Getting out over their skis seems like an ongoing issue over at the Rolling Stone[1]. Is there just not enough music and entertainment news to report on anymore?
Fortunately for us, there are some responsible outlets reporting on the ivermectin overdose trend without relying on dodgy sources and providing stats that one can verify on their own[1]:
"The troubling trend has been on the rise since the start of 2021 — despite warnings from state health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against taking ivermectin. The NPDS says 1,143 ivermectin exposure cases were reported between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31. That marks an increase of 163% over the same period last year."
...
"In Mississippi, which has one of the lowest rates of vaccination against the coronavirus, the state Department of Health issued an alert about the surge in calls to poison control in August. The department said that at least 70% of recent calls to the state poison control center were related to people who ingested a version of the drug meant for livestock."
--
Back to your article:
"Note that both chloroqine (the base medicine of hydrochloroqine) and ivermectin are effective against parasites and viral vectors. I don’t know—I’m not a bio researcher—how effective these would be against COVID-19 or any kind of SARS disease. But some researchers believe they could have some positive effect."
For someone complaining about irresponsible media on their own media outlet to effectively shrug their shoulders on this point, let me help you out with some gumshoeing. ClinicalTrials.gov has a WONDERFUL system where you can search for various studies and see what they came up with. I've prepared one for you with ivermectin studies that have results to report here
You can take a look yourself, or I'd be happy to summarize the completed studies for The Racket audience if you'd like. The main point that I want to make is that the question of the effectiveness of the treatment isn't unknown at this point, so no shoulder shrugging should be necessary. We can either take the FDA's word on it (IVM is not helpful[3]) or look at the results of the completed clinical trials (the Gold Standard as far as these things go) and see for ourselves.
My point is that ivermectin is not itself poison. In fact it saves lives, just not necessarily from COVID-19. We look for a miracle cure when there isn’t one. We could just as easily say that cetirizine could treat COVID-19 and the same people who take ivermectin would clear the shelves of Zyrtec believing it’s a cure. Zyrtec won’t hurt you unless you eat 100mg of it in a day. But you’d see a bunch of people in the media looking for the one person stupid enough to do that just so they could report it.
The problem with your formulation is that the media doesn't have to look too hard to find the one person stupid enough to build a story around, given that there are plenty of folks very willing to loudly and proudly overdose on the stuff (1,143 in 2021[1]). If you want to accuse the media of "nut-picking"[2] given this many cases, then you need to provide the threshold between what you perceive as the media "sermonizing" about something irrelevant versus actual journalism on an actual phenomenon.
The ivermectin issue is further heightened as it's become a key part of our ongoing (idiotic) COVID culture wars, where our nation is struggling to get enough people vaccinated, and the vanguard of the anti-vaxxers are promoting off-label use of ivermectin as an alternative to the medical consensus that people just need to get the shot.
It's unfortunate that drugs like ivermectin are being drug through this mess (given their valid on-label usage), but if the media stopped covering the ivermectin overdose phenomenon right now - or better yet, didn't report on whatever the next miracle cure is - you'd still have yahoos on Facebook promoting its efficacy, and folks overdosing on the stuff. It's not the media's fault that this stupidity is newsworthy.
Getting out over their skis seems like an ongoing issue over at the Rolling Stone[1]. Is there just not enough music and entertainment news to report on anymore?
Fortunately for us, there are some responsible outlets reporting on the ivermectin overdose trend without relying on dodgy sources and providing stats that one can verify on their own[1]:
"The troubling trend has been on the rise since the start of 2021 — despite warnings from state health officials and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention against taking ivermectin. The NPDS says 1,143 ivermectin exposure cases were reported between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31. That marks an increase of 163% over the same period last year."
...
"In Mississippi, which has one of the lowest rates of vaccination against the coronavirus, the state Department of Health issued an alert about the surge in calls to poison control in August. The department said that at least 70% of recent calls to the state poison control center were related to people who ingested a version of the drug meant for livestock."
--
Back to your article:
"Note that both chloroqine (the base medicine of hydrochloroqine) and ivermectin are effective against parasites and viral vectors. I don’t know—I’m not a bio researcher—how effective these would be against COVID-19 or any kind of SARS disease. But some researchers believe they could have some positive effect."
For someone complaining about irresponsible media on their own media outlet to effectively shrug their shoulders on this point, let me help you out with some gumshoeing. ClinicalTrials.gov has a WONDERFUL system where you can search for various studies and see what they came up with. I've prepared one for you with ivermectin studies that have results to report here
https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=ivermectin&cond=COVID-19&age_v=&gndr=&type=&rslt=With&Search=Apply
You can take a look yourself, or I'd be happy to summarize the completed studies for The Racket audience if you'd like. The main point that I want to make is that the question of the effectiveness of the treatment isn't unknown at this point, so no shoulder shrugging should be necessary. We can either take the FDA's word on it (IVM is not helpful[3]) or look at the results of the completed clinical trials (the Gold Standard as far as these things go) and see for ourselves.
[1] https://www.cjr.org/investigation/rolling_stone_investigation.php
[2] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/09/04/1034217306/ivermectin-overdose-exposure-cases-poison-control-centers
[3] https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19
My point is that ivermectin is not itself poison. In fact it saves lives, just not necessarily from COVID-19. We look for a miracle cure when there isn’t one. We could just as easily say that cetirizine could treat COVID-19 and the same people who take ivermectin would clear the shelves of Zyrtec believing it’s a cure. Zyrtec won’t hurt you unless you eat 100mg of it in a day. But you’d see a bunch of people in the media looking for the one person stupid enough to do that just so they could report it.
"The dose makes the poison." -Paracelsus
The problem with your formulation is that the media doesn't have to look too hard to find the one person stupid enough to build a story around, given that there are plenty of folks very willing to loudly and proudly overdose on the stuff (1,143 in 2021[1]). If you want to accuse the media of "nut-picking"[2] given this many cases, then you need to provide the threshold between what you perceive as the media "sermonizing" about something irrelevant versus actual journalism on an actual phenomenon.
The ivermectin issue is further heightened as it's become a key part of our ongoing (idiotic) COVID culture wars, where our nation is struggling to get enough people vaccinated, and the vanguard of the anti-vaxxers are promoting off-label use of ivermectin as an alternative to the medical consensus that people just need to get the shot.
It's unfortunate that drugs like ivermectin are being drug through this mess (given their valid on-label usage), but if the media stopped covering the ivermectin overdose phenomenon right now - or better yet, didn't report on whatever the next miracle cure is - you'd still have yahoos on Facebook promoting its efficacy, and folks overdosing on the stuff. It's not the media's fault that this stupidity is newsworthy.
[1] https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2021/pdf/CDC_HAN_449.pdf
[2] https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nutpicking