistent dosing.
Poland described these existing studies as “very poorly conducted trials,” noting that the Cochrane Collaboration said there was no data to suggest that ivermectin is effective in treating COVID-19.
Merck, which produces ivermectin and would benefit financially from increased sales, even said earlier this year that there was “no scientific basis for a potential therapeutic effect against COVID-19,” “no evidence significant clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with COVID-19 “, and a” lack of safety data in the majority of studies “.
The CDC also noted five times more ivermectin-related calls entering poison control centers in July 2021 than before the pandemic. These calls often involve “side effects and emergency room / hospital visits,” the CDC said.
The Minnesota Poison Control Center told Bring Me The News that it received nine calls for ivermectin exposure in August.
“So this is one of those, you can’t even believe you are seeing and hearing this,” Poland said. “You can’t believe the number of calls to poison control centers because people are taking this unregulated drug, often taking the animal preparation, which is not regulated by the FDA, contains ingredients other than the human forms of the drug. do not have, and they get you sick, and no benefit.
“It is difficult to explain.”
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